First of all, an apology to gabe chouinard. Gabe, I didn't mean to kill s1ngularity, I really didn't. For the second time. I mean, the first time, after I sent you "Bored, Dammit" and heard a month later that you were shutting down the magazine, well, I just felt terrible. Here was a zine with very clear editorial intentions and some kick-ass stories by Ol' Mike and Gavin, and I had to go and ruin it all by submitting my own fiction. I should have known better. But a little while later, you resurrected the site, gave it a new look, and introduced a cooperative blog with some of the finest and most biting literary criticism I've ever seen in the field. You started publishing fiction again, and once again, it showed great promise. But something in me just wouldn't stay still, knowing that your zine was flourishing yet again, and I was absolutely compelled to send you another story, "One Big Crunch" this time. Word came on September 16 through Ralan.com that the site would again be closed indefinitely.

Call me slow, but I just put the pieces of the puzzle together, and must humbly apologize. How was I to know that stories which emerged from my imagination would react so explosively with the sensibilities of your online magazine. Was it like a meme virus, or just a negative reaction so violent that you decided that the state of contemporary literature was beyond saving? Whatever the reason, rest assured, I will keep my fiction from you at a safe distance from now on, and have taken measures to lock away all my past, present and future writings in a fireproof vault, which will be tossed into a particularly active Hawai'ian volcano.

***

In reading news, I started Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell a few days ago, but my interest wasn't held past the first two chapters, and I put it down. Most likely, I'll just return it to the library next week. I'm kind of surprised, after all the good things I've heard about it thus far, but I guess I'm just not in the mood to read it right now. Maybe the nigh 800 pages were just too daunting. Hopefully I'll come back to it later.

So I started Charles de Lint's Medicine Road and finished it this afternoon. I liked it quite a bit (despite some rather annoying typos), and am looking forward to the next Dillard sisters installment from Subterranean Press, whenever that may be.

Just read Hamlet for the Shakespeare class, and was surprised (after not reading it since high school) at what a complex and phenomenal play it is. It's my favorite so far in the semester, though we have Othello and King Lear (neither of which I have read yet) coming up soon. I wrote a response paper last night on Hamlet about Shakespeare's uses of sexuality and incest in the play, because, you know, that's what pops out at me.

So after reading some longer works, I'll be delving into Leviathan 2 next. (By the way, if anyone knows of a way to get a copy of the first volume of Leviathan, please let me know, and I'll love you forever.) I've sadly neglected several anthologies that have been sitting on my shelf for a while. Leviathan 3 and Polyphony 3 are coming up soon in the queue, and I just received Polyphony 4 in the mail. I'll have to break that short fiction up with a couple novels maybe. I'm weird that way.

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Sold another book today through my Amazon marketplace. Please go take a look and see if any of these books appeals to you; the listing will expire on October 14, which means I'll have to key in all the ones that didn't sell all over again. And hey, the prices are good, and the selection is rockin!

Oh, and I'm currently selling a like-new hardcover first UK edition of James P. Blaylock's Land of Dreams, published in 1988 by Grafton Books. The cover price is £11.95, but I'm selling it for a flat $30; I think I paid almost twice that much at an sf convention. It's bloody beautiful, and Blaylock is in rare form with this novel. If you're interested, please email me.

***

My twenty-ninth birthday is Sunday (October 3), and my parents are taking Janet and me to The Melting Pot, this great fondue place in north Raleigh. I usually like to go either to Spartacus Grille (this great Greek place that makes a mean pastitsio) or Tripps (which is the only restaurant to make chicken cordon bleu properly), but this year, a change sounded good.

And if y'all are still trying to decide what to get me (ya procrastinators), I would very much like one of these. There's other cool stuff on my Amazon wishlist (sort by priority). Or cash. Cash is always good. I'm not picky.

Now Reading:
Leviathan 2 edited by Jeff VanderMeer and Rose Secrest

Stories Out to Publishers:
9

Books Read This Year:
53

Zines/Graphic Novels/Fiction Mags Read This Year:
29