Maria Alexander News and Updates from TheHandlessPoet.com

I'll be signing at the BEA this weekend!

May 31, 11am-12pm
HWA Booth
#5753
Writer's Row Area

We're right on the corner.

I should have checked with editor John Everson, as I believe he's sending copies of Sins of the Sirens. Since Christa Faust is signing just a couple hours later at a different booth, maybe you can get two Sirens to sign, eh?

Labels: BEA, book expo of america, hwa, Sins of the Sirens, writing

Thanks to my pal Jason, I'm now addicted to the musical morphine of Paul Mercer.

::slumps in a smokey opiate haze of arpeggios and pizzicato droplets::

Labels: goth, music, violin

Things that have made my weekend yummy:

1. Shiro Restaurant. I took The Frenchman here for his birthday and it was amazing. Easily the best fish in Los Angeles. While The Frenchman enjoyed a grilled snapper with a light tomato basil sauce, my dish was by far the tastier: black cod on pureed Japanese eggplant soaked in a sake sauce and dusted with parsley. Our appetizers were mini masterpieces, as well: quail salad for me with sesame and a buttery lemon sauce, while The Frenchman had a plate of smoked scallops each crowned with caviar or salmon roe. And the service? I've always thought Maison Akira had the best, but for some reason I simply liked everyone better here. Maybe it was because it seemed to be run by elegant, hip matriarchs. I can't say exactly what it was but I loved the friendly, convivial people.

2. Iron Man. This film was mega fun if otherwise stuffed with stereotypes, product placements and a weirdly young-looking Gwyneth Paltrow (I swear she looks 22 years old in this thing). I also hated the "I'm a rich genius and the perfect woman for me is my 24/7 secretary/mother/butler." Somehow I don't think this would fly if it were a female superhero. Yet I let it slide in the name of comic book fun, of which there was scads and scads.

3. Rosemary's Baby. Your jaws are going to drop on this one, but I'd never seen this film until yesterday. Swear! It's yet another movie I somehow missed because of my many uber-Christian years. I howled with laughter at parts (particularly the black crib with the upside-down cross), shook my fist at Polanski for complicating the lives of Wiccans for the foreseeable future, and got caught up in Rosemary's paranoia. The movie sucked me in big time. His portrayal of Rosemary's personal life was highly problematic, though. She had a huge Catholic family and scads of female friends who would have been all in her shit FAR before all the mayhem began. He should have made her more isolated with a scattered family. I also had a problem with the sudden flip her husband makes from doting husband to evil, ambitious jackass. Maybe it was something in the cigarettes he was smoking with the old evil dude. Still, I loved it. Hail Satan!

Okay, what's making my weekend NOT yummy are these weird foot cramps like what I used to get when I was dancing the cancan at Middlebury. I'm getting these sudden, unexpected spasms on the toppish outer edge part of my foot (not near the toes but rather somewhere on the flat part just under and north of the knobby part of my ankle). This is making me quite cranky as I hadn't even been walking much before they started. Damn this mortal coil!

Labels: films, food, iron man, movies, rosemary's baby, shiro

I'm here at work, recovering from a filling this morning. My mouth is still quite numb and I'm trying not to dribble espresso all over my clothes and keyboard. I'm thinking lunch will be liquid. All in all, though, it wasn't that bad and certainly not nearly the nightmare that has been suffering. So all is good.

La Haine
The Frenchman is back now from Princeton where he was travelling on business. While he was gone, I finally watched a movie that he's lectured on extensively and about which he's written many papers: La Haine, also known as Hate, which was distributed by Jodie Foster's production company here in the U.S.

It was, to put it mildly, explosive. Filmed in black and white, the story tracks three young men -- Arab, Black and Jewish -- who live in the suburbs of Paris in 1995 where the riots would eventually break out. The movie is positively prophetic (or inspiring, as the case may be), as it was released in February of 1995 and the civil unrest that would rock the nation breaks out the following November. With liberal dashes of humor and poignancy, the story follows the lives of these unemployed young men through 24 hours of poverty, racism and brutality as one of them comes across a gun lost by a cop during a riot that kills a friend of theirs.

I get why The Frenchman is so passionate about this film. It should have shaken awake France to its hate. It did -- a little. Not enough to prevent the death and destruction of the ensuing unrest. It's shameful that this same director went on to make Gothika and now what looks like an awful science fiction thriller with Vin Diesel. I think aliens (aka Hollywood) have abducted his brain and put it in a jar somewhere so that he can no longer make world-shaking films.

Death in Charge
I also went to AFI to see a screening of my friend Devi's latest short film that she made during her directorship program. The very funny dark short is called "Death in Charge." Apparently after Death kills the babysitter on her way to her next job, Death heads to the house itself to take out the Mom. But when the Mom mistakes Death for the babysitter, much silliness ensues involving violent video games, macaroni and cheese, and a toy army tank.

It rocked seeing Devi (we've been friends for over a dozen years) and her Indiana Jones husband, Dr. Fuentes, as well as meeting Devi's folks. Dr. Fuentes and I lamented the number of popular science books and waxed admiringly of PZ Meyers et al. While he's written a few books now, he's working on a book that's more accessible to the average reader.

Okay, back to work!

Labels: comedy, films, France

Editor Vince Liaguno just announced on his website that yours truly is one of the authors whose work is to appear in the anthology, Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet from Dark Scribe Press. My story "In Her Mirrors, Dimly" makes its debut therein.

I am in absolutely excellent company, as you can see so far. But it gets much, much better. You'll see as they reveal a new author in the Table of Contents each day. Stay tuned!

Labels: writing

I just sat through the weirdest "funeral" service I have ever seen in my life.

I first sensed something was amiss when they seated five rows of choir members in the front of the small church, leaving dozens of family and friends to stand against the walls -- or worse, standing in the kitchen to watch the service on a tiny television monitor.

My colleagues and I were tearing up, ready to be moved as the pastor, the family members, or whoever spoke about Jeff. The pastor didn't say anything about Jeff. Instead, he stood there for 40 minutes and stumped for Jesus before calling people up to take communion.

What the hell?

I was so furious, I couldn't even look at the pastor. I stared at the pew in front of me, raging silently as he gave the most insipid, clichéd speech about how we "see things in mirrors dimly" yet "God sees clearly." He threw in Jeff's name a couple of times, but obviously he didn't know him.

And there we were: trapped. We couldn't get out because the walkways were jammed full of people who couldn't sit because the choir was taking up so many seats. We tried to escape -- I and my colleagues from Uncle Walt -- but we couldn't. And that pastor knew it when he called everyone up for communion.

I hope Jeff's family got something out of this because otherwise the whole thing was totally inappropriate. It wasn't a memorial service (although, the pastor invited everyone to his house later and that was apparently where a real memorial happened). It wasn't a funeral. It was a church service. And they knew a huge number of people were coming from Jeff's work. They were told far in advance. As my manager said, he'd never seen so many people ready for a good cry, only to have their tears dry up in first 60 seconds of the service.

We're planning our own wake for Jeff. We're going to drink, to cry, to laugh. But most of all, we're going to remember Jeff.

And that's the way it should be.

I just can't help but wonder if there was some kind of massive miscommunication because no one from work should have been at that church. The house, maybe. But not the church.