K.A. Laity's Blog, page 174

London

:-)





Jet lagged but here! More to follow.

Anxiously Waiting

At present, it looks like the flight is on. We shall see things develop as the day rolls on. I realise that I never got a new camera after breaking the viewing screen on mine last summer. Hmmm. In the meantime, here's my theme song for the flight.









Wish me luck.

At Elena's

My company in the bedroom at Elena's this weekend: the orange mannequin and the gorilla in the wheelchair. Never walked into the room once without starting at the mannequin, thinking it was someone sitting at the computer. We had fun last night, drinking Bubbly Bisons (prosecco + Zubrowka) and watching The Women, yakking and yukking. Miss Wendy is moving away to Mississippi and it's the last chance we would all have to share such a night for a while, so it was a bittersweet. But we had some f...

BitchBuzz: Hate Facebook?

My latest column at BitchBuzz.com:



It's the end of the world as we know it! Where's Buffy?! She's averted several apocalypses (apocalypseé? apocalypso?) already. Cameron's behind this somehow, or Goldman-Sachs, I bet. Oh, wait -- it's only Zuckerberg?



For a minute there, I was worried.



Yes, as the guys at Wired have warned us, Facebook has you in its sights on the path toward world domination:

"Facebook has gone rogue, drunk on founder Mark Zuckerberg's dreams of world domination. It's...

Jane Quiet Returns!

Elena's got a new comic up at our Jane Quiet web jam page. Whoo hoo!



This is the start of the second issue or arc, I suppose we ought to say as it's on-line. Where did this start? I believe it was me combining Elena's love of drawing dancing babes, my fondness for Johnny Vegas, and a peculiar haunting.



And um, a little John Donne -- but you don't need to know that.



Check it out and leave a comment at the site.

Byron by Way of East Cheam

Ah, Hancock! Busy busy busy -- so much to get done this week before I run away. Somehow it will all get done, right? Wait -- wasn't the end of the semester supposed to be the end of stress? Well, I have a paper to write and a lot of tasks to finish; yet I'm thinking about a book trailer for Pelzmantel and what it should include...

It's not until things are broken...

...that you realise what they mean to you. The wonky window just blew out and smashed off one ear and one foot of my wombat.



I could blame the landlord for never getting around to fixing the wonky window.



I can blame myself for putting the wombat there on the window sill next to Ganesha (who, being more wise, escaped harm). All things considered, it was a stupid place.



I could blame my attachment to material things that the Buddha would tell me is the source of all misery.



I am sweeping u...

Pelzmantel: Cover with Lettering

Very happy! Doesn't it just look wonderful? Even the lettering seems to capture the magical feeling of the story -- I love the way it swirls.

I'm So Very Sorry (Maybe)

My latest column for BitchBuzz examines the gendering of apology, based on a couple of events you may or may not have heard about unless, like me, you monitor all media like a Bond villain (yes, Kipper helps):



Here's a study in contrasts: As our own Rebecca Thomson reported, there was a brouhaha about laddish mag Zoo's agony aunt/actor/footballer-wannabe Danny Dyer's 'advice' to a reader, advising him to cut his ex's face so no one else will want to date her.



After the Twitter flurry, the ...

My Students: Full of Awesome

Two grad students who are doing independent studies with me also made music videos to go with their projects. I don't think I can link to Kira's video on Facebook (a mash-up of Tipping the Velvet and the Brandi Carlile song "I Was Made for You"), but I can link to Caitlin's video for Lady Gaga's "Teeth" that encapsulates the argument for her paper on the appeal of much-maligned series like Twilight and Flowers in the Attic for young female readers.







They inspired another student to make a f...