Until it's red, all red as foxes

My poem "Foxstory" has been accepted by Through the Gate. It was directly inspired by Jenn Grunigen's Storyfox: A Database of Vulpine Science Fiction and Fantasy. I am very glad it has found a home.

I just saw that Louis Jourdan has died. Like most people who grew up on MGM musicals, I saw him first in Gigi (1958), but I will remember him as one of the best Draculas I have seen.

So has Alan Howard. I was in the wrong country to see much of him; I caught him only in odd episodes of television and the whispering of the One Ring. I knew of him mostly because of his uncle. I really need to see The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989).

It is snowing again. Or still. There was clear blue-skied sun earlier when I walked back and forth to my doctor's appointment. The sky is blind white now. I don't know if it's even a storm anymore. It might just be a condition.

Now get thee to the drowning

1. My poem "Antique Water Magic" has been accepted by inkscrawl. It's named after elisem's earrings and partly influenced by Denis Forkas' "The Triton's Mirror." Some of it is an insomnia poem.

2. So there is the thing where I know almost nothing about J-pop, so I have no idea if Kyary Pamyu Pamyu is representative of the genre or any particular style thereof. I picked up "Invader Invader" in 2013 as the closing track on a Pacific Rim fanmix that made good writing music; I didn't dislike it, but it didn't get any more play than the rest of the mix (Excision's "X Rated," Chicane's "Saltwater," the Genitorturers covering "I Touch Myself," and Combichrist's "This Shit Will Fuck You Up" being previous favorites, as a matter of fact) until the last twenty-four hours when all of a sudden it wouldn't get out of my head. I don't know if it would help if I understood Japanese or not. The melody is a bouncy chiptune earworm that effervesces along like Tigger, matched by an equally springy accompaniment of dissonant synth, hopscotching drum machine, and out-of-tune music box, at least until the dubstep breakdown. I haven't yet watched the video, but it is apparently something. Having listened to Nanda Collection (なんだこれくしょん, 2013) and Pikapika Fantajin (ピカピカふぁんたじん, 2014) on and off all day, about half her music sounds relentlessly upbeat to me and the other half sounds like it's pushing the concept of relentlessly upbeat until it breaks. (The cover of Nanda Collection shows the singer wide-eyed, blond-haired, buried in fuchsia and pink marabou with an enormous, toothy mouth painted across the entire lower half of her face; she is holding hands with a fluffy pink muppet whose face is nothing but mouth. It's pretty effectively augh.) I have no idea if I'm even approaching the art form correctly. It's catchy, though.

3. Courtesy of awhyzip: there's an Enigma machine in Natick. Road trip?

Query: What happens when your cornbread recipe calls for a cup of vegetable oil and all you have in the house is Greek olive oil? Answer: DELICIOUSNESS.