BETWEEN

"When you hit those kinds of highs
you know you have to crash
When you hit those kinds of lows
you know there's a further down
in the hands of forces
you just don't understand."
- Graham Parker, Chloroform, from
Songs of No Consequence

I'm between and in the middle of books, projects, and much else. And for some reason I'm addicted to Graham Parker's song Chloroform, which I've been playing over and over again while I apply edits to the electronic copy of Shriek. (My laptop is on the kitchen table and I've got all the hardcopy pages spread out, along with my iPOD hooked up to a speaker system. 'Cause my freakin' office is too cluttered with stuff right now...)

I'm also eyeing and dipping into a few books, including the following (hopefully to blog about them shortly):

Dona Quixote and Gold of Ophir by Leena Krohn - Loved her Tainaron and am looking forward to getting into this one.

10:01 by Lance Olsen - Another cool, challenging novel from Lance, my buddy and former fellow PKD Award judge. (We used to call each other "Butch Cassidy" and "The Sundance Kid" while on the judging panel.)

Alanya to Alanya by L. Timmel Duchamp - An impressive political novel that I'm almost done with.

H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life by Michel Houellebecq - Very interesting and provocative, but becomes more ordinary the farther along one reads.

Spotted Lily by Anna Tambour - A deal-with-the-devil story. Unlike any such tale I've read before. I mean, this is "the shit" as they say, thus far. About 50 pages in and it's one of the most devious, sensual novels I've encountered in a long, long time.

Pleasant Drugs: Stories by Kathryn Kulpa - Kulpa had a story in Leviathan 1, also collected in this book. I've read three stories so far and enjoyed them all. Kulpa has a wonderful empathy for her characters without being maudlin.

"So where you gonna get your feelings from
after they've been removed?
Why didn't you see it coming, man,
from way down the pike.
There had to be a payback--
someone had to strike.

(Evil Monkey: "Man, what a great hook on that song." Jeff: "Parker is backed on this CD by the Figgs. Great stuff." Evil Monkey: "It does kinda rock the monkey, even when he gratuitously mentions monkeys." Jeff: "You might like his earlier stuff, too--like Shooting Out Sparks, Mona Lisa's Sister, etc. Love it." Evil Monkey: "Let's not go overboard, okay?")