If there's anyone left out there who doesn't know this already,


Ten months ago a much loved member of our spec fic community, Melbourne writer and Clarion South graduate Paul Haines, was found to have large tumor encircling the lower part of his bowel. After months of gruelling surgery, radiation and chemo, a scan has showed up spots on his liver. One spot is a particular worry due to its location near
a major vein. Paul's liver surgeon has recommended waiting to see if any more spots appear before operating again -- they don't want to chop out half his liver only to find more spots are flowering on the remaining half. If that happened he'd be too sick then to look at different forms of radiation and chemotherapy.

So during this waiting period Paul will try the other two forms of chemotherapy for cancers like he has in combination with a monoclonal antibody called Avastin. Chemo fights the tumour, the antibody fights the blood vessels feeding the tumour. Unfortunately, Avastin is not part of Medicare or the private health system's funding at this stage, so he's having to come up with $20,000 to pay for it.

An appeal is currently underway to help Paul and his family raise money towards the cost of his treatment. Many kind people have already made contributions, but I thought I'd post information on how to donate so others may do so as well if they would like to.

Paul is a great guy: a talented writer, loving husband, doting father and good friend. You can read about his battle with cancer on his blog: paulhaines (warning - this blog is very graphic in its attention to unpleasant detail)

and below is a link to where you can donate via Paypal.

If you would rather deposit directly into Paul's account, contact me offlist for details.

Voices of Disbelief is (or soon will be) a book edited by Russell Blackford and Scottish bioethicist Udo Schuklenk containing statements and short essays by prominent atheists, humanists, and skeptics explaining why they do not believe in the Judeo-Christian-Muslim God or embrace any kind of religious belief.

I'm very excited to be one of them. My piece "Doctor Who and the Legacy of Rationalism" was accepted this week. Thanks to everyone in the community who helped with the research. A great deal of thought that went into it. My opinion of recent Who storylines has been somewhat mollified, as the essay in its final form will show. When it comes out (from Blackwell, probably next year) I'll post a much earlier draft here for anyone interested in comparing the two.

The editors were inspired to create the book by "the aggressive role currently being played by religious organisations and their leaders in attempting to impose their values, beliefs, and specifically religious moralities on others--whether the issues relate to gay rights, medical research, AIDS policy, the availability of abortion, and a whole range of others." If they can succeed in making the views of their contributors available to a large audience, then that can only be a good thing.



----------------
Listening to: Gui Boratto - Beautiful Life

Tags: doctor who, god, news, religion, sales

I'll be away from home for the next week, so posting will be light-on. Astute observers of this blog may not, in fact, notice the difference. ;)

In other news, I was prepared to be disappointed by The Dark Knight, given the level of hype around it. Particularly around Heath Ledger's penultimate performance. But I can't remember the last time I saw such a display of malevolence on film. Also: like a superhero film for grown-ups. So very much going on, I was exhausted by the end!

Also, watching those car chases on the iMax. Yeah. Can make you nauseous.

Undead backbrain. Hope the zombie hordes bring you something nice (I just got him some shirts)

Tags: birthdayys
Current Mood: sleepy

What better way to spend an evening than sitting in the bath reading The Making of a Sailor or Life Aboard a Yankee Square-Rigger by Frederick Pease Harlow, circa 18-something or other. I can't think of one, which gives you a pretty clear picture of the sort of life I'm leading this year. When not reading in the bath by candlelight, I'm ploughing my way through Moby Dick on audio book, a free download from Librivox, where you can get lots of fab storytelling to stuff onto your ipod.


I'm loving Moby Dick. I'm not sure what I expected, but I sure didn't expect to like Ishmael as much as I do. Most folks I know who've read the book say they found it a total bore. I'm thinking its cos they read it as part of a higher education experience, a process which can suck the funk out of anything. I'm reading, or rather, listening to it because I reckon I ought to have read it if I'm gonna be writing a novel featuring sea serpente hunters, which is pretty much as good a reason as any.

Tags: reading, writing
Current Location: work
Current Mood: cold
Current Music: JJJ

After three and a half weeks without a phone line (thanks to ageing cables in our area, slow contractors and wet weather) we are now reconnected to teh interwebz and all is well again. It's amazing (but not terribly surprising) how much we've come to rely on it for music, tv, news, games, etc. The school holidays were tough, let me tell you.

Has everyone here watched "Dexter"? Amanda and I ripped through both seasons in a week last month, and now I'm reading the books. Jeff Lindsay has a terrific voice, and the novels are similar enough to push the same buttons but sufficiently different to be more than transcripts. I really enjoyed them.

Reprints: The Blood Debt is up to three and The Changeling has already gone back to the printers.

Demotion (voluntary): to Deputy Chair of the SA Writers' Centre. Whew!

Lastly, here's an excerpt from a book I'm working on at the moment. Apropos of nothing, except that I liked it:

"Once upon a time," the dragon said, "the world was full of creatures like me. We are rare now, and for the most part we avoid your kind. We see the fear in your eyes when you gaze upon us. It's unpleasant, for we belong in this world as firmly as you do. It was ours before it was yours. We understand it a little better.

"So we hide ourselves in a variety of different ways. Some live in the sky, as clouds or mysterious lights. Some live underground, feasting on molten rock. Some spread their wings in the canopies of forests, where vines will hide them and they can sleep out the rest of eternity. Some find ways to walk among you as I do, as one of you. It is difficult, but it can be done."

----------------
Listening to: Tangerine Dream - Hyper Sphinx

Tags: dexter, home, reprints, sawc, the blood debt, the changeling, the scarecrow

He wasn't just big. He was a giant. He looked seven feet high, and he wore the loudest clothes I ever saw on a big man.

Pleated maroon pants, a rough greyish coat with billiard-balls for buttons, brown suede shoes with explosions in white kid in them, a brown shirt, a yellow tie, a large red carnation, and a front door handkerchief in the colour of the Irish flag. It was neatly arranged in three points, under the red carnation. On Central Avenue, not the quietest dressed street in the world, with that size and that make-up he looked as unobtrusive as a tarantula on a slice of angel-food cake.
-- Raymond Chandler, 'Try the Girl' -- from Killer in the Rain (a Chandler short story collection)


Apparently 'Try the Girl' along with another short story, 'Mandarin's Jade', formed the basis of Chandler's 1940 novel FAREWELL, MY LOVELY. He did this with a lot of his short story work, later turning it into successful novels. From the intro to the collection (ibid.), "He called the process 'canabalisation'."

"His method was a complex one. Sometimes he would use entire scenes, other times merely a few lines."

In fact, Chandler was so unapologetic about his pilfering of his own short stories (is it plagiarism if you're plagiarising yourself?) that he forbade the short stories from ever being re-published in his lifetime. They were first collected 5 years after he died.

This collection (which I want to call 'a funride through wit, with bullets') collects stories from 1935-41, from Black Mask and the delightfully named Dime Detective Magazine. It's like a book of one-liners that've been arm-wrestled together and fixed in place with a gun to the ribs.

The heroes are interchangeable (and of course form the basis for Chandler's Californian dick, Marlowe), the dames are emotionally self-victimising and/or drug dependent. And the men are assorted, but often tragic figures who've thrown it all away for love, and would again -- if only they'd live long enough.

Raymond Chandler. I ask you: what's not to love?

Tags: raymond chandler

thelifelist
A forum for exchanging lists of things you'd like to have done before you die.

ljsecret
Share a secret through the means of art, under complete anonymity.

mourning_souls
A community for cemetery photographers, dark poets and anyone else who appreciates and admires the beauty of cemeteries.