One of the Forces which traverse the world of Archetyped! Also known in other parts of The Eastern Shores as The Pink Devastation, the Raver-Reaver, The Lady of Ecstatic Despair, and the Celebrant of Worlds’ End.

I generally dislike talking about my photos, particularly in a one-sided forum like now, but I am sort of bubbling up with conversations about this piece. I feel like I tapped into some part of me that lies dormant far too often.

Greetings from Continuous Labs, Mother’s premiere Mesh-to-Internet (M2I) translation specialists. We want to offer a special welcome to our new subscribers who have joined since we published our free fiction preview in honor of Tellurian New Years.

* Continuous Coast fiction preview!

For those of you who still have not seen it, visit:
http://www.continuouscoast.com/
where we have stories from Reesa Brown, Kit O’Connell, and Steven Brust, three of our fictioneers.

* Mediators Log

The Rabbit Roamers, a team of mediators from Port Outreach, continue to share their E-band communications with the people of Tellus using the Twitter service. You can follow them on their duties at:
http://twitter.com/mediators/

* Recent Voices from Port Outreach

Voices from Port Outreach is a group blog created by the nagara of Port Outreach. In addition to reposting daily logs of the Twitter feed, Voices features regular original content such as the following:

o Who is leaving stencil art around Port Outreach?
http://portoutreach.com/voices/2008/12/ … the-canal/
http://portoutreach.com/voices/2008/12/ … -outreach/
http://portoutreach.com/voices/2008/12/ … -probably/

o An interview with JH Mediator, dispatch for the Rabbit Roamers:
http://portoutreach.com/voices/2008/12/ … ranscript/

o Folk tales, Gurge Riding, and Dolphins with Fali Rider:
http://portoutreach.com/voices/2008/12/ … folk-tale/
http://portoutreach.com/voices/2008/12/ … -and-mods/
http://portoutreach.com/voices/2008/12/ … -dolphins/
http://portoutreach.com/voices/2008/12/ … every-day/

o An update on some city politics:
http://portoutreach.com/voices/2008/11/ … the-point/

* The Future

Continuous Labs is actively developing the project for the enjoyment of Zayzans and Telurians alike! The future includes an expanded Port Outreach Tourism website, a wiki where Tellurians can learn about Mother, and exciting artifacts imported from Mother.

Thank you for supporting the cause of cross-world understanding in the multiverse!

–
Continuous Labs are Mother’s premiere Mesh-to-Internet (M2I) consultants. We proudly offer the highest quality, most reliable communications between the world known as Continuous Coast and the people of Tellus, Saeresh and Vikkir.

If you are a musician, member of a band, or good friends with a band, please give me their contact info.

Specifically, I am looking for bands/musicians who:
- maintain a mailing list of over 50 people
- have released at least one album
- regularly* record music
- regularly* perform live shows

Please reply even if you think I already know how to reach them. Either use my business email address (the one connected to my website) or my Site contact form

*regularly = whatever your personal definition of regular is. Currently active bands, is my point.

The Silicon Valley of spaceflight – Feb. 23, 2006
If you want to view the entrepreneurial future of space travel, start in Los Angeles. Drive 100 miles northeast until you reach sun-baked Mojave (population 3,800). Head to the local airport. Don’t expect to see launchpads or fancy command centers–there are none to be found. Yet history is being made here: In 2004 the Federal Aviation Administration certified Mojave Airport as a civilian spaceport….

Comic Book Resources – CBR News – The Comic Wire
“All great British fiction is, at heart, about a miserable bastard.” – Warren Ellis.

“Wolfskin” is a three-issue miniseries, with the first issue arriving in shops this April.

Church Property For Sale

Oh, dear gods, yes. This right here, this is the dream. i could covert the pews into stadium seating and show indie films above the altar. There’s a commercial kitchen, and plenty of space on the various levels for the coffeehouse, the art gallery, not to mention my shooting studio, darkroom, offices, living quarters…..and even plenty of room after that for a bunch of my friends to move in with me.

Never mind that it’s a historic building. Never mind how much fun I’d have wiring the sucker up and redecorating the interiors. It’s a fricking R-4-zoned church, fer crying out loud!

This is why hanging out with my family is a bad idea. I look at this stuff rather than do work.

Anyone want to loan me a few million dollars? You could move in with me.

With some friends, dates are very important, and I can relate with glee the bizarre stories by which we met. Others, I haven’t the slightest clue how long I’ve known them, or how we met. It seems, often times, that they have been a part of my life forever, and I find the idea of ever having needed to BECOME friends with them a foreign idea. It’s strange, because I enjoy telling the stories (the **good** stories) of those bizarre first encounters, but I think not remembering how we met is a sign of greater friendship.

Bella Donna Reed told me that she was having this problem where everything happened two years ago. Two years ago, in 1998, I met the MoonHowler Kids, though all three of us insist we’ve been friends for decades. Shortly after that (but still two years ago), I met Sade, who later teamed up with Blue Beard. Then, about two years ago, I started actually hanging out with all these strange folks outside of the circuits we normally met through.

Unpaintable Canvas, Blue Beard and Too Busy For Anything came over for photography last night. It was supposed to be just UC, but TBFA’s cat died yesterday, and we wanted her to have company. I’m not exactly sure when BB and TBFA met (it was probably two years ago), but BB moved down to Chicago to live with her earlier this year, the summer after I moved here.

I still can’t quite explain the awesome power I feel coursing through my social life. Other people have felt it, too, this sense of an unmistakable gathering of Good People. We’re readying ourselves for the next apolcalypse.

I had coffee with Never Lets It Get Her Down while back in the Burgh. She kept telling me how much she enjoyed my stories, and was encouraging me to write them all down, make a book. I’ve been considering it: a seemingly disparate collection of stories, bits of fiction, and photography. Interestingly, I see those stories written in the form of short stories about me telling the stories, rather than just writing the stories themselves down.

In Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, we often encounter Morpheus’s vast library, filled with all the books ever dreamed of but never written. I have this idea silly notion, describing a dream in which I traveled to that vast hall and found the book waiting inside my own dreams. I awake, and write out this theoretical book as half-remembered passages I read while dreaming of reading the book I never wrote. This sort of circularity has always appealed to me.

And, odder still, if I never do write this book, then there is another book in the dream library, waiting. Or perhaps there is still only one, and this new vision trumps the old one?

It is a slow and sad day, I feel hung over from the intense social binging that was Thanksgiving. Like the painful Sundays following a weekend of rampant insobriety, I am listless, and barely able to move. Like an alcoholic, I call up a friend for a shot of conversation (two fingers of talk, no ice!) and bolstered by a swallow of the dog that bit me, I accomplish a few things. But not enough. Not enough to suit my tastes. I’m still wandering around my apartment, wondering where the hell I hid my Emergancy Pants.

Ah, ye cruel and mocking gods. Did you mean it to be such a torture, giving us so much to do, and see, and be? To hell with faith or virtue! Show me a man who can choose and I will show you the path to heaven.

While driving off to the Wednesday Night Thing, I suddenly recalled something half-forgotten. When I got home, I did a quick search of my harddrive. Surprisingly, I still had it intact. It occurs to me that there is an awful lot of good photography in there, and I rather like the idea of taking still frames for a story I never actually finished.

Some excerpts from Archetyped!, a graphic novel I never finished writing in 2002.

Act I (prologue), Summary:
Hiro arrives at a home, receiving a warm welcome from the Mother, the Heroine, and The Innocent Child, all three of whom live there. He is not a member of this family, but clearly intends to be a guest there for at least a week. There is a definite chemistry between him and the Heroine. Mother departs to kitchen, Heroine departs through front door on errand, and Hiro and child head into the living room. The child asks why the protagonist and woman aren’t dating. Hiro responds with a fairy tale….

CREDITS SEQUENCE
[the following voice over occurs as we cut to different shots of the cards]

Hiro: “Well, you’ve heard the story about Snow White and Prince Charming, right? Well, have you ever heard the story of Prince Caring? You see, before Prince Charming showed up, many others tried to wake Snow White from her long, dark slumber. I mean, Prince Charming just swept in and woke her up, pulled her into his arms, and headed off to Happily Ever After. But before Prince Charming there was Prince Caring. Prince Caring knew what needed to be done, but he wanted to wait until Snow White seemed ready to wake, wanted her to want to wake for him. So he stayed by her side, and loved her as best he could, and tried to wake her through a thousand other ways, never once daring to be so bold as to perform the one act he knew would work. Eventually, he realized that she would never wake for him, and though he despaired, he left. He left, and he had adventures of his own.”

Excerpt from Act II, Scene IV:
Hiro: [back in the present, sort of] I saw a medusa once who reminded me of you. I caught a glimpse of her through a window in the Ruins of Irem. It was only later that I saw her to be the monster you always described yourself as. It was the way her eyes sought for intruders but shied away from any she found. We stood for an age, unlooking, each fearing inevitable transformations. Did you know that all medusae were once women? Men poison them. Her head became so full of poisoned thoughts that her hair became venomous. What is it about men that cause them to hunt, with spear and net, such creatures even before they change? [Pause] Oh, Angel. You always did draw the poet out of my stone heart.

Angel: I don’t understand.

Hiro: It doesn’t matter.

Angel: No. I don’t understand how you got all of this. It’s supposed to be in my basement! When did you pick it up? When did you get back? How could you unpack all of this before telling me you were back! I thought you were dead. [coming to tears] I thought you were dead, and I had to pack all your stuff!

[She collapses, and he reaches out to her, although he is not as natural doing so as before]

Hiro: It’s alright. I’m here now. I’m back, and I’ll never leave you again. [lightly ominous] This is your home now.