Along with parodies, which I’ve always been fond of, I’m also a collector of odd covers and mashups. So I was delighted this morning to see this, courtesy of gridlore
“But you get the same level of consideration, trust, and respect. And you didn’t even have to take your clothes off.”
This was a random ED pharm spam, nothing to really distinguish itself from any of the other few that manage to slip past my defences. But the subject line of this one did catch me before I deleted it:
“How Can You Tell If Your Girl Is Satisfied (Sexually)?”
My immediate, somewhat bemused reaction: “Uh….she tells me?”
Seriously, maybe I’ve just been lucky with my partners, but it’s not that hard to tell that you’ve done a good job. Especially if your partner is someone you, y’know, have conversations with that feature polysyllabic words.
The latest version of Aphelion Webzine has gone online. I really ought to do a better job of pimping it here, because i know there’s a lot of folks reading this who would probably enjoy it.
- What is Aphelion?
Aphelion is an original fiction fanzine that has been published on the web since 1997. It was started by Dan Hollifield (vila_resthal) when the webzine he’d been contributing to went dark, and has been published mostly monthly ever since. I have been involved with the technical direction of Aphelion since it’s inception, have written semi-regularly for it, served a tenure as the Serials editor, and currently serve as its Features editor. Aphelion is entirely fan-run and self-funded. Because it is unable to be a paying market, it also has no advertising nor requires any subscription. - What kinds of things will I find there?
Aphelion publishes original science-fiction, fantasy, and horror, along with poetry and filk lyrics and non-fiction articles and essays of interest to its principle audience. In an average issue, you will find 2-3 pieces of long fiction, a dozen or so short stories, 6-10 poems, and a couple of book reviews, film reviews, essays or other non-fiction material. - When does it come out?
Like many fan-produced periodicals, deadlines tend to be honoured more in the breach than the observance, but the new issue generally hits the net sometime around the first Sunday of the month. It is rarely as late as the second Sunday of the month. Currently, Aphelion publishes 11 issues a year. There is no new issue in January, but Feburary features the editors choices of the best of the previous year.Livejournal users can be alerted to new issues at aphelionfeed, or you can subscribe to our RSS feed with your favourite RSS reader.
- So what is it for?
The primary purpose of the zine is to give writers a chance to flex their imaginations, put their work in front of an audience, and hopefully get feedback. There is a forum where we encourage people to comment on the stories and features in that month’s issue, and try to foster a dialogue between the writers and their readers (most of whom tend to be fellow writers). It is the fondest wish of Aphelion’s editors to lose their best contributors to paying markets.So please drop by and give it a look. And if you read something that you like – or something that you didn’t – drop by the forum and leave a comment. Everyone who puts their stuff on the line there wants to hear from you.
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is….tradition!
It has been our custom, in recent years, to celebrate kitanzi‘s birthday with a trip to the Georgia Renaissance Festival, though we missed it last year (ultimately getting our ren-fix at King Richard’s Faire in Massachusetts). There were solid reasons to consider not going this weekend (I’ve been having some trouble with my hip and the faire involves a lot of walking), but I’m tired of coming up with reasons not to do enjoyable things, so I elected to uphold the tradition. Besides, late April really is the best time to go for Georgia’s faire — it’s early enough in the season that the weather tends to be a bit cooler. This year we were graced with nearly perfect conditions — slightly cloudy, breezy and warm but not hot.
We took off early from home, aiming to hit the gates at opening. We detoured by Ikea to pick up our friend Alice, who was spending the day with us, and headed south…down the wrong interstate. This is what happens when you don’t take the GPS because you know where you’re going, but the conversation in the car is more interesting than navigation. *blush*
The crowds were noticeably thinner this year than in the past; I have no doubt the economy is biting luxury entertainment like RenFaires pretty hard. We wandered in and out of shops, picked up some brunch from one of the food vendors, and sat and watched people go by for a while while we contemplated what shows we wanted to see. There was some new stuff at the Faire this year, and some people noticeably missing. Most conspicuous in their absence were The Lost Boys; in fact, there were very few musical acts on the grounds this year. Three Quarter Ale and Groghat shared the tavern stage, and besides them, there were none of the more traditional musical acts there.
There was, however, one rather astonishing non-traditional musical act. Cast In Bronze featured a single performer playing a four ton carillon which was simply awesome to behold. Most of his act featured recorded backing tracks, onto which he’d add a dizzying array of bells and chimes. When he started into “Tubular Bells”, I nearly fell off my bench. Great stuff.
kitanzi: Can you imagine playing something like that?
autographedcat: Hard to set up in the filkroom, though.
The other event which was new to us was All The Kings Horses, an absolutely stunning display of dressage featuring a trio of stallions (one Lipizzan, one Andalusian, and a black beauty whose lineage I am unsure of — plus an American-bred miniature named “Goliath”). The performance was a wonderful combination of artistry and horsemanship, and I wish I’d had time to go back and catch their show again before we left that day.
We stayed until after 3pm, which was later than we’d originally thought we might, and headed back to the car just as the rain started to roll in. After dropping Alice off at Ikea, we headed home for a relaxing evening with takeout from the Greek place on the corner and a couple of episodes of QI.
Not a bad way to spend the weekend, if’n I do say so myself.
From today’s random lunchtime conversation with eloren:
- eloren:
- Shall we go?
- autographedcat:
- Nah, let’s stay here for the rest of the day.
- eloren:
- I agree with you in prinicple. In reality…
- autographedcat:
- Reality bites.
- eloren:
- Yes, it does
- autographedcat:
- Reality bites. Sounds like an appetiser. <announcer voice> New, Reality Bites. Small nuggets of reality, breaded and deep fried, and served with a dipping sauce.
- eloren:
- I’m not sure what you’re selling, but I don’t want any.
- autographedcat:
- But the sauce is awesomesauce.
- eloren:
- I was hoping it would be the tears of my enemies.
- autographedcat:
- The tears of our enemies is one of the primary ingredients of awesomesauce.
- eloren:
- Oh, well, that’s ok then.
- autographedcat:
- If you didn’t mix in the tears of our enemies, it would be awesomepaste.
- eloren:
- And that’s not appetising at all.
I adore eloren. Just sayin’
Everyone else posted links to Jonathan Coulton’s “First of May”, a song I truly love, so I figured I didn’t need to. But then redaxe posted THIS, and I had to share it.
NSFW, obviously:
I take a pause this morning to remember two friends, both of whom are gone from our lives far too soon.
Canadian filker John Caspell passed away suddenly, while recovering from a motorcycle accident. I wish I could say I knew him well, but I never really got the chance. But he was always a warm and friendly presence at any convention I saw him at, and I will miss hearing him in circles. He was very dear to many people who are dear to me, and I will miss him.
Fantasy author Tom Deitz was one of the first people I met when I moved to Athens in 1989. He was an old college friend of stars_and_magic, and was a fixture at the frequent parties and gatherings we attended. He suffered a heart attack some weeks ago, and never fully recovered. He had a very wry sense of humour that I always appreciated.
Well, not *that* young, but…
I mentioned in my last post that I found I still had a large assortment of Gafilk photos to upload. When I actually set about doing this, I was astonished to discover that not only did I have Gafilk photos I had never uploaded, but in fact photos from last year’s OVFF as well. So I’ve gone through them all, cleaned them up a bit, and uploaded them for your enjoyment:
Ohio Valley Filk Festival 2008
Georgia Filk Convention 2009
There are a lot fewer photos from Gafilk this year, because I spent most of the weekend running around putting out little fires, but I did manage to get to a couple of concerts with my camera. (I attended bits of other programming, I just didn’t have the lens with me.)