That’s right–Episode #47: Noodles Float, You Bastards! is available for your listening pleasure!
And in case you missed it, last week we had the triumphant return of KUEC from brief work-related hiatus, with Episode #46: “Cow Blood, Horse Blood, Pig Blood…whatever you have lying around.”
We have new stuff! There is a new KUEC up! In it, we explore what happens when Pocky meets mac & cheese. I have tasted things, man. THINGS.
Also, I will be at the Cary Barnes & Noble this Friday at 7, to do a little reading and sign Dragonbreath. The timing is somewhat ironic, because Book 5 comes out NEXT week, but hopefully it’ll all work out for the best. Come on out! Save me from an audience entirely full of children, who will not get half of my jokes and will bite me on the ankles if sufficiently bored! Thrills! Chills! Assorted ills!
Finally, have a judgmental turtle.
Whew, we got a lot of stuff goin’ on!
First off, there is a new KUEC up! (Actually, there were new ones the entire time we were gone, we spent a week recording episodes in advance, much to the detriment of our intestinal tracts.) In this one, we eat canned menudo. Or at least Kevin does.
Next up, Digger vol. 6 is now available to order on-line! (For those asking about an omnibus edition, it might happen, but probably not until next year, and will depend on schedule and pre-orders and all kinda stuff.)
Finally, have some art! These were some of the only originals to come home with me from Anthrocon. They’re for sale, drop a line if interested, and prints are available of both!
Way back when, I did a set of Chinese zodiac tiles for a company that promptly stopped returning my e-mails when I said things like “I’m really going to need that contract before I send you the full-size files.” The dragon was one of my favorites, and I had never finished it. So a couple of months ago, I got the bright idea to use the unfinished painting as the base for a mixed-media piece. This is mostly colored pencil over top of that underpainting, 6 x 6 on deep cradled board, ready to hang as-is.
Since I had to print it on a sturdier paper, everything came out much darker and more uniformly colored than the painting, which dismayed me at first, but when I saw how well the colored pencil worked on top of the dark paper—do it right, and it practically glows—I was ultimately pretty pleased.
This one had an amusing genesis. If you haven’t read Cat Valente’s The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making, it’s a delight. Anyway, we are on-line acquaintances, and she dropped me a line asking if I’d draw a capybara aviator for her—it’s supposed to be a character in the third Fairyland book, which will then be named Ursula. I don’t do too many things like this, but I really enjoyed the book and was in a mad rush of making originals anyway, so I agreed. She got a print, I get an eponymous capybara, who could ask for more?
Meanwhile, the original is available–6 x 6, mixed media on print sealed to board, same as the dragon. Prints are available!
Now I gotta go to the cafe and slap some words down…
Not all that much going on these days—well, I mean, there’s a lot going on, it looks like we’re going to probably get to do ten Dragonbreath books instead of seven, and there’s some other neat stuff percolating—but nothing immediately fascinating. I’m deep in the last death march of Campbreath art, trying to write the text for Fairybreath around the edges (Danny’s mom is kidnapped through a mushroom ring and he has to go into Faerie to get her back. Has much Surreal Landscape Wandering, which is arguably my strong suit as a writer. Kevin says that so far, it’s the most “me” of the Dragonbreath…)
The rest of the time I putter in the garden, work on stuff for the upcoming DucKon and Anthrocon art shows, and fool with molding. (We may have achieved victory conditions on the caulk mold this time! We’ll find out soon!)
The Louisiana iris has bloomed in the pond—it’s pretty spectacular, and I’m hoping it will continue to thrive submerged—and the tadpoles are fewer and larger. There are floating rafts of frog eggs, which would be more thrilling if they weren’t also filling the puddle left by the dumptruck rut on the side yard. Clearly our frogs have heard about the amphibian extinction event and are Doing Their Part. The predacious diving beetle got laid yesterday, and I hope to see “water tigers” soon, although it may get a little crazy with the tadpoles already there. Our lettuce bolted. My pollinator watch took an odd turn, as there are suddenly honeybees in the garden, which is very surprising—I saw all of ONE last year. I suspect someone may have put in a hive somewhere in the vicinity, because now two or three a day are showing up.
Finally, there’s an article by yours truly about the Great Southern Brood and KUEC #36: “Give me the scissors! And the bottle cap!” (Also available on iTunes!)
“He had this advanced medical condition where his penis had fallen off”
In which we return to our low-brow roots with White Castle and Hungry-Man, eat Welsh rarebit, and you learn some mildly disturbing things about my ex-step-grandfather.*
Also, Angus, aka Little Orange Cat has gotten REALLY friendly lately, and is currently sitting on my desk staring at me and purring furiously, despite the fact that I am not touching him.
*It was a complicated relationship.
I am pretty much too busy to breathe these days, and what spare minutes I get are spent trying to conquer Mt. Mulch. But I have links and doodles!
KUEC #30: “All the hot dogs have floated to the top” in which we eat food from a truck stop in Georgia. (Never question our dedication. Our sanity, our good taste, our odds of survival, yes, absolutely—but not the dedication!)
I’ve got a post on teeny weeny cricket frogs over at Beautiful Wildlife Garden, and while I am at the glorified-doodles-only stage of productivity, here’s a couple tiny pieces of small creatures.
Small Creature With Dashing Hat
Small Creature With Very Small Onion
Originals are for sale, drop a line—probably won’t be doing prints of these, they’re too small. I have been doodling various version of them for a couple of days, so there may be a few more, or perhaps I will be seized with a desire to do something Massive And Epic, despite being under the gun for Dragonbreath, or possibly the mulch will fall on me.
“It wasn’t a fungus! It was patchouli!”
In which we are sent a box, and being trusting souls, eat some of the contents.
“Now I associate smoothies with despair.”
Another breakfast show! We have Irish coffee with the best whipped cream I have ever tasted. That’s the high point. The low point is…much lower.
“She was wearing underwear on her head. Not because she was crazy…!”
A very pasta heavy episode, with a bottle of cheap wine apiece, which is probably what caused me to get reminiscing about my grandmother and the time I got lost in New Orleans.
Also, a raccoon walked in the mud and then on my car. There is a line of small paw prints across the hood. I find this kind of adorable, even as I realize that I gotta go to the carwash this week and that if it keeps happening, I will undoubtedly be screaming my rage at the heavens.
In which we have some profoundly mediocre food and review a couple of surprisingly decent dinners past, disagree as to the quality of the wine, discuss some listener mail, and I somehow fail to get scurvy.
I write & illustrate books, garden, take photos, and blather about myriad things. I have very strong feelings about potatoes.
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