Horsefeathers! Hildy just e-mailed me and I say, Ba-loney! I’m absolutely zozzled with disbelief! I don’t want to make a beef about this, but here’s the dish. If you recall my Hannah Hart, ghostdame of The Del intro post, I told you cats I was off to Boston for a Beacon Hill Christmas. I also mentioned it’s no simple jaunt, spending up loads of my energy to get there. Sure, ghost travel ain’t the big brodie yours is, but it’s still no basket of blackberries in July. Well, guess what, kids? Dr. Harvey & Hildy, good ol’ Mum and Daddy, won’t be having a Beantown Christmas this year because they’re headed for Hawaii! Well, I told them that’s all wet! How could they? I’ve been saving up since summer for the Road to New England and they go all Santa-in-a-grass-skirt on me.

To make matters worse, they’re taking big bro Hugh with them. It looks like I’m all alone, Santa Baby. Just my little dog Lindy and Moi. Home for the holidays suddenly doesn’t seem quite the raspberry I thought it was. Plus, how am I supposed to get all my presents? Try to receive a package as a ghost, or deliver one for that matter. The current residents inevitably either keep the goods or send them back marked No longer at this address. Duh, Dumb Dora. Even brown can’t do that. Murder!

Well, I’m nothing if not a Pink Gin is half-full kind of kitten. I suppose the upside is not only do I get a respite from Harvey & Hildy’s foxtrot flaunts, but I also get to remain in San Diego, in my gorgeous Hotel del Coronado. Boyzo! Is it ever bonkers with Christmas spirit! Better than that? I think I spied an old chum lurking over a Gibson in the Babcock & Story – and I do mean old . . . she’s been here longer than I. Dr. Lucia Devereaux, oceanographer, was the first hot scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She also had a knack for tinkering and a fascination with the new electricity fads of the day: a deadly avocation when combined with her vocation.

Dr. Lucy’s been haunting the hotel since 1904 when – The Del being the world’s first resort to use electrical lighting – she naively tried to teach Onslow, her pet octopus, whom she housed in the hotel pool, how to run the nighttime deck lights. One sad splash! and that was it: she would reside where she died. Legend has it Onslow scuttled back out to sea before he died and today he still tarries about the shoreline, only able to see his Lucy from afar. Sometimes at night, you can see them waving to each other: Onslow’s tentacles from the sea, she her handkerchief from her attic laboratory. Each Christmas Eve since then, if one listens carefully over the crashing waves of midnight, one hears Dr. Lucy singing his favorite poem, Lord Octopus Went to the Christmas Fair by Stella Mead (1934). It’s haunting, really. Lord Octopus went to the Christmas Fair; an hour and a half he was traveling there …

She’s been adventurous lately, leaving her lab, now that steampunk is all the rage. Lucy’s a sucker for anything Victorian and mechanical. Lucky for her, the hotel gift shops have a plethora of steampunk décor and accoutrement: Onslow Christmas ornaments, clockwork art, vintage styled jewelry and sartorial finery galore for gentlemen and ladies in the posh hotel boutiques. If I can keep her out of the lab, I think it could be a nobby Christmas! Maybe Harvey & Hildy going to Hawaii is the best pressie after all. These hotel holidaymakers won’t know what hit when we jazzy kittens jolly up the joint!

Until the Christmas wingdings begin, I’ve got more than enough seasonal cheer and swell weather to keep me chipper. Best of all, I’ve got a stack of Mickey Mouse Magazines, Carl Barks’ Uncle Scrooge Adventures and even a few modern copies of Betty and Veronica. Oh, I do like that sassy and shiny Veronica! You wouldn’t find Miss Veronica Lodge at The Del in flip-flops and elastic-waist shorts … like some of you. (Cats, try to remember it’s an upscale resort when you visit. U.S. presidents, dignitaries and film stars holiday here. At least, please don’t wear your jim-jams out of your hotel room.)

Comic books for a chickadee like me? And how! You think all you alligators with your Superman, Spiderman and Star Wars tales cornered the market on comic book furor? Think again, dolls! Disney ink first hit the pulp in 1930 and I’ve been hooked like an old lady on a favorite Atlantic City slot machine ever since. I’ve even still got my very first comic book ever, a stocking stuffer in either ’31 or ’32: Mickey Mouse in Death Valley. Uncle Scrooge, Huey, Dewey, Louie and those brazen Beagle Boys have been taking this muffin on adventure after adventure for over eighty years. Topping the stack currently is my 1949 Walt Disney’s Christmas Parade.  My faves though? The Egyptian escapades; nothing’s funnier than a mummy chasing Donald Duck! Throw in Mickey and Goofy afoot of a mystery in the Scottish Highlands and you’ve got some rip-roaring good yarns! Don’t forget to check your Junior Woodchuck Guidebook for tips on overseas mysteries, just in case you’re headed to exotic lands for the holidays. (I hope Harvey & Hildy packed their copy!)

Now, I’ve got to go change. The Travel Channel is on the premises shooting Skating by the Sea: The Del’s beachsiide ice skating. First, I have to dig up my fur-trimmed, Sonja Henie skating dress, my white, velvet muff and then it takes forever to do my finger curls. (Listen up, broads. Ghost locks are paper-thin and refuse to hold a curl; whatever you died with, you pretty much keep forever. So, if you have some idea of when you’re going out, make sure your hair is looking spiffy.) As soon as I’m cute n’ camera-ready, I’ll dash over and make a few spins around the ice rink. See, when they get around to editing next year’s Travel Channel Hallowe’en specials, they’ll remember they think they saw yours truly in some of the Christmas footage. Hey, it’s good B-roll for them and I get to keep my footy in the flickers.

Okay, dolls. Tootles and Happy Holid … wait, is that Dr. Lucy? Ahhh, it is! Sure enough, she’s headed for the bar! I think I have time for a quick G&T à la B&S. Damn, I’m never going to get to my comic books. Whilst she and I catch up, perhaps some of you can suggest other great comics (any new steampunk series?) and holiday cocktails for Lucy, Lindy and Moi this Christmas @JennyPopCom.

 Need some splashy, flashy holiday cocktails? Find recipes from JennyPop's Festive Libations!

Abyssinia, babies!


@JennyPopCom

Published in Miss Hannah Hart

"San Diego’s booming prosperity attracts unscrupulous characters ... This includes prostitutes and gamblers."

Unscrupulous is such a subjective characterization. Effervescent? Of course. Adventurous? Certainly. Creative? Sans doute! We, specifically of the Comic-Con ilk (as this post pertains to that segment of the San Diego populace) are merely carrying on Rabbitville's long-running, luxe and intricate tapestry of the curious, the frivolous, the entrepreneurial, the artistic, the devoted and the odd. We also like a good martini, an unobstructed sunset and free parking.

Kittens, if the chilly, San Diego rain wasn’t a prompt to play indoors this December, the siren of invention, engineering,  technology and design was enough to lure a capacity-crowd of the curious to the first San Diego Mini Maker Faire. Ringing its knell from the warm beauty of the Spanish Mission-styled Del Mar Fairgrounds, this newest stop for the San Diego geek train proved bustling, hectic and promising. Besides, it’s Del Mar, kids! Even a permanent guest at the Hotel del Coronado needs a change of scenery once in a bit and this girl needs only an eighth of a reason to pop over “Where the Surf Meets the Turf”!

Billed as The Greatest Show (and Tell) on Earth, Maker Faire at-large is a congress of imaginative folk and a place to share, and sell, ideas and wares. Known as the Maker Movement, this creative-following is gaining steam worldwide, with Faires staged from the Bay Area to New York, from Dublin to Rome, from Tokyo to Sydney. December 2K13 was San Diego’s initiation with its first ever, and hopefully annual, Mini Maker Faire. (Why Mini? Based on New York’s version, there is much room to grow.)

An all-ages gathering of tech enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, engineers, science clubs, authors, artists, students, and commercial exhibitors, Maker Faire worldwide is a cerebral wonderland for anyone with an imagination and the temerity to do something with it. Like a geeky cocktail party, minus the good booze (although some form of vile, domestic, beerwater was available at John Dillinger prices), the gathering is, as Maker Faire claims, a family-friendly festival of invention, creativity and resourcefulness … part science fair, part county fair, and part something entirely new.
 
“In cosmological terms … S.D. Mini Maker Faire was what is known as a big bang event.” Photo: Jeff Kubina

Waiting in a very long, very slow, very wet line to enter San Diego’s first Faire, a talkative and cheerful USD student spoke authoritatively about the Bay Area venue, claiming it to be, with just a dash of good-natured condescension, “much bigger, way better and lots of actual symposia and lectures”. Fretting about the $12 entrance fee, wishing she had purchased the cheaper, $10 ticket online, she hoped San Diego’s effort would be worth it. Sizing up the hall’s exterior from under her fur-trimmed parka-hood, she sneered a bit and said with a twisted smile, “Kinda doubt it.”

Whilst the entry fee, plus $15 parking was relatively steep (Consider the Grand Dame of geek fests, San Diego Comic-Con, runs $12-$42/day) and the line was agonizingly slow (only two ticket windows), the cerebral and visual stimuli inside Bing Crosby Hall assuaged the lighter wallet and damp boots. Awaiting the rain- and line-weary crowds was a bevy of crafting booths, science experiments and technological demos, including a proverbial explosion in the popularity of 3-D printing: Yoda heads, TARDIS and Millennium Falcons proving the most popular products of the 3-D craze. The most inspiring, fascinating and useful of the 3-D buzz? Robohands: building appendages for those with hand anomalies, in mere hours! Don’t have $80K for a prosthetic? No worries. A set of blueprints and a 3-D printer (approx. $2K to purchase; a pittance to rent; maybe even one exists in your office) and you’ve got a hand by day’s end.

If one’s avocation, vocation or profession tends toward technology, real science, science-fiction or even steampunk, one would be pleased in the tightly-packed confines of the Faire. To boot, Comic-Con and WonderCon regulars would note some friendly faces on the periphery: San Diego Star Wars Society and San Diego R2-D2 Builders Club, to name a couple.

San Diego Star Wars Society and San Diego R2-D2 Builders Club shared a space and, as one would expect of them, brought a fan’s enthusiasm to the franchises. SDSWS is like AA, for Star Wars geeks. If they put out a calendar, Tina Fey-as-Liz Lemon-as-Princess Leia-as-hologram would be their centerfold. Meet-ups are a way for fellow San Diego Star Wars freaks to gather and geek out over any and all things SW. From movie marathons to cosplay-and-props workshops, from collecting and gaming to convention field trips and even charitable events (notably Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation: Fighting Childhood Cancer, One Cup at a Time), the simple goal of this SoCal space sodality is to have a good time with like-minded dorks.

If Thomas, a kindly Swiss San Diegan manning the booth, is any indication of the folk you’ll meet at SDSWS, this coterie of Chewbacca connoisseurs would indeed be a pleasant diversion from the leagues of snarky, snippy, Star-savants out there, of both Wars and Trek. Welcoming, informative and inclusive, Thomas was anathema to so many Star Wars experts blitzing about the planet, propelled by their own hot air.  Smiling and eager to chat, hopeful to bring anyone into the fold, even the wholly uninitiated, Thomas offered no snorts of derision or condescending blinks when fielding even the simplest questions from children and adults alike. Enthusiastically, and with the slightest Teutonic accent, he shared the simple mission of SDSWS: “Come and join us to talk about Star Wars and have a good time!”

If the future isn’t your gig, but futuristic is, Gears & Roebuck: Rusty Junk Emporium and The San Diego Steampunk Community (including the Adventures of Drake & McTrowell: Perils in a Postulated Past) were on-hand, in very wee numbers, it should be noted, to hawk a few antique wares, tell some tall tales and share the collective mission of steampunkers worldwide: “We fight with invention, we fight with ingenuity. Full steam ahead! All aboard!”

Generally a well-read, sartorially-intense and whimsical crew, the Victorian votaries are tinkerers extraordinaire, taking cues from the likes of  Jules Verne to Bill Gates. Steampunk inspiration reaches back to Sir Charles Wheatstone and his stereoscopic imaging (predecessor to today’s 3-D imaging) and forward to Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. If you’ve yet to explore this world, helpful steampunk primer by our own JennyPop. If you’re already in the know, and living in San Diego, the San Diego Steampunk Community just might have the perfect, Phileas Foggesque, space-age tool to scratch that ruddy itch.

Will the Maker Faire make it to San Diego again next year? The Maker Movement is gaining traction in metropoli everywhere.  Judging by the Mars-level heat generated in this sardine-packed venue, it seems plumb stupid to not capitalize again on the funky, inventive and creative nature of San Diego folk. However, like Michael Moore's jeans, the Bing Crosby Exhibition Hall was packed to the seams and ready to burst with the first, big breath. My recommendation, promoters? Air-conditioned pith helmets and Gigantor, Jules Verneesque floor fans as big as time machines on every aisle, and gratis, air-conditioned pith helmets with every ticket purchase. Otherwise, a grand time was had by most.

Full steam ahead and Merrie Christmas!

 

Follow @JennyPopCom #MakerFaire #StarWars #Steampunk

Published in Miss Hannah Hart

 

 

Well, cats, as Porky Pig struggles to declare, "Th-th-th-that's all, folks!". San Diego Comic-Con 2013 is a wrap. The big burg with the filthy mayor and the small beachtown chill is back to it's groovy, mellow, peaceful ways. (Save for trying to oust said-filthy mayor. What a loony, dangerous maroon!) The air around the Convention Center smells like salt air once again; the trademark smell of The Con hovering somewhere over Santa Fe by now. What is that smell, New Mexicans might wonder? It's a simultaneously exhilarating, exciting and pathetic amalgam of anxiety, camping, body odour, latex, cheap polyester, sycophancy, Japanese perfume, cheap leather, desperation, domestic "beer" and nacho "cheese" sauce.

Hannah Hart, ghostdame here, kids! I think we are being spied upon, as of late. As Dr. Lucy and I prepare for WonderCon (Anaheim Convention Center March 29-31, 2013), it appears the bonkers-brilliant minds behind Portlandia have clearly been engaged in careful examination of our cosplay methods. We mistakenly thought our crossed fingers to be our little secret. (Uninitiated to the wonky randomness of Portlandia? Read a wee TV review by my pally, Jennifer Susannah Devore.) Yes, I imagine our short sojourn at the Anaheim Hilton and WonderCon shall prove raw-ther similar to Portlandia's spot-on effort: Steampunk Convention.

Kids,  I don’t get too much mail here at The Del. Being dead and all, who’s going to send Moi anything? With the exception of occasional postcards you good pips send me here at the Hotel del Coronado -keep ‘em coming, babies!- mail call is pretty quiet around The Del for yours truly.

Still, along with the odd postcard, and some of them are quite odd, especially those from Texas, I do get unexpected packages once in a blue moon. Today, I received a small, padded envelope with a CD in it. There was no note with it, no greeting, merely a crude marking on the CD itself which read, “Consider yourself warned”.

Jeepers creepers! The return address read only “League of S.T.E.A.M.“!

“Supernatural & Troublesome Ectoplasmic Apparition Management, indeed! How rude! I have a right mind to send them a very sternly written letter. However, I am even more of the mind that my online blathering has finally called too much attention to not only myself, but my dear friend Dr. Lucy. It seems to me, we’ve got some ghost hunting types here in the hotel and, what with Hallowe’en fast-approaching, my guess is these steampunk monster hunters are gearing up for Samhain Scandals! Well, they’ll never catch me! Ha ha!

This, btw, is what those real monsters sent me. Pay close attention after the 3:00-mark.

{youtube width="580" height="380"}oa4RmkODnBE{/youtube}

Damn it, Lucy! I know how much you enjoyed playing with that new EOS Canon Rebel. Still, didn’t I tell you that if we were going to go play at Comic-Con, that we had to lie low? Especially in the SyFy Press Room? As dear old dad, Dr. Harvey, would say, “Oi vey, Lucy!”.

Fortunately, I shall be out of town for the Holidays: home to good ol’ Beantown and spooky Salem, Mass for some Hallowe’en haunting about the Hawthorne Hotel; and, Lucy shall visit her dear Dr. Devorkian up in Napa this All Hallows’ Eve. Let’s see the League of S.T.E.A.M. find us now! (Oh. Wait. Damn it, Hannah!) Well, at least now the League shall have to dispatch their tiresome, hyper-weaponed gnats to New England and Northern California, as well as wherever else their ne’er-do-well activities take them here in Southern California.

Shame on them, nettling and tweaking the likes of Lucy and Moi! Funny enough, now those half-portions in Ghost Adventurers and Ghost Hunters International don’t seem so bad.

Monster hunters take note! Perchance, you are not aware of she with whom you dare to dance! I swing a mean cocktail bag, kittens!

 

Published in Miss Hannah Hart

 

 

“There’s an awful lot of weird, pasty people in here, myself included.” So went my recurring, silent observance throughout this year’s Comic-Con, striking oft as I flitted hither and thither through the San Diego Convention Center, like a frantic mosquito seeking an open window on a muggy, Malibu, summer’s day. The pastiness was not truly what struck me, nor was the definitive weirdness. The real oddity was, like in so many gatherings where we geeks gather en masse -Renaissance Faire, Disneyland- the convergence of and shoulder-to-shoulder conditions pressed upon so many individuals not generally prone to mainstream socializing. Moi? I haven’t left my Hotel del Coronado much since 1934. Dr. Lucy, my ghostie cohort? 1904. Judging by the bevy of pale and malleable bodies endeavouring some severely awkward social interactivity, they’ve not left their abodes since 1904 either. Need more than just one fat Slave Leia? Dr. Lucy’s Comic-Con 2012 Gallery of Oddities!

 

{youtube width="580" height="380"}rS7T9dfwewc#!{/youtube}

"I still don't get it, Jennifer. What the heck is Steampunk?"

Voila, the de rigueur response from most when hit with a steampunk reference. Nebulous, querulous Steampunk. Briefly? 'Tis an anachronistically-based, alternate-existence, period-shod, fantasy world wherein steam power industry mixes bombastically with the funky, sharp vibes of modern technology ... plus a lot of airships, corsets, leather tophats, octopi (weirdly), 6" granny boots and fingerless gloves. "Quod the quod?", you cry. No worries. It doesn't actually matter. It's just a bit of stylish fun.

Steampunk is a weird and wild wedding of fashion, decor and technology flanked by the bridesmaids of science-fiction and fantasy. It's a mad, mad, mad, topsy-turvy swirl of Victorian-era British Colonialism, the American West, 19thC. Industrial Revolution and NASA. If Charles Dickens, Gail Carriger, Jules Verne, Walt Disney, Dr. Michio Kaku, Edward Gorey and Tim Burton co-recreated a Gilbert & Sullivan musical, you'd have Steampunk, sort of. Lift your opera glasses and have a peek at Xerposa: All Things Steampunk.

For a more intellectual exploration, take a few moments and treat yourself to Science Channel's Prophets of Science Fiction, specifically the Jules Verne episode. Dr. Kaku himself will help guide you through the leaves and pages of Verne's Victorian-futuristic literary themes.

Anyhoo, whilst Gwen Stefani's L.A.M.B., Vivienne Westwood, Betsey Johnson and Ralph Lauren have been giving us teases n' tastes of the Victorian-fantasy look for years, Prada, with the help of Gary Oldman, Garrett Hedlund, Jamie Bell and Willem Dafoe, now gives us a four-course, sartorial feast with the Fall/Winter 2012 line of menswear ... steampunk inspired, clearly. After viewing the dapper, magically digital spectacle above, spot a bit o' ladies' steampunk through your spyglass at Clockwork Couture.

Need an altogether visual? Portlandia, as it does with all its targets, spoofs it best: Steampunk Convention. (A little too spot-on!) What's your fave steampunk mode: literature, film, fashion designer, photographer, or artiste otherwise? Share with Moi!

 


Published in Blog Archive

Ciao, kittens! Hannah Hart, ghostdame here. Spring's in full swing and all's swell here at the Hotel Del. Dr. Lucy and I are in the early stages of prepping for San Diego Comic-Con 2012. Costumes are the projet du jour and Lucy's going steampunk with a mad vengeance. It's all Airship Pirates and Parasol Protectorate around here. Apropos to Comic-Con, my dear pally, Miss Jenny, is wringing her hands awaiting word on her article submitted to the fine editors at the official Comic-Con Souvenir Book: That Other Jane: 100 Years of Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, Heartbreaker.

An accomplished author in her own right, Miss Jenny's got some opinions about the publishing world and I got to thinking about her and all the other poor mooks out there writing, publishing and turning bloody blue as they scratch and claw, day-in and day-out, for someone, anyone to notice them. Natch, I pondered further, might the keen writers of eras gone by, say, Laura Ingalls Wilder or Beatrix Potter, thrill in the elixir of today’s social networking opportunities? Or, might they flounder and panic futilely to extricate themselves from the inescapable tar pits of literary masturbation and personal promotion.

In an episode of Little House on the Prairie the television series, Laura Ingalls, as a burgeoning writer, contributes to and wins an amateur writing contest. The prize? She gets her stories published by a big city publisher: St. Louis or New York, I don't recall. The twist? She turns down the offer when she realizes the publishing pills want to jazz up her innocuous Ma and Pa tales. (Seems execs haven't changed much over the years.) Walking away, her moxie and integrity in tact, our pretty, perky and plain prairie protagonist eventually does earn a book deal and, thankfully for us, we have the Little House series of books today. Whilst her publisher and agent would sell her charm and tout her words around the country, Half-pint had to do her share, too. She wrote the books. That used to be the hard part. Were she writing today, her bloomers and corset would need a good starching to keep her steady on the course and stop her from doing a swan dive under Ma's quilt, grabbing her fave stuffed bunny, Mr. Sniffles, and giving up altogether, 'cause today's book business is brutal, babies.

Knowing a thing or two, about a thing or two where indie publishers and authors are concerned, not to mention those backed by traditional, big publishing houses, it's clear to this ghostdame that your worldwide, 24/7, omnipresent, vlogging, blogging, iReporting, YouTubing kind of social media and promo possibilities are the bane of the solitary writer. Around every proverbial corner there's some slimy crumb bumping his gums about how the worthless and pathetic can be better writers. Nasty and hateful industry insiders, bored readers and armchair critics tell the aspiring schlubs regularly how much they suck eggs. The need and ability to incessantly and shamelessly plug, ply, hawk, rationalize and apologize for one’s precious wares morphs the once-quiet and pensive writer into a mealy-mouthed carnival barker.

Now it seems to me most writers crave attention: needy little bastards. Whether or not they inherently have the ability to market their work to elicit that attention is another story. Miss Jenny did a number of book signings back East at good ol’ fashioned Barnes & Noble brick-and-mortar stores, not to mention Borders and Waldenbooks shops. Remember those, kids? She was also a fixture in Colonial Williamsburg, schlepping her Savannah of Williamsburg books alongside more than few notable authors and historians. Jim Lehrer, Edward Cline, Dr. Phyllis Haislip and a gentleman whom is considered to be the worldwide authority on Thomas Jefferson, Dr. Alf Mapp, just to name a few.

With the exception of Jim Lehrer, being a tough bird to get close to, she spoke often with these folks and found many of them, even those traditionally published by the big houses, spent as much time as she did booking appearances, wrangling events, scheduling book signings and even printing their own event signage. Want a real-life sob story? Here ya go.

One of these prolific authors waited nearly a year for royalty checks, was eventually sent a pittance check and then the publisher filed for reorganization, a.k.a. bankruptcy. Amazingly, the bankruptcy court forced him to return the wee check, dismissed the royalties owed altogether and allowed the publisher to keep the titles. Zowie! Talk about getting whacked with a bag of nickels by a bunch of goons. To wit, some, but not the rightfully pissed off author in question, have dutifully joined the dance of the social networks to aid in their publishers' quest for the almighty review, movie option and American dollar.

For those whom deign to seek it, there exists more online advice and how-tos for the tentative scrivener than Spongebob had excuses to put off writing his driving essay for Mrs. Puff. Countless editing fora, manuscript submission no-nos, insider agent tips, the psychology of cover art, character development webinars and marketing strategies up the wazoo flood not just the search engines, but the writer’s tenuous and wobbly noggin. From what I know about the delicate genius, writing-by-committee is painful. Seek ye just a single, golden thread to pull one over the wall and kapow! the poor, unsuspecting wordsmith is floored and buried with a dump truck of frayed, worthless bits of twine too short and thin to use anywhere.

Even Anne Rice –a moment of silent respect, please- comprehends the importance of Tweeting and Facebooking as she socializes and shares personal musings, liberal politics, current affairs, photos of her kitty, Little Prince Oberon, and, of course, updates of book signings and reviews. People of the Page, she dubs her fans and followers. Miss Jenny is an Anne devotee and thus, a Person of the Page.

Not only are Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Smashwords, SmartGirl, Blogger and the like literary campgrounds for amateur and professional writers alike, but the Wellborn of Wordsmithing have pitched their tents in cyberspace as well. Besides Anne, J.K. Rowling, Steve Martin, Peter Mayle, Bill Bryson, Brian Jacques, Sophie Kinsella, Gail Carriger and even Half-pint have succumbed.

I like to think Laura Ingalls Wilder, Beatrix Potter, Hunter S. Thompson, Charles Dickens, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allen Poe, Oscar Wilde, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Geoffrey Chaucer, Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Wm. Shakespeare -or Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton or Sir Robert Cecil or whomever it is we’re learning might have "been Shakespeare”- would have not shoved their work in our faces at every turn. I also like to think that some of them would have loved the idea of social media. You just know Mark Twain, HST and Ernest Hemingway would have delighted in followers, fans and friends, from afar, and would have certainly used the proverbial 140 to its pithiest and volatile best.

It’s a double-edged sword indeed, kittens. In my day, if you could write like F. Scott Fitzgerald and you were fortunate enough to get noticed or have the right connections, you could be a superstar. Just sit back, drink your scotch, holiday in Paris and let the industry professionals take on the lion’s share of the legwork. Being an author had cache because it was a rarity. It was a nearly impossible title to attain because one had to stand out in the crowd. Today, anyone may write, whether or not they can write. Of course, there lies an upside to the barrage of opportunity available online.

No need for Algonquin Roundtable connections anymore. Can't get into the New Yorker cafe? No worries, dollface. You write it, you publish it, you sell it, you market it. Of course, there’s a lot of cut-rate writing out there; but there are a lot of great oeuvres, too, that we might have never seen without the Internet. The keys to the kingdom are no longer necessary and some of the unknown and worthy are busting through the front gates, pens blazing. The Internet, Amazon in particular, is like the Ellis Island of Bookland. Enter its turnstiles and leave the starched Old World with its stern Old Ways behind you. Opportunity beckons on every street corner, but, writer, beware ... so do the scams, cheats, sure-things and a nasty, blistering rash if you’re not careful.

Lucy's finding all kinds of goodies to buy at Clockwork and that got me thinking about another commercial marriage that might have flourished, but we'll never know. See, if Laura Ingalls could be prone to Tweeting, Mrs. Harriet Olseon could certainly embrace the new culture easily, culling “friends” and patrons from the world over and redirecting them to her Joomla website: populated with goods from Olseon's Mercantile as well as drop-ship, throw-away, plastic crap from Singapore and China. Nels, I’m pretty sure, would not have been allowed admin permissions.

By the way, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s current tweet @HalfPintIngalls: I know Almanzo is really into Morgan horses but... uh, should I be concerned that I found THIS in his stocking drawer?

Abyssinia, cats!

Hannah's fave place to haunt online? www.jennypop.com @JennyPopCom Facebook/Savannah of Williamsburg & Facebook/The Darlings of Orange County ... 'cause she kinda has to.

Published in Miss Hannah Hart