Two things do not make a post, but I'm doing it anyway

[larryhammer]

For the record, transforming into cars isn't nearly as impressive as transforming into kanji.

Which isn't enough for a post in itself, so ... hmm. Well, how about this -- since my last poll didn't go over very well, I'll try another:

[Poll #1563227]
---L.

Comments

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

A Desert Year sounds like Aldo Leopold and Desert Dispatches is probably by Hayduke.

[larryhammer]

*snrk*

Hmm -- Heyduke's not exactly the image going for here ...

[alpha-strike.livejournal.com]

The Book of Desert Leaves sounds ... agricultural. Or perhaps a plant identification manual that isn't as amusing as What kinda cactus izzat?.

[larryhammer]

Or one of the (at least) three field guides to holes in the desert.

---L.

[marith.livejournal.com]

Desert Leaves isn't bad, but The Sun Declines to Name Us puts me in mind of Tanith Lee. Not a bad thing. :)

[larryhammer]

Hmm.

Also, hmmmm.

---L.

[pseudo_tsuga.livejournal.com]

The Sun Declines To Name Us sounds like it'd be a film about Soviet-era Russia.

[larryhammer]

Russia? Huh. I'd think it'd be set a little more east.

---L.

[pseudo_tsuga.livejournal.com]

Well, it sounds like a revised mash-up of two actual film titles: Burnt By the Sun and Moscow Doesn't Believe In Tears.

[larryhammer]

Gotcha. Makes sense.

---L.

[stevendj.livejournal.com]

The Sun Declines to Name Us is the best of the lot, but it still seems a bit meh. Sorry, don't have any good suggestions.

[larryhammer]

Noted.

---L.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I like all of them (and "The Tickybox Tankas" is definitely more upbeat than "The Tickbox Tanks," which is what I first read). In particular I like "A Desert Year" and "A Sonoran Desert Year" as they're good for a chronicle that promises to give you seasonal change in a particular place. I know those sound like prosaic choices, but still, I like them. "Desert Dispatches" has nice alliteration and captures the same idea, though it sounds a little war-correspondent-ish. But not irredeemably so--and it does also convey a jotted-down-quickly sort of feel, an immediacy. "The Sun Declines to Name Us" is great word play and very arresting; people would stop and pick up a book with that title to see what it was about. "The Book of Desert Leaves" I think I like the least, though I still like it as it calls to mind Japanese poetry collections (Book of Ten Thousand Leaves, anyone?)--but I fear a general reader wouldn't get that. Not that they need to get it; it's still a pretty title. But--speaking as a desert ignoramus--there's also the fact that when I think of places with leaves, I think of forests. Obviously deserts have plants with leaves too (sagebrush and stuff, right?), but my instant pop-up image is of cactus and grasses. Still, it's pretty and has poetic resonance, so it could work too.

(um, and I just realized that it might look from my reply as if I thought you were seriously considering tickybox tankas... but, um... it was an attempt at follow-up humor... d'oh!)

[larryhammer]

"The Book of Desert Leaves" does indeed deliberately invoke the Manyoshu. The obscurity of that and that, yes, this desert does indeed have leaves, if you know how to look, are my main hesitations about it.

---L.

[packbat.livejournal.com]

I like simple titles, and A Desert Year is a good one, no "Sonoran" needed. (Desert Dispatches implies memoirs, to me, probably military.) The Book of Desert Leaves and The Sun Declines to Name Us (and The Tickybox Tankas for that matter) sound very mystical, and that rather sets off my allergies. :/

[larryhammer]

"Mystical"? interesting. Thanks.

---L.