Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Yeah Bill!
Now I've got one more person who can tell me, "It's
Crrrraaaaaapppp!!!" if it's crap...
  

    
Hmmm, nice place we got here, let's see how long it takes for us to
trash it.  

::puts comfy pillows around Angelina and calls for gorgeous peoples to
bring her pudding::

Erynn - but the worse a wisdom tooth extraction is the better! 
because after all the healing is over you can tell your story to people
who haven't had theirs out yet and watch them make interesting faces. 
oh, and if you've got a nice dentist you can keep the teeth and leave
them lying around.

Pam - The roses actually ended up being above my butt, right where the
hand is supposed to go during slow dancing.  Thankfully I only had to
dance one dance.  I was all sad though, 6 or 7 hour reception, tons of
drunk people, and I only got to see one fall down on the dance floor. 
I spent the time teaching my little cousins how to insult peoples socks
in sign language.  heehee

Jen, trying to convince herself to accept feedback for a story instead
of pouting and going "No!"
  

    
Hey, y'all!

Me & 21,300 of my closest friends just got through singing as many U2
songs as Bono could come up with.  He did not stump any of us.  It was,
as always, a powerful show.  The last encore  (second) started with
Bono talking about how their thoughts and prayers were with anyone who
had family in the military, and also for the innocents in Afghanistan
who never wanted this in the first place.  Then they ran on the video
screen the names of the crew and passengers of all 4 flights that
crashed on the 11th while they did "One".  There wasn't a dry eye in
the place.  They segued into "Peace On Earth" from the new album for a
verse, and then launched into "Walk On", their tribute to Aung San Suu
Kyi.  The chorus is "Walk On, walk on, what you got they can't deny it,
can't sell it, can't buy it".

This was all after they did Sunday, Bloody Sunday, and Bono walked
over to the edge of the stage, and instead of picking up an Irish flag 
(like they've been doing for 15 years) he picked up an American flag
and held it as he sang the lines ""I'll wipe your tears away, I'll wipe
your bloodshot eyes".  The place went nuts.  He also changed a lot of
lyrics in "New York" from the new album, to direct references to the
city's recovery from the attacks.

I know a lot of people think of him as a self-important asshole, but
I've never quite understood that.  He talked tonight about the
importance of dropping the debt in poor countries, because religious
fanatacism feeds on that poverty.  He's one of the very few Catholics
who you can see in public living what we say we believe.  He makes me
proud to be Catholic.  Hell, he makes me proud to be human.

Having written that, I'm not even sure he still considers himself
Catholic.  More fool we if we've lost him.

Sorry this is so long.  Wanted to talk to somebody, and y'all are the
only ones awake. :-)

Mary (just finished father Greeley's "Irish Love", and started Caleb
Carr's "Angel of Darkness")
  

    
Linda--Love the topic name!

Angelina--glad you're getting better.  I only had 2 of mine out,
because I waited too long, and my lower ones have roots wrapped around
the nerve channel.  It'll be really bad if they have to take them.  But
my top ones were easy, so it's true-your mileage may vary.

Will--you sure do know lots of cool stuff.  Happy moving!

200 miles!  In this day and age?!  I don't know where I live anymore! 

Mike--I just watched the Julie Taymor Titus, and I think yours sounds
*much* more interesting!  :-)
  

    
I started to post, and realized that I have absolutely nothing worth
saying during 4:49 am insomnia...
  

    
Four women's clinics in the Knoxville/Oak Ridge area got letters
yesterday with a white powder that was alleged to be anthrax spores.
The story is at
http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/home/0,1406,KNS_343,00.html.

One of those clinics is exactly one block from my oldest son's high
school.
  

    
It seems wrong to follow up on JaNell's scary news report of
yet more anthrax contamination with something upbeat and cheerful.

But I can't not be upbeat and cheerful.

Last night I saw Tori in Boston.  *Great* show. [um, and the night
before I saw her in Connecticut, too.  If I could say this in a very
small unimportant voice I would, because I don't want to gloat too
much, but I think that was the best performance of hers that I've ever
seen.]  There was also a little surprise last night - Neil was in
attendance, too.  I didn't quite say hello before he ducked backstage
at the direction of Tori's security team and then the show started, but
I was pleased to notice that it didn't look like the entire room had
suddenly noticed him and gone over to mob around. 

So, Neil, had I gotten the chance to say hi, I would have mentioned
that on the T on the way over there was a random person reading
American Gods, and I said "you know, that's a really great book you're
reading" to her.  I don't usually start conversations with
people on their train reading, either.

We chuckled when Tori pulled out 2 of her songs with Neil lyrics as a
result... and I really like Tear In Your Hand, too. so thanks, Neil,
for inspiring her to play it by your presence.

 
  

    
Well, I am absolutely envious, as it's not looking like I'll be
spotting either anytime in the next few years...
But that's so cool, a double sighting...
  

    
Abbe, can you confirm any of the details about Tori's tour book? Most
specifically I am looking for the following information: 1) Presence of
Neil's story/paragraph/whatever about each of the "girls"; and 2)
Price. Thanks!

JaNell, we've had a spate of evacuations in mid-Michigan as well.
Yesterday it was one of the small-town post offices, today it appears
to be the Capitol Office Building in Lansing. And again, me with a job
on a receiving dock. Loverly.
  

    
Good Lord, Bill, wear latex gloves and a mask, and use antiseptic hand
wash, and don't breath...
OK, maybe that last is a little extreme.

<Hold on, my Ro just brought me a brush and toothpaste to "Get rid of
the sugarbugs". He helped>
  

    
Bill: the tour book does exist, and it has Neil's stories on the
girls in it.  They're all on one page at the beginning, and I 
do like them - they're extremely short, but in a way, expressing
so much about each characters in so few words is harder than coming up
with a long tale, I think.  

The rest of the tour book is arranged like a calendar, with a large
portrait of one of the characters on each page, and the calendar
pages very nicely coordinated in colors to both the season and the
image - very visually well done.  

The bummer is that it cost $20 (previous tour books that I can
recall have been $10) and actually contains a lot less *new* artwork
and text than I seem to recall in the other ones... oh well.
For that matter, the shirts cost $30 and up.  I do hope that at
least Tori makes a few bucks off of the insane merchandising!
  

    
E-mail from Johanna:

i actually did end up talking to neil at the concert, since i happened
to be re-reading "fables and reflections" (after buying the whole set
recently) and i looked up and there he was.  so he signed it and we
chatted briefly and then i saw a wonderful tori show and altogether it
was a marvelous evening.  i was hoping he'd be there, even though i
didn't expect to interact with him.

(hi abbe, if you're reading this, it means i figured out how to get my
message sent to this forum. thanks for telling me to keep an eye out for
neil, otherwise i never would have seen him!  and i hope no one else
minds me piping up here...)
  

    
Yay! I found my people!

I had lost my people. It was not of the good.
  

    
Last night I dreamed that I'd run into Neil in the Natural History
Museum and Xander drooled all over him as Neil sputtered and tried to
hand him back and then everything kind of shifted and I was standing at
a podium in front of an assemblage of my scientific peers accepting an
award for my discovery of the anthrax-killing powers of baby drool. 
Lori says I was giggling in my sleep.
  

    
Mary - Yay for U2! I wish they would tour here, it has been so long,
but then NZ really is out of the way for what most groups consider to
be not a lot of benefit. I enjoyed "Angel of Darkness", but I think 
"The Alienist" was a better book. Of course that's just me :)

Jo, who is moving this weekend and has packed six large boxes of
books, and counting ...
  

    
Just showing up to say how incredibly jealous I am of all the concert
goers and Neil-sighters.

And Mary: Are you a speed reader?  You have the most amazing reading
list.  You're my heroine.

-Pam
Who has a serious problem getting to Madison when she wants to. 
Wiscon, missed.  Madcon, missing.  Damn.
  

    
Me too, Pam. I had a nightmare about MadCon that involved some car
trip with complete strangers going there where we kept running the car
down dead-end alleys, finally ending up at the airport days before we
needed to go, but buying tickets because they were so cheap even though
it meant getting there with no place to stay a week early...
So I walked out of the airport into a gravel yard where there was a
firelit, post-apocalyptic performance of "Priscilla, Queen of the
Desert" going on, and when the audience discovered that I was there,
they started beating me with rocks, even the women...
Neil was around somewhere, but I had no idea where...

Stop laughing, Neil.
  

    
Hey Neil? Serious(ish) question for you... on another board, Good
Omens was brought up, and the first person who responded swears that
you hate it,... to quote, she said "The fact that both Gaiman -and-
Pratchett hate the book is good indicator that they weren't really
thinking about it much..."

This is quite contrary to what I know, which I (and someone else) told
her. She insists she's right and that both of you think it sucks, so I
figured I'd come to the source and get your feedback. ;-)

So yeah, do you think Good Omens sucks? :-)
-Kelly
  

    
Well, okay, come to 1/2 the source. Tho, if the other half is around
and would like to give feedback, that'd be cool, too...

-K
  

    
Hey Kelly
I don't know if Terry reads this one, but I know he reads
alt.fan.pratchett and posts there occasionally, so you could ask there
if you don't get any response ...
  

    
Heh Jo... I guess I could go crash his party on The Well, but it
seemed kinda rude to run in and steamroll with a question and then run
back out.   :-)

-Kelly
  

    
it's a newsgroup - even if he doesn't answer, the crazy pratchett fans
should be able to let you know and/or give you directions to a
reference. They're good like that and they don't mind. I don't remember
there ever being anything about him or Neil not liking "Good Omens".
  

    
I could swear that on several occasions I remember Neil saying that it
was a lot of fun writing "Good Omens" with Terry Pratchett. How he and
Terry would call each other up to read chapters or fax pages back and
forth. We can only imagine what didn't make the final cut. 

It certainly doesn't read like a stilted collaboration. That book gave
me laugh lines!  

On that note, since have director's cuts of movies, I wonder if the
same could be done for books?  "Good Omens Author's Cut" anyone?

Mary - Some misguided people actually believed Bono's ironic parody of
himself as the jaded *rock star* several years ago, and have written
him off ever since.  They have no idea how relentlessly he works to get
the issue of Third World debt addressed by various western nations and
powerful financial institutions like the World Bank and The
International Monetary Fund.  

The crushing debt service imposed on developing nations has stunted
economic growth and contributed to a continuing cycle of poverty and
exploitation through increased dependency on foreign aid. I have a lot
of respect for him as someone who uses his celebrity in the service of
those in need.  
  

    

I don't think Terry has been around since his interview ended...
  

    

slipped!