Hummingbird wars

Two weeks ago a humminbird buzzed us on the back patio around sunset. That was the first hummingbird we'd ever seen in the neighborhood, and it came as a surprise. The oldest house here is merely two years old, and there are no mature trees and comparatively few large bushes and other plants to serve as shelter or food sources. This was flat, open farmland before. But since we saw that hummer, we decided to get a hummingbird feeder and hang it on the fence. The response was almost immediate--we didn't just have one in the area, we had at least four.

All four birds, I believe, are black-chinned hummingbirds. There is one male, and his black hood is unmistakable. He only shows up rarely, and usually when the others aren't around. The others are either females or immature males. I'm leaning toward young females. I'm also assuming they are all black-chins, although ruby-throated females are common to this area as well, and are practically indistinguishable from female black-chins. There may be a male ruby-throat as well, but glimpses have been fleeting and inconclusive.

They are very territorial birds, and one, let's call "Cranky Pants," decided the feeder was hers, and hers alone. Whenever another approached, she unleashed a stream of high-pitched birdie profanity and chased the interloper away. So we got a second feeder, and placed it at the other end of the yard. Now Cranky Pants works herself into a frenzy trying to guard both of them, darting to different perches to try and keep both in sight. It's highly amusing to watch.



Today was the first day I'd seen all four birds at once. The kids were playing in the back yard, and there was a full-blown hummingbird turf war going on. They ignored the humans present completely, even weaving between us on occasion. Indignant squeaks of rage. Wheeling, zipping, spinning aerobatics. Cranky Pants was not happy the other birds were poaching her feeders, and as she chased one off, the other two would swoop in and drink nectar until Cranky Pants returned and the cycle started again. One took to flying a loop around the house whenever Cranky Pants swooped in, getting a few good drinks in before her pursuer figured out what'd happened and came rocketing back. As you can tell, the whole dramatic scene is highly comical and entertaining.

This evening, a little before sunset, two of the interlopers arrived at a feeder simultaneously, while Cranky Pants was off chasing bugs or whatnot. The two hesitated a moment before giving the equivalent of a birdie shrug and both perched on opposite sides of the feeder and drank their fill. At regular intervals they'd stop and look around for Cranky Pants before returning to their meal. Lots of personality in these little birds. They were gone by the time I'd retrieved the digital camera, unfortunately. As the evening progressed, both the male and Cranky Pants returned to the feeder and I was able to get a few shots. The light was waning, so the male's pictures turned out grainy and pixellated, but Cranky Pants was caught in a few moderately detailed shots, as you can see above.

As soon as the apple, pear and plum trees get a little bigger, I'm pretty confident we'll have hummingbird nests in our yard. For now, though, I want to plant some coral honeysuckle. And get some better daylight pics of the birds in action.

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Progress begets satisfaction

I just made a great deal of progress on the revision of "Prince Koindrindra Escapes." This is the final, final rewrite, mind you. Unless I give it another once-over. But I don't plan to. Unless I spot some places where the voice of Koindrindra isn't consistent. But I'm hoping there aren't any.

In any event, at the end of the day, I look up and discover that I've got a mere five pages to go before I can pop this puppy in the mail to Gordon van Gelder at Fantasy & Science Fiction, and those five pages are those in least need of revision. Tweaking, maybe. A little dialogue alteration. That sort of thing. But it must wait for tomorrow, because tonight, I'm bushed. Still haven't caught up on my sleep from Aggiecon weekend, mainly because I've been up late writing every night. That's a good feeling, you know?

Another good feeling is the one I'm getting from this story. Don Webb said of it at Turkey City, "I am in awe." I told Joe Lansdale about it, and he said, "That's a story I'd like." So it's got an audience. Now all it needs to find is a market. Gordon, I'm looking at you.

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Lou Anders gives birth

Well, technically it would be his wife who gave birth to Arthur Robyn Anders on Wednesday. But I'm sure Lou would agree that it was a joint effort.

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Here's a depressing scenario for ya, Counselor...

As the semester winds to a close, the Science Ficion and Fantasy Society at Texas State has finished its business for the year, and had its last meeting until the fall semester arrives. The last meeting I went to (as I'm the staff advisor for the group, not that I do much more than sign paperwork for them), a number of the students there began talking about the various SFnal DVDs that were coming out, or that they'd already bought and watched. With no small amount of pride, I pointed out that I'd just picked up the complete season one box set of The Greatest American Hero and waited for them to congratulate me on my enviable acquisition.

The stared at me blankly. One eventually asked, "What's that?"

What kind of world is it that we live in where college aged students, supposedly intelligent and presumably versed in the history of the genre (comics fans at that) have never heard of Ralph Hinkley and the Red Jammies from space? Or have experienced Robert Culp's scenery-chewing turn as the crass FBI agent Bill Maxwell? Or Connie Sellecca's humorous turn as attorney Pam Davidson? I mean, come on! He lost the instruction book! That plot twist alone is legendary. The theme song was parodied brilliantly on Seinfeld (no, I didn't bring up Seinfeld, out of fear they'd also say "What's that?") and believe it or not (ahem) the episodes stand up surprisingly well 20 years (!) later. What really stands out is the chemistry among the three main actors, and how well they inhabit their characters.

Geeze. This kind of "What's that?" stuff is supposed to happen to old farts like Bill Crider, not me.

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Simple joys of discovery

Much to my delight, I have discovered that The Traveling Wilburys vol. 1 and The Traveling Wilburys vol. 3 will both just fit onto one CD-R. The albums are both long out of print and command some fierce bidding on eBay. This new two-fer disc I've burned allows me to carry them with me in the car without the worry of my precious originals suffering heat damage during the summer. This makes me happy.

What would make me happier would be getting a copy of The Traveling Wilburys vol. 2, the bootleg with Del Shannon's vocal tracks and other assorted rarities George Harrison reportedly let slip loose into the wild back in the day. Unfortunately, that's one disc I've failed to come across despite years of semi-serious effort. Ah, well. I'm sure some day Charlie T., Lefty and Otis will manage to grace me with some heretofore unheard tunes. After all, that's what Wilburys do best.

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Aggiecon recap the fifth

I know, I know. All the other bloggers finish their con recaps the day they get home, or, better still, give real-time reports from the convention itself. So sue me.

All that lack of sleep caught up with me, and I didn't wake until close to 11 a.m. Which means I missed two panels I really wanted to see because I had to check out of the hotel room by noon. I did manage to make the Andre Norton memorial panel, featuring Elizabeth Moon, Michael Moorcock and Martha Wells. The panel was Elizabeth's idea, and was very well attended. Norton had a tremendous influence on the genre, not just through her writing, but also through the help and encouragement she offered other writers. I haven't read much of her work, but that's a deficiency I'll have to remedy in the future.

I caught Moorcock afterwards and got him to sign my copy of Wizardry and Wild Romance. He confessed a certain degree of embarrassment about it, regarding the intro and afterword by Chine Mieville and Jeff Vandermeer. Moorcock praises their writing in the book, and they praise Moorcock in their companion pieces, so the whole thing comes off as a quid pro quo mutual admiration society. At least, that's Moorcock's take on matters.

With the convention winding down, I decided to skip the "Rate our Con" panel, as the concom already had been made aware of my concerns and criticisms. Instead, I hit the road back home, because in all honesty, while cons tend to reignite the creative fires in me, they're physically exhausting. And writing had become a renewed imperative, especially since Joe Lansdale admonished me to get off my lazy butt and start writing fiction again (after I confessed I'd been distracted by the siren song of reviews and other non-fiction work of late). Fortunately, that metaphorical kick in the pants has done the trick, and revisions that should've been taken care of months ago are falling away under the assault of my razor-sharp keyboard.

When I arrived home, I distributed the obligatory convention gifts: Keela got a copy of Neil Gaiman's The Wolves in the Walls, which she's made me read to her approximately 187 times since Sunday; Calista got A Circle of Cats by Charles de Lint and Charles Vess, which annoyed her at the end, because she wanted to know "What happens next?"; and Lisa got a Barbie, or rather, "Ken as Legolas" since I'd seen the "Barbie and Ken as Arwen and Aragorn" set a year before at a con and not gotten it for her, and now that set's out of production and astronomically priced. So at least she's got Legolas. And I got myself a copy of Steve Gould's Reflex, the long-awaited follow-up to his spiffy teleportation novel Jumper.

Then, with all of that taken away and my dirty laundry deposited in the laundry room, I sat down and watched the Tarkovsky version of Solaris. Interesting movie. It would've benefitted from cutting maybe 45 minutes of meandering, artsy footage from the beginning, but once the film actually reaches the space station in orbit around Solaris, things get interesting. And then I went to bed. The end.

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Anonymous editor discovers Hot New Artist

It had to happen sometime, and sometime has apparently arrived: the San Antonio Express-News has woken up to the fact that John Picacio, one of the great modern science fiction and fantasy illustrators of the 21st century, is a San Antonio resident. About time, too:

Picacio has been designing covers for almost 10 years, starting with the 30th anniversary edition of Michael Moorcock's "Behold the Man." He got the job when an editor at Mojo Press ran across "Words and Pictures," a comic book Picacio self-published with Fernando Ramirez.

The editor asked Picacio to come up with a cover illustration, but Picacio suggested something much more involved. He asked if he could design every aspect of the book's look.

"They agreed, and I had my first gig — cover, interior illustrations, down to the typesetting itself," he recalled. "(It was) a huge crash course in how to think about the book as a whole object and not just the cover."

It was a tough job, but by the end of it, he knew he had ventured down a new career path.

"I probably bit off more than I could chew, and I was hooked when I got that first book-cover job. I've never stopped," he said. "I liked the feeling of being part of a chain of creation."

That unnamed editor at Mojo Press is, of course, Rick Klaw, for whom Picacio did the cover illustration for his book Geek Confidential. But I guess the Express-News thought mentioning the gorilla-obsessed Klaw by name would somehow debase the article. Who knows? I'd rather hear Klaw's thoughts on Picacio than Lou Anders', but that's just me.

In any event, Picacio's damn talented, and sexy too. Makes me all the more depressed I failed in my efforts to convince Nebraska to get him to illustrate the cover of my book. I just hope he doesn't lie awake at night, fretting about that one cover that got away...

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