Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I am slowly recovering from my week-end :) I think I slept until, erm,
noon? Maure gave me (discontinued!!) Wonder Woman Pez! My life is now
complete. Yay, me! The Backflip Boy is on the couch, surfing a DVD full
of HK movie fights. I have been playing with my new toy, a dazzle
bridge, trying to get it to work.  I still can't get sound to capture,
but I did capture my very first video...
http://ljconstantine.com/jehu/backflipboy3.mov and
http://ljconstantine.com/jehu/backflipboy4.mov are scans of Jared doing
the tree flip for the Bristol Ren Faire commercial shoot last year.
Nope, no wires. That's all the Backflip Boy... hence, you know, the
name et al.
  

    
Tara- I can't see the video (something about being unable to download
compressors. Or something.) My computer is probably just being screwy
again. It sounds cool though. 

Squeaks- Go see Peter. Trust me. Try to get to the front of the stage
as well. He's been known to hold people's hand and sing "Fall With Your
Knife" while looking into their eyes. 

Dan- Thanks. I'll tell him. 

I would love to see a Punch and Judy show! I wish I knew a
professor...
  

    
Linda - too bad you can't use pseuds, as I think "woman obsessed with
making tiny dishes" is cute. :) I think we should definitely have a
story night at Linda's sometime, if only to see the great works of
craft she's obsessed with!

Maure - Nothing wrong with letting b-days last a week. I generally
stretch mine out for a month, and I don't even celebrate my birthday.
;)

Tara - Cute vids! Backflip boy indeed... 

Erynn - I dunno, Peter Murphy staring at anyone for any length of time
would probably creep me out. But tickets went on sale yesterday (the
day after I spent too much at WonderCon). We'll see if there are any
left after the next paycheck arrives. If I don't go, you'll have to
bounce giddily for me when you go. 

squeaks, who rather likes that she's on the clock, not working, and
posting things here on the day she tends to garner lots of overtime.
  

    
Squeaks - I'm just mean to you cause you're special. It's a dipping
pigtails in inkwells kind of thing.

Neil - Actually, they ARE *your* scary trousers....

Maure - I am officially jealous you got to see MORT. I can't complain
overmuch, since I saw two shows for free yesterday. Friends of my
parents have season tickets for the Curran (one of the big houses in
SF) and couldn't go see the current show so they gave me the seats.
Then in the evening I got comp'ed for a friends show that was
absolutely devestatingly good... it's called Two Rooms, and is about an
American hostage in Lebanon and his wife, who is torn between the
government's desire for silence and the press' desire for her story.
Absolutely amazing show, and tragically under-attended.

Linda - Tiny dishes?

Tara - Wow... that's impressive!

Dan, who is feeling horribly hung over again...
  

    

Dan - sorry about the hangover.  I will try to talk quietly.

Tiny dishes:  4 inches square.  Yep.  Confession:  these were inspired by
Alton Brown, whose show Good Eats has become my latest passion since
someone suggested that we get him to visit inkwell and talk about his new
book, Just Here for the Food.  So I put TiVo to work.  On his show he has
all these great gizmos, including these tiny dishes that sit patiently
next to the stove piled with the cup of chopped onions, or two teaspoons
of mustard or whatever.  He has all kinds of them; one set is white with
dots like dice.  So one has one dot, and one has two dots, etc.  Now I 
must make tiny dishes.  Can't cook, so I make dishes.

How did you like Stones in his Pockets?  We have tickets for Sunday.
  

    
HOLY cr....WOW!  Actual backflipping! That's amazing.
  

    
Dan--don't be too jealous--it wasn't that good.  It wasn't bad, but a
lot of the humour gets lost in the translation to the stage.  The cast
was fine--no one stuck out as bad, and a couple of folks were quite
good.  But I understand now why the review we read in a local paper
referred to "Terry Pratchett's bumbling wit"  (!)  At first I thought
the reviewer was on crack, but then I saw the show, and understood--if
you don't know PTerry's work, you'd think the sort of lame script was
his fault.  Obviously, it's not, but a *lot* of the magic got lost in
the translation to the stage.  PTerry's *descriptions* are what's so
funny in Discworld, and his narrative voice, and most of that gets
chucked in a script.  Also, it would be pretty difficult to replicate
the breakneck pace of his later books in a theatre.

Has anyone else seen any adaptations of Pratchett?  Neil?  Anybody? 
I'm curious if I'm completely out of my mind, or if anyone else has
noticed this phenomenon.

Last night I went to see the Lakeside Pride Symphonic Band's
(Chicago's gay & lesbian band) spring concert.  I have 2 friends who
are members.  It was called Faerie Tales, and we got The Lord of the
Rings Symphony, Peter & the Wolf, some Grundman & Grainger, and a tuba
concerto with a cadenza that included "Jaws", "If I Only Had a Brain",
"Over the Rainbow" and the Pink Panther Theme.  They finished up with a
medley of Saturday morning cartoon themes that was lots of fun. 

And I passed the teacher certification test.  I got my scores tonight
when I got home.  Yay!

Mary (who has too many books she hasn't read yet, and can't decide
between Mike Ford, Gene Wolfe, or a cheesy U2 book)  
  

    
Dan,  what Mary said. ;)

Mary,  yay for being a teacher!! That's fantastic! The Pink Panther
theme will now be running in my head all day. I think I have time to
watch The Return of the Pink Panther before I have to go to work. Or at
least, some of it. There's an upside to insomnia.
  

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

    
Linda - It's good... I had some issues with it, but I'll talk about
those with you after you've seen it. But it's certainly worth seeing.

Mary&Maure - I haven't seen any of Pratchett's work, but as someone
who has done his fair share of translating someone's prose to the
stage... I completely understand the problem. It's one of the big
reasons why I will choose one story over another. Some stories are
about the dialog and the plot, and others are about the description.
The work I do tends to lean towards the "Word for Word" style, which
involves *keeping* the narration and thus the descriptions. When we did
Troll Bridge, it was every word of Neil's text... the question was who
said what. When did the troll describe himself, when did the man? When
did the trees and the hillsides and the train that puffed like a metal
dragon talk? (The only piece I haven't done this with was We Can Get
Them For You Wholesale, and even then I had Kimball giving some
narrative commentary on Peter Pinter at the beginning.)

I haven't seen the cartoon versions of Discworld, so I don't know if
that translated or not... but I would expect similar problems. If I was
trying to adapt an entire novel of his, I'd probably write in a
narrator and keep enough of the Voice of Discworld to maintain the feel
without making the show 3 hours long.
  

    
Thanks for the warm welcome back, guys, and thanks to everyone's
advice.  I'll wait until I hear from the New Yorker before submitting
the piece further, I've decided; really, I'll be 24 next month, and so
I've plenty of time.

Got my first personal trainer business cards yesterday.  I was
extremely happy, if still a little anxious; we're supposed to be
salesmen for our services and I don't know how I'm going to do with
that.  While I have an outgoing personality, and all, I have a problem
with selling, even if it's just trying to sign someone up for a free
consultation.  And the plans are a little expensive, too, and I don't
know how I can sell it if I couldn't justify it to myself.  But, then,
I'm on a *really* limited budget, and always have been, and I've always
been in better shape than most, so.  <shrug>  We'll see, I guess.

I've never seen any Pratchett adaptations (or many adaptations,
period, at that), but I really don't see how it could be done.  As was
pointed out, much of his wit is in his description and his narrative,
and both of those are the first things chucked when adapting something
to the stage, I'd think.  I mean, you still have plot, but then I've
never thought plot was Pratchett's strong point.  Not that he can't do
it, mind you, but it often seems like *everything else* he's writing is
stronger than his plots.  Of course, that's never been a problem for
me; I've always valued story over plot, and Pratchett's got story in
spades.  So.

Mary- congrats on getting your teacher certs.  Rock!
  

    

Dan Guy - go root around in the Southern California conference - g socal - 
and ask for some recommendations there.  I bet they'd be happy to help.
  

    
... who is finding it very confusing to be running two computers at
the same time just now, especially since the old laptop is between the
current keyboard and monitor. Ah the joys of making sure I've got
EVERYTHING off the old computer before chucking it to the recycling
center.

Any way... just popping in because I saw this: "Plans for Coraline
promotion include a signing on publication day -- July 1st or 2nd --
somewhere on the West Coast, <snip>" on the journal and am now going
insane trying to turn it into a bay area thing because I can't afford
too many more trips outside the bay area just now! Although if it can't
be bay area, I suppose LA will be my next choice, as at least I can
drive there. *sigh... The work of a stalker is never done. ;)

Mary - congrats on passing the test! Yay for you! :)

squeaks, who is finding it very difficult to keep up the stalking full
time these days...
  

    
I just followed the link in the journal to Sci-Fi Wire, and I just had
to chuckle about that last paragraph.  Four out of the five sentences
contain the word 'also'.  I almost see Hoggle, from *The Labyrinth*,
just standing by a bookcase and taking things down and showing them,
like "Well.  He's done this.  Oh, and he worked on this.  And this. 
Oh, and then there's this.  And also this.  Oh, and by the way..."

You really must be one of the busier writers out there, Neil.  I
really admire that.  And I can't wait to see how *The Fermata* turns
out.  I read that my sophomore year of college when one of my teachers
read the beginning of my first novel and said, "You know, this is a lot
like Nicholson Baker.  You should read him.  *The Fermata* just came
out."  And so I went and looked it up, and really enjoyed it.  I
remember there being some, um.  Well, rather strangely pornographic
asides in the novel, so I'm interested to see how it translates, and
especially if Zemeckis is directing.

Good luck with *all* that.
  

    
Squeaks - When i saw that, my first thought was "Oh my, I should
contact Cody's Bookstore and alert them to this wonderful possibility!"
but then I thought... wait, that's Squeak's job. I'd hate to infringe
on your territory. *grin*
  

    
yay, mary! congrats on the teacher certification!

   ummmm... anyone here have any advice on keeping one's fictional
characters from battering their way into one's thoughts? does this even
happen to other people, or am i just a little more cracked than most?
i'm trying to write papers for my classes, but my
characters-waiting-to-be written keep interrupting... somehow,
inhabitants from a semi-medieval world aren't very helpful when one's
trying to write about female renaissance dramatists.  
  

    
DanGuy, I think your geek points just went off the charts yourself. 
My So Called Life boxset interviews?  WOWZA.  What...is it...that you
do?  
-Adriana
  

    
DanGuy - Ooh! I was one of those people who found out about that show
about 3 episodes before it ended, and so of course I liked it and there
was no more. No idea what I'd think of it now, but you've got me all
intrigued because you're involved in it... somehow. (just noting once
more that some damned fine people post on these here boards)

Annie - I'd normally not see a problem with such an invasion of
fictional characters, but I can see how they'd interfere with a
designated assignment. Perhaps you can write them a little story to
keep them occupied so you can get back to your paper?

Dan W - Posted a note to my friend at Cody's. Got a call back saying
their promotional director had already sent in a request. I mean, even
without her, it's an awesome bookstore, but still...

squeaks, whose stomach just reminded her that she needs to start
dinner now.
  

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

    
E-mail from Jouni:

Hi all

Once again, something mostly out of topic...

Now that the buzzing around the Babycakes-thing has cooled down, I'd like to
do something fun again.

An edwardgoreyish horror/nursery rhyme/poem illustration thing this time.
You know, with one picture per verse.

The problem is, I'm no poet.

Especially not in english.

I got this idea of an victorian styled (but perhaps still modern day) story
of few people havin' a party of some sort (tea party?) and how things start
going bad...

I managed to figure out the first verse where to start

....ahemm...

There was me and Tom
and cousin Jack
and a smiling man
all dressed in black.

Now, since I KNOW there's many good writers among you people, I'm asking
you... no I'm CHALLENGING YOU to write a nursery rhyme type of thing where
the narrator (he or she) and his friends get killed by the 'smiling man'...

Please? Anyone?

No money involved, just fun.

It could be really COOL...

You know my email...

Will -- Hi there!

Mary -- Congrats!

Jouni (desperately harassing publishers etc. into arranging a scandinavian
tour for Neil...)
  

    
Jouni, I'm not a writer, but it was a challenge, so I did this:

Our charming hostess Lizabeth
did divy up the tarts and tea
And bade us, "Hither, to the window.
It overlooks a brooding sea."

While Tom and Jack professed their love
of salty, crusty, ocean scene,
my eyes fell upon, near garden's bloom,
a wetly gilded guillotine.

"Miss Liz," I cried, "What have you there?
Such a thing is most obscene!"
I pointed to it, and Miss Liz 
did look upon the libertine.

The man in black did then smirk - 
he who smiles continuously - 
and acknowledged sweet Miss Liz's look
by bowing rather sinously.

"A gift," with wink and crooked grin,
"That I, with goodly fortune, found -"
a doorbell rang, Miss Liz exclaimed,
"Why, that will be dear Missus Round!"

. . . and that's about as far as I got before getting hungry and
deciding to find sustenance. I don't know whether or not you'll like
it, but if you want to use it in whole or in bits, go ahead, please.

Re: the article about the proposed NASA tax: this will surely spark
the Science Fiction Resistance - thousands of books being produced and
sold under the counter, a rise in sales of black berets and cigarettes,
the hum of whispery french accents (because "resistance" sounds better
in a french accent). Really, though, I can't help but wonder how the
hell people who think this way ever get into public office. I like
humanity too much to want to believe that people actually *elected*
them.
  

    
Email from Jouni:


Maure -- Great! Want more!

Jouni
  

    
DanGuy--that's so cool!  Can your next project be Nothing Sacred?  It
was a great show......:-)

Well, my boss that's been sick has gone to get the results of the MRI
they did on Tuesday.  Think happy thoughts her way--we're worried sick.
 6 months ago she was cancer-free, but now she's afraid it's gone into
the bones.  

Thank you all for your kind congratulations.  I'm pretty excited.  I'm
filling out an application online for the state of Connecticut, and
they asked what I would like to teach.  Science Fiction was one of the
choices!  And Mythology!  And Shakespeare!  And Folklore!  Oooo, the
fun to be had!  Fortunately, they let you pick 10 things, or I would
really have been stuck.  Now if I can just find my high school GPA....

Mary (reading Roddy Doyle's "A Star Called Henry"--see, too much stuff
on the "unread" bookcase!)
  

    

Beams, beams, beams to Mary's boss.
  

    
ok, Maure, you're a genius.  and DanGuy, i plan on replying more but
suffice it to say that you are the new King of Cool.

but seriously, seriously, Neil, you are the funniest...most...oh my
LORD, i cannot stop laughing.  "Many many famous dead people, including
Napoleon, Shakespeare, Socrates and Thomas Jefferson did not read
American Gods and are now dead."