in which i fly east to Balticon...

Malena dropped me off at LAX after some delicious and garlicky thai food. I boarded the plane, stopping to do my pre-flight magic ritual (which all i can say, is if you fly with me, you are safe). This would be a working vacation! I was scheduled to arrive in DC at midnight and my brother Bill would come to get me---knowing family was at the end of it made the flight easy.

We talked the whole drive to his house in the woods of Virginia. In the morning, after a dreamless sleep with White Kitty on my feet, i had breakfast with my brother and his wife. We got up early to go to see our parents. I never have enough time with them! They make even the dullest errand fun and sparkly. We spent the day readying the Neverwear booth for Balticon, where I would be spending my four-day weekend. i dined upon salads and the excellent company of my parents.



I picked up my rental car with their help and headed for Baltimore. Set up my table in a good spot and began to rearrange my wares...years of festival selling and carny lifestyle have paid off as i can easily work a booth alone now for days.

My comic book magnets were a surprisingly big draw. Several years ago, there was a flood in my rented beach house in Rehoboth. A box of my best comics was water-damaged. Instead of tossing them, i decided to make art out of them, drying the curling pages in the sun. I cut the panels that appealed most to me or told the best story. I cut recycled glass to fit the panels and framed them in copper. more recently i started adding a dash of glitter....(Boss has many of my magnets in his bathroom, i enrolled him in my "magnet of the month" club) Now people donate their damaged comics to me, to recycle into art...



Balticon seemd a bit underattended this year, maybe because of gas prices or where it fell in the month--but I had such a good time seeing old familiar faces and meeting entirely new ones...Danth! and Glen! and Nora! and Donna and Steven from Ego Likeness (i am now proud owner of some gorgeous original artwork by Steven, photos soon)



Urban Tapestry, the Canadian musical guest stopped by....(Quiche, you would have approved!)



Here is DanGuy in his Neverwear, with GoH's Connie Willis, John Jude Palancar and a helpful elfstress!



Blogger is discouraging photos so I will truncated this post and continue tomorrow...after the Book Expo! See why a girl's stories are often untold...

Kitty in Baltimore, hon! @ BALTICON 42

hello comic bookers, sci fi & fantasy-ers,

i will be selling the Neil Gaiman-endorsed Neverwear and my glass candy bar comic book magnets this weekend in fabulous Hunt Valley, somewhere in the outer circle of Baltimore. Will also have some of the Malena Collection (www.malenacollection.com)

here is Malena in her Neverwear, an Anansi Boys design drawn by the amazing Dagmara M...



come get your photo taken in some Neverwear...

about the comic book magnets & mirrors that i make:
my beloved box of comics was damaged in a flood several years ago, maybe YOU could throw them away, but not me...
so i saved them, pulled out the pages that could be salvaged and
I frame the individual panels in copper --made with love out of recycled glass that i cut myself, with scars to prove it...



come see me, i command you.

www.balticon.org

forgot how to do the thingy where it gives you a live link, but for the love of pete, highlight and copy, so you can find out where this thing is.

meanwhile it competes with Sowebo, which once was a mighty legend of a festival, but since I have been gone, i don't know how it is faring these days.

I will be out in B-more all weekend, then to Meriwther for the Duran Duran show, got to see my crew...would love to see all my old friends.

Duran Duran stole my heart

This was one of the best (and shortest) tours ever---
We flew into Vancouver, BC and even the airport was gorgeous, what a beautiful city--
got to the hotel and immediately it began to pour.
My niece lives there, she is attending college but she was home and missed my visit...booo!



the first show went without a hitch, we got to see Darcy, our Canadian co-worker.
After the border crossing, which also went pretty smoothly as we lost no soldiers--we headed to Seattle.
Cyn came out to meet me and also Joe Paul and Gael visited. Cyn and I had a little adventure, trying to get out of the WaMu theatre, but all was sorted in the end. I love Seattle so much. Cyn, I want to buy your "poor climber" painting. I can't get it out of my mind.



my favorite thing was getting back on the tour bus, and this was my first pop-out bus...see how the side pops open. At night, our driver, Smitty would give us a mini-ride, pulling the bus back into driveable shape...



my bunk is the bottom driver's side, i am superstitious now about getting that bunk! Don't know if you can make it out in the photo, but it is in the very bottom of the right edge of photo---



here is the view from my hotel in Concord, see our big brown bus in the top right hand side?



the show was great fun, i have toured with several of this crew before on different tours--my stage manager in front of the big cityscape backdrop:





the lighting crew was a bunch of old friends from various tours, they had a beautiful set-up, this is putting up the rig, with Jerry riding the lights like an electric cowboy:



here it is a little bit higher in the air:



here you can see where it eventually ends up:



these are from the Santa Barbara Bowl, i walked up into the crowd to try to get a photo looking down, but my camera was overcompensating for the massive lighting, so i didnt get what i was looking for....



yes, I was always a Simon girl:




this was from the casino show in San Diego:



the casino chefs made us a chocolate sculpture that was entirely edible, including the sugar pane photo, but i didn't try any of it...






here's Ali, the little sprite, my ssssssusssterton sister, partner in FoH crime...she is sitting at the pink sparkle drum kit of the sweet Roger Taylor.



and i want to send a shout out to our opening act: Your Vegas, these super-cute guys put on an amazing show.
you can hear their music on myspace--
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=20644391

Mal the drummer doing load out:




and Mark and Coyle waiting for sound check:



the production manager, Wob, quickly became a favorite, he is the brother of my production manager on Tool,
and that is one dynamite family.



when i drove away from the last date, i left a trail of broken heart pieces behind me on that desert mountain, i miss the tour bus, but things are getting busy at home....i am heading to Balticon over memorial day weekend (hello BALTIMORE!!)
and then back home to meet up with Mr. Gaiman at Book Expo.

final note: Neil's got a history with these guys, his first book was a biography of Duran Duran, which now sells for upwards of a hundred dollars on Amazon, if you can find it....small world, indeed.