late-ish night friday roundup

In the spirit of getting out of the habit of updates once every two weeks, here are a few things on my scene from the past week…

1. First, the important stuff: IRON MAN. Easily the best comic book movie since the first Spider-Man movie, despite the inclusion of Yet Another Gratuitous Underdeveloped Romantic Almost-Subplot. Go see it.

2. We stopped by the old haunt of Robert Henri on the way to Barnes & Noble tonight. Being able to say things like “oh, we were just passing by Henri’s old house on the way to B&N” is one of the reasons why I love New York. Henri was a dude.

3. Still recovering from The Readers Studio. I did more blogging of the event over on my new site, BuildYourMetaphysicalBusiness.com. Sir James said it best - the post-event letdown is settling in. But there are some great posts about the event (here’s Mary’s) and I took lots of pictures and there’s an Aeclectic gathering in the city tomorrow, so that’ll take the edge off.

Forgive me if I sound like a hater, but I gotta say, events like The Readers Studio and World Fantasy go a long way to remind me how, well, ridiculous comics conventions can be. I love comics people dearly, but sometimes we can really forget that we’re all a bunch of nerds. ANYWAYS!

Yes, that was the second mention of my brand new site, BuildYourMetaphysicalBusiness.com (affectionately known as “the side hustle”). I’m too tuckered to put together a proper announcement now. Next week. For now a whoo hoo! will suffice.

4. Been using my Bohemian Gothic deck more or less exclusively since I got back. I just love how Karen and Alex packed the narrative into these cards. It takes a hell of a lot to get me to ditch my Rider-Waite for readings, not just writing exercises, pondering and yeah, maybe a little pontificating. But man, I love this deck!

What I really need to do is put one big post together on Magic Realist Press for Endicott. They’ve put out 5 Tarot decks in something like the past 6 years, and each and every one has been of outstanding quality and interest to mythic arts folks.

5. Also picked up, on Shawn’s recommendation, The Tarot of the Thousand And One Nights, featuring the work of Léon Carré. These are rare pieces from the Golden Age of Illustration that went with an old Sir Richard Burton edition of the work. Elizabeth Hazel has a great article on the deck in this year’s Tarot Reader and I believe she says she couldn’t track down a copy of the original 14 volumes in any library, anywhere. Maybe my husband, armchair Burton scholar extraordinnaire, can shed some light here?

6. Also! Barth Anderson sent me a copy of his new book, THE MAGICIAN AND THE FOOL. Huzzah! Yes, it’s a Tarot thriller. Not many people I can think of can pull off one of those without it straining the credulity a little. I can’t wait to dig in. (What am I still sitting here in front of my computer for?)

Last thing: those in the know know that us ladies of fantasy are not only gorgeous, most of us also like to rawk the dazzling handmade jewelry. The Interstitial Arts Foundation certainly knows this, and so to celebrate the year anniversary of the publication of Interfictions, they’re holding a jewelry benefit auction. All pieces are inspired by stories from Interfictions and are donated by volunteers… like yours truly! I’m still working on mine but it should be done by weekend’s end. I’ll post pics.