Some new books by excellent writers out today (or is it yesterday? damn time zones...):

      

Poison Sleep by tapratt. The next book in the Marlaverse, and sequel to the enormously fun and sexy Blood Engines. Bantam has posted an excerpt of the book on their site, and is offering a free download of the Marla story "Pale Dog" on their Facebook page.

The Magician and the Fool by barthanderson. Magic and tarot, from a guy who knows an awful lot about both. If you order from DreamHaven Books, you'll be entered in a drawing to win a 20-page tarot reading written personally for you by the man himself.

The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama by Pico Iyer. An incredible travel writer, Iyer has been following His Holiness around the world for about 30 years, and I can't wait to see what insights and observations he's recorded. World Hum has just interviewed him about the book.

And in non-book, but still literary, news:

The Virginia Quarterly Review special issue "South America in the 21st Century" co-edited by Daniel Alarcón has been nominated for a National Magazine Award (the Pulitzers of the magazine world) in the category of Best Single Topic Issue. Unfortunately, the issue is sold out, but much of its content all of its content (plus a half-dozen works that were only released online) is available on the VQR website. [Update thanks to Waldo Jaquith at VQR.]

Mary Robinette Kowal is up for a Campbell Award this year, and is the only writer on the ballot to be nominated for her short fiction rather than for a novel. And since her stories are kinda hard to find, she's done the incredibly smart thing of putting together a fiction sampler as a free download.

...

Affiliate links to the books above are through BookSense.com, which acts as a portal to participating independent bookstores all over the States. By clicking on those links, you are helping to support your local indie bookshop and promote the good customer service and knowledge of literature that the staff at those shops are so well-known for. I also get a tiny cut of the transaction as a thank-you for pointing people to the site.

1. Last September, Caitlin Fitzsimmons (aka turtleheart1976) visited Singapore to gather research for an article for Anyway Magazine; I met up with her and the staff photographer with her on one of the nights she was free, for dinner and drinks and interesting conversation down at the Singapore River. The article was published shortly thereafter. But thankfully, those of us without access to the magazine can now read the article, as she's posted it on Roaming Tales for gratis. "Secret Singapore" is a cool outsider's look at the country (hey, look at me, calling people "outsiders" now), and explores some areas I hadn't even known about, which is what a good travel article should do:

Just a few streets away is Little India, which is a great place to come for food or a drink - though Niko reveals his favourite Indian restaurant is actually Sam’s Curry on the other side of town. There is a small Hindu temple, but it turns out there is a bigger one sited, incongruously, in Chinatown, showing how the areas of Singapore have changed their character over the years. The Mini pulls up at Mustafa, which sounds like the name of a character in the Lion King but is actually a department store in the heart of Little India.

Inside, it’s chaotic. The product displays are crammed from floor to ceiling, the medicines are next to the costume jewellery and the car accessories next to the books. Despite the mess Niko comes here to shop with his family, since it sells everything he needs - including German chocolate. Typically, it is also a source of design inspiration. “In Europe you would have a big sign and then about three items, but here it’s just everywhere,” Niko says. “It gives me me an insight into how people deal with visual information, about sound and smell, and here in Asia they are very often bombarded with information, so it’s interesting how they filter, what is relevant to them and what is not relevant to them.”

2. I first met Alice Sola Kim (aka alicek, not to be confused with Alice Kim, Nicholas Cage's wife) a few years ago at WisCon, when we were part of a groovy group reading that also included haddayr, snurri, and megmccarron. She read the beginning of "The Mom Walk," and I made sure to pick up the volume of Rabid Transit where it was published so I could read the rest. Her story in Lady Churchill's was also memorable, and I'm sure her new story in Strange Horizons, "We Love Deena," will be even more so:

Deena wanted to know if I was following her.

I don't remember which attempt it was, how many people I had been so far. But this time I was Pam, a girl who worked at the bookstore in Deena's neighborhood. Pam, whose hair was the same color as her skin, a monochromatic honey shade that would have been boring and dreary on other people but looked delicious on Pam. I was reasonably sure that if Deena didn't love me anymore, she would love Pam.

Deena said, again, "Are you following me?"

All she had needed was one look at me. Was it the way I was standing? Was it my little nervous cough, that identified me as surely as a DNA sample? I shook my head and sighed. I was like a ghost that had failed at whatever evil it was supposed to do, and could only be embarrassed at being found out, exorcised, and laughed at. Now I knew why there were ghosts that liked to smash things. I used the momentum of my sigh to leave Pam, whooshing out backwards and hanging in the air like mist behind her.

Jet lag has utterly screwed up my body clock. I've been awake this morning since 4:45, and rolled out of bed at 5:30 to satisfy my internets fix. With all the traveling lately, I haven't been online nearly as much as normal, which makes me feel out of touch. But after reading 900 entries in my f-list this morning, I can safely say that this is no longer the case.

So yeah, I made it safe and sound to my parents' house in South Carolina, and we've been having a nice visit. Lots of catching up and stuff around town. Delicious spinach and walnut ravioli in an alfredo sauce on my first night here. We tried to catch a telescope open viewing at the local university where my mother teaches, in the hopes of seeing the 17P/Holmes comet, but were thwarted by any attempts to actually find the observatory. Yesterday was spent at Myrtle Beach for shopping and the inaugural TubaChristmas there, and the concert brought back lots of memories; I participated in the Greensboro, NC TubaChristmas twice -- once in high school with my dad, and once in college with my good friend Duc -- and they're still using pretty much the same arrangements as when I played; unfortunately, the concert was outside, and it had just started raining before they were to begin, but it still sounded nice and made me long for my tuba-playing days. My aunt and uncle are driving over late this morning to visit, and it'll be great to see them again.

The weather turned cold and rainy yesterday, which made me glad to be able to wear my wool winter coat again (naturally, I don't have any opportunities to do so in Singapore), but despite the rain, the air has gotten drier, and my eyes are itchy. Bleh. Oh well.

***

Okay, some linkses for you, so that I can close a bunch of tabs:

"What's Writing Got to Do with Campus Terrorism?" by Chris M. Anson

"Inside the CIA's notorious 'black sites'" by Mark Benjamin

"The King of Sentences" by Jonathan Lethem

"Why you should download a Seamonkey" by Stephen Fry

"Journey Into Night" by David Sedaris

"Climate of fear hurts Singapore" in Sydney Morning Herald

"Surfacing . . . and work ethic" by Jeff VanderMeer

Even though I'm not regularly blogging at Vagablogging.net anymore, I'll still be doing occasional reviews for them. Such as one that went up today, for Graffiti Travel Guide: Singapore.

Enjoy.

From The Practical Nomad:

Today the USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the latest converging and ever-worse versions of its plans for surveillance and control of both domestic air travellers within the USA ("Secure Flight", formerly CAPPS-II) and international air and sea travellers to, from, or via the USA (the international "Advanced Passenger Information" system or "APIS").

Together, today's proposed rules would prohibit anonymous travel by air or sea (through compulsory display by would-be travellers, on request of the DHS, of government-issued identification credentials), compel monitoring of travellers and collection of lifetime personal travel records (through compulsory data collection and forwarding by airlines, cruise lines, travel agencies, and other travel companies) and control movement (through a default directive to air and sea carriers not to issue boarding passes to, or allow to board, any person except with the express prior case-by-case and flight-by-flight permission of the DHS.)

So does the DHS want, like, no one outside of the US to visit anymore? As I mentioned back in May, distrust in foreigners "has cost $94 billion in visitor spending, $16 billion in tax receipts, and some 194,000 American jobs." What will happen when tourists and travelers realize that their lifetime personal travel records will be registered without their knowledge or permission, and they'll basically have to beg permission from the DHS just enter the country? The federal government is already constructing a giant expensive wall on the border with Mexico, and now it seems they're doing the same with a metaphoric wall around the rest of the country.

What's even worse is that these rules will be applicable domestically as well. If you're flying from North Carolina to New York to visit your grandmother for Christmas, the DHS requires documentation of any travel you have ever done in your life.

Everyone is now a potential threat to the DHS, foreigners and American citizens alike, presumed guilty. Thanks to the new FISA amendments passed, there is even less oversight into the government spying on anyone that they want to, and now they get your travel plans as well. The word "privacy" seems to have been stricken from the Newspeak dictionary, made an unword, never to have existed.

Safe, that is, and home. Everything went fine on the trip back: the bus driver had no problem accepting my receipt as a ticket, the ride was uneventful (even got to watch a goofy kung fu movie starring Yuen Wah) if a bit nauseating (it was a double-decker, I was on the upper deck, and the whole thing had a tendency to sway), customs went off with only a small hitch (the immigration officer looked puzzled that I'd only left the country a few days ago, so I had to explain the whole situation and tell him I was waiting on my PR status, and thankfully I'd had the presence of mind before I left to bring along my PR Acknowledgment Card), and Janet's pa picked me up from the travel agency.

Whew.

I tired. I go bed now.

I checked out of the hotel about an hour ago, and am killing some time online before my bus arrives at 2:30.

Janet actually left yesterday, since she had to be back in Singapore today to take a test for her new tour job. After she left, I puttered around with a sad heart. I knew that I would be seeing her again a day later, but I just miss her so damn much when she's gone. Over three years we've been married, and I'm still reduced to a morose unmotivated lump when we're apart.

I did see Transformers last night, after benpeek's rave and lilredbite's excited descriptions, and enjoyed it for the most part. I tried to turn off my analytical brain and just enjoy the 'splosions and big! transforming! robots!, and was carried through for the most part on the escapism. Although I was bothered by the almost blatant stereotyping (detailed by nojojojo here), and Stoopid Character Syndrome played for comedic effect. Just like the original animated series, the movie is a vehicle to sell toys, and my expectations were appropriately low. The little ADD Decepticon was pretty funny.

All right, signing off now. Hopefully around 9 p.m., I'll be back in Singapore, legally able to stay in the country for another 90 days. Here's hoping I'm not forced into any other vacations anytime soon.

Thanks to everyone for their good wishes and nice words. I'm still stuck in KL until tomorrow, but I appreciate everyone's concern.

Yesterday, Janet and I hoofed it north to the Petronas Twin Towers (featured in the Connery/Zeta-Jones vehicle Entrapment) and did the touristy thing; she even got a photo at the base so that we couldn't be accused of shirking our foreign duty. Janet didn't want to go up to the top, or even to the pedestrian bridge that connects the two towers, so we wandered around the four- (or was it five-?)storey mall in between them, and checked out the stores we'd never be able to afford (high-end places like Prada, Gucci, Chanel, &c.) The Kinokuniya on the top floor wasn't as big as the one in Singapore, but was still nice to browse (although they didn't have Brasyl in stock, still thwarted!).

A subterranean tunnel connects the towers to the nearby convention centre, and I spent a half-hour in an internet cafe there, answering emails (I haven't checked my f-list since Monday morning). Lunch was food from an Indian stall in the convention centre, and afterward we made our way back to the hotel.

I checked at the front desk to see if our room had been switched yet (long story short: a family of six was staying across the hall from our original room, and the parents let the young children run screaming up and down the corridors, causing much lack of sleep and testing of patience; I mean, come on, discipline your kids), and about an hour later, our new room was ready. The porter showed up in a few minutes, and we packed everything up and followed him upstairs. We thought we'd gotten everything, but left behind something pretty vital, which I'll come back to in a sec.

The new room was superior in every way to the old one. Quieter, better insulated, on one end of the hall with no one across from us, an actual view of the city out of the window instead of a concrete wall ten feet away, newer furniture and appliances, and best of all, no screaming children using the corridor as their playground.

We met up with lilredbite and her friend Farid (I hope I'm spelling that right) last night, and were treated to an incredible dinner on the roof of a local Moroccan restaurant. My dish was lamb with plums cooked with a tagine, and it was incredibly delicious and tender. I also smoked shisha for the first time (with grape flavouring), and it was an interesting experience; my asthma surprisingly did not act up until the very end, and I got a pleasant buzz from the toking (although no illegal substances had been added). Combined with the excellent food, strong mint tea, and fascinating conversation, it produced a relaxed atmosphere, and we left three hours later, wondering where the time had gone. It was a night that almost completely redeemed the trip here, and I'm so glad we got to hang out with (and finally meet in person) lilredbite and Farid.

This morning, after an excellent night's sleep, and breakfast down in the hotel restaurant (where we watched rapt as a large fly on our table performed a complicated series of ablutions, cleaning itself like a hamster), we walked around a bit more. We went back to Yogini Mystical Treasures (which we visited on Tuesday) and picked up a few small gifties, then had lunch at Société: The Shopaholic's Café.

When we got back to the hotel, we realised that our return bus tickets were missing. We turned the room upside down, and completely went through our bags, but they were gone. The only thing that I could figure is that we somehow left them behind when we switched rooms yesterday, though I'm positive that we grabbed them. Still, the evidence overwhelmed my memory; we simply could not find them anywhere. Luckily, Janet had kept the receipt from the travel agency, and she called them. They said that as long as we presented the receipt to the bus driver, that we could still get home. *sigh* The drama never ends.

Right now, Janet and I are sitting outside Abbistur's PDA Cafe in Kuala Lumpur and mooching free wifi. I didn't expect to be taking a trip to Malaysia this week, but thanks to Singapore's immigration policies am being forced to stay put for a few days.

When I entered Singapore at the beginning of April, my passport was stamped with a "Social Visit Pass" that lasts 90 days. As the expiry date approached, and I still hadn't heard about my Permanent Resident status, I started getting worried, because overstaying your time in the country could result in fines or even jail. I went to the Immigration and Customs Authority (ICA) website to see what I could do about this, and they had an application that you could fill out to get the Social Visit Pass extended by 30 days; they also had an online form available, so that I wouldn't have to go down to their offices. So I filled out the form this past weekend and waited for the result.

The email came yesterday afternoon: my petition had been denied.

No reason was given, and when I called the ICA, the operator told me that there was no way to find out. When I pleaded with her for the opportunity to come down in person and explain my case, she said that you only get one chance to have your pass extended, whether it's done online or in person. One shot. I asked what would happen now, and she said I would need to leave the country for at least three days before re-entering.

While I packed, Janet and her mum frantically looked up bus tours to Malaysia leaving last night, and found one travel agency with buses departing at 7 and 10 p.m. We drove downtown and booked the tickets and hotel room, drove back to the house, finished packing and ate dinner, then took a taxi at 6 p.m. back downtown, checked in with the agency at 6:30, boarded the bus, and then left at 7:00.

We went through customs twice, once at the border on the Singapore side, and then again after crossing the bridge into Malaysia. I was holding my breath both times, just hoping that they wouldn't find something else wrong with my paperwork and detain me further, but everything went smoothly.

After a long and bumpy bus ride, during which the jerkwads in front of us smashed their seats into our knees and snored louder than the rattling drone of the bus engine, and I passed the time listening to podcasts of Fresh Air and This American Life, we arrived at Kuala Lumpur at 12:45. Only a few of us were rushed off the bus, as everyone else was continuing on to Genting or somewhere farther north. A hurried taxi ride later, and we checked in to the hotel (which does not offer free wifi, but instead two computers across from the front desk that can get online for a whopping 10 ringgit/half-hour, which is why I'm at the cafe across the street).

So, we're stuck here for a few days. We got maps from the travel agency and the hotel, and there appear to be plenty of things to do; we're probably heading to the Petronas Towers tomorrow. An unexpected trip, and one that I hadn't wanted to take, but we're making the most of it. Everything is fine, we're both safe, and we'll be back in Singapore before the weekend.

From the always up-to-date Paul di Filippo at The Inferior 4+1:

The intellectual and pleasure content of televised SF has just jumped several quantum levels!

From John Kessel:

To those of you who may be interested:

I hope you will excuse the broadcast nature of this email, and any possible duplications. Knowing how annoying spam can be, please feel free simply to hit the "delete" key and move on.

ABC has finally set an air date for the new series Masters of Science Fiction, including the first episode, "A Clean Escape" based on my story of the same title. "A Clean Escape" will be broadcast on ABC on Saturday, August 4 at 10 pm eastern.

Here are a website for ABC on the series, and a second run by the show's producers:

http://abc.go.com/specials/mastersofscifi.html

http://www.mastersofscifi.com/site/

All best,
John Kessel

Yay! Well, not yay for me, because I won't be able to see it, but yay for my USian friends! "A Clean Escape" is one of my favorite Kessel stories.

Also, a new Vagablogging post today: "The cosmic whiplash of Bhutan"

My review of Pico Iyer's travel book Video Night in Kathmandu went up today at Vagablogging. Though it's been almost 20 years since this was written, it's still relevant, and is a fascinating snapshot of Asia in the 1980s.

A new entry at Vagablogging today, in which I review Josef Woodman's Patients Beyond Borders. A text I highly recommend if you're considering traveling overseas for a medical procedure.

A new Vagablogging post: "Singapore to recruit foreign travelers to work." A pretty ambitious program, and I'm interested to see how it all works out.

This was actually supposed to go up next Wednesday, but my editor had no post from the normal Friday person, so he stuck mine in there instead. Which means I still have to think of a new post for next Wednesday, dammit.

This week's entry at Vagablogging is now up, about a travel journal contest Moleskine is hosting to celebrate the release of the City Notebooks. Open to residents of Asia only.

Oh, and my boss at the travelblog, Rolf Potts, was recently interviewed for Rick Steves' NPR radio show, Travel with Rick Steves. It was a great hour-long discussion about Vagabonding and ethical travel, and can be heard via the podcast or streaming audio.

You know what it's like when traveling via air within the US: the frequent delays, the endless lines through security, the unfriendly service, the intense scrutiny by TSA officials. Trying to keep the country secure has led to a lot of resentment of that security, and you can consider yourself lucky if your flight leaves on time, and you're actually on it.

And that's just for American citizens. What about foreign travelers visiting US shores?

It turns out they're treated even worse, so much so that visitors from abroad now fear US government officials more than terrorists. A recent poll rates the US by a 2:1 margin as the world's "most unfriendly" destination for foreign travelers.

From The New Zealand Herald:

Welcome to America, where officials who work for the Department of Homeland Security, which was set up after the 2001 terrorist attacks, have a major image problem.

In a recent poll of international travellers, commissioned by Discover America Partnership, a coalition of US tourist organisations, 70 per cent of respondents said they feared US officials more than terrorists or criminals. Another 66 per cent worried they would be detained for some minor blunder, such as wrongly filling out an official form or being mistaken for a terrorist, while 55 per cent say officials are "rude."

Such fears are fuelled by the horror stories. Earlier this year a friend of mine was detained for hours and strip-searched at LAX for a minor visa infraction. He was finally allowed to enter the US, on the condition he departed the next day. "I won't be coming back," he said.

In a January Listener article, New Zealand journalist Marilyn Head described how she missed a flight after being treated like a criminal by US airport guards.

"I left the US vowing never to return," she wrote. "I'm not alone."

Distrust in foreigners "has cost $94 billion in visitor spending, $16 billion in tax receipts, and some 194,000 American jobs." When every visitor from another country is presumed to be a terrorist before being proved innocent (requiring fingerprints and other biometric data, a system that has thus far cost American taxpayers $15 billion), it's no big surprise when they decide not to come back.

Link to the full story (via Boing Boing).

A new Vagablogging entry about my all-time favorite notebooks evar, now with a twist: "Review of Moleskine City Notebooks: Prague."

Update: My entry got pinged by Moleskinerie! W00t!

A new Vagablogging post today, on the latest cartoon from Dorothy Gambrell:



"'Cat and Girl' on American consumerism"

A new Vagablogging entry from me today (the first in quite a while), "Magical realist writing workshop in Bohemia," in which I point out the writing workshop being conducted this summer by John Kessel and Wilton Barnhardt in Prague. If you're thinking of going, better get those entries in quick; deadline is coming up in the middle of this month.

Tomorrow morning, I'm heading off to Kewanee, IL for a few days to visit my grandmother. She really wanted to see me before I left for Singapore, so I'll be hanging out in the small town where my dad grew up until Wednesday morning. Janet will be staying at home, since she still has items up for sale at craigslist (she's been fielding at least 25 emails a day, per item), and she has a ton of work that she's gotten behind on because of the move, PHP and database programming, web design, and art commissions; she hasn't even been able yet to start the illustrations for A Field Guide to Surreal Botany.

I'll be bringing the iBook with me, so I should have access to email, but I don't know how much I'll be able to check. My f-list reading will most likely dwindle to nil. If you have something important to report, feel free to email it to me.

My flight leaves at 8:20 tomorrow morning (so my dad is picking me up at 6:45 to get to the airport), so I'll be getting to bed early, no SNL. Alex Irvine's A Scattering of Jades will be my plane-reading material.

Illinois, ho!

The short list for the 2007 Travvies has just been announced, and I'm proud to relate the news that Vagablogging is a finalist in the Best Group-Written Travel Blog category. Yay! Having posted a grand total of three entries there, I can't claim hardly any credit, but my fellow contributors have done a phenomenal job blogging about all sorts of cool travel stuff.

If you feel like voting, be my guest. The site has links to all of the nominated blogs so that you can take a peek at them in case you're not familiar.