There are so many things about the internet that have been hard sells for me. Blogging? The fuck. I never kept a diary — I lived in a house with no privacy, and the idea of writing down my precious secret thoughts where anyone could find them was horrifying.

Instead I consumed the library. I chewed through the Science Fiction section (which was, at the time, just three spinner racks in the corner behind the Classic Literature section) and the entire 700.00’s the summer I turned six. My first ideas about sex were, as you’d guess, very technicolorful. Think LOGAN’S RUN meets Dali — you know, more than already. Yeah. I don’t think they let kids browse either of those shelves anymore. Shame, really.

Eventually, the kindly library marm started allowing me more than the maximum checkout for my age (four books at a time) because she realized I was reading two books a day. There’s a little plastic trophy on a shelf somewhere I earned for reading 1000 books in my second-grade school year. And that’s just the ones I tracked. None of this is to say I was a terribly clever child, mind — but I was a little info-sink. If it had words, I’d read it.

So RSS feeds? Candy. Seriously, feed aggregation is one of the greater things to come from the interwub. But when it comes to me giving back to the infostream, I stall out and start censoring myself. Who’s going to read this? I wonder. It’s not a case of wondering about the point, it’s a genuine fear based on years and years of holding all my thoughts close to my chest. If I write it down, it’s not mine anymore.

This lack causes no end of bitching from at least seven people.

But, yes.  I’m crap at blogging. That’s not going to change, and since I haven’t got a cat anymore, I’m not even the demographic. But what the hell. There are, at last count, some 600 feeds on my netvibes page, so I can probably find something to talk about. We’re going to call it conversation. You don’t have to answer, mind you, but I’m going to pretend that you are.

• The Mistress and the Muse: The Films of Norman Mailer – Movies – New York Times
  "Mr. Mailer is almost always testing a hypothesis that the most hyperbolic presentation of the self will also be the most authentic. " "…Mr. Mailer describes what he is doing… as pursuing 'an attack on the nature of reality'…"
  (tags:culture social )

Sara tried to shake her head clear. What happened? Dale was a good hider but her x-ray vision found in him in an Icelandic volcano shaft. She?d flown in and?

She was on a ledge, her wings bound. Behind her, she could hear the throat of the mountain, lava bubbling somewhere below. Dale was standing over her.

?What are you doing, Dale? This isn?t funny.?

?I?m tired of hide-and-tag. We?re playing heroes-and-villains now. Welcome to my lava trap.?

?You?re going to be in so much trouble with Dad.?

?Dad?s a has-been.?

Dale pushed with his boot and over she went.

------
For consideration: "If I survive, I'll tell on you"

(From this set on English Russia.)

This is warren ellis dot com. I write here every day. You can also inspect me on Twitter. Tomorrow I commence ten days of travel. I want to stay in bed more than you can possibly imagine.

From apiphile:

Today has been declared lurker amnesty day! Have you read me but never commented? Do you surf by occasionally? Here for the the random ramblings?

Say hello! You are under no obligation to ever comment or delurk again, but here's a chance to do so in a post just for that.

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!

Super Bowl? What Super Bowl?! You aren’t busy with television, really. Get ready to weep for joy and get your butt to Club Motor, ’cause ExoCab and crew will be appearing tomorrow (Sunday, February 7) at Seattle’s Mourning Market, which is a FREE craft fair for all things dark, gloomy, spooky, and otherwise ooky. We’ll be there from 12-5 pm, at 1950 1st Avenue South (98134).

Besides all the fantastically shiny gothy stuffs, yours truly will have beetle elytra earrings, vacuum tube jewelry, photo prints, and pretty things to attach to your noggin. Joining me will be Noah Beasley of Improbable Cog, purveying metal and nylon jewelry made with love by robots.

I’m also pleased to announce that we’ll be vending the first wave of clothing from our upcycled fashion line, Gypsy Mansion.  Noah, Finn von Claret, Bergen McMurray, our gang, and I have been hard at work, sweatshoppin’ to bring you one-of-a-kind, hand-sewn, uniquely dyed and embellished clothes in a variety of sizes.

So, come on out and buy something handmade for you or your sweetheart, and do swing by our booth and say hello!

Thanks!

Boneshaker is back on Amazon.com - thereby indicating that Macmillan and Amazon have reached some kind of detente, I must assume. This is particularly good for Kindle users, who can’t just order books from somebody else. Three such people emailed during the blackout, demanding to know why they couldn’t get my stuff for their Kindle because they were preeeetty sure they saw it available a couple of weeks ago and WTF was up with that? Yeah. Well. Here you go.

The Guardian tackles steampunk - including a mention of yours truly as someone doing American steampunk (which totally gave me a hearty squee). DO YOU HEAR THAT, NAYSAYERS WHO INSIST THAT STEAMPUNK HAS TO HAPPEN IN VICTORIAN LONDON? It turns out REAL LIVE ENGLISH PEOPLE disagree.*

The STRANGER blog takes recommendations - for additional books to read, if you liked Boneshaker and are interested in picking up something similar. Feel free to go throw your two cents in.

The Capitol Hill Seattle blog interviews yours truly - wherein we discuss Seattle as a nexus for all things steampunk (at least, one nexus thereof), local history, upcoming projects, and playtime for grown-ups.

A quick and dirty with the little fattie - Which is to say, here’s a Spain the Cat video I shot the other day. It’s pretty cute. She waves, and hogs the camera. If this does not satisfy your craving for cat action, here’s the little monster sitting in a box.

---

* Yesterday I might have hypothetically stumbled across a pissy, ranty review of Boneshaker complaining that it wasn’t really steampunk because it was set in America — and the reader felt cheated by this fraudulent representation of the genre. Bonus asinine: I’m fairly sure the reviewer was American.

The House of Commons is quite striking at night, isn't it?








And the other side of the bridge ain't too bad either...

• New Spider-Man Device Could Let Humans Walk on Walls – Yahoo! News
  "A new high-tech suction device could allow humans to walk on walls like Spider-Man or create adhesive devices that could be turned on and off with the flick of a switch."
  (tags:sci bodymod )

* "Attention scarcity"

* Rimel Neffati:

* "Vlubä":

bigworldsmallvictories:

schadenfreude on ice.

hahahahaaaaa

illillill:

cumicoco:tagumayu:lacontessa:By Rimel Neffati on Flickr.  I am constantly seeing her beautiful work posted on Tumblr without so much as a credit or link.  Have some respect, people.-via lushlight:akubizone:(via murmurs)

?Pyrolio, come here.?

?Yeah, boss??

?What?s that??

?Your potion-kettle.?

?That?s right. Is it simmering??

?No.?

?And over here. What?s this??

?The signal lamp.?

?That?s right. Is it lit??

?No.?

?And here??

?Haunch of unicorn. For dinner.?

?That?s right. Is it slow-roasting on the spit??

?No.?

?Pyrolio, are there any fires still going anywhere in the castle??

?Maybe???

?Whose job is it to provide me with fire at all times??

?Sorry, boss.?

?You?re the dumbest elemental I ever summoned.?

?Yeah. Guess I?m sort of an? igneo-ramus.?

?Was that a pun??

?Yeah.?

?Well, you?re fired.?

?Was that a pun, boss??

?No. Begone.?

------
For consideration: "And if the fires burn out there's only fire to blame"

* why porting graphic novels to the Kindle makes sense: a million people (or whatever) have Kindles, will want to use their Kindles because they paid a lot of money for them, and therefore need stuff to put on their Kindles. Platform-locked audience: eventually people will start reading outside their immediate interests just to keep using the thing they paid through the nose for

* Suzanne Gerber (longtime readers will remember "Miss Wurzel Tod") trying to set up an art/design space in London

So here I am, asking you, fellow (preferably East) London creative/artist/designer/utopian to join forces with me and share a space for creative endeavours with me.

* note to self: remember to try hooking this up to Posterous.

* why is post-by-mail on (non-hosted?) Wordpress such a fuckaround? Why isn’t blogging getting easier? (Answer: it is, if you’re using Tumblr.) Why is it still such an ugly, fiddly process? In essence, it’s no more elegant than the early days of moblogging.