The Soundtrack of Seduction

Let me say straight out of today's gate that I adore Fabio Lanzoni and all his broken English, bird-catching, smack-talking-George-Clooney, stallion-esque awesomeness. The man has made a career out of playing into women's fantasies about butter and love, a mere stones-throw from what we romance writers do. Okay, maybe not the butter part. Is he an easy target for something besides birds? Definitely. Sadly, today's offering does little to advance his fabulocity campaign beyond fans of romance, but it is a steamy hot serving of fun.

Fabio's After Dark album came onto the music scene-and I do use the term music loosely-in 1993. Think of it more as a hybrid between the internet vids the guy in the next cubicle sneaks at lunchtime and the hot Italian waiter rambling off the specials at your favorite bistro. Sprinkled with tracks from Billy Ocean and Barry White in an attempt to disguise the hideousness of the woo-music beneath Fabio's sultry seduction tips, After Dark is a major win for a hump day break. Treat yourself. Or as Fabio would say, "Thhat special lady in your liiife."

Track 1: Fabio-About Romance (listen)

Bonjourno, Fabio. I'm veeeeeery interested in what you did to con the 80-track pre-programmed keyboard away from your grandmother for this number. No doubt this is program 44, banned from the rotation for its proximity to that pay per view movie your nana thought starred another Debbie-Debbie Reynolds. And you forgot an ingredient in your recipe for the perfect evening for two laaaaahvers: Nana's bridge club popping in at the end for a little harmonizing.

Track 3: Fabio-On Inner Beauty (listen)

Look into my eyes, Fabio. No, not the eye roll. Look deeper. They're revealing just how passionately I want the bridge club to stop making this a group thing.

Track 5: Fabio-On Films (listen)

Whisper veeeeery quietly in my ear during a Hugh Jackman film, Fabio, and you'll end up stuck to the veeeeery sticky theater floor. And the beautiful adventures afterward? They'd better last longer than the one minute and two seconds this track took to burn my ears.

Track 7: Fabio-On Tropical Islands (listen)

Holy Sax! Fabio has another seduction melody in his repertoire. I don't know about you, but Fabio's triple threat of fish, fruits and secrets makes me go all From-Here-To-Eternity. Fish, Fabio? Really? I'm having a tryst at dinnertime with the Gordon's Fisherman. The last thing I want to think about on a cliched beach fantasy is what will be swimming in my stomach in an hour.

Track 9: Fabio-When Somebody Loves Somebody (listen)

Can it be true? Is he really going to sing to me? And then, it happens. The bridge club returns to back up his Luuuuve Attack. The deep shudder in Fabio's voice reminds me more of Vincent Price's "the evil of the thriller" line than the moment where full love-conviction sets in.

.

Track 10: Fabio-On Humor (listen)

Squee that I've mastered one of Fabio's paramount characteristics in a woo-man: the ability to laugh. At his forced guffaw. At the moments in my life that I'll never get back after listening to After Dark. I feel like a chiiiiiiiild of lahve.

.

Track 12: Fabio-On Surprises (listen)

What, no toothpaste? Swap the bikini for Max Factor and you have a deal. The bikini comes off, but Waterproof 2,000 calorie Mascara lasts ten times longer than your erotic overtures.

Track 14: Fabio-On Slow Dancing (listen)

The background music on this track reminds me of lying in a planetarium. Nearby: a geriatric man with dress socks to his knees, a jaded museum attendant with faded DJ dreams at the Captain Kirk-ish helm. Oh, wait. We're in Fabio's terrors? What? Oh, terrace. Whew.

Track 15: Fabio-Ciao! (listen)

Fabio knows how to end his four-minute-and-thirty-six-second seduction leaving us wanting more. That's right: program 44. In this last, breathless moment with him, when he's stumbling so adorably through the English language, he leaves us wondering Wait, he has mammaries? What? Ciao, Fabio. My best to Nana and her bridge club.

A huge thanks to the ultra-funny i-mockery site for offering up these tracks.

Was it good for you?

Pearls and Libraries and Fabio...Oh, My.

As excited as I am to have discovered the awesomagnificence that is Fabio's love album, all things funny and Fabio must take a backseat to time travel romantic fiction here at the Vortex. Priorities, people. Fabio's sultry strains and broken English words of woo-wisdom will be here on Wednesday. I promise.

P.E.A.R.L. (Paranormal Excellence Award for Romantic Literature) nominees were announced today and five yet-to-be-read-but-now-seeking time travel romances are awaiting your reader's choice. Though the PEARL is but an online community of dedicated paranormal romance readers and writers, it is a great litmus for reader response and market demands in this sub genre. The time travel romance market has been on a tenuous climb since the last popularity crest and fall at the end of the 1990's and this year's PEARL nominees reflect that instability. Three of the five nominees are from major New York publishing houses, suggesting a stronger market favor than in years past. Here's a bit about each one:

Time for Eternity by Susan Squires

St. Martin's-Mass Market paperback

Squires (One with the Darkness) brings her flair for historical vampire romance to revolution-era France. Henri Foucault, the charismatic, wicked duc of Avignon, accidentally turned young Françoise Suchet into a vampire. A few centuries later, Francoise, now jaded San Francisco bartender Frankie, gets the chance to travel back in time and kill Henri. When modern Frankie merges with her 18th-century self, the resulting mix of innocence and experience makes her even more fascinating to immortal Henri than the first time around, while the wise future voice in Francoise's head allows her to discover more of Henri's complexity and secrets. The heroine's dual nature is exquisitely executed, and Squires's lush writing skillfully entwines the dramatic story of an aristocratic smuggler's resistance to corrupt revolution with the romantic tale of lovers drawn together across time. (~Publisher's Weekly)

Guardian: The Time Hunters by Angela Knight

Berkley-mass market paperback

Riane Arvid is a superhuman cop from the future, trapped in the year 2009 by group of murderous fanatics called the Xeran. Nick Wyatt is a handsome twenty-first century warrior who has been a target of the Xeran his entire life. He's the only one Riane can turn to, but his intentions are as mysterious as his origins. In an attempt to discover the truth about each other, both Riane and Nick decide seduction is the best tactic. (~publisher's synopsis)

What Would Jane Austen Do? by Laurie Brown

Sourcebooks-Casablanca

Modern-day Regency fashion expert Eleanor Pottinger consorts with ghosts and travels in time in Brown's charming romance. Eleanor discovers her hotel room is haunted by sisters Mina and Deirdre Cracklebury, and she agrees to a deal: she will save their brother, Teddy, from a deadly duel by keeping the wicked Lord Shermont from seducing one of the sisters, in trade for meeting Jane Austen. Eleanor wakes up in 1814, meets smarmy Teddy and is instantly attracted to Lord Shermont, who is not all he seems. Soon she's forced into a terrible choice: Hot sex or the real Jane Austen? True Janeites will find scant evidence of Austen's acerbic wit in either character or tone, but the sprightly humor, handsome hero and twisty ending will please most Regency romance fans. (~Publisher's Weekly)

Creighton Manor by Karen Michelle Nutt

Tease Publishing LLC

The last thing that Gillian Metcalf remembers before she passes out is being aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California, where she witnessed a dog disappearing as if it were a phantom. Now she’s aboard the riverboat, Ida Belle, traveling down the muddy Mississippi. It is 1870, where men carry guns and throw knives. It is a time where reputations mean everything.Before she can determine how she’s miraculously stepped from one world into another, she is being forced to marry Zachary Creighton. Trouble follows the man and it looks like she’s along for the ride.As she attempts to understand why she was sent back to 1870, she struggles to come to terms with her own desires that tempt her to surrender to a man she barely knows. (~Publisher's synopsis)

Time Plains Drifter by Cheryl Pierson

Class Act Books

Trapped in Indian Territory of 1895 by a quirk of Nature, High School teacher Jenni Dalton must find a way to get her seven students back to 2010.Handsome U.S. Marshal Rafe d'Angelico seems like the answer to her prayers: he is, after all, an angel. In a race against time and evil, Rafe has one chance to save Jenni's life and her soul from the Dark One—but can their love survive? (publisher's synopsis)

Congratulations to all the nominees mixing luuuvre with a heady dose of time travel.

If you write your heroines on the curvy side, Accomplice Press may be right for you. They're actively seeking submissions for their Curvalicious line. "The Curvalicious line will be short novella length stories featuring plus size heroines. Curvalicious heroines are beautiful, strong, intelligent women who get the guy without losing weight or changing their bodies.
Curvalicious will have two categories. Curvalicious Sweet is romance with sweet or sensual love scenes, but no explicit language or sex. Curvalicious Spicy is erotic romance containing explicit language and sex scenes." Top three submissions in each category score a publishing contract. FMI.

Lastly, Woman's Day and the American Library Association invite you to submit a 700 word or less essay on what makes your library special to your community. Up to four submissions will be featured in an upcoming WD issue. FMI.

In preparation for our Fabio-fest on Wednesday, let's celebrate all the ways Fabio has entered our pop culture vernacular as a verb courtesy of urbandictionary.com!

verb:

1) (of a bird) the act of flying, unprovoked and inexplicably, into something it should never have any contact with (i.e. your face) 2) to get hit in the face with any live flying object (i.e. insect, flung cat, etc.) 3) to throw something at someone's head in an attempt to hit them in the face 4) to inadvertently hit someone in the face with something you've thrown

examples:

We were going down Hines Drive at one in the morning when a duck totally fabioed my best friend's car.

My mom was on her bike on campus and got fabioed by a big junebug.

My husband said he couldn't see the dirty diaper on the floor, so I fabioed him with it.

The wind caught my cigarette butt as I pitched it out and I ended up fabioing myself.

...

Here's your chance to use Fabio as a verb...go!

The Man Your Man Could Smell Like

How often do you see a television commercial that makes you laugh out loud? Hands down, my favorite right now has to be the Old Spice Ad: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.



Not only is it funny, but it is spot-on for its target audience: the been-married-a-few-years-or-more wife who picks up soap for her family while grocery shopping. Axe fantasies are something dating men buy into and gramps goes for the traditional Irish Spring or Dial, bar soap most likely. This just so happens to be the largest portion of the romance genre's target audience. I see some serious parallels, don't you? Brava, Old Spice.

My other favorite ad right now is the Google Love Story. So brilliant in its simplicity.



What is your favorite commercial, now or of all-time?

A Rumpus Worthy of Steampunk Goggles

Geez...take a vacay for Love Fest and all things time travel pile up. Strap yourself in Wellsey's red velvet chair, people. Brass goggles optional.

First, book news!

The Ether by Ken Decato

"Sheldon resident Cy Hill always knew there was something peculiar about the forested areas around his small town. For years, people in the wrong place at the wrong time went missing becoming victims of "the eddies," a seemingly otherworldly phenomenon, capturing and carrying away anyone who may accidently be in their path to another time. When Cy is all of a sudden raising the dog of Dave Boudreau, his friend and a local who went missing a few years previously, he enlists the help of Lexi to find him by learning to use the eddies to put a stop to this time anomaly. Cy urges Dave's lost love, Annie, to keep hope alive, while he and Lexi work to right a few injustices from the past and future." (Newswire.com)

From Publisher's Weekly (Deals 2/8/10):

Kelly Sonnack at the Andrea Brown Literary Agency sold North American rights, in a pre-empt, to a debut YA novel called A Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan. Andrea Tompa at Candlewick acquired the book, which Sonnack called a “young adult version of The Time Traveler's Wife” and which has been drawing intense interest in Europe, with a five-way bidding war on the novel just closed in Germany. Set in the future, the book follows a princess who must deal with the unfortunate fallout—including a lost love—of her parents' decision to intermittently halt her adolescence by cryogenically freezing her; the plan is their misdirected attempt to ensure their jet-set lifestyle doesn't leave their daughter a latch-key kid.

I'm questioning the motivation here, but I have faith in my fellow fictional time travel sisters and brothers. I can't wait to read them both.

On the scientific side of the phone booth:

We all know that emotions affect our mind's ability to perceive time, thus the adage "time flies when you're watching shirtless Sawyer" (or something like that). Researchers at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota conducted an experiment of this premise in reverse. By speeding up or slowing down the suggestion of an individual's time passage in a controlled environment, scientists were able to influence participant's feelings, essentially how they'd rate the awesomeness of the task. Here is their advice for making time fly:

1. Remove all time cues (clocks, watches, your annoying roomate that whines "Are you done yet?")

2. Drink coffee, tea or other stimulants. Apparently, the high you feel on a non-fat grande double expresso tricks your mind into a Limbo competition with Harlequin cover models halfway through your ten o'clock staff meeting.

3. Allow yourself to become absorbed in what you're doing. Ah, so this explains how I can spend six hours on a ten story-minute scene. Please tell me I'm not the only one who does this. Please.

My Rock Star of Time Travel this week (who knew there were so many?) is Caltech theoretical physicist Sean Carroll. Not only does his deep, abiding love for Lost theories make my heart pitter patter, but he has some amazing advice for writers trying to tackle time travel in a believable way. Oh, and for accomplishing the incredible time travel-ish task of occupying two corners of cyberspace at one time, Mr. Carroll, will you sign Wellsy's time machine? It's parked in the foyer.

Mr. Carroll had some stiff competition though. Dick Bond, a University of Toronto cosmologist and physics professor, enlightened me on the "inflation" portion of the Big Bang theory in which we quite possibly occupy one universe "bubble" in a much larger, as yet unseen, landscape. Time between bubbles, it is theorized by some, might be related. James Brown (hot stuff, very very hot), a U of T philosophy professor expounded on the block theory of past, present and future in which all three are considered real, fixed and unchangeable. Lee Smolin, a physicist with the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario then jumped into the panel rumpus by declaring both Dick Bond and James Brown (ha!)'s theories to be flawed and postulated that nothing is, in fact, timeless, especially nature's laws and Joan Rivers's face. Truly where the Wild Things were this week.

Overloaded on time travel? Good. I live to serve. Tell us the last place/activity where time flew by for you...

The Two Leaves

Felix Salten, author of Bambi, wrote a piece on love from his reverent appreciation for the natural world. Love, not of first or impulsive or maternal or romantic love, but of the deep, soul-nurturing love that can only come from friendship and time's passage.

The Two Leaves

The leaves were falling from the great oak at the meadow's edge. They were falling from all the trees.

One branch of the oak reached high above the others and stretched far out over the meadow. Two leaves clung to the very tip.

"It isn't the way it used to be," said one leaf to the other.

"No," the other leaf answered. "So many of us have fallen off tonight, we're almost the only ones left on our branch."

"You never know who's going to go next," said the first leaf.

"Even when it was warm and the sun shone, a storm or a cloudburst would come sometimes and many leaves were torn off, though they were still young. You never know who's going to go next."

"The sun seldom shines now," sighed the second leaf. "and when it does it gives no warmth. We must have warmth again."

"Can it be true," said the first leaf, "can it really be true, that others come to take our places when we're gone and after them still others, and more and more?"

"It is really true," whispered the second leaf. "We can't even begin to imagine it, it's beyond our powers."

"It makes me very sad," added the first leaf.

They were silent for a while. Then the first leaf said quietly to herself, "Why must we fall...?"

The second leaf asked, "What happens to us when we have fallen?"

"We sink down..."

"What is under us?"

The first leaf answered, "I don't know, some say one thing, some another, but nobody knows."

The second leaf asked, "Do we feel anything, do we know anything about ourselves when we're down there?"

The first leaf answered, "Who knows? Not one of all those down there has ever come back to tell us about it."

They were silent again. Then the first leaf said tenderly to the other, "Don't worry so much about it, you're trembling."

"That's nothing," the second leaf answered, "I tremble at the least thing now. I don't feel so sure of my hold as I used to."

"Let's not talk anymore about such things," said the first leaf.

The other replied, "No, we'll let be. But-what else shall we talk about?" She was silent and when on after a little while. "Which of us will go first?"

"There's still plenty of time to worry about that," the other leaf assured her. "Let's remember how beautiful it was, how wonderful. When the sun came out and shone so warmly that we thought we'd burst with life. Do you remember? And the morning dew, and the mild and splendid nights."

"Now the nights are dreadful," the second leaf complained, "and there is no end to them."

"We shouldn't complain," said the first leaf gently. "We've outlived many, many others."

"Have I changed much?" asked the second leaf shyly but determinedly.

"Not in the least," the first leaf assured her. "You only think so because I've gotten to be so yellow and ugly. But it's different in your case."

"You're fooling me," the second leaf said.

"No, really," the first leaf exclaimed eagerly, "believe me, you're as lovely as the day you were born. Here and there may be a little yellow spot but it's hardly noticeable and only makes you handsomer, believe me."

"Thanks," whispered the second leaf, quite touched. "I don't believe you, not altogether, but I thank you because you are so kind, you've always been so kind to me. I'm just beginning to understand how kind you are."

"Hush," said the other leaf, and kept silent herself for she was too troubled to talk anymore.

Then they were both silent. Hours passed.

A moist wind blew cold and hostile, through the treetops.

"Ah, now," said the second leaf, "I..." Then her voice broke off. She was torn from her place and spun down.

Winter had come.

Post-It Love

It's Friday of our week-long Love-Fest and the time is ripe for a romantic short film. Though the ones I've posted here before, A Thousand Words and Signs, are still my favorites, this one is delightfully sweet, just in time for Valentine's Day. Enjoy!

Hooky

Dear Vortex readers,

Please excuse L.A. from writing a fresh post as promised today. The seven inches of snow on her Texas doorstep called to her Colorado heart like a siren's song.

Past Valentine Posts:

Love is on the Page

Everything I Need to Know About a Woman's Heart I Learned From a Romance Novel

The Perfect Celebration of Love

Time Spent on Love

Love Packaged

Love Celebrated in Quiet Moments

Abraham[Lincoln]'s Love Letter to Mary

But I Live in Gnaw Bone, Indiana! How Romance is Possible Anywhere. Even Cabela's.

Cabela's, the sports and outdoor superstore mecca for so many red-blooded American males, is by far the most unromantic place I've visited in the past week. A close second? Walmart with the guns and tank tops, but the stuffed javalinas pushed it over the edge for me. Where better to prove my point about romance? Remember when you were fifteen and even the most mundane place became a destination when paired with the right person? So step into your camo hunting suits and grab a package of jalapeno beef jerky-we're getting romantic at Cabela's.

Top Ten Romantic Things to do at Cabela's:

1. Name a fish after your Valentine. Commit its details to memory so you can find it again when you return. This will cancel out the time your beloved wore a new outfit you didn't notice for two years. While you're at it, donate to the wildlife fund to ensure its species will have plenty of procreation opportunities in the future, even if you don't.

2. Test out a rod and hook her. Don't bust out your best Mike Iaconelli impression. That will only make her want the guy on the water ski promo poster. Extra points for a cheesy line about how she's the best catch anywhere.

3. Lay on a speedboat deck, hand in hand. Close your eyes and pretend you're anywhere but near the portable camping loos.

4. Crawl in a display tent and play truth or dare. Better yet, share a secret. Just be sure your inner fifth grade boy scout doesn't rear his ugly head and initiate a finger dare that will clear the outdoor section.

5. Shoot the scary drunk guy leaning against the saloon door in the shooting gallery while proclaiming, "I love her, Black Bart, I'll protect her 'til the day I die!"

6. Drop her off at the door before you park in the E lot, halfway to Guatemala. While you're at it, open her door for her, not by leaning across her thighs and popping the broken door handle but as a true gentleman would: dodging stacked canoes on sale by the door and offering your hand.

7. Consume the foot-long chili cheese dog Lady-and-the-Tramp style.

8. Lead her to the bear skin rug in the home decor section and do your best Fabio impression. Be sure to whisper in your best accent, "I can't believe it's not butter," so she can envision it past your flannel clad-paunch and your chili cheese dog breath.

9. Compare her to a gazelle in the African grassland taxidermy display. Avoid eye contact with the elephant if you don't want those Springbok horns shoved where the sun doesn't shine.

10. Locate the exact place you met on a GPS and tell her it's where you lost your heart.

Tell us the most romantic, unromantic place you've ever been...

Protesting Hallmark

I'd really hoped to get this love-fest kicked off yesterday, but I couldn't physically get to my computer. I'd like to say I was here

or here,

but honestly, my day was filled with all manner of need-to-do instead of want-to-do. To make up for it, the luuuve posts will extend daily through the weekend. What could be more exciting to a romance novelist than a holiday to celebrate love?


I hear you naysayers. The glass-half-empty people in the back. Yeah, you. Is Valentine's day a commercialized juggernaut meant only to perpetuate feelings of guilt and obligation? Yes. Do we all become a bit misty at the thought of a day to remind us of what truly matters in this lifetime? Absolutely.

So with that in mind, you'll find six days of posts dedicated to love in a decidedly non-juggernaut way. That uniquely romantic strand in a romance novelist's DNA? If you don't have it already, you'll own it after these posts. If you've been around here for any length of time, you know how much I love the raw honesty of a love letter. What better way to begin a Vortex love fest than by reading love letters crafted by some of the greatest writers in history? See if you can guess the authors:

July, 1943

Darling,

You want to know what I want of you. Many things of course, but chiefly these. I want you to keep this thing we have inviolate and waiting-the person who is neither I nor you but us.

-John

May 12, 1869

Out of the depths of my happy heart wells a great tide of love and prayer for this priceless treasure that is confided to my life-long keeping.

You cannot see its intangible waves as they flow toward you, darling, but in these lines you will hear, as if it were, the distant beating of its surf.

Forever yours,

Sam

Oakland

Thursday, September 24, 1903

Nay, nay, dear Love, not in my eyes is this love of ours a small and impotent thing. It is the greatest and most powerful thing in the world. The relativity of things makes it so. That I should be glad to live for you or to die for you is proof in itself that it means more to me than life or death, is greater, far greater, than life or death.

That you should be the one woman to me of all women; that my hunger for you should be greater than any hunger for food I have ever felt; that my desire for you should bite harder than any other desire I have ever felt for fame and fortune and such things;-all, all goes to show how bug is this, our love.

As I tell you repeatedly, you cannot possibly know what you mean to me. The days I do not see you are merely so many obstacles to be got over somehow before I see you. Each night as I go to bed I sigh with relief because I am one day nearer to you. So it has been this week, and it is only Monday that I was with you. Today I am jubilant, my work goes well. And I am saying to myself all the time, "Tonight I shall see her! Tonight I shall see her!"

My thoughts are upon you always, lingering over you always, caressing you always in a myriad of ways. I wonder if you feel those caresses sometimes!

Ah Love, it looms large. It wills my whole horizon. Wherever I look I feel you, see you, touch you, and know my need for you...I love you, you only and wholly...I clutch for you like a miser for gold, because you are everything and the only thing.

I know I am 27, at the high-tide of my life and vigor. I write these words to show you how large to me, in the scheme of life, bulks this love of ours.

-Jack

Is there anything more romantic than reading a man's complete devotion to a woman? Okay, maybe a photo of a guy rescuing kittens from a flood, but I digress. I hope the words of these famous writers have started your ideas flowing. If you partake in any Vortex suggestion this luuuuve week, let it be this one: write your own card/note. Some greasy bohunk or hausfrau who made fifty bucks to write that greeting card can't come within a galaxy of expressing your true feelings. Belting out a Journey riff when you open it up won't cut it either. Take your cue from the gifted writers above and dig deep.

Leave your author guesses here...answers Wednesday

Tomorrow: But I live in Gnaw Bone, Indiana! How Romance is Possible Anywhere. Even Cabela's.

Ariadne Votes for Castration

Feed subscriptions to The Vortex have reached an all-time high. Two fist bumps and a snap to those of you who have hung around, bookmarked, linked up or otherwise shown the love. I believe there comes a time for all blogs, good, bad or obscure, to evaluate what's working and what's not. That's where you come in, my pretties.

I've set up a poll on the left. Tell me what you'd like to see more of. If you don't have an opinion one way or the other, tell me your favorite candy bar. Or deli meat. Deli meat is good.

For reasons which shall remain top-secret 007 Bond girl-territory, I have undergone an intense week-long study of forty five works of art from the Renaissance to the Modern Period. My favorite might be Anton Francesco degli Albizzi by Sebastiano del Piombo. Anton looks like a choirboy version of Rob Schneider. Serious mutton chops. A Renaissance Queer Eye who commissioned this work and convinced the artist that size did matter and pink was the new black.

My second favorite is probably Angelica Kauffman's Ariadne Abandoned by Theseus:

I'm pretty sure her right hand is raised, not as a symbol of her distress at being abandoned on a remote island by her true love after she kicked some femme-fatale ass on a monster to save him, but as a Romanticism-style middle-finger gesture. Would she not had to cradle her head in her left hand, I feel confident she would be shooting Theseus's departing ship the double-bird. Carry on Ariadne, your Sawyer awaits on the other side of the island, thirty years ago.

Speaking of which, as I'm all up into the art thing, ABC released three Lost Supper images to celebrate the Lost's final season.

I'm sure in the Lost mythology, there is a direct correlation between each Lostie and their respective position when compared to da Vinci's original, but even Leonardo wouldn't have chosen such a hideous shade for Sawyer's shirt. My grandmother has a better pattern on her sofa.

Art-out. Peace.

Don't forget to vote!

Julia Child, Jeff Beck and Rembrandt...Just Kidding

Something's afoul in Bondland. You may have noticed (or not) that I've taken the link to the 007 Nobody Writes it Better blog down. We've had repeated issues with viruses connected to the site, so please don't visit until this Bond girl gives the all-clear.




I'd write more, but three hours of LOST awaits. Squee! Talk amongst yourselves...

Random Wednesday Question: If you could assemble three famous writers, artists and/or musicians, past or present, around a table for a meal, who would you choose?

The Siren's Song

New story ideas abound today, dangerous territory in mid-draft. I'll blame it on Stumble Upon. Remember that delightful little time suck I warned you about? I reincorporated it into my browser. Like a siren's song it draws me. Who knew re-selecting my preferred categories would give me less Dukes of Hazzard soundbytes and more science fodder for the muse?

Like this golden nugget from Nova: Bite-sized, digestible physics clips from their Elegant Universe series. String theory? Hell, yeah. Parallel Universes? There goes my word count.


What about the Ten Most Revealing Psych Experiments ever conducted? I'm pretty sure there was a Twilight Zone eppy based on every one.


Or what about this gem?



Hardly scientific, but Ben Bailey has elevated the taxi cab to wicked cool proportions. I'd time travel with him. Only if this guy didn't join us.

Have a great Monday, everyone!

Today's question: Where was the last place you went in a cab?