Charlie Jane Anders's Blog, page 33

Probably the coolest moment on my book tour was going to the...

Probably the coolest moment on my book tour was going to the Tucson Book Festival where I met Charles Wright, of Charles Wright & the 103rd St. Watts Rhythm Band. I got his autobiography and he signed it, and I got to tell him just how much his music had meant to me. And I gushed at him about this 2-LP set, Doing What Comes Naturally, which is inexplicably not out on CD. And probably never will be, according to him, because of rights issues. Such a great album. “I used to try so hard to prove my point. Nobody seemed to want to listen to me.“ This is early 70s funk at its best, and I only have a scritchy old vinyl copy. But you can hear it here!

Best bookstore cat ever! (At Aardvark Books on Church)

Best bookstore cat ever! (At Aardvark Books on Church)

I still can’t believe Prince is gone. I’m still mad about it. We...

I still can’t believe Prince is gone. I’m still mad about it. We should have had decades more of his music. He was just entering a new phase, and getting ready to turn our worlds upside down again, and now he’s gone. So many of his songs speak to me on a really personal level and change how I think about stories. The joyfulness and the anger of his work will never stop moving me. But I’m pissed that he didn’t get to show us what comes next.

Photo

When I was on stage with John Scalzi at the L.A. Times Festival...

When I was on stage with John Scalzi at the L.A. Times Festival of Books, we were talking about cupcakes vs. muffins, and this turned into Scalzi talking about the time he promised to cover himself with frosting on Neil Gaiman’s lawn if he reached 30,000 Twitter followers. This in turn reminded me of the time we organized a Ballerina Pie Fight (but I didn’t bring it up because I didn’t want the whole conversation to derail into frosting and other foodstuffs.) We had a dozen ballerinas, and had to make hundreds of pies – which was a whole process, involving an assembly line. Each pair of ballerinas had a pas-de-deux with pies, and then it devolved into a free-for-all. The whole thing was photographed by a bunch of great photographers, including the legendary Eric Kroll (whose photo is above.)

The way the Ballerina Pie Fight came about was because we needed a magazine cover. Annalee and I were putting out a small indie magazine called other, and every few months we had a meeting about what should be on the next cover. Every time, I would say, “Ballerina Pie Fight!” and everyone would ignore me. Until finally nobody else could think of a better idea, and so they made the mistake of asking me what I meant. I explained that we could host an event, charge admission, and get people to photograph it for our magazine cover. It would pay for itself! We lucked out, because we somehow got connected with Joanne, a movie effects wizard who had made 50,000 pies for a movie pie-fight once. She knew all the tricks, and making a few hundred pies was nothing to her. Recruiting ballerinas was also pretty easy, and we had a tutu-making party. But the CLEANUP WAS A NIGHTMARE. We put tarps and garbage bags over every surface, and it still turned out to be a huge operation to get pie filling and whipped cream out of all the surfaces. We finally got done cleaning the place at three in the morning – until someone looked up at the 20-foot-high ceiling… and saw frosting up there.

Afterwards, people kept asking me when we were going to organize another Ballerina Pie Fight, because that was so much fun. My answer was, “NEVER.”

I’m in Chicago tonight!

Sorry to spring this at the last minute, but I’m going to be in Chicago tonight. I’m doing my Writers With Drinks reading series in Chi-Town for once, at Martyr’s @ 3855 N Lincoln Ave, Chicago. Featuring Audrey Niffenegger, whose art is featured above! Plus author Luis Alberto Urrea, poet Roger Reeves, @MayorEmanuel creator Dan Sinker, comedian Kristin Clifford, and me! I will have books and T-shirts. Please come!

“I don’t deserve this ice cream,” he kept repeating with every...

“I don’t deserve this ice cream,” he kept repeating with every bite, until he started crying. “I don’t deserve this ice cream.” – All the Birds in the Sky p. 89. Photo by Sarah Ross

Two more of those freeway underpass tarot paintings: the...

Two more of those freeway underpass tarot paintings: the Librarian and the Reader.

The mockingbird, one of a set of cool tarot paintings under a...

The mockingbird, one of a set of cool tarot paintings under a freeway overpass at San Bruno and Alemany.

"The only love there is, is the love we make"

“The only love there is, is the love we make”

- Prince