I’m going to try to make it to this:

Voices of Reason: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Belief Starts: Wednesday, April 22nd 2009 at 6:30 pm Ends: Wednesday, April 22nd 2009 at 8:00 pm Location: All Souls Unitarian Church, 1157 Lexington Ave. (and 80th St.) The Center for Inquiry-New York City and the All Souls Unitarian Church are co-sponsoring a panel discussion on the evolutionary origins of religion. Why does religious belief persist? Is there a so-called ”God gene?” What is the relationship between biological and cultural evolution in the development of human religion? How does unselfish behavior fit into the evolutionary mix? Is there really such a thing as “free will,” a basic tenet of many religions? These are a few of the questions to be explored by a panel that includes Randy Thornhill, Distinguished Professor of Biology at the University of New Mexico, and David Sloan Wilson, Distinguished Professor of Biology at SUNY Binghamton. The panel will be moderated by Austin Dacey, a philosopher and author of The Secular Conscience. Admission is free and open to the public.

I seem to have somehow agreed to go to this (er … very mildly NSFW?) tomorrow night. I don’t even know. The poster kind of says it all. Though it is about college, so maybe it’ll be educational?

I’m planning to go to this tonight: The Shocklines Film Series. Seven short horror films, including two adaptations of stories by Joe Hill.

I’ll be coming back to New York at the end of the week and staying for two weeks, and I’ll be doing some promotional stuff for the zombie anthology The Living Dead. On October 4th I’ll be appearing alongside John Joseph Adams to discuss the anthology on Jim Freund’s Hour of the Wolf radio show, and then on October 7th I’ll be appearing alongside John Joseph Adams and John Langan at the New York Review of Science Fiction Reading Series, where I’ll be reading my offbeat zombie horror story “The Skull-Faced Boy.”

I’m also hoping to make it to see Neil Gaiman at Columbia University next Tuesday, so if anyone thinks they might attend, let me know and I’ll keep an eye out for you: 

Anyone going/want to go to this?

I’ll be going to the August 13th show. More info here.

“Sinking Ship Productions is proud to present the world premiere of There Will Come Soft Rains as part of the 11th annual New York International Fringe Festival. Using puppets, live video, light bulbs and bedsheets, Sinking Ship brings to the stage stories by Ray Bradbury, Stanislaw Lem (author of Solaris), Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg, iconic and iconoclastic masters of the genre. To bring the stark, powerful imagery of these stories to the stage, director/adaptor Jon Levin (recently singled out by nytheatre.com for his ‘remarkable’ puppet work) uses a combination of bunraku-inspired puppets, object manipulation, dance, live music and a versatile ensemble of performers.”

My friend Rob is co-producing an independent film called The Arrangement. There’ll be a staged reading of it tomorrow night in Manhattan. (Basically they perform the script as if it were a play in order to see how it all works with the actors and to see how it goes over with an audience before they start principal photography.) Anyone who’s in the neighborhood should feel free to stop by. Here’s the poster:

I notice that the next New York Review of Science Fiction Reading Series event will feature Karen Russell. A year or so ago I was browsing Amazon.com and I stumbled across Russell’s debut book, the short story collection St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. I took a chance and ordered it, and really enjoyed the stories, which are surreal and wistful and in which the Southern weirdness of the author’s Florida upbringing features prominently. My favorite piece, “Children’s Reminiscences of the Western Migration,” is about a family of American settlers who hitch their wagon to the horns of the family’s minotaur father. I’m going to try really hard to make it to this event, and I hope I’ll see some of you there.

I’m flying back to LA on Friday. I’ll be getting together with some friends tomorrow night, details TBD, but probably in midtown/the village around 7:30-8, so if you’d like to come bid me adieu, shoot me an email and I’ll keep you posted on how plans shape up.

My buddy Rob is throwing a New Year’s Eve party in my honor, so if you know me and if you’re going to be in the vicinity of Greenwich Village that evening and if you think you might want to stop by, email me for directions.

Thanks to everyone who wished me Happy Birthday on Wednesday. Conveniently enough, this year my birthday fell on the same night as KGB, so I had a ready-made party where I got to see a lot of my New York friends who I haven’t seen in a while. Here’s a photo from the evening, taken by Ellen Datlow:

Hey, I’m back in New York now. I was thinking about going to see:
Charlotte Jones Voiklis, the granddaughter of Madeleine L’Engle, reads from A Wrinkle in Time and talks about her grandmother’s life and work. Anyone interested in joining me?

I’ll be visiting New York during the last two weeks of December. I’m planning to attend KGB, and I’m hoping to meet up with as many people as I can during that time. See you all soon.

Barring some unforeseen catastrophe, I’ll be stopping by for KGB. Hope to see some of you there.

I’ll be dropping by New York for a week in March and attending Lunacon.