Wednesday, November 10, 2010

All Souls Procession

Every Dia de los Muertos Tucson holds their All Souls Procession–a community parade of costumed volunteers who walk down one of the city's historic thoroughfares to an empty lot downtown, where a celebration is held to honor the dead. I realize that for probably ninety percent of the participants the Procession is just an opportunity to play dress-up and watch people eat fire, but here and there the true spirit of the day comes through–in a projected display of portraits of people who have passed, or in the little personal shrines that are carried or trundled past. Here are some photos from a few days ago. Click to enlarge.

Friday, November 5, 2010

IDEA: The Interior Doorbell

Why don't we all have doorbells on the insides of our front doors? When confronted by a visitor with which we don't care to speak, we could discreetly press our hidden inside doorbell and trigger, elsewhere in the house, the sound of a baby crying. Or a smoke alarm. A tea kettle. Whatever.

Or hey, all four. "I'm sorry–I'd love to discuss my immortal soul, but my tea kettle appears to have set off the smoke detector and frightened my baby."

For some reason I feel like I'm ripping off the blog Ironic Sans, where my friend David posts ideas like this all the time. Go visit that, maybe.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Amazon Best of 2010 for Teen


Just learned today that Amazon has selected Fat Vampire and nine other YA books as their Best of 2010 for teens.

I swear soon I'll go back to posting something other than self-promotion or pictures of my yard.

Monday, November 1, 2010

TEMPE EVENT

I'll be at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, AZ for an author's panel at 7pm on November 2nd. Also appearing are Tom Leveen, Molly Idle, James Balsingame, and Christianne Menses-Jacobs. Hope to see you there!