Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
"These are not my scary trousers"...
I like that. I would buy it. 

I just picked up an extra waitressing shift so I can buy books and fun
stuff and get caught up. I'm so behind. Thursday used to be my day
off. I told my regulars to start coming Thursdays and tip me generously
so that I can buy books. They think I'm nuts, but some of them came
anyway and agreed to keep coming, with the understanding that I give
them full reviews of the books I buy. Sounds fair to me.

Squeaks- I always forget about staying on topic. Someone needs to
red-flag me when I go off on my ridiculous tangents. That said, Peter
Murphy is in my top ten favorite musicians AND top ten live performers.
I can't wait till the new album and show! I missed Daniel when he came
here a few months ago because Concrete Blonde came around the same
time and I could only afford one of them. I chose the latter, and I
don't regret it. But..*sigh*.... Oh well, he'll probably come through
here again. Hopefully.

Linda- Thanks. I'll check it out. 

Dan- Now if I could only see your shows....but maybe..Oh!
***Bay area people- I have a friend who just got accepted to grad
school in SF and he wanted me to ask you guys if you could recommend
"cheap" areas to live. He's been talking about the Warehouse District,
but wanted more imput. And with him moving there soon I'll have a yet
another reason to visit! {does happy jiggityjig}
  

    
Opps. I accidently clicked the Post button, and then AOL disconnected
me without my permission. 

Maure- Happy Birthday! 

Okie. Bye-bye.
  

    
After reading Nel's post at www.neilgaiman,com/journal , and Caitlin's
hilarious account of Sunday evening's misadventures, I feel compelled
to say one thing:

It wasn't me.  Honest.  I am a redhead, but I can find my way around
town, and besides, I don't have a car.

<<Whew>>

I feel better.

Maure--Happy Birthday!  I'm glad it was a good day.  <<sings>> "And
many maure..."  Ooooo, sorry about the bad pun.  It just sorta slipped
in there ;-)

Mary (reading The Sandman Book of Dreams--my God, can that Caitlin
Kiernan *write*)
  

    
Oh, good Gad.

That's www.neilgaiman.com/journal .

I am a chowderhead.
  

    
maure -- unless there's a strict "street date" most books and CDs
drift into the stores several weeks before their release date.

Shawn -- you're welcome.

Mary -- ah, that was just to throw people off the scent, so as not to
embarrass our driver too much. She wasn't a red-head at all.
  

    
Linda - i take it back. You aren't a brat. Now put the voodoo doll
away. I look like I got stung by a bee on my eyeball!

Neil - (re: the blog that isn't yours and that Sunday Night). You won
a three eared, eight legged, purple bug-eyed bunny rabbit? Wow...
that's almost as cool as my friend's Zaphod Beeblebear. (Blue, two
headed, three armed, with an eyepatch.)

Linda - Don't sweat it. Next time at your place would be groovy... all
ya gotta do is send out the invitations! I'd love to see your place.

Maure - Happy Birthday! and yes... Clowns WILL eat you.

Elise - Yay purple hair! I was going to do mine blue after the show
closed, but now I have to be 1940's british for June so it's going to
have to go back to red or maybe a reddish brown.

Erynn - Depends on how you define cheap. I live in a very nice part of
Oakland and am paying $900 a month for a one-bedroom. Your friend
would do well to check out www.craigslist.org
  

    
Note to self:  if ever meeting Neil, don't take him on scary car ride
to Cheese Country.  Just don't do it.

Maure, I hope you had a most excellent birthday, and I'm glad random
people are doing favors for you.  I will do one too, if you want one? 
Do you want one?  DO YOU?  
  

    
Thank you for happy wishes!

Mary,  dear god, woman! The puns are killing me! No maure!

Dan,  The only clown that has ever seriously frightened me is this one
who followed my sister and I, when I was 15, around the French
Quarter, growling, "You wanna balloon? Any kind of animal." over and
over again in varying tones. He was sweaty and his makeup was melting
grotesquely, and he was smoking and folding balloons into animals. We
only lost him after more than a half hour had passed, and only then by
ducking into Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville Cafe. Desperate situations
call for desperate measures. He probably thought it was funny as hell
that two goofy little girls were horrified by him.

Adriana,  teeheehee, no thank you.
  

    
neil: read Cait's journal, and my first thought was "Oh. Depending on
what time of night it was, they prolly passed the Backflip Boy on his
way home to Twin Lakes. Well, that, and "and Russell Road is the exit
for Faire..." where the Mars Cheese Castle sign is.  Because that's
just about the only reason I cross the border.

and one weird question--on her homepage, saw it was spelled with a
thingie on the 2nd 'i'. does that mean she pronounces it "Kathleen"
like it's spelled? Or is it "Kate-lynn" as if there were no thingie on
the 2nd 'i'?

maure: eeeeep! now I must have a birthday party, and sing "joxer the
mighty" (which I sing instead of the birthday song) and give you
penguins! also, what would you like me to feed you tonight?

all: okay, was noodling about, and have three simple designs for
shirts. also, it should be noted that my Indian Name is "has That Font"
and believe me, I will have a dozen otehrs by next week I'm sure, but
I just have a fondeness for Good Dog Plain today. I stuck 'em on 3
diff. types of shirts that cafepress has, just to make life simple. 
http://ljconstantine.com/wellians

I'm thinking, we can do more than 1 shirt. Heck, we can do a number of
shirts. And if we end up with 6 different scary trousers or
lemon-scented sticky bat shirts we all love, I say yay us!
  

    
Tara,  you don't have to give me anything, altough you seem to have
discovered my weakness for penguins . . . I do have something for you,
however. I hope you don't already have one. Am I seeing you tonight?!
What are we doing??
  

    
maure: erm, getting a massage from Sonnett? or were those the emails
that bounced because I can't spell balihoo properly? Erm, in that case:
hey, wanna come over and get a free massage tonight?
  

    
Tara,  didn't get them!! Ok, ok, no more tomfoolery, no more ballyhoo
(or balihoo, as it were. Or as it is.) You can also use
maureluke@aol.com    if that's easier. That one's on the laptop, too,
so it's as easy for me to check as egregiousbalihoo is. Yes, I would
like to come over tonight. I have to pick up Megan from work (she has a
dead car), and I'm not sure when that is, so I'll find out and call
your cell sometime after school.
  

    
Linda - Kilns are extremely fun but I've had bad luck abounds with
them in the past. Several projects back in school were interred in our
magic little kiln as kingly vases and pieces of high art, only to be
spat out as small lumpish things that looked almost like crumbley Pap
Smurfs. :( 

Maure - a very happy belated birthday, I hope it turned out well! My
personal vote for most scary clown wasn't even in person. Tim Curry in
the IT miniseries kept me awake for most of the 90's.
  

    
Tara - I like Scary Trousers (1)... but I want something else than the
skull... I want... I want... shoot. I don't know what I want. I want
trousers with bad hair and big teeth and tentacles! However, since I'm
not prepared to draw them and send them to you I don't feel I can ask
for that.
  

    
Maure - I'd love to start a school with you, but first I need to grow
up a little... at the moment, I'm still one of the children attending
it. :) In the meantime, happy belations, and beware of French Quarter
scary people. I lost any fear I had of any clowns when the bunch we had
in Thunderdome last year started chanting "2 clowns enter, 12 clowns
leave!"

Dan - For a 'no-guilt' post, that was mean. :P I'll just have to get
you back the next time by reading something truly silly. Hope your eye
is normal-looking now. Allergies are utter ick!

Linda - So long as none of *us* end up in the kiln... :D

These are not my scary trousers, indeed. Actually, Elise, I believe
you have given me my new newsgroup .sig (*and* I've got Talking Heads
in my head... Ooh, completely random aside because it's got David Byrne
in it. Friend of a friend was relating a story about David Byrne
attending a karaoke bar for some party. Someone got him to go up on
stage to sing to one of his own songs. Ended up messing it up because
some of the words and timing were off. I'm just imagining the look on
his face if the line "These are not my scary trousers" popped up on the
screen. Just what would David Byrne say to that, eh?) Oh, and as was
once signed in a book I got (not by Neil tho') "Purple is good". Now
all we need are photos. 

Erynn - There's a topic here? ;) I'm debating going to Peter Murphy.
I'm already going to VNV, and I actually have to pay for shows now,
after not having to in YEARS, so it's hitting me as being much more
costly than it probably seems to most people. As for Daniel Ash - he
didn't play my favourite song (not that I expected him to, I mean, how
many people even know what "Not So Fast" sounds like?), but he did do a
couple of Love & Rockets and Tones on Tail numbers, and the crowd was
small, but devoted, so when he stopped singing, the rest of us just
kept going instead of leaving it up to crickets or something. It was
good.

Eep! Just read Cait's journal. Yipes! Let me declare right here and
now that anyone who comes to San Francisco for sushi with me will, at
worst, only be lost within blocks of the restaurant (and *that* usually
from having to park down back alleys I don't otherwise notice).
Speaking of sushi, I've just been told where one of the best places in
SF is - er, shown, that is. There's no sign on the restaurant, so I'd
have never found it on my own. Now to taste test it for myself! :)

squeaks, who really should finish hooking up her printer, which is the
only reason she turned on the computer in the first place (3 hrs ago)
  

    
Morning all,...I experienced my very first earthquake this morning at
6:50,...I thought the boy was just uncomfortable. Now all this wouldn't
be so odd, if I didn't live in Connecticut. 

Squeaks,....I have no idea how you do it, but this just proves my
point. I may visit CA, but I will never live there. I get all the
excitement here.

re: Cait's journal,.....I have been on trips like that,...thankfully
never driving. In fact the one and only time I ever had Neil in my car
I was so paranoid about screwing up,..that I got directions 3 times and
prolly held my breath the whole time.
  

    
In hiding again, writing. If you get any long replies from me you'll
know that I'm stuck. 

"These are not my scary trousers." Indeed.
  

    
jinxie - I'd have said the same of living in the south with all those
hurricanes plugging through, until I was actually in NOLA during the
Georges scare. Most of the earthquakes out here are pretty silly and
laughable and almost the only people who tend to notice them are people
with loose pets or people who aren't from around here. It's those very
occasional larger variety (5+, and I think I heard yours was just over
5) that tend to be spooky and you're glad they just don't happen very
often. I think I've only been in two that were kinda big; the
5.something was all kinds of creepy because it went on for what felt
like minutes, and Loma Prieta (7.1) which didn't creep me out while it
was happening, but seriously shattered my nerves when I realized
several hours later how much damage it did. 

I'm just glad I'm not living on top of the Hayward Fault any more.
They've been predicting that California's next 'big one' will be along
the Hayward - and they've been saying it'll happen any day now for
YEARS.

squeaks, who has managed to spill icewater all over herself and must
now change. bye!
  

    
Elise:  Congrats on the bass playing.  I've been meaning to
dabble, myself. There's an old Harmony 4-string that I picked up
at a pawnshop been sitting dormant in my
living room for a number of years.  There's a basic bass
tutorial at http://free.prohosting.com/~basspgs/less2.html which
I've been attempting to follow.  (FWIW, I've been playing guitar
a bit more.  There's a version of a song I sang at Minicon
up on my website at http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~lennyb/party3.mp3 )

Closer to the general Goldfish spirit -- I've just read
Susannah Clarke's story, "Tom Brightwind" in Starlight No. 3,
and was impressed by it.  (Susan Palwick has a devastating story
in the same collection.) I recommend the Clarke story if you're in
a downbeat mood and want to be cheered up, and the Palwick story,
if you're in a complacent mood.
  

    
Shawn,  thank you! Yes, he was a very good creepy clown. 

Squeaks,  that's ok, I'm not going to open my own school anyway. It
would be a darn good school, though, I think.

everyone,  I went to see MORT with Tara, Mary, Debbie, Chris, Megan
(my sister), and two non-Well friends. It was very entertaining, but
the afterwards bit at Tara's was my favorite part of the night. I love
these guys! We ate Tara's magnificent chili before the play, and after
it we drank tea, and ate tarts and little schoolboys (sounds
subversive, doesn't it? teehee). We talked until 3 something am. We
laughed a lot. I was given wonderful presents! We watched Jackie Chan
hurt himself badly on burning coals. A grand time was had by all!

Mary, Tara, and Debbie,  Megan raved about you all the way home. She
says Chris is *very* cool, and that his mind is a steel trap. She says
that hanging out with you for one night has raised her IQ several
points. We Lukes have a tendency to sound hyperbolic when we are very
happy - but she means it. And so do I.
  

    
E-mail from JaNell:

All the Wellsians who were at WorldHorror, I'm upset that I didn't get 
to meet you after all these months...
I found out after that I actually sat behind y'all at least once in a 
panel and talked to people you were standing with at various times 
throughout the weekend.
Somehow we never managed to get introduced...

JaNell
  

    
... who is currently trying to rebalance her budget after spending too
much at WonderCon yesterday, where I actually didn't see a single
person I knew who wasn't exhibiting in some way. It wouldn't have been
such a big deal, only with all the discussion of Well peeps meeting up,
and I almost *always* run into Tom Galloway or someone else from the
newsgroup out there every year... bizarre.

Anyone read today's journal? Yay for Punch and Judy! :)

Maure - You're making me jealous for travel and meeting other thingies
and Well peeps. ;) Oh, and so you know, your 'thing' is done (just in
time for your belated birthday!) and it'll be out the door just as soon
as I figure out how to send it without damaging it!

squeaks, who has nothing to say, but really doesn't want to do her
housework either.
  

    

Hi squeaks.  

Also, let me just report that the kiln experiment is proceeding well,
although I have yet to accomplish a full-fuse.  I am on a mission!  I am a 
woman obsessed with making tiny dishes and the first pre-requisite is 
full-fused components.  So I'm busy over here fusing away if you need me.
  

    
Quick request for info -- Bob Weinberg mentioned to me at World Horror
that his wife had seen a list of the ten most re-read novels, he
thought in USA Today but wasn't sure, and Good Omens was on the list.
Anyone seen this, or know about it, as I wanted to send it to T.
Gilliam.
  

    
Squeaks,  that's fantastic! I can't wait to see what you've done!! And
take comfort in the thought that I am jealous of all the times
*you've* gathered with super cool people, and am jealous of the people
who get to gather with you. 

This has probably been my favorite birthday ever (and it seems to have
stretched out into a week, which is part of it). Tonight I was invited
for a birthday dinner at the home of one of my students. They have an
extrememly cool home, and are interesting and delightful people. At
dinner, we were talking music, and film composers came up. I learned
that Quinton's grandfather started a band in which Howard Shore used to
play in the horn section. In the summers, Quinton and his family get
to tour with the band still. I was informed that Quinton's favorite
part of this is the backstage VIP food. His father made me a decadent
strawberry shortcake birthday cake, and this huge spread of marvelous
food. Between Tara and Quinton's family, I've realized concretely that
I can't cook for beans. But with such people around me, it's not really
something I'll complain about. ;)

Ok. That really *is* the last time I'm mentioning my birthday. I think
all birthday-related revelries are at an end. 

And I'll echo Michelle's Yay! for Punch and Judy . . .