Enter the Octopus

Site closed

Matt Staggs — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:45:45 +0000

After careful consideration, I’ve decided to stop updating this blog – at least for a while. I may come back to it after the holidays. Here are the reasons why:

Pressing deadlines: I’ve got some high profile publicity work that I’ll be busy with at least through January. I’ve also got a few regular writing gigs that I need to focus on. I’m also interested in increasing the amount of writing on assignment I do for other content providers.
Changing priorities: I’m becoming more interested in creating things these days. I’d like to sculpt, draw and paint more, and also maybe learn a few crafts. Plus, I’d like to do some creative nonfiction writing and maybe try to write a story or two.

All of this being said, you’ll probably see more of me, but just not here. I’ll be writing for publication, and of course you’ll see me here and there planning or promoting this or that book title. I still love the genre, but I think that my time and energy can be more constructively spent in other ways.

I’m going to leave the site up here as an archive, and in the meantime, if you’re interested in having me contribute reviews, essays or other material to your blog or publication, feel free to reach out at com Dot gmail At mattormeg

This.

Matt Staggs — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:35:47 +0000

Baby Cakes: “Role Play Tournament (Be Aggressive)”

Matt Staggs — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:15:35 +0000

In which we discuss “Brundlefield”

Matt Staggs — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:23:29 +0000

For some godforsaken reason I got it into my head to conceptualize a mashup between David Cronenberg’s “The Fly” and the “Garfield” comic strip. Here’s a transcript between me and “Ravenbait” another Twitter user:

mattstaggs: Quick! Imagine a cross-over between the “Garfield” comic strip and David Cronenberg’s “The Fly”. GO!

ravenbait: Brundlefield vomiting forth upon his lasagne…

mattstaggs: Hey, @ravenbait what about a scene were Garfield’s tail falls off and he puts it in his medicine cabinet?

ravenbait: Or tries to convince Jon to get into the pod with him? Gets into an arm-wrestling match with Jon’s girlfriend & breaks her arm?

ravenbait: Finds really, thick black hairs on his paw and cuts them off? Dribbles his teeth into his catfood?

Links and things

Matt Staggs — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:24:43 +0000

Nick Hornby: not as predictable as you might think

Interview with 9 producer Tim Burton

JK Rowling and Stephenie Meyer to get comic-book biographies

Why Heckling The President During a Joint Session of Congress is Not the Smartest Thing You Can Do

A hazing ritual: The bad review

Tor.com Publishes Its First Book

McSweeney’s: A Subtextual Reading of Your High-School French Textbook

MORE AFTER THE JUMP

Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange

Google defends book deal as competitive, helpful

Harvey Pekar Gets Online

Talking Southern lit with Elizabeth Edwards

The prolific R.L. Stine

The Mad Genius Walter Moers Returns: The Alchemaster’s Apprentice

Embargoed books, or why book publicists have white hairs

The Nerd Venn Diagram

Step 1: Create Artifical Scarcity; Step 2: ???; Step 3: Profit!

Interview with P.N. Elrod

Irish Drinking Songs for Cat Lovers

Brief Interviews With Hideous Men Trailer

The Abject Holy Terror Of Night Ranger, or, a Contest

Inside Sarah’s Church

Jorge Luis Borges, The Book of Sand

NEVER!!!!

Matt Staggs — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:09:50 +0000

NEVER NEVER NEVER!!!!

Saying goodbye to a pet

Matt Staggs — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:07:52 +0000

I had to put my oldest cat, Booka, to sleep today. I knew it was coming, but it didn’t make it any easier to do. She was 16 years old, a beautiful calico with whom I had practically grown from a kid to a man. She’s been with us from move to move, place to place.

She had developed a tumor in her throat, and at her advanced age, we knew that surgery wasn’t going to be an option. We opted to keep her as long as she was happy and comfortable. She stopped eating dry food a while back, but when we bought her wet food her appetite returned with vigor. Recently, though, she started having trouble digesting her food. Then she couldn’t keep it down at all and was having accidents at the litter box. This weekend she started hiding away from us and not moving very much. She had a glassy, listless expression. We knew – my wife and I – that it was time. My wife works retail, so she had to go to work. There was no one to cover for her. She had no choice. She said goodbye to Booka, knowing it was to be their last moment together, and then she had to leave.

I had to go to take her to the emergency vet. I didn’t want it this way. I would have preferred for her to die peacefully at home, but I knew that this was selfish. I found the carrier and after fitting her inside I made the long drive downtown to the emergency clinic. I couldn’t really think about what I was doing. It was too hard. I had to try to shut down my emotions as much as I could. Otherwise, I didn’t know if I could go through with what I had to do. Booka was quiet and calm on the drive. I think she was ready to go. I really do.

I spoke with the vet on duty and explained the situation. He, too, felt that it was the right decision. They asked if I wanted to be there when they injected her, and I just couldn’t do it. I feel really guilty about this, but I wasn’t strong en0ugh. I said goodbye to her in the best way that I could and watched them carry her back. I would love to tell you that I was with her when it happened. I wasn’t strong enough.

They say that it is a very quick and painless procedure: an overdose of anesthesia that renders the animal instantly unconscious. The heart stops in a matter of seconds. Later, they told me that she went very quickly; quietly. I signed some papers for her cremation. I was still trying not to think too much.

When they handed me the carrier I had to keep telling myself that this was for the best, and that if I was terminally ill and was suffering I would want a painless, dignified death as well. It didn’t make things any easier as I walked out to my car with the now-empty carrier.

After arriving home, I made a memorial donation to the ASPCA in her name. I picked up her old food bowl and put it in the dishwasher, and then spent the morning looking at old pictures of her, grieving. It still doesn’t feel real.

———-

I’ve locked comments on this post. I’d be happy to hear from my friends directly, though. You already know how to reach me. If you’d like, make a donation to the ASPCA in Booka’s name. She was a stray herself, and through the ASPCA we can help other cats and dogs in need of homes.

Snip: “Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks” by Ethan Gilsdorf

Matt Staggs — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 19:22:07 +0000

RELEASED FROM CAGES OF IDENTITY

“Geeks are a tolerant people. They take in ‘the other,’ the misfit toys, and not simply because no one else would sit with them at the cafeteria table. They have felt the sting of not being included. They know what it is like to not feel cool. Thus, it didn’t surprise me to learn during my quest that gamers and costumers—particularly LARPers or medieval reenactment groups like the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA)—accept gays, lesbians cross-dressers, and transgendered folk without hesitation.

Populated with cross-bred elves and dwarves, fantasy realms make people feel not quite so freakish, releasing them from their cages of identity. Playing half- or non-human characters can be an exploration of their freak side, a new door into themselves…”

pp. 56-57, Chapter Four, “Into the Dungeon Again”

Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms, by Ethan Gilsdorf.

BUY

Get “God’s Middle Finger” by Richard Grant

Matt Staggs — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:12:21 +0000

Richard Grant’s new book “God’s Middle Finger” explores the lawless expanse of the Sierra Madre mountain range, where narco-traffickers and murderers live with relative impunity alongside loincloth wearing Indians, rattlesnakes and venemous scorpions. Grant, a British writer with an “unfortunate obsession” with the region decides to travel the range for a year, a tip that ends with him being hunted by night like a wild animal by AK-47 toting “Mexican hillbillies”.

It’s out in trade paperback now. Get it.