Owls' Court

Irony

Going through the Chapter From Hell, I am discovering rare positive notes from the copy-editor sprinkled throughout the chapter. It’s a new thing; they have not appeared in the other chapters.

I am highly amused, as these notes in fact compliment the rituals and information I wrote in response to the publisher's plea to fill in whatever gaping holes the author had left unaddressed after the original request for a rewrite.

It’s now official, and has been proven: I write well. I have been complimented by an impartial, qualified reader in a double-blind test.

Go me!

Curse You, Microsoft

Argh! Word has crashed thanks to Track Changes yet again. At least now I automatically hit Save after every major edit. I keep having to reboot the damn computer to access the document again, though. I'm so close to being done with it - so close! Just the hundred-page Chapter From Hell to clean up and rewrite!

I had tea with an old friend this morning, which was a lovely way to start the day. If I'd plunged right into editing, I think I'd be suicidal by now.

Hellboy

The four-word review:

They got it right.

Yeah, sure, they took a few liberties with the stories in order to make a unified two-hour plot, but they got it right.

The characterisation, the art direction, the cinematography, the music (who the heck is Marco Beltrami anyway?), the pacing, the editing...

I find myself flipping through the calendar to figure out how many days I have to wait before the film premieres in general release so I can see it again.

A colleague sitting next to me at the advance screening said at the end that it wasn't as good as X-Men, but I disagree. This is the most realistic superhero-type-genre film I've seen, with a better script. But they're apples and oranges, really. This is, well, dark comedy/occult/action. I'm a fan of dark comedy and the occult, and hey, well-done action's all right too, if it has a purpose.

It was a geek reunion at the advance screening too, with a significant portion of old clientele from the four-years-defunct F/SF bookshop at which I used to work in attendance.

All in all, it was a wonderful day, what with speaking with my author of the Pacific coast and confirming a major amount of the revisions in the first half of the manuscript, beautiful weather, seeing my goddaughter, taking my husband out to dinner, seeing a fantastic film, and having coffee with friends afterwards. I haven't felt so good in ages. And of course, none of this would have been possible without Debra, who gave us the movie pass! You made my day, and quite possibly my week. Maybe even my month.

Tips for Aspiring Authors

When an editor asks you for a more sophisticated tone, simply using more ten- and fifteen-cents words instead of perfectly good five-cent words will not achieve this for you. "Utilise" instead of "use," "perceive" instead of "see," and "ponder" instead of "think about" merely clutters up the prose for the reader. Get to the point. A thesaurus is a useful tool for a writer at times, yes; however, your reader shouldn't have to use one to get through your book. Sophistication arises from how you approach the subject, not the words you use to discuss it.

Thanks.

We had two people over

We had two people over last night for dinner.

We had to call Skippy and borrow chairs for the dining room table, because we only have two.

Hmm. Evidently we don't do sit-down dinners for our guests very often, or we'd have noticed this lack sometime over the past thirteen months.

Note to self: Invest in two more chairs for the dining room table to avoid looking like a dork in the future.

Takes Cleanse and Consecrate to a Whole New Level

Hail, powers of DayQuil, conqueror of sinus infections, cold, and flu.
I invoke the powers of Pseudoephedrine Hydrochloride, Dextromethorphan Hydrobromide, and blessed Acetaminophen.
With your might I banish infection and congestion, muscle ache and sore throat.
I invite the ability to breathe clearly and to edit a whole page of this manuscript without coughing so hard that I see spots.
For the good of all (and I really mean it), and with harm to none (because I wouldn't wish yet another cold on anyone this spring),
So mote it be.

(Yeah, this wretched cold is courtesy of my husband, who feels appropriately guilty. Nothing's stopping me from seeing the advance screening of Hellboy tonight, though -- nothing, I tell you!)

Straitjacket Memo

I just sent my first official blunt memo to the author with whom I'm working, along with a list of necessary rewrites. I sent a more forgiving draft to my publisher, but she suggested some changes which gave the author no room in which to wiggle - and I thought I had been blunt!

Check this out:

In its current state, the manuscript is not acceptable for publication, and this memo is to help guide you in making the necessary revisions needed to get a salable, reliable book on the shelves. As the first book in this series, it is of utmost importance that we have solid, well-researched information included in the text.

Woo. I'd said something along the lines of, With your close attention to the issues outlined in the attached memo, we will finally be able to produce a solid manuscript for production.

Apparently the agent had been harassing the publisher for the list of rewrites today. To this, I say: well, if the author had gone through them the first time we sent the manuscript back to him with queries for clarification and rewrites and additional material, he wouldn't be in this horrendous time crunch.

I've spent the day fixing three-quarters of the rewrites myself; I was considering doing more and chancing the author's continued screw-ups less, but as my publisher pointed out, hell no; let the author sweat, and don't give him an inch, since he's already taken a mile.

So there we have it. I'm glad to be done with it for the day; I became so frustrated near the end that I threw my mouse in a blind rage when Track Changes didn't comply with what I wanted it to do. I'm achy and shivery and I think I've exhausted myself. I just had a relaxing bath, I've taken some Dayquil, and now I'm going to go curl up in bed and try to fight off whatever's suddenly attacking my immune system.

As I’m a consultant for

As I’m a consultant for an American publisher, I naturally get paid in cheques drawn on an American bank. I must present these in person in order to deposit them. Today I went to my local branch to deposit the hefty cheque retaining my services as imprint specialist for one year.

I was told they had to hold the cheque for twenty-five business days.

That’s five weeks.

When I dared to ask why, and told them I’d had no problem depositing the last cheque from this particular company four months ago, I was informed that perhaps my branch would let the cheque through, since they knew me personally, but this branch could not help me.

So off to the West Island I travelled, and learned that the cheque has to be frozen for five weeks for three reasons:

(1) The bank currently has no employment record for me on file.
(2) It’s a US cheque.
(3) My current financial profile flags a transaction like this as dangerous.

Of course the bank has no employment record on file – I’ve been freelancing for the past two years. The teller was much more helpful than the last one; she helped me make an appointment for a financial review to upgrade my bank privileges, processed the cheque, froze the majority of it but left five hundred dollars clear so I’d at least have some money available, and explained that the successful deposit of the last US cheque was a fluke that should have flagged the system as well.

I’m a bit grumbly, as it’s taken six weeks for this cheque to get to me from the moment it was printed, and now it will take another five weeks before I can actually officially have the money. I understand that the bank has safety precautions, but still, it grates that I pay them for inconveniences like this. Sometimes I really think that keeping my money in an old sock where I can get my hands on it when I need it, and no one can charge me for the privilege of using my fortune for their own investment, is the solution.

Jam

Today was the weekly writing jam I participate in, where three of us get into the same room and hunch over our laptops, typing madly. It's creativity insurance: for at least one afternoon each week, we get some writing done, because if the sound of your fingers hitting the keys ceases, someone bullies you into starting again. ("No retreat, no revision, no regret!" Ceri announced during a writing lull this afternoon. "No words," t! replied succinctly. This is funny on several levels, for t! is the original author of the writer's threefold war cry Ceri quoted. If you know t! in any way, you also know the idea of having no words is a paradox in his world.) Last week Ceri worked on developing content for her web site, and this week I decided that since I'd been uploading a ton of stuff to Owldaughter, I'd take her work as inspiration and use the afternoon to work on some sort of introduction for the spirituality section. I pulled off fifteen hundred words this afternoon, which wasn't bad at all. Then tonight, after my husband went to bed, I pulled off another seventeen hundred. That brings my total to just over 3,200 words for the day.

Awesome.

I also got another couple of chapters of the manuscript edited. Tomorrow morning I'll draw up the editorial memo, run it past my contact at the publisher, then send it and the first third of the book off to the author.

Making progress, yes, indeed...

Surrealmuse takes a look at

Surrealmuse takes a look at art in several different ways. Her subtitle was what really caught my attention: When the muse is alive in anyone, they become an inventive, searching, self-expressing creature.

I found this paragraph in Art & Spirituality:

I envision God as another fellow artist, the master artist with a touch of scientific knowledge, but an artist all the same. Who else but an artist would create such beautiful scenic beaches and mountains? With the same token, the dark side of God’s artistic vision is illustrated in the creation of angry, fiery volcanoes. But God also has a sense of humor, who else could create a platypus?

I thought that might get your attention. Enjoy the site, and think about how your own creativity conveys your spirituality.

Hardball

My publisher called again. They now have me editing the whole project, but working directly in tandem with the author. Apparently the lack of response to the first round of serious queries is unlike the author, according to the agent, so we're giving him another chance. My plan is to edit most of it and hand him selected rewrites as I go through the chapters.

I'm still unclear on how an author can hand in an unfinished manuscript with the assurance that it will be fixed it in rewrites, then when the rewrite requests are sent to him, only address a small percentage of the easier rewrites. It might have been something like the author sending us an earlier draft by accident, but this has now happened more than once.

Whatever. We're driving this one home one way or another. I received my imprint specialist contract and cheque in the mail yesterday, so that's going a long way to making me tolerant today.

werk

I just got a call from my publisher. My bid to rewrite the first book in the series for which I'm consulting has been accepted -- sort of. They're splitting the project up: the regular copyeditor answers all the obvious (and snarky) queries she put in for the author to clean up, and I get The Ultimate Chapter From Hell to change, alter, rewrite, and otherwise make professional and appropriate.

It's not the answer I was hoping for, but I'll take it. This abnormally long chapter constitutes a third of the book, after all. Dividing the rewrite gets things done twice as fast, and this project is already late; it ought to have been in production by now.

So Where's the Ground-Breaking Part?

Any time Philip Heselton's Wiccan Roots wants to stop quoting and re-hashing Jack Bracelin's 1960 bio of Gerald Gardner, it can go right ahead. I'd rather read something original than a secondary text. Heselton acknowledges in his foreword that Bracelin's book is a key text and that he quotes frequently, but really, the first two chapters do nothing to advance the scholarship of the field. So far the analysis is weak and pointless, and it's just a string of quotes from other books.

This book is supposed to be ground-breaking. I keep waiting for the ground-breaking part. I may only have finished two chapters, but readers are gained are lost through a first chapter alone.

Mmm. There's a lemon bun

Mmm. There's a lemon bun left over from yesterday's spring ritual.

Mine!

In another one of those

In another one of those synchronous miracles that really isn't because I believe that we create our own coincidences, I taught a class yesterday that compared and contrasted group work with solitary worship, and the students asked very perceptive questions about the group mind and how it forms. Then I came home to a ritual with my new still-gelling group which celebrated the group mind and the wonders of being an individual, while simultaneously being a part of something greater.

It was a fabulous ritual which took the concepts of balance (Vernal Equinox, equal day and night, God/Goddess), co-operation, frolic, and reverence, blended them together, and created a terrific experience through which everyone learned something about themselves and each other. And all this came from an individual who had never written/led a group Sabbat before. (I might be wrong, but I am fairly certain I'm not. If so, then the individual had certainly never written/led a Wicca-based rit for a group.)

Heck, yeah. The invocations raised chills, the raising of energy focused on control instead of quantity, and the whole thing took less than half an hour. That, dear readers, is a sign of a well-managed ritual. Focused, moving, thought-provoking, engages emotional-mental-physical levels, and doesn't drag on.

And every single one of us walked away with a new understanding of the words "spring" and "balance".

The group mind. It's the greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts entity/identity that arises independently from the regular interaction of a group of people. Your clique in high school had a group mind. Your family has a group mind. Your softball team has a group mind. A group mind takes a while to form while everyone gets to know each other socially and within the context of the group's performance, but when it's there, whoa baby, it's a powerful thing. Yesterday's exercise in circle did a lot to demonstrate that a group mind can not only be formed sooner with intention, but refined through attention and careful management.

I've also discovered one of the uses of a coven Book of Shadows. It's a HPS' brag book and scrapbook. Years from now we'll go back over it and say, "Do you remember the day so-and-so led such-and-such ritual?"

So yes: spring. The celebration of new beginnings. One of the affirmations used in yesterday's ritual was, "I'm glad you're here." I'd like to take this opportunity to say to my coven dedicants who have chosen to study with HRH and me: I'm glad you're here.

And, dear readers, I'm glad you're here too. After all, what's a regular literary exploration of words and ideas without an audience?

I found this phrase on

I found this phrase on someone's website:

Wicca centers around reverence for nature as seen in the Goddess and the God.

Except I misread the fourth word as "revenge". And you know, I had two simultaneous responses: the first, acceptance (well, yeah; I just so happen to work with two severely justice-oriented deities), and the second, a major double-take (people usually define Wicca as love and light and tolerance, blah blah blah, and forget that Nature encompasses both light and dark).

Revenge for Nature would make an interesting title for an environmental-oriented book on Goddess spirituality, though.

Gives New Meaning to "Pocket Book"

NOVELS DELIVERED TO YOUR PHONE: E-mail Opens New Possibilities for Old Medium.

Nowadays the sight of people passing time on the train by sending e-mail with their mobile phones is an everyday occurrence in Japan. This technology has now led to the emergence of a new and unexpected phenomenon: people reading entire novels on their mobile phones.

How... novel.

Tarot Inspirations

I keep a Hanson-Roberts tarot deck on my desk to play with when I get stuck on something. A couple of days ago I shuffled and drew three cards: Justice, the Empress, and the Star.

They're still on my desk, because something's been niggling at me. Namely, the fact that as soon as I saw the Empress, I said, "Ooh, Brid!"

Now, Brid is usually seen as a Maiden figure. (Paradoxical association has Saint Brigit being a matron of pregnant women. Go figure.) She is associated with the first stirrings of spring, creativity, healing, and crafts, among other things. The Hanson-Roberts deck (which isn't my favourite by a long shot; it's just slightly smaller than the average tarot deck and fits my hands comfortably) portrays the Empress as a golden brown-haired woman crowned with twelve tiny flames, gowned in a dress of brown-red, white, and soft blue, sitting in a chair that has a back with a large round headrest. The blue headrest is outlined in gold, and provides a frame for her face. Traditionally the Empress indicates a woman of mid-age, and is associated with fruitfulness, family, motherhood, abundance, progress and such things.

So my immediate recognition of the Empress card as Brid stumped me for a moment. Then I looked at the card again, thought about my research, and began to understand why.

I've been doing some key research on the concept of Brid as figure of Sovereignity, a representative of the energy of the land itself. In that respect, the figure of the Empress and her associations of fertility and abundance work quite well. The tiny flames crowning her head are of course associated with Brid's fire aspect. The blues of the card call to mind Brid's water affiliation through her healing aspect. The grain growing around the Empress is not only used to feed the people of the land, but the cattle and other domestic herds who are under Brid's protection also. The round disk of the chair back brings to mind the possible solar connection Brid has, as well.

If someone had asked me to choose a Major Arcana card to represent Brid before this happened, I'd likely have chosen only the Star. I'm a writer; I tend to relate to Brid in her creative aspect first and foremost. These three cards together, though, seem to show me the three sides of Brid: the brightness of inspiration in the Star, the fertile Sovereignity aspect of the Empress, and the rulership/warrior aspect of Justice.

A good writer and researcher keeps her mind open to possibilities. And since in my world I choose to believe that there is no such thing as coincidence, and since it was the Empress card that really jumped out at me, I think I'll be following this line of Sovereignity research for a while.

Howl

I left my printer paper and brand-new sticky tabs at work last night.

I think I'll go back to bed. Or make a cup of hazelnut hot chocolate and curl up with an Anne Rice novel or something. You know, the complete antithesis of academic application.

But They're Important!

I woke up with way too much pep at a ridiculous hour this morning. Got up, dragged all my notebooks and research texts and my pencil case to bed...

and discovered that I had only one coloured sticky index tab left.

Woe!

You cannot possibly imagine the depths of my despair, because you're not me. I'm a stationery geek - no, not as in immobile, that's stationary. I mean stationery as in paper and office products. Notebooks, pens, pencils, staplers, paper clips, Post-It notes, coloured sticky index tabs that you position on a page to indicate An Important Point You'll Want to Refer To Later.

These things have been my life lately. Yellow for references to the Brigantii tribe; red for references to the goddess Brid; green for healing references; purple for general goddessy stuff I'll work in later. Blue for whatever. It's a system. Every academic has his or her system. Ceri has index cards. I have sticky tabs.

When I'm stuck for inspiration, I buy a new pen. When I begin a new research project, I buy new coloured sticky tabs.

I ought to look upon this crisis as a Meaningful Milestone, namely that I've done so much research that I've come across a couple of hundred important points. At the moment, however, I'm just glum. Even promising myself a trip to Bureau en Gros on the way to work isn't brightening my day as much as it could.

Although I do need new highlighters; my current ones fade out after thirty seconds of use. And I need a new package of paper for the printer, too.

Well, fine. So I'll stop and pick things up. If I leave now. I'll have an extra twenty minutes to poke about before I have to be at the store for noon for my shift.

Isn't it ironic how when

Isn't it ironic how when we begin a cold, on our way down we hit a certain stage of illness where we operate at 80% efficiency and we moan about how I feel just awful, awful. Then when we hit the same efficiency level on the way to getting well again, we rejoice and say, Isn't it wonderful! I feel so good!

It's all relative.

I went out to pick

I went out to pick up a Coke at the corner store, and snowflakes kissed my cheek.

Even winter, on her way out, says hello, nice to see you about again.

After waking up with a

After waking up with a low-grade fever yesterday morning and exhibiting even lower energy than I'd had all week, HRH forbade me to go out for my Sunday afternoon class and ordered me back to bed. I slept until we had to leave for our scheduled dinner with my in-laws, where I sat zoning out in the rocking chair with a quilt over my legs. Matching socks after a load of laundry was pretty much all I could manage to do. Bless them, they fed me and lit candles in the living room and understood.

When we got home I caught the sixth end of the Brier final, assumed all was lost, and took a bath. I emerged just in time to see the tenth end, where Dacey stuck it to Ferby after something apparently miraculous happened in the three ends I'd missed. That final end was sweet and more than made up for last year's disappointment. I cried.

So today I actually feel human once more, thank goodness. After a week of not being able to do much more than sit staring at a box of Kleenex (a heartfelt apology to all my students, but I honestly don't remember teaching the two classes I did last week), I've touched base with my publisher, and I foresee a huge push forward on the Brighid book today.

And... I'm hungry. Glory be, I'm actually hungry. I'm so sick of tea and juice and water and toast that I might do something reckless today like have a piece of chocolate. Or a soda. I think my taste buds are back in the game.

'Tis the birthday of the

'Tis the birthday of the reknowned Tal today. There's the usual birthday thang over at the Irish pub. Thing is, it's a Friday night, and Friday nights are always busy. It's also St Patrick's Day weekend here in Montreal, known for its hard-core green insanity. And as the icing on the cake, the Toronto Maple Leafs are in town to play the Montreal Canadiens.

And me with my crowd thing? Yeah, right.

I've decided to go, then changed my mind half a dozen times now. I mean, it's Tal's birthday - I have to at least stop by. Downtown will be the beginnings of a madhouse, though. The pub will be solid people from wall to wall.

Why, oh, why didn't we think of this earlier? Why, oh, why didn't we act in a sane and reasonable fashion and say, no, let's celebrate on the Monday after?

My cold's reached the point of rare coughs. The coughs have given me a nasty headache, however, and the thought of walking into the loud pub in my state makes me whimper and wish for my head to be safely underneath my pillow. At least I'll be comfortable when I cough and split my head in two.

See? I'm firmly in the camp of No Way Am I Going at the moment. If I wait long enough, I'll think that the pub won't be bad, a cider would be nice, it's not cold outside, and go to put my shoes on again. And then I'll imagine the roar of music and voices hitting me as I open the pub door, and I'll cringe again.

I've just missed my second bus downtown. I wonder what camp I'll occupy when the next one rolls by in half an hour.

Updating

I spent the afternoon finally loading up the rest of the articles over at Owldaughter - Read as well as mirroring them at Owldaughter - Believe. I'd been holding off because, in uncharacteristically poor academic ettiquette, when I wrote my original articles I forgot to note down my sources. There was no way in heck I was going to post articles that clearly used sources other than my own brain and not cite them. So this afternoon I spent frustrating amounts of time sorting through Celtic reference sites, looking for articles that seemed familiar.

I found them, in the end, and I've posted pretty much everything to Owldaughter. My next project involves coding and uploading my Pagan book reviews, and submitting the review page URL to Witchvox as a review site.

I feel cross-eyed but satisfied with my work.

From an author's website: This

From an author's website:

This book focuses on 25 artists from the Untied States and 25 artists from 12 other countries.

Ah, the irony.

The cold proceeds apace, oh

The cold proceeds apace, oh joy; I'm at the hacking cough stage now. I mademyself take a walk in the sun yesterday and stopped in at the Co-op Vert to pick up organic ginger tea and a hazelnut bread, which is so incredibly delicious that it doesn't need butter. It has whole hazelnuts in it, and it's made with fine whole-wheat flour and molasses. Mmm.

Rehearsal last night was absolutely disastrous. It was the diametrical opposite of the previous practice: stumbling, wincing, and amateur. On top of it all, that guy who never shuts up kept talking behind me. I thought I would strangle him. The only thing that got me through the night was knowing that when I got home, I would have chocolate ice cream and watch Angel. Except when I got home, there were two episodes of Smallville back to back, and no Angel in sight.

I went to bed and sulked.

Tonight I teach the second half of my spellcasting class. It's certainly different this time around: I'm teaching two good Catholic girls who are interested in learning how to use magic within a Christian context. It's quite a relief to speak in the terms of one religion while doing this class instead of saying "however you perceive the Divine" all the time. It's also so nice to hear people say that they believe this power comes from God, and they seek to use it in a positive context. I always enjoy this class, and to be able to teach it without fielding odd questions is a lovely bonus.

I hate being sick.

Woke up this morning with

Woke up this morning with a chest cold, most likely courtesy of my original coven-sister, with whom I teach and hang out as well. Sigh. There's just no limit to her generosity.

Met with our new group yesterday, and initiated a round of feedback on the healing ritual that had been done last meeting. "We made our high priestess cry!" was the first triumphant comment. And yes, they did. They were good tears that welled up and flowed right at the beginning of the rit, as they pulled off a good solid circle and excellent quarter invocations. It was just so strange to hear it done by other voices. It was like a gift. And speaking of gifts, HRH was presented with a pack of variously-coloured stars to affix to lessons and assignments, as one of his common sayings as he teaches is, "Very good - you get another gold star!" It was a riot.

Happy 25th to Elim a month late; we hope you enjoyed your "quarter"-century ritual last night!

More witchy stuff:

Witches' Weekly question February 29, 2004: Incense

What incense flavor do you use the most?

You are making me to choose? La!

Honestly, it's probably a tie between my home-made kyphi resin mix, amber cones, and the Shoyeido Diamond sticks.

What incense type do you use the most? (cone, resin, stick, etc)

Stick, for convenience. I only use cones in the bedroom because the censer is tidier (and less likely to be scattered by cats). I use powder and resin on my altar, and sticks everywhere else. If the questions was which form I prefer, it's resin, hands down. It's a much purer scent, and the energy is spectacular. The only downside is the charcoal, even though I snap my tablets in half.

What do you use incense for the most?

To release a certain energy into my space. It also relaxes me, which is a nice bonus. There's often incense going on my altar while I work and research at home, which serves the double duty of honouring deity and energising the space.

Yet another ritual tonight, a very special one. (Okay, they're all special, but this one is special today, all right?)

I'm off to rub eucalytus oil on my chest and drink yet more juice. I foresee an afternoon of bed rest, wrapped in a blanket.

The Cosmic Clue-By-Four

I woke up at five AM and finally decided to get out of bed at six. This happens every once in a while, and I usually end up getting some serious reading and note-taking done. Lately it's been to my benefit, because I've been blazing through a pile of academic Celtic Iron Age archeological and historical texts.

It took me a week or so, but I managed to find my thesis groove again. Yes: almost four years to the day after I submitted my thesis, I realised I had another academic book to write. I have a nameless customer from the bookstore to thank for this one. She came in and asked for a book on the Celtic goddess Brigid, and I had to tell her that there wasn't one.

Then I went home and was hit with a clue-by-four. I've been a priestess of Brid for seven years. I've been a teacher for almost five of those years. I've been a writer for most of my life. Why haven't I understood that this book was missing and needed to be written?

So for the past month I've been jotting down rough subject outlines, researching heavily, running out of sticky tabs, draining highlighter pens, making pages of notes, and trying to track down little-known and out-of-print books. I'd forgotten how much I love doing this.

I'm fairly certain that my increase in energy is also due to the leap in temperature, however temporary it may be. There's more light, as well, which always helps. I cannot deny, however, that at heart I'm an academic, and the idea of curling up with a pile of books, pens, paper, and a cup of tea thrills me beyond the level to which it ought to thrill me.

I'm just a witchy academic geek. So sue me.

Finally, a review from someone

Finally, a review from someone who has actually seen Mad Mad House.

Yes, I'm relieved. If the word "hokey" is used and the show compared to Abbot & Costello, then I can relax and laugh. My fears have apparently not been realised. Sure, they're making fun of alternate lifestyles, but the show has evidently been produced with an Addams Family sort of humour.

I'll see for myself when I settle down to watch the tape.

Doing heavy magic on an

Doing heavy magic on an empty stomach is a bad idea.

However, doing heavy magic to the Matrix: Revolutions soundtrack is a good idea.

So is making scones aftwerwards. Nice and grounding -- both the making and the eating. Mmmm.

Wanted

Everyone seen the first Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban trailer? Yes?

The Wanted poster with a maniacal Sirius Black is pretty disturbing (ergo cool). I downloaded a still of it the other day for my desktop, and when I enlarged it I discovered something very interesting:

Yep. Those are Elder Futhark runes at the beginning of his serial number. Specifically Pertho (which means secrecy, hidden ancestral knowledge, and the mystery of fate), followed by Algiz (associated with protection and sanctuary).

I love my life. Possessing the knowledge that I do means that I can make the coolest connections.

Explain to me how it

Explain to me how it is possible that my stapler is mysteriously broken and all of my paper clips have vanished. The entire bag is gone. Poof.

Someone somewhere doesn't want me to work today.

NAGANO TO LEAD MONTREAL SYMPHONY

NAGANO TO LEAD MONTREAL SYMPHONY -- Kent Nagano will succeed Charles Dutoit at the orchestra

American conductor Kent Nagano has been named the next music director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.

The announcement of Nagano's appointment ends a nearly two-year search that began with the controversial resignation of his successor, Charles Dutoit. Nagano made a splash with the orchestra during guest appearances last season.

Nagano will step down from his post at Berlin's Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, where he has become a popular part of the city's musical establishment. He is also music director of the Los Angeles Opera and will take over from Zubin Mehta as music director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich in 2006.

The OSM has been without a conductor for a couple of years now, and Nagano won't be taking over until 2006. For the National Post article, click here.

Oh, dear. Oh very, very

Oh, dear. Oh very, very dear.

Mad, Mad House

When the proposal for this show came up last year I'd hoped it would die a quick death. Alas, it is not to be; the first episode airs this Thursday in both the US and Canada.

Kerr Cuhulain of the Officers of Avalon has issued a press release with his position which you can read here.

I tend to agree. People already give me sideways looks when they learn I’m Pagan, let alone Wiccan. A show that emphasises the freak aspect will do not much for the seriousness with which I present my spiritual path. It’s my business, yes. But I’m really tired of the media pushing the weirdness aspect. It’s nature-based, and encompasses reverence and tolerance for pretty much everything. It emphasises self-improvement and healing.

I am rendered speechless at the publicity stunt that author and witch Fiona Horne is pulling with her appearance in this show. But then – selling stuff is what publicity is about, isn’t it. It rarely has to do with truth. Granted, I haven't seen it (and I still haven't decided if I'll watch the first episode or not: do I evaluate the damage, or do I boycott?), but the material I've read on it over the past year has done nothing to calm my dread and suspicion.

And The Award Goes To...

I rarely watch the Academy Awards; I find them overblown, boring, and a waste of time. This year, however, I watched it all, simply because I wanted to see what would happen with Return of the King nominated for so many categories.

And lo and behold, it won every single category in which it had been nominated, prompting a documentary winner to open her remarks with, "I'm glad Lord of the Rings wasn't nominated in my category."

For those who didn't watch because they too consider the awards overblown, boring, and a waste of time, those eleven categories are: Makeup, Music (Score), Music (Song), Art Direction, Costume Design (yay Ngila!), Sound Mixing, Visual Effects, Film Editing, Writing (Adapted Screenplay), Best Directing, and Best Picture. That's a total of eleven, tied for the most awards ever won for a single picture with Ben Hur and Titanic. I don?t believe that this single picture deserved all these awards, not for a moment; I believe a lot of them were retroactive in a way, and signified an achievement for the entire trilogy.

Other awards I was happy with included Best Animated Feature going to Pixar (formerly of Disney, as Billy Crystal put it) for Finding Nemo. I wish Best Actress could have gone to Keisha Castle-Hughes for Whalerider, but it went to Charlize Theron for Monster. And since I hadn't seen a single other film in which a nominated Best Actress had performed, I wasn't in a position to argue.

Bits I was not happy with included one particular red carpet host, Chris Connolly, who is a perfect example of why they ought to test IQ before they let people on the air. Not only did he comment on the "epical performances" in Cold Mountain, he also later asked Jude Law what made the film "so Oscar-nominatable."

Gods help me.

Overall, though, the production was much more tasteful than I had anticipated. The clothes were certainly better than I remember them being in past shows. The humour was there: it was a stroke of genius on the part of the producers to have Adrien Brody present the award for Best Actress, and Billy Crystal looked out over the sea of faces early in the evening to say, "Everyone in Hollywood is here tonight -- it's like the Canadian Oscars."

For a complete listing of who won what, check out the official Oscar site.