David Bowie 8 January 1947 - 10 January 2016I don’t cry much, as a rule, when people die. Not out of any hardness of heart, but because to me it doesn't seem a thing for tears. Though there are exceptions. Jim. President Kennedy. Princess Diana. My Grandma McDonald. My friend Mary. And now David. When I saw the news online, it was like a kick to ( Read more... )

A bit of backstory, which you may have read on one of my FB pages: when I worked for RCA Records, from 1971 to 1973, I did the ads for David Bowie’s first four US albums on the label (“Hunky Dory”, "Ziggy Stardust", "Aladdin Sane" and “Pin-Ups”), and had a lot of contact with him, as he liked to be involved in the process, being a control freak, ( Read more... )

Solstice, Yule, Christmas, Kwanzaa, whatever Festival of Light Returning you like. (Chanukkah is over by now, having come very early this year ( Read more... )

After Lee Aakers (Rusty on "The Rin-Tin-Tin Show"), when I was about seven, Peter O'Toole was my first actor crush, for, of course, "Lawrence of Arabia", in 1962. In fact, I had come to the movie as a 16-year-old T.E. Lawrence fangirl, straight from reading Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and staggered out of the theater after four hours unsure on whom I ( Read more... )

I don't have anything profound to offer about what happened on this day five decades ago, when I was a seventeen-year-old away from home for the first time, at college. But I want to remember now, without pain but with solemnity, how I felt then ( Read more... )

I do wish that more of the faceless Russian (mostly) hordes who have added me, against my will and knowledge, to their "friend" lists would get the hint and take a hike. They don't contribute, because they're just friendwhores at best and bots at worst, so I can't imagine why they're even here in the first place. They are not my friends. I am not ( Read more... )

...that I haven't posted in absolute yonks. I was dealing with health issues, all now mostly resolved (had a stent procedure), and then I just got lazy. Not much to tell in any case: I finished up "Go Ask Malice: Murder at Woodstock", the fifth Rennie book, and I had a far better time writing it than I had at that damn festival; I have about 90,000 ( Read more... )

A bit late, but very much felt. 2011, you could have been a lot better. Let's see how 2012 shapes up...

Anne McCaffrey has died. How very, very sad this makes me. She was a glorious writer and a lovely person, and she was always deeply kind to me. She gave me my first book blurb and feedback, and we kept up a correspondence for years. And she told me I could have a queen dragon on Pern, which made me so happy. I put her into "Blackmantle" as Aunya ( Read more... )

I guess it was because of Rosh Ha’shanah that I got to thinking of that really neat Israeli-gospel-folk-rock I downloaded the other day, but I was playing it earlier on the iPod, and bouncing and clapping to it as I sat here working because it is just that kind of music, and then the wind started streaming in over my shoulder and blowing my hair ( Read more... )