Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Joseph - I didn't get one of those in mine. Isn't it a beautiful book?
I used to not be so into photography (sure I admired the talent, but
it was just kind of something for other people to be into), but then I
started being the subject of photography and have since taken a great
interest (at least in the works of my photographer friends). I think
'Hunter' is my favourite in that book. 

gorey - Should have said 'having a difficult time finding neon pink
fur without going to Britex'. I know they'll have it. They have
everything there is. But everywhere else tends to have it for slightly
less per yard and with cheaper parking/bart options, if they have it at
all. Still, I have a feeling that I'll end up at Britex by the end of
the week. :)

squeaks, watching The Little Mermaid for the dozenth time this year
  

    
ohboyohboyohboy I can't wait to see the Live at the Aladdin video.  My
hubby and I have been giggling about the fake signature all morning. 
HOW does this stuff happen?  I have signed poster here on my wall from
the Last Angel tour and it CLEARLY says "Nel Slman."  

That was a rockin night in my life, by the way.  It was the New York
reading and Neil happened to pick my stupid little paper that asked to
read the Blueberry Girl poem.  When we were walking home with the
signed poster we bought, a huge gust of wind came from NOWHERE and blew
the poster (and ONLY the poster) out of my hand, down the street, and
into a pool of engine oil.  I took it as a New York blessing and it
hangs on my wall as such.
  

    
Neil--Thanks for the link to the video!  I'm almost ashamed at the
very small amount of seconds that passed between the time I saw the
link and the time I bought the video...

Will--How did you like the Sedaris signing?  I had a wonderful time at
the one here in Cincinnati.  I saw a number of people who were not
there for the signing get very offended by a couple of his poems and
stories.  Just made me enjoy it more...added atmosphere.

Angelina...who has no doubts about the amazing powers of her new
vaccum.
  

    
As an addition to Walker's tale of neilgaiman.com,....it was one of
two times I have ever seen him in that state.

I've been sitting for several days now,.....trying to not stare at the
copy of American Gods a dear friend of mine "aquired" for me, that is
meant for my younger sisters grad present. I want to let her be the
first to read it as part of the present,.......after reading the first
chapter (It was online and therefore not cheating) I am so regretting
being a nice big sister.


Jinx who is watching her team win her the Stanley Cup,.....well sorta.
  

    
And I did mean Walker in that state

Jinxie who needs sleep
  

    
Mary -- how odd. I wonder if that's the illinois one...

Joseph -- if you bought it directly from Kelli then I'm not surprised
if she sent the card. If you got it from Amazon or somewhere then it's
probably a pleasant suprise...

Michelle -- tomorrow I'm going to get a bunch of foreign covers
scanned in for the website. I'll set aside a few Stardusts afterward. 

Ariadne -- I'd be interested to find out what you think of it. It made
me wish that we'd filmed New York (although it was audio-recorded on
DAT tape) -- I was so TIRED by Portland.  (By LA I was on a kind of
'this is the last one' floating place...)

You requested Blueberry? That was very sweet of you, not stupid at
all. 

Ever since Rocky and other people here ganged up on me, I've been
trying to think of a way to do Blueberry Girl. I may do it as a poster
with an artist as a benefit for RAINN.

Jinx -- a proof copy? Or a finished hardback?

Angelina, thanks for getting it.
  

    
Neil - Thank you for pointing out the journal entry! I'd completely
missed it... (must have fallen into the archive before I looked ^_^;)
And the video is on its way over here. (15 bucks for delivery??? @_@
*sigh* Shipping costs always gets to me. But at least they do ship
overseas.)

Adriana - Yay for requesting Blueberry Girl in NYC! I'm forever in
your debt. ^_-

DanGuy - Baby? *crosses all digits possible*

-- Mimi
  

    
mimi -- according to the rules of traditional baby magic, you should
be *uncrossing* fingers to make a baby come... and by now Dan should be
going around the house making sure that anything crossed is uncrossed,
and anything closed is open.
  

    
E-mail from Brian J. Geiger:

Hello,

I was reading through the blogger entries for neilgaiman.com, particularly the
section about annotations to the book.  I thought that perhaps using Everything2
<http://www.everything2.com/> or, even better, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy <http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/> as a repository for the entries would
be a good idea.  Maybe whoever is programming the site could write a cgi to
interface with one of the services and appropriately categorize the information,
as well as doing some direct search and linking.  It would probably be easier
than implementing a custom or even locally-stored premade solution such as
message boards, and it might make the information more easily accessible and
generally more useful.  A downside would be making sure that whichever site you
might work with doesn't go and change interfaces without letting you know and
giving the developers time to correct for it.

On a more fan-related note for Neil Gaiman, if you could pass along my thanks
for making my mind work in new and significantly more interesting ways (and, of
course, for writing stories that are simply enjoyable to read), I would
certainly appreciate it.

Thank you,

Brian J. Geiger

---                                                                ---
   Brian J. Geiger                     <http://www.subluminal.com/>
   804-242-8699                                   bgeiger@pobox.com
---                                                                ---
  

    
Brian --  You're very welcome. Good idea, but I don't think  we'll do
it that way, for a couple of reasons.

1) harper collins are subcontracting the website to Authors on the
Web, which means that everything that happens on the website has to be
absolutely foolproof, as it's  being built and maintained not by
dedicated fans, but by two levels of people who are doing it as day
jobs and have a lot of  other things to do. 

So far with Americangods.com I've failed to get them to, for example,
put links to the tour from the home page, rather than only from the
journal, or to put up a plain text page that sticks around with the
Tour details on, rather than the intelligent links to Harper Collins
Tour information generator, which puts in erroneous info you then
cannot get changed, or when it's corrected then waits a week and goes
wonky in another interesting way...

...Taking that as a given, I figure the simpler the better. Message
board is simple. E-mail list with archives is pretty simple.  Someone
assembling all the stuff into a document per chapter is simple.
Interface to something else is, if not complex, no longer simple.

2) I meant what I said about being able to approve the information. It
has to be *reliable* for a reader or a translator. With the Sandman
annotations, I'd be sent them from time to time, but I figured that
misinfomation was, for the most part, not something I had to worry
about . But a recent translation of Stardust complete with annotations 
which are mostly concerned with demonstrating to a reader that
STARDUST is a gloss on Bunyan's PILGRIM'S PROGRESS made me reconsider.
It's wrong, and readers in that country who take it seriously are going
to be left confused.
  

    
Neil - yay! (vivaciously bounces with glee and silliness)
On a very odd note, do you play guitar at all? I had a very odd dream
featuring dozens of people I know (and several I don't - why Jack
Kirby, who looked identical to Stan Lee, but who was supposed to be
Jack Kirby, invaded my dreamspace, I'll never know), and you were
teaching some of them how to play a guitar. ?

squeaks, who takes it as a sign to get back to rehearsing again.
  

    
Pilgrim's Progress?  I'd almost like to see that.
  

    
DanGuy & Neil, regarding baby magic: Also make sure that the expectant
mother's hair is completely unbound - no barrettes, headbands and
such, loose clothing with no buttons, belts or zippers. Bring in a cat
to pet. 
On the midwifery side: my last child, Rowan, was two weeks late. The
midwives had me drink castor oil to induce labor (that's NOT what it
induced, but there was great relief anyway). Finally they induced by
breaking his sac. And have your wife walk as much as possible. If it
comes on Tuesday, and it's a girl, name it after me... I've always
wanted a girl...
  

    <scribbled by janell Sun 10 Jun 01 17:16>
  

    
Neil~ a proof copy, a lovely,..unread (well at least since I've had
it) proof copy,...:sigh: Why? ,

JaNell,....you swiped my name,...I will never be able to have a child
because all my names get swiped by people :long suffering sigh:

Actually I am involved with a man, who has a daughter with the best
name I've heard in ages,..Gray. I just like it. She's four and giving
her father "Day I Swaped...." for Father's Day.

Jinxie 
  

    
Jinxie, at least you have a copy in your hand... I'm about to wet my
pants to know what all is in the book from that dinner at ConCat...
Which name did I swipe? Rowan is my husband's great-grandfather's
name, and mine is from my parents, James and Nell. And keeping your
legs crossed? That's not how to get kids TO name, and pretty boring,
too. ;)
JaNell
  

    
Baby magic - Oops! *untangles herself*

-- Mimi
  

    
Michelle - I think it's a great book!  I always try to add a
photography or art book to my literature collection once in a while. 
Partly because I enjoy the art itself, and also partly because I can
always learn more from them as an artist.

Adriana - Ha! I remember your question!  I really enjoyed that New
York reading.  I got some on video, but I'm still happy that the
Alladin video is coming out.  If I remember correctly, I spotted Joe
Quesada and Peter David there...

Neil - I received my copy, slightly used, from Half.com.  Now who on
earth would part with such a remarkable book, in light of the
autographs??  Inconceivable...

-Joe, who is about to delve into his newly-purchased copy of "Black
Orchid"
  

    
Neil - I felt ashamed asking for a copy of Blueberry Girl after
hearing all the nonsense that went on over it with folks who didn't
attend the readings on the GA Tour but felt they had a right to it. 
Doing it as a poster to benefit RAINN is a wonderful idea, and a
thoughtful way to remind girls of what is important after treasured
dreams have been stolen. 

Adriana - Thank you for requesting the poem having had no idea of its
existence prior to the reading.   ;>

Mimi Ko - Thanks for the warm wishes regarding the move. For some
silly reason I expected to be unpacked in a week. Ha!

DanGuy - I'm thinking soothing foot rubs might come in handy right
about now, especially if you use peppermint lotion.  [Hey..it couldn't
hurt!] Otherwise, you can't watch a pot boil so baby will be here when
he's good and ready.

Walker - I would have paid good money to see your face during that
conversation about neilgaiman.com. *grin*
  

    
I've uncrossed everything, given her foot rubs and a full body
massage, placed relics upon her belly, walked around with her for
hours, baked a cake to try to lure him out, and engaged in all manner
of allegedly labour-inducing stimulation.  Still no baby as of yet.  I
really hope that he shows up before the doctors insist upon inducing.

In other news, I noticed on Friday that the office of the
not-so-recently fired VP of marketing was still sitting empty and with
all of its nice office furniture, so I came into work early this
morning and "borrowed" the nice leather high-backed chair, which is
proving to be much more comfortable than my old one. ^^

Neil -- All of your ideas for neilgaiman.com sound simply
*mah-velous*, particularly the annotations.
     I adore the new _Stardust_ cover as well.


Not to beat a horse that's already been put down, but...
     As regards Brian's idea concerning doing the annotations up
everything2/h2g2 style: my immediate thought was that it wouldn't do to
link it to one of their databases, as that not only adds a layer of
complexity in interfacing with them but also could confuse things,
imho, with too much non-annotation information -- not to mention that
Neil would have no control over it.
     I do like the idea of implimenting a dynamic annotation system,
though.  Granted, a moderated mailing list with an online archive would
be sufficient -- people could submit their annotations and Neil could
approve or reject them and then they'd be sent out to everyone, as well
as ending up in the searchable archive.  A database is inherently
cooler, though. *lol*
     Okay, okay, so that's certainly not a good enough reason to do
it.  There are advantages to using a db, though, particularly in terms
of organizing the information.  If you wanted to read straight through
the book a second time with the annotations right there you could sort
them by chapter/page (useful for translators particularly, I imagine). 
If you were looking at a particular annotation concerning Loki and
wanted to know of other related annotations you could click on "Norse
mythology" at the bottom and be shown a list of all annotations falling
under that category.  That sort of thing.
     Of course, Neil raises a good point about the "Authors on the
Web" people and their day jobs.  The beauty of a good system is that
they wouldn't have to do anything to maintain it, though.  Once in
place it shouldn't need much, if anything, beyond Neil logging in to
approve or reject the queue of submitted annotations.
     In terms of the feasibility of creating such a thing, it wouldn't
be hard.  I coded up a similar sort of thing for Cloudmakers to allow
the group to submit annotations to the various sites that make up the
"game".  (Which, for reasons completely unrelated to its usefulness, I
decided not to unveil.)  It only took three days of working while on
the train to and from work.

     Which is all to say, I think that Brian's idea has some merit and
wouldn't be terribly complicated to pull off.  So, uhm, yah.
  

    
So I went to the Haydn Planetarium and had much fun.  I thought part
of my new novel would be there, but I doubt it, now.  Got tickets to
the Dave Matthews show, and am now, officially, totally excited about
all the great stuff in the next two weeks (DMB, three, count them,
*three* Neil appearances, and then another pointe recital, not to
mention my sister coming up to NYC for the first time).  So here's me,
about to spontaneously combust (just wait till Friday).

Angelina- Sedaris was very funny, and read a bit he's working on about
flight delays, which was funnier than it sounds, and then read
something about _The End of the Affair_, about him and his boyfriend,
which was kind of touching.  He read with a guy named David Rakoff, who
wrote Fraud, but who tried too hard to be funny.

Jinx- *SO* glad Colorado won the cup.  My home team's Philly, so the
Devils are our nemeses (and if you were actually rooting for Jersey,
um, I'm going to slink off and remove my foot from my mouth now).

Rocky- Totally agree.  I wanted to ask Neil to do "Blueberry Girl" at
the MF concert, but I knew how he felt about it.  I'd actually read a
bit while the whole controversy with those who thought they had a right
to it was going on, and I couldn't believe that people could be so
completely disrespectful.

Neil- I'm *SO* excited that you might do "Blueberry Girl" as a benefit
for RAINN.  What an incredible thing to do.  I'd actually read it on
the American Gods.com page, and was going to ask you about it, but now
don't need to.  I will ask you this, though; do you think you could do
"A Writer's Prayer" at the MF concert?  I've been hopelessly wondering
about it since I first heard it mentioned.

-Will, who really can't wait till Friday, because then the fun begins.
  

    
Neil- New York was a rocking, beautiful show.  I felt like I was
experiencing something truly unique, perhaps like what it might of felt
to hear Oscar Wilde reading his own work.  I really impressed by what
a wonderful actor you are (are you trained?), and how palpable your
stories become in your own voice.  When you read Blueberry Girl, I felt
so awed and thankful that you had voiced such a powerful and
resonating prayer for the development of the female soul in this world.
 I know it is a personal poem, but if you chose to print it in some
manner, have no doubt that it would bring joy to many.  

Will--I LOVE Hayden Planetarium.  The show made me totally re-evaluate
my place in the universe and I try to go now and then to just keep
life in perpective.  Mainly it just reminds me that life is so very
short, and small crap just does NOT matter.  Which means I don't have
to pay my bills.  WOO HOO!  .....oh.
  

    
Neil - Stardust as a revamp of Pilgrim's Progress? *shaking head*
People come up with the most interesting ideas about things. It just
goes to show that we can make anything resemble whatever we want to if
we try hard enough.

Jinx - Gray is a beautiful name. I'm very fond of unusual and
beautiful names. My girlfriend has a fabulous name: Eden. I wonder why
boys seems to mostly get "off the shelf" names, while girls get these
really exotic ones... *sigh*
  

    
Though it may well simply be an idea whose time had come, I would like
to take partial responsibility for the following: today, my local
library kicks off a "books of the month" program in which certain books
are highlighted and people are encouraged to rate and review them, the
ratings presumably factoring into what books the library purchases in
the future.  And the book which is kicking off this new program? 
_Stardust_, by our very own Neil Gaiman.  (And there was much
rejoicing!)
  

    
E-mail from Kathy Li:

Gaiman-authored Burma-Shave ads?  Ohmigod.  Neil, it sounds like you're 
outstripping Alistair Cooke on knowledge of esoteric Americana.

"IF YOU DON'T KNOW/WHOSE SIGNS THESE ARE/YOU CAN'T HAVE/DRIVEN VERY 
FAR/BURMA-SHAVE"