Dinner at teh neighbors

holyoutlaw and juliebata invited Denys and me over for dinner, so we walked to the center of the universe yesterday evening, critiquing the neighborhood along the way. (The traffic calming devices on 36th have not calmed the traffic. The old Fremont News space has been taken over by Sonic Boom's vinyl section. The old Empty Space Theater space is still empty.) Luke and Julie's apartment was neat as a pin, showing no sign of the truckloads of stuff we helped to move in there whenever it was we did that. Luke's upcoming photography show was stowed mostly in the bedroom, wrapped in plain brown paper.

Dinner was a lovely green salad with cranberries and blue cheese, followed by tasty chicken tikki masala, and then, to really distend the carpet python, a delicious extra-chocolatey chocolate cake from Simply Desserts. I'm still digesting twelve hours later! Julie showed us strange musical videos with singing badgers and mushrooms, lions and tigers (and one dead zebra) in Kenya, and that anime girl twirling a leek that Luke linked to recently. We looked at Alaska-cruise travel brochures and scary pictures of Julie wearing polyester as a child. (There are no photos that I know of showing me in my powder blue leisure suit in 1977.) A wonderful dinner, and great audio-visual aids and yikkety-yak. Denys and I could barely roll up the hill afterwards.

Thanks, neighbors!

Harrison Country by Steve Stiles

Well, kids, I'm very pleased to announce that another publication that will be debuting at Corflu Quire is Steve Stiles' TAFF report, Harrison Country, about his trip to the UK in 1968. I have the first copies in my hot, happy hands, stroking, stroking, stroking them. This is the first completed North American TAFF report since either Roy Tackett's in 1985 if you count his short account as a full report, or the Moffatts' in 1974 if you don't. It's a beauty, too, becoming more and more, um, eccentric as it proceeds through both narrative and compositional time. (Must've been the VURGUZZ.) It's full of great artwork, too, as you'd expect from somebody who goddamn bighod deserves a Hugo. The Krazy Kat pastiche newsletter that we reprinted in Chunga is included as an appendix.

This will be availabe to North Americans from Suzle (and from Jerry Kaufman and me at Corflu) for $6, and to Europeans from Bridget Bradshaw for 3 pounds (plus 55p for postage). If you are not from North America or Europe, drop me or Suzle a line, and we'll figure something out. All money goes to TAFF, of course.

I'm feeling a flood of printed matter building to break on Corflu. What are you bringing?

And way to go, Steve! You are showing the rest of us North American slackers the way! (You're next, akirlu.)