Trip to Salem... and the library...

Whew... well, for various reasons, we got a late start to Salem, so I wasn't able to poke around Harrison's (the sci-fi and comic book stuff store I mentioned)... but we got quite a bit of walking in, taking pictures of several houses which played some role in the life of Nathaniel Hawthorne (he of the novels "The Scarlet Letter" and "The House of the Seven Gables", which was named after the home of some friends of his), including the school he attended, the house where his wife lived, and the site of the house where he was born (the house itself was moved next door to the House of the Seven Gables. And also the graveyard where his great-grandfather Judge John Hathorne is buried (if you know anything about the Salem Witch Trials, you might recognise his name: he was the judge who tried the alleged witches). Somehow, it did not surprise me that his gravestone has clearly been restored: there's a granite frame around the stone itself, which looks like it's been knocked down a few times, probably by fundamentalist fluffy-bunny witches of the kind who refer to the 1600s as "the Burning Times", the kind who can't put all that in the past and move on.

((Hope I didn't ruffle the feathers of any Wiccans reading this. I'm not above snarking at the fluffy-bunnies of all stripes, including the killer fluffy-bunnies with large teeth. The Salem Witch Trials can be chalked up to one thing: ignorance. I remember watching a PBS documentary which dealt with a forensic investigator who believes that the Witch Trials might have been precipitated by ergot poisoning, since a lot of the people who were apparantly accused of being witches or of being possessed by demons had eaten bread made from rye that had been contaminated by a fungus that forms on the crops if the growing season has been warm and rainy. People back then just didn't know what we know now about medicine, so they turned to whatever they believed in then. I can't help but feel bad for everyone on either side of that incident, not just the innocent victims, but also the perpetrators, for not knowing better, and not being able to see past their prejudices.))

Oh, and my mom has ancestors who lived in Salem around the time of the Witch Trials: that might explain why my mom and I are so drawn to that city. I've wondered how it affected them, if at all.

( A demon-hunter soulbond in Salem )

I might go back later in October, during their "Haunted Happenings", the city's month-long Halloween festivities, to poke around and see what I can see. One of the spooky touristtraps attractions was hiring, and I was tempted to apply, since it was right up my alley.

And once we got back, my dad drove me up to the town library, so I could take care of some books we had due: I renewed "Seabiscuit" (the book) for my mom, since my dad wanted to read it (after we saw the movie based on it, a few weeks back). And I swapped copies of "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" again: I suspect I'm the only person trying to read it, and I can understand why, sinc the book is so bloody thick. I also took out a CD of spooky sound-effects for Halloween... only to discover it's from Martha Stewart's Stepfordian line of stuff. Ah well, it's not a bad spooky sounds CD: I'm of a mind to copy it and use it at Halloween, if I can't find it elsewhere.

Things I didn't write about last night...

...because my head was splitting, or to paraphrase a funny metaphor from Neil Gaiman, my scalp felt like someone had attached it with roofing nails.

--"Supernatural" 1:03 (That's Season One: Episode 3): A leetle pedestrian, but every series is entitled to a slow episode; still, it was neat seeing Dean Winchester (who doesn't strike me as a kid-liking kind of guy) managing to make a connection with a scared little kid, kinda reminded me of the Hellblazer helping out a scared little kid in "Hold Me" (the issue Neil Gaiman scripted: I can't think of what number it was). Next week's episode looks *GOOD*, though I could just be biased since it's supposed to involve demonic possession. Let's see if the writers get it right and actually include some religious elements: even Buffy the Vampire Slayer used holy water and wore a crucifix. It wouldn't kill the Winchester Brothers to use some blessed salt and a few prayers from the Ritualis... It might even save their lives. Not to let out too many spoilers, but it looks like they're working eastward (I saw one press release that described the series as "a cross between 'The X-Files' and 'Route 66'); I'd love the writers/producers to bits and pieces if they set one episode in Salem, Massachusetts. They just might, since the producers have been considering filming some episodes on a blue-screen soundstage, ala the Rouge City scene in "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence", or most of "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow", in order to lower the budget, so they won't be having to haul the crew cross-country for different locations.

--"Anansi Boys": As good as I expected it to be, so far (I'm up to chapter nine as of now). It's more comedic than some of Neil's other stuff, and thus it's less dark than "American Gods" or "Neverwhere", which was a leetle disheartening at first, but it's grown on me: it's a deadpan comedy of errors. Technically, it's a follow-up to "American Gods", or it's set in that millieu, although the landscape is hopping back and forth between Florida and South London (and parts beyond this world as we know it), but the cast of characters (aside from Mr. Nancy) is completely new and likable. The pacing is a lot faster than AG, but that's only fitting for a deadpan comedy.

Stuff from today:

I made my mind up to write the fanbrat novel for NaNoWriMo (yes, that's a month away, but it's a good idea to start thinking about it). The idea came to me when I was browsing GAFF's "Gabbery" section, and someone posted a thread asking folks if any of them were going to try for NaNoWriMo this year. As someone replying to that thread said, "It's not a matter of writing 50,000 words in a month, it's writing 1700 words each day for 30 days." Very good way to break it down. I can put out that much, each day, if I set aside time for it. Thus I won't be renting any movies for that month, and I don't think I'll be taking out any books from the library. Hopefully by that time, I'll have the new computer (I'm gonna see if we can order it next week), so I'll have an incentive to get the thing written: I've made a promise to myself, in writing, that for every ~2,000 words of something sell-able that I write, I'm rewarding myself with an hour of gameplay in the You Know What.

And it's definately autumn now: the crickets are sounding rusty, and the leaves on the trees are definately starting to turn colors. Give them a couple of weeks to peak.

Let's hope the road construction ends soon: Main Street looks more like a freeway in hell, and it's just as nightmarish to try crossing. I had to find an alternate spot to cross on my way to work, since a steam-roller was chugging away at the spot where I usuall cross.