Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
e-mail from Douglass Spadotto:

"
    Hello.
    I'm going to the São Paulo one. It's the nearest place from my city (if
you can call 400 kilometers "near").
    A reading of American Gods would be the best preview ever! I ("we" if I
include all the fans) would like that a lot. What's the ocassion for you to
come to Brazil? I read that it's the release of the brazilian version of
"Sandman Book of Dreams". I hope there will be time for the reading.
    We're waiting for you. And don't be scared if your female fans from
Brazil act like Backstreet Boys fans around you. They're like that
sometimes... (my girlfriend is going to kill me if she reads this one)
"

Thanks for the reply.

Douglas Spadotto
  

    
e-mail from Mary Roane:

Neil--I'm so very sorry.  Your respect and affection for him shine
through every page of "Companion".

What a terrible loss for us all.

Mary Roane
  

    
e-mail from Jouni:

Hey, you sass that hoopy Douglas Adams? There's a frood who really knew
where his towel was...

<sigh>

Jouni
  

    
Douglas -- you know, the last time I was in Sao Paolo, the audience
rushed the stage at the end of my talk, and a security guy literally
picked me up and handed me to another security guy who put me outside
the backdoor of the theatre. 

It's the only time I've ever seen a room of 1000+ people surge toward
me like that, and I realised then that it might not have been fun to be
the Beatles (or the Backstreet Boys).
  

    
I was just about to say to Douglas that the girls probally did that
everywhere, but on reading Neil's post, I guess I'll have to take it
back.  :)
  

    
Email from Douglas Spadotto:

I think this time there will be more reasonable people at the signings.
The 'Sandman frenesi' is cooling, and only the more 'sofisticated' fans
will go. I think. Or maybe only the completely crazy ones that are still
'living the Dream' will show up, then you're in for another battle!
That'll be all, I see you in Sco Paulo! There I will ask you about what4s
going on with the reprint of Miracleman, ask if you have already read
something from a brazilian writer, or by Josi Saramago (from Portugal),
even evolution! (the 'humans of the future' from Books of Magic started in
me a whole new interest in evolution). Or if you're not too busy (what I
doubt), we could continue some of the talk in this forum. Until the
inkwell hosts kick me out. "

Douglas Spadotto
  

    
I was just about to ask about Miracleman as well!  Newsarama
<http://www.comicon.com/newsarama/> reports that MacFarlane gave you
all of the rights and ownership of Miracleman, as well as all of the
films.  Is that really true?

I saw a number of people carrying towels this weekend...  It made me
smile.
  

    
Email from Douglas Spadotto:

to Angelina. 

Hello! You don't know the power of the latin blood in the brazilian girls.
They could dress like american girls, but inside they're descendants of
portuguese and even spanish people who have very strong... will (to say
the least)

Thanks,

Douglas Spadotto
  

    
When I still used blogger for my weblog, I made a point of writing entries
in a text editor first, then pasting them into blogger.  (And saving those
textfiles for a rainy day, in case the blogger archives went wonky).

When I did write entries in blogger itself, I'd frequently "select
all" and then "copy" in case the web browser crashed so I'd still have
things. (using the keyboard shortcuts)

Because I was burned far too many times when blogger and/or my web browser
crashed and I lost data.  Always seemed to happen on big important entries
that I didn't think I could duplicate, too.  Maddening.

(I ultimately gave up on blogger after it happened too often, moved on to
other scripts)
  

    
Richard Dawkins (the famous author of "The Blind Watchmaker") has
written a tribute to Douglas Adams that can be read at:
http://www.edge.org/documents/adams_index.html
  

    
Email from Cindy:

Neil....I've been cutting and pasting the blogger entries on a semi-weekly
basis.  Here's what I've cut and pasted from my files...
 
Friday, May 04, 2001

I just got sent some of the UK signing dates. THIS ISN'T A COMPLETE LIST
(said in capitals) -- and I'll post the complete list as soon as we have
it -- but I'm posting it anyway, to let any of you in the UK who want to
come to a signing start making arrangements and plans....

Saturday, 7th July

1.00pm Forbidden Planet, New Oxford St., London, WC1

Monday, 9th July

1.00pm. Borders, 98 Buchanan St., Glasgow

6.30pm Waterstones, 128 Princes St., Edinburgh

Tuesday, 10th July

7.00pm Borders, 94-96 Briggate, Leeds

Wednesday, 11th July

7.00pm Waterstones, 91 Deansgate, Manchester

Thursday, 12th July

1.00pm Andromeda, 2-5 Suffolk St., Birmingham

7.00pm Ottakars, 3 Park St., Walsall, W.Midlands

-- Something I've encountered on my last few UK signings is stores selling
tickets to readings/signings, with the cost of the ticket coming off the
cost of the book (so you pay a pound for the reading and a pound less for
the book), and others give away tickets to limit the numbers of people
showing up. It's worth calling the shop if it's not one you know, or if
it's not local, and finding out how they do things, and if there's
anything you'll need to do to get to the signing.

And here, to save you all from paging through the archives, is the list of
US signings. (The Canadian signings, in Toronto, Vancouver and Victoria,
will be posted as soon as I get them.)

..............

6/19/01 6:00 PM New York, NY 
BorderChurch & Vesey Sts.
New York City 10048
(212) 839-8049

6/20/01 8:00 PM Huntington, NY 
Book Revue
313 New York Avenue
Huntington, NY 11743
(631) 271-1442

6/21/01 7:00 PM Champaign/Savoy, IL 
Pages For All Ages
1201 Savoy Plaza
Savoy, IL 61874
(217) 351-7243

6/22/01 1:00 PM Evanston, IL 
Stars Our Destination 
705 Main St.
Evanston, IL 60202
(847) 570-5925

6/22/01 8:00 PM Skokie, IL 
Barnes & Noble
55 Old Orchard Center,
Skokie, IL 60077
(847) 676-2230

6/23/01 1:00 PM Lexington, KY 
Joseph-Beth Booksellers
Lexington Green
161 Lexington Green Circle
Lexington, KY 40503
(859) 271-5330

6/23/01 7:00 PM Dayton, OH 
Books & Co.
350 E. Stroop St.
Dayton, OH 45429
(937) 297-6356

6/24/01 1:00 PM Cleveland, OH 
Joseph-Beth Booksellers
The Shops at Shaker Square
13217 Shaker Square
Cleveland, OH 44120
(216) 751-3300

6/25/01 4:00 PM Seattle, WA 
Third Place Booksellers
17171 Bothell Way N.E.
Lake Forest Park, WA 98155
(206)366-3333

6/25/01 7:00 PM Seattle, WA 
University Booksellers
Keane Hall, Room 130
University of Washington Campus
Seattle, WA 98155
(206) 545-4363

6/26/01 7:30 PM Menlo Park, CA 
Kepler1010 El Camino Real
Menlo Park, CA 94025
(650) 324-4321

6/27/01 1:00 PM San Francisco, CA 
The Booksmith
1644 Haight St.
San Francisco, CA 94117
(415) 863-8688

6/27/01 7:30 PM Berkeley, CA 
Cody2454 Telegraph Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94704
1-800-704-4336

6/28/01 12:30 PM San Diego, CA 
Mysterious Galaxy
7051 Clairemont Mesa Boulevard
San Diego, CA 92111
1-800-704-4336

6/28/01 7:00 PM Los Angeles, CA 
Vroman3405 Lake Avenue
Pasadena, CA 91101
1-800-769-BOOK

6/29/01 8:00 PM Los Angeles, CA 
Book Soup
8818 Sunset Boulevard
West Hollywood, CA 90069
(310) 659-3110
1-800-764-BOOK 

7/1/01 2:00 PM Minneapolis, MN 
DreamHaven
912 W. Lake St.
Minneapolis, MN 55408
(612) 823-6161

7/2/01 7:00 PM Rosedale, MN 
Barnes & Noble
2100 N. Snelling Ave.
Rosedale, MN 55113
(651) 639-9256

posted by Neil Gaiman 3:31 PM 


    As I said, I do this fairly often, for no good reason (I'm glad I do
it, now...) and if there's any other things you want to double check,
please let me know.
 
Cindy
  

    
Re: Miracleman -- I'm afraid it's a lot more tangled than was
reported. I had a chat with the Newserama people this morning, and
clarified a bunch of stuff for them that, in their enthusiasm, they'd
not quite understood initially. (Such as, McFarlane sent me the film
and gave the Miracleman rights in 1997. He's just never handed over the
documentation he promised.)

Cindy -- You are a lifesaver, thanks. I put it back up.
  

    
Thanks, Lenny.

Thanks Laurel.

Ate lots and lots and lots of morels tonight. The weather means lots
of morels. It also means lots of mosquitoes.
  

    
Heya all :) Found about about this nifty place tonight at the Terry
Pratchett reading in Chicago, when I ran into a lovely lady I met at
Roosevelt University _American Gods_ thingie in the fall, so I thought
I'd pop by and say 'Heya.' Would have been here sooner, but it took me
8 years to pick a password that the Well thought was hard to guess
enough....
  

    
Your own morels?

If so do you have people sneaking onto your place to try to pick them?
  

    
Tara -- welcome.

Martha -- it is my understanding that the subject of where morels are
found is something that must be kept a secret.

We used to get them on our lawn, but haven't seen them there for some
years now.
  

    
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/object.html

Some wonderful strange images -- strangest because they're from a time
I think of in Sepia.
  

    
Wow. Those are amazing.
  

    
I believe I've seen some of these very same photographs before, in a
National Geographic from the 'teens.  The color job was convincing
enough to intimidate my knowledge of the history of photography; it's
nice to know how it was actually done.  It looks like the water is
suffering from some heavy oil contamination, though.
  

    
It is indeed trippy looking at those images.  Just the other day I
heard something on NPR about Prokudin-Gorskii's colour negatives;
thanks for the pointer to the images. ^^
  

    
Incredible pictures... I kept having to remind myself that they
weren't of contemporary actors/models.

Re morels-- mmmmm.  How have you been cooking them?
  

    
I actually had never heard of morals before.
um... I mean, morels....
I assume we're talking about a kind of cherry and not Nightshade, eh?
  

    
        Those photos are indeed stunning.  It really is amazing how strongly
one assumes that from 1860 to around 1950, the world really was in
black and white.  I understand there's a BBC documentary consisting
entirely of _color_ film of WWII, and that watching it actually changes
how you view the war.  Anyone seen it?
  

    
You can acquire that footage on DVD or VHS:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0767026977/thewellauthorspr/
  

    
Wow.  It is VERY weird to look at those pictures.  When I see black
and white pictures I think I subconsiously imagine them as from another
world.  But I'm a dork like that.

Angelia.