I'm back from the road and oh my goodness aren’t things busy here in the fantasy world I inhabit. A quick update is in order, and then I expect the next time you'll hear from me will be around Christmas.

We had a fantastic time at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco last month. Jeff Hoke and I hadn’t tabled at APE for years, but just like at WonderCon earlier this year we had such fun and met many friendly and astute people. APE was also the preview venue for a new Wonderella project by San Francisco artist Will Cloughley. I’m just dying to tell you all about it, but haven’t yet gotten all the words and pictures together. Soon!

A week after APE, I flew to New York for a short vacation and a chance to speak at Observatory, a new art space in Brooklyn. Jeff joined me out there and the two of us gave presentations on our books. I’d never done an “author appearance” before, and I found that having to write something coherent to say about The Mentalist’s Handbook gave me new levels of understanding of the book and all the experiences and factors that led to its creation. The people who run Observatory are a good lot, and you owe it to yourself to check out their work.

I’m piecing together several new small projects, including the long-awaited next issue of the Wonderella Printed catalog, a new Pamphleteer, and of course the year-end mailing from Bonita Hollow. If you’ve never received a copy of that last one and would like to, or if you fear you might have fallen off the mailing list, just drop me a line and I’ll see to it that you get a little Christmas cheer in your mailbox.

Got to get back to it all now. Keep in touch.

Aspiring mentalists and seekers of lost wonder take note: This October, Clint Marsh and Jeff Hoke will be making author appearances in San Francisco and New York City!

The weekend of October 17 and 18, Wonderella and The Museum of Lost Wonder will have tables at the Alternative Press Expo (APE), at the Concourse Pavilion in San Francisco, California.

And on Thursday, October 29, Clint and Jeff will present an evening of talks and discussion regarding their books and the inspirations behind them at Observatory in Brooklyn, New York.

Follow the links above for more information on each show. We look forward to seeing everyone who can make it out to say hello.

Came in to the office early today to continue work on an upcoming project, one that I still don't feel safe talking about officially. Too many times have I talked up a publication while it was still in the early to mid production stages, and then when it didn't come to pass, or didn't manifest the way I'd envisioned/advertised it, I felt really disappointed. Now it's my policy not to post anything about such projects until they're at press. So, let me just say that I'm very excited about this one, that it's consuming lots of my time and thoughts, and that you'll hear more about it when it's ready.

Because I'm going to the Esoteric Book Conference this weekend, Iggy and I won't have our regularly scheduled trip to the post-office box on Saturday. So I took the opportunity to grab the mail once before leaving. I'm glad I did, as there was a bumper crop of goodies in there, including:

* My comp copy of Juanita Rose Violini's Almanac of the Infamous, the Incredible, and the Ignored, from Weiser Books. This is the one they asked me to blurb a while back, and now here it is. My quote's on the first page, along with comments from such luminaries as Jeff Hoke, Colin Wilson, Fred Alan Wolf, and Lemony Snicket.

* A nice letter from San Francisco surrealist Ronn Rosen, along with a CD of chants and some extras. Ronn's a consummate musicologist, so I know this will be good.

* Copies of Sean Goblin's new pamphlet, Mind Flayer. This one seems to be in the anarchist spirit of his earlier works Binocular Rebellious and The Goblin, but less myth-oriented. Mind Flayer is a sure pick for review in an upcoming issue of The Pamphleteer, so I'll explore it further there.

* An illustrated letter from Angelo Sphere, telling all about his new life with his family in North Carolina, where he's teaching high school humanities at Emerson Waldorf School.

The tomatoes are finally here! For the past week or so I’ve been enjoying little grape and cherry tomatoes off the vines in the Bonita Hollow veggie patch. The fruits are delicious and plentiful and well worth the wait. This sort of success gets me excited about trying to grow other vegetables in the garden. The new planting of snow peas has taken hold of the main patch archway and I even saw a solitary blossom on one of the vines. It seems early for that, but we’ll see. Berkeley is just now entering its season of best weather for the year (September–November), so amazing things could happen in the garden yet this year, even though it’s hard for me to wrap my Midwestern mind around the thought despite having lived in California for thirteen years.

I’ve got a busy fall coming up, Wonderella-wise. My first autumn adventure takes place in a few weeks, when I go to Seattle to attend the first annual Esoteric Book Conference. This will be a two-day gathering of readers, authors, collectors, sellers, publishers, and performers affiliated with either antiquarian occult books or current, fine press esoterica. The Expo was brought to my attention a few weeks ago when I received an email notification of the upcoming launch of a new magic studies journal, Abraxas. Even a cursory look at the contents and production specs of the soft-cover and deluxe editions of the journal was enough to convince me to pre-order a copy of each. The website of the publisher, Fulgur, had a prominent link to the website for the Esoteric Book Conference, and upon visiting, it took me an equally brief time to decide to invest in a ticket to the show (and travel arrangements to and from Seattle). My good friend Justin will accompany me, and I’ll report back on my findings.

Less than a month after my return from the EBC, Jeff Hoke and I will be setting up our tables at another acronym, the APE or Alternative Press Expo. This annual event is held in San Francisco and never fails to fulfill my social jones as I say hello to fellow publishers and friends I’ve met over the years and as I meet new people. Jeff and I met for the first time at APE in 1999, so this is a bit of an anniversary for us. I’ve invited a number of artists associated with Wonderella to join me at the table this year, so if you come by you’re sure to be able to put faces to the names and publications you’ve enjoyed from Wonderella.

The following week, Jeff and I will be heading to New York City to, among other things, give a presentation on our work at Observatory, a new art and culture space in Brooklyn. I spent the weekend at Jeff’s place in Monterey a few weeks ago, and he and I outlined some general themes we’ll explore in our talks there. I’ll post more details as the event nears, but for now, any Gothamite aspiring mentalists or seekers of Lost Wonder are invited to set aside the evening of Thursday, October 29, for the event.

Over at Dromedary Press (or, I should say, here at Dromedary Press as I type this on the computer there, having gone back to pen-and-paper composition at Bonita Hollow) our operations continue to be limited due to Karima and I spending more time promoting Castle in the Air. Business in the shop has slowed, so we are trying new ways to get the word out online and through store-based promotions. If you’re interested in keeping up with Castle in the Air and Dromedary, the best source for regular news is the shop’s weblog, updated most weekdays.

Many thanks to the readers of The Mentalist’s Handbook who’ve written in with questions or observations based on the book. I spent part of this weekend catching up on correspondence received in the past several weeks and will be sending replies in the next day or so. If any of you are also reading this weblog, drop me a line on email or leave a comment to let me know. I’m always curious to know who I’m reaching through which medium.

N.P.: “Rock-n-Roll Train,” by AC/DC, as featured on their homepage. You’ve got to go to ACDC.com and see and hear Brian Johnson’s greeting. Even though he’s obviously out of his element he’s still so sweet. Rock on, Brian. You’re a model for us all.

I spent Sunday on my knees in the dirt, alternately pulling weeds and spent vegetable plants, thinking of what ought to go where, writing notes, digging holes, planting starts, and admiring the flexibility of the bees in their exoskeletons as they twisted about in the petals of yellow dandelions, or hung from the clover tops with as much adoration and determination as an infant on its mother's breast.

The kitchen plum tree, purported (from a source who would know) to be the last plum to fruit in Berkeley, is almost there. I've got a recipe for something that's not plum cake nor jam that I'm dying to try. Maybe next weekend.

There are green tomatoes on all the plants in the West Patch, except for the two stunted early girls (one of which I actually sacrificed to the compost gods) and the June-planted black heirloom, which is struggling for sunlight beneath the shade of its older brothers and sisters. I did find as I was watering yesterday that one of the grape tomatoes bore two small orangey fruits. After a quick prayer of thanks, I plucked them and chomped down, but they were still crunchy. It was a relief to find some tomatoes of a different color than green, though! So I know it's not impossible and like the plums, only a matter of time.

A few strawberries are still popping out every couple days, but the main season seems to have passed. They made for a handful of simple and stupendous breakfasts, mixed in oats boiling in milk on the stovetop.

At the nursery I'd hoped to find some onion and Brussels sprouts starts, but when I couldn't find any I brought home some snow peas, leeks, and two zucchinis to plant. The string beans and sweet peas looked to have bloomed their last, so down they came off the archway and at the base I nestled three snow pea starts on either side. The leeks and the zucchinis got their places in other bits of the main patch. I've never grown leeks, but I've seen them in so many recipes that I'd like to see if they're good to have growing at home. My first year with zucchini (2005, I think?) was a bit overwhelming, and ended with me surreptitiously leaving fruits the size of small dogs in friends' refrigerators. But the plants haven't done well in the patch since then. Maybe this year will be different. I'm still coming to grips with the idea that the Bay Area has relatively decent growing weather year round, and hope to be able to always have something going in the garden, regardless of the season.

Most exciting of all, really, was the sight of two proto-pears on the trees Laramie and Wendi transplanted to the front of the yard. It will be so nice to get a crop off those trees. Not enough for cider, probably, but some for cooking with or snacking on. Pear blossoms are unbelievably pretty, too.

NEW TITLE: The Pamphleteer No.5

Here we have the new issue of The Pamphleteer, which mailed to subscribers last week. I returned to the Greenwood essays this time, starting off this issue with a spooky tale from second grade. I always talk about the weird occult books that were in my house when I was a kid, but writing this story helped me remember the first scary book that I found outside of the house. It was in my elementary school library, and it had instructions for spells and a photograph of a goat-headed witchcraft priest costume from Mme. Tussauds or some other such cultural institution. Why Iowans were letting their children -- me! -- see this stuff I don't know, but once I remembered the title of the book I ordered a copy, which took me right back to being seven years old. The story starts off with another sort of encounter with a menacing figure, though. This one very real and in the flesh. Check it out. The Pamphleteer's also got all the Wonderella news in the "Over the Garden Wall" column, some nice letters from all over, and an extended review of the past year of The Cunningham Amendment. Included in this issue is a leaflet explaining current United States Postal Service Rates for letters, flats, and packages as pertaining to pamphleteers who mail domestically and internationally. Visit The Pamphleteer page at the Wonderella website for more details, images, a reprint of this issue's review, and ordering information.

Spent lots of time at home this weekend and it was very nice. Wrote the "Over the Garden Wall" column and most of a long Cunningham Amendment review which covers the series' past four issues. Baked my first and second ever plum cakes (a local tradition in Berkeley) and took one in to the office on Saturday for a little potluck thing we were having for the holiday. (Yes, I went in to work on Independence Day on what would normally have been a day off!) My friend Julie invited me to come to her house on Sunday and give my opinion on the new sausage recipe she'd invented -- chicken and apples with cinnamon and tarragon! Later I helped her with some gardening and blueberry jam making. Angelo canceled our usual Sunday night dinner due to fatigue -- he's half-way through his final Waldorf teacher training summer session and working several nights during the week -- so I decided to begin studying Adam McLean's printing of the Robert Fludd treatise On the Music of the Spheres. It's wonderful and put me right back into the mystic frame of mind I miss from my school days. The note-taking and cross-referencing skills I picked up through the teacher training and my own studies of The Zohar came in handy, as did my copies of Heninger's The Cosmographical Glass and the Barry Moser-illustrated Holy Bible. Baked five little souffles to munch on over the next few days and went to bed early. What a good weekend!

This morning I checked in on the strawberries (such a variety of flavors from plant to plant but not much output) and the tomatoes (almost there). Typed in "Garden Wall" and messed about with the layout for The Pamphleteer this evening. It's coming together nicely. My favorite part this time around is the letters column.