Neil Gaiman's Blog, page 25
September 15, 2011
A Picture of the Cat of Doom
It got cold. The air smells amazing, the mosquitoes have gone, the sky is a perfect blue and summer is over.
My friend Kyle Cassidy is out here for a few days to shoot photographs of Miss Maddy, and also shoot Lorraine's first ever Roller Derby Bout on Saturday with the Chippewa Valley Roller Girls. He and I went for a walk in the night and wore warm coats, and played Children of the Corn in the meadow, and you could smell the distant winter on the air.
Actually, I should clarify. The above things are what Kyle is officially here to shoot. Unofficially, he's here for the cats. This is his iphone picture of Princess looking like the Cat of Doom from a horror movie.
...
Tickets go on sale today, Friday the 16th, for the EVENING WITH NEIL AND AMANDA shows we're doing in November, for all the stops except San Francisco, which goes on sale on Sunday. Given the speed with which the tickets released for presale for Vancouver and San Francisco sold out today, you may want to get your orders in early - as near to ticket release time as you can. (10 am for everywhere except Portland, where it is 11 am because they like their mornings in Portland.)
November 4th
November 6th
Let's see. My old friend and collaborator Dave McKean was made an honorary Doctor of Design in Wolverhampton. I do not think I have ever seen him look so uncomfortable as in these photos. Wish he'd kept the hat on, though.
Which is to say, congratulations Dave.
...
I meant to link to the One Book One Chicago site. They had people make books, literally: reinvent and rebind the books that were One Book One Chicago choices over the years. Audrey Niffenegger was one of the judges. A Neverwhere won. Read all about it, and see many of the books at http://onebookonechicago.tumblr.com/post/9588689435/one-book-many-interpretations
...
Here's the World Book Night list of the Hundred Best Loved Books in the UK: http://www.worldbooknight.org/your-books/the-wbn-top-100-books
Books of mine got into the top hundred several times. Well, four and half times. (Good Omens being the half, shared with Terry Pratchett.) Which is really thrilling. The books, with links to each book, and the votes they got are at http://www.worldbooknight.org/your-books/the-wbn-interactive-top-100-books
..
Right. Sleep now. How on earth did it get this late?
Labels: Princess, world book night, an evening with neil and amanda, kyle cassidy, I do not have an honorary doctorate but am now holding out for a dukedom
My friend Kyle Cassidy is out here for a few days to shoot photographs of Miss Maddy, and also shoot Lorraine's first ever Roller Derby Bout on Saturday with the Chippewa Valley Roller Girls. He and I went for a walk in the night and wore warm coats, and played Children of the Corn in the meadow, and you could smell the distant winter on the air.
Actually, I should clarify. The above things are what Kyle is officially here to shoot. Unofficially, he's here for the cats. This is his iphone picture of Princess looking like the Cat of Doom from a horror movie.
...
Tickets go on sale today, Friday the 16th, for the EVENING WITH NEIL AND AMANDA shows we're doing in November, for all the stops except San Francisco, which goes on sale on Sunday. Given the speed with which the tickets released for presale for Vancouver and San Francisco sold out today, you may want to get your orders in early - as near to ticket release time as you can. (10 am for everywhere except Portland, where it is 11 am because they like their mornings in Portland.)
October 31st
LOS ANGELES, CA
Wilshire Ebell Theatre
Tickets go on sale Friday, 9/16 at 10AM PDT at http://bit.ly/103111tix
November 4th
SAN FRANCISCO, CA
Palace of Fine Arts
Tickets go on sale Sunday 9/18 at 10AM PDT.
November 6th
VANCOUVER, BC
Vogue Theatre
Tickets go on sale 9/16 at 10: 00 am at http://bit.ly/11611
PORTLAND, OR
Aladdin Theatre
Tickets go on sale at http://bit.ly/11811tix on 9/16 at 11AM PDT…
Tickets go on sale at 9/16 at 10 AM PDT
Let's see. My old friend and collaborator Dave McKean was made an honorary Doctor of Design in Wolverhampton. I do not think I have ever seen him look so uncomfortable as in these photos. Wish he'd kept the hat on, though.
Which is to say, congratulations Dave.
...
I meant to link to the One Book One Chicago site. They had people make books, literally: reinvent and rebind the books that were One Book One Chicago choices over the years. Audrey Niffenegger was one of the judges. A Neverwhere won. Read all about it, and see many of the books at http://onebookonechicago.tumblr.com/post/9588689435/one-book-many-interpretations
...
Here's the World Book Night list of the Hundred Best Loved Books in the UK: http://www.worldbooknight.org/your-books/the-wbn-top-100-books
Books of mine got into the top hundred several times. Well, four and half times. (Good Omens being the half, shared with Terry Pratchett.) Which is really thrilling. The books, with links to each book, and the votes they got are at http://www.worldbooknight.org/your-books/the-wbn-interactive-top-100-books
..
Right. Sleep now. How on earth did it get this late?
Labels: Princess, world book night, an evening with neil and amanda, kyle cassidy, I do not have an honorary doctorate but am now holding out for a dukedom
September 12, 2011
The Moon over the Corn Field
The moon is full.
There's a storm coming, with a cool breeze blowing across the warm evening, and the cornfield is alive with rustles and whispers. The white dogs in the moonlight slip in and out of the corn like ghosts, and I cannot stop my head building nightmarish scenarios no matter how hard I try.
I went for a longish bike ride with Maddy today and we watched Doctor Who (we're almost caught up). She put up with me feeding her interesting salads for dinner. ("How is it?" "Well... it's.. interesting, dad.")
Life is quiet right now. I'm home in the midwest, Amanda's in Boston, we won't see each other again for two weeks. I miss her, but I'm enjoying being on my own and getting work done without regard to anyone else's schedule or needs, and I would be willing to bet an enormous pie that she's having a wonderful time catching up on work without having any attention on me. I dunno. It works for us.
We had a long phone conversation today about the tour we're doing in Oct/November, during which we decided 1) How long the show would be and thus 2) how long we'd each take for solo bits. I've decided to read different stories at every venue. We also decided that the LA Hallowe'en Neil and Amanda show would have a costume competition of some kind. (Here's a video of me walking the line to get into the costume competiton last Hallowe'en at the House on the Rock. It will be a shorter, less formal affair than that was.)
Astonishingly, over $100,000 has now been pledged to the Kickstarter project, and we talked about what that lets us do for the CD package, for the "surprise" thank you gifts (we decided what they are going to be today - something special that Amanda had wanted to do for Who Killed Amanda Palmer, but which she couldn't afford), how we're going to keep people informed of what's happening and what we're doing and making with that.
I really like pre-selling things as a way of bringing them into the world - it means we're making enough for the people who want them, we can afford to make them as well as we want, and it means that people are getting something real. We aren't worrying about marketing costs. We don't have to get a record label, and then try and persuade them to make the thing we want. We just do it.
If you are thinking of doing a Kickstarter (or an Indiegogo or similar, for those outside the US), can I point you at former Web Elf Olga Nunes' excellent essay at http://olganunes.com/2011/01/on-lamp-kickstarter-and.php? Everything that Olga suggested, we put into practice. Garrett Gibbons's blog at http://garrettgibbons.com/blog/successful-kickstarter-campaigns is also really useful and wise.
And make your video interesting, watchable, and clear. A goofy song about baby hamsters and time machines may get your Kickstarter funded. I just watched a Kickstarter video from a good friend which was very beautiful and artistic, but didn't actually tell anyone what the project was or why it should be supported, and I do not think it will get its funding, which will be a shame.
...
I'm a huge fan of Public Radio International's "Selected Shorts". I subscribe to their podcast. I loved their Sherman Alexie show a couple of weeks ago, am looking forward to listening to this week's Stephen King story that my phone just downloaded.
So it is with pride that I cut and paste from an email from Jennifer Brennan at Symphony Space letting me know (and now letting you know) when the two shows that they made from the evening we did earlier this year will be broadcast:
Show 3. Love in Real Life
October 13 2011
"A Life in Fictions," by Kat Howard, performed by Marin Ireland
"The Thing About Cassandra," by Neil Gaiman, performed by Josh Hamilton
Show 12. The Magical Imagination of Neil Gaiman
December 15 2011
"Troll Bridge," by Neil Gaiman, performed by Neil Gaiman
"The Circular Ruins," by Jorge Luis Borges, performed by Boyd Gaines
(I was particularly happy about all this because Kat Howard's story was picked by the producers from the STORIES anthology I edited with Al Sarrantonio, and I had nothing to do with its selection - although I'd been smart enough to notice it was good when Kat (whom I had taught at Clarion) emailed it to me to read when she'd finished it, and I read it, loved it, and sent it to Al with the suggestion that that we bought it.)
...
I called Dave McKean a pornographer on Twitter. He asked me not to do it again, because, he said, he suddenly found himself followed on Twitter by some very shady bots. But I am proud to say that he has now added pornographer (or eroticist, perhaps) to his CV.
When I stayed at his place, two weeks ago, he gave me a book called Celluloid. It's his newest graphic novel, a wordless Dave Mckeany book-length sexual fantasia. It's being published all over the world - in the US it's out from Fantagraphics, in France by Delcourt. It's really human and beautiful and fantastic (in the literal sense of the word). A woman gets frustrated waiting for her man to come home, finds a projector and enters a world of sexual fantasies. (I think my favourite is when she has an encounter with someone who I assume was Diana of the Ephesians.) Lots of different art styles, all of them very much Dave Mckean.
You should buy it from your local comic shop. Or, if they're out (or if you're too embarrassed to ask them for it) get it online. Lots of places sell it. Here's an Amazon link if you want to check it out.
...
And finally, a mysterious mystery of great mysteriosity from Edinburgh. Paper book-sculptures that support libraries have been appearing. Ian Rankin has been drawn into their web. (Can book-sculptures make webs?)
http://community.thisiscentralstation.com/_Mysterious-paper-sculptures/blog/4991767/126249.html
It's been suggested that this artist might have had something to do with them. I have no idea whether she did or not, but her book sculptures are wonderful either way.
You should follow both links. They will do your heart good.
Labels: married life, Kickstarter, dogs in the moonlight, Celluloid, an enormous pie, whether or not Dave McKean is a pornographer, Selected Shorts, moon
September 11, 2011
Memory
How to tell my dogs apart in the water. Cabal looks like this:
While Lola looks like this.
Or this.
Or this.
...
These were the blog posts I wrote here exactly ten years ago:
posted by Neil Gaiman 9:12 AM
A few days later the servers for AmericanGods.com, where the blog was located, were in New York, and got some kind of virus, so the entry that was up at the top of the blog was the entry for June the 18th 2011, which finished,
See you at Borders World Trade Centre tomorrow, if you`re in the NY area. The Libretto is working fine but if the bloody thing has a real apostrophe I can`t find it. So I`m using these.
It's weird reading some of the old posts, and remembering:
From Sept 14th 2001, two posts:
and a few days later...
And an e-mail comes in on FAQ with a heartfelt request:
Will you try to use your status as a celebrity to protect against the violence done to Muslim Americans? I'm sure and other famous people speaking out against these acts would be great...
Well, sure, for whatever good it will do. The people who would do violence to Muslims, or to Americans of Arab descent, are probably not reading this blogger. (And considering the first death in 'retaliation' of an American was some people in Arizona shooting a Sikh (from the Punjab, and, as a Sikh, obviously not a follower of Islam), I don't even think that, for example, explaining that the Taliban no more represents Islam than Torquemada and his thugs represented Christianity or the Nazi Party represented neo-paganism would do much good. The Arizonans who killed the Sikh spotted the guy with the beard in the turban and figured that the gentleman had committed the crime of being brown-skinned and foreign, and that was enough for them.)
(And me, I wish people would reread Sandman # 50, RAMADAN, and the ifrit chapter in American Gods.)
posted by Neil Gaiman 12:33 AM
and finally, from Trieste, on September the 23rd 2001..
It rained all day today -- grey, and misty. Yesterday, also in the rain, we walked across the Square of Unity, and found ourselves watching jugglers and suchlike, in unconvincing costumes, and a parade of re-enactors from nearby towns, wearing things people didn't wear, carrying weapons they didn't have. It's all going renfest, I think. The whole bloody world. Not that I minded; there's nothing to cheer you up like other people wearing wet chainmail.
En route today to the home of Maximilian, the rain forced us into a dry space which happened to be holding an exhibition of Robert Capa photographs: astonishing stuff, of the Spanish Civil War, of the Second World War, of the Japanese-Chinese War of 1938, and I found myself looking at the photos of combat, of wounded civilians, of people whose worlds had crumbled and fallen, without any sense of irony. These people were us. Whatever side they were on. They were us, and the images had a truth and an immediacy I couldn't have imagined until recently.
...
I'm typing up Fortunately, The Milk, a very silly children's book that Dave McKean will draw (and he made me promise that after this, the next thing we do will be very dark and very adult). I finished writing it yesterday, and called Dave and read it to him. It was meant to be about the length of The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish, but it's actually about four or five times as long.
Labels: Memory, Fortunately the Milk, dogs, September the Eleventh
While Lola looks like this.
Or this.
Or this.
...
These were the blog posts I wrote here exactly ten years ago:
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
The phone lines to New York aren't doing anything, and the cell phone numbers I've been dialling are dead. I'm scared for my friends. Watching CNN, worrying.posted by Neil Gaiman 9:12 AM
Now got BBC America on. Many e-mails from friends to say they are alive... Many more I'm waiting to hear from.
Was meant to be going to the UK in a couple of days for Douglas Adams' memorial service, and then to Trieste in Italy for a festival. Right now we'll see whether or not planes are going to be flying...
posted by Neil Gaiman 10:24 AM
This is what I did today.
I picked up lots of fallen sunflowers and propped them against the side of the house for no real reason other than they looked nice like that. I did some baking. I wrote some of a movie. I phoned friends I hadn't talked to in a while, just to say hello. I failed completely to get hold of anyone in New York by phone. I answered the phone a lot, because there were people calling in from New York. I decided not to fly to London on Saturday. I watched the documentary on The Wicker Man on the DVD (puzzled that the version I taped from the TV years ago is longer than the theatrical version, and shorter than the 99 minute 'extended' one). I read a book about the Lazzi (or comedy routines and business) of the commedia dell'arte, with a weird sort of theory that they might make a metaphor. Cleaned the catboxes. Worried about the last couple of friends of mine in New York I've not heard from yet. Read Maddy tonight's chapter of Howl's Moving Castle. Made a Red Cross donation at Amazon.com. Taught Maddy several card tricks.
Trying to assert normality.
There are worse ways to spend a day.
posted by Neil Gaiman 1:16 AM
A few days later the servers for AmericanGods.com, where the blog was located, were in New York, and got some kind of virus, so the entry that was up at the top of the blog was the entry for June the 18th 2011, which finished,
See you at Borders World Trade Centre tomorrow, if you`re in the NY area. The Libretto is working fine but if the bloody thing has a real apostrophe I can`t find it. So I`m using these.
It's weird reading some of the old posts, and remembering:
From Sept 14th 2001, two posts:
An e-mail arrived in the FAQ thing explaining, very reasonably, that AMERICAN GODS made the World Trade Centre Disaster happen. It began by quoting Jerry Falwell's recent comments, The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.' And then explained that the reader had read much of American Gods before realising that even reading it was an act of idolatrous demon-worship, and had burned his copy. (Or her copy, I suppose.) It wanted to know if I was happy now?
The implication, I guess, was that God was just about tolerating the pagans, Lesbians, ACLU etc., but then American Gods was published, and it tipped Him over the edge.
Insert picture of author here, sighing, shaking his head, getting back to work.
...
Lots of nice letters from religious people of all stripes and sects who like reading books, disavowing both Mr Falwell and the previous correspondent. S'okay. While I didn't take it any more seriously than the American Family Association "boycott" of Sandman (like Donald Wildmon and his people were buying Sandman to begin with) I did take it as a cautionary tale,and a reminder: as long as you know who God wants you to hate and to hurt then anything you do to them is justified.
Abbot Arnold's line in the Albigensian Crusades (around 1210 from memory) still turns up on Tee shirts. The Albigensian Crusade was an internal French Crusade to root out heresy. When Arnold was asked how the troops would know how to tell the heretics from the believers in the city of Beziers, he replied simply, "Kill them all. God will know his own."
and a few days later...
And an e-mail comes in on FAQ with a heartfelt request:
Will you try to use your status as a celebrity to protect against the violence done to Muslim Americans? I'm sure and other famous people speaking out against these acts would be great...
Well, sure, for whatever good it will do. The people who would do violence to Muslims, or to Americans of Arab descent, are probably not reading this blogger. (And considering the first death in 'retaliation' of an American was some people in Arizona shooting a Sikh (from the Punjab, and, as a Sikh, obviously not a follower of Islam), I don't even think that, for example, explaining that the Taliban no more represents Islam than Torquemada and his thugs represented Christianity or the Nazi Party represented neo-paganism would do much good. The Arizonans who killed the Sikh spotted the guy with the beard in the turban and figured that the gentleman had committed the crime of being brown-skinned and foreign, and that was enough for them.)
(And me, I wish people would reread Sandman # 50, RAMADAN, and the ifrit chapter in American Gods.)
posted by Neil Gaiman 12:33 AM
and finally, from Trieste, on September the 23rd 2001..
It rained all day today -- grey, and misty. Yesterday, also in the rain, we walked across the Square of Unity, and found ourselves watching jugglers and suchlike, in unconvincing costumes, and a parade of re-enactors from nearby towns, wearing things people didn't wear, carrying weapons they didn't have. It's all going renfest, I think. The whole bloody world. Not that I minded; there's nothing to cheer you up like other people wearing wet chainmail.
En route today to the home of Maximilian, the rain forced us into a dry space which happened to be holding an exhibition of Robert Capa photographs: astonishing stuff, of the Spanish Civil War, of the Second World War, of the Japanese-Chinese War of 1938, and I found myself looking at the photos of combat, of wounded civilians, of people whose worlds had crumbled and fallen, without any sense of irony. These people were us. Whatever side they were on. They were us, and the images had a truth and an immediacy I couldn't have imagined until recently.
...
I'm typing up Fortunately, The Milk, a very silly children's book that Dave McKean will draw (and he made me promise that after this, the next thing we do will be very dark and very adult). I finished writing it yesterday, and called Dave and read it to him. It was meant to be about the length of The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish, but it's actually about four or five times as long.
Labels: Memory, Fortunately the Milk, dogs, September the Eleventh
September 9, 2011
Actually Quite Glad to be Gaiman.
I'm home. Got off the plane last night.
Today was a dead day. The most exciting things I did were 1) have a long soaky bath - my first in many weeks, it's been showers all the way for over a month - and 2) not put shoes on.
Looking for a card reader for my camera (I took lots of walking-the-dogs pictures, but can't get them off the camera tonight) I discovered my ancient Atari Portfolio notebook. I put new batteries in and was amazed to discover that it worked - I can't have turned it on for about 14 years. And I thought about Moore's law. It has a handmade memory card I bought specially, filled with tiny text files.
It's a 2 megabyte memory card, covered in warnings, which replaced the 256K card that came with the computer. I don't have anything that can read Portfolio cards any longer, although (I just checked) I pulled everything off it back in 1997, when I did have something that could read it.
And the Portfolio made me think about this essay/speech by Ben Hammersley which I read last night, and am still pondering.
I wrote short stories on the Portfolio in chunks - "Murder Mysteries" was about five files, as I'd start a new file on it when the old ones would fill. Clicking around on it I found forgotten poems and story ideas (some very good ideas and less good poems, mostly). And it was cutting edge for portability in -when did I get it? 1988, I suspect. Perhaps 1989. (Also, it ran on 3 AA batteries that I'd change a couple of times a year.)
So the Portfolio works perfectly, and I suppose that when/if I actually get around to giving my papers and stuff to a library, I'll put it in too.
...
Still digesting the last six weeks. There was some really good stuff, and some hard real-life stuff too. I'll fill in a few of the gaps over the next few days - I'm waiting for some photos to come in.
The last couple of days were exhausting - I travelled with Amanda and her band to Vienna and from there on to Amsterdam, mostly because I wanted to see Jonathan Carroll in Vienna. Amanda had warned it would be rough, and it was. I'm so glad I'm not a touring musician. But I'm happy I spent time with Jonathan Carroll. That was worth any amount of time in airports and sleeping sitting up on planes.
Actually I got one of the most fun evenings in recent memory out of almost being a touring musician. This is a photo of me singing "The Problem With Saints" at Amanda's gig at Heaven in London. I love it because of Amanda, laughing behind me, and because the whole evening was remarkable.
Guests onstage included Tom Robinson (singing "Glad to be Gay" with a whole bunch of us onstage joining in on the chorus, while the 16 year old Neil Gaiman who bought the original "Glad to be Gay" EP in a Croydon record shop 35 years ago was being all thrilled inside me) and the amazing Tim Minchin.
(Also, a huge thank you to Tom's partner Sue, who took pity of the most practical kind on an author on the road who had just run out of clean laundry.)
...
So. Things I've done recently...
I don't know if you're familiar with The Guild. (If you're not, you could do worse than wander over to http://www.watchtheguild.com/ and start at Season 1). It's a story told in ten minute long webisodes. They're up to Season 5, Episode 7. And the face on the video screen you click on is a bit of a giveaway as to who gets to play himself in it.
<a href='http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/vide...' target='_new' title='Season 5 - Episode 7 - Downturn' >Video: Season 5 - Episode 7 - Downturn</a>
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if the version of me I play in The Guild and the version of me I play in The Simpsons and the version of me I played in Arthur teamed up to fight crime and encourage people to read by hiding in their fast food.
...
I also get to play myself in this, a video of an advertising nature for Dark Horse's Evelyn Evelyn graphic novel, written by Jason Webley and Amanda Palmer and drawn by Cynthia Von Buhler. (This video, like the banana-on-the-beach one for the Kickstarter, was shot by Amanda's assistant Superkate on her iPhone.)
...
I actually am myself (and not playing anybody) in this, a mad, freewheeling conversation and interview from the Edinburgh Festival, where I get to answer all of Audrey Niffenegger's questions about fairytales and such.
http://www.edbookfest.co.uk/media-gallery/item/neil-gaiman-with-audrey-niffenegger
...
My old friend Tom Monteleone asked if I would provide his Borderlands Press with the insides of their 14th "Little" book -- in this case a little Gold Book. I've found lots of rare, unpublished and uncollected stuff. The book will be limited to 500 signed copies, and they are going fast. Gahan Wilson draws me surrounded by ghastly wondrous things on the cover.
I've almost finished the introduction to it. (I was meant to finish it yesterday on the plane, but I fell asleep instead.)
And I think I'll stop blogging here for tonight. There's a huge blogging backlog, of links and such, of photos and accounts of adventures that I want to put up, and a lot of questions and comments to reply to.
Before I go, a thank you to everyone who supported the Evening With Neil and Amanda Kickstarter. We met our goal in the first couple of hours - we'll have a sound guy on the road, all the gigs will be professionally recorded and we can now afford to have them properly edited and mixed and put out, and to press CDs and suchlike. I'm ridiculously grateful. I'm also now seriously hoping we can film at least one of the concerts for posterity.)
(Every attempt in the past to do something like this on the cheap has failed. We tried recording the CBLDF "Guardian Angel" tours I did in the 90s and either failed or lost the recordings, except for one PBS-funded video. The attempt to film and record the Coraline complete reading in San Francisco in 2002 was even more disastrous, leaving us, in the end, with an unusable one-camera silent film of me reading all of Coraline. And I've seen Amanda pay people to record gigs that were done to be recorded, only to find a dead hard disk or empty file at the end. So this will be done properly.)
I also have to say, as a business model, having people buy things ahead of time with Kickstarter is terrific. I like that almost half of the people who've supported it so far simply pre-bought the $1 download, and so far another 800 people of the 2,000 supporters want the CD.
Right. Jet-lagged author stumbling to bed now. Good night.
Labels: Kickstarter, Evelyn Evelyn, Moore's Law, The Guild, playing myself
Today was a dead day. The most exciting things I did were 1) have a long soaky bath - my first in many weeks, it's been showers all the way for over a month - and 2) not put shoes on.
Looking for a card reader for my camera (I took lots of walking-the-dogs pictures, but can't get them off the camera tonight) I discovered my ancient Atari Portfolio notebook. I put new batteries in and was amazed to discover that it worked - I can't have turned it on for about 14 years. And I thought about Moore's law. It has a handmade memory card I bought specially, filled with tiny text files.
It's a 2 megabyte memory card, covered in warnings, which replaced the 256K card that came with the computer. I don't have anything that can read Portfolio cards any longer, although (I just checked) I pulled everything off it back in 1997, when I did have something that could read it.
And the Portfolio made me think about this essay/speech by Ben Hammersley which I read last night, and am still pondering.
I wrote short stories on the Portfolio in chunks - "Murder Mysteries" was about five files, as I'd start a new file on it when the old ones would fill. Clicking around on it I found forgotten poems and story ideas (some very good ideas and less good poems, mostly). And it was cutting edge for portability in -when did I get it? 1988, I suspect. Perhaps 1989. (Also, it ran on 3 AA batteries that I'd change a couple of times a year.)
So the Portfolio works perfectly, and I suppose that when/if I actually get around to giving my papers and stuff to a library, I'll put it in too.
...
Still digesting the last six weeks. There was some really good stuff, and some hard real-life stuff too. I'll fill in a few of the gaps over the next few days - I'm waiting for some photos to come in.
The last couple of days were exhausting - I travelled with Amanda and her band to Vienna and from there on to Amsterdam, mostly because I wanted to see Jonathan Carroll in Vienna. Amanda had warned it would be rough, and it was. I'm so glad I'm not a touring musician. But I'm happy I spent time with Jonathan Carroll. That was worth any amount of time in airports and sleeping sitting up on planes.
Actually I got one of the most fun evenings in recent memory out of almost being a touring musician. This is a photo of me singing "The Problem With Saints" at Amanda's gig at Heaven in London. I love it because of Amanda, laughing behind me, and because the whole evening was remarkable.
Guests onstage included Tom Robinson (singing "Glad to be Gay" with a whole bunch of us onstage joining in on the chorus, while the 16 year old Neil Gaiman who bought the original "Glad to be Gay" EP in a Croydon record shop 35 years ago was being all thrilled inside me) and the amazing Tim Minchin.
(Also, a huge thank you to Tom's partner Sue, who took pity of the most practical kind on an author on the road who had just run out of clean laundry.)
...
So. Things I've done recently...
I don't know if you're familiar with The Guild. (If you're not, you could do worse than wander over to http://www.watchtheguild.com/ and start at Season 1). It's a story told in ten minute long webisodes. They're up to Season 5, Episode 7. And the face on the video screen you click on is a bit of a giveaway as to who gets to play himself in it.
<a href='http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/vide...' target='_new' title='Season 5 - Episode 7 - Downturn' >Video: Season 5 - Episode 7 - Downturn</a>
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if the version of me I play in The Guild and the version of me I play in The Simpsons and the version of me I played in Arthur teamed up to fight crime and encourage people to read by hiding in their fast food.
...
I also get to play myself in this, a video of an advertising nature for Dark Horse's Evelyn Evelyn graphic novel, written by Jason Webley and Amanda Palmer and drawn by Cynthia Von Buhler. (This video, like the banana-on-the-beach one for the Kickstarter, was shot by Amanda's assistant Superkate on her iPhone.)
...
I actually am myself (and not playing anybody) in this, a mad, freewheeling conversation and interview from the Edinburgh Festival, where I get to answer all of Audrey Niffenegger's questions about fairytales and such.
http://www.edbookfest.co.uk/media-gallery/item/neil-gaiman-with-audrey-niffenegger
...
My old friend Tom Monteleone asked if I would provide his Borderlands Press with the insides of their 14th "Little" book -- in this case a little Gold Book. I've found lots of rare, unpublished and uncollected stuff. The book will be limited to 500 signed copies, and they are going fast. Gahan Wilson draws me surrounded by ghastly wondrous things on the cover.
I've almost finished the introduction to it. (I was meant to finish it yesterday on the plane, but I fell asleep instead.)
And I think I'll stop blogging here for tonight. There's a huge blogging backlog, of links and such, of photos and accounts of adventures that I want to put up, and a lot of questions and comments to reply to.
Before I go, a thank you to everyone who supported the Evening With Neil and Amanda Kickstarter. We met our goal in the first couple of hours - we'll have a sound guy on the road, all the gigs will be professionally recorded and we can now afford to have them properly edited and mixed and put out, and to press CDs and suchlike. I'm ridiculously grateful. I'm also now seriously hoping we can film at least one of the concerts for posterity.)
(Every attempt in the past to do something like this on the cheap has failed. We tried recording the CBLDF "Guardian Angel" tours I did in the 90s and either failed or lost the recordings, except for one PBS-funded video. The attempt to film and record the Coraline complete reading in San Francisco in 2002 was even more disastrous, leaving us, in the end, with an unusable one-camera silent film of me reading all of Coraline. And I've seen Amanda pay people to record gigs that were done to be recorded, only to find a dead hard disk or empty file at the end. So this will be done properly.)
I also have to say, as a business model, having people buy things ahead of time with Kickstarter is terrific. I like that almost half of the people who've supported it so far simply pre-bought the $1 download, and so far another 800 people of the 2,000 supporters want the CD.
Right. Jet-lagged author stumbling to bed now. Good night.
Labels: Kickstarter, Evelyn Evelyn, Moore's Law, The Guild, playing myself
September 6, 2011
The tour and the kickstarter
An Evening With Neil Gaiman & Amanda Palmer by Amanda Palmer — Kickstarter
Click on the link. It's our campaign to raise the money to record all the tour and make a record.
There are limited VIP packages, tickets onsale early, all that. Lots of lovely wonderful goofy stuff.
And a video of me eating a banana.
Labels: an evening with neil and amanda, banana
August 22, 2011
In Edinburgh winding down
My Edinburgh Diary has been hectic and mostly fun. Not seen as many shows in the last few weeks as I'd hoped, but I've got more writing done than I expected to, and signed a lot more books than I'd realised I was going to, which made people happy, so it works out.
This evening is Amanda's gig at HMV Picturehouse, where her new band make their proper debut (along with her cousin Hugh the bagpipes player and a Horn Section) and I'm trying to decide what to read in my Guest Spot. I think it'll be a new piece called "The Rhyme Maidens" which I haven't read in public yet.
A day later - I didn't post this in time: Actually, at soundcheck Amanda asked if I'd like to sing "The Problem With Saints", our 8in8 song. I'd performed it twice out here - once at our little late night reading with the Belt Up Theatre people - although that time with the lyrics in front of me - and once when Jason Webley asked me up onstage at his Forest Cafe concert (http://blog.theforest.org.uk/savetheforest), so it seemed less intimidating doing it up onstage than otherwise...
The gig last night was fascinating. Amanda's built a new band "Grand Theft Orchestra", and is trying something very glam and glittery and dancey. My friend Chris Cunningham said, "It's like when David Bowie went from Hunky Dory to Ziggy Stardust." He also said that it was his favourite of the many Amanda gigs he'd seen, and it was one of the best gigs he'd ever seen. I don't think it was my favourite (I think I like the wistful and weird songs too much), but I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens as the band gets tighter, as the new songs get worked out and performed more. And I loved the glitter and the make-up and the show - including Amanda's cousin Hugh MacInnes on bagpipes.
Tonight, Amanda's playing in Glasgow, and I'm staying home and having a few authors over for drinks. It's a good world...
...
Back when I did WITS for Minneapolis Public Radio I also recorded a show for The Current, the MPR music channel. I was a guest DJ. It was meant to have been a half-hour radio show, but we talked for about an hour, and I walked out of the show feeling very sorry that they were going to have to edit out so much of what we'd talked about.
They didn't edit it. They just extended the show.
You can find the page at http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/music_blog/archive/2011/08/theft_of_the_di_35.shtml
and listen to the show there (and watch some videos of the songs I picked).
Or just click here:
...
According to http://www.comicsbeat.com/2011/08/20/well-said-neil-gaiman/ this carpet is in the new Gungahlin Public Library in Canberra, Australia:
Which is wonderful.
...
Last week I finished, in handwriting, and then read to a small late-night audience a few hours later, a story I wrote for Ray Bradbury.
On Ray's 91st birthday, which was Monday, I sent it to him, all typed and in second draft. I am now even more nervous than I was when I read it to the late-night audience, and I was amazingly nervous then.
I just heard that he liked it, and was happier than words can express.
...
Over at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audio/2011/aug/24/neilgaiman-edinburgh-book-festival?CMP=twt_gu you can hear the talk I gave at the Edinburgh BookFestival on American Gods, with John Mullen, for the Guardian Book Club.
And finally, here's an interview done with me, also for the Guardian by a really smart young interviewer:
Labels: Edinburgh, The Problem With Saints, An interesting month draws to a close
This evening is Amanda's gig at HMV Picturehouse, where her new band make their proper debut (along with her cousin Hugh the bagpipes player and a Horn Section) and I'm trying to decide what to read in my Guest Spot. I think it'll be a new piece called "The Rhyme Maidens" which I haven't read in public yet.
A day later - I didn't post this in time: Actually, at soundcheck Amanda asked if I'd like to sing "The Problem With Saints", our 8in8 song. I'd performed it twice out here - once at our little late night reading with the Belt Up Theatre people - although that time with the lyrics in front of me - and once when Jason Webley asked me up onstage at his Forest Cafe concert (http://blog.theforest.org.uk/savetheforest), so it seemed less intimidating doing it up onstage than otherwise...
The gig last night was fascinating. Amanda's built a new band "Grand Theft Orchestra", and is trying something very glam and glittery and dancey. My friend Chris Cunningham said, "It's like when David Bowie went from Hunky Dory to Ziggy Stardust." He also said that it was his favourite of the many Amanda gigs he'd seen, and it was one of the best gigs he'd ever seen. I don't think it was my favourite (I think I like the wistful and weird songs too much), but I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens as the band gets tighter, as the new songs get worked out and performed more. And I loved the glitter and the make-up and the show - including Amanda's cousin Hugh MacInnes on bagpipes.
Tonight, Amanda's playing in Glasgow, and I'm staying home and having a few authors over for drinks. It's a good world...
...
Back when I did WITS for Minneapolis Public Radio I also recorded a show for The Current, the MPR music channel. I was a guest DJ. It was meant to have been a half-hour radio show, but we talked for about an hour, and I walked out of the show feeling very sorry that they were going to have to edit out so much of what we'd talked about.
They didn't edit it. They just extended the show.
You can find the page at http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/music_blog/archive/2011/08/theft_of_the_di_35.shtml
and listen to the show there (and watch some videos of the songs I picked).
Or just click here:
...
According to http://www.comicsbeat.com/2011/08/20/well-said-neil-gaiman/ this carpet is in the new Gungahlin Public Library in Canberra, Australia:
Which is wonderful.
...
Last week I finished, in handwriting, and then read to a small late-night audience a few hours later, a story I wrote for Ray Bradbury.
On Ray's 91st birthday, which was Monday, I sent it to him, all typed and in second draft. I am now even more nervous than I was when I read it to the late-night audience, and I was amazingly nervous then.
I just heard that he liked it, and was happier than words can express.
...
Over at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audio/2011/aug/24/neilgaiman-edinburgh-book-festival?CMP=twt_gu you can hear the talk I gave at the Edinburgh BookFestival on American Gods, with John Mullen, for the Guardian Book Club.
And finally, here's an interview done with me, also for the Guardian by a really smart young interviewer:
Labels: Edinburgh, The Problem With Saints, An interesting month draws to a close
August 9, 2011
Early Warning
I was writing in the front room, which contains a piano, when my wife put her head around the door and told me I had to write somewhere else as she needed to practice the piano. So I crept away.
She is playing Evelyn Evelyn music, in preparation for the week of Evelyn Evelyn at the Fringe. (They'll be playing at the Assembly George Square from the 17th to the 21st.) And I am blogging before I get back to work.
...
This came in this morning on the FAQ line:
I was wondering if you will be coming to North West anytime soon for any reason that would allow fans to meet you. More specifically the Portland/Vancouver area. I just recently started reading your stuff and absolutely love it.
And I thought, funny you should ask that...
I'm putting this up as an early warning, as a "Keep the Date Free" sort of a thing.
Photo from http://audramariedewittphotography.tu...
I'm Guest of Honour at World Fantasy Con in San Diego this year, just before Hallowe'en. I'm also going to be, with Amanda in Seattle on November the 11th, for our friend Jason Webley's huge party-event-spectacular.
Amanda and I started discussing ways to get from San Diego to Seattle, and we thought it might be fun to drive, but that the journey would go by too quickly, and then one or other of us suggested the idea of having a reason to stop along the way, and I was just about to do the American Gods tour and was receiving lots of messages from people who were grumpy that the talks had all sold out and loved the idea of getting out and reading to people...
And we thought, well, we could do "An Evening With Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer" (or vice versa) and stop off in smaller, nicer theatres, and just fill an evening with story-readings and with songs and with poem-readings and such. I hope that Amanda will do the songs, although I want her to read or help read a few things and she has asked if I would sing "The Problem With Saints"... We'll probably answer questions together. Amanda thinks we should write a new song during the performance in each location. I think that would either be fun or insane (I waver).
It should be a very unusual evening. I'm not sure yet whether we'll rehearse and plan and organise a show together, or whether we'll each take half of a show and change it around each night. Or, more likely, some sort of mixture of both. We have time to decide, plan and create it either way.
(The hardest thing for me to decide is whether to try and keep the things I read all on the shorter side, or whether I should read some half-hour long short stories.)
I do not know whether there will be a signing afterwards of anything - it may depend mostly on the venues and when they need to close their doors by. But we are planning to have tour tee shirts, a tour poster, and possibly even a signed limited edition print or two. Whatever we can fit into the back of a car.
(Yes, we know where we are going to be, theatre by theatre. No, we are not announcing that bit until the tickets go on-sale.)
Keep your eyes open here on the blog for the actual venue/tickets announcements. (I'm afraid tickets will probably sell out very fast in some of these theatres.)
So. The dates. I've cut and pasted (and slightly modified) this bit from Amanda's blog:
Will we ever do this show again, or do it anywhere else? I have no idea. It depends mostly on how much we enjoy it, I suspect. And if we do enjoy it, then we might try it the next time we decide to break up a long drive, or the next time we go somewhere unusual together.
It's quite possible we won't enjoy it. Or that Amanda will be off album-making and touring for the album for most of the next two years, while I'll be novel-writing and making some other stuff, so this may be the only one of these there is.
And that's all.
Labels: Evelyn Evelyn, World Fantasy Con, An Evening With Neil And Amanda.
She is playing Evelyn Evelyn music, in preparation for the week of Evelyn Evelyn at the Fringe. (They'll be playing at the Assembly George Square from the 17th to the 21st.) And I am blogging before I get back to work.
...
This came in this morning on the FAQ line:
I was wondering if you will be coming to North West anytime soon for any reason that would allow fans to meet you. More specifically the Portland/Vancouver area. I just recently started reading your stuff and absolutely love it.
And I thought, funny you should ask that...
I'm putting this up as an early warning, as a "Keep the Date Free" sort of a thing.
Photo from http://audramariedewittphotography.tu...I'm Guest of Honour at World Fantasy Con in San Diego this year, just before Hallowe'en. I'm also going to be, with Amanda in Seattle on November the 11th, for our friend Jason Webley's huge party-event-spectacular.
Amanda and I started discussing ways to get from San Diego to Seattle, and we thought it might be fun to drive, but that the journey would go by too quickly, and then one or other of us suggested the idea of having a reason to stop along the way, and I was just about to do the American Gods tour and was receiving lots of messages from people who were grumpy that the talks had all sold out and loved the idea of getting out and reading to people...
And we thought, well, we could do "An Evening With Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer" (or vice versa) and stop off in smaller, nicer theatres, and just fill an evening with story-readings and with songs and with poem-readings and such. I hope that Amanda will do the songs, although I want her to read or help read a few things and she has asked if I would sing "The Problem With Saints"... We'll probably answer questions together. Amanda thinks we should write a new song during the performance in each location. I think that would either be fun or insane (I waver).
It should be a very unusual evening. I'm not sure yet whether we'll rehearse and plan and organise a show together, or whether we'll each take half of a show and change it around each night. Or, more likely, some sort of mixture of both. We have time to decide, plan and create it either way.
(The hardest thing for me to decide is whether to try and keep the things I read all on the shorter side, or whether I should read some half-hour long short stories.)
I do not know whether there will be a signing afterwards of anything - it may depend mostly on the venues and when they need to close their doors by. But we are planning to have tour tee shirts, a tour poster, and possibly even a signed limited edition print or two. Whatever we can fit into the back of a car.
(Yes, we know where we are going to be, theatre by theatre. No, we are not announcing that bit until the tickets go on-sale.)
Keep your eyes open here on the blog for the actual venue/tickets announcements. (I'm afraid tickets will probably sell out very fast in some of these theatres.)
So. The dates. I've cut and pasted (and slightly modified) this bit from Amanda's blog:
Oct 28&29 i have SOLO shows in san diego and LA....then neil & i join forces for:
Oct 31st - Halloween Night in Los Angeles, CA
Nov 3rd - BAY AREA, CA
Nov 4th - Sacramento, CA
Nov 7th - Portland, OR
Nov 8th - Seattle, WA
Nov 9th - Vancouver, BC, Canada!
the 10th is Neil's birthday and we'll probably spent it hanging out in seattle, helping Jason Webley make papier mache coffee percolators or something equally absurd for his big seattle show on the 11th.
Will we ever do this show again, or do it anywhere else? I have no idea. It depends mostly on how much we enjoy it, I suspect. And if we do enjoy it, then we might try it the next time we decide to break up a long drive, or the next time we go somewhere unusual together.
It's quite possible we won't enjoy it. Or that Amanda will be off album-making and touring for the album for most of the next two years, while I'll be novel-writing and making some other stuff, so this may be the only one of these there is.
And that's all.
Labels: Evelyn Evelyn, World Fantasy Con, An Evening With Neil And Amanda.
August 8, 2011
Three Weddings and a Fringe
I'm in Edinburgh.
Last week Amanda and I had a sort of a family wedding-party in Skye, where much of Amanda's family is originally from, mostly so that our families could meet each other. They all came a very long way, and we were touched and impressed. Only family, no friends (except Sxip Shirey and his bandmates in the Luminescent Orchestrii, who were the "wedding" band). The party was at Clan Donald, and the people and the food were both wonderful.
It made me happy watching Amanda's white-bearded gentlemen in kilts encounter my North London Jewish relatives. At one point Amanda and I were hoisted onto chairs for a Jewish chair dance, while the bagpipes played. I do not believe this is something that has happened a lot in human history. (The piper was Amanda's cousin Hugh.)
I suspect both sides of the family think we're a bit mad, but they are happy to indulge our madness, and we were glad that they did.
Neil Gaiman on WhoSay
(Here's a photo by my cousin Elaine. The actual photos were done by my cousin Elliott.)
For those keeping count, this was our third wedding: the first was the art-surprise flashmob one that Amanda astonished me with in New Orleans, the second was the real one on January the second. I think we're done now, although we've talked about having a party for friends, and we may still...
Amanda, Holly, Maddy and I are staying in a rented house in Edinburgh. I'm writing and catching up on email, Amanda is catching up on email and planning her next couple of years, and we're going to a lot of Edinburgh Fringe events.
(So far I think my favourites, of many, have been Belt Up's The Boy James and what I think was the tightest incarnation of Fascinating Aida I've seen in 28 years. Holly and Maddy both loved The Damsel in Shining Armour and Maddy also wanted me to mention how much she'd liked Sunday in the Park With George.)
Amanda and I co-edited the Scottish Big Issue's Fringe Supplement. We interviewed old friends (I talked to Iain Banks - an interview that's in The Big Issue all over the UK -- Amanda to Margaret Cho, both of us talked to Dillie Keane), we recommended things. Here's my link to Book Festivally things - http://www.bigissuescotland.com/features/view/558). And here is Amanda's guide (with occasional interpolations from me) to more theatrical/comedy/musical things: http://www.bigissuescotland.com/features/view/559.
I'm doing pretty good - Over the last couple of days I've written an introduction to Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, and I wrote very short story yesterday for the Guardian, in addition to the longer stuff I'm working on - but I'm starting to think seriously about retiring from email. I can't keep up with the amount coming in, and after a long day's e-mail answering I feel like I've done a day's work, and I haven't.
Sigh. And grumble.
Loving the time with both daughters. Missing the dogs and the bees. Felt almost guilty when I heard that we'd got the blue ribbon for honey and cut comb at the country fair for the Fourth Year running: guilty that I wasn't there, and that Lorraine had to extract the honey and cut the comb.
...
This endearing silent film made by children in Toronto, is probably an entry for the 90 Second Newbery award. You can find out about the award at http://jameskennedy.com/90-second-new... By the way, the award entry date has just been extended to October 17th...
Labels: Edinburgh, A Wedding
Last week Amanda and I had a sort of a family wedding-party in Skye, where much of Amanda's family is originally from, mostly so that our families could meet each other. They all came a very long way, and we were touched and impressed. Only family, no friends (except Sxip Shirey and his bandmates in the Luminescent Orchestrii, who were the "wedding" band). The party was at Clan Donald, and the people and the food were both wonderful.
It made me happy watching Amanda's white-bearded gentlemen in kilts encounter my North London Jewish relatives. At one point Amanda and I were hoisted onto chairs for a Jewish chair dance, while the bagpipes played. I do not believe this is something that has happened a lot in human history. (The piper was Amanda's cousin Hugh.)
I suspect both sides of the family think we're a bit mad, but they are happy to indulge our madness, and we were glad that they did.
Neil Gaiman on WhoSay
(Here's a photo by my cousin Elaine. The actual photos were done by my cousin Elliott.)
For those keeping count, this was our third wedding: the first was the art-surprise flashmob one that Amanda astonished me with in New Orleans, the second was the real one on January the second. I think we're done now, although we've talked about having a party for friends, and we may still...
Amanda, Holly, Maddy and I are staying in a rented house in Edinburgh. I'm writing and catching up on email, Amanda is catching up on email and planning her next couple of years, and we're going to a lot of Edinburgh Fringe events.
(So far I think my favourites, of many, have been Belt Up's The Boy James and what I think was the tightest incarnation of Fascinating Aida I've seen in 28 years. Holly and Maddy both loved The Damsel in Shining Armour and Maddy also wanted me to mention how much she'd liked Sunday in the Park With George.)
Amanda and I co-edited the Scottish Big Issue's Fringe Supplement. We interviewed old friends (I talked to Iain Banks - an interview that's in The Big Issue all over the UK -- Amanda to Margaret Cho, both of us talked to Dillie Keane), we recommended things. Here's my link to Book Festivally things - http://www.bigissuescotland.com/features/view/558). And here is Amanda's guide (with occasional interpolations from me) to more theatrical/comedy/musical things: http://www.bigissuescotland.com/features/view/559.
I'm doing pretty good - Over the last couple of days I've written an introduction to Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, and I wrote very short story yesterday for the Guardian, in addition to the longer stuff I'm working on - but I'm starting to think seriously about retiring from email. I can't keep up with the amount coming in, and after a long day's e-mail answering I feel like I've done a day's work, and I haven't.
Sigh. And grumble.
Loving the time with both daughters. Missing the dogs and the bees. Felt almost guilty when I heard that we'd got the blue ribbon for honey and cut comb at the country fair for the Fourth Year running: guilty that I wasn't there, and that Lorraine had to extract the honey and cut the comb.
...
This endearing silent film made by children in Toronto, is probably an entry for the 90 Second Newbery award. You can find out about the award at http://jameskennedy.com/90-second-new... By the way, the award entry date has just been extended to October 17th...
Labels: Edinburgh, A Wedding
July 18, 2011
"From the Desk of Mr Amanda F Palmer"
I am home now.
If you go outside the house the world is an oven filled with soup-like air and biting insects, so I am spending every moment possible inside. I went for one walk today and by the time I was far enough away from the house to make the dogs happy, I realised that I should have worn bug-spray.
This is a photo of me a few hours ago wishing I had worn bug spray.
Toward the end of last week I looked at a map and realised that Burlington Ma. was the town next door to Lexington Ma. This made me smile an excited sort of smile, as I knew that I would be sleeping in Lexington on Saturday night, in Amanda's family home, and that a convention-full of old, good friends was happening in Burlington, a seven minute drive away. I sent messages to my friends who I knew were attending - John Clute and Liz Hand, Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman, Geoff Ryman and Peter Straub, and asked when would be a good time to swing by.
Peter Straub wrote back and said that 11-12 was out for him, as he would be attending the Shirley Jackson Awards.
Which rang a bell. I went and checked online. Yes, I was nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award. Actually, I was nominated for two of them, for STORIES as Best Anthology, and for "The Truth Is A Cave In The Black Mountains" as best Novelette.
The Shirley Jackson Awards are for "for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic." (per the website, http://www.shirleyjacksonawards.org/.)
(Shirley Jackson was an amazing writer. I've talked about her a few times on this blog. If you haven't read We Have Always Lived in the Castle or The Haunting of Hill House or read any of her short stories (the most famous is "The Lottery" unless you're me in which case it's "One Ordinary Day With Peanuts" you have missed out on something marvellous. The Library of the Americas recently brought out a Shirley Jackson book edited by Joyce Carol Oates with 21 stories and several of the novels in it, so you do not have to go and hunt for them in dusty second-hand bookshops any longer. Although you can if you like. There are more than 21 stories, after all.)
I had been thrilled when the Shirley Jackson award nominations had been announced, but that was many months ago and I had forgotten when or where they were going to be awarded.
Now I had a dilemma. I wasn't sure of the protocol - should I go to the awards ceremony, even though I wasn't going to the convention, and was only popping in to introduce some friends to Amanda and to see people I had missed seeing...? Or should I just see my friends. I had no idea. I hadn't really been to a convention I wasn't attending before. Would I be seen as snubbing the awards if I didn't go? But would I be allowed in if I wanted to go?
As it was, the decision was made for me.
I arrived, hugged John Clute and Peter Straub and Geoff Ryman (and Samuel R Delany and John Crowley and Ellen Datlow and oh, so many other people), and was immediately handed two engraved stones, just the right hand-shape and size for throwing at a Lottery Winner, each saying that I was a nominee for the Shirley Jackson Awards, and was told that I was definitely invited, and should be there.
I followed John Clute into the Awards, sat with him and Amanda and Maria Headley (someone handed me my convention nametag. It said MR AMANDA F PALMER. I relaxed, no longer feeling like I wasn't really at the convention.
Neil Gaiman on WhoSay
I looked at the list of nominees, did some mental handicapping, sat back comfortable in the knowledge that I wouldn't win and definitely didn't have to worry about making speeches...
And then STORIES won Best Anthology. And just when I had recovered from that, "The Truth Is A Cave In The Black Mountains" was awarded Best Novelette. And so I made speeches, and had my photo taken a lot, and kept wishing that I'd shaved for the photos (which I might have done if I thought I would win), and all in all it was a wonderful surprise, like getting an extra birthday in a year you hadn't known about. 12 hours before then I hadn't even known there was an awards ceremony going on, and now I had won two awards, and Amanda was smiling that smile she does that showed that she was having a wonderful time too being proud of her husband.
(It was so much cooler than it would have been getting an email or a text message telling me I'd won.)
I hugged Caitlin R Kiernan. I got to meet Kestrell, who has Delirium eyes (as documented in http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2010/10/neil-gaiman-what-are-you-doing-in-my.html) which made the day even more perfect than it had been before.
STORIES just came out in the US in paperback, by the way. Lots of wonderful stories of all kinds by a glorious flock of authors. You should buy it. It just won an award.
You can read "The Truth is a Cave..." for free at this link http://www.fiftytwostories.com/?p=1338
I was really pleased and proud - "The Truth Is A Cave in the Black Mountains..." has now won two awards for Best Novelette, The Locus Award (voted on by readers of Locus) and the Shirley Jackson (the Shirley Jackson awards are juried awards).
And then I went and had lunch in the pub with too many old friends and was happy.
Amanda and I left the convention and headed to Cambridge, wandered into Harvard Square, where we watched a human statue and ate watermelon in the street. A man took our photograph and told us that soon there would be Bastille Day Waiter Races. Then I got into a taxi and went to the airport and flew home.
Amanda watched the waiter races and texted to tell me who won.
...
I'm finally making my first trip to New Orleans in September and I really want to go check out The Green Goddess since you've spoken so highly of it. I'm convincing my mother and her colleagues to try it on the basis of the super-cool special treat triggered by a secret password, so I was wondering if a) the Meze of Destruction is still a valid password and b) how in the world do I actually pronounce meze? Is it may-zai or meh-zee or...?
Thanks,
Rachel
It's still going on. If the waitperson tells you it isn't, tell them to check with Chris (the chef). And Mezze is closest to Mezzay, but I've heard it pronounced a dozen other ways.
Dear Mr. Gaiman:
Regarding Google+, you're right; it is in beta and I don't think it was designed with people like you in mind right now, but it will get better. Other celebrities have voiced similar complaints, that they don't have the granularity of alerts and notifications they need when they're being added by a thousand people a day, and genuinely know about five of those people. I think maybe it's not quite ready for people like you yet, who'll have a large web presence on the site but don't really spend much time at all *thinking* about their web presence or personally managing it.
I'm sorry people told you You're Doing It Wrong when the actual answer was probably closer to This Is Not Your Thing Right Now, which I find tends to be more accurate and reasonable than You're Doing It Wrong, almost 100% of the time.
The people who told you "It's not like Facebook, it's like Twitter!" were wrong. It's not really like either. If you want to write a short update with a general blast, it's like Twitter. If you want to write a blogpost with a public audience, it's like a blog site. If you want to write a blogpost with a closed audience, it's like Livejournal. If you want to start an online conversation with only four participants it's like an e-mail thread. And if you want to build and share with discrete communities of people and interact with folks you know, it's like what Facebook *says* it is but isn't. There is no "it's like this and you're using it the wrong way," but that means there's a lot of flailing around to use it until *they* figure out a way to help people flail less initially. That's a developer's job, to help people use their stuff more effectively and efficiently, and that's what beta testers are for, to tell them ways they're succeeding and not succeeding at it.
I hope to see you back in a year or so when they've got the functionality a little more manageable for folks like you.
Hugs,
Rowan
That's astonishingly sensible.
From Jason Nelson:
A lovely and odd digital poetry game (now fixed!), with a title much inspired by your prose. Please do share with your legions of followers.
"scrape scraperteeth"
http://www.secrettechnology.com/scrape/scrape1.html
(excuse the resend, but the previous version was broke, broke, broke and now it's plays all odd and lovely)
There. Now. Zoom.
Labels: no time for labels dammit, perhaps I will go back and put labels in later and perhaps pigs will learn the use of their stubby little wings
If you go outside the house the world is an oven filled with soup-like air and biting insects, so I am spending every moment possible inside. I went for one walk today and by the time I was far enough away from the house to make the dogs happy, I realised that I should have worn bug-spray.
This is a photo of me a few hours ago wishing I had worn bug spray.
Toward the end of last week I looked at a map and realised that Burlington Ma. was the town next door to Lexington Ma. This made me smile an excited sort of smile, as I knew that I would be sleeping in Lexington on Saturday night, in Amanda's family home, and that a convention-full of old, good friends was happening in Burlington, a seven minute drive away. I sent messages to my friends who I knew were attending - John Clute and Liz Hand, Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman, Geoff Ryman and Peter Straub, and asked when would be a good time to swing by.
Peter Straub wrote back and said that 11-12 was out for him, as he would be attending the Shirley Jackson Awards.
Which rang a bell. I went and checked online. Yes, I was nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award. Actually, I was nominated for two of them, for STORIES as Best Anthology, and for "The Truth Is A Cave In The Black Mountains" as best Novelette.
The Shirley Jackson Awards are for "for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic." (per the website, http://www.shirleyjacksonawards.org/.)
(Shirley Jackson was an amazing writer. I've talked about her a few times on this blog. If you haven't read We Have Always Lived in the Castle or The Haunting of Hill House or read any of her short stories (the most famous is "The Lottery" unless you're me in which case it's "One Ordinary Day With Peanuts" you have missed out on something marvellous. The Library of the Americas recently brought out a Shirley Jackson book edited by Joyce Carol Oates with 21 stories and several of the novels in it, so you do not have to go and hunt for them in dusty second-hand bookshops any longer. Although you can if you like. There are more than 21 stories, after all.)
I had been thrilled when the Shirley Jackson award nominations had been announced, but that was many months ago and I had forgotten when or where they were going to be awarded.
Now I had a dilemma. I wasn't sure of the protocol - should I go to the awards ceremony, even though I wasn't going to the convention, and was only popping in to introduce some friends to Amanda and to see people I had missed seeing...? Or should I just see my friends. I had no idea. I hadn't really been to a convention I wasn't attending before. Would I be seen as snubbing the awards if I didn't go? But would I be allowed in if I wanted to go?
As it was, the decision was made for me.
I arrived, hugged John Clute and Peter Straub and Geoff Ryman (and Samuel R Delany and John Crowley and Ellen Datlow and oh, so many other people), and was immediately handed two engraved stones, just the right hand-shape and size for throwing at a Lottery Winner, each saying that I was a nominee for the Shirley Jackson Awards, and was told that I was definitely invited, and should be there.
I followed John Clute into the Awards, sat with him and Amanda and Maria Headley (someone handed me my convention nametag. It said MR AMANDA F PALMER. I relaxed, no longer feeling like I wasn't really at the convention.
Neil Gaiman on WhoSay
I looked at the list of nominees, did some mental handicapping, sat back comfortable in the knowledge that I wouldn't win and definitely didn't have to worry about making speeches...
And then STORIES won Best Anthology. And just when I had recovered from that, "The Truth Is A Cave In The Black Mountains" was awarded Best Novelette. And so I made speeches, and had my photo taken a lot, and kept wishing that I'd shaved for the photos (which I might have done if I thought I would win), and all in all it was a wonderful surprise, like getting an extra birthday in a year you hadn't known about. 12 hours before then I hadn't even known there was an awards ceremony going on, and now I had won two awards, and Amanda was smiling that smile she does that showed that she was having a wonderful time too being proud of her husband.
(It was so much cooler than it would have been getting an email or a text message telling me I'd won.)
I hugged Caitlin R Kiernan. I got to meet Kestrell, who has Delirium eyes (as documented in http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2010/10/neil-gaiman-what-are-you-doing-in-my.html) which made the day even more perfect than it had been before.
STORIES just came out in the US in paperback, by the way. Lots of wonderful stories of all kinds by a glorious flock of authors. You should buy it. It just won an award.
You can read "The Truth is a Cave..." for free at this link http://www.fiftytwostories.com/?p=1338
I was really pleased and proud - "The Truth Is A Cave in the Black Mountains..." has now won two awards for Best Novelette, The Locus Award (voted on by readers of Locus) and the Shirley Jackson (the Shirley Jackson awards are juried awards).
And then I went and had lunch in the pub with too many old friends and was happy.
Amanda and I left the convention and headed to Cambridge, wandered into Harvard Square, where we watched a human statue and ate watermelon in the street. A man took our photograph and told us that soon there would be Bastille Day Waiter Races. Then I got into a taxi and went to the airport and flew home.
Amanda watched the waiter races and texted to tell me who won.
...
I'm finally making my first trip to New Orleans in September and I really want to go check out The Green Goddess since you've spoken so highly of it. I'm convincing my mother and her colleagues to try it on the basis of the super-cool special treat triggered by a secret password, so I was wondering if a) the Meze of Destruction is still a valid password and b) how in the world do I actually pronounce meze? Is it may-zai or meh-zee or...?
Thanks,
Rachel
It's still going on. If the waitperson tells you it isn't, tell them to check with Chris (the chef). And Mezze is closest to Mezzay, but I've heard it pronounced a dozen other ways.
Dear Mr. Gaiman:
Regarding Google+, you're right; it is in beta and I don't think it was designed with people like you in mind right now, but it will get better. Other celebrities have voiced similar complaints, that they don't have the granularity of alerts and notifications they need when they're being added by a thousand people a day, and genuinely know about five of those people. I think maybe it's not quite ready for people like you yet, who'll have a large web presence on the site but don't really spend much time at all *thinking* about their web presence or personally managing it.
I'm sorry people told you You're Doing It Wrong when the actual answer was probably closer to This Is Not Your Thing Right Now, which I find tends to be more accurate and reasonable than You're Doing It Wrong, almost 100% of the time.
The people who told you "It's not like Facebook, it's like Twitter!" were wrong. It's not really like either. If you want to write a short update with a general blast, it's like Twitter. If you want to write a blogpost with a public audience, it's like a blog site. If you want to write a blogpost with a closed audience, it's like Livejournal. If you want to start an online conversation with only four participants it's like an e-mail thread. And if you want to build and share with discrete communities of people and interact with folks you know, it's like what Facebook *says* it is but isn't. There is no "it's like this and you're using it the wrong way," but that means there's a lot of flailing around to use it until *they* figure out a way to help people flail less initially. That's a developer's job, to help people use their stuff more effectively and efficiently, and that's what beta testers are for, to tell them ways they're succeeding and not succeeding at it.
I hope to see you back in a year or so when they've got the functionality a little more manageable for folks like you.
Hugs,
Rowan
That's astonishingly sensible.
From Jason Nelson:
A lovely and odd digital poetry game (now fixed!), with a title much inspired by your prose. Please do share with your legions of followers.
"scrape scraperteeth"
http://www.secrettechnology.com/scrape/scrape1.html
(excuse the resend, but the previous version was broke, broke, broke and now it's plays all odd and lovely)
There. Now. Zoom.
Labels: no time for labels dammit, perhaps I will go back and put labels in later and perhaps pigs will learn the use of their stubby little wings
July 15, 2011
Tangled like ivy
I am writing this in Amanda's kitchen in Boston. There is ivy growing over the windows (in the bathroom the ivy has actual grown through the windows and grown into the shower in a magical mixup of indoors and outdoors) and all the light is very green.
I've been making a list of important things to blog, and then forgetting to do it, mostly because nothing has been more important than grabbing a handful of days with my wife, and when I've had downtime I've been making up things and writing them down and not blogging.
But the blog is calling to me...
I will try and get the most important things down here today.
...
I joined Google+ and decided that I didn't want another public platform yet.
I like Twitter. I tolerate Facebook. Google+ seemed (for me) like an awkward mash-up of the two. I found the continual stream of notifications telling me that another 500 people I did not know had put me into circles and that lots of other people I didn't know had mentioned me really irritating and distracting, and I couldn't turn them off or easily find the signal in the noise (or find my friends in the flood of people putting me into circles), and when I grumbled about it mildly (agreeing with Warren Ellis that I couldn't find friends I'd actually want to put in circles among the thousands of people who I was being told were putting me in circles) a couple of hundred people explained to me that I was Doing It Wrong.
It was the "You're Doing It Wrong" messages that were my personal tipping point. As far as I'm concerned, the mark of a good social network is that it either does what it was made to do easily and cleanly, or it's bendy enough that you can make it do what you want. And being told "you're trying to use it like Facebook but really it's like Twitter!" just made me strangely nostalgic for Twitter. And as Twitter was still there, I cancelled my Google+ account, feeling at this point that I didn't need another time sink, another place to check, another distraction from work or from life.
(If you cancel your Google+ account, Google+ will then start helpfully emailing you notifications every time someone puts you in a circle or mentions you, even if you had all of the "Email notifications" options previously turned off. This is fixable when you discover the "unsubscribe" option at the bottom of the emails that wasn't visible when they came in on your phone, but you shouldn't have to unsubscribe from something you didn't subscribe to.)
Anyway, I wish Google+ all the best. I'll probably check it out again in a year or so, if I'm still on the Internet, or sooner than that if they make things so I can't blog without it. And it may well be an excellent Social Network eventually. It's still in Beta, after all, and most users aren't going to get a huge instant flood of followers (circlers?).
So that's a social network I said goodbye to.
I said hello to Turntable.fm, however, a service (currently US only, alas) that lets you make a room, or join a room, and DJ in it. You and four other people can DJ at a time, sharing music you've taken from Turntable's extensive databases or uploaded. I loved DJing, especially once I decided that there should be more spoken-word stuff out there, and that people might like it, and created http://turntable.fm/neilhimselfs_house_of_poetry and have slipped in there from time to time and just played poetry, and been delighted as other people DJ poetry too.
...
The Nerdist Podcast was released:
This is the link to the entry with the http://www.nerdist.com/2011/07/nerdist-podcast-106-neil-gaiman/
Chris and I talk about Craig Ferguson and late night chat shows. We talk about Doctor Who. We talk about John Hodgman and his unique worldview and his scary moustache. And at the end we talk about writing and how to write. It's really good, I think.
Also...
WITS at the Fizgerald Theatre was broadcast: Here it is, if you did not hear it:
Lots of links to videos of bits that didn't make it to broadcast up at http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/programs/wits/
...
Last Sunday I drove down to Madison to make an unannounced and I hope relatively unexpected appearance at the Discworld Convention. I got to talk with Terry Pratchett for almost two hours on a stage about GOOD OMENS. This was really an excuse for me to spend time with Terry before, during and after the panel, but that also meant that the conversation and the limited time we had together made the Good Omens panel much more "real" (in every sense) than normal panels. We weren't pulling out well-honed anecdotes or trying to make the audience happy. We were just two old friends chatting about something we made over twenty years ago, and reminding each other of bits of things that had happened that we'd forgotten. Also we sang They Might Be Giants' song "Shoehorn With Teeth" together and remembered most of the words.
Here's a picture of the panel stolen from Pat Rothfuss's blog:
And a photo of Terry, me and winged Emily Whitten (chair of the NADWcon). I am pointing to her impressive tights.
And here Terry and I surprise a few people as we walk in together for the Good Omens Panel:
(Thanks to the photographers.)
...
I am astonishingly proud of a book I wrote that Adam Rex is currently painting, intended for very young readers indeed. You can find out about it at Adam's blog http://adamrex.blogspot.com/search/label/chu. Here's the first finished picture from it, set in the Moby Diner. Our hero is in the bottom right-hand corner with his back to us.
Uh-oh. A lot of pepper in the air...
...
And finally, I just got this from J. Michael Straczynski... he's put the text up on his Facebook page, but I'm cutting and pasting it here, with his permission, so there's somewhere outside of Facebook that people can link to and learn about it and sign up for the book before they're all gone.
Over to you, Joe:
...
And I just realised that I did not get everything down here. There appears to be a new, currently nameless, cat living at my house. I will tell you the story next blog.
And I almost forgot, for those who made it this far - artist Steve Cleff has done a portrait of me as a benefit for the CBLDF. The auction has a few hours to go. Here is the link.
Labels: Chu's Day, Google+, Terry Pratchett, Harlan Ellison, Wits, the nerdist, Turntable FM, Amanda Palmer's bathroom ivy, Amanda
I've been making a list of important things to blog, and then forgetting to do it, mostly because nothing has been more important than grabbing a handful of days with my wife, and when I've had downtime I've been making up things and writing them down and not blogging.
But the blog is calling to me...
I will try and get the most important things down here today.
...
I joined Google+ and decided that I didn't want another public platform yet.
I like Twitter. I tolerate Facebook. Google+ seemed (for me) like an awkward mash-up of the two. I found the continual stream of notifications telling me that another 500 people I did not know had put me into circles and that lots of other people I didn't know had mentioned me really irritating and distracting, and I couldn't turn them off or easily find the signal in the noise (or find my friends in the flood of people putting me into circles), and when I grumbled about it mildly (agreeing with Warren Ellis that I couldn't find friends I'd actually want to put in circles among the thousands of people who I was being told were putting me in circles) a couple of hundred people explained to me that I was Doing It Wrong.
It was the "You're Doing It Wrong" messages that were my personal tipping point. As far as I'm concerned, the mark of a good social network is that it either does what it was made to do easily and cleanly, or it's bendy enough that you can make it do what you want. And being told "you're trying to use it like Facebook but really it's like Twitter!" just made me strangely nostalgic for Twitter. And as Twitter was still there, I cancelled my Google+ account, feeling at this point that I didn't need another time sink, another place to check, another distraction from work or from life.
(If you cancel your Google+ account, Google+ will then start helpfully emailing you notifications every time someone puts you in a circle or mentions you, even if you had all of the "Email notifications" options previously turned off. This is fixable when you discover the "unsubscribe" option at the bottom of the emails that wasn't visible when they came in on your phone, but you shouldn't have to unsubscribe from something you didn't subscribe to.)
Anyway, I wish Google+ all the best. I'll probably check it out again in a year or so, if I'm still on the Internet, or sooner than that if they make things so I can't blog without it. And it may well be an excellent Social Network eventually. It's still in Beta, after all, and most users aren't going to get a huge instant flood of followers (circlers?).
So that's a social network I said goodbye to.
I said hello to Turntable.fm, however, a service (currently US only, alas) that lets you make a room, or join a room, and DJ in it. You and four other people can DJ at a time, sharing music you've taken from Turntable's extensive databases or uploaded. I loved DJing, especially once I decided that there should be more spoken-word stuff out there, and that people might like it, and created http://turntable.fm/neilhimselfs_house_of_poetry and have slipped in there from time to time and just played poetry, and been delighted as other people DJ poetry too.
...
The Nerdist Podcast was released:
This is the link to the entry with the http://www.nerdist.com/2011/07/nerdist-podcast-106-neil-gaiman/
Chris and I talk about Craig Ferguson and late night chat shows. We talk about Doctor Who. We talk about John Hodgman and his unique worldview and his scary moustache. And at the end we talk about writing and how to write. It's really good, I think.
Also...
WITS at the Fizgerald Theatre was broadcast: Here it is, if you did not hear it:
Lots of links to videos of bits that didn't make it to broadcast up at http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/programs/wits/
...
Last Sunday I drove down to Madison to make an unannounced and I hope relatively unexpected appearance at the Discworld Convention. I got to talk with Terry Pratchett for almost two hours on a stage about GOOD OMENS. This was really an excuse for me to spend time with Terry before, during and after the panel, but that also meant that the conversation and the limited time we had together made the Good Omens panel much more "real" (in every sense) than normal panels. We weren't pulling out well-honed anecdotes or trying to make the audience happy. We were just two old friends chatting about something we made over twenty years ago, and reminding each other of bits of things that had happened that we'd forgotten. Also we sang They Might Be Giants' song "Shoehorn With Teeth" together and remembered most of the words.
Here's a picture of the panel stolen from Pat Rothfuss's blog:
And a photo of Terry, me and winged Emily Whitten (chair of the NADWcon). I am pointing to her impressive tights.
And here Terry and I surprise a few people as we walk in together for the Good Omens Panel:
(Thanks to the photographers.)
...
I am astonishingly proud of a book I wrote that Adam Rex is currently painting, intended for very young readers indeed. You can find out about it at Adam's blog http://adamrex.blogspot.com/search/label/chu. Here's the first finished picture from it, set in the Moby Diner. Our hero is in the bottom right-hand corner with his back to us.
Uh-oh. A lot of pepper in the air...
...
And finally, I just got this from J. Michael Straczynski... he's put the text up on his Facebook page, but I'm cutting and pasting it here, with his permission, so there's somewhere outside of Facebook that people can link to and learn about it and sign up for the book before they're all gone.
Over to you, Joe:
I don't have to tell you who Harlan Ellison is, or that he wrote some of the most seminal episodes of science fiction television in the history of the form. His scripts for The Outer Limits, Star Trek, Twilight Zone and others have won countless awards and are considered landmarks of the genre.
A while back, I got wind of a top-secret project being developed by Publishing 180, the company that publishes the Babylon 5 script books, involving Harlan's scripts for these series. (Important note: I do not own any part of P180 nor do I receive any financial remuneration of any kind from this project. My involvement here is strictly as a fan and admirer.) I now hold in my hand a preliminary copy of that book, and I wanted to give everyone a heads-up because folks, this is a doozy.
The book, entitled BRAIN MOVIES, contains Harlan's scripts for "Soldier," and "Demon With a Glass Hand" from THE OUTER LIMITS, "Paladin of the Lost Hour" and "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich" from the TWILIGHT ZONE, "Memo from Purgatory" from ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS, "The Face of Helen Bournouw" and Harlan's near-legendary manifesto on how to write good science fiction, written exclusively for incoming writers on BABYLON 5. (The scripts for Paladin and Demon received the prestigious Writers Guild Award.)
In many cases, the book contains both the script and the treatment for the script, something almost never seen outside the studio. Most amazing of all, the book contains not just the shooting script for Harlan's HITCHCOCK episode, it contains an earlier draft filled with his handwritten annotations and changes.
When an episode is broadcast, you don't get to see the writer's mind at work, don't have the opportunity to experience the moment he decided to make a line of dialogue or a scene go thisway instead of thatway, how a turn of phrase was altered in just the right way at the last moment, you see only the end product. By including the draft with the handwritten annotations, you can see the creative process being enacted right before your eyes. The opportunity to see inside the writer's mind is unspeakably rare.
Best of all, these are not re-typeset versions of the script, they are painstakingly scanned reproductions of the ORIGINAL SCRIPTS, exactly as they were written.
And for the budding science fiction writers out there, what better than having Harlan Ellison break down in his manifesto how to write effectively in the genre, how to avoid various kinds of traps and make your writing better?
The value of this book to up-and-coming writers, academics, collectors, fans, and just plain folks who love science fiction television is inestimable. This isn't just a book of scripts, it's an important piece of history.
When I heard that Harlan was going to include the B5 manifesto (entitled "A Terrifying List of Things Not to Do When Writing For Babylon 5"), I offered to write an introduction to the volume, entitled "Touching Magic." That introduction is now also in the book.
Last, and maybe coolest of all, because of the presence of B5 material, they are doing a limited number of books that are DUAL AUTOGRAPHED by both myself and Harlan. With only one prior exception, this is the ONLY time that Harlan and I have autographed something together, and never before for a published book. Once those signed editions are gone...they're gone.
Because Publishing 180 is a boutique publisher, they do not generally release information on its upcoming titles until right before publication. But this volume is so important, so extraordinary, that I asked if I could give the B5 fans out there, and the fans of Harlan Ellison who are also in that group, a heads-up on this event. This way we reduce the risk of missing the chance to get one of the double-signed editions.
The book will go on sale in a couple of weeks – I think it's somewhere around the 20th and those already on the B5 mailing list will get the announcement automatically – but I'll be sure to post the info here the second it goes online. If you want to be sure not to miss it, a signup page is up at www.harlanbooks.com
...
And I just realised that I did not get everything down here. There appears to be a new, currently nameless, cat living at my house. I will tell you the story next blog.
And I almost forgot, for those who made it this far - artist Steve Cleff has done a portrait of me as a benefit for the CBLDF. The auction has a few hours to go. Here is the link.
Labels: Chu's Day, Google+, Terry Pratchett, Harlan Ellison, Wits, the nerdist, Turntable FM, Amanda Palmer's bathroom ivy, Amanda
