Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Thanks very much to everyone for their warm thoughts and support.  It
was a little scary to be that honest, and I really appreciate how
fabulous you all are.  

I think the hardest thing about living the wrong life is how lost I
feel, sometimes.  I can get so far away from myself, and lose the crumb
trail of inner voices that lead me back.  It's dark there.

Maure: I'm really hoping you're right about conflict getting the
creativity burning, and that this is part of the "cooking" process for
some good stuff.

Mary: Back at ya.  WE CAN DO IT!

Rick: ACK!!!  For what it's worth... out of my own experience with
where I'm at right now, it seems to me that the place you're leaving in
life always clutches hardest just before it lets you go.  So, I'm kind
of looking at the apparent "disasters" as the dark before the dawn
sort of thing.  I dunno why it works that way, but my friend says I'm
not crazy; it does, sometimes, especially when the change is deep and
large.
  

    
Well, that deer may end up being a "blessing in disguise" kinda thing.
 Since my car will be in the shop indefinitely (there was some damage
to the cooling system - maybe just the fan - and the car tried to
overheat on the way to the dealer, so I pulled off and called AAA), my
boss (The Greatest Boss in the World (TM)) has offered the use of the
company car that he drives until I get the move done.

Car I drive:  1993 Honda Civic Si hatchback
Company Car:  Ford Taurus Station Wagon

I think I see far fewer trips involved in moving, since the Taurus is
pretty cavernous inside.  My Honda can carry an amazing amount of
stuff, but still...........

Everybody who sees the car agrees that I got VERY lucky - a big buck
under the same circumstances would have totalled my car, and probably
done some harm to me, as well.  At the body shop, there was a Monte
Carlo which appeared to have jumped a curb (both driver's side tires
were blown, with damaged wheels) and plowed head-on into a telephone
pole.  Both airbags had deployed, and you could clearly see that both
occupants had still hit the windshield - it was totally shattered,
spider-webs of cracks radiating out from the impact points.  I'm very
glad I wasn't in THAT car.

If all goes well with my car, it will cost me $300 (my Comprehensive
deductible) and I may get the car back better than it was before I hit
the deer.  We'll see how it goes.

Pamela - like you, I wasn't sure whether to post of my recent troubles
here, but decided to in the end.  The support and encouragement I
received really helped me get through the last week, and really served
to drive home the point that you won't find a better group of people
anywhere.  Back when Neil was leaving GEnie, I complimented him and the
rest of the regulars on creating a place that exemplified the best of
what an online community can be, and it's wonderful to see that reborn
here.

So, that being said, if you need anything, even just a word of
encouragement on a difficult day, we're all here for you.  That's how
the place works - we all try to put good energy in when we have it to
give, knowing that someday we may need to ask for some to be sent our
way.  It's a community in the best sense of the word - a group of
people who care for and help each other.  We have fun when times are
good, and we pick each other up when it's needed.   
  

    
Maure~Virginia is closer; I live in Tennessee.

DanGuy~ the MetroPulse is our arts/entertainment/politics and most
importantly, News of the Weird paper in Knoxville.
  

    

squeaks- I'm actually named partially after an artist and partially after
one of that artist's songs. I've still never heard the song. So being named
in such a fashion doesn't necessarily mean it's going to have a huge effect
on one's life. <g>
(My middle name is Jackson. I'm not named _for_ Jackson Browne but he's why
my parents thought the name was cool. My father claims my first name is Adam
after the JB song, and my mother claims he's full of it. Take this how you
will.)

Leather jackets at Disney- do you people realize how incredibly popular
Disney is with goths? There were dozens and dozens at Disneyland when I was
there a few weeks ago. They were very cute.
  

    
Maure:  Yet another thing I want to try with my microwave! Peeps, then
leprecaun hats...I am charmed by the amazingly neat things I learn
here.

Jo:  Oh!  What will your doctorate be in?  I can't wait until you find
out!  Please let us know, and forgive me for forgetting if you've
already mentioned it...

Neil:  Easy to read!  Oh, that's so lovely!  Thank you!  And thank you
for the mention on your faq.  And I'm so glad you realised I was
teasing...I was worried about that.

JaNell:  I am extremely put out with that guy for going behind your
back!  I've typed about three things and erased them, so just know that
you have my complete sympathy, since it's obvious I can't come up with
anything constructive.  :D

Pamela - Your description of how you feel right (then) was really
amazing, because I often feel that way, but have a hard time putting
words to it.  I understand about needing to talk about things, and as
everyone has said, don't be shy!  tell us!  But if you are, you - or
anyone here - can email me.  I am a good listener, and sometimes, even,
I have something wise to say.

The Disney trip sounds like a blast!  I went to WD World, and thought
it was really wonderful.  The thought of the haunted mansion dressed up
by Jack Skellington makes me terribly desirerus to see it again...

Now I am going to go work on my website.

Ninave!
  

    
JaNell - Ugh on the interview thing, ditto what everyone else has
said.

Pamela - the thing one must remember though, is to _not_ soak them
with lighter fluid and ignite them.  Boy, is my face red.

So I just watched the Sound of Music for the first time in years and
it occurs to me that Captain Van Trapp is a very very scary man.  He's
all with the staring and the creepiness.

I've never been to disneyland or world, one of those lots of people
places.  I've never felt the desire to either, but now I've got visions
of Nightmare in my head and I suddenly want to go.

Jen, who forgot to buy Peeps, but who managed to get through this
whole post without a smiley.
  

    
I love The Sound of Music. It was one of my favorite movies as a kid.
I rented it fairly recently. Annoyed the husband singing along.... 

Janell- Glad everything turned out okay....but why would there have
been law suits? 

Rick- I'm glad/ I hope everything is working out okay. I hate that
situation. Oh...bad memories. Deer included. 

Technology is Against Me. I'm not paranoid. It really is. My computer
keeps crashing...spent four hours last night writing the best story I
have ever written. Gone before I could save it to disk. Everything
keeps crashing, freezing up, changing colors and size for no particular
reason. I believe it's Windows '98. My printer won't work either. It
turns on, but when I go to print it says there's an error in sending
the document to the printer. It's plugged in correctly. I even
uninstalled-reinstalled it. I'm stumped. 
VCR ate my Tori Complete Videos Collection. And Jess' machine that he
uses to master his four track tapes broke as he was mastering a demo
for Mute Records. Figures. Jess and I are at creative peaks and
everything breaks and we are poor. Blast. I may re-boot the compy
tonight. I'm re-writing my story now, saving it to disk every
paragraph. It sucks Having to re-write something you've already written
from memory. It just doesn't seem as good as the first one. 
Squeaks- Jess wants to know if there's any trick to mastering a four
track tape to a regular tape on a plain old stereo. He's trying it now
but it keeps coming out either too trebely or too bassy. I don't know
if this makes any sense.
My brain has pooped out on me as well. 

Neil- Glad to hear that the Murder Mysteries script is good. I hope it
gets made. And for that matter, glad to hear about all of the other
literary accomplishments you've made lately. Pretty soon the world will
be full of Gaiman :) (even moreso than now.) And it's always good to
read the journal and see that you're still recommending OUT OF PRINT
books! :P

Oh geez....now my keys are sticking! I have to re-type almost every
word at least once. What the hell is going on!?

{runs away and cries}
  

    
A light has gone out of the world.

I've been a George Harrison fan for 22 years--I was 14 when I bought
his self-titled 1979 album.  I don't know what grabbed me--I was a KISS
fan, for God's sake!--but I bought as many of his other records (and
yes, they were records, back then) as I could get my hands on and
memorized every note.  Then I moved on to the Beatles, and bought them
all.  This was *not* a cool thing to do in the late 70s in the South. 
Something about the lyrics--nobody wrote about God like George.  And
when he played one of those polished, perfect *melodic* solos--lyrical,
simple, pristine (check out "Beautiful Girl" from 33 1/3 if you don't
believe me) you could hear his soul.  He was my hero because he *had no
talent for it*--by his own admission.  He just wanted to play guitar
so badly that he kept trying when anyone else would have quit.  He was
no prodigy.  Everything he achieved was earned by sweat & blood--his
mother said that she would help him try to learn chords out of a
beginner book and he would play until his fingers bled.  That's what
learning to play the flute was like for me--I figured out very early on
that this came easy to some people, but that I had to practice and
practice and practice.  And I loved it because I could finally make
music (maybe not well, but it was *mine* dammit).  And I realized, when
I read about George, that you could actually make it from sheer hard
work--not perfect pitch, or dexterous hands, but grueling hours
overcoming your own imperfections.  If you wanted it badly enough.

And he said, "They call you Christ, Vishnu, Buddha, Jehovah, Our Lord.
 You are Govindam, Bismillah, Creator of All".  And I had to stretch
my head to get it around that idea and it changed the way I thought
forever.

And he said, 
"All I've got to do is to love You,
All I've got to be is be happy
All it's got to take is some warmth
To make it Blow Away, Blow Away, Blow Away".

And if I could find a better motto, I'd use it.  But for 22 years,
that has pretty much summed it up.

I saw "Life of Brian" for the first time because he produced it!  I
still want to see "Withnail & I" for the same reason.  He's led me down
100 paths.....

I feel lost.  I've been dreading this day ever since the awful day I
woke up to find that I lived in a world without John Lennon.

A world without George is gonna be a little darker, and not nearly as
much fun.  And I wish I didn't have to live in it.
  

    
Mary - beautifully done; don't think I've heard or read a better
tribute, and there have been many over the past 36 hours.
  

    
Erynn -- if your keyboard is acting up, I'm not sure what to tell you
other than to try switching to another one.  (If it's a laptop, be sure
to keep the keyboard dry.)   When reinstalling Windows 98, always do it
from a real DOS prompt instead of from the Windows interface.  This allows
all of the drivers to be replaced.  (If you have a bootable CD, you can do
this by setting the computer to boot from the CDROM drive and following
the prompts.)

When I heard the news about George Harrison yesterday, I immediately looked
for my copy of All Things Must Pass ( a couple of great songs on that).  I
didn't find it and made the rounds of local CD shops only to find a copy
of the three-disc lp set in the last store I visited.  They also had a copy
of Anna Russell Sings, Again? which I hadn't seen for a long time.  I
brought both discs home and discovered my original copy of the George
Harrison boxed set inverted on the shelf.  So I returned the one I bought,
figuring that some DJ somewhere might be looking for it.  The local CD
stores were all out.

There's a great collaboration between George and Bob Dylan (If Not for You)
in that collection, as well as My Sweet Lord, Behind That Locked Door,
and others.  I wish more of the Harrison-Dylan collaborations that were
done in 1969 would be released.  They went on to sing with one another
in The Travelling Wilburys, along with Roy Orbison.
  

    
madman - hee hee... the SF area spooks had been arranging a trip to DL
for a month and then went a couple of weeks ago. Funny that you should
run into them there when you live out here. But yes, and I'm sure the
Haunted Mansion was swarming with black clad sillies squealing with
delight for Jack's decorating.

Jen - SoM. The father used to just bug me because he had this really
nice voice... that so completely didn't go with any of the other voices
in the chorus. Now I'm just going to see the staring and start
laughing. ;)

Erynn - Technology is always out to get you. You just have to prove to
it that you don't care and suddenly it will lose interest and only
falter every once in a while when it really can't help it (like when
you spill your orange juice on the trackball because you were laughing
so hard at an email).

Mary - What Rick said. Beautiful. Really, very... I still remember my
parents watching the news and I overheard the reporter telling the
world that John Lennon had been killed. Suddenly news didn't seem so
boring and uninteresting. It was instantly very important. I'm reminded
of that feeling in listening to people discuss all the things Harrison
was responsible for in some way. And a lot more of the little things,
or at least the things that get overlooked, seem as important as they
really are, not just uninteresting stuff that gets forgotten.

And on a completely different railroad - I got the VNV Nation
in-store! Woo hoo! I've been trying to get a decent in-store together
for 3 years, and every time, *something* (tm) went wrong. So this time
I expected nothing, nay, less than nothing (what I expected was a nasty
email from their tour manager). What I got was a last minute "well,
okay, it looks like we can do this after all". So yay for me! If it
weren't for such a lousy day without any George in the store (we ran
out early in the day, and people don't WANT to wait until we get more
in on Tuesday, damnit!), I'd be bouncing.

squeaks, who just finished Little Mermaid, and is now moving on to
Beauty & the Beast
  

    
Rick, Squeaks--thanks.  I started to let it drop, but all of my
friends had heard my wailing and there was no one else to listen to
more of the same :-).  You guys are a great captive audience!

The Barking Mad Bookshopping Binge is over.  And, oh, was it ugly! 
When the dust settled, there was not one book left by John M. Ford in
The Stars Our Destination (fear not, they've probably already
re-ordered The Last Hot Time) and supplies at a neighboring B&N were
depleted as well.  I got LHT, HMFJTP?, The Final Reflection, and Web of
Angels.  Thanks for the tip, Will--went into B&N & found both Trek
books.  And I finally got a copy of Amazing Maurice & His Educated
Rodents.

(Note to all publishers reading this: not only did I recently order
the deluxe edition of Last Hero, but my friend Debbie bought both Terry
Pratchett books today.  People *will* buy more than one book by the
same author if they are released close together.  Like, say, a
Coraline, and oh, I don't know ....Wolves in the Walls? )

Who's hinting?  I never hint!  ;-)

OK, off to read more <leroy>--Linda, you rock for pointing me there,
but it is making me so homesick it ain't even funny! And then I'll try
desperately *not* to start any of the fab stuff I bought today until I
finish the Tobin (which is ...OK...I guess.  Not great, but definitely
more readable and less contentious than Bury.  And *Tobin* has English
translations of the documents in the appendices, so you can read them
for yourself.)  M.    
  

    
Oh, meant to say--Lenny--isn't that a great album?  My turntable is
broken, and I have it on vinyl, so I'm yearning to hear it--maybe I
should hint for the newly remixed CD for Christmas......I love the
title track, and everything you mentioned, and lots of other stuff on
it.  Very kind of you to return the one you bought--someone else will
hopefully get turned on to it.

Cannot stress strongly enough--if anyone is shopping for George stuff,
try 33 1/3.  It's got "This Song" and "Crackerbox Palace" and a lot of
other great stuff on it.  He did it in 1976, and it's a terrific
album.

This ends the PSA by the obsessed fangirl.
  

    
Re: Neil's Blogger Entry About Karen Vess

Y'all, do go to  http://www.greenmanpress.com/merch/prints.html and
order some neat stuff, and leave a "Hey" at Charles' guest book. They
both came to ConCat last year, and Karen is very sweet and Charles is
fun. Living with that kind of constant back pain myself, although from
scoliosis rather than a car accident (although those sure didn't
help!), I can assure you that it's deceptively debilitating, and the
most effective treatments are usually not covered by insurance. Buying
directly from Green Man Press helps more than buying anywhere else and
you get to tool around the website, too.
  

    
Well, I've managed to catch the throat cold that's been going around.
Fortunately, I was advised last night that zinc lozanges would smack it
down to wherever colds come from, so I spent today sleeping, sucking
zinc, and reading The Final Reflection.

Mike - Really great stuff. I thought several times while reading this
and HMFJTP? about your comment about writing for a francise. In
particular your comment about only doing it if you have a story you're
really interested in telling. Clearly, you did. Even more delightful
was the fact that if I hadn't specifically gotten these books because
they were yours, I wouldn't have realized that they were by the same
author. Also, I'm particularly interested in some of the stuff you did
in The Final Reflection that ended up in some of the later Trek movies
(Six, in particular).

On the minus side, however, I haven't gotten any of the work done
today I had been hoping to and it's all your fault for writing such
nifty books.

Bastard.
  

    
I just spent too long drooling at the greenmanpress web site,... oh
my, I know where some of my money is going. And I might try for those
beautiful Stardust prints, my!

Pamela - I know what you mean. I'm trying to move my employment life
more along the lines of what I want to do, and not something that sucks
the life out of me every time I step foot into work. Unfortunately, I
just don't know how to do that - and fortunately, I have some friends
who do "art" full time, and are willing to give me a bit of guidance.
Good luck to you - jumping tracks isn't easy, but I'm convinced it will
be most rewarding in the end.

Squeaks,... *looks around* *holds up VNV tickets for next Saturday* 
I'm not sure why I'm surprised there is another VNV fan here,... but I
did doubletake at that.  :-) The new song has been in heavy rotation at
the clubs, and I'm quite excited (except I'm more excited about seeing
Poe tonight). I'm also peeved that VNV/Apop toured together last year,
and didn't have the decency to come up here. *grump*
-Kelly, really tangental
  

    
Dear squeaks, AKIMHA Good Mistress Mousey Accost, you have my utter and
total permission to post the Peeps Jousting thing on your website, as long
as you identify the guilty, i.e. me. For that matter, I hereby give
permission to anyone who reads this to include that quote on their website
or their whatever, as long as my name goes with it, as long as y'ain't
making money off it, and as long as the attribution is of the form  " (c)
Elise Matthesen 2001; reprinted by permission of the author", and you can
feel free to put my email there if you like, if y'think anybody else would
like to spread the concept of Peeps Jousting further. (I get a kick out of
seeing how far things propagate.)

Maure, I like the leprechaun hat thing - must try it sometime. Even more,
though, I like the kids attributing everything that happens for the next
howeverlong to the leprechauns!

Pamela, I know not why these things come to pass; I just writes 'em down
when they do. There's a Mark Twain quote I heard once, of which I am
terribly fond, that goes like this:

"I just exude the stuff, as the otter exudes the precious otter of roses."

Singer and fun... well, they resemble that remark. And that's an inspiration
to me, as are other funsters. Some of whom hang out hereabouts, in fact.

More fun!  Beertender, fun all around!  <says the lioness, falling into an
exhausted semicoherent heap after doing many hours of drumming-and-chanting-
and-storytelling today for an Event....>
  

    
Neil: I have another question to relay from a friend...

She said: preface: I would like a yes or no answer only.
Do you know what happened to the first Despair?
  

    
JaNell,  I don't know why I thought you lived in Texas. I remember you
telling me you lived in the really bad sushi story's location, and I
know that's Knoxville. I think it's because I met someone at the
Humanities Fest who was from Texas, and got her origins mixed up with
yours. I don't know. It doesn't matter, though, because PSU lost, so no
bowl game this year. 

Ninave,  I cook the hats in the oven for a few moments. I don't know
whether or not it would work in a microwave. It might! I love the
things you can learn here too.

Pamela,  That's the part I love best too - I feel like I'm sustaining
the imagination and belief of 20-something children every year. It's
great fun.
  

    
rarrrrgh. I wrote Pamela, I meant Elise. Chalk it up to being in the
car for too long - it's mind-numbing after about six hours. It was
absolutely lovely in Virginia though. December 1st, and it felt like
the very beginning of Fall, when the ground is still warm with Summer.
And although it would have been fun to go to San Antonio to see RJ in a
bowl game, now he gets to come back for Xmas. It will be the first
time our family has been able to be together for Xmas in three years.
Yay!
  

    
<lioness> - So something like this
http://www.snafu.org/michelle/gothy.htm is okay? :) (And if anyone is
wondering, my friend Marisa is sickly into peepage and so inspired the
update to the page.)

Kelly - It's all happening so last minute... I'm just glad I'm friends
with the venue's manager, or I'd be falling apart thinking I'm
forgetting something crucial. And the whole hubbub about getting
everything we can out of the opportunity has me nearly stepping on the
toes of the other employees to get the scoop (the journalism bug,
dormant for nearly 10 years now, has awakened from its extended
hibernation, and man, is it hungry). After telling one co-worker
(James) he could do the interview, and telling another that she could
go on the ride to pick them up if there is room, I started doing my
research and I've already written up the interview and the opening
paragraph (background and bio info) of the article for our store paper.
 I'm just glad that James a)is a good friend, b)knows how big a deal
this is for me, and c)is happy to let me do much of the gruntwork as
long as he can edit/veto it in the end. And don't get me started on
Apop just now. I'm in one of those snippy moods with them and was
reminded earlier today that if I don't have something nice to say...

squeaks, who untwisted her bangs and was happily surprised at how much
hair didn't get ripped out of her head.
  

    
Mary - That was a lovely and moving tribute to George Harrison. 

Funny how you remember where you were when these things happen. I was
in college when Lennon died. I remember answering the dorm phone,
hearing the sad news..and thinking it was somone's idea of a sick
joke...until I turned on the TV. 

Felt like Cassandra bringing bad news to everyone else. Nobody wanted
to believe.  It took TV to convince them.

Didn't need that with George, we knew he was ill.  But just the same,
another Beatle gone.  Feels like some part of a dream has died.

VH1 is playing an unusually long interview [for him] that he did with
John Fuglesang.  The overall theme was...all you need is love. 

Breaks my heart.
  

    
Squeaks, that is very okay.

And I fell over laughing when I got to "Zen Buddhist with a Lite Brite", on
a nearby page.

And I wantwant*want* stripey stockings like Kalico's in her Little Elsie
costume....

<also nodding at what Rocky said about what Mary said abt George Harrison>
  

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

    
I just read Neils raptor entry with some, well, for lack of better
word, wry amusement. I worked in wildlife rehab - in fact, there are
enough Bay Area people here someone probably knows where (the Youth
Science Institute in Alum Rock Park) - for oh, 6 or 7 years - most of
my teens. I started out cleaning cages, and worked my way up to
strictly doing raptor handling and rehab - I nursed wild owls and hawks
back to health and released them, I took our house birds on walks,
flights, school trips, etc. And like the ricketty owl, we had some real
"cases".

Borac (red tailed hawk) was shot and left for dead on the side of the
road. He was missing his right wing at the shoulder, battled an
infection off and on for five years, and spent every day outside
trying, desparately to fly. He couldn't believe his wing was gone.

Natasha (another hawk) had been shot by a teen with a BB gun, who
thought he could keep her. The wound wasn't bad, but the lack of
attention was - by the time we got her, there was no healing the break.
She still loved to fly, even if it was only for a few feet and wobbly.

Princess (great horned owl) was blind in both eyes; old and sick.
She'd been there as long as anyone could remember, and we closed in
mourning the day she died.

Prince (great horned owl) had been her companion - stately, majestic,
and a favourite with the kids. He was also a pig, and really loved his
(thawed and stuffed with vitamins) chicks.

Flower was a barn owl, tiny and gentle. A favourite with the
volunteers, especially the new ones, because he loved to cuddle and
have his head scratched. He purred.

Casper was the barn owl after Flower died, and he was an escape
artist. Most mornings, he had untied his jesses and was up in the
rafters - even when we switched to metal ring clips, he undid them.
When he was really feeling impish, he'd untie the other birds, too.

Otto was my favourite. We got her from the San Diego Zoo - she had
been born in captivity. A barred owl (relative to the Pacific Northwest
spotted owl), we had mistakenly sexed her as male, hence the name. She
was my baby - we spent almost every working hour together. I had a
denim jacket she "teethed" on, she ripped out the flesh between my
thumb and middle finger one afternoon when she was mad at me. She
hooted when she saw me, and if Casper had set her free in the night,
she would almost immediately fly down to perch on my outstretched arm.

I visited YSI several years after I had just up and left - politics
had gotten too thick, and it was too painful a place to be. Two
factions had risen and were warring over the most basic things, and
sucked the life out of the entire place. When I went back, only one
person "of the day" remained - the one I'd been most fond of. She led
me around the facility, showed me who was new, who was still there, the
graves of those that had died while I was gone. And she let me in the
flight habitat we had finished building before I left - a place for the
flight capable birds to go for a month long vacation from the public,
where they could simply fly and be birds. Otto was in there that month.
And she hooted when she saw me.

*smiles* Thanks for a few words that brought back such strong
memories,... (and thanks to those of you who actually read it, hehe).
-Kelly