We have an A-bomb and a whole series of it, and what more do you want, mermaids?

[sovay]

So I read "The Trinitite Golem" at the Brooklyn Commons Café as part of the launch party for Clockwork Phoenix 5, now available wherever clockwork phoenixes are sold.

It went wonderfully. I had a wonderful time. I got asked afterward if I was a physicist. Rob Cameron, Shveta Thakrar, Barbara Krasnoff, A.C. Wise, and C.S.E. Cooney and Carlos Hernandez read from their stories and were fantastic. I hope all the recordings came out cleanly. There was apple cake. It turns out that the famous lefty radio station WBAI is now broadcast out of the same building as the Commons, which neither my husband nor I (nor my parents, who used to wake up every morning to Phil Ochs' "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends") knew before we spoke to Jim Freund. There was a lot of hugging. People were signing copies for each other like they were yearbooks. I am still operating on about three hours of sleep, which I plan to remedy almost immediately.

derspatchel bought a bottle of Coney Island Brewing Company Mermaid Pilsner in order to be able to present me with the picture of a tattooed siren. I think it is a good trophy.

I am so glad I did this after all.

Comments

[sovay]

I'm so glad you did too! I saw one photo somewhere (Twitter? FB?) of the audience-packed room and thought Yessss! Excellent all around.

According to comments at File 770, we had the largest turnout after Susanna Clarke. Which I think is not too shabby at all.

Thank you.

And what a great mermaid. I like her a lot.

An artist whose name I cannot remember at present had an entire page of paintings of tattooed mermaids when I was in college. I believe his theory was that sailors shared the art with mermaids, who then adapted it to their own aesthetics. I want to say David somebody. [resorted to Google] David Delamare! A very suitable name for a sea-painter. This looks like one of the paintings I was thinking of; I believe this was the other. This was part of the same series.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Not too shabby at all!

And wow, De la mare--what a name, eh? I like his theory of mermaid tattoos very much indeed (and I'm amused that his version of mermaids has the tail begin below the buttocks--if that holds for the front of a mermaid, too, it does make sexytimes much easier...) And both "The Illustrated Mermaid" and "The Tattooed Mermaid" are gorgeous.