Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Shawn - Aside from the floats, Bourbon Street looks pretty much like
that all the time, at least until about 4 in the morning, when it
actually starts to die down. Personally, I hate it... but then the most
fun I had on Bourbon Street was nearly punching out a frat boy (who
may not have actually been a frat boy, but he certainly fit the
stereotype). Bourbon Street just brings out my violent tendencies,
which kinda scare me - and thankfully scare most of the people who are
drunk and stupid and would like to bother me. :)

Pirates Alley, however...

squeaks, who needs to tend to hungry mice
  

    
meg - Thanks for the headsup on Bourbon Street. My time in the city
was pretty abrupt but enough to make me want to go back and explore.
New Orleans is completely different than any other city I've been to
and wonderful at that!

squeaks, my Mardi Gras trip also included a group of frat boys as well
as, in no particular order, a missionary from North Dakota, a very
small, very drunk and very gay fellow named Michael who somehow wound
up wandering around with our group, and to top it off, a meeting with
Snoop Dog. I can honestly say it was a very full adventure. 

Shawn - who is finally reading finishing the Philip Pullmans trilogy
and not enjoying it at all *frowns*
  

    
Linda -- if the official request for a separate Coraline topic is
meant to come from me... I don't mind, but I worry a little after the
American Gods topic, which, in memory at least, seemed to turn into
ever-more frustrated people asking me to elaborate on things which I
really felt were there on the page if you made an effort. I suspect
that where Coraline is concerned, it might be worse -- it's not that I
can't talk about my work, but in the case of Coraline it's all there on
the page.

So, it's absolutely your call. 

Glad everyone likes the new site. We're still getting the bugs out.
But it's getting closer and closer...
  

    

Well, if there's no objection from the goldfish, let's just talk about 
Coraline and whatever else comes up, right here.  I think it was kind of 
confusing last time to have two topics, to be honest.
  

    
Sounds good. Shall we put something up on the inkwell front page
sending Coraline-readers over here though?
  

    
Yikes! Amazon set Coraline's reading level at ages 9-12.  Really? 
Guess I'll just have to act my shoe size to read it.  ;>

Shawn - You're not alone. Pullman's "His Dark Material's" trilogy also
left me a bit flat. 

Rocky, who is reading Walter Mosley's "Futureland: Nine Stories of an
Imminent World" while waiting for her Coraline CD to arrive.  
  

    
Neil, I love that they've posted the covers to other editions of your
books. I am tickled by the Snow, Glass, Apples Hebrew edition cover.
  

    
I seem to recall that "reading levels" simply mean that people of that
age should have no trouble reading it, not that it's only suited for
that audience. I think that newspapers have something like a 5th grade
reading level... or is it 3rd?
  

    
Interestingly, the UK and US amazon reviewers suggest it for different
ages...
  

    
Dan - Definitely 3rd.
  

    

>  Sounds good. Shall we put something up on the inkwell front page
>  sending Coraline-readers over here though?

Neil, let me see what I can do.  They seem to have kind of a rigid format 
for what gets posted on the front page.  In that case, we might have to go 
with a separate topic.  But let me find out first before I go making 
assumptions and jumping to conclusions.  Because, of course, I'd just have 
to swim back.
  

    
Maure - It is really cool to see all the different covers for the
different languages of the books. If you go to the Stardust page, I've
got all but 2 of them on my bookshelf. (Neil, I'm not dropping hints,
just reminding myself to email assistants about publishing info... ;P)

DanW - 4th or 5th grade for most papers. 3rd with a gullibility factor
through the roof if you're talking about the SF Examiner.

Rocky - You talk about acting your shoe size like it's a bad thing!

squeaks, who rather hopes the boy found her misplaced book
  

    
Squeaks - 10?  ;>
  

    
I am now *so* looking forward to the Future Bible Heroes album.  I
love Claudia.  She's so cool.

Like the redesign of the website, Neil.  Am also looking forward to
*Coraline* (yeah, I know it's out, but, well, life's gotten in my way
lately.  I'm trying to find something new to do after subbing ended and
before I up and decide, yeah, it's time to go to UWales.  Or UPenn. 
Or even FDU, even though that's kinda right back up where I just left. 
So far I've been offered a gig copy- and production-editing the
medical boards [not the MCATs.  These are post-med-school, right before
doctors get to be doctors], and another as a camp counselor, but the
modeling offer's been the most attractive so far), and I've been
calling all my friends who are going to the *Coraline* reading
bastards, because I'm just that jealous (I say all my friends, but I
mean Trev, mainly.  I haven't called anyone here that yet, even though
I think the lot of you are [well.  At least those going to the reading
{not to mention going out afterward <yet further evidence that I am, in
fact, on the wrong coast>}] ;) ).
  

    
Linda -- i'm easy either way. For that matter, we can wait until this
topic fills, and then in september do a Coraline topic as the next one.

Will, Claudia is one of the coolest people I know. My mobile phone
rang the other day, and Claudia's voice said "You're a writer. How do I
spell Tilapia?" So I spelled it for her. And she said that didn't
sound right, but thank you anyway and hung up. I find it difficult to
articulate why this was as funny and heartwarming as it was. But it
was.
  

    
It is a good thing to have a CD of Coraline and to be listening to it in  my
attic workshop while tinkering with various beads, including some vintage
Mardi Gras beads my invisible housemate Julia brought me last time she and
Chris came through. The story and the beads seem to rather like one another.
However, I have to keep the volume not quite as loud as I'd like, so as to
be able to hear the sirens if they blow them. Not that they'd blow them for
the flash flood warning we currently have in Minneapolis, but if the couple
of tornado warning a few counties out decide to come visit, it could get a
bit tuneful in a banshee-siren sort of way.

Neil, I suspect your garden is getting very, very wet. Again. Maybe it'll
help wash any remaining critters off the rowan tree, though.

(And the song of the rats, when punctuated by thunder, is really wonderfully
creepy so far....)
  

    

[What if this topic fills up before September?

I did get the answer vis a vis putting the notice on the front page:  only 
if we do a separate topic.

So, separate topic now, with blurbage on front page, or separate topic in 
September with blurbage on front page?  Secondary question:  if we do 
separate topic now, do we leave this one open, too?]

I'm not speaking to Lioness until she tells me everything about the 
jewelry she is making.  Will you tell her that for me, please?
  

    
Elise -- I think your rain will be here soon. Hoping for thunder...

Linda -- well, I guessed September. How long do these topics live... I
just figured that when this one fills up we make the next one Coraline
(and stuff) and put it on the front page...
  

    
And, um, Elise.  Linda's not talking to you. But she wants to know
about the current lot of jewellery....
  

    
Neil -- you want thunder, you got it.

So would the next topic be called The Other Topic?  Music for Rats
would confuse those not pre-clued.

I would have more to say, but I am not talking to myself.
  

    

Okay Neil, September it is!  We have plenty of time to come up with a 
topic name...and thanks for delivering that message.  We shall see if it 
does any good.

I seem to be talking to myself, however, because I just heard myself say, 
"Gopod I love the way that johnmford's mind works!"
  

    
Hi.

I've been gone for a while.  As a few of you know, life has called me
away rather loudly lately.  But I needed to come back to say a thank
you.

My friend Glenn died last night in a motorcycle accident.  He was 35,
and a husband and father.  I wrote a little in my blog here:

http://www.pamela-birdsnest.net/item.asp?user=Pamela_bird&tab=weblogs&uid=2430
939

In moments like these, only the deepest things hold you, only the
truest things can help.

And in the urgency of my mourning, when everything in me was screaming
at the WRONGNESS of this, at the horrifying casual devastation of it,
and reaching for *anything* that would help me to fit this inside my
skin...

Death suddenly glanced over at me.  And smiled that smile that is Hers
alone.

And it mattered.  It made a difference.  It helped.

"Where is Neil when you need him?"

In his words, in his stories, in the heart and mind and soul of his
art.

Thank you, Neil, for telling it True.
  

    

My deepest sympathies, Pamela, at the loss of your friend.  Beams and hugs 
to you and to those who loved him.
  

    
E-mail from Glen Seymour:

Hey everybody, I wanted to mention that I have got my "Scary Trousers" shirt
and it looks good.

I wore it out into the real world, but so far I've gotten no reactions.

- Glen
  

    
Pamela, I'm very sorry about your friend.