Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Neil slipped--interesting gardening tip.....

Ooops, now Linda slipped, too.  What a bunch of nightowls we all are! 
  

    

Slippery night owls!
  

    
Neil--Just wanted to let you know that I now have a 13 year old
brother walking around the house practicing coin tricks after his
second reading of American Gods...He's Rather Bad at it right now, but
hopefully he will get better.  Meanwhile, he insists on showing me
every half hour or so.  I just grit my teeth and remind myself that my
little brother likes your books, and that's all that really matters. 
:)

Michelle--So surprised (and happy) to hear from you.  I really should
look into that Burning Man stuff for next year...

Angelina.
  

    
Now this is a damn fine pseudonym!!

 
  

    

Good catch!
  

    

And Neil, I was watching a promo for an upcoming David Blaine special on
what, The Learning Channel? and saw him do this coin trick, which led me
to wonder:  what do you think of him and his prestidigitation?  (I love
that word!)
  

    
Linda, I found the Blaine TV specials kind of irritating, as you
mostly don't get to see the whole trick -- you just cut in for the
punch line. But he seemed pretty good.

I stopped in at the Ren Fest the other day (to deliver a dress to my
daughter) and watched a bit of magic. And realised that if you watch
magic from a weird sort of upside down kind of view -- not looking at
what's happening or how smoothly or anything, just looking at the bits
that don't fit, it changes. Like going "Nobody actually holds a piece
of rope like that" or even "nobody passes something to themselves in
real life".

Angelina -- get him http://www.e-magicstore.com/store/coinmagic.html
for his birthday or Xmas or something then... it's Michael Ammar's
video about Coin Magic and it's lovely.
  

    
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0970297513 is the same video,
on Amazon...
  

    
Neil~actually, the whole accident story was just to show an example of
how my life has a soundtrack; didn't mean to worry anyone, and have
had much worse things happen since that aren't really amusing in any
way... and lots of wonders, too.
Did you see how good I was? I've barely been teasing you at all...
Or pestering Mr. Covell. 
Actually, it's not the itinerary that bugs me so much; it's the
lengthy discussions between two people that really should be taken to
email, exclusionary stuff that kills the conversation. Personally, I'm
ready to live for real rather than vicariously, although I'm very
interested in what's going on in people's lives. I just wanna play,
too!

Mary Roane~Use the cuss word at will. Now I'll feel better for
stealing 'barking mad' as part of my domain name...
About wrong grades... sometimes it's like I'm more than qualified for
the class, but there's some unwritten rule that only a group that I
don't belong to takes it.

Oh, Cameron now has his blog up. I started setting mine up, but he
beat me to it. Now there's a message board and a web journal up for my
site, but the site itself is not up...

Neil, again~Jameson (gnome) a while back gave me The Gold Coin...
wheeeeee!

And you said "...if you watch magic from a weird sort of upside down
kind of view -- not looking at
what's happening or how smoothly or anything, just looking at the bits
that don't fit, it changes."
That's how I generally look at things, if that helps. I see the gears.

Head Radio now playing: ~Pure Energy ~
  

    
If this is a class I'm not really taking it... I'm just sneaking in
after it's started and am trying to sit quietly in the back.  But then
I forget myself and start raising my hand and... ::starts remembering
real times she's done this::  I'm gonna go now and get ready for work.

Jen, who hates insomnia.
  

    
I didn't notice that much anger in the Tori interview in Spin, 
but I love the analogy of Tori as a mother lioness protecting her
cubs, anyway. Just got a tori fanzine in the mail containing an
 interview with Neil. It would appear that he was having some fun 
with the interviewer, and that the interviewer was incredibly 
stubborn about trying to eke out details about Strange Little Girls...
I'm beginning to feel like September isn't that far off,
though, and like I've had my fill of gossip leaking out until then,
and then I will have my fun when the album comes out.

<madman>, I must wonder if you could have gone to the same production
of Hapgood as I did, just because it doesn't seem like one of
Stoppard's most frequently produced plays, and I did see it quite
recently when some friends put on a small-scale production of it...
It was quite entertaining, particularly for a crowd of geeks who
mostly understood the particle physics *and* enjoy the silly
double-agent genre...
  

    <scribbled>
  

    
Abbe -- I'm sure I would have said a lot more if the interview had
been done after the announcements about it.

JaNell -- and I have no doubt that roughly twenty minutes after the
first copy of the tour book rolls off the printing presses, the whole
thing will be up on the internet somewhere, so I'm sure you'll be able
to read it all.
  

    
Oops. jaNell's message went away. She asked how people could see the
strange little stories from the tour book without going to a Tori gig.
  

    

<abbecohen> - Did you see Hapgood in Boston? In the basement of a church?
Small production definately describes it... I saw it on closing night, I'll
be amused if you were there.
  

    
<madman>, I was indeed there, in that church basement that apparently
takes up much of subterranean Somerville, on the same night! A
mini WELL gathering, missed by that much!  How bizarre.  Did you
 know the crowd involved in the production, or how did you end up
there if not?

oh, Neil, I found it at least as entertaining to read the 
interview with the back-and-forth "well, if I ask it this way 
will you tell me another hint", "no, but I'll give you another
evasive answer", than if it had come out and said the news.  Kind
of like watching Janell teasing you and vice versa here. 
  

    

<abbecohen> - I just passed your name on to one of the people I was there
with, who tells me that you were sitting right behind us. I was there with
Andromeda to see Grant (who played Paul), as they are both old friends, and
it turned out there were a bunch of people I knew there, mostly from ET,
from back when I was dating Tara, who knows you.
I was the one that kept having people tell me I look like Elliot, if that
means anything to you.
And, should this be boring the rest of the topic to tears, feel free to take
it into emails or something. Though I'll take this opportunity to thank Neil
for creating a topic in which such odd crossings of paths can occur as this.
Heehee.
  

    
And the winner is: EXTRANEOUS! (because I liked the "irrelevant" feel
to it).  Although GRATUITOUS was a very close second, and probably
closer to the clues I gave.  And "hyperelastically overdetermined"
receives Honorable Mention, for making my eyes get VERY BIG.  Thanks
everybody, especially Mike, Elise, Bill, Julia!  I appreciate it
muchly.  I think the problem my brain was having was that I really
wanted a white-collar meaning with a blue-collar aural punch.  Ah well.

Rebecca: <waves!> I’m in desperate need of a good storm out here. 
Could you persuade the poultry to join you in a little rain dance? 
(_Very_ funny mental image.)

Rebecca/JaNell:  Maybe we could work out an entire new online language
for people who talk 50% or more with their hands, arms and whatever
other extremities that seem appropriate!  (What are those little face-y
thingies called online?)  We need bigger ones.

On Tori and anger.  She's got a point.  I'm all for Tori Unleashed. 
Go get 'em, girl.

Dreams:  I dream to the extent that I really worry myself, sometimes. 
The ones where you wake up and honestly have to question your own
sanity for a moment.  Then later they'll sometimes make more sense to
me.  But I've run the full gamut: naked dreams, flying dreams, vampire
dreams, missing the plane dreams (I _hate_ those).  The worst ones of
all are when dream characters get out the knives and guns and
everything starts getting really bloody.  I've learned that these
represent a "This is your Final Warning" statement from my unconscious.
 Then I usually end up having to make some Major Life Change really
soon.  So I've come to sort of dread those ones.  Or welcome them, in a
perverse sort of way.

Re: Etiquette for the Barking Mad.
1. We do not, in fact bark.  Or we have no bite, generally.  If you
   must bite, take it elsewhere.  (You might try the alt.fan.thingie
   forum on Tuesdays)

2. Neil is Nice.  Do Not Disturb him with loud, rambunctious un-
   niceness, as it might upset the delicately balanced doses of 
   Disturbing he is spicing his next chef d’oevre with.

3. Neil was born in England, where manners have been defended with
   sharp, pointy things.  He is embarked on a goodwill mission toward 
   the refinement of the uncouth American hordes.  We are trying to
   encourage him by pretending that he’s having some success.  (Those 
   of you from other countries have obviously already mastered the 
   task, so you'll have the good grace not to give us away, I'm sure.)

4. Itineraries will be posted.  Live vicariously at your own risk.  
   There are no lifeguards, and the waters are populated by hungry 
   goldfish.
  

    
>statement from my unconscious

Um.  The voices in the back of my mind compell me to say that that
should read SUBconscious.
  

    
I'll avoid boring the rest of the topic to tears but will
mention that I did indeed meet you at the show, and take the
rest to email.

yes, Neil, thanks for creating an excuse for a topic on the
well where people meet one another not only at your signings
but at bizarre little productions of Tom Stoppard's Hapgood 
in church basements in Boston, only don't know about it till
later!
  

    
Pamela--
Well, somebody took a pseud from one of my posts, now I'm taking one
from one of yours. :) And the name for the little smiley whatzits is
"emoticons". While I don't quite know a good way to characterize hand
accents, I've seen some punctuational representation of sign language
from time to time. ,/,,/ for example.

For the record, anyone desiring a copy of Tori's tourbook can email me
(billbill@well.com) to set up a cash-or-other-good-stuff transfer, as
I'm going to the October 18 show in Detroit.
  

    
Neil~you *would* just read the post I scribbled, and not answer the
far more relevant ones before...
As per.

Abbe~Not you...
And Neil doesn't tease me.
He taunts me, with a slightly frustrated "go away kid, I'm busy"
feeling to it, probably because of failure to fit the #3 rule...
the subtleties of which frequently are often diametrically opposed to
good manners where I was raised...
and in many other parts of the world as well.

Pamela~I can't live up to those standards, so does that mean I'm not
Barking Mad? Woo-hoo!
# 2 will be particularly difficult because my niceness is often loud
and rambunctious, and boisterous, and #3 as I ask personal questions if
I like you a whole lot and want to be friends.

Anywho.
  

    
Oh, Neil, re: life affirming stories...
(wicked grin)
That's why I read Charles de Lint's Newford stories.
The people are messed up and emotional and imperfect and *real*...
They bleed.
And in spite of that, maybe because of it, because they are open and
therefore open to it, they have the most amazing surreal epiphanic
things happen to them and for them and around them.
Scars and all.
  

    
It occurs to me that I neglected to mention the "Scambusters" program
I saw on TLC over the weekend. As with many TLC programs, it was a BBC
import here, but the interesting bit was that it showed in action both
the "Fiddle Game" and the Bank Guard scam from AG. Both of them worked
quite well, with the Fiddle Game netting fifty pounds for a five-pound
stuffed horse, and the Bank Guard clearing, in one case, a duffel bag
reportedly filled with $20,000 cash.
  

    
Not me what?