The Astonishing Blog

2009-11-07T09:34:00.000-05:00

Look: here are clips from the lovely burlesque show I went to a few weeks ago here in Berlin...

2009-11-04T20:48:00.002-05:00

So Joi visited me for just over a week in October, and after three weeks of being in Berlin mostly just writing in cafes by myself, getting Mermaid together, suddenly I was traipsing all over the place... We had much much fun; we went to all kinds of clubs and bars, we spent a lot of time working in cafes (this city is full of the best cafes!), we saw this amazing little cabaret show about Marlene Dietrich, we met up with our friend Jen and went up to Hamburg to see Nick Cave and Blixa Bargeld... and then Eric came to town, too, and we had more adventures, including a gorgeous Oscar Wilde party in this lavish, candlelit Victoriany apartment, where we all sat around a long table strewn with grapes and roses while our crazy host, Coco, read to us from Oscar Wilde's fairytales and, later, tapdanced like a little whirlwind.

Since there are way too many photos to try to post here, I'm just linking to the Facebook album documenting Joi's visit, complete with EXPLANATORY CAPTIONS. Honestly, she should pay me for these things.

And then Joi left and Eric was here till just a couple days ago, and we spent most days writing together in cafes... And we went to a bunch of amazing bars and restaurants (my favorite was this place that only serves roasted half chickens that have been FRIED, and you have a choice of either potatoes or cabbage on the side, that's it), and I met his glamorous friends Uli, who's an actress, and Marc, who's a composer, at their wonderful little house where I was greeted, at the door, by a whole barrel full of walnuts from their backyard and was immediately in luvv.... And one night we went to one of "Berlin's secret restaurants"... secret because it's in a hidden location you only find out a couple days beforehand... And we met Ms. Bee Lavender and Mr. Byron Cook one afternoon at one of my favorite cafes... And then on Halloween night, Eric's friend Wendy was in town and Eric, Jen, Wendy and I ended up having the most weird and varied night ever: we started off with dinner at a rockabilly tiki bar cafe, then went to see Lily Allen in concert, then went to this weird 70s Russian disco bar to see this incredibly fun, crazy Russian polka ska band (my favorite event of the night!), and then went to a goth club followed by a trip to the famous techno-club-in-a-former-power-station Berghain, where I lasted about half an hour before whisking myself into a cab home. I am really more of a polka gal.

Oh, one night we also had a fabulous Japanese dinner, Eric and Jen and Amy, who is friends of a friend in Kansas, and Lidia, whom I met at the Oscar Wilde dinner, and I... and then went off to see some quite spectacular Berlin burlesque at the appropriately named BANG BANG CLUB. Here I met this lovely artiste, with whom I shall do some glamorous little collaborations in the near future and who also pointed out "Berlin's Dita," who was standing in front of us exuding glamour. I mean as if it were an Olympic sport. Unbelievably gorgeous, these German ladies!

Anyway, here is my general Berlin album that contains some of the wondrous events and places and people described above.

AND I BELIEVE THAT JUST ABOUT SUMS IT UP

The end.

2009-11-04T18:02:00.002-05:00

I do love me an autumn snowfall, especially in Berlin.

Today it snowed for less than an hour, I think. I was in my apartment, writing, and then I walked through the snow a few blocks to the German restaurant at the end of the street, which was dark and candlelit, and ate a big bowl of tomato soup with cream.

2009-10-26T18:42:00.001-04:00

I have lots and lots of things to post about Berlin, which I am madly in love with, BUT for now... here is the lovely, lovely cover for my third book, Mermaid, which comes out next summer...

2009-10-09T09:09:00.003-04:00

So I would like to generously share with you some more exciting and illuminating photos from Berlin.

First, please note the pleasantness of this scene, as I innocently walked down the street in Prenzlauer Berg the other day on my way to write wholesomely about mermaids:

And then look more closely...

at the evil and cowardly moppet shooting me a death glare from within the safety of his momma's arms!!!

I know. Evilness abounds here.

I somehow managed to make it to my favorite cafe, however, which I have now generously documented in a rare moment when all the beautiful Hegel-reading boys were absent:

Doesn't that look like the perfect (perfectly pretentious!) place to write? Sadly, with my book (over)due, that is the main thing I do in Berlin right now, but now I am set to turn in my book MONDAY. Plus there are other rooms here, plus secret staircases that lead to more secret rooms with disco balls downstairs. Lord knows what evil happenings take place there.

Anyway, here is me, every day, stuck to my laptop like a princess to her tower:

Oh and yesterday I found another new favorite cafe, which is decadent and Middle Eastern and romantic and candlelit and gorgeous, where I drank rosewater lemonade and wrote for many moons whilst beautiful boys played chess nearby, and where I am sitting at this very moment accidentally updating this blog instead of writing my book.

I also spent a long time yesterday talking to this Frenchman who lives between London and Berlin and bought a place in Prenzlauer Berg a few years ago for THIRTY THOUSAND EURO (!!). Said Frenchman was speaking English in such a rumbly, accented fashion that I missed the whole "I am from London BUT ORIGINALLY FROM FRANCE" part and suspected he was severely disabled for the first part of the conversation. I also, by the way, spent many hours the other day speaking to this German guy named VOLKER, a name that sounds suspiciously and unfortunately like "fucker" when pronounced properly, I'm just saying, and eventually found myself talking in half sentences to him like a non-native speaker. Isn't it weird how that happens? Just another way the Germans are trying to undo me.

Anyway, please admire a window from the best toy store in the world:

Would you believe that this morning I bought both those robots as well as the bird cage in the back (which holds a singing toy bird) and a variation on the circus/carousel music box in front of the bird cage? I know.

Oh, yesterday I also tried some of this horrible beer that is supposedly very famous with tourists in Berlin and that tastes like kool aid mixed with beer as if the kool aid on its own weren't horrible enough:

It comes in red (strawberry) and green (my waitress didn't know the English word) and I could not even drink it, it was so awful. By the way I have never been a beer drinker and am not sure it's wise for any reason to become one now, but... beer is so good here! And so cheap!

Speaking of horrible things, however, I will just mention how a week or two ago I had dinner at this Mexican place in Prenzlauer Berg. It looked okay and there were a lot of people inside and it was in a neighborhood where almost every restaurant serves some foreign cuisine and so I went in, but the menu was totally confusing, I mean there were pictures of quesadillas where it said "fajitas," and it was all in German of course, so I just asked the waiter what was best and he pointed and said "BURRITOS. Everyone they love these. Do you know burritos?" and I said yes, a burrito was good, and he asked would I like beef or chicken and I said which is better here and he said chicken and so I ordered a chicken burrito and then 15 minutes later he brings me out this huge cracklin platter of chicken fajitas trailing huge plumes of smoke through the whole restaurant. SIGH. No girl would order a plate of fajitas when dining alone, am I wrong? And I am pretty sure that chicken was covered in ketchup.

Anyway, so Berlin is pretty beautiful and you see graffiti and murals everywhere. Look:

Also, Brecht apparently spent a bit of time in Weissensee down the street from where I'm staying and so there's this big crumbling Brecht house and close by this mural, which has a Brecht quote on it that you totally can't see in this photo but I am posting it anyway.

I guess that is all for now. Oh, except I saw my MERMAID cover this morning and it is completely, utterly gorgeous. I am totally in love with it. My editor is sending me a version to post in a bit so please be prepared to be SPELLBOUND.

Now I might possibly consider getting back to actually finishing the book it shall be so gorgeously covering.

The end.

2009-09-30T16:15:00.001-04:00

While I am here in Berlin I hope to learn a bit of German. In fact I am contemplating returning here in the spring for longer, possibly living here full-time.

It is for this reason that I find it very helpful when people write English to German and German to English translations on bathroom walls.

2009-09-30T04:10:00.003-04:00

So this week I found the most perfect writing spot, this place in Prenzerlauer Berg that TIME OUT told me was "pretentious" during the day because everyone seemed to be "working on a novel." Given my own pretensions to novel writing, I figured this place was perfect, especially as MERMAID is (over)due in one week and if I write in my apartment I am liable to accidentally FALL ASLEEP or watch an episode of the RACHEL ZOE PROJECT or MY ANTONIO on itunes. Plus I love me some pretentious writer types, what can I say. Even now when EVERYONE I KNOW is a writer, when I hear that someone is a writer I think "oh!" and feel vaguely fluttery. It's a sickness, really.

Anyway, so it's just the loveliest area, this part of Prenzerlauer Berg, with these uneven streets and sidewalks, like cobblestone but maybe not actually cobblestone, I don't know, but sort of leafy and cobblestoney and the streets lined with cafes and these elaborate wedding cake type buildings with tons of flowers dripping off the sides and fancy little windows and moldings. And this cafe is perfect for very practical reasons, like it has outlets and wireless and big tables and it's empty enough in the day that you can stay for hours working, and plus it feels like it's always dusk there, it's lit by faint lights and lamps scattered throughout, and everything is a bit ragged, old couches and old dinette tables and rickety little wooden tables for salt and pepper and napkins, and there are at least three rooms, so it's all sprawling, and big big windows that just add to the twilight effect by letting in that smoky dying sky. It's autumn now, so the sky's darker and the sidewalks are filling with dead leaves and everything sort of smells like smoke... Oh and I did not mention the cheap wine and all them cute boys sitting around talking (I am convinced) about Hegel.

Anyway, finding a perfect place to write is very important for one who for purposes of MEETING (extended) DEADLINES must write ALL THE TIME. I have also, as it happens, found the perfect place to eat, right down the street from my apartment, this sweet little family-run restaurant where the owner might one day tell me that "the fish today is very good!" and I say OK and then he brings out a WHOLE FISH that his son had caught the day before in Bavaria and when I look at that dead almond-covered thing in horror he comes and takes the head off and debones it and then it's the most delicious thing I've ever eaten.

In future post-deadline news, I am very excited that Joi will be here a week from next Monday, and that amongst other very exciting things we shall be seeing this. An "evening of reading, music and conversation with Nick Cave"! And Blixa Bargeld! And in Hamburg, where HEAD ON (GEGEN DIE WAND) took place, and if you haven't seen that movie you must see it as it is one of the best films ever, incredibly intense and gorgeous and sad. We're going up for the day with this girl Jen I haven't met yet but who is a friend of Sheena's, and we'll look around Hamburg and stay the night. I am very excited. It only occurred to Joi and me LAST NIGHT, however, that Mr Cave and Bargeld might be roodly speaking in GERMAN, but I am quite sure we will magically understand it all due to the deep love we have for them and if not we will just charmingly stomp our feet and demand that they repeat everything they've just said in English.

Right around then ERIC arrives in Berlin as well, and will show us/me all kinds of wondrous things about this city, and it is Eric of course who made me come here in the first place as he's been having a passionate love affair with this city for the past several years and is the one who convinced me that I would love it too. He is also almost finished with a beautiful beautiful haunting novel that is set here and that has very much set the tone of this city for me so it will be lovely to see him as well as to go to some of the main places he's written about, with him. Plus I will meet some of his friends, including this actress who plays some glamorous supervillain on a popular German tv series but is sweet as pie in real life.

The day after Eric leaves I'm heading to LONDON, for the first time, and going straight from the airport to meet my publicist and new editor at Headline, the company that published Godmother and will be publishing Mermaid in the UK, as well as other members of the team, and I hope to meet up with some other friends before heading down to PORTSMOUTH for a few days to stay with my friend Lisa, who will be taking me to Brighton and to her favorite castle and (hopefully) to meet with her ex who is a FALCONER. We will also spend at least one evening watching Elizabeth Taylor movies and painting our nails. I would also like to note that my round trip flight came out to a total of THIRTY EIGHT DOLLARS, which done blows my mind. I knew that flying around Europe was cheap, but I mean really.

After that I'm flying back to Berlin and then taking the train down to AMBERG, this old old town in Bavaria, where my old friend Lisa lives with her husband and three kids, and we will also be going around to castles, including the CINDERELLA CASTLE, and to see falcon things (that's for a new project, by the way!) and generally being gorgeously super medieval.

And then I will be back in Berlin for a couple of weeks and then at the very end of November my other friend Lisa is planning to visit from NYC, and we'll hang out in Berlin a few days and then head down to Prague for a few nights and then to Vienna, where Tink's close friend Evelyne lives with her beau and brand new baby and where Tink and Aoife will be visiting at the same time so we can all meet up and hang out and be EXTREMELY GLAMOUROUS. I have also proposed that we spend a day in BRATISLAVA but I do not know yet if Lisa thinks that is as good an idea as I do.

I really like planning wondrous glittery future events, what can I say.

I would also like to note that I am in love with this creature:

And this Little Mermaid drawing by Edmund Dulac:

Speaking of little mermaid drawings, the other day I was in this amazing English book store debating whether to get this incredibly beautiful (but huge and heavy) folio version of Hans Christian Andersen fairytales, with illustrations by W. Heath Robinson, or this one, also gorgeously put together and much smaller and lighter (much better for traveling!), but filled with these most fugly illustrations. I showed the owner and was like "what are these awful things?" and we were both stricken with horror until he looked inside and realized they were done by HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN himself. Sigh.

The end.

2009-09-22T07:42:00.004-04:00

I am finally in a cafe in Prenzerlauerberg with FREE WIRELESS where I can write upon my own wondrous pink laptop and not on an evil German one in which the y and z have been switched for the sole purpose of confounding innocent, unsuspecting souls like myself. I also cannot figure out how to make the @ symbol or the / symbol on them, as they have been hidden for no doubt nefarious ends.

Anyway, I can now post some PHOTOS. The fact that I haven't done anything tremendously exciting so far I think is entirely irrelevant.

First, here I am a few days ago in my very lovely Weissensee apartment, in a building that was once a factory and now contains many artist's lofts. Of course I am much less innocent looking now, due to my prolonged exposure to German keyboards. Please note the very fashionable shoes in the background. Please also note that those gorgeous scarves are arranged much more artfully and neatly than they appear in this photo.

Next, here is the most glamorous street sign in the entire world.

I took another photo of a Marlene-Dietrich-Platz sign and later, upon careful review, noticed something highly suspicious therein.

You see that man who is obviously up to no good and who appears to be eying me with something verging on suspicion?

Here he is up close, and it would appear that he is sticking out his tongue:

I don't know exactly what this means, it is probably a secret German expression for "I am about to murder you," but I am quite certain I was lucky to escape Marlene-Dietrich-Platz with my life.

After this narrow escape yesterday, I did, as previously noted, see UNDER THE SEA, the poster for which contains my new favorite three words:

DIE EXOTISCHE UNTERWASSERWELT

!!!!

Also, here is a photo from my very romantic date with myself a few nights ago. Well, with myself and this hot little number:

In case the tropical milieu isn't entirely evident, please note the palm tree just to my right:

Also, here is a photo of me looking askance at my very own private front door, which leads from the street into my apartment and is covered with some very dastardly graffiti.

I also, by the way, was going to take a photo of myself yesterday sitting in the big IMAX theater wearing extremely ridiculous oversized 3D glasses and sipping from the oversized soda I had bought for 5 euro, as I thought while sitting there that this might possibly be the dorkiest thing to do in all of Berlin, but even I could not bring myself to take such a nerdly self portrait with the many many German people surrounding me. I mean who knows what they are capable of when provoked en masse like that.

Here also is a spooky photo from the Jewish Memorial, which is quite amazing. I thought the two planet like things in the background looked very mysterious, too, until I realized my lens is just dirty. Also, you can barely see it here, but I totally dig that television tower. I never say that I dig things but that particular structure seems to demand it.

And for good measure, here are two photos of the world's only drive thru strip club, tho I do not believe it is still open, on this highway maybe half an hour east of Pittsburgh.

Admit that is the coolest place ever. I wanted to drive through and see how it worked but that car was cruelly blocking me. Honestly, a dood who goes to a drive thru strip club has got to be the most lazy person in the world.

Before I go I would also like to mention the things I like about Berlin. Here is my list so far:

1. The trams. I like how, before every stop, there’s this little bell sound and then this breathy female German voice announces the stop and then the doors whoosh open and it’s all sleek and Blade Runner-ish and calming but like calming in the sense that if you get lulled into sleep that voice will do something bad to you.

2. I like how there are tall handsome boys everywhere who look like they’re thinking about Hegel. All the time.

3. I also like how these same boys remind me of my old friend Mike, whose German mama made apple dumplings so astounding that as a young lad he was once so devastated by her refusal to make them that he “ran away from home,” sobbing and wailing, until his dad came and picked him up on the street.

4. I like these big ex commie box buildings everywhere that are painted, like, lavender and have ornate little squiggly decorations around the windows and little flower boxes stuck on so that the effect is charming but in this weird artificial way.

5. I like that everyone sounds like Blixa Bargeld or like the angels in Wings of Desire or like the characters in two of my all time favorite movies, Head On and Run Lola Run. By which I only mean that they sound like they German. But still.

6. I like that everyone seems to think I am German, as this makes me feel I am much less likely to be mugged. (Unless I start talking.)

7. I like also that not one person in any shop or on the street seems annoyed when I ask them in English if they speak English and where I might find xyz. In fact if they do not speak good English they seem apologetic. In fact, people are so polite that the other day I totally moved right in front of a girl riding her bike on the sidewalk, forcing her to stop, and she didn’t even swear at me. She just courteously almost flew off her bike and to her demise by stopping much too quickly and then moved to my left and began riding again. How un New Yorkly! By the way I totally don’t approve of bike riding on sidewalks, it is very annoying. I did not however move in front of that girl on purpose, tho I realize my action sounds vaguely suspect.

8. I like that there are so many flower shops and so the word BLUMEN is stamped everywhere and it is a very sweet word, let’s face it. And so at least 5000 times a day I think, oh flowers, I should buy some flowers, but of course I don’t, what a waste of dough.

9. I like all the 80s music all over the place. I even heard that Nik Kershaw song “Wouldn’t It Be Good” the other day and that is one of the best songs ever.

10. I love currywurst. I’ve only had it once but I woke up hungry today and was like, I want some currywurst immediately. I have resisted thus far but it is only 1:30pm. Actually I hate currywurst, it will ruin my life.

12. This city looks totally romantic at night when all the street lamps go on and there are candles everywhere. And by everywhere I mean the few places I’ve been.

THE END

2009-09-21T11:05:00.001-04:00

So I am sitting in the DUNKIN DONUTS at the Sony Center in Potsdamer Platz, in Berlin. I was lured here by promises of FREE WIRELESS that seem to have been false, today anyway, but I did sit down and have my first currywurst, that bratwurst covered in shocking ketchupy stuff and curry powder that is all over the place here, tho it did little to ease my broken heart.

I got here on Wednesday afternoon and slept till Thursday afternoon and then the last few days I´ve mainly stuck around my own neighborhood in Weissensee, in former East Berlin. I´ve done some writing and I´ve read three books -- The Other Boleyn Girl, The Sugar Queen, and The Monster of Florence -- and I´ve watched one movie -- They Shoot Horses, Don´t They? -- and am about to go see UNDER THE SEA in IMAX (and in German, the only word of which understand is thanks to HEIDI KLUM and PROJECT RUNWAY, sadly) for some last mermaidly inspiration, and I´ve wandered about and I´ve admired the lovely LAKE WEISSERSEE, which is like ten minutes from my little apartment and this beautiful big lake and park that is weirdly lined by a SANDY BEACH and FAKE PALM TREES. I went there the other evening, to this cafe bar on the lake, and I read and had wine as the sun set, and I was like this is the most romantic self date ever, and then I went back on Saturday afternoon and to my horror the place was packed with people in bathing suits suntanning and playing volleyball and drinking, like, pina coladas. I don´t appreciate real beaches let alone fake ones and so I glamorously fled, and just in the nick of time as I very well could have died.

Anyway, so far I´m not doing anything exciting and I won´t be probably for the next couple of weeks as I write like a mofo and finally finish MERMAID, the due date for which was extended after I got feedback on the first chunk from my US and UK editors. And then Joi will get here and then Eric, tho they will both be doing a lot of work here as well, and my friend Lisa will come too at some point, and then in November I have some extremely lovely plans involving England and Bavaria and Prague and Vienna, not to mention some exciting new projects, as well as old projects, like my Dante book that has been on hold for the last year or two. But being in this foreign country, with no phone, no tv, no friends, no easy internet, no conveniences like Im used to... is totally LOVELY.

I am also, by the way, at this very moment, just a couple minutes away from MARLENE-DIETRICH-PLATZ.

I know.

2009-09-14T12:13:00.003-04:00

So I wanted to also mention the following:

-- So a week ago Sunday I went to PITTSBURGH to see the boy with whom I am enamored -- I CANT HELP IT I LIKE SAYING BOY DESPITE MY ADVANCING YEARS -- and we went to a RENAISSANCE FAIR where we saw jousts and shot bows and arrows and ate turkey legs and bought strangely scented magical soaps and had our eardrums assaulted by bells... oh and where I bought about 50000000 BELLY BUTTON GOBLINS, strange little knitted monsters that you can attach to buttons, a fashion craze I anticipate will catch on like WILDFIRE.... And then the next day we went to this ice cream shop where you can pick all these flavors to add in, like for example ROSE H20 which was the choice of yours truly... We also watched Robert Rodriguez's PLANET TERROR which I'd never seen and thought was the best movie in all existence.

-- A few days later I stuffed two bags so full they now weigh FIFTY POUNDS each and made my way to NYC, from whence I shall fly to Berlin Germany tomorrow evening for the next three months... and I dropped off said bags at my sister's and headed to Tink's house in GLENDALE, QUEENS, and accompanied her when she went to pick up Aoife from her third day at preschool. We had a lovely evening and I stayed over in their new fabulous guest room/BASEMENT and the next day Tink and Aoife and I met BRENNA for lunch at Indian Taj in Jackson Heights and Tink ordered Aoife a dosa and when it arrived it was about 500000 feet long, more a ship we could all sail away on than an item of food, and when the waiter set it in front of Aoife she shrank back and said, quiveringly, in this tiny voice, "Mommy, I'm scared," and it was one of the best things I've ever seen.

And let's face it: dosas are scary.

-- After, we went and met Brenna's three month old twin babies HARRY and ABBOTT, who immediately and inappropriately buried his face in my volumptuous bosoms. Volumptuous being my new favorite word, via the REAL HOUSEWIVES OF ATLANTA.

-- That evening Tink and I met my sister, Lisa, and Autumn at SIMPLY FONDUE where we spent the next 4 hours elegantly consuming all manner of foodstuffs dripping with cheese, sauces, oil, and chocolate (or more precisely, BANANAS FOSTER and CAMPFIRE SMORES), not to mention exceptionally slutty cocktails like my own STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE and Tink's PEANUT BRITTLE complete with peanut butter rimmed martini glass. Many photos were taken this evening but I feel it is highly inappropriate to share such debauchery so publicly and without shame. Isn't it enough that I have a tiny red line extending from my mouth across my right cheek, a wound resulting from a burning-hot-with-oil fondue fork. Just after our waitress explained to us how we must remove cooked food items from said burning forks before SHOVING THEM IN OUR GOBS.

-- Saturday I spent the day with my sister recovering, and Autumn and Rob came over that afternoon to watch high end cinema fare with us like TAMARA (from Netflix: "In a high school prank gone horribly wrong, an outcast named Tamara is murdered, but her tormenters get off scot-free. Now, as a sexy siren returned from the grave with an arsenal of superpowers, Tamara dedicates her afterlife to exacting revenge.")

-- That evening my sister, her beau and I went out to dinner and then to see the very first preview of HAMLET starring Jude Law. Jude Law! I thought he was just in dumb movies and into nannies but that man was amazing on stage! Totally hilarious and awesome and nubile (bounding around the stage, doing that crab walk and acting like an ape and doing all manner of other Hamlety things). And the show was great generally, with all this dramatic, beautiful staging... At one point this huge silky white fabric drops down from the ceiling to create Hamlet's mama's bedroom and it's like a woman's golden hair being let down out of a tower or something, totally magical. Oh there were tons of gorgeous moments and the moment it ended and the rest of the actors stepped back and Jude Law stepped forward that whole place jumped into a standing ovation. It's only on Broadway for a few months so buy tickets this minute!!!!

-- And yesterday morning I visited my friends ROB and DRU and their son LEVI and we had melon and eggs and coffee and they showed me all these amazing photos from their recent trip to Berlin.. and even tho I'm about to go there I really don't know the city, have never been there before, haven't read much about it... and so it was nice to really sit down and see all these amazing things that I shall see IN PERSON on WEDNESDAY.

-- And then I went to meet mister amazing artist MICHAEL KALUTA at this brunch his theatrical friend Suzanne was having with all these wondrous people, including this English man who is both a wig wearing JUDGE and some kind of super accomplished fancy LATIN DANCER. And I sat across from Michael and next to a lovely Brazilian screenwriter girl and it turns out that her father and Michael's father both played the ACCORDION and of course YOURS TRULY loves some accordion and Michael's father even played said accordion whilst doing strange squatting Russian dances with lady dancers twirling about in front and so we had much lovely talk about such things. After, I went back to Michael's fantastical apartment which is filled with wonders, including about a gazillion books, half of those seemingly being old volumes of fairytales and children's stories filled with those most amazing old time pen and ink drawings... Honestly I think my head almost done exploded and if I keep talking about it it might explode still. I mean books that you can open to any random page and see the most amazing drawings and read the most ridiculous, wonderful writing. Go look at the illustrations here if you haven't done so! http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/illustrations/index.html. Oh! And Charles Vess had just been visiting Michael and apparently pulled GODMOTHER out of his bag and Michael said something to me about these two men reading my book at the same time in his apartment and I done fainted.

-- Fortunately, however, I recovered in time to whisk myself down to COSI at UNION SQUARE to meet Julia and Hans, the friends of friends who are renting me my apartment in Berlin, in Weinssensee, in a building consisting mostly of artist's lofts and a short walk from this big lake and a short tram ride to Prenzerlauerberg and Mitte. For two hours they showed me maps and told me 500000 details about the building and the neighborhood and the city and now I just cannot wait to be there myself.

-- But first, today, I must meet my agent to discuss NEW PROJECTS and then my friend Elyssa WHOSE BOOK COMES OUT DECEMBER 1 and then my friend Eric who is taking me to a fancy dinner and whom I shall next see when he visits Berlin in October. And tomorrow I shall meet Valerie, my gorgeous friend who is the one who optioned GODMOTHER for Random House Films and Focus Features and whom I BELIEVE may have just (or is close to) hiring a screenwriter to do the SCRIPT.

And then I be flying away.

The end!

2009-09-14T09:22:00.003-04:00

So I've been meaning to write about a week ago Friday, when I met my friend Jill in Philipsburg, PA, and fell completely in love with that town, which had already semi won my affections by being part rundown and part gorgeous (one of those towns in PA that was fancy and posh over 100 years ago but has fallen on hard times since) and by being home to my wondrous accordion teacher CLARICE. As well as to Jill, who wrote a column about life in Philipsburg for many moons in the Centre Daily Times and lives in the most gorgeous, glamorous, pristine 1920s Philipsburg house that cost like TWO CENTS and has this sprawling front porch and these gleaming wood floors and these arched doorways and these FRENCH DOORS and about 500000 other things that might shrivel my heart with jealousy should I continue to describe them. So on Friday I arrived at Jill's house... and here she is on the porch...

and after looking around and fainting dead away at least five times, and after making the acquaintance of her boyfriend and her two ridiculous girly dogs, she took me down the street to her friends Rita and Willy's house... where they have built a HORSE STALL (or whatever it's called) in the adjoining lot to house their horse BRAVO. Whom Rita often hooks an old time Amish buggy to and RIDES AROUND TOWN and into the woods behind it... Jill had arranged for me to take such a ride, and so I hopped in said buggy with Rita and off we went, clattering through the streets, across the main drag, through this whole neighborhood and onto this gorgeous lonely road alongside a cemetery and then into the woods beyond...

Here are Rita and Bravo:

And then here was the view from the buggy, including of my very practical yet inspiring red and rhinestoned sandals:

Now, riding through the woods on this bumping carriage with plants lashing you on either side and that horse breaking into a run was about as lovely a time as I can imagine, tho I did once or twice hear some crackling of wooden wheels and imagine myself hurtling to my glamorous demise. Unfortunately, after about 45 minutes, around the time that we were turning back... I discovered that my terrible allergy to horses -- which I discovered last summer after being lovingly and connivingly nuzzled by one Mata Hari and then BREAKING INTO HIVES -- does not even allow me to SIT BEHIND one of them trotters without watering and sneezing and basically becoming supernaturally ill. This was a very sad realization for me, of course, as I had vowed then and there to travel only by horse and buggy from then on. Miraculously, I arrived back at Rita and Willy's with limbs intact, if not heart.

Jill and I then meandered about the town and she showed me many of its wonders, including the astonishingly preserved ROWLAND THEATER, which was originally a late 19th century vaudeville theater and is about as jewel-like and elegant an old theater as you will find. I mean super lavish, with ornate murals and red carpets and framed fabrics and stained glass and skylights and this art deco-y stage.... I do love me some fancy perfume-bottle-lookin theaters and this one was just gorgeous. Sadly, the movie playing was ICE AGE, whereas the week before it had been INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, so noooo movie for us. Plus Jill had arranged a backstage tour for me but due to the lengthiness of my BUGGY RIDE it shall have to wait.

We THEN went to the newly restored PHILIPS HOTEL for a fancy dinner and "sexy drink" (according to the menu... but I'm not gonna lie, my "pear-a-sol" was rather alluring) and then wandered about some more and admired many of the elaborate old churches in town, especially Jill's favorite, an old gothic cathedral with a spooky graveyard bordered by an old stone wall and like four Civil War soldiers buried within.

We then stopped by 1 NORTH FRONT STREET.... another gorgeous old building that used to be some big bank and is now being rented out by this fabulous lady KRISTINE, who just moved to Philipsburg in the spring from DC and is set to open a coffee shop and bookstore on the old bank's first floor. Jill wrote about it here. Kristine came down and opened up the building and showed us all around and it's just such a cool thing to me, moving to a little town into this old fabulous building and making something wonderful. The second floor is then all wood and gorgeousness and like SIX huge sweeping rooms where all the bank offices and meeting rooms used to be... One is now a massage room, one is a waiting room for the massages, and then three are just these big gleaming old rooms with huge windows and big wood tables.. and one even has an old time telephone booth made from wood and that glittery spooky lookin old glass. I asked Kristine what those rooms were for and she said "whatever I want them to be!" and she's totally open to ideas and I immediately and selflessly thought how my friend Rowan could teach bellydancing there and I've also been contemplating holding a fiction writing workshop there and/or a day long workshop about publishing, since everyone always asks me about agents and editors and how stuff works. Oh, and this is because I PLAN TO BE MOVING TO SOME PHILIPSBURG once I get back from Berlin. To which I shall fly tomorrow.

SO standing with Kristine and Jill, both of whom love this old dying-but-trying-to-come-back-to-life strange little town, I was thinking this is exactly where I'd like to be, at least for a while, who knows. So when I get back I wanna get a car and a beautiful old place to live, and set up shop, and admire BRAVO from afar, with glamorously wistful tears accentuating my eyeballs.

We ended the evening having drinks on Jill's porch, all candle-lit and moonlit with swaying trees and plants crowding around and two crazy dogs scurrying about at our feet.

THE END.

2009-09-05T11:41:00.001-04:00

I had many adventures yesterday and will write later about the bulk of them... but earlier in the day I went to my friend Heather's new place for lunch, where amongst other things Heather, Barb, and I enjoyed the gorgeously newly released and newly-colored-by-Lee-Moyer comic STARSTRUCK:

And Heather's glamorous cat SITA, whom I always likened to Joi's glamorous cat the late Elly, posed elegantly in the sunlight as we did.

Plus, our friend Hannah had lunch with us, but left before PHOTO OPS, and amongst other things told us about her INSECT STUDIES (she's getting her PhD in em) and pet HISSING COCKROACHES. She also told us about dissecting roaches in some class and their insides being like marshmallow, and I fainted dead away for at least two hours as a result. Paramedics were called and I survived, just barely.

The end.

2009-09-04T11:12:00.002-04:00

So yesterday I had the loveliest day with my mama. Listen to what we did:

-- Played double solitaire
-- Had a delectable lunch downtown
-- Went to KITCHEN KABOODLE where in typical fashione I purchased the following: a very large glittery, mosaic-y light blue bowl with two orange fish on it; a tannish doormat with a very large crow on it; two shiny long boxes of matches with very large peacocks on them; and two dish towels with spiders on them
-- Went to the GRANGE FAIR and saw an Elvis impersonator
-- Ate corndogs and funnel cakes and apple dumplings
-- Saw AWAY WE GO, which I forgave for all its sins due to its ridiculous levels of charm and sweetness
-- WATCHED PROJECT RUNWAY and then that show about the dumb models

The Grange Fair by the way is the biggest encampment fair in the country or something like that... There are just hundreds and hundreds of tents and RVs that pop up in spots that get passed down from generation to generation and you walk through these little pathways past all these families sitting in their big tents with name plates hanging from beams -- "The McCloskey Family" or whatever -- and carpets laid out and couches and beds set up and televisions... and at night all the sparkly lights come on and last night was a FULL MOON and in the background a huge ferris wheel rises up so you walk along these glittery pathways under a full moon with ferris wheels and carts selling funnel cakes or soft-serve ice cream all lit up in the distance, and its pretty magical... that is until the wind changes and you get a whiff of them porta potties or all the animales. I sorta meant to go to a bunch of things this year, like bingo and tractor pulls and the ceremony where they pick the GRANGE FAIR QUEEN... and I meant to go into all the many structures where you see pigs and horses and goats... and the buildings full of crazy vegetables -- giant alien squash and so on -- that have been entered in contests.. but I've been awful busy with this book and with packing/organizing for Germany so I just got the one evening for some Elvis and some brief meandering and now it is OVER.

In other news, today I go to BELLEFONTE to hang out with my friends Heather, Barb and Hannah, and then I shall wend my way to PHILPSBURG to do many wondrous things with my friend Jill. Philipsburg being the weird, hicky, used-to-be-important-but-now-dead-and-filled-with-many-Victorian-houses-that-used-to-be-fancy kind of town one finds in Pennsylvania... Bellefonte is like that too but a bit more lively... and today in addition to spending time with my fine lady friends I am all perusing and contemplating both towns for when I return this winter. I sorta feel like staying put more and setting up house in a little hick town and seeing how it goes. Of course with the occasional gorgeous trip to New York. And Kansas. And Oregon. And Italy......

2009-08-29T18:44:00.002-04:00

So I wrote before about staying with Lee and Annaliese Moyer in Portland, both amazing artists and the sweetest people ever, and doing a mermaid shoot with Annaliese in the giant old-fashioned mermaid tank they keep in their carport because that's the kind of people they IS.

Here are some more proofs from that day:

I admit that blank tank tops, albeit SEQUINNED ONES, aren't the most mermaidly attire, and so on a future visit to Portland and chez Moyer I will have to change it up. As one artiste friend told, me "more pearls, less Danskin!" But I loves them -- and I love all of Annaliese's photos -- and think the last close-up one may be the author photo for the new book.

Also, lookit these interviews with yours truly at Book Chick City and Sassy Minx. These things take forever you know so you really ought to at least go blow them a kiss.

Ok I shall now go BACK TO WORK. Mwah!

2009-08-29T00:51:00.000-04:00

So I have a week and a half left here in Pennsylvania before I head off to NYC for some days and then GERMANY till winter. After that I think I might settle in a cute little abode in a hicky town around here in central PA, like for example the town over the mountain in which my accordion teacher lives. I have not practiced that thing for months now and it is way too heavy to lug anywhere like for example Berlin HOWEVER come December I shall make up for lost time and practice with endless diligence and glamour and pure-of-heartedness. That is the plan.

In the meantime, I am working to finish MERMAID (the official title now, after SEA QUEEN was nixed) before I go. I was set to finish a month ago but then got edits/notes back from both my editors (from Crown in the US and Headline in the UK, both great, great editors) on the first half of the book, and some stuff affected the rest of the book, and so it's been a bit longer. It occurred to me I should write more about WRITING on this blog, maybe even talk word counts and other awful things, as that might shame me into being more diligent generally. Shame is really much more effective than anything else, even dough and glory, I've found.

Anyway, in addition to writing with varying levels of effectiveness I have of late also seen many many movies, I mean I even saw POST GRAD, which was actually quite alarming. I mean the girl, this 22 year old just graduating from college, really wants this publishing job and she doesn't get it and then she spends like the whole movie trying trying to get a job, any job, and then near the end she gets, FINALLY, her dream job, the one at the publishing house, and she works and works and then has this epiphany -- through her idiotic cradle robbing neighbor -- that relationships are way more important than careers, and so she QUITS the job and flies cross country to NYC to shack up with this dood who's been pining for her forever but that she had no interest in until that point. And she doesn't even call him first. I mean honestly, it's like the ending of Devil Wears Prada where after struggling through the whole movie and paying all her dues the girl quits her job to get back with her loser boyfriend.

Kids today!

I really liked ORPHAN tho (!!!) as well as THE PERFECT GETAWAY and DISTRICT 9. And I totally plan to like FINAL DESTINATION 3D and wear the glasses with much flair. I also liked Julie and Julia and even vaguely wanted to cook something after, tho I bravely resisted. The Time Travelers Wife and Ugly Truth nearly killed me however and just mentioning them right now is making me woozy. Oh but I liked Funny People.

I've also seen a couple plays at the MILLBROOK PLAYHOUSE, this cabaret theater in a barn in Mill Hall, PA, where you sit at picnic tables and bring food and drink and watch totally first rate theater. I went once with my parents and once with the boy with whom I be smitten, and both times we brought BBQ from this place across the street, but so many people show up with these huge spreads, I mean Tupperware full of casseroles and vegetables and dip and wine glasses and bottles, and I bet there are at least two Tupperware bins full of ambrosia at every performance. One of the plays, Shirley Valentine, was so fantastic I done started crying. Well, delicately weeping, in a garbo-y fashion, to be accurate.

I have more mermaid photos to post and I'm sure many MANY more fascinating things to discuss but I am toooo tired. Good night.

2009-08-16T08:40:00.000-04:00

Please admire this most luxurious, glamorous, zaftig, Jean-Harlowesque feline named Elly, who died last night in typical dramatical style at Joi and Krysztof's house in Lawrence, Kansas. Here she is posing in Joi's Brooklyn garden a few years ago. I know. You expect Clark Gable to appear any second to whisk her away.

2009-08-11T11:30:00.002-04:00

So look at this beautiful photo Annaliese took of Alys holding mah book whilst gorgeously decorated with Wendy's henna art:

And there is this one, too, tho clearly the book selection is OKAY but not QUITE as amazin:

How gorgeous is that girl and that henna and them photos?

In other riveting news, I must say that I just had the most wondrous and romantical weekend. This most beauteous guy that I like, PAT, who lives in Pittsburgh, drove here to State College on Saturday and we had lunch with my parents (who loved him) and then the two of us went to Shaver's Creek to visit the RAPTOR CENTER. We gazed upon hawks and owls and eagles and kestrels and then watched a bird show in which we learned many fascinating facts including that the feathers of these birds are prey are illegal to own and so all extras get shipped to a FEATHER BANK in Colorado where Native Americans with special privileges can go get them and use them for ceremonies. A feather bank!

I also fell madly in love with this barred owl:

He was in this big big cage like all the others birds but he was the only one sitting right at the ledge and looking out alluringly, like an Amsterdam lady of the night. When he shut his eyes (and when he winked at me!) his eyelids were fuzzy and yellow, which I must say was highly glamorous as well as enviable. And the feathers around his face looked like tiny fishbones and apparently stick right out at you in a totally weird way when he's all a flutter. I was starting to plot the many methods by which I could BREAK HIM OUT and take him home with me as my pet and best friend when I realized that might be a little too unfortunately HARRY POTTERESQUE. I also by the way fell in love with a feisty little kestrel named Persephone, who had a habit of flicking up her tail in a suspiciously burlesque manner.

Then Pat and I took a walk on this lovely trail through the woods, and then, just as a thunderstorm was brewing, took off to Pittsburgh, driving through a gorgeous rainfall and then straight into a spectacular sunset as if we was on two horses side by side. For dinner we stopped and glamorously had sundaes at McDonald's. I know.

On Sunday Pat took me to the most adorable restaurant, GYPSY CAFE, for lunch, and not only did I love the place but they were having a JOHN HUGHES BRUNCH, as they have timely themes every week, and so I had some Pretty in Pink penne pesto pasta. Plus they were playing the Psychadelic Furs and the Smiths and all manner of angst filled 80s song. The owner came over and told us about the white trash bbq Dr. Sketchy's she will be modelling in next week and my heart done filled with love for this Pennsylvania city which I believe is highly underrated.

After, we went to the NATIONAL AVIARY (by the way I am scheming and plotting for a new book that will involve falcons) and spent a few hours wandering through rainforests and wetlands with crazy birds swooping around everywhere and watching penguins and lories and other creatures being fed and listening to mini lectures and so on.

At one point there were all these kids in the sprawling wetlands room and I mean there were flamingos and pelicans and toucans and all kinds of crazy birds in there but when one kid spotted a tiny tiny tiny worm on the floor there was general chaos and all them moppets gathered like it was the most exciting event ever on this earth:

For a worm!

Anyway, then we went off to the waterfront and had drinks at some bar and then we went to the movies and saw FUNNY PEOPLE and split a bag of popcorn and it was just the loveliest day and then yesterday we spent most of the day working together, him drawing and me reading, and then he done drove me home last night through more rain and lightning and I mean really, it was so sweet and romantical, and this guy is surely some adorable and I might be a bit smitten, but now I must get back to work and finally finish this damn book.

The end.

2009-08-07T11:10:00.003-04:00

Ok so I spent last weekend in a field in Eugene, Oregon, at FAERIEWORLDS. Like I said, I wrote about it here, how I'd heard about this huge fairy festival on the west coast, how I'd met my friend Signe who was going and we decided to go together (tho she ended up not being able to attend), how I talked to the guy behind the festival and was convinced to just do it up, get a booth and do advertising and the whole nine, and how I felt like well if there is a place where thousands of wing wearers gather, maybe I should bring them my damn book! I mean maybe a few of them could really, REALLY relate to Lil, I thought, the main character in Godmother who's stuck in NYC but actually a full-on fairy with wings.

I have to say tho that I totally initially underestimated what a big project it is, to set up a booth in a 10 by 10 plot of land with not one thing in it. I mean I thought when I first rented my booth that I was renting a BOOTH, like I would show up and set down some books and be open for bidness, but then I realized I would have to get a tent and rent a table and decorate the whole thing and by the time all was said and done if I sold every book I brought I would like maybe cover what it cost to buy the tent and fill and decorate it, but I definitely wouldn't cover what it cost to be at the festival in the first place and would certainly not MAKE any moolah. But that wasn't my aim, anyway. Still. It was some expensive, being there!

But I never go to festivals. And I never vend things. And I never camp. And I never celebrate fairies and such, so it was lots and lots of firsts for me and that is never a bad thing, in my humble opinione.

So anyway, after our wondrous tour of wateralls with Mr Lee Moyer and friends, Barb and I drive down to Eugene Thursday afternoon and show up at the site at like 7. The festival wouldn't open to the public until the next day at 2pm, but I was VERY SUSPICIOUS of our abilities to set up both this big white festival tent -- it was EZ UP supposedly, but sadly, I have been known to buy a bookshelf from IKEA and NOT BE ABLE TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO SET IT UP -- as well as the camping tent that Circle23 generously loaned to us (and Lee and Annaliese loaned us the sleeping bags and other accoutrements for inside). I figured if we had any problems tho, the antler boys would come to our rescue.

I had only perused a few photos from Faerieworlds and had seen one of a boy walking by with antlers, and was sort of kidding about the antlers.... But as it turns out I think possibly every single dood on that field was be-antlered or be-horned in some manner. Tho only a handful of the truly dedicated seemed to also wear hooves.

Anyway, as I wisely predicted, Barb and I opened both tents and then stared down at them weeping, unable to figure them out even slightly. And was it the antler boys who gallantly came to our rescue? NO. It was the girls from Boston in the next booth who saw our tears and leapt up and in a whoosh of superheroic girl powerness assembled our tents within seconds. In fact the whole weekend for me seemed a whole lot about girl heroics and bonding as our neighbors on the one side helped us in innumerable ways and then, to the other, there was a lovely flame-haired woman who ended up needing our help to close her booth the first night because her man had passed out drunk.

Men!

So here are the girls who kept Barb and me from having inelegant breakdowns right there on that grass field:

The middle girl, Sarah, was selling tutus she'd made by hand and so look at our view when we turned to our right:

It was like staring at spun sugar! How can you not love a tutu? I ended up buying about 50000 from her at a cut rate to give to all the little girls I know (including the book-writing, Tessa-and-Mary-drawing Zoe) plus some adults. I even bought one for the exceedingly fashionable Miss Boo Berry:

And here, by the way, was my booth:

So anyway, I was ALSO SAVED last weekend by the wondrous and generous Ms Mia Nutick and Mr Ryan Nutick, whom I finally got to meet after knowing for 50000 years online and who whisked me away from the festival on Sunday evening and gave me a ride back to Portland, after Barb up and abandoned me to go have adventures in SEATTLE on Sunday morning. The nerve! After some other plans fell through I emailed Mia just days before the festival and she said it would be no problem for them to take me and I just about fainted with relief cause if there is one place I don't want to be stranded it's on a grass field in Oregon during a heat wave. I'm just saying.

SO here they are, my other saviors to whom I am forever grateful, standing under some elegantly draped fabric in my lovely booth. Plus not only did they whisk me out of there but they kindly let me in on one of the best things at the festival: ICE COLD MINT TEA at one of the food booths in the back.

Without said tea, I might have died.

They also kindly took my phone to their hotel room the first night and charged it, after the power our booth was supposed to have didn't work. This allowed me to continue to post obnoxious photos and updates to Facebook which of course is always very important.

I also, as I mentioned, met up with the lovely Wendy Rover and Her husband Vargus Pike, tho I sadly did not have no time to get me no henna gorgeousness and plus I suspect it would have melted right off of my poor poor pale skin anyways. Between this festival and my 4th of July in Gettysburg, where I got burnt so badly after an hour in the sun (I had forgotten to put on sunscreen!) that my chest blistered... my shoulders and chest are now about 5000 shades of pink and red and look a bit like an abstract art project.

Anyway, so the festival itself was three days long and led me to some important conclusions about myself. These are just the more.... negative things:

1. I HATE PORTA POTTIES
2. I HATE ME SOME SNEAKY SUN THAT WINDS ITS WAY IN AND BURNS YOUR BACK WHEN YOU THINK YOU'RE SITTING IN SHADE
3. I DO NOT LIKE IT WHEN PEOPLE TALK ABOUT PUTTING A SMILE ON YOUR FACE AND SEEING HOW IT FITS
4. OR ASK YOU TO HOWL AT THE MOON
5. OR TALK ABOUT THE MAGIC INSIDE YOU
6. I DO NOT LIKE WATCHING PEOPLE OPENLY DEBATE ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT TO SPEND 14 SMACKERS ON YOUR BOOK RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU
7. I AM NOT A CAMPER
8. OR SOMEONE WHO SHOULD EVER BE IN DIRECT SUNLIGHT, EVER
9. I THINK IT IS WEIRD FOR GIRLS TO RUN AROUND TOPLESS AND THEN POSE HAPPILY FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS WITH THEIR BACKS ARCHED.... AT A FAIRY FESTIVAL FULL OF CHITLINS
10. AND I REALLY REALLY REALLY DISLIKE PIRATE JOKES IN WHICH THE PUNCHLINE REVOLVES AROUND THE WORD THAT GRATES ON MY EARDRUMS WORSE THAN ANY NAIL ACROSS CHALKBOARD: "AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"

Oh my god I almost fainted writing that list, from pure horror.

But what I did like?

Were all the lovely people all elaborately dressed up and participating in this -- really, when it comes down to it -- completely splendid, gorgeous fantasy. And every kind of person: tons of babies and little kids running around with wings on their backs and flowers twisted through their hair, old ladies decked out like queens, all those men in fake fur pants and antlers and skirts... I can't possibly do justice to the wild array of characters and costumes surrounding us, or the hours Barb and I spent in that booth just watching people go by, or watching them dance in front of the main stage, which we were right next to... Tons of people dancing to fiddle-y kind of fairy music... Even if you yourself aint all that into twirling on grass fields, you just have to love the kind of gorgeous abandon and freedom all them people are feeling and participating in. Really, really lovely. And I swear there were a few moments when the sun was setting and sorta melting over the field and everything seemed all quiet and it was just wings everywhere, and hula hoops, and dancing, and creatures from myth emerging from every corner, and a thousand people sort of caught in their own moments of bliss, and at those moments I was like WELL MY GOODNESS LOOK AT THIS and it just about took my breath away.

I also really like MOTEL 6, which come Saturday saved us from the camping and the porta potties and the two-hour lines for showers. Thank you, Motel 6!

And I did, actually, sell a lot of books and talk to a lot lot lot of people about it, and really, it is strange how people are with books I think. I mean some people get starstruck just knowing you WROTE A BOOK, even if they have no idea what it is, and children just can't even believe you did something so magical, and some people are just downright suspicious wondering what you trying to pull. And some people are like "oh a book!" and come up like you have a table of sweets set out for them, and some people see a book and immediately glaze over -- that is, until they see the pirate shack two booths down and break into a dead run.

I am awfully glad I went, though. But at the end I gave my festival tent and all the decor inside it to Ms. Wendy for her magical henna workings, as she will put it to much, MUCH better use than I in the future.

The end.

2009-08-07T01:35:00.002-04:00

If you are here reading this, then you should obviously go become a fan of Godmother on Facebook. I mean really.

Godmother: The Secret Cinderella Story on Facebook

2009-08-06T23:09:00.001-04:00

So I think I might possibly be slightly momentarily obsessed with the movie (500) Days of Summer, which I thought was just lovely and sad and painful and funny and sweet and goofy, like all these things at once, sort of slight but in this perfect perfect soft way. I saw it with Eric and Shax just before I headed to Oregon, and then saw it again in NYC with my mama. I didn't want to see it again but she was visiting my sister and it was at the right time and I knew she'd like it... and then I loved it even more the second time and was able to sit back and admire (and was surprised by, when I was able to see its workings better) how smartly and ingeniously it was made. There's this bit I love especially, when the Joseph Gordon-Levitt (he's SO good in this, and was so amazing in Mysterious Skin, which I was obsessed with when it came out and might be one of my favorite movies ever, and in which he plays an entirely different kind of character) character attends a party at the Zooey Deschanel character's place and the screen splits and we see the night play out the way it really happened and the way he wanted it to happen, and it's all set to Regina Spektor's song "Hero," and it's like the most mundane, painful experience told in this completely original, beautiful way. And normally I have little patience for cutesy, gimmicky kinds of things, which this should have been, but the emotions underlying it were so delicate and raw and it just all worked for me and now I have the soundtrack and am all about that song. And that bit ends in this remarkable way, too, with the cityscape shifting to a drawing that slowly gets erased. Byooootful!

2009-08-06T14:43:00.003-04:00

So I'm back in Pennsylvania now after a couple quick visits to NYC and a long lovely week in Oregon, where I met up with my friend Barb and stayed first with the wondrous Lee and Annaliese Moyer, who took photos of us in mermaid tanks and showed us many many waterfalls and plied us with Voodoo Doughnuts, and then with the astonishing Lana Guerra and Jesse Reno, who took us to fantastical Portland places with blueberry lime margaritas and rose lemonade and artwork everywhere everywhere and helped us prepare for FAERIEWORLDS, which was last weekend on a big grassy field in Eugene, Oregon. I will write about that later but my blog post for Powell's about the festival is here. In Portland we also spent a day with Roger aka Circle23, who took photos of us in a botanical garden and then took us to meet his girlfriend Carolee, a gorgeous librarian who magically repairs ancient, crumbling books in a mysterious library workshop. Wednesday night was my reading at Powell's and drinks after at GILT where all the above were present as well as, among others, the charming Renee Bosler, whom I finally got to meet after years of admiring her gorgeous artwork, and the byoooteous Kimberly Warner-Cohen, whom I saw read from her book Sex, Blood and Rock 'n' Roll in NYC, and her very funny husband. Also, I got to drink a fancy cocktail called GLITTER PANTS and afterwards meet a satanist with horns in his head.

Anyway, we had many adventures and it is rather overwhelming to have been surrounded by such talented people, at least when attempting to write BLOG POSTS about it, so here is some GLAMOROUS HIGHLIGHTS:

1. So Annaliese Moyer is this fantastic photographer who has acquired an amazing old magician's tank that sits outside of her and Lee's magical Portland house and that she occasionally fills with water in order to take mermaid photos extraordinaire. OF COURSE I was very happy to participate and slathered on a ton of makeup and shimmied into one of her mermaid tails and spent at least an hour or two mastering the art of holding still and keeping my eyes open underwater while she elegantly glided about dressed like a jewel thief and taking photos. Here is one result and there are more on their way, which I can't wait to see! Barb got in the tank too for a bit and there are several shots of us together, as well as a few of me and Annaliese, who jumped in at the end. By which time my eyes were bright bright red and stinging but one must always suffer a bit for beauty, ain't it the truth. Look! And look at the stunning horse photos she does as well.

Ain't that something?

And here are Barb and me pre immersion:

2. So Roger/Circle23, who is an experimental phoptographer responsible for, among many other things, this photo of Lana that I love love love

(isn't it so beautiful and disturbing? doesn't she look so peaceful?) and many other beautiful photos involving suspension and wire corsets and the like (he also has this set of photos printed on canvas that he showed us where these women seem to be struggling out of nylon and out of the canvas itself... totally strange and beautiful and frightening..) took Barb and me to a botanical garden on Wednesday and took a ton of sweet photos like these

and it was very fun despite the GHASTLY HEAT and treacherous pathways that he gallantly and sweetly un-spiderwebbed for us with his tripod lance before we stepped through like delicate flowers.

Oh and here is a picture of Lana, Jesse, me and Roger hanging out at the Pied Cow:

3. Oh I have to mention how at Powell's the lovely 11-year-old Zoe, daughter of the henna genius Ms. Wendy Rover, whom I would meet at Faerieworlds, and her huge-hearted husband Vargas, whom Zoe dragged to Powell's, presented me with two drawings she had done of Mary Finn and Tessa Riley of my first book Rain Village. Now how sweet is this:

I MEAN REALLY. Plus Zoe is currently writing HER FIRST BOOK.

Speaking of brilliant girls, Barb and I spent Thursday with Lee as well as his houseguest Mike and his visiting niece (actually I think she is Annaliese's niece) Alys, who is 16 and funny and smart as a whip, I mean smart smart smart... At one point I caught Alys reading Godmother whilst also eating a Captain Crunch Voodoo Doughnut outside of one of the waterfalls Lee took us to. I wish all people could read my book in such rarefied circustances. Look:

And here by the way is our tour guide Lee looking especially messianic whilst returning from one of the falls, which is thundering and glowing to his left, out of the photo:

And Lee with Barb, I think at Crown Point:

Oh and me with Barb waiting for Mike, Lee and Alys to return from an especially treacherous path to some stunning fall that we were too lazy to see. I know. But thank goodness for digital cameras.

4. ALSO, I just have to say that being in Lee and Annaliese's house, where you're surrounded by art, including these gorgeous huge paintings that Lee made for Annaliese when he was wooing her (hey no one's ever painted me squat!), and then Jesse and Lana's house, which is like an explosion, I mean Jesse's amazing paintings everywhere everywhere, hung up and stacked up and spread across the floor, and Lana's dolls and clothes and wigs bursting from every corner, in every every color... It is some amazing.

But I have been writing this for too long now so more later and I leave you with this fearsome photo of Lana's cat BOO BERRY

The end.

2009-07-23T14:09:00.002-04:00

So last fall in Pennsylvania I sat in (when I could) on a dark room photography class at Penn State -- which was gorgeous and mysterious and I would like to spend many many many more hours in the future watching images appear magically on paper! -- and during that time one of the TA's for the class, Rob Martin, asked me to partcipate in this self portrait series he was doing for his MFA. His project? Was having people do self portraits but with him standing in for them. So I had to think of how I'd want to present myself, and then present him like that, and then take the pictures with his camera. So I immediately decided he had to wear the things I always wear -- rings and earrings, red lipstick, black eyeliner, mascara, pale powder, glitter... as I go for the earthy, natural look at all times... I also brought gypsy-ish scarves to drape him with -- and that he had to have little baubles around him and a pile of books there, too... my own books and books of fairytales and a book on Joseph Cornell and at least one old-time noir.. And that he definitely had to be holding and playing my accordion. I thought that right away and then I thought well I have ONLY been studying accordion a few months, is that really what my self portrait should be based around? And then I realized YES INDEED as the accordion is like everything I love (not to mention try to do in fiction) all wrapped up together: it's gorgeous and showy and dazzling and beautiful... like what other instrument do people routinely write their names across IN RHINESTONES?.. and it always has mother of pearl and just all kinds of flash and dazzle to it.. but at the same time it's incapable of making a note that's not touched with melancholy and sadness. Even at its most jaunty and vibrant it's got that sadness underneath, and that's what I love most about it. Plus it's so beautiful but so awkward, really, a bit inelegant... but in the most glamorous way.

So anyway. We did this photo session and he set up lights and I got to direct him and adjust the lights and take the photos, and then later he went through them all and picked the best ones and did his magical things... and now months later there's this show in Chelsea that Rob's in and it's one of my self-portraits that's in it.

And I think it's the first image here that's in the show but here are two he sent me, resized.

2009-07-22T22:32:00.000-04:00

Oh also, I forget to post stuff now because of Facebook, but yesterday Godmother got two lovely new reviews.... which is especially cool since the book's been out since early March!...

Look:

From January Magazine

In a season of reimaginings, Carolyn Turgeon (Rain Village) delivers Godmother: The Cinderella Story (Three Rivers Press). Turgeon’s retelling finds Cinderella’s fairy godmother banished from her fairy world and working as a bookseller in New York. For her fairy faux pas, she has been pulled away from her life, though if it seems to her that if she can contrive one selfless and beautiful act, all will be forgiven.

Godmother is exquisite: oddly chic, dark, sweet and elegant... and not a zombie in sight. Turgeon has a light but meaty touch. The author has said that after her challenging debut, she was determined to work on something simpler. “I just wanted to work with something wonderful -- a fairytale -- and play,” Turgeon has said.

Godmother is a delicious departure.

And from Fantasy Magazine

Cinderella didn’t go to the ball, her Fairy Godmother went instead. It was a night of dancing and romance. A night filled with the magic of being in love, with the delight of being human. One night that alters fates course, and at the end when there should have been a “Happily Ever After” there is only regret. Leaving her charge alone and vulnerable, Lil did the unthinkable and fell in love with the Prince. Her actions skew the course of fate and have tragic consequences for all involved.

Three hundred years after being banished from the fairy realm for her failure, Lil meets a girl who amazingly resembles Cinderella. This meeting is the beginning of a string of signs. A book of fairies with a photograph of her fairy sisters proves that fairies are still around. She catches a glimpse of the Prince, her old and eternal love. Then she hears of a modern ball that a lonely, princely man is attending. These signs give her hope, if she can correct her mistake, if she can redeem herself by helping this “Cinderella” find her true love, maybe they’ll finally let her come home.

Godmother: The Cinderella Story is a straightforward story of longing and tragedy. As the story progresses we are effortlessly transported between the vibrant, beautiful fairy realm, and the dingy, colorless human world. The story is gripping and suspenseful and takes us back to the root of the fairy tale. Back before stories were romanticized and edited for children. When they contained warnings and heartache and even violence. Before happy endings were standard and expected. The ending is definitive while being open to the reader’s interpretation, and leaves you with a single question. “Will you choose to believe in the fairy tale?”

2009-07-22T22:31:00.002-04:00

2009-07-20T12:57:00.001-04:00

So I have been busy writing and writing and trying to finish this mermaid book up here in the Hudson River Valley, in this old farmhouse with Massie and Marcie. I either go to the local coffee shop to write, sometimes all day, or hang out at the house and write in my room or at this old red metal desk in the basement. And Massie and Marcie both work here and work in the big organic garden and run a CSA and they knit and quilt and sew and cook and bake and do other magical things. I came back the other night and Massie was quilting and Marcie was knitting and they were both in front of the television and Mumu the dog was spread out on the floor and they all looked up at me and I said well hello, old ladies, and it was then decided that I need to take up TATTING which sounds good as it involves something mysterious called a BOBBIN. And then there's a big porch out front that you can sit on and watch swaying trees and rain from, and we all sort of collect there a few times a day. And I like this town, Cornwall-on-Hudson, a lot, and am especially fond of the witch store where I've been taking classes now and then, and this beauty spa where they have hot stone massages for 50 dolla and manicure/pedicures for 35. Plus you can get a chair massage whilst waiting for your nails to dry. I mean really. Porches and massages and witches! I am not quite sure what else a girl needs, at least when in book-finishin mode. And the other night I went to see the most gorgeous bellydancing and drumming performance at a local yoga place/dance studio, and it was sort of sponsored by the witch store I think, and we sat on pillows on a wide-planked wooden foor in a room with slanted ceilings, and outside it was stormy, and inside it was all fairy lights and draped fabrics and lit tea candles scattered across the floor. The three dancers were all in white sparkles and the main one, Elizabeth, pale with long red hair, did a whole dance with a simitar balanced on her head across a Persian carpet while the drummer boy cast a spell on everyone. A few days later at the witch store I found out that the two are madly in love and I said well I would think so. I mean, what a romantical pairing.

And then Lisa came to visit this weekend and so both mornings we went out to the very, very beautiful Blooming Hill Farm where on weekend mornings you can get brunch and sit outside on wooden picnic tables next to a creek. I took a little photo with my phone of the store inside which you must admit is some damn charming:

And then here is Massie looking devious and Lisa about to purchase blueberries and sugar plums.

The food was delicious--omelets with fresh herbs and cheese, big mixed green salads--but I was most enamored by the lovely jars of iced mint tea with mint leaves sticking out of them, not to mention the fresh squeezed lemonade with lemon slices floating in it.

We also saw Harry Potter and I almost died of boredom, and LIsa and I went and got manicures and massages. We'd made massage appointments together and when they actually led us into the same room we realized they were giving us a COUPLES MASSAGE and we said well ok, I suppose it is a bonding experience.

Oh and Saturday night I drove mahself up to Annandale-on-Hudson to Bard College where the Labyrinth Theater is having its summer workshop intensive and where my brilliant friend David Bar Katz's new play was being workshopped, and it's a closed thing but as I was nearby and had read bits of the draft, etc., he decided I could just come anyway, and it was really very cool... I mean lots of things were cool about it (and the play, The Atmosphere of Memory, might be one of the best things I've seen of his -- so hilarious and smart!!), but after spending weeks and weeks working so intensively on this novel, which could not be a more solitary process, it was so cool to see this new piece of David's come to life right there in front of me with actors and directors and this whole audience of company members--maybe 100 were there?--all so deeply invested in each other's work, watching. And clapping and hooting and just generally being a theater company. And David had written several characters specifically for specific actors, and to see those actors bringing characters so tailor made for them to life was pretty magical, especially seeing the chemistry between David Deblinger and Michael Stuhlberg, both great but very different style theater actors Id seen act in David's stuff before, and then seeing the very astonishing Ellen Burstyn read the main female role. I should also mention I was in a room filled with actors I recognized from my favorite show LAW AND ORDER, and I'm sure many other wondrous things but what can I say I love me some Law and Order (actually David's last play reading had Eric Bogosian in it and I totally appalled David by being impressed by his LAW AND ORDER CI cred rather than all the other great stuff he'd done), which was cool. Oh and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, of course, and I have to say that in person, in that warm, rich, creative environment, that man was much more glowy and handsome than I ever done seen him on film. Another thing I have to say is that by now, having read several of David's plays in draft form before seeing them performed in workshop/reading and then production type scenarios, it is much impressed on me how lines that seem to work on paper or seem to not work on paper... how much of that is in the actor's hands. A few times I've been critical of lines that David then told me would work on stage, mainly because of David Deblinger, and then lo and behold they totally would.

The end.