Returning

Having accomplished most of what I wanted to accomplish by hiding in an undisclosed location and ignoring a lot of email, I will now resume regular posting here. ("Didn't even notice you were gone..." somebody shouts from the back of the room.)

I actually had time to watch a couple movies while I was out. I saw Faraway, So Close!, which I'd been meaning to see for years, since it's a sequel to one of my favorite films, Wings of Desire. It's interesting enough, but it's certainly not Wings of Desire (or another Wim Wenders film that I love perhaps even more, Paris, Texas). Also saw Porco Rosso, the only Miyazaki movie available in the U.S. that I hadn't yet seen. (It just came out on DVD this year.) I hadn't been sure if I would like it, since I'd heard it's quite different and less epic than some of Miyazaki's other films, but I ended up enjoying it quite a bit.

Speaking of Miyazaki, I've just begun to read the book his latest movie was based on, Diana Wynne Jones's Howl's Moving Castle, because I've wanted to read something by Jones for a while (after all, Farah Mendelsohn's soon to published a book about her, so Jones must be something pretty special), but I didn't know where to start. It's a charming, witty, and engaging book, and I'm finding myself structuring my days around grabbing an hour here or a half hour there to read another chapter.

Finally, I have a couple of new or semi-new bits of writing up elsewhere: A review at SF Site of Trunk Stories, an essentially annual 'zine that is really worth some attention. In response to the review, editor William Smith had released the entire first issue as a (big) PDF, which is tremendously generous -- if only other print magazines would offer their out-of-print issues for free online, the world would be a perfect place. (Okay, well, part of that last sentence went through the hyperbolic chamber...)

And over at the LitBlog Co-Op, I've put up a new post about books and desert islands.

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