Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Neil: Well, I can get some quotes, anyway... but now I'm havin' a
heart attack over here...
  

    
Neil: 
Yes, it is all a dream since Concat; we did voodoo on you. 
As well you deserve. 
You really don't want to know how we're using your zombie body.
Or the meatrolls.
  

    
JaNell  -- I thought you wanted a couple of hundred words on memories
of Concat for the program booklet.  Do you need something else as well?
I'm afraid I'm a bit pushed for time right now.
  

    
With no help at all from the people who are meant to be organising
this stuff, I fixed the FAQ page on neilgaiman.com. I even put an
answer up. 
  

    
A blog FAQ? 
  

    
Neil: Re your FAQ...
If you look, you'll see that same solution was sent to you by a
familar name a few days ago...
  

    
Neil:
<evil grin>
Guess I'll just write up what I remember...
the ConSuite door slam...
the dinner...
the Sunday afternoon in the dealer's room
Heather~concerned~about~how~tense~you~were story...
<very naughty bad evil grin>
:D
  

    
Neil- should I ask my alternate titles question over there?  Does this
count as frequent?  Can one person make a question frequent, or do
multiple people have to ask?  What exactly is frequent?  Twice in two
days is frequent, yes, but if a month then passes, the question would
cease to be frequent, I'd think.... <shutting up>
Ah, yes, I remember hatchets and axes from my days in scouts.  We had
to pull some stumps from our yard over the summer, and had to use both
a hatchet and a chainsaw (not at the same time.  That's just
Dangerous).  I had far more fun with the chainsaw.  Except for when I
climbed the extension ladder, and started chainsawing, and then the
ladder shifted, and I almost cut through my leg rather than the branch.
Congratulations on fixing the FAQ.  That's really cool.  I love when,
after so long, you change one simple thing, and it all just falls, and
you're like, yeah!  See, your mother's not around right now.  So Who's
Your Daddy!  (well, that's what I say, at least.  I dunno about you.)

On another note, I just signed up for my adult CPR course (already
took it, multiple times, but always let the thing lapse, because I'm
like that), and ordered my little boolet thingies, and so now I'm on my
way to being a certified Personal Trainer.  Woo!
  

    
"I never said I thought she wasn't a girl. I said I thought
that girl was a boy."

Aah, the quote I read had it wrong - not all that surprising. So, will
you clarify this statement (why you think she's a boy, and what it
means) or shall I be left cheerfully in the dark?

And... you signed a large gnome? That has to be one of the more...
unique... things I've ever heard of. Are there pictures of this gnome
following you around? :-)


All - yes, it's very inconvinient having a haunted workplace when 1) I
work late a lot and 2) I really don't believe in ghosts. However, when
you've exhausted all other options, and only the improbable is
left,...  :-) I am, however, glad that no music boxes have started
playing at random. I'd probably have to find a new job...

I have had something like the equivelent of 5 mugs of coffee this
morning, and no food. My stomach is not happy. Must appease stomach.

-Kelly
  

    
Kelly: goto http://www.holycow.com/dreaming/concat99/ for the pic.
  

    

miss-mousey- I don't think there's an alternate date yet, but since I'm
going to be missing this weekend also, I'm down with there being a secondary
date. If it's good enough (if? Ok, because...) maybe we can convince a few
people to go twice.
  

    
The girl holding the gnome upside down? I want her top. Badly.

(Thanks, JaNell... that's just,... bizarre.)
-Kelly
  

    
I know. The whole weekend was bizarre and surreal like that.
I really, honestly, thought that Neil would enjoy writing about it in
his slanted way...
  

    
Kelly: The girl in the top is Duren. I've known her & her husband from
about 1984 or so... and her husband, Ziggy, blogs on KnoxBlogs at
http://www.xanga.com/home.asp?user=Zyzygy.
  

    
I think I'm the patron saint of Post Slacking.  Sometimes I just can't
keep up with yous guys.

man, that garden gnome rules.  whenever i've looked for them they're
much more plastic-y and cheap looking.  i wish i had a garden...

OK, so i just wanted to invite any and all of you in the LA greater
metropolitan area to come and see my band perform, if you'd like. 
We'll be playing Tuesday, October 9th at 10 PM at the Crooked Bar,
which is in the Coconut Teaszer in whorelywood.  I would love love to
see any and all of you all again.  OH and it's FREE if your name is on
my coveted guest list, which it can be if you email me!  

we are good musickers.  you would like it.  i promise.  
  

    
Neil, you're turning into a webmaster.  Like you have time for that!

The thing about the Neil poem is he wrote the first part and then I couldn't
get him to finish it without getting someone to publish a whole book; so I
got someone to publish a whole book.
  

    
Neil:  Was it a cherry tree? <g>

Who owns the rights to your words (reviews for BFS)?  Do you not have
any control over the blurbs they’re pulling from those old reviews?  Do
they notify you, even?  (Is there anything you’d really hate for them
to use?)

Martha:  I’m having trouble figuring out who was motivating whom, in
that scenario.  But I’m glad they both came together!  I’m really
enjoying WALLS.  I wanted to tell you, but I’m sort of embarrassed
about how long it’s taking me; it’s not you, it’s me.  I don’t read
short story collections like a novel.  I read them more like a series
of little novels.  To me, they’re more like a menu of entrees than one
meal.  Each one has its own identity and bouquet of flavors, so I get
full and I can’t eat them one right after the other.  And the richer
and more intense they are, the longer it takes me to start the next
one.  If it’s any reassurance, it’s taking me just as long to read
Neil’s S&M and Kelly Link.

Anyway, for what it might be worth, here’s how I think of your
writing: it affects me like that long, waning note at the very end of
the symphony, when it resonates on itself, and then, just when you
think it’s over and you know what it is, and you’re about to pick up
your program and grab your coat, it... changes.  Just a little.  And
you sit back down.  And then you’re not quite sure ever again whether
it’s time to go or not.  It’s lovely.

And I really enjoy being able to watch the changes and growth
encapsulated in a collection like this.  

-Pam
  

    
Take all the time you want, Pam.  Especially if you're going to say nice
things like that.
  

    
Holy crap!  I just had a really hard time getting through all the
posts I've missed.  I now don't have time to write, so here's my post:

I'm back.

Angelina
  

    
Margaret: No.  Nope.  Not gonna.  I refuse to believe it unless
presented with incontrovertible evidence.  It'll always be Ernie's
oatmeal to meeeee...!  <runs, wailing, down the hallway>.

JaNell: when was this ConCat?  How did you manage to get all those
Thingies together?  I loved the pictures!  It's a Tree sighting!  And a
'Walker an' a Squeaks an' a West, I think?  Is there a JaNell in the
picture?

As for that transcript, I guess I'll have to exercise my non-existent
patience, because they seem to be a wee bit backed up since, oh, say,
July or something.  

*sigh*

I hate waiting.

DanW: Your Eminence!  Back in college, we used to joke that our
director was speaking ex cathedra when issuing instructions from his
office.

Miss Mousey: Are they really four separate Jameses?  Are you sure? 
Have you seen them all in one room together?  I only saw one at
Booksoup.  And did they (all) ever date a girl named Ruth?

Adriana!  Hey you; welcome back!  I'll _definitely_ be coming to see
you and your musickers on the 9th, even though it's way past my bedtime
and I might start looking like a scary guard-like vegetable out of
Neil's garden.  WHAT FUN!  CALLING ALL L.A. WELLMOBBERS!  I'll email
you for details, and because I'm just dying to be on "the List."  What
kind of stuff do you play?

-Pam
Whose husband keeps making her giggle, because ever since a particular
author signing at the end of June, he's developed a habit of sticking
an "L.A. bits in L.A." into conversations wherever possibly
appropriate.  (This is the same husband who kept signing new
extemporaneous lyrical versions of "American Gods," to the music of
"American Woman" for a week in early July.)  

P.S.  Don't tell him I told y'all that.
  

    
One other thing about those pictures:  You know how you get an image
of someone in your head and then you see a picture or meet them and
they don't look anything like that image?  Charles Vess.  That picture
from ConCat.

<shakes head, mumbles>

Martha: you're most welcome.

-Pam
who could never wear snakeskin pants even if she could pull them off,
which she can't, because her husband really, really, _really_ hates
snakes
  

    
Mkay, I'm flexible. Tell Duren I want her top.  ;-)

-Kelly
  

    
Pamela asked, "JaNell: when was this ConCat?  How did you manage to
get all those
Thingies together?... ...Is there a JaNell in the
picture?"

1) Let's see, Thanksgiving Weekend '99.      
2) They came for Neil.  
3)  As you can see from Neil's list, I wasn't actually there, so no
pics of me; but he goes along with me *claiming* to have been there and
met him, smiling and nodding and all, in case I'm some crazy person
that might get violent if he destroys my fragile imaginary world....
  

    
Kelly: did you read Zig's blog? You'd have to be quite flexible...
  

    
You don't pull snakeskin pants off.  You shed them.