I came up with the theme for my next Storytellers Unplugged essay yesterday and wrote the first few paragraphs of it this morning. It’s not due to be posted until a week from tomorrow, but I like to get these done in advance so I don’t end up scrambling at the last minute.
There’s a nice article in the Martha Vinyards Times about one of the editors of and contributors to Thin Ice. It’s about her upcoming signing, but the piece also contains a nice overview of the anthology, and says some kind things about my story, “The Bank Job.” By the way Level Best Books is offering free domestic shipping on the anthology until Monday, December 13.
Exciting news: a new Umberto Eco (Name of the Rose, Foucault’s Pendulum) book in the future, although I’m not sure if it will be available until 2011 or 2012. It’s called The Cemetery of Prague and it’s already out in Italian. I can’t wait.
A genuine blindside on Survivor last night. Benry was so unprepared to be evicted that he left much of his stuff at camp instead of packing for tribal. As an aside, Benry can’t be his real name, can it? It always makes me think of one of those media mash-ups, like Brangelina. I wonder what the record for weight loss is. He lost 35 lbs, or about a pound a day. Some of the other Ponderosa evictees have regained much of their lost weight. I think it was Alina who said she now weighs more than when she arrived in Nicaragua. I was amazed by how spineless Sash became without Brenda around to prop him up. His nervous yammering made him seem untrustworthy. Chase got away unscathed from his dunderheaded decision not to take Sash on his reward trip.
Clarice Starling joined Criminal Minds last night. Sort of. I hear that Seaver is going to be around for at least a few episodes. She’s the FBI cadet whose father happens to be a serial killer. She was carted off to New Mexico this week (we knew it was New Mexico because they showed us a scorpion during the opening) to see if she could identify signs of the family of a murderer in a gated, vanilla community. They pushed the red herrings so hard they were scarlet. First there was the skeezy detective with the muttonchop sideburns. Then there was the other cop who liked to yell at potential suspects during questioning. So obvious they couldn’t possibly be the killer. So, that left the one character who was played by an actor I recognized from other programs. By default, it had to be him. Too bad crime solving wasn’t that easy in real life!
