Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Heh heh heh... being delivered Nov 1...

http://www.redplanetsw.com/personal/marssaxman/new_piano/me_playing.jpg
http://www.redplanetsw.com/personal/marssaxman/piana_closeup.jpg

It's only taken him 5 years of wanting one to actually buy one. I'm
very pleased.

-Kelly
  

    
Woops - that last one should be:
http://www.redplanetsw.com/personal/marssaxman/new_piano/piano_closeup.jpg

- forgot both the directory and how to spell, oops!
-Kel
  

    

Well, I'm jealous.
I sort of own a piano- my mom says that when she moves, I get the piano. But
it's in CT, and I'm in CA.
  

    
Good luck on job troubles to whoever be having them.

I hate when I get all fanboy on people, especially because I know I
shouldn't.  I mean, I have friends who do things that just _amaze_ me,
but because I knew them before I knew the stuff they did... I can still
do things like play jokes on them and act like a 12 year old and
whatnot.  But when it's someone I admire first and then try and talk
to... aggh, I go all tongue tied and quiet with short bursts of
unintelligibleness.  Even like here online.  I think it's because I
haven't seen their awkward moments yet.  ::sneakily puts banana peels
all around the conference and then hides behind a handy potted plant::

Okay, something has been nagging at me.  The wright state publication
Nexus is going to have another of my stories next issue, but what bugs
me is Mindy (editor) evidently doesn't really read my stuff before she
decides to put it in.  "Well I read the first page and the dialogue
thing at the end.  I trust you."  And it's like, I dunno, weird.  I
mean, I have seen other stuff she's been given and a lot of it is in
all honesty utter crap, but still, it makes me nervous that she doesn't
actually read what I give her before telling me she's putting it in. 
Oh well.

I might be stopping my account and going back to lurker mode, I just
don't have any money.  I'll know for sure in a couple of days.

Jen.
  

    
Poker sounds good for me.. although I'm also not very good at it and
would be happy to play for chips. Maybe Oreos? Then again, maybe  I'll
just bet my soul to each of you and then you'll all have to go to war
to collect it... oh, wait... that's been done. (sorry, random John
Constantine reference there)

It might be good to move the planning of a poker night to e-mail. Let
me get clear on who to harass to nail down a date for this thing.
Madman, Martha, Castle and I'll throw in the Mouse for good measure.
Any other locals I'm missing? 

Kelly - congrats on the piano!

Jen - Be sure to pester Castle with e-mail or else we'll miss you!!
  

    
Neil--Ooooo, sorry, ducks.  Didn't mean to bugger up that lovely
linked post.  I checked to see if anyone slipped, too, and Web TV said
no one had.  I'll know better than to trust them again.....

DanGuy--Hurray for obscure John Constantine references!

Let me know what you guys think about From Hell.

Mary (who found it rather odd to see From Hell while reading Angel of
Darkness)  
  

    
Oooops, sorry.  I meant Stagewalker, not DanGuy.  I'm a chowderhead.  
  

    

Taking it to email isn't a bad idea, but if there are any other locals, or
transients who might be in town, please drop a local an email if you want
in!
We'll need to invent a variant of poker called "Barking Mad" poker or
something.
Or Mao. Mao could always use another variant.
  

    
Will - no need to worry, I haven't even sent my address yet!  Got very
busy at work this week (my boss has a bit of a health-thing going on),
and haven't been on The Well in a week.

Neil - Welcome back!  Glad the Great Road Trip has ended well.  Was
the drive back from Boston as much of an adventure as the drive out?

JaNell - re:  the Harlan Dream - be afraid.........very, very afraid.

Mary - we *still* don't have a URL for the Eddie Izzard quote
generator :)

Martha - more writing from you is always welcome!

Madman and Kelly - best of luck in the job market (I'm more thankful
every day to have a tech job that actually becomes *more* secure if the
economy worsens, along with the best boss in the world).

On the topic of "feeling fannish", there are very few people who have
ever moved me to want to meet them in a fannish kinda way.  One was
Ayrton Senna, and I only really shook his hand in '85 or '86.  Don't
honestly remember how I felt afterwards, since it was one of those
"turn around and there they are" things, so I didn't have time to think
about it.  Still glad it happened.

When I met Neil (finally!) at MIT, I had WAY too much time to think
about it under rather uncomfortable circumstances, but I think I still
did fine and stayed pretty coherent :)  Honestly, though, I was all
nervous for a good 30 minutes afterwards..........

Bono (who I haven't met) has always struck me as a man who does, as
Neil said, "think about things".  Perhaps too much on occasion, but
I've been guilty of that more times than I can count.  I certainly saw
the "rock star" phase for what it was - a desire to have the band not
so identified with its politics, which were threatening to overwhelm
it, and get back to music.

It's nice to be hearing more personal music from U2 these days (though
I've had "With or Without You" on repeat in my car for the last week,
for some reason), and still have Bono jetting about talking to Popes
and Presidents about 3rd World debt.  He is, at heart, an honorable man
I think, and one who wants to Do Something with fame, rather than
simply be Famous.  Something to be encouraged.
  

    
Just popping in to say that "the Mouse" means something entirely different
to me than it does to <stagewalker>, and reading that he would "throw in
the Mouse for good measure" threw me for a brief loop.
  

    

(For those who don't know, <gorey> there is currently working at Walt
Disneyworld...)
  

    

We could throw in that Mouse, too, to liven things up!
  

    
        Blast, bugger, bollocks, and damn.  I would _love_ to be part of a
Bay Area Barking Mad poker night.  Tragically, I moved out of the Bay
Area a year ago.  I'm envious.  If anything interesting happens in
Portland, I'll mention it.  Then again, if anything interesting happens
in Portland, it'll be national news.  This town, while charming, is
about as exciting as an Andy Warhol movie.
  

    

Well, you just let us know when you come visit. Not that we'll necessarily
have a poker night, but the subsequent celebration in Portland should, as
you say, make national news.
  

    
        Yeah, there was actually a ballot measure to run me out of town on a
rail last year, but it failed because they were calling for a tax
increase to pay for the rail.  Generally speaking, if a local or state
ballot measure mentions you by name, it's rarely a good thing.
  

    

You know, they STILL have your name in one or two of the ballots here in the
Bay Area. I think they're afraid that a) you didn't go far enough away, and
b) that you might come back.
And they're laying track for the rail. Just in case.
  

    
        Damn, you just don't watch enough really awful old Westerns. 
Traditionally one would take a section of unlaid rail and carry the
offender (often tarred and feathered) out of town.  The idea was that
being upon such a rail was intensely uncomfortable, and of course
carried a faint undertone of being sodomized, (or sodomised, if you
prefer) and was therefore an appropriate punishment for such
malefactors as inevitably populated such films.  In practice, of
course, the few times we know of that such a creepy ritual was carried
out, it was for such heinous crimes as being black, opening a business
that competed with a popular local interest, being black, or some
combination of the above.
        Which was probably the other reason I haven't been so run out of town
yet; I'm so white that when my family came over from Ireland their
last name was O'Fay.
  

    

Well, speaking of family, I should probably mention that it was your mother
that proposed the legislation. Which is, arguably, all the worse, given that
she doesn't even live around here anymore either.

Oh, and you're right, despite your best efforts, I don't watch enough awful
old Westerns.
  

    
        My mother is quite earnest in her efforts to secure me a place in
history and the public record.  She continues to try and frame me for
Yitzhak Rabin's assassination, for example.  She repeatedly runs me as
a senatorial candidate in states I don't live in.  And every couple of
weeks the FBI turns up with a few questions they'd like to ask me based
on a tip they've gotten.  Ultimately, I think she would like for my
life to be a TV movie starring Neil Patrick Harris.  "Sniper: The Noah
Johnson Story", or "Stalker: The Noah Johnson Story", or (based on the
last few questions the FBI wanted to ask me) possibly
"Raccoon-Buggerer: The Noah Johnson Story".
  

    

Thanks, everyone, we're here until Tuesday. Try the veal. You're all
beautiful, see you next time!
  

    
        He's lying, some of you are downright homely.  The veal is tasty,
though.  Drive safely!
  

    
Mary -- I was about to be very confused until I read the next post.

Neil -- Will do.  Lori's never been big on sushi, but I suspect that
the good stuff might change her mind.
  

    
I hate to be the one to interrupt the back-and-forth, but here I am.
My final weekend in Manhattan could not have been better.  I went to a
place called O'Flaherty's to see a friend of mine play Piano Loco, and
it was a great show.  It was also a date that went well, so that was
cool.  Saturday I saw *Bounce* (better'n I thought it would be), and I
wrote another several scenes of a short story.

This week will be hectic, I fear.  Packing, mainly, and tidying up at
work (the Well is a *great* procrastination tool, I've found).

On fannish-ness- I met Neil twice; once at the Bottom Line, and then
two days later, at the WTC Borders signing (sigh).  That first time, I
went a little fanboy, but the main problem was that I really didn't
know how to approach.  Neil talked to a good bit of people, and I
really didn't want to interrupt.  Once I actually did, though, and got
a moment with him, I think the fanboy thing went (I don't know; did I
seem very fan-boy to you, Neil?).  I think that's the main thing; it'd
be difficult to walk up to Eddie Izzard or Alanis or Tori or whoever,
but once you got to talking, I think it'd be okay.
I saw Ethan Hawke in a bar the other week.  I had lunch with his
father-in-law a couple of times, so I guess I had the six-degrees
thing, but I'm really not a fan of his, so I just didn't approach him.

Erynn- I tried e-mailing you, by the address in your bio, but it said
it's inactive.  Do me a favor and drop me a line, or give me an updated
one?  I've got a question for you.

Neil- re: backward stories- have you seen *Memento*?  It's a basic
man's-wife-is-raped-and-murdered-so-he-avenges-her sort of story, but
the incident gave him anterograde amnesia (he can make no short term
memories), and the movie is told backwards.  It's *Awesome*.  You
should check it out if you haven't.
  

    
Hmm.  When I met Neil at the signing after the MIT talk
(and I won't be upset if you don't remember, Neil!) I didn't
really feel the need to get all fangirl about it.  I would
not be surprised if the conversation here on the WELL has
had something to do with it - somehow it helped in having 
something wortwhile to say to have heard Neil say random 
little things that *aren't* just about his books, and to have
been part of a conversation where we're all just another 
person no matter how famous or boring we actually are.
So I felt perfectly normal talking about how I was asking Neil
to sign something that wasn't even my favorite book, because I
had thought I'd be going home to pick it up but chose to eat 
dinner instead, and had just bought something I didn't own yet
from the Pandemonium outside to get it signed instead.  And then
asking about the crazy cross-country drive he'd alluded to 
making over here on the WELL, and generally feeling .

Now that I think about all the things you were signing, Neil,
I wonder if it would make your life easier if people *don't*
bring up something to be signed but just wait in line and
say hello?  Is the scribbling the name down the exhausting part,
 or is it just the talking to that many people in a row that is
 a pain either way? I felt silly waiting in line with nothing to
 have you sign, but really I waited in line more to say hello and
 compliment you on Crazy Hair than to get your signature on something.
  

    
Question: What's there to do in Portland on a Saturday night?
Answer: Drive to Seattle.

*grins*

-Kelly, who lived in Portland and Eugene for a while after living in
the Bay Area, before moving to Reno where she lived before moving to
Seattle,...