Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
        See, I'd attempt to communicate to my cat that such presents piss me
right off and will get the cat shouted at and thrown.  My cats have
learned this about several behaviors, such as walking on keyboards,
sharpening claws on comic books, and kneading on bare skin.  They
remain affectionate and friendly cats, but they've learned better than
to do things that irritate me.
  

    
neil - a couple weeks ago you told me to get back to you about those
books of chesterton essays . i'm rather late . the essays , and that
book taht tells the stories behind the names of different spots around
london . i think it was just london at least . your the one who
mentioned it .

adriana - i sure took my time getting back to you too . i'm definately
going to be at the san diego signing , and then a friend who can't
make it to the los angeles signing might have me go to that one with
them . shoot , maybe pasadena as well . i haven't anything else to do .
plus someone from my school decided to run away with the first five
sandman collections , so now i have five new copies of the first five
sandman collections to get signed again . figure if i go to two
signings i can get those all nicely written in , and for some reason
i'm compelled to get the duran duran book done as well .

back to the term paper . seems there's always one of those in front of
me these days . the state of palliative care in california , makes me
very sleepy .

sined me .
  

    
Michelle- Thank you:) You can bring a gnome! Actually, I think I'll be
asking for yours first. I heard one of your songs via web. It's really
cool but it skipped a lot (stupid AOL player) I would like to hear
more....
  

    
Len -- sure, feel free to reproduce them.

Justine - bad timing  ~I'm afraid -- I'm in the UK right now (at Dave
McKean's, typing on his battery of macs) and again a long way from my
books.

Try again in a week...

...

Circumstances beyond my control (ie not my fault) mean that I went out
from the US without a modem.  I tried logging in from the airport as I
left and discovered that this page (and only this page) is blanked out
by some Pure Thought type nanny software, which is very odd.

Saw Dawn French in Midsummer NIght's Dream last night. She was
wonderful, and the production is terrific -- and afterward she proudly
displayed to me the copy of DREAM COUNTRY she has backstage in the
dressing room, and through which, she told me, all the actors have
read.

Erynn -- all the plotting and planning and putting our heads together
was done back in December. BUt I'll be sure to say whatever I'm at
liberty to say when I can say it. 
  

    
oops -- Justin, not justine. Dunno where the e came from.
  

    
Neil - funny you should mention Dave McKean.. or rather funnier that I
procrastinated a few things last night by flipping through the
Dustcovers... In there you mention a bird's skull that is painted gold
in the frame of Issue 18.. and that you'd love to tell the story of
that bird skull but you're "still sworn to secrecy"
...
are you still sworn??
  

    
Neil--Hope you are having a wonderful time.  Yes, you must let us know
the bits you are allowed to let us know when you are allowed to say
them.  You are such a wonderful secret keeper!  You can let us know how
the goddaughter is doing, I hope?  Gee, that was an odd way of asking
things.
  

    
Erynn - (blushing) Thank *you*! Hmmm, plotting on buying a gnome for
the apartment now, just to confuse visitors. As for music, when the
band stops having major crises and I can get back into the studio, I'm
recording demo-quality versions of everything as quickly as I can. If
you don't mind one of those copies (which probably won't happen for a
couple more months), just email me with a snail mail addy. 

squeaks, who has to fix her web page AGAIN because she posted
incorrect info (6th time in two days!)
  

    
After some frusteration, I was able to listen to Lost Causes on Real
Player without any skipping. It is very very very good! You should be
signed. My husband (Jestin) is a musician who used to be in a band but
now they're all insane and non-productive. So he's solo. He plays
keyboards, guitar, drum machine and sings. It takes him a while to
complete something, but he's happier with the results. Unfortunatly,
because of our limited budget, he records everything on a 4 track
Tascam mixer, so it's a little fuzzy sometimes. I love listening to his
stuff and imagining what it will sound like when he can record in a
real studio. Hopefully the record companies won't mind the fuzz 
when he sends the tapes.....
I will email you soon, though. I'll definatly be wanting a demo.

Dan- I think Neil likes to taunt people with teasers of stories and
happenings. But that's okay. You can get by with that when you're a
genius....
  

    <scribbled>
  

    
erynn - again, thank you! unfortunately, that song isn't really
representative of any style... since i don't really have one. but i've
received enough compliments on it, i suppose when the cd comes out
(whenever that is), i'll have to thank the ex- for being such a raging
inspirational dirtbag jerk. (lol) with my odd moods lately, i've
actually considered becoming a cocteau twins cover band, but then the
mood passes.

i think you're right about neil taunting us with stories. he's rather
a knack for distracting us with other stories tho', so i'm not
complaining... much. ;-P

in other news, i caught the last mouse... turns out 'jess and evie'
turned out to be 'jesse and evan' so they're off to the pet store
tomorrow evening.

re: kitty's presents - blackie always brought birds in the house, but
knowing how much we disliked 'presents' she ate every bit. i can still
hear the crunching of beaks and feet. usually, she didn't even leave
feathers.

squeaks, who still wants to know how she caught a hummingbird!
  

    
Angelina -- Tash has grown in the last 4 months. She still has her
mum's smile, and is wonderful, in both senses -- she has huge eyes
filled with wonder at the world, and she is a small wonder in her own
right.

Erynn & Michelle -- I never taunt with stories.  I always mean to tell
them eventually.  Honest. Sometimes I forget them, which is
embarrassing to admit but true.  But mostly if I keep people waiting
it's just time. 

(Sandman was a little different, because part of Sandman was the idea
that there are always stories going on, and nothing ends except by
drawing a line in the sand and saying "no further".)

And of course, the story about the crow's skull on the cover of
Sandman 18.

On the drive down from Exeter to Cornwall I actualy did see smoking
cattle death-pits in the fields, with huge yellow backhoe type things
ready to bulldozer over them when they'd finished burning.
  

    
Neil - ewwwwwwww....

Michelle - congrats on the catch! Miss Mousey, great rodent hunter!!

-Dan
(who is five days from either a glorious opening night or a nervous
breakdown... or both)
  

    
Dan--love how your ewwww turned into a hyperlink.

Neil--how wonderful to hear about the Natashya.

have to run very quickly to class now.

Angelina.
  

    
Oh my Lord, the burning cattle...
Somewhere in my psyche that just aches.  I've been having dreams of
talking cow skulls and having to clean my own hoofs wherever I go.  I
think I listen to too much NPR.

Dave McKean is going to design my cover for my band's first album,
which we are recording right now.  I just know it.  This is a positive
affirmation, which I will repeat until it comes to pass.

Have fun in Cornwall, Neil.  I hear they have a baby there that's
named after a magical Elven land. 
  

    
I've seen too many strong British farmers break down in tears on television;
this hoof and mouth thing is very bad.
  

    
Okay. I've heard the twelve tracks of STRANGE LITTLE GIRLS. I'll post
something coherent later.

For now, let me just say that whatever you're expecting, it's not what
you expect; whatever you're imagining, it's not what you imagine.

And I *knew* what to expect -- and it wasn't what I expected.

And yes, it's astonishing, and powerful, and scary, and cool. And if
I'm good, maybe tonight I'll get to hear it again.

Neil

(And yes, if anyone wants to repost this anywhere, feel free -- I'd
hate to see people arguing over paraphases of what I might have said.)
  

    
The unexpected.  That's very exciting.  Keep us posted.
  

    
Two words:  WOO HOO!!
  

    
Cows - I would be very sad to drive up past the dairy farm to my
parents house and not see the cows anymore.  They are very nice cows
who tend to stand around on the tops of dirt mounds looking wise and
mysterious.  Kind of.

Martha - My little brother has ordered your book for my birthday so
expect some more praise in a couple of weeks.  :-)

Jen, who has been 21 since approximately midnight (parents got to
choose my b-day, could've been 21 yesterday but maybe they thought an
extra day would mature me).  

oh... Going to buy some alochol later to see if I get carded and then
dump it down the drain.  What's cheap but has a pretty bottle?
  

    
Thank you and thank your swell brother, Ophelia!
  

    
        I keep a cow skull in my kitchen.  When I was a lad, tramping through
the woods as my father shot at me, (paintball, I must admit, and I
_was_ shooting back) I found myself treading on a ribcage.  On
examination, this proved to be the complete skeleton of a cow.  What
could I do?  I kept the skull.
  

    
Jenny -- happy birthday.

...

More on Strange Little Girls.

Sat up with Marcel, listening to the b-sides (all lovely, and in each
case I could see why it wasn't an album track -- although one of them
might be a single in its own right), and then he played me four or five
of the album tracks again.

It got better. And I was blown away the first time.

I don't really want to say anything specific and tangible about this
album, because it's not my place to talk about it -- it's Tori's and
she'll talk about it when the time's right. And you'll hear it then,
too.

But I will say that it feels in many ways like her first album as a
grown-up  -- as a mother, maybe; and that it's both her most accessible
album (there's one track which made me think of nothing so much as a
great lost track from Little Earthquakes) and also -- especially in the
sequence of the last four or five songs, her most painful.

There are a couple of songs that are real singles. There's one song
that will be a basement remix before you can say  'stains' . And
there's one mammorth of a song that isn't yet finished, but even in the
unfinished version it 's audacious and wild.

She does things with her voice I've not heard before. And the
arrangements and musicianship are astonishing.

And, as I said before, it's not what you expect - *whatever* you
expect.
  

    
And it's almost 2:30 in the morning, and I'm going to bed.

Post 1,000 follows this one.
  

    
Sleep tight!