dream bits...

judging by the clothes, we're in the 1800s, early-ish, a bunch of us, all very ladies and gentlemanly, suits and long empire-waist dresses (one man and I are actually espionage agents of the government, however). We've ended up in this humongous house that's well and truly haunted (earlier parts of the dream involved how haunted); we're going to do this thing where one of the men will play successive pieces of music on a piano, reading the music from oil paintings left by the previous owner; while he plays another man and I will paint and sketch, respectively, our intepretations of the music. In preparation for the first session, I look for the sketches for the original oil paintings; paging through my own notebook (my actual current fat little notebook making an appearance), I find them--shudder of creepiness, they certainly weren't there before. Upset, I tear them all out. We do the painting-music-back to art translations in a big drawing room, with rests for tea, spirits, and cake in between each session. I use colored pencils. It's all very involved and detailed, and turns out that it's telling the tale of what happened in the house that caused it to be haunted. There's a woman, and a secret...

Pretty cool.

In other news, thank you all for the well wishing re my back; I rolled on a tennis ball for a while yesterday eve, then used wet heat, then took advil before bed. Feels much better this morning. Fingers crossed it continues so.

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Sympathies oh my dear Canadians.

You're still more civilized than the U.S.

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My pal Steve Utley wrote to let me know his most recent essay in Bewildering Stories is up here. I am quoted therein.

meant to post this awhile ago

Nice review of Interzone #201 and of my story in the current IROSF short fiction review. Scroll down for it.