So Carla is blowing my mind with her mad phat character design technique. I can’t remember the last time I’ve had this much fun trying to figure out what my people LOOK like. It’s usually one of my least favorite parts of the process, because I have next-to-no vocabulary for it (indeed, it’s one of the very few things that can reduce Leland and I to a bickering old couple in about five minutes). The problem boils down to my totally annoying habit of really counting on the artist to fill in my gaps when most artists, kindly, are much more concerned with giving me what I want. When I don’t know what the fudge that is, well, we have a problem.

Anyway. Who knew that searching for Carla’s reference shots would lead me back to everyone’s favorite fire-and-brimstone alt.country rockers, 16 Horsepower? There is some serious religious irony here.

By way of Simon: Garfield Minus Garfield

By way of Bee: Wear a sweater for Mr. Rogers

For my brother, who used to sit riveted in front of the TV back in the Day: EMERGENCY! reruns

Cav’s piece on Deep6 (that’s Fiffe sitting behind Simon at Leland’s desk, by the way)

Tarotists: I think this is a fabulous idea.

I’m due to leave for Port Authority in a few, so I’m not sure why I’m sitting here rambling on. Going to see my old friend Kat in Boston. It’ll be good to get away for the weekend - I could use the change of scenery and a little of that old-skool New England charm, truth be told.

As I mentioned previously (on Twitter, if you must know), February is not exactly shaping up as my most productive month ever. With a visit last weekend from my longtime pal Richard, various n’ sundry signings and tea with folks most Interstitial, last weekend was a complete bust, work-wise. This weekend, I don’t have that option. Nonetheless, I’m breaking up the WEIRD TALES work I’ve been doing all day to post at a time when absolutely nobody is hanging around on the Internet but I.

In honor of Horny Werewolf Day, Leland and I took some much needed together time at The Museum of Natural History. I think the last time I was there was with Mr. WIZARD, pre-Robot Chicken. So it’s been a while. Once we found our way out of the school group check-in station on the first floor, we were A-OK. No werewolves, just kissing. Yes, married people kiss in the shadowy parts of empty rooms, too. A lot.

Believe it or not, I’ve started keeping a running list of Things To Post About. So here are some from the previous week, in no particular order:

Roy Scheider, may he rest in peace. A few people reading this know of my longtime crush on the man, so I was a bit broken up to hear about his death last week. Then I watched Jaws again, and felt better. I need to have a Roy Scheider film festival, I’ve decided. The French Connection, All That Jazz, and Jaws yet again, because I’m almost always up for watching Jaws, even if I just watched it a few hours ago. Because I’m a dork like dat.

I recently read the first trade of Jason Aaron’s Scalped. While I was very impressed with the storytelling, I can’t say that I cared much about all but one of the characters (those who have read the book can probably guess which one). And - forgive me for quoting Sir Robert here - well, it makes me wonder. Why does something like Brubaker’s Criminal keep me utterly emotionally engaged, and Scalped leaves me totally exhausted and disaffected and shrugging my shoulders? I’m still pondering, but one hunch is, while I empathize with anger on the page very deeply, I need more than that to keep me going.

My new favorite blog is a bit of a departure.

From the “what fresh hell is this?” department: my all-time favorite red lipstick, Dietrich from BeneFit, appears to be missing in action. Walked into Sephora to get a new one; no dice. Came home and checked the website; denied. Ghah!

I find myself charmed as all get-out by this.

Took a few new pictures.

Back to work…

I try not to pass along stuff found on well-read blogs because there’s, well, obviously a good chance that you’ll have read it before (and the content goes round and round and round!), but this makes the cut:

David Byrne’s Survival Strategies For Emerging Artists

Of course, webcomics being the new zombies being the new pirates being the new monkeys, this kind of thing has been oft-discussed in other places. But the article adds to the discussion and is worth a read and a ponder.

Personally, I know it’s personal (read: rocking my world) when my favorite artists start leaving out the middle man. Both Tori and Kristin have begun to do this.

My conclusion: God Bless the Internet.

(By way of Jeffrey @ 52 Projects!)

After various folks mumbling-not-articulating about this over the past couple of weeks, finally I have a link:

Can one of the nation’s great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? Let’s find out.

(Thank you, Steven and Lieber.)

I had such a crush on Joshua Bell when I was in college, it’s so not funny. The cool thing is, he’s about 6 years older than me, I think… which means that he’ll probably be around for as long as I will be. The cooler thing is, musicians like that guy just keep on playing and playing. Kind of like Irish traditional guys.

Oh, geez… see, now an incomplete memory is starting to creep in and it’s gonna drive me nuts. Around 1991 or so I read something somewhere about a hot shit violinist who was totally messing with the classical music establishment by showing up for gigs in things like, say, vampire outfits. When they whined, he’d say, “Look, I didn’t spend my entire life mastering this instrument for you people to bitch and moan about a cape and little fake blood.” Or something. Dang, that was charming.

Was it Bell? Dang, I am an old lady with this memory. Though, in fairness, I haven’t thought about that in years.

Oh my goodness…. no, it was Nigel Kennedy, another hot shit violinist I had a crush on. He’s a little more bad boy, that one. Leather jackets and motorcycles and all that. Which reminds me of the hot shit bad boy violinist (first chair, Nashville Symphony or whatever, kid’s 18 years old) who was going to Trinity College with me at the time, my year, who also wore leather and rode a bike and looked like Elvis, swear to God. Elvis with five o’clock shadow and a perpetual cigarette dangling. I don’t understand those folks who can make with the dangling and play at the same time.

He was always sweet to me, that guy. Would come by the practice room and smile the Elvis grin/sneer and ask me how it went. And I’d always tell him it was going fine, meanwhile thinking, “it’d be even better if you’d put that cigarette out and come over here.”

I haven’t played my own violin in well over a year either, by the way. This sometimes happens. I always worry that my fingers are going to stop working, but they never do, thank God. Leland often asks me to get the girl out of the case and play him something (gently, of course), “but I know you’re avoiding it ’cause the fiddle’s going to attack you.” No, actually, I’ve just been preoccupied, with my writing and quitting my job and all the rest. When I get the violin out of the case, then she’ll attack me.

S’alright. We bite, then we move on. It’s like this thing between us.

Just finished a tasty, easy Sunday chicken dinner and thought I’d post a few links to my favorite indie jewelry digs, since they’ve been piling up. The Internet is a dangerous place for those of us with the baubles weakness.

First, we’ve got the Valentine’s Day jewelry section of IndieFixx.com. Yes, Valentine’s Day may be over now, but whaddayaknoo… I could shop for it all year.

Then we have Blue-Lulu.com, as seen in the latest issue of N.E.E.T. That scissors necklace keeps callin’ me and callin’ me.

Maize Hutton remains one of my favorite indie jewelry designers. I recently bought one of the vintage inital necklaces (the letter “E”, of course) after admiring them for, oh, about two years. (Whoa! Looks like the price went up considerably. Ah well, it’s way worth it for handcrafted sterling silver work.)

In other news, my days with nary a single Parrish Relics piece are numbered. (An Endicott fave, don’t you know.)

I proudly own one of Ari’s decoupage shell pendants (though none of those what are pictured here — I nabbed my rabbit from her first batch). You can check out more of her lusciousness at The Dreaming Place.

At our last World Fantasy (2005), someone in the dealer’s room brought along a few choice beads from Green Girl Studios. I bought… about half of them? Something like that.

Bethany Cooper has one of the most successful Etsy shops around. It’s not hard to see why (hello, repeat customer, hello).

Ah, the frugal life of a fledgling freelancer being what it is, I really can’t throw down the dough for such things right now, as much as I would like to. However. Next time my ship comes in? Kimberly Baker gets my money. Observe: oooh, lah and lah.

Okay, maybe not all at once. But, y’know.

Speaking of adornment, there is a new tattoo on the horizon… sometime in April. This one will be… harder to hide, shall we say, than the other two.

It’s embarrassing that I haven’t mentioned this yet — the kind of thing that makes me go, “Girl, you really need to be less self-absorbed.”

Don’t Look is a literary mini-zine that you can download and fold up yourself. You are encouraged to make many copies and leave them around for others to find.

If that reminds you of my mini zine tutorial, it should. The tutorial inspired the creation, which makes me squeal with happiness when no one’s looking. (Warren is also to blame, having posted my tutorial which lead BoingBoing to do the same.)

Do check out the zine and download a few of your own. Do not hoard them, however.

You can keep up with the adventures of Laura Lee, one of the creators, on the ENGINE.

Also, please read this important post over on the Endicott Studio blog.

… this might be my new guilty pleasure:

NYIndieSeen

Jury’s still out. But, y’know.

The ladies of Endicott had so much good stuff for the journal that they bided their time and now they have a double issue.

Tons of amazing stuff there, like these crazy-like-a-fey-fox sketchbooks featuring work by Ian MaCaig, Alan Lee, Charles and Terri. Do check it out.

Also, Boorman and I have a short-but-awsome SCHEHERAZADE update; that was from yesterday. Please have a look if you haven’t already!

Wait a minute… I told you about that last night. Aye yi yi; I’m losing my mind.

Been getting caught up on WhipIt and found a new neat thing:

What You Make It: an online art zine of sorts

I love the spirit and I love the design. One of these days I’ll take my sewing machine to my zines.

Some of this month’s discretionary income has gone to clip art, too — with some of the promotional ideas I have in mind, I figure it’s time to start a little collection. So I came home from the Strand with six books from Dover the other day, and checked in with Miss Mary.

Also: O’Reilly’s CRAFT zine blog is up. I cannot wait for this magazine. Cannot wait.

Holy smokes: is it after midnight already?

God, but YouTube is glorious. I’m trying to go easy so I don’t get kicked off whosever wireless access I happen to be nipping at the moment, but it’s tough. I mean, how can I not be riveted (and, for that matter, overjoyed) at the vintage Throwing Muses video selection? I mean, if you ever find yourself wanting to get in my head a little, these are good places to look. And just in case you were wondering, the girl’s still got it!

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, of course. I have yet to type in the search term “Elvis Costello”, for example. Or “XTC”. So far I think this has got to be my favorite.

You know, I read two different interviews with two different fantasy writers today in two different magazines (okay, two different issues of the same magazine) and they both mention THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS. Peter S. Beagle credits WIND IN THE WILLOWS with giving him the desire to write. Isn’t that just the business? I think I’ll pick up a copy at Powell’s when we’re there in a week or so.

I wonder if there’s any Peter Beagle on YouTube…