Tiki build-along, pt. 13

This is just a little update, but one I wanted to share because it makes me happy. When I started this project, The Wife and I decided the "tiki bar" wouldn't just be confined to the tiki bar area. Rather, the whole design aesthetic would spill out around the pool and into the yard to make for a completely immersive experience. Well, plans to put up a pergola last summer fell through because of life, but I did get some tropical plants put into the ground. Despite that small triumph, I wanted something more to make a statement that tiki doesn't just stop at the patio. Fortunately, I had a solution at hand. Early on, I knew I wanted one of those directional signposts that gave distance to far-away, exotic destinations. I decided the time had come. I picked up a 6" dog-eared cedar fence slat from Lowe's, laid it on the table saw and split it right down the middle.

Not only was it cheap, but cedar's a fairly rot-resistant wood. I used my jig saw to cut eight directional signs from the wood.

I used Google Maps to determine the exact distance from my backyard to the various exotic destinations. I sketched the names and destinations on each sign. Then I took the trim router and cut the letters and numbers into each piece of wood. I wanted to give the impression that these were added at different times, by different people in an ad hoc manner, so I used several different router bits and different writing styles on each one. Once they were all routered out and sanded smooth, I scorched several with the butane torch and scrubbed with a wire brush, just to accentuate the differences.

I stained some of the signs, painted others and left some in a natural condition. Then I painted in the lettering. Finally, I applied several coats of spar urethane to give it some additional protection from the sun and rain. I got an 8' pressure-treated post from Lowe's and coated that with spar urethane as well. Then I sank it about 2' into the ground.

Again, using Google Maps, I lined up the signs to be pointing in roughly the proper directions. I emphasize roughly. If you're going to travel to one of these locations, I recommend you double-check your own maps, because I only guarantee an accuracy of several hundred miles. But apart from that, everything else was pretty straight forward. I drilled pilot holes in the signs and post, then used outdoor screws to attach them. Voila! Tropical paradise direction signpost. I like it far more than I should.

I also stopped by an estate sale not too far from my neighborhood. It was out of curiosity more than anything else, because it seems this estate sale had been going on for more than a month. Turns out the sales company was combining multiple estates over that period of time. There was not a whole lot of stuff that was of interest to me, but I did find tucked in amongst about a thousand vinyl LPs of Sons of the Pioneers and Chet Atkins five tropical/Hawiian themed albums (Alfred Apaka was a Half Price Books find a couple weeks ago). It took me a while to get the turntable set up and connected to my computer, but I'm happy to report that the Apaka album has been ripped and after a little bit of noise reduction to reduce the hiss and pops, sounds pretty darn good. I'm particularly intrigued by the Marty Robbins album--I've got his boxed set, but it includes none of his Hawaiian recordings, of which he apparently made quite a few. Interesting. I suspect I shall be busy in the coming week.

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A thing that happened at BookPeople

This post is way late, but if you knew how hectic my life's been of late, you'd appreciate my getting it up at all. I found out Monday afternoon that I'd be taking Fairy Girl up to Austin, where Book People would be hosting a signing by Marissa Meyer. Meyer, it must be said, is Fairy Girl's favorite author. No way am I saying no to that. But it would be nice to have a little bit of advanced warning, so that my plans for the evening wouldn't be completely upended.

Despite my grumblings and misgivings about Austin traffic, we made it to BookPeople half an hour before the signing was to begin. Let me tell you, Meyer is popular. There were more people here for her talk than mine last year, which isn't a big surprise. But there were more than for mega-author Brad Meltzer some years ago as well. Fairy Girl hooked up with one of her friends who also happened to be a big Meyer fan, and they staked out their seats. While they were waiting, I tracked down one of the managers and ended up signing stock of my own book on the shelves. I was happy they even had my book on the shelves! One of the staff found out who I was and told me her father loves my Chicken Ranch book unreservedly, so that made me feel pretty good as well.

They opened things with a costume contest--folks were invited to come as a "Hero" or "Renegade" and many did--before Meyer came out. She was definitely an entertaining speaker. If I had to describe her in one word, it'd be "chirpy." She was bubbly and upbeat the whole time, and gave the rapt crowd a detailed account of all the false starts and abandoned incarnations that eventually led to Renegades. The recap is that she essentially wrote three terrible novels trying to launch a trilogy before reverting to her original idea. The moral of this story: Trust your inner editor and don't try and force something that creatively isn't working. On the bright side, she had some funny tales to relate during her signing.

The autographing line was long. I counted more than 70 people ahead of us, and that was after a half-hour wait in line before I thought to start counting. It was an impressive turnout. Finally, Fairy Girl got her chance to have her book signed.

Fairy Girl was so enthused that she crafted a scrapbook with elements from all of Meyer's previous novels included. After her copy of Renegades was signed, she kind of unceremoniously handed it to Meyer and stepped back. Meyer was puzzled at first, then realized what it was. And Fairy Girl took another step back. Then Meyer asked if it was hers to keep, and Fairy Girl took another step back. Seriously, the only way it would've been funnier was if she'd thrown the scrapbook at Meyer then run from the room at full speed.

Being the dad, I corraled Fairy Girl before she could flee and made her get in close for a photo with her literary hero. That's what parents do, right? But the entire evening convinced me that the local genre conventions really, really need to add a "YA Guest of Honor" category to their lineups. These authors are popular, and bringing them into the fold is the best possible way to reverse the "graying of fandom" we always have so much hand-wringing over.

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Friday Night Videos

There are a great number of talented and even legendary musicians who just don't do music videos. Or, if they do, some of their songs become iconic well after they were originally release and never became a hit. Heck, they might've been considered filler on an album somewhere along the line. Which makes it difficult to feature said songs on Friday Night Videos. This week, for example, has been damp, dreary and chilly for the most part, making me look wistfully at our pool and long for those lazy July floats, sipping on a passion fruit-infused hurricane. That, in turn, led me to think about songs evocative of tropical paradise, which inevitably led to John Prine's politically incorrect (but very funny) "Let's Talk Dirty In Hawaiian." All I can say to that is, thank goodness for Austin City Limits!

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Cinderella.

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World Fantasy in the rear-view mirror, pt. 3

After the Autograph Reception, I dropped off my books in my car then headed back in to find the parties. I asked around where the Tor party was being held, only to learn the Tor editorial staff--with the exception of Tor.com--had not come to this year's World Fantasy, and would not be hosting their traditional party. What's more, most of the other big publishers had skipped San Antonio as well. Baltimore was throwing a party to promote next year's World Fantasy, so I decided to head up there. On my way, just out of curiosity, I swung by the suite where Skelos held it's party the night before. The door was cracked open. Voices emerged from inside. Here, I discovered a quiet non-party in progress, perpetrated by Mark Finn, Patrice Sarath, Jess Nevins, Keith West, Rosemary Clement Moore, Lisa Rodgers and L.E. Modesitt. I only eventually made it to the Baltimore party for a few minutes, hours later. The rest of the time was taken up with this group, talking about everything and nothing in particular. It was calm, quiet, funny and a tremendous way to end the evening. I felt more refreshed as I headed home than I had at any time earlier that day.

I awoke Saturday morning feeling energetic and upbeat--a marked contrast from the previous few days. I was wary about moderating my panel that afternoon, "Urban Legends in the Age of Fake News (Engaging Our Theme IV)." I wasn't exactly nervous, as I've participated in many, many panels over the years at conventions large and small. But this was my first time to moderate at World Fantasy, and felt that more was expected of me on this particular stage. I needn't have worried. The other members of the panel, Cassandra Rose Clarke, Mark L. Van Name and David Afsharirad, were clever and insightful in all the best ways. I ended up talking more than I'd planned on, sharing stories of how a student's snarky Tweet morphed into a race war as online click-bait media sites cut-and-pasted the original erroneous story until Snopes finally called me to fact-check, and how a rancher from Cuero rejected the fact that her dead "chupacabra" was, in fact, a Texas coyote suffering from a hideous case of necrotic mange. Urban legends can arise from fake news as well as vice versa, and the human tendency toward confirmation bias and willful ignorance speed them on their way.

From here on out, the convention was a blur of highlights. The programming was exceptional, and more than one person commented on 1) the convention's lack of controversy and 2) that the 2017 WFC seemed in large part a positive reaction to the troubled 2016 edition. I can't argue with either one of those positions, and credit the hard work and long hours put in by Renee Babcock, Jonathan Miles, Mark Finn, Spike and everyone else who let this thing consume their lives for the past two years. I met some great new faces, including Karen Rylander, Jeffrey Shanks, Brit Hvide, Frederic S. Durbin, Brady McReynolds, Ben Monroe and a host of others whose names I've forgotten. I finally got to meet Meg Turville-Heitz in person after years of online interaction. I caught up with Damien Broderick again after not seeing him for too many years. The same goes for Ann VanderMeer, who really, really needs to make a side trip to New Braunfels the next time she's in San Antonio. I was amazed by Alan Beatts' impassioned, heartfelt speech at the most excellent Borderlands Books party. I finally got to hear my arch-nemesis Stina Leicht tell her Star Trek story (which I'd never actually heard before, believe it or not). Marhshall Ryan Maresca and L.E. Modesitt have vest collections almost as awesome as mine. I also came to the realization that when we have all turned to dust, Jess Nevins is the one who will be remembered and valued most by distant generations. I learned that Greg Bear can turn near-death experience into a very, very funny con suite story. I visited with old friends Jessica Reisman, Joe Lansdale, Kimm Antell, Scott Zrubek, Scott Cupp, Alexis Glynn Latner, Patrice Sarath, Bill Crider, Sanford Allen, Rebecca Schwarz and Adrian Simmons, but not nearly enough. A lot of folks complimented me on The Wife's photography I've shared online, particularly the underwater photography she's worked on of late. I had a bunch of people ask about my tiki bar build and when I was going to throw a grand opening party (how about June? June sounds good...). I had agents and editors express interest in Sailing Venus, and regardless of whether this was genuine enthusiasm or professional politeness, I'll take it. World Fantasy 2017 was very good to me, and I can't wait until the next one.

More photos may be found at World Fantasy pt. 1
World Fantasy pt. 2
and World Fantasy Awards.

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