Let's Talk with Maggie Toussaint
Let’s Talk with Maggie Toussaint
May 12, 2016
Tribbles – we’ve all heard of them
By Maggie Toussaint
In Happy Homicides 3, due out June 1, my amateur sleuth Lindsey McKay is startled when a young woman tells her she’s got turtle tribbles. Turns out this lady is a Trekkie and Tribbles are fluffy space creatures that multiply quicker than bunnies.
Lindsey’s not sure how to take this news, torn between incredulity that aliens might be after loggerhead turtle eggs and bitten by the journalistic fever that she might break the story of the century in her weekly newspaper. The young woman, a college intern who won the prestige of being the Turtle Girl (she monitors turtle nests on barrier islands in Lindsey’s coastal Georgia county), says she has photos.
The fur ball above might be a Tribble, or it just might be fur ball. Photos were once considered hard proof, but today, with a little judicious snipping and pasting here and there, a picture can be a complete work of fiction. To learn what happens in the novella “Turtle Tribbles,” you’ll have to read the story, but let’s have a little fun with photo blending ideas.
Imagine you have mad photo skills. You can create anything in a photo. What would it be? A new animal? Costumed world leaders doing the hula dance? A space invasion? A six-generation collage of the women in your family?
One commenter will win a copy of Happy Homicides 3 when it releases! Let’s hear those ideas…
Posted in Let's Talk, with Maggie Toussaint • Tags: BLB Discussion, giveaway, Happy Homicides 3, Let's Talk, Maggie Toussaint, Tribbles we've all heard of them, Turtle Tribbles | 14 Comments
A photograph of me and my great-great-grandmother, Shiloh. I’ve heard she was “a pistol ball” — the stories back up this hot-tempered, slightly dangerous characterization. BUt she was also a lot of fun, they say. So even if I couldn’t spend an afternoon with her, I’d like to pretend I did.
How fun, Tina! I’ve heard of people being called pistols, but pistol ball is a new one for me. I think I’d like to meet her too.
I’d do a new author photo of myself that is updated but ageless with perfect white teeth, no blemishes, no bags, firm chin, great hair…you know, model perfect.
I get where you’re coming from. I’d like to have a perfect author photo as well, but then wouldn’t people be let down when they saw the real us? Something to think about.
Nah, we are MUCH better looking in real life!
I have recently discovered a photograph of a Great-Grandmother who passed away when I was an infant. Apparently I have discovered who in my family I look like (finally lol)….I would love to do a side-by-side pics of the two of us
Aww! What a sweet idea! That sounds like it would be awesome to pair the two of you in a shot. If you go ahead and get her picture digitized in high resolution, you’ll be ready to go when you meet the person who knows how to add the two of you to the same image. I believe just about any photo utility will allow you to insert two pictures into a new file.
I would like to take a photo of myself with my eyes open. I’m very light sensitive and I always blink when the flash goes off.
Diane, Sometimes that happens to me, but it always used to happen to my mom. Someone told me that this works, but I haven’t tried it. If someone is framing a picture with you in it, turn your head away, so that as they count down to take the shot, you barely turn you head in time to be facing the camera. That action will keep your eyes open during the shot. Thanks for stopping in!
animal
I’m wondering what your new animal might look like, bn100? Would it be a hippo-tiger? A canary crossed with a fairy (canairy…)?
Aw, you guys are so nice with your family pictures. I want to change the world by shocking it. I’d create a picture of the United States coastline showing a before and after with sea levels twenty feet higher (oh, say, the Greenland Ice Sheet melted in global warming). My own place in Savannah would have the ocean halfway up its first-floor windows.
Growing up on the coast, I often went to St Simons Island in Georgia. Due to wind and waves and hurricanes, the beach eroded a lot at one time. Entire houses were swept away. When I’d walk the beach, I had to be mindful of the barnacle encrusted concrete footers in the surf where houses used to be.
Sea level rise is happening all over, but it isn’t consistent down here. Some areas may be losing an inch a year to the sea, but there are also areas where the sea is dropping in our area and more shore is exposed. It has to do with currents and deposition. I’ve interviewed scientists studying sea level rise on Sapelo and they say that while there may be local variances in sea level rise, that it is occurring worldwide.
continued in next post
I’ve often found that people have the Grasshopper’s attitude in the fable of the Grasshopper and the Ant. While the ants are busy prepping for winter, the grasshopper is fiddling and partying all summer. Bottom line, until the problem or disaster happens to someone they tend to think it can’t happen to them.
That mindset isn’t easy to change, so even if you posted real pictures of people’s homes being swept away by the ocean, some people still would not react. Grasshoppers….