I got my first look today at the cover to Psycho-Mania!, edited by Stephen Jones, which will contain my short story “The Trembling Living Wire.” The anthology will be published by Constable & Robinson on October 17th.

If you plan to be at the World Fantasy Convention in Brighton … I hear rumors (or should that be rumours?) there’ll be a launch party!

I’ll be there. Will you?

Because Mother Nature thought this morning’s baby foxes …

… and this afternoon’s baby birds … (more…)

I flew to Chicago last weekend for, of all things, a Vegan meal. Those who know me, and have either accompanied me or been repulsed by me eating spicy horse tartare, will wonder … why? After all, I’m the kind of guy who’s never eaten even a vegetarian meal (which I’ve surrendered to from time to time in order to go with the flow of a group) without needing to chomp into a bloody burger on the way home.

Scott eating Vegan? Has Hell frozen over?

Not quite. But Next restaurant, the chameleon-like brainchild of Grant Achatz, Nick Kokonas, and Dave Beran, where I’ve previously eaten cuisines built around Sicily, Kyoto, and The Hunt, had this time reinvented itself as a Vegan restaurant … and so I had to be there.

What could chefs operating at the level of Achatz and Beran do with only Vegan ingredients? Would the menu rise above the unsatisfying level of vegetarian food I’d experienced up until then, meals which always left me hungering for more?

This note awaiting us at the Kitchen Table made a promise …

… and that promise was fulfilled. (more…)

After my dinner Saturday night at Next restaurant—which I’ll tell you all about soon—I decided to take a postprandial hike up and down Michigan Avenue to aid in the digestion of those several dozen Vegan courses. And then—

Serendipity!

Fireworks began to explode in the sky to the east—off the Navy Pier, if I’m not mistaken—as I crossed the Michigan Avenue Bridge.

Here’s what I managed to catch of it in the distance. Apologies for the interruption caused by a passing bus which ended up trapped in front of me briefly due to a red light.

Happy belated Memorial Day!

We recently spotted a groundhog living under our shed, and have been pondering how best to get rid of it. So this morning, when Irene saw tiny creatures frolicking at the base of the shed, she thought—we’re too late! The groundhog’s already given birth!

But when we looked more closely, we saw those weren’t tiny groundhogs gamboling … they were baby foxes!

Three of them, in fact! (more…)

I spent many wonderful hours Sunday wandering the Art Institute of Chicago, and one of the paintings there that caught my eye was “The Rock,” by Peter Blume.

According to the information card up on the wall to the right of the painting, it was commissioned by the Edgar Kaufman family for their Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home Fallingwater.

I’ve been to Fallingwater. I didn’t much care for it, at least not the inside, but I’d been there. And I wondered … on which wall could such a painting possibly have hung? I could picture the claustrophobic interior of Fallingwater clearly, and so I asked the employees in adjacent rooms (I could find none in the room containing the painting) whether they knew. They did not.

Enter the Internet. (more…)

I bought a Fitbit Flex on Saturday, May 2, and have been wearing it around the clock since then, save for the times I’ve been recharging the device while I worked at my computer. And since then, I’ve met my goal of 10.00 steps/5 miles every day, topped 15,000 daily steps six times, and yesterday even broke through the 25,000-step barrier!

I was in Chicago over the weekend for my latest visit to Next, and spent any time not at the restaurant wandering Chicago’s streets and museums, walking 18,387 steps (9.15 miles) Saturday and 25,134 steps (12.51 miles Sunday).

Here’s the way yesterday’s steps broke down in 5-minute increments.

I was looking forward to getting home and seeing how the Fitbit pie chart broke down my activity for the day, because I’d been scared straight by a study that showed the early deaths awaiting men who sat for more than six hours per day.

I was dismayed to discover—this. (more…)

I have been remiss.

I experienced The Hunt at Next restaurant seven weeks ago, and have so far failed to write about it here the way I did earlier for both the Sicily and Kyoto menus.

And I’ve run out of time—because I’m heading back to Next tomorrow night for its Vegan menu! (more…)

While I was over at my sister-in-law’s house Sunday night, I happened to notice a stack of old comics on the coffee table and picked up this one—Detective Comics #350 (April 1966)—because who could resist a Batman drawn by Joe Kubert or those Go-Go Checks?

The house ads in the issue were as much fun as the stories (which is often the case), and I was particularly intrigued by this one, in which DC claimed it sold “twice as many comics as any other competitor” and “almost as many as all other comics combined.” (more…)

I drove over to Gaithersburg yesterday so I could take part in the Maryland Ukulele Jam, a gathering which started last month and, if all goes well, will continue on the third Sunday of every month.

We jammed to about a dozen songs, one of which was led by yours truly. I decided to share Malvina Reynolds’ “Little Boxes,” not just because it’s a fun song, but also because it only uses three chords, and is therefore easy to pick up even for those who’ve never heard it before.

Susan Shen Yu was kind enough to record me in front of the group. (more…)