Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Jinx, Neil -- Thanks anyway! I did manage to find someone through a
friend of mine, though the guy didn't really sound very ethusiastic...
which is sorta to be expected, given that it's pretty close to a cold
call and I'm taking up his time and all... I'm crossing my fingers that
he'll actually show up tomorrow. >_< 

Neil -- I've been wondering, who decides what  goes on a book cover
(artist or image used, layout etc)? Does the author get any say, or
does someone at the publishers go ahead with it? (Btw, I did send that
print I showed you in Santa Monica a couple of months ago... did it
ever get to you?)

Pam, 'Walker, Adriana, anybody around LA or passing through -- if you
ever feel like posing for some of my projects, or if you just want some
portraits done, just holler. ^_- I can't pay you anything, but I'd be
glad to give you prints!

-- Mimi
  

    
Mimi -- most publishers' art departments are fiercely territorial.  A
highly placed corporate suitweasel might be able to override the art
folks' choice, but rarely, if ever, an author.  For the most part, the
author doesn't even -know- what's going to be on the cover before it's
Done and Settled.

There are exceptions (there always are), and this is big-time
corporate publishing I'm talking about; at small presses (where there
often isn't an "art department," or indeed any real separation of
powers) things can be quite different.

There is another side to this, which is that authors are often very
poor judges of what should go on a cover; they think in terms of
"precise representation of a favorite scene" rather than "small-format
poster to sell the product."  It's often less painful for everybody
simply to say "we don't take outside input," though it's more less
painful for the publisher.
  

    
Pamela -- I, too, agree with your friend about "questing."  I realized
a while ago that when it came to people, I'd rather err on the side of
love, of <i>trying</i>, than on the other side.

(BTW, most of you guys Engaged users, aren't you?  I like using HTML,
but I don't want to hurt any Pico users' eyes.)

Rocky -- How is Nalo's book?  I bookmarked her site (thanks to Neil's
link) for future reference.  I was struck by how young she appears to
be!

I seem to get along with sonnets quite well.

Adriana <169> -- Thanks!

Maure --
> I always feel particularly dense when I visit the well

You're not the only one!

And was that Oingo Boingo's full name?  (the Knights thing)

Mary -- I want to see <i>Shanghai Nights</i>!  <i>Shanghai
Noon</i> was the movie that introduced me to Owen Wilson, who never
fails to crack me up!  Hope your cold's better (or whatever it was).

That PBS special you mentioned doesn't surprise me, either; I've
noticed that kind of behavior in myself from time to time, and directly
attributed it to my Windows Desktop mentality.

Mimi-Ko!  Good to "see" you again.  Glad you found someone to
photograph; my marketing-guru brother only knows New Yorkers in those
sorts of jobs.  I checked.

So Miss Jinx and I are the same kind of poem.  Must be something in
the Connecticut air.  :)  Speaking of which, playing in the moonlight
and snow sounds wonderful!

I met Jamie Farr and Soupy Sales yesterday.  They were very cool. 
Nice guys.

Plus, I got to read a manuscript from a guy in NYC... most of my best
reading material lately has been unpublished stuff!

NP:  Barenaked Ladies... I really like these guys' lyrics.  I can see
why clever Weird Al likes them so much!
  

    
a) I meant "most of you guys ARE Engaged users"

b) Adriana -- <185>, not <169>.  Fitting that the next sentence has to
do with me being dense.
  

    
Christy,  Oingo Boingo was a very odd theater troupe in the 70's
before it was an 80's band. The Elfman brothers started it in France,
iirc, and brought it back to the US. They even appeared on the Gong
Show once or twice. They did mostly arrangements and rewrites of old
jazz or cabaret music, but were pretty out there, and did a lot of
other stuff, culminating in the movie Forbidden Zone, which is around
the time they became the band Oingo Boingo. I love the old Mystic
Knights of the Oingo Boingo recordings.

Er, to make a short answer long. I love the Elfman clan -- they're a
fascinating family.
  

    

We have one of their members on the Well...

Login: josh                             Name: Josh Gordon
Directory: /home/j/o/josh               Shell: /usr/local/bin/tcsh
Last login Thu Sep 13 15:47 2001 (PDT) on pts/71 from ac8d8c04.ipt.aol
Plan:
I'm a programmer working for eBay (http://www.ebay.com), an ex-pro
musician (was the lead trumpet player for the Mystic Knights of the
Oingo Boingo), and a generally strange person. I like to chat; if I'm
around, give me a buzz.
  

    
Well, what do you know! 
  

    

He's been on vacation from the WELL for a while now, though.

The old Mystic Knights stuff is mind-bogglingly weird and cool. I once named
an order in an old D&D campaign "The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo" but
I could never say it with a straight face, so I changed it.
  

    
Maure -- Thanks for the history lesson!

I think I could develop a taste for Elfmanness; I finally saw <i>The
Nightmare Before Christmas</i> this past Christmas Eve.  It was
adorable!  And Danny has a nice voice.  (So does Chris Sarandon, who
did Jack's speaking voice.  VERY nice.)

So, I know of Danny and (niece?) Jenna.  How many other famous, artsy
Elfmans are there?
  

    
Christy,  no problem! Ok, so. Blossom Elfman, Danny's mother, is a
novelist and is the writer of the stage play The Pederast's Wife (about
Oscar Wilde's wife). Richard is Danny's older brother, and is the
director of Forbidden Zone, Modern Vampires, Shrunken Heads, and um,
some other things. He has a new movie he just shopped at Sundance (I
think). He founded the Mystic Knights theater troupe. His son Bodhi is
married to Jenna. Bodhi is an actor too, and you've probably seen him,
even if you don't know the name. Um. Let's see. Bridget Fonda is about
to become an Elfman (via DE).  

this is a very cool site: http://www.richardelfman.com
I find it very easy to be a fangirl over Elfman. But I've been
listening to him since I was a little kid (got my first tape at 6 --
thanks to an uncle who believed it was his duty to corrupt me as soon
as possible), so I've sort of grown up with Elfmanness.
  

    
Maure -- Isn't that what uncles are for?  ;)  And thanks!
  

    
Maure- Wow. That's fascinating. I never knew! I've always liked Danny
and Oingo Boingo too.

I got Jess the graphic Murder Mysteries book for his birthday. It's
his favorite story. He's enjoying it muchly, though I feel a little
guilty because it's my favorite story too, i think. So I threw in a
miniature chocolate Buddha.

I finished a story early this morning. I printed it out, looked it
over, made some notes. I left it on the floor while I went to make some
more coffee. Then I heard one of my cat's making that scary cat puking
noise. The one where you're like, "Gizmo, no!" So of course she puked
up her breakfast all over my story. I'm like, "So I guess you didn't
like it. What didn't you like about it, Nija? I need to know."
But she didn't answer. Because she's a cat.
  

    
Well, as a weird -- er, I mean wise -- man once said:

Anyone who believes what a cat tells him deserves what he gets.

;)

Happy birthday to Jess!

Happy belated birthday to Ashley!
  

    
It's raining in LA! Still not used to the weather here... no rain, no
rain, then it rains buckets and will do so for the rest of the week it
seems. ^_^;

Mike - Thanks for the insight. I was doing research on "who puts what
image in print (ad, magazines, CD covers etc.)" and I kind of guessed
that that was probably what happend with books, but couldn't really
confirm it. I think it's  true that authors may not be the best judge
of a cover, which really needs an image/design with enough visual
stopping power rather than a depiction of a scene. But even in the
hands of the art department, some book covers can be very well done,
while others can really make you wince... (I'm partial to books by Lois
McMaster Bujold, and every time I see her book covers I want to
redesign it... ^_^;)

Art director friend-of-a-friend did show up for me to shoot his
portrait, and it went about as well as can be expected. We went to his
office for the shoot and I don't think I've ever talked that much
continuously in my life to try to get him to hopefully warm up a bit...
we were okay by the time we left his office. Thank you again everyone
for helping to think of contacts... Christy, maybe one day I'll be
moving to NYC and I'll need your help again! ^_-

madman - Boingo and Gaming - a friend of mine who GMs every now and
then loves to play Boingo's "Insanity" for combat scenes. It works
really well for mood. ^_^
  

    
Mimi (and other drenched L.A.-ans) -- Dave Barry has some breaking
news on the weather in his blog today.  :) 
http://davebarry.blogspot.com/
  

    
On a totally unrelated note.. the caroon Neil links to in his blog
today cracked me up.
And I thought that "Squee" was a Well thing!
  

    
That was funny!  And the part about babysitting the cats particularly
amused me, since I've always thought, half-jokingly, that if I ever
found myself at Neil's house, I would probably disappear off to play
with kitties and kiddies, and the grownups in the house (Neil included)
would end up poking around that labyrinth trying to find me!

Erm... question:  I know what flaming is, in a cybercontext, but what
is a troll?  I think I've only seen Neil use it, but then, I am not a
very wide-ranging traveler in e-land.
  

    
A troll is someone who runs around trying to start trouble, or
trolling for trouble.

Trolling, in sports, is a fishing term for moving a boat slowly under
power in order to entice fish to bite.

What's interesting is that trolling sometimes leads to flaming, and in
almost every mythos I know of, trolls are afraid of fire.
  

    
Heh-heh.  Thanks!
  

    
I may not be a member of the well for much longer. Haven't made up my
mind yet. How do I get to here to read this when not a member? Can I. I
seem to recall others emailing in responses etc. 
  

    
I'm annoyed.  Ever since Neil mentioned it, I've been going to
http://NeilGaiman.meetup.com to try to meet other Neil fans.

Well, it never works, of course.  This month, to encourage our
meeting, they've given us a choice of a library that closes before the
meeting, a small concert venue (with a concert that night) and a place
that's inconvenient for me.  Argh!
  

    
(hnowell) You can go to http://www.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/ and see
everything in the inkwell.vue conference.
  

    
Yay. Thanks.

I may sign up later. I think I've just gotten very very tired of the
Trolls and Flamers. I actually got snarky with some guy over on the
newsgroups on Tolkien. They can be such snobs.
  

    
Ughh... yeah, that can be a pain.

But then again, so can depending on e-mails to post.  (But if you
leave, please keep posting anyway!)
  

    
Yeah. It's gotten to where this is the only place I can come and
fairly well depend on people staying nice and polite. ANd I'll keep
reading and posting when can. I signed up at the Gaiman meets and also
over at the Pratchett meets. We shall see. I saw there's one person in
Houston signed up for Pratchett. But I didn't see the Houston list in
Gaiman.