Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Jesus squeaks you sew too? What DON'T you do?

Erynn, who should be cleaning out the fridge, but isn't, because it's
scary in there...
  

    
The only fake cheese that is even faintly convincing, in a
half-hearted sort of way, is the mozzarella.

You'd think I'd have more to say than that, but it's been a long day
and I don't.
  

    
Erynn - Um... in no particular order; breakdancing, snow sports
(unless snow-angels have become a sport), anything involving heights
greater than 10' (if I can avoid it), and lots of other stuff.

squeaks, who grew up on Hot Wheels, My Little Pony, and a sewing kit
  

    
Saw Moulin Rouge.  2/3 ecstatic, 1/3 a trifle dull (the movie, that
is, not me.   I hope.)  The big opening number in the MR is
mind-blowing.  Also-- who knew that Ewan McG and Nicole K could sing? 
Wow.  General wows all around.
  

    
I wave to you all from the Kinko's in Lansing! Also, I meant to type
Don DeBrandt (whgo wrote "Shakedown", my fave "Angel" novel
actually...) since I was braindead, and typed Dan Passarella by mistake
'cause I am dumb as dinner rolls. 

Neil: My dad and I are heading off to Ireland as soon as I get back
from the con, and then he's going staying an extra day to do some
business in London, and then on to a buisness meeting in Israel and I
think. They just had our friends John and Rose (John was in the 83rd
entry at Halton, the RAF tech college they both went to) stay down in
Florida for a visit. A good time was had by all, and Rose sent me much
Yardley English Lavender purfume so I can continue to smell like
someone's granny :) 
  

    
Neil--I think I spent a little too much energy trying to get your
throat better.  Proof:  I can't talk now.  And I have lovely hives all
over my face, but I won't blame that part on ya.  (I'll blame it on
Michelle since she gets blamed for everything.  Including MY current
sushi craving.)

Erynn-- FIVE kinds of cheeses?? I am impressed.

Off to try the honey, lemon, and whiskey.

Angelina.
  

    

In that case, I am blaming Michelle for the hives all over MY face, which
is even more likely since I actually saw Michelle in person two days
before the hives showed up.  Yup, that must be it.
  

    
E-mail from Dianna -

Dan - i think you meant me not Linda who along with Jon has been very 
kindly posting for me.

Unfortunately for you, Tasmanian cheeses are dairy based but most 
don't have the dead animal content - the rennet part - present in the 
common cheese. It's a veal by-product (lining of the little cow's 
stomach, sometimes listed as enzyme) used to set the cheese. 
Vegetable rennet does the same thing and tastes better but is a bit 
more expensive.

i have a thing for cows (and critters in general) so i couldn't eat a 
steak or a cheese with dead cow in it. But dairy is too yummy to pass 
up.

Hope you find some tasty vegetable cheeses :)

dianna, who is also a sushi freak but hasn't learnt the special names 
for it all and just calls it all - sushi :)
  

    

Actually, it's probably not Michelle but all the glorious Ranier Cherries
I bought at a roadside stand.  

And fake cheese is right up there with tofu dogs in terms of gastronomic
delights.  Blech.
  

    
Tara--
Welcome to my neck of the woods! Lansing's only about an hour west of
me, in Flint.

Michelle--
If trampolining and that ribbon dancing can be a sport, I think snow
angels can too.
  

    
>And fake cheese is right up there with tofu dogs in terms of
>gastronomic delights.  Blech.

Hey!  I like soy dogs.  :P  Specially Smart Deli jumbos.  They taste
like I remember meaty hot dogs tasting anyhow, but without that gross
meat 'thing'.  A smart deli jumbo followed up with a mint-chocolate
Genisoy bar.  Mmmmm.

Who needs real food when soybeans can handle it all?  :p
  

    
Well, in South Jersey again for the weekend, seeing my best friend's
band Cocapelli play, and rehearsing to be in my sister's point recital
(I'm one of the few guys brave enough to show up in tights and strong
enough to lift the girls, mostly fifteen and sixteen), which is being
performed to "I Would Do Anything for Love (But I won't do that)".  My
sister's teacher informed me I would have to do a sixteen count solo
the night of the recital, so I'm now, officially, scared, though it's
not until the last week of June.

Tara-  Actually had occasion to meet Pasarella (he's from the South
Jersey/Philly area).  Nice guy, and WITHER wasn't horrible, so that's
something.

Neil- Tried wishing you well, but the pressure of it being my first
post made me all nervous, and I had technical difficulties in which the
wishes were, apparently, lost.  Glad your feeling better; Stay well.

Erynn- That's some cuisine you've got going there.  I also saw
MEMENTO, and agree that it's quite the movie (saw it, I think, the same
weekend I saw JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS, which rocked).  I was kind of
disappointed, I think, but only because of how Chris Nolan answered, or
didn't answer, some of the questions.

Michelle- I'm sure snow angels is a sport.  Extreme, too, if you add
avoidance of plows into the game.

Sarah- Can't back you up with the soy, but I can say I've had
mexican-vegetable burgers with a base of corn, beans, and pepper, and
which very much tasted it.

Linda- I've seen Ranier cherries sold on street-corner-fruit-stands
recently but have been reluctant to buy them, and now I think I'll
continue to be.

-Will, who wondered what ".... ..." would have sounded like, with an
accent, and in Neil's voice (or lack thereof), but is extremely glad it
never came to that.
  

    
Good grief! What is up with you people and hives! As for blame, I'll
take it, but *only* if you take my sincere condolences in return.
Hives=ick. It's how I found out I was allergic to amoxicillin (3 days
of hives everywhere - even between my toes and along my lashes - before
they decided to take me off it and try something else). Then there was
the case of the glittery make up powder. I pretended at being a faerie
at the club nearly drowned in the stuff to get it all over me. About
an hour later, it started to itch. And I've gone on about this far
longer than I intended to!

As for the sushi, I told you, Neil started it. :P 

And maybe it's a Japanese thing, but I rather like soy things. Even
the hot dogs. They taste *kind of* like meat, but not exactly, and the
'not exactly' part somehow makes the difference for me between inducing
nausea and asking for seconds.

squeaks, who has griped so much that a boy is taking her out for sushi
tonight to appease her. *neener!*
  

    
tee-hee!

Okay, well, we are moving tomorrow and the stupid phone company won't
have our new line turned on until Thursday. This sucks because I'm so
used to being on here everyday :( I will miss you all. (And Neil, try
to obey Martha.) See you all Thursday! Until then...
  

    


Date: Sat, 26 May 2001 17:11:40 -0700 (PDT)
From: Claudine Chen <ming@its.caltech.edu>
To: <inkwell-hosts@well.com>


Hello, please post on the American Gods forum. Thanks again!

Mmmm, sushi, or particularly, mmm, avocado rolls...miso soup, udon
noodles, yum. Vegetarian cuisine has gotten pretty amazing. I recommend
going to a Chinese vegetarian restaurant just once in your life and trying
the fake meat dishes. The best restaurant I've been to is here in the LA
area, but there's a great one in SF chinatown, Lucky Creation. They have
chartreuse chopsticks, can't go wrong.

Dan Guy - Ooo, a Dookie! There's a reason the sky is Carolina blue...;) I
had no idea there were tunnels under Duke. I have an old old newspaper
article about the tunnels under NYC, and the mole people that live deep
underground. Population supposely numbering in the hundreds. A very
fascinating and surreal piece.

Neil - As Michelle clarified, I wasn't at Change of Hobbit. I made a
little modular origami geometric shape and saw you at Vroman's some years
ago. I've wanted to go to South America for a while, but besides not
knowing the language(s) yet, your food experiences reveal another hurdle
for this vegetarian. Is it possible that you had trouble getting
vegetables because they keep treating you to highbrow places? I'm assuming
meat is considered food fit for kings, while the lowly vegetable is
peasant food.

Michelle - Whatcher sewing? party clothes, daily wear, or maybe soft
sculpture? I just bought a sewing machine. Hoping to finish my first
project, a fuzzy green hat, soon.

Dan - how about goat cheese? I've thought about becoming vegan, but
cheese keeps me from crossing over. And ice cream. ack, too many food
thoughts, must go eat.

Claudine
  

    
Claudine...  it's just Argentina where they don't get vegetables (or
fish). Brazil is big on both. Argentina is the place where the sheep
and the cows roam enormous patagonian wastes, where the gaucho, the
argentinian cowboy, rides herd on them, and where real men, women and
children, rich and poor, eat meat. Meat in mind mangling quantities.

I look forward to going home and not eating things I know I'm allergic
to anymore (hurrah for Tiger Balm).


Will -- thanks, I'll do my best.


...

I've only ever got hives once, about a decade ago. I think I was
allergic to LA -- as I got ont he plane back to England I could see
these huge red circles start to fade, and the itching stopped, and by
the time I got off the plane I was just fine.
  

    
Walker's gonna kill me for mentioning it, but I think LA is a
reasonable thing to be allergic to. :) 

Claudine - um... a dress for God. :P oh, and with matching purse and
hair combs. There's also a great Chinese restaurant in Seattle that's
entirely veg. A friend of mine ordered a 'beef' dish and was so grossed
out that it tasted like beef that she wouldn't eat it. (dumb)

And, more proof that karma exists: I went to meet my friend, got stuck
in traffic, and arrived too late for sushi (but we do have plans to
try again later in the week).

Erynn - happy moving.

Neil - What foods are you allergic to that you can treat with Tiger
Balm?

And completely unrelated to anything, has anyone here ever heard of a
group called 'The Frogs'? I was made a mix-cd consisting mostly of
Coil, then toward the end I heard this Brak-like voice crooning 'I'm
sad because my goat just died'... um, yeah.

squeaks, who is having issues with the 'delete' key on the Mac she's
borrowing now.
  

    
My parents were questioned by the police, years ago, the only time
they brought me to Disney World, because I broke out into hives the
size of softballs that, apparently, looked more like abuse.  No one
knew that I have an allergy to prolonged exposure to the sun.  To this
day I wear SPF 60, and so I think LA might be out of the question,
unless smog is also adequate protection.

Michelle- I think Brak is the funniest part of late-night television,
but have never heard of The Frogs.  The comparison makes me wonder if I
should check them out...

-Will, who just finished watching THE BEACH, and who is still
wondering whether he liked it or not (and who will avoid most of them
this summer, come to that).
  

    
<This got long... oops! ^_^;>

Back from Philly! It was great -- commencement, seeing sis,
everything. I even got to spend a day and a half in NYC (went to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art and swooned). But the weather was cold and
rainy... what's up with temperatures in the 50s in late May!?

Danguy -- Congratulations on the baby!!!! *^O^* And belated happy
anniversary. And Mr Henson and Kermit -- awwww... sniff. *incoherent
smiling plus sniffling noises*

Mary -- About Jinroh... I'll check what's out there (I think I've seen
the name before somewhere), but I'm not sure if I'll be any help with
finding the dub, since we mostly only have subs out here... and most of
them are subbed in chinese! >_< (Thought the DVDs have English subs
sometimes.) But will do info-gathering. (As I read ahead: Tara's
already helped out! Happy hunting to Alia.)

Will - *go back in time about half a week and waves hi from across the
river!* ^_-

Neil - Hope your throat feels better soon --- get well! Sending
virtual chinese sticky menthol throat syrup... (the stuff is *good* and
very soothing for a sore throat... I can't leave the country for any
extended period of time without it... Let me know if you ever want to
try some. It's up there with Tiger Balm.)

Angelina  - Belated Happy 20th!! (Rarr. Belated everything. I'm behind
by a week!) And happy birthday to all the May babies. ^_^

Claudine - Exploring the steam tunnels is also a tradition at
Wellesley. It's on the 'To do before you graduate' list... you'd go
down with your friends, a flashlight, and lots of chalk. People'd write
on the walls: anything from directions like 'This way to Tower Court,'
to declarations of love for unwitting peopleto find, to 'Hillary wuz
here.' ^_^;

Moulin Rouge - The movie wasn't out when I was over there, so I've got
the soundtrack in my room now. (Believe me, this makes sense.) We'll
see how it goes...

Michelle - My Little Pony!!! *gets the Sea Ponies song in her head.
again.* And Jem... spent half a day running around the web for songs a
while ago. ^_^; And soy things... I think people introduced to soy in
the form of bad tofu is doomed to have an aversion for soy. It's all
about the soy thing being done right, be it silk smooth sweet almond
dessert tofu or fake roasted goose (the buddhist cuisine people have
done it for years). ^_^; (Claudine -- yup yup! the chinese vegetarian
stuff.)

-- Mimi, 6 hours away from work and still jetlagged. Argh.
  

    
Thanks Mimi...  in Rio airport right now.  Been traveling or intransit
for 7 hours. Only another 15 hours until I get home.

The weirdest thing about Brazil is being famous. I mean, Being Famous,
I guess. It's when the people in the hotels stop you and get you to
sign things. I just stopped in a gift shop in the airport, and the lady
stared at me as I shopped and then said, "Are you Neil Gaiman? The
writer?" and I said I was, and she said it was an honour to have me in
her store and went and got some little things and gave them to me.

Very odd. (Especially after a few days of being not even a bit famous
really in Argentina.)
  

    
Michelle -- I woke up in the night unable to breathe for coughing,
stumbled to the bathroom, smeared the remains of a pot of tiger balm on
my chest, and went back to sleep...
  

    
That is interesting.  I think there are almost no writers who would be
recognized in a gift shop in an American airport.  Maybe Stephen King, since
he's been in some of his own movies, but that's about what it would take.
  

    

Date: Sun, 27 May 2001 15:58:53 -0700 (PDT)
From: Elaine Morgan <isuelta@yahoo.com>
Subject: I'd like to post to the Neil Gaiman thing...
To: inkwell-hosts@well.com

Hi!

Please post this?  Thanks!  :)

Hi Neil...
     This is kind of a weird question, and if it's too
personal, or silly, or whatever, please feel free to
ignore it...I'm too curious, that's all.  :)
    I was doing a search in your honer, Neil Gaiman
and Brazil, and got this link to a page with this
glazed platter and a guy hoilding it, with the
caption, "Collection of Neil and Mary Gaiman"...which
makes one wonder if that's your platter, or do all men
named Neil marry women named Mary?  (You're the second
I know of...)
     Well, um, I hope I haven't been paparatzi girl...

E.
  

    
Shawn--you're going to be even more jealous, I got to see Moulin Rouge
yesterday. Most of it I adored, bits of it were Baz being completely
self indulgent. Ewan McGregor is a god. Nicole Kidman is positively
edible (and funny as hell when she's goofy) and what they do with 'Like
A Virgin' is enough to send Madonna into a frothing fit. ;> Look out
for the Tango/Roxanne scene. It is ASTOUNDING!

Michelle--don't forget to drag me to Kan Zaman. ;P

Dianna--If you can make it up to Melbourne, the Astor Theatre
currently has the rights to screen Mononoke here. Go here:
www.astor-theatre.com for screening dates. It's the subtitled version
(no Neil-y goodness), but worth it regardless. (It's also local to me
and near good sushi.)

Kelly--I'm a middle eastern dancer and as soon as I have a spare five
minutes, I'm choreographing Hindi Sad Diamonds. The female solo in the
middle screams for a long slow body undulation. [shiver]

Tree
  

    <scribbled>