Maria Alexander News and Updates from TheHandlessPoet.com

(HEY NEW VISITORS. Please read and comment on this article over at my new blog. THANKS!)

On Sunday afternoon, I was listening to KCRW, our local NPR channel, as I was driving to my Frenchman's house. I was drawn into a story being told by journalist Kelly McEvers about an "international private investigator, a bounty hunter and bail bonds enforcer" named "Zora", who had dreams since adolescence about being a super hero and made mega-lists of "things to master" by certain ages.

Zora claims that, by 21 years of age, she had finished her coursework for her Ph.D. in Geopolitics. She also claims that she had a list of skills to master by age 23:

martial arts
electronics
chemistry
metaphysics
hang gliding
helicopter and airplane flying
mountain climbing
survival
weaponry
rafting
scuba diving
herbology
CPR
first aid
mountain emergency medicine
throwing stars
compound bows
throwing knives

Kelly McEvers then says the following of Zora by age 23: "And the most incredible thing about all of this is that Zora accomplished nearly every item on the list."

Huh?

Zora's story doesn't add up -- not in minutes and years, and certainly not in finances. Zora claims her father is a professor at University of Minnesota. It's possible if her father is a professor that she could have gotten her education for free, but U of M does not offer a Ph.D. in Geopolitics. How then could she afford, even with grants, her entire education in addition to helicopter lessons and archery equipment? Was her family rich? She doesn't say, but it's not likely if her father is a prof. These are very expensive sports. Also, my Frenchman is a Ph.D. from Princeton. He tells me stories of geniuses who finished their Ph.D. in three years. BUT...these geniuses are only good at maybe one other thing, not twenty.

Yet, McEvers never questions this. She lets Zora tell us a story -- a fun story, one we wish were true -- that is just flatly unbelievable, yet lets it lay as if it were God's truth. It would be one thing if McEvers winked even briefly at the audience, letting us know that she knows it's all a bit too much. But instead, she gives Zora wide berth to weave multiple unlikelihoods without anything but a gee-golly narration. (Zora missed her calling as a fiction writer, truth be told. But if she's remotely as strong as McEvers claims she is, and she reads this, she might be inclined to hunt me down and kick my ass.)

To be fair, maybe McEvers took some liberties with how she pinned together a much-tamer story told by a somewhat adventurous person. Still, you'd think that she could, um, add.

I'm not sure why this bothered me so much this weekend. Maybe because this kind of "storytelling" in regular life causes too much heartache and hurt. Or maybe because journalism is already so problematic. The media is suffering so badly from credibility these days. Why exacerbate it, even for entertainment's sake? Lord knows, we've got plenty of entertainment these days from other sources.

It turns out that McEvers story is dated February 23, 2001. Less than seven months before 9/11. She created a great many of these audio stories for NPR since then, and for subjects about the Middle East that I know far less about. As a diehard NPR listener, I wonder what I've really been hearing. And how much of it I can rely on...

This study completed by the Peninsula Medical School in Devon is clearly, as they say, bollocks.

Chiropractic work saved my life. The Handless Poet would not be typing this blog entry pain free if it weren't for chiropractics. I've more often had physical therapy and orthopedists let me down than chiropractors. Only twice in the last 15 years has orthopedic treatment ever helped me, and that was these last two years when I hurt my knee. One was Dr. Kiblinger, an elderly orthopedic surgeon with a hopelessly ill-run office in the Valley. He'd worked with every stuntman in the business, so he had some idea how to fix a bone or two. (And, somehow, his office eventually cleared up all their confusion.) Certainly, I've had a couple of false starts with chiropractors, but I'd say I only met two who didn't help me.

So, sniff and raise your eyebrows, you orthopedic toadies, but you're WRONG. WRONG WRONG WRONG with WRONG SAUCE.

And speaking of British twats, this one thinks he was a Goth because he painted his toenails black for six months back in the 80s.

Please don't think this is general Brit bashing. I'm a HUGE Anglophile. I've been so since I was a little waify thing. I adore British people, British culture, even the British monarchy. I especially admire the Brits ability to "get on with it." I even learned my sense of humor from Douglas Adams as a teenager, and later whet my wit on Blackadder. But WHAT is going on lately? I can't get into some of the new British comedies. Little Britian? Not remotely funny, yet it's won Best Comedy in the British Comedy Awards for the last few years. The Office? Here, my blasphemies take wide wing, biscuit in beak. Honestly, I don't like it. I tried to watch the first episode and it fell completely flat. I tried it twice, in fact. I smiled here and there, but nothing about it felt as brilliant as everyone told me it would.

Have I lost my dry wit? My Ben Eltonesque ability to drown in the dark puddles of British irony?

I feel somewhat salvaged by the trailer for Kinky Boots, but I, the diehard Blackadder fan, would much rather tangle with something like Fry and Laurie.

Some of you naysayers will accuse me of falling off the edge of the comedic Empire because I'm in love with a Frenchman. Well, truth be known, as much as I love my Frenchman, I'm still mystified by the culture. Slowly I'm learning about French face saving, the importance of wine, and how they figured out snails were good to eat (and they are). But really, it's all quite murky. My Frenchman is hilarious, but French humor in general has got to be like Amelie and her jury-rigged lamp socket or I'm a bit left out.

(And to clear up a common myth, the French don't like Jerry Lewis. They liked the French actor who dubbed Jerry Lewis, who was apparently much funnier.)

Here I've gone from bone crunching to bone tickling. Please...I liked it the other way. Before whatever.

I can no longer help but mind the gap.

You could take this French cartoon and replace Villepin's face with Bush's:



The kitty ("minou") is saying, "The cats are against you even more now."

Alas, I wish the cats were against Bush. At least his shoes would be stained.

Alors!

It's been a relatively productive morning. Yesterday, I finally remembered to send "In Her Mirrors, Darkly" to Weird Tales. I'm busy with taxes and budgeting now, so I'm taking a short writing break. Monday is my first day as an official employee of Uncle Walt. My eyes are middling. The LASIK dryness is gone (hurray!) but the ghost images are still there. It's okay -- it's only been six weeks. I think actually I'm a little better because overall, even though it's still there, it bothers me less, especially on the computer.

I need to somehow put down the Cortazar and back away slowly so that I can do my Stoker reading. But I'm hooked! I'm a junkie! *slap slap slap* Gimme more o' dat "Blow Up," yo!

Can't. Too good.

I miss my book, OUT OF BODY, immensely. I can't wait to get back to it. Still haven't heard back from Writers House. I'm in stasis until I do. Because if they ultimately can't work with me, I've got Plan B, which I'm tellin' no one, no how! (Bwahahahaha!)

One more day of nominations for the John W. Campbell Award. Will I be nominated? Who said I don't know how to write suspense? ;)

So much great material this year! Two of my stories made this first cut. We'll see if either survives the next...

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SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A NOVEL

Play Dead by Michael A. Arnzen (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
Keepers by Gary Braunbeck (Leisure)
Dread in the Beast by Charlee Jacob (Necro)
Terminal by Brian Keene (Spectra)
The Demonologist by Michael Laimo (Leisure Books)
Grave Intent by Deborah LeBlanc (Leisure)
Blood Red by James A.Moore (Earthling Publications)
Creepers by David Morrell (CDS)
November Mourns by Tom Piccirilli (Bantam)
Like Death by Tim Waggoner (Leisure)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A FIRST NOVEL

The Hides by Kealan Patrick Burke (Cemetery Dance Publications)
Siren Promised by Alan M. Clark and Jeremy Robert Johnson
(Bloodletting Press)
Scarecrow Gods by Weston Ochse (Delirium Books)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN LONG FICTION

"Veil of Skin" by Maria Alexander (Blood Surrender)
In the Midnight Museum by Gary Braunbeck (Necessary Evil Press)
"Best New Horror" by Joe Hill (Postscripts #3)
"Wormwood Nights" by Charlee Jacob (Bloodletting Press)
"The Things They Left Behind" by Stephen King (Transgressions)
Pieces of Hate by Tim Lebbon (Necessary Evil Press)
"Some Zombie Contingency Plans" by Kelly Link (Magic for Beginners)
Zero by Michael McBride (Necessary Evil Press)
"The Beautiful Ones" by Michelle Scalise (Crimewave #8)
"It's Only Temporary" by Eric Shapiro (Permuted Press)
"Riverside Blues" by Eric Tomblin (Earthling Publications)
"The Milk of Paradise" by David Niall Wilson (City Slab Magazine #7)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN SHORT FICTION

"This Body of Death" by Maria Alexander (Lost on the Darkside)
"Haeckel's Tale" by Clive Barker (Dark Delicacies)
We Now Pause For Station Identification Gary Braunbeck (Endeavor Press)
"As Others See Us" by Mort Castle (World Horror Convention 2005
program book)
"Binky" by Sephera Giron (Cemetery Dance Publications)
"Out Twelve-Steppin': Summer of AA" by Nancy Holder (Dark Delicacies)
"Under the Skin" by Nicholas Kaufmann (City Slab Magazine #7)
"The Good Part" by Carole Lanham (Trunk Stories)
"The Reading Lessons" by Carole Lanham (Son and Foe)
"Black Mill Cove" by Lisa Morton (Dark Delicacies)
"Times of Atonement" by Yvonne Navarro (Taverns of the Dead)
"Asha" by Monica O'Rourke (Red Scream)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN AN ANTHOLOGY

Taverns of the Dead by Kealan Patrick Burke (Cemetery Dance
Publications)
Kolchak: The Night Stalker Chronicles by Joe Gentile, Garrett
Anderson and Lori Gentile (Moonstone)
Outsiders by Nancy Holder and Nancy Kilpatrick (Roc)
Dark Delicacies: Original Tales of Terror & the Macabre by Del
Howison and Jeff Gelb (Carroll & Graf)
Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth by Stephen Jones (Fedogan and Bremer)
Corpse Blossoms by Julia and RJ Sevin (Creeping Hemlock Press)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A COLLECTION

Never Seen by Waking Eyes by Stephen R. Dedman (Infrapress)
Twentieth Century Ghosts by Joe Hill (PS Publishing)
Angel Dust Apocalypse by Jeremy Robert Johnson (Eraserhead Press)
Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link (Small Beer Press)
Dark Duets by Michael McCarty (Wildside Press)
Looking for Jake by China Miéville (Del Rey)
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk (Doubleday)
The Book Of A Thousand Sins by Wrath James White (Two-Backed Books)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN NONFICTION

Horror: Another 100 Best Books by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman
(Carroll & Graf)
More Giants of the Genre by Michael McCarty (Wildside Press)
Morbid Curiosity #9 by Loren Rhoades (Automatism Press)
The Bradbury Chronicle by Sam Weller (William Morrow & Co)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN POETRY

Freakcidents by Michael A. Arnzen (Shocklines Press)
The Shadow City by Gary W. Crawford (Naked Snake Press)
Sineater by Charlee Jacob (Cyberpulp)
Seasons: A Series of Poems Based on the Life and Death of Edgar Allan
Poe by Daniel Shields (Foothills Publishing)

I discovered that I'm eligible for the John W. Campbell Award, but only 1 week before the deadline.

Eek.

The award is given out with the Hugos, but for New Writers in Science Fiction and Fantasy.

If you're registered for WorldCon, please consider nominating me. The deadline is March 10th.

Here's my profile.