Tim and I went to the Seattle Mystery Bookshop today to see Charlie Huston. He has a new book – The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death: A Novel. There weren’t a ton of people at this signing, hopefully because has another signing tonight. Charlie was really cool, talked to everyone in line, and was super easy going. He talked about the character development of Joe Pitt vs Hank Thompson. I asked him about any future work he might be doing for Marvel. Turns out he has been working on a couple of things for Marvel, but nothing has been announced. I also told him about the fact that he is the only person I written a fan mail to, and that I sent the email at midnight and got a reply from him at 3am.
This is how he signed my book: “Ed, No more midnight emails. Communicate at a civilized hour. Charlie Huston”
Please, go buy Charlie Huston books! He is awesome.
Go check out his awesome WebPage – PulpNoir
Link to his excellent Hank Thompson free ebooks!
My First eMail to Charlie – LINK
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Claire was laying some history down last night.
“Once there was a boy named Martin Luther King, Jr and he won the Golden Bell Prize… Gold Bell Prize… He was being good to everybody, but one person didn’t know about love and he shot him and he got killed and he went up to heaven.” – Claire. 7 Years Old.
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Vickie and I spent the morning at Gatewood Elementary School with Claire and Carter watching the Obama inauguration. Every class from kindergarten to 5th grade had a TV on. Carter’s class was fairly glued to the screen, I think even most 5th graders knew something special was going on.
My house as a child was pretty well politics free. I have tried to give both Carter and Claire an unbiased view of our political system… I don’t think I do a very good job.
There was one boy in Claire’s class boo’ing Obama’s address… While I may not agree with the lads politics, it is good to see that even first graders are given a shot at free speech.
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Claire went to a bowling party this weekend. She got a strike. She ate some cake shaped like a bowling pin. 7 year olds know how to party.
Carter and I found 4 geo-caches in West Seattle this weekend. We have a goal to find 50 this year. I think we can do it, but we are going to run out of caches that are within walking distance of our house soon. I really like walking from the house to find them… Getting in a car and driving to the cache seems like cheating.
Dig that crazy hair.
Knuckles
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I discovered Charlie Huston’s fiction in late 2007. I have read everything he has done, and eagerly await each new book. Next week he is going to be in Seattle with his new book The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death: A Novel…
One of my favorite things about seeing bands live (in tiny venues) is being able to go to the merch table after a great band plays and buy a CD or T-Shirt from someone in the band. I know a lot of bands support themselves on the road with these sales and it’s nice to hand a drummer $20 and know there is no record company taking 50% of it. I’m not sure if it works the same for authors, but I am waiting to buy the book at the signing. I know I could get the book cheaper off of amazon, but I want to get it from Charlie. I want to thank him in person for all the great books…
Go Read.
Go See Charlie.
Buy His Books.
Thursday, January 22
Noon
Seattle Mystery Bookshop
Signing with Tim Maleeny
117 Cherry St.Seattle, WA 98104
Phone: 206/587-5737
7:00 PM
Third Place Books
Reading & Signing
17171 Bothell Way NE
Lake Forest Park, WA 98155
Phone : 206-366-3316
LINK
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There have been lots of rumors floating around Microsoft about layoffs. The Mini-MSFT blog sort of kicked off the rumors. I took this picture today of new construction next to the building I work in. I did a little Tilt-Shift action on it, via TILTSHIFTMAKER… Gives the photo a kinda a diorama feel. That is some Mini-MSFT I can get behind.
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I have started out the 2009 with a pretty great couple of movies.
Gran Torino is Clint Eastwoods newest film is more of a redemption story than I was expecting. The film was also filled a ton of incredibly funny lines, lines that had a very Blazing Saddles fill. The movie is about a Korean War Vet, Eastwood, who starts a reluctant relationship with his immigrant neighbors. Eastwood was great as the actor and his direction was pretty good overall. If there were any performances that weren’t up to par, it would probably be the young Hmong neighbor of Eastwoods, Bee Vang. There was a scene that required Vang to really let go and he just seemed to be holding back a bit. Overall though, a really solid movie.
The Wrestler is the newest Darren Aronofsky film. Mickey Rourke plays Randy “The Ram” Robinson, an 80’s professional wrestler who can’t give up the past… Rourke was amazing, as I write this I am sure he is going to win a Golden Globe in an hour or so. Marisa Tomei didn’t win at the beginning of the Globes tonight, but she was great as his stripper girlfriend. I wonder how many Oscar winning 44 year old women would be willing to take a roll that required her to walk around nude for 3/4 of her scenes.
This film had some crazy back room VFW hall style wrestling scenes. Some of Aronofskys photography was so different from his last film, The Fountain, it is hard to believe it from the same director. The movies soundtrack was full of 80’s butt-rock classic artists; Ratt, Motley Crew, etc. The Wrestler has one of those endings that doesn’t fill in all the blanks for you… Go see it.
- Gran Torino
- The Wrestler
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BoingBoing posted a link to TiltShiftMaker the other day. I really like effect of Tilt Shift lenses, but couldn’t really see buying a lens to do these shots. There are also tons of How-To guides for doing the effect in photoshop. That is just too much work for me. TiltShiftMaker.com does everything for you. How awesome is that?
I popped in a few shots from our trips to California. Check it.
Big Sur Coast
Big Sur Coast. Tilt Shifted.
Vickie and Carter are in the second row on this ride. I think the tilt-shift effect works pretty well on this shot. Kind of looks like a toy boat.
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I kind of like this photo.
I took it on one of the few days that we have snow here in Seattle. There are a lot of Flickr sets of Macro Photography of toys. This is a UB Funkies toy of Carters.
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There are all these little milestones that happen with kids… First words. First steps. First skinned knee. First day of school.
Claire lost her first tooth yesterday. I still want Carter to believe in Santa. I want Claire to say Dwaa instead of Draw.
Time Flies.
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