Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
"Hair" was playing in Chattanooga at the Tivoli Theater one year, and
had a variety of protesters outside...
mostly anti-abortion, many with big posters of aborted fetus on
sticks. As we were standing in line to get in, one of my crazier
friends ran up to a particularly frightening guy with a fetus sign...
and licked the fetus picture for the late news cameras.

When we got inside, the cast (touring company) ad libbed the
protesters into the play at every opportunity. ; D
  

    
By the way, Martha, my fiance' says you're his savior.  :)
(What he meant, it turns out, is that he got stuck in several
successive airports and had fortunately thought far enough
ahead to steal _The Arbitrary Placement of Walls_ from me
without telling me... good thing he knew I'd already finished it.)

yeah, I know, this is ostensibly supposed to be for fans of Neil's
writing. But he's done such a good job of making sure we all read
his other favorite authors... 

In other random thoughts, I've had the fun of reading a draft
of a friend's first novel, and I kept being struck by the fact that
I would be reading it and forget that someone I knew wrote this
rather than having picked it up at some local bookstore.   I haven't
decided what to make of this.  Obvious physical signs such as
the loose leaf binder holding it together, the header at the top
of every page, etc ought to have reminded me, but I was too busy
reading.  :) 
  

    
Thank you, abbe, and thank your fiance for me kindly!
  

    
>> aborted fetus on sticks.

Is this a strictly local delicacy, or should we be expecting it at the
MN State Fair this year?

     Abbe -- I think "forgetting you know the author" can be a good
thing, leaving completely aside any issues of liking/not liking the
book.  One's less likely to read in references that weren't intended
and will only mislead later ("But I thought Amelia was going to run off
with the postal inspector, like Ruth did?"  "She's not Ruth, and it's
a different postal inspector.")  One can always save the extratextual
questions for over coffee and beignets. 
  

    
E-mail from Tori Bat:

Hello all~ Its been a while, but I always say that! *laugh*

in connection to Rock City--> I had a laugh a few weeks ago driving back
from my friend, Norma's wedding. We were driving from cookville, Tn back
to
Knoxville, TN which is about an hour away. and just like in the book, I
see
this "billboard" --> you know a painted barn and it says: "See Beautiful
ROCK
CITY"
I started laughing and then had to explain it to my boyfriend, who hasn't
read A.G. yet~ It was totally random and gave me a laugh.

   Jenny B--> I finished something for you, its a little bit of endless
art,
and I had you in mind when I started it! I'll be sending you a copy in
the
mail soon. I dont have a scanner, but maybe you know someone who does so
we
can share with everyone...     

    I put together my birthday wish list~ and most of it is Sandman/Neil
related *laugh* I really want a delirium plush doll! actually I want
2...one
to play with and carry around everywhere I go and another to keep in the
box,
on a shelf (really! I would!)  I also want to Little Endless Storybook! I
saw
one on ebay and it looks so adorable!   

*laugh* ok...umm I think thats it for now.... *Hugs* Tori Bat!
  

    
Will--Funny you should mention Little, BIG.  I recently finished it. 
I bought it 5 summers ago, as a "summer read," and every summer I'd get
a third of the way through, really enjoy it, and for some reason put
it down and not pick it up until the next summer.  Then I'd feel like I
had to start from the beginning, and...
Finally, I made it an Estival Priority and read nothing else until I
finished it.  (OK, OK, so I snuck AG in there...but nothing else)  It
was dense, certainly, but it didn't really take that long--and it was
great!  But what will I read next summer?  
  

    
I got home from work early yesterday to find my wife turning one of
the spare bedrooms into a castle.  She's painted the walls with a grey
stone motif and painted two windows into two walls where there were no
windows before.  Through one of them is a castle with lots of clouds
swirling around its top turrets and the other stares off into the
clouds at the moment.  She's going to paint a griffon, a wyvern, and a
hippogriff around the gate of the castle on the left, top, and right
respectively.  She knows me too well. ^_^  It's going to be Xander's
room when he's older.
  

    
Dan Guy--That sounds like the coolest room for a kid that I have ever
heard about!  Do you mind if I move in til Xander gets older?  :)
  

    
John Ford wrote:
">> aborted fetus on sticks.

Is this a strictly local delicacy, or should we be expecting it at the
MN State Fair this year?"

I dunno, but it seems like something you or Neil would be aware of...

Dan Guy - I always wanted a room like that for Sean, but never did
make it happen...
  

    
Tori Bat - Woohoo!  I can't wait, you're just too cool.  :-)  My
roommate has a scanner.  Oh!  Do you have a picture of you with your
ducky?  I want to put a page together of pictures of people I've
ducked.

John - Finished Planet this weekend, what a fun book.  I'll have to
make my friends buy copies now.  :-)

Jen, who splurged and bought an old nintendo yesterday and now doesn't
have money for the Gene Wolfe book.  -sigh-
  

    
Just a note to Neil and others that I'm online now after a
trembly experience, this morning.
  

    
Hopefully it didn't involve plumbing...
  

    

Dan Guy- That's damn cool.

"Aborted fetus on sticks" sounds like something <streak> would say. Heh.
  

    
Mike said, "Is this a strictly local delicacy, or should we be
expecting it at the MN State Fair this year?"


Do I even need to tell you how wrong that is?  :-)  


... Dan, when I lived in Reno I had been thinking about a fairie guest
bathroom. I was going to have a large fake tree in there, willow, with
branches and leaves to the ceiling and down. The floor would have been
fake grass with stones as a path to shower/toilet/sink, with fake
plants and flowers everywhere... the one wall with nothing on it would
have been painted with forest. The mirror over the sink would have been
part of a waterfall, there would have been a fairie ring around the
toilet, and the ceiling would have been blue skies over to clouds above
the shower/bath. The shower/bath itself would have been decorated as a
pond, and the showerhead was going to be rerouted thru the
clouds/ceiling so that when you turned it on, it looked like the clouds
were raining. Small fairies were going to be thruout the bathroom,
hiding...

And then we moved, so it never happened.

But if anyone in the Seattle area wants to give me their bathroom for
a week or two, I have neat ideas! ... 

-Kelly
  

    
Wow, I might have to steal that idea for when I remodel the guest
bathroom again. ^^
  

    
Heck with the bathroom, I think the whole house needs redecorating...

Dan Guy, that sounds like such a magic place for Xander to grow up! 
My mom painted a big rainbow/cloud/beach thing in my room (complete
with porcelain seagulls flying on the ceiling) when I was about 5.  I
was the envy of everyone whose mothers were afraid to use anything but
blah safe wallpaper.  I repaid her by painting an enormous
Beardsley-esque mural (slightly diluted Beardsley = much less awkward
conversations with visitors) in her red room, a few years back. We have
14-foot ceilings.  It was quite the daredevil task.  
  

    

Lenny - whatever happened??

Trembly makes me think of earthquakes, but I haven't heard of one...
  

    
E-mail from Michaela:

Will/Rebecca - Funny the two of you should mention _Little, Big_, because
I'm right now down to the last few pages ;) It took me a while to finish it,
I, too, read about a third of the book and liked it, then read something
else, read another few pages, read something else .. I mean to read it all
in one go another time. The Tale has become a bit disconnected in my head.
Right now I feel a bit like Alice, thinking that maybe in the end it'll all
make sense.. I still like it, though.

Stagewalker - I wish I could go to your plays!!

Tomorrow I'm off to England for a week. Sadly, there are no Neil signings on
my schedule this time. But then, this trip wasn't so hard to get organised
as the last one, either. My husband's company have decided they can just as
well pay a flight for me to England and back instead of paying him the
flight home - he's got a work project over there and spends a few days in
Derby from time to time. So this time he's not coming home inbetween, and
hopefully we'll have a good time having a look at Nottingham, Birmingham,
whatever else is close enough for day trips. If I feel the time is right, I
might mention to him a certain bookshop of my dreams in the US and some
books and a Flash Girls CD and break it to him gently that I plan to order
it all in one go "to save on shipping costs" ... wish me luck ;)

Michaela
  

    
When we built the Habitat for Humanity flats around the corner, one of the
volunteers was a professional children's-room decorators, and in the flat
with the smallest children (two girls, aged about seven and two), she made
the bedrooms Cinderella's castle and Snow White's castles, complete with
carriages and wishing wells and whatnot scenery.  Very generous.  The girls
loved them.
  

    
Madman - re: #752... No one's stalking me... any more... Actually,
that's true. I had a stalker. My parents still get mail forwarded from
him to the old house that is now rented out elsewhere. It's slowed to
about a letter a year, but for about 3 days afterward I live as though
I'm being followed. It's what started the silly name changes and
constant altering of my appearance. See? Good things can come from
awful beginnings.

JaNell - Re:#756... There are thingies in your area to stalk. The
problem is that there are eastern/southern thingies, northern thingies
and western thingies, and none in that expanse of middle where I'll
need to stop on the road to sleep... no couches. And sleeping at the
rest stops, even in comfortable cars, is not entirely fun, economic as
it can be...

Kelly - re:#762... Burning Man. Getting there and surviving are
definitely more important than anything else the first year. Just know
that the doors to all the other fun camps are open. Let other people do
all the hard work and entertain you. Just wander around in awe and
look for your friends. 

Will - re:#764... You're making me feel bad about not putting out more
music! Well, SFMM is supposed to be meeting this weekend... or was it
next weekend?... to discuss music stuff. Hopefully I'll get back to
work when I get back from BM

Neil - re:#778... Can a person stalk him/herself? And you're welcome
to stalk me whenever you please... even if it would mean a new email
addy; favourite_stalkee? And "Wanda"? Dare I ask?

Mike - re:#781... This reminds me of an interview I watched with
Samuel L. Jackson. Someone in the car next to him recognized him and
started shouting "It's Samuel L. Jackson!" over and over again, whole
name. Don't remember what his friends tend to call him, but he thought
it was funny. By the way, hi and belated welcomes and stuff. 

Kelly - re:#792... Starbucks? At the new store, I can't *find* a
Starbucks. Welcome to San Francisco. I can find 12 other over-priced
coffee shops within 2 blocks, but not a 'bucks.

Pamela - re:Burning Man... Not married, but over 25, don't do drugs...
don't even drink any more... and I have plenty of fun. Actually, I
think I have more fun than the people who don't do drugs because I have
no need to be paranoid when a ranger stops by to say hello. 

Kelly - re:Burning Man couples... Well, if you go in as a healthy
couple and discuss things, you have a good chance of leaving as a
couple. Particularly if you *share* in some of the activities that some
people only treat as strictly 'extracurricular'. Then again, if you go
there on the verge of a breakup or with a recent breakup, it is very
likely to get much worse. Witness one miss-mousey and her
still-problematic ex-. :)

DanW/Martha/Neil - Yay for the shows!

DanGuy - You're starting to make me wish I had another bedroom. The
one I have now is done up all faerie, but now I want a castle too! I'd
dress up the bathroom, but it's already very strictly Hello Kitty. 

Eep, but this was long! Sorry.

squeaks, who is scary, damnit! or at the very least, 'spooky'
  

    

I can accept "spooky."
  

    
Michelle-there are thingies in my area? Can I get their emails from
you, so we can send con info to them?
Sleeping in the car... done that, and it sucks. Which is why I can't
go to cons anymore - I can't pay for gas and a membership and a room,
or even part of a room...
*sigh*
  

    
So all this week I've been "posting" these witty replies to stuff,
only to just find that Warner Bros in all its brilliance had cut off
all that kind of stuff till just now.  So I feel silly.  Somewhere in
Lucien's libraries I'm sure there's some cool stuff by me.

I wanted to share that I have found myself all of a sudden writing a
screenplay.  This is exceptionally confounding considering I have
really never written anything of the sort before (I guess I don't count
my songwriting, which feels different to me, not really narrative in
quality).  This is what comes of an actor becoming desperate to act,
and becoming so hungry for it that she simply creates the role she
wants for herself.  

What's interesting is how quickly it is pouring out of me, and how
awfully painful the result is.  I've never felt so vulnerable about
creating as I am feeling with this.  Do any of the writers here
experience this?  I should clarify that the story I am writing is based
on real life, and real life was hard enough to experience while it was
happening.  But at the same time, I feel deeply compelled and truly
happy doing this.  

I guess this is just a birth announcement of sorts.  I dunno.  
  

    
Congrats, and I fell your pain, truly..
I'd only written poetry until recently, and silly songs and stuff for
my kids, but a while back a few very short fable/allegory things got
birthed, and it was painful, and naked, and I really don't know what to
do with them at all. Little gifties...
  

    
Shira -- pleased you heard it. And no...

Kathy -- well, I am very grateful, and have started to write with
them...

jaNell - congratulations to Chloie!  & I love your definitions of
nude, naked and nekkid.

Mike -- I laughed out loud at the nuns in the walls...

ToriBat -- the Little Endless Storybooks are in the stores now at
$5.95, which means that they will probably be cheaper than on e-bay, if
you count in the postage...  & happy upcoming birthday!

Michaela -- point out how much cheaper it is to order stuff from
DreamHaven than to fly there and pick it up in person.

Michelle -- you'd have to ask Patrick about the Wanda!  -- I'd not
dare. it would only encourage him.

I bet I could stalk myself. I'd start by leaving myself little post it
notes with "I KNOW WHERE I LIVE" on them...

Adriana -- sounds exciting.