Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
You know, it would be useful if the Well made little decorative pins
with the Well pictures on it. Or maybe everyone going to a signing
could buy a tshirt or maybe a WellPern could take Tshirts for us to buy
and get signed even. And then Neil would always know we were
Wellperns.
  

    
Elise, I found your post endlessly interesting. Of course, that could
be as a result of my undergrad Geology studiesat U-Michigan, including
an entire upper-300-level course called "Permafrost, Snow and Ice." The
class was held in the prof's office, and I was the only student. Very
cool stuff. Cold, even. :)
  

    

We have WELL pins.  You just gotta come to a WELL event to get one.

And, occasionally we have t-shirts.  Sometimes we spontaneously get them
like the time the WELL gave t-shirts to WELL hosts that said "WELL
host" on them and <jef> made us all identical shirts that said "WELL
parasite."  One year they gave out t-shirts at the WELL picnic.  And, on
more than one occasion, somebody will get an idea and then offer them for
sale.  This usually happens in the Dead conferences, for some reason, and
consequently most of the WELL t-shirts have some sort of Grateful Dead
theme, usually a Stealie with some sort of WELL-type logo in the center.

When we were all in PicoSpan, in the old days before the Web, there was a
WELL t-shirt that said Press Space to Continue on the back of it, which is
a great phrase on its own, but it refers to the fact that in Pico, you
press the Space bar to see the next screenful of text.

The only way to find these things - since they aren't officially sponsored
by the WELL - is to get out and about in the WELL outside of inkwell!

If somebody wants to design an inkwell shirt and offer it for sale, that
would be great.
  

    
Don't tempt me, Linda, I seem to be, at least temporarily, out of an
unpaid job...
  

    
The ConCat site stats are telling me that 48% of the people going
there are getting there from the old, defunct site... Aaarrrggh!
That begs the question of "How many people never get to the new site,
at all, once they see that ConCat is canceled?"
And I worked so hard on the new one.

If anyone is interested in such stats, here's the top breakdown:

48% stumbling confusedly out of the old site;
8% somehow wending their way from Neil's Journal;
4.8% desperately escaping my blogger;
4% rising from the dead and shaking off the earth of the KnoxGothic
Message Board;
and 2.9% peeking from the Well.

Hi, all you 2.9%; I'm spying on you!
  

    
JaNell,  re: the compliment - oh my goodness. It was very nice of you
to write that. Utterly crazy, but very nice. 

The best way to stun and/or incapacitate me is to offer a compliment.
It's actually something I'm working on, being able to accept them
graciously. Generally I just run away or sputter stupidly. It's not a
case of low self-esteem. Compliments seem to confuse me. 

(psssssttt... I'm writing out the check now. How much did you say an
outrageous compliment would cost again?)
  

    
$79.50.

Or a good whole house cleaning, whichever.
*warning* Said house is under reconstruction, has 3,000 sq ft not
counting the cellar, a toddler, and no one even remotely resembling a
neat-freak or standard issue housewife or househusband living in it.
  

    

Michelle- Texas Hold 'em?

Dan- I could bring the sword to the next poker night if you like.

I was trapped in Atlanta for about 35 hours Friday and Saturday, when the
evacuated the airport. Fun fun fun. I was so tired Saturday night that I
couldn't get up the energy to try to go somewhere dark enough to see the
meteors- I was, at that point, 2 blocks from Disneyland, and it's a tad
bright there. So I envy everyone who saw lots of meteors.
  

    
Hi again!

Pam:  Yep, it's so much easier to talk with out all those leaves in
front of me....not to mention the branches interferring with my typing.
 ;)

I have no idea how to hide a post,  so if you can't find the Lemony
Bat story, I've told it twice, once to my mother, and once to a
complete stranger who then kinda ran away after that and  have a
capsulated version that I can tell you, so, if you like, you can email
me.

But I think Neil tells the story better, as it happened to him.

Does anyone know of a Fairy Queen other than Titiania?  I want to use
a fairy queen, preferable a not so nice one, in a story, and I don't
want a reader going, "Oh, no, not Titiana again!"  If you happen to
know any off hand, I'd appriciate the direction.  I'm looking in my
various myth books, but just when I get started, I find myself reading
other things, and the next time I look up I've read a bunch of
Cuchulain stories, and it's time for bed.

Ninave
  

    
Ninave~ a quick googling found me
http://www.open-sesame.com/fairyqueens.html;
the whole site is just full of stuff.
  

    
Ninave: Thanks so much for being willing to tell the story. 

Neil: Would you care to tell it, or should I just email Ninave?

Ninave, again:  How about the Irish goddess Áine.  (This is largely
from memory of older research, but you could check some of it out in
Google searches.)  She seems to be associated with the moon, and is a
triple goddess.  There are various sites in Ireland associated with
her, including Cnoc Aine, where there is a stone which could bestow
either poetry or madness on the supplicant.  She is a fertility
goddess, in a rough parallel with Persephone, as she is married to the
king of the Underworld, emerging in the spring, in some stories.  As
the Underworld is the Sidhe homeland, this is where she gets the title
"Fairy Queen."  And she lives as a self-determined woman with multiple
partners the rest of the time.  She's got a classic Irish temper, and
she takes nothin' off nobody.  She's not shy about revenge.  She's also
associated with Cu Gorm, the Greyhound, or "An Cailleach", the Hag.

And umm... I think she's terrific.
  

    
First, Thank you JaNell and Pam!  Oooh....I'll have to check out these
leads, they sound good.

And, from the "I hope I'm not being annoying" files....

THE LEMON BAT STORY

As cutted and pasted from the Original Neil topic!

inkwell.vue 73: Neil Gaiman - SANDMAN:THE DREAM HUNTERS
#174 of 1905: Neil Gaiman (neilgaiman) Tue 20 Jun '00 (10:05 AM)

There. Well, I have a sore throat and am spending a quiet day
listening to the rain (and a Thea Gilmore album, LIPSTICK CONSPIRACIES
-- she's a really fine songwriter), and thought I would mention a
couple of things.

First, Joe Mayhew died on the tenth of June. He was one of those
people I never saw much but really liked -- we'd chat at conventions,
and I'd always look forward to going out to Washington DC for signings
and interviews as I'd run into Joe. He twinkled, and was very wise
when
it came to books. We'd always talk about Gene Wolfe.

Second -- and on a lighter note -- last week Maddy woke me up early in
the morning. 

"Daddy," she said, "There's a bat on the kitchen window."

"Grumphle," I said and went back to sleep.

Soon, she woke me up again. "I did a drawing of the bat on the kitchen
window," she said, and showed me her drawing. For a five year old
she's a very good artist. It was a schematic of the kitchen windows,
showing a bat on one of the windows.

"Very nice dear," I said. Then I went back to sleep.

When I went downstairs...

We have, instead of dangling fly papers, transparent strips of gluey
clear plastic, about six inches long and an inch high, stuck to the
windows on the ground floor. When they accumulate enough flies, you
peel them off hte window and throw them away.

There was a bat stuck to one. He was facing out into the room. "I
think he's dead," said my assistant Lorraine.

I peeled the plastic off the window. The bat hissed at me.

"Nope," I said. "He's fine. Just stuck."

The question then became, how does one get a bat (skin and fur) off a
fly-strip. Luckily, I bethought me of the Bram Stoker award. After the
door had fallen off (see earler in this topic) I had bought some
citrus
solvent to take the old glue to reglue the door on.

So I dripped citrus solvent onto the grumpy bat, edging him off the
plastic with a twig, until a lemen-scented sticky bat crawled onto a
newspaper. Which I put on the top of a high woodpile, and watched the
bat crawl into the logs. With any luck he was as right as rain the
following night...

 
Ninave
And Neil had to do this to bats twice, in that topic.  Neil?  Did it
ever happen again?
  

    
Lemon-scented *sticky* bat.
<said with deep satisfaction>

Madman (and Michelle): Definitely Texas Hold 'Em.

(Which somehow reminds me that I should find the notes for the ranking of
hands in Fluxx Poker, in which it is possible to have eighteen simultaneous
straights in one five-card hand, if I recall correctly. It was very late at
night, or early in the morning, in a cottage in Hay-on-Wye, is all I can say
in self-defense if anyone asks, "Why in Ghod's name would anybody figure out
the hands for Fluxx Poker in the first place?" I blame it on literature,
sentiment, and festive occasion. And goodbad company....)

A T-shirt for wearing to places where we might want to find each other could
be cool, if it were a very cool T-shirt. Hmmm.

Maybe it could say:


              The Barking Mad Gaiman Mob        
                 perpetual world tour:

                    inkwell.vue
                      The WELL
               Neil's readings/ signings
                   Tori's concerts
             the Martha Soukup fan club
                 selected conventions
        alt.fan.thingie and other Thingiespace
                  certain sushi bars
                   a buncha websites
          (including Neil's blogger, among others)
              various clubs and theatres 
        fine vendors of glitter and black raiment
             a surprising number of footnotes
                         and
            too many bookstores to list....



Or something like that.  

Or maybe just 

        lemon scented sticky bat?

I do love that phrase.
  

    
P.S. Maure, I can just imagine Jeremy's scowl. That had me laughin' out
loud!

Linda:  well, even if you don't wear a pseud for the rest of inkwell.vue,
mightn't it be OK for you to slip into one here in this topic, in a sort of
goofy participant-observer solidarity thang?

Or maybe, if T-shirts happen, you could have it written down your sleeve....
  

    
[sorry; forgot two other things. hydra, I calls 'em....]

Linda, purple quartzite is unfortunately not much like amethyst, being
opaque where amethyst is often wonderfully translucent, but it's still a
cool weird purple-pink-gray color, and it has sparkles in it sometimes, if I
recall accurately.

The rocks in those talus piles are still pretty sharp-edged, too, which
makes them even more interesting to look at.

Billbill, it's always good to meet another geology fan. Especially glacial
geology, although other kinds are fun, too.

Being fond of geology and landforms once got us a marvelous tour, in fact;
when Mr. Ford and Juan and I traveled through Brittany a couple years ago,
we were picked up from the train station in the nearest town to Carnac and
driven to the B&B where we would be staying by Monsieur, the husband of the
B&B lady. Monsieur inquired as to whether we had come to Carnac and the
Quiberon peninsula to see the megaliths. I replied in my fragmentary but
enthusiastic French that actually, we had come because we had heard the land
was very beautiful and interesting around here, and I said that there was a
very rare formation, a double tombolo, there, which was a most splendid
thing.

Apparently not being megalith-heads endeared us to Monsieur, because he
beamed and then asked us whether we'd mind taking the long way around and
through town to the B&B on the other side, and whether we'd mind seeing the
megaliths. Which we didn't mind a bit. (In fact, it was rather mind-blowing.
OK, fields of megaliths is one thing. I was sort of ready for that, at least
intellectually. Even fields with hundreds of megaliths. But the town...
which I describe with gestures you will please imagine as being like, "OK,
so it goes megalith, megalith, house, megalith, clothesline pole, other
clothesline pole, megalith, toddler on tricycle, megalith megalith,
house...."   Monsieur said that they no longer allowed people to build
houses among the megaliths.

And he finished up with something I bet he really enjoyed springing on
folks. As we came up to the impasse, the little dead-end side-road thingie
that became the driveway of the B&B, there at the tripartite crossroads was
a French telecom booth, looking very futurismo and technofantasy, and across
from it, looking for all the world as if it somehow served the same purpose,
was a dolmen. A real. dolmen. from. whenever. it. was. that. whoever. build.
them.

"Oh, yes," said Monsieur nonchalantly, as our jaws dropped. "The dolmen."
And he shrugged and smiled and let us out.

The dolmen wasn't even fenced or anything. It was just... just sitting
there.  I ... it was amazing. Very cool.  Old rocks. Pretty much fine.  (And
the next morning I saw a traveler waking up under it, to start his journey
again, which also seemed somehow just right....)

The Atlantis in Wisconsin book asserts that there are megaliths in
Wisconsin. I keep wondering if Neil's put any in the garden yet.
  

    
Double-axled Elise~There are huge free standing stones in places
around here, too. And if you ever come out this way, we'll plan a tour
of the Lost Sea, and Tiftonia Pits near Chattanooga, and such, and then
swing by Franklin, NC to sift for rubies and sapphires and attend the
Gem & Lapidary Wholesale Show, one of my favorite events to spend money
at. Oh, and as we come back, we'll stop at The Front Porch for some
hillbilly/hippie mexican and live bluegrass music.
  

    
Ugh, just got off the plane... again. I know some of you lot do this
all the time, but I'm getting bloody sick of flying back and forth to
Southern California and other such places.
That being said, I'm getting on another plane on Monday to go see a
friend in Portland so I should really stop my bitching.

Madman - Bring any armaments you like... of course, you have to
smuggle them on BART and I think that security is a bit less forgiving
of that kind of thing than they used to be.

Ok, I'm off to go see Amelie! My date for the evening sprained her
clavicle (or something like that, she was loopy on pain meds when I
talked to her) but I'm not waiting to see this movie any longer. I MUST
GO TONIGHT!
  

    
lioness,  I think he scowled all weekend. I asked him how long it took
to perfect it, and he said, "About five seconds after you walked in
the door." And then he laughed while scowling. One time, he went
thirty-seven seconds without scowling. We were duly impressed. He said
we have to come to CONvergence, but I don't know. He seems to have a
sort of glitter fetish. And he did rent porn in my room.

(actually, he only pushed the button after Megan took up a collection
from the willing participants who chose "Nothing But Sex")
  

    
Ninave - Wellcome!  And I can assure you, Wild Turkeys do indeed fly,
and it's a startling sight.

JaNell - So sorry to hear about ConCat, and best wishes for the Con's
future.

Adriana - Your grandmother sounds like an amazing woman.

Elise - Your geological passion is inspiring - it's something I don't
know much about, but you make me want to know more.

Wish I could say that I saw tons of meteors over the weekend
(especially since it was supposedly very clear hereabouts), but I've
been under the weather since sometime Friday night, and was fighting a
sore throat and general congestedness all day on Saturday.  The sore
throat has departed, but the congestion continues.  One wonders if it
is connected in any way to the dog my "room-mate" (also known as
"future ex-wife") brought home on Friday.  Hope not, but I find myself
feeling worse when I'm at home............
  

    
I was thinking of doing black shirts with "Barking Mad" in large
friendly letters for Humanities, but none of y'all were coming, and I
*know* Tara and Debbie, who lurks here.

Pamela-- no, dammit, he shaved before he came.  What a party pooper.
;-)

At some point Neil referred to one of the poor wee things as "grumpy
lemon-scented bat" and it has been a favorite phrase of mine ever
since.

Mary (off to bake!)
Ooo, lots of slippage.  

JaNell--Franklin!  I used to do summer stock in Highlands!  What a
gorgeous place....
  

    
Lionness,... I'll happily talk glacial moraines at any hour of the
day, and so will Mars - he *lived* in Yosemite as a child! (His father
was a ranger,...) Going with him this last summer to Yosmite (the first
time for me) was an amazing treat in glacial power and formation!
Awesome and awe-inspiring,....

I'd write more, but I'm going to give my money to the Harry Potter
Steamroll and RecordWrecking Company now,...  ;-)
-Kelly
  

    
ninave: Without consulting the books (I normall would, but I'm in a
jams and about to turn in) well, there's Queen Mab. Always a popular
choice. Shakespeare liked her, I think, as did Shelley. I think Spencer
made her famous, tho). And Maeve (Medb) can fit the bill too. The
previously mentioned Áine is tres nifty (I used her once in a story.
She was a love goddess, and had a cult and everything), as is Niamh of
the Golden Hair (her what seduced Oisin). 

On the subject of Barking Mad t-shirts...

Well, there's always cafepress.com (tho they don't do black, adn we're
very much a black t-shirt crowd...)

We could have a contest--those who are inclined design shirts, and we
vote on the design we like best, and the design we all like best we put
up at cafepress and make shirts with them, and any profits can go to
the CBLDF.

I like shirts. Only way I could ever spot Enrique Conty or tyg was by
the Suicide Squid shirts. *sigh* mine went missing in one of the moves,
and now I am Suicide Squid-less.
  

    
JaNell, those things you list sound like heaven.

And Tara, Oisin is the one with the sauce named after him, right?
<ducking and running>
  

    <scribbled by dfowlkes Tue 3 Jul 12 10:14>
  

    
Okay...I feel it is time to peep out of hiding.  Horrible amounts of
drama of soap opera proportions have been going on in my life of late,
including but not excluded to someone impersonating me online as
"velvet_raisn" as opposed to "velvet_raisin"...but don't worry, she has
no reason to come here, nor do I think she knows about it...the sad
part is I love the name so much that I can't bear to change it...

Dan Guy--So nice to see the Dazzling New You!  It may just be that you
went over to a Complete account...but to be able to Well without
pointing and clicking?  That's going to be a life changing event!  Let
us know how it goes.  ;)

I want a Mob/Barking Mad/whatever shirt!  I think this is a GREAT
idea!  If I have to sacrifice all and wear a shirt that isn't black by
choice...so be it.  I'm excited.

I had forgotten completely about the Lemon Bat story.  It absolutely
made my day.  :)

Its good to be back (and Hi, Patricia!  I know you are lurking out
there, somewhere!)

Angelina