Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Did anyone see So Graham Norton (BBCAmerica)last Monday night? As Jane
Leeves was the guest, he popped-up East Grinstead's Hall of Fame on
his computer screen. And, there was Neil's photo (SQUEEE!) right under
Jane's. Graham mumbled something like, "Neil Gaiman, I don't know who
he is." (note: click on his name, Graham.)
I'm thinking that this site was mentioned somewhere before (Neil's
Journal?) but if not, or if you missed it go to: 
http://www.egnet.co.uk/HallofFame/neilgaiman.htm .

Davey- sure, tell us about your trip. I am interested in what you and
everyone has to say. That is why I have been lurking about for two
years. (I read this on inkwell.vue and "enter the well" sometimes.)
Diversions are a good way to help cope with *things*.

Mary- I have felt ashamed of the way we treat our native peoples since
second grade. (the church and our govt.) This knowledge has probably
shaped my thinking in regards to most issues including this war, and
the deep disrespect I have for the "president" and his ancestors.
(naming him gives him power.)

Neil- I'm glad that you didn't actually like the curried goat, as I am
a mother of 3 kids. (groan.)  Time for bed.
                                                             pc
  

    
Adriana: Yay, hopefully I'll finally get to meet you!  Will be in
touch.

Pam: *blushes* Thank you. And I'll definitely bring a promo card for
ya the next time I see you. 

Erynn: Jealous that you got to see Tori, and looking forward to seeing
her myself. :) Haven't been able to catch a concert since From the
Choirgirl Hotel, I think, which makes it way too long...

Neil: I must say, that picture of you in glasses, at the Chicago
Humanities Festival? Utterly adorable. ;)

And get well wishes to everybody who's not well. Seems like so many
people are feeling under the weather! Hope you all feel better soon.
  

    
So the Joe Jackson Band was in town tonight--for the first time since 1980,
who realized it'd been that long since Joe's original band had been
together?  Great show at the Fillmore.

I mention that here because in the middle section, where Joe sent the other
three guys off for a break and was sitting by himself at the keyboard, he
said:

"I'm always flattered when someone covers one of my songs.  It doesn't
happen very often, but I'm flattered when it does.  Anthrax did a
surprisingly slow and flaccid version of 'Got the Time'.  Chubby Checker
actually did 'I'm the Man'.  I have it on videotape.  It's amazing what he
does with the lyrics.

"Tori Amos covered one of my songs, 'Real Men'.  Except she made this change
to the lyric in the second verse which kind of changes the whole meaning."
He said, "I think--she has an Agenda.  I don't know, though.  I haven't
heard back from her.  Anyway this is my version of Tori's version of my
song."  (He sang the original lyric.)

(Later, when the band came back, they did a raucous song from the new album
called "Fairy Dust" that he said, "I'd like to see Tori Amos cover _this_!")
  

    
That's fabulous! I love Joe Jackson.
  

    
Me, too.  Haven't seen him in way too long.
  

    
He said, by the way, that Tori's version was very good and he liked it
(unlike the Anthrax cover!).

Jackson said the band expected to be back in San Francisco in June.
  

    
Neil: Perhaps not so odd, but what came to mind was the similarity
between your recovery and dealing with grief.  Glad Friday went... er,
swimmingly. *wry grin*  And "novelling" is good.  Very good.  And it's
even a fun verb.  Let's keep it!

Mike: I voted.  I put up signs.  I talked to people.  I volunteered. 
It made no damn difference against the Oil Mafia mechanism, who
annointed their own king.  But tyrants always fall.  Always.  Ghandi
told me so.  I will wait, be grateful for the freedoms that remain to
me, and vote and speak and signage even more fiercely the next time.

But I'm not so sure Erynn's not in the right, when it comes to the
functional power games in our government.  Lobbyists don't come
cheaply, and they are the gerbils peddling the machine for many of its
smaller movements, if not the global scale ones.

I'm not abdicating my responsibility.  I think it consists of:
a. voting
b. vocalizing your views, if you want others to share them
c. letting your congresspersons and senators know what you think.

But to really have an effect, you have to get a lot of voices raised
enough for people to start fearing for their own reelection.  The power
of one vote is pretty minimal.

Unless, of course, you happen to be on the Supreme Court.

Maure: I generally see almost everything without the mercy of
black-and-white clarity.  I can fall sincerely on both sides of an
issue, and often do.   I used to have a terror that I was actually
wishy washy, but I decided that I'm too passionate about my bifocal
perspective to consider myself insipid.

I, for instance, feel passionately against this war.  But just as
passionately wish that they'd taken Hussein out in the *last* Gulf War.
 Or better yet, never helped put him in power in the first place.

Mary: I'm curious about what in particular about the war it is that's
making you feel ashamed.  
  

    

Poor Neil. Curry goat is and excellent dish, but it's strictly eaten
for dinner with a nice starchy side of rice 'n' peas, and then washed
down with a generous glass of ginger beer to aid with the digestive
process.  Next time please try Ackees and saltfish for breakfast
instead.  ;p



   
  

    
I've been in the streets protesting this war a lot lately, and I'm not
falling for the insidious argument of "supporting the troops" now that
we're at war.  You're either for killing or not. And war to me is
always a defensive action, but this time we're on the other side.  The
world is against us and we can't always be right.  But even worse,
there has been no evidence of a link between Saddam Hussain and Al
Qaeda.  And if he bought any weapons of mass destruction, then we have
the receipts.  God, we Americans have such a short attention span!  And
if we're about liberation, why did we sit back and allow the massacre
in Rwanda without so much as slap on the wrist?  Why didn't we liberate
the Tutsis from the Hutus?  Because there was no geo-political
advantage, read oil. So I can't buy into the “liberation”
game.  And I don't buy into “regime change” because we
support a lot of brutal dictators and bastards around the world. But I
do know that there are oil men backing this administration, and know
that their interests certainly come before mine or anyone else’s
in this so-called democracy.  Where else can you find an Administration
that sends the sons and daughters of the poor to war and is lobbying
to give the rich a tax cut at the sime?  And if this war is supposed to
make us safer, why the hell are we on damn-near-red alert?  Today they
even started flying Apache helicopters over NYC again.  And lastly, I
do know this war is being used to distract us from a failing economy,
corporate greed, the spectre of double-digit inflation and record
unemployment.  But don't look for a swift victory, we're in a guerilla
war people...and the generals haven't figured that out yet.  Pray for
peace. 
  

    
Um, what Rocky just said.  All of it.  

I'm ashamed that we "elected" Little Nero (good one, Mike, I'm
stealing it) to begin with.  I'm ashamed that we none of us remember
that we put Saddam Hussein in power in the first place.  I'm ashamed
that we still call Saudi Arabia our friends, despite their proven links
to the 9/11 tragedy.  I'm ashamed that we destroyed Afghanistan,
promising to rebuild it, and have so far sent about $25 million toward
that goal, while offering Turkey a bribe of *$30 Billion* just to fly
planes out of their country.  I'm ashamed that my students don't have
textbooks to take home, but we can spend this much money on a war my
kids are terrified of.  I'm ashamed that we still are stupid enough to
believe that our news media is a.) "liberal" and b.) honest.  

Most of all I am deeply ashamed that after this many thousands of
years of "civilization" we have not learned that revenge does not work.
 Murder is not the answer to what happened on Sept. 11.  And
nationality is a made-up difference we use to tell ourselves that
"they" are different from us.  Someone has to choose peace.  It could
have been us.  It *should* have been us.  To our eternal shame, it
wasn't.     
  

    
That was well put, Mary. And I can't argue with should haves and ought
to haves, nor do I want to. But I can't see it as being that easy
either. 

Like I said, I don't know how to feel about what's going on. I can't
pin anything down.
  

    
There are so many great thinkers and doers in this forum. You guys are
the shiznit. I wish you could all be Presidents. 

Yesterday we went to the Hoosier National Forest and spent most of the
afternoon high up in the fire tower looking down at all the trees and
hawks and things. Everything was so quiet (except for the woodpeckers)
and we realized how lucky we were to have such a peaceful place to go
and clear our heads. I hope we always have that. 

Martha- Tori actually sang the original lyrics at the show last week.
I checked the dent to see if anyone else noticed and didn't see anyting
mentioned. Either A) No one else noticed. B) She's been singing the
original lyric for a while and it's nothing new or C) I misheard
altogether.
Hahaha. I'd love to hear the Anthrax one!

Neilgaiman.com isn't loading for me for some reason, so I have no idea
what's going on with Neil. Hope things are well. 

acccck. we rented the first season of Buffy yesterday evening and we
finished it today. Plus we watched the new episode tonight of course.
It's all in my head! Ahhh! I have to write my own thing and it won't
leave my head. This is bad. When I close my eyes I see Angel.
Wait...did I say bad? Terrible, beautiful Angel. Mmmmm.

Goodnight. 
  

    
Oddly, someone standing near me at the concert last night said "Were you at
the protest Thursday?  I recognize your jacket."  (Which I bought after the
Guy Fawkes party, and it probably is the only one like it in town.)

Of course I was also wearing a "Got Rights?" t-shirt, which would have
tipped her from wondering if it was the same person to being pretty sure it
was.
  

    
Stupid asthma. 

But on the bright side, I'm wide awake to post.

Hey, Martha, my flatmate and I both want those tees. Where'd you find
it? And the jacket was a good purchase. :)

Boy managed not to get arrested (whew!), but very nearly was (eep!). I
loved his protest sign. One side said 'I am experiencing shock and
awe' (there is video footage of this sign leaning up against a statue
of Lincoln), and the other side said something like 'I'm not at home to
answer opinion polls', which I think is rather clever-like. 

Union Square seems to have quieted down a lot, but I'm still noticing
LOTS of people with buttons, stickers, small signs taped to their
backs, and paint and patches of protest on their jackets. It's
certainly not back to 'business as usual', and I think I'm happier that
it's different (not happier that everyone's on edge, but that everyone
is at least having to think and decide for themselves just how they
want to feel about it all).

Mike - Well spoken, sir. Mind if I copy that to my web site (whenever
I get around to updating it with photos of Oz)?

I got that Onion article in my inbox a week or two ago - I think it
frightens me more now that we're actually AT war, and not just talking
about it. 

squeaks, who wonders if the helicopters are still hovering.
  

    




From Dodge (hnowell)
RE Neil's Blog post about going to Disneyland. My boss just got back from a
week's vacation where he took his 2 little girls to Disneyland for a week.
He staggered in here Monday morning looking way behond hysteria and told me
how great it was to be back at work. So he can rest. So he can look at his
cactus in his office and not wierd creatures made out of fabric and plastic
and rubber. So he can eat his oatmeal with lots of brown sugar and the
strange little box lunches he gets when doing lunch meetings instead of the
wierd food they have there. So he can have a normal day before going home to
his little girls who are still running about with their mouse ears on. So he
can listen, smiling, to their plans for returning next year. He had great fun
on his vacation. I mean that sincerely. He looks more rested than he has in a
long time. Despite being a bit frazzled. It's a DIFFerent frazzle.

There haven't been much marching here in Houston. Though there have been a
few protests. Everyone in my office and all my friends and everyone I've
spoken to don't like the war. With the exception of one girl who surfaced
from her office - a generally quiet person - who made a rash statement about
how "We" should just go and eradicate all Muslims and that would get rid of
the problems We have. Rash because the woman she made this statement to was
married to a Muslim and is still really good friends with her ex-in-laws.
Peaceful. Law abiding Americans they are. She is also our international
attorney and knows well how stupid that remark is. Sigh. It's funny how the
really uninformed can be so passionate about being for the war. I think the
propoganda must all be for them.

Remember my prejudiced friend? She is still sending me emails. Mostly soppy
religious ones. Often ones that are the email equivalent of chain letters.
You know the ones. Send this prayer/inspirational poem/ whatever to 6 of your
friends and tell them to send to 6 of their friends. Don't break the chain or
nobody will pray for you and you'll go to hell! But today I got one with a
joke insulting of all things, religious AND old people. She's very much
against Bush and also sends me emails insulting him. Odd. Seems to me if
she's also white supremist, what Bush is doing would be ok by her. But she's
still big on conspiracy. I don't think she's liked any US president for a
long time. I think her opinions are whatever negative thing she happens to
have come across today. And now she's got a computer, she can tap into all
the garbage on the net. She has a very open mind. You know the kind. One that
has nothing to keep thought in and where nothing but the refuse from the last
wave of information stays on it for long flopping around like a dying
fish and is washed away by the next high tide.

I heard on Regis this morning that French restaurants are hurting because of
the boycott of French products especially in New York. Now. Correct me if I'm
wrong but aren't the French restaurants here in the US mostly owned and
operated by, um, Americans? Trying to make a good living? Trying to carry on
the American Dream? And own their own business? Don't they hire, um, you
know, Americans to run the place and serve the food and do all the other
work? Isn't driving them out of business going to mean, you know,
unemployment for Americans?

But nuff negative stuff. It's a cool sunshiny pretty day here in Houston. My
car's running good since my son changed out the spark plugs. I'm feeling ok.
I've gotten most of the Sandman books and have read them and are re-reading
them and will start on the Neverwhere book this weekend. Don't dare start
that yet in case it's one you can't put down and I don't get any sleep.

It's a nice day. I'm going to go outside at lunch and stand next to the big
round fountain under the trees and be happy I'm alive.
  

    
I bought the t-shirt at a recent protest rally, but the makers of that shirt
sell it and others critical of this administration's policies on their web
site:

http://www.bushoncrack.com/bocMerch/index.cfm
  

    
Martha: It's a great jacket!

Michelle: I'm glad your Boy's both not arrested and clever. ;-)

Rocky: Brava!  Your post was mesmerizing.  And I don't know why the
U.N. and the U.S. aren't in Africa *right now*, working to stop the
horrifying atrocities that go on there on a daily basis, in the coups
and counter-coups all over the continent.  And I honestly don't know
how many tyrants we're currently supporting in power, but I always
remember what FDR said about Samoza: "He may be a son-of-a-bitch, but
he's our son-of-a-bitch."  It's an elderly and respected foreign
policy, and no one seems to learn from their mistakes.

Mary: Thanks for clarifying.  I wanted to know what you really meant
before replying.  I'm not ashamed for perpetuating the Bush dynasty,
because I didn't do it.  I think the entire world was made acutely
aware that more than half the country disagreed with that outcome.  And
I certainly haven't forgotten that we helped put Hussein in power.  Or
that we *left* him there and betrayed tens of thousands of Iraqi
dissidents in the last war, to appease Turkey.  I think your point
about Saudi Arabia is excellent.  

Sel-indulgent rant follows.   Don't say you weren't warned.

     *

I'm sick to death of this entire cancer at the heart of our country's
soul.  We are the world's largest consumer of oil.  So we *are*
dependent on entitities that produce it.  So oil = money, and money =
power.  Thus, vast political maneuvering about oil.  We are told that
we should be less dependent on foreign oil, so we need to drill for our
own in the Alaskan wilderness.  We ignore Pol Pot for decades, but go
after Hussein in 1991--after, according to one report, telling him that
we wouldn't--for invading Kuwait, who was possibly drilling over the
border into Iraq for oil.  We might buy electric or hybrid cars to
reduce our use of oil by vast amounts, but the same oil companies who
will benefit from this war, in cooperation with the auto industry, have
spent decades buying up patents to keep them off the market, or
unaffordable for the average person.  The U.S. and France, Russia and
China lined up squarely and dramatically along the lines of who would
and would not benefit from a U.S. invasion of the world's second
largest producer of oil.  Now the Pentagon has announced that it will
use a plan created by a division of Halliburton (of which Dick Cheney
was CEO prior to becoming our rarely seen by extremely dangerous Vice
President) to control oil fires in Iraq.  (Wanna bet that involves
"consultant" fees?) 

And as the L.A. Times reported:
"Presuming a U.S.-led military victory, industry officials and experts
expect the postwar work to proceed in two phases.

For the first year or two, companies that provide repair,
rehabilitation, engineering and construction services - including
Halliburton, Schlumberger Ltd., Baker Hughes Inc. and BJ Services Co. -
would receive an estimated $3 billion to $5 billion in contracts from
an interim government." (L.A. Times, "Gauging Promise of Iraqi Oil" By
Warren Vieth and Elizabeth Douglass, Times Staff Writers, 3/12/03)

And let us not forget that the removal of sanctions on Iraq will allow
us to make deals to buy oil from them.  Or at least, to buy it
legally.  It's supposed that a grateful, liberated Iraqi populace will
welcome these offers with open arms.  And why shouldn't they?  They'll
have a lot of rebuilding to do, and who has better knowledge and
technology about how to go about that than the U.S. and Britain?

And, for the real conspiracy mongers, we can take it back to Kennedy,
Johnson and the Vietnam war.  Quite possibly, it even goes all the way
back to Rockefeller and Morgan, in one mad, malignant line.

When does growth become a cancer?  

The Great American Dream has, from the beginning, involved exacting
payment from innocent and otherwise uninvolved people.  But there *is*
something inherently attractive about a primarily beneficent world
"police" power.  Quite frankly, I'd prefer it to be the U.N., rather
than the U.S., for a number of reasons.  But who doesn't want any evil,
abusive tyrant toppled, at least in principle?  If we decry the fact
that we're not in there rescuing other oppressed peoples, then we're
tacitly acknowledging that these kinds of "intervention" can be
valuable and helpful, especially to people who seem powerless to help
themselves.  In fact, our own country wasn't established as a "free"
country without quite a bit of outside help.

And the fact is that there *is* bad and worse.  I agree that offensive
war is unjustifiable.  But if Iraq does become a free, voting,
self-governing country as a result of this war, can we really say that
our self-interest as a "country" in waging it negates that result to
meaninglessness?  Our military is working to avoide civilian casualties
even to the extent of endangering our own pilots and troops.  And I
flatly disbelieve that Iraqi soldiers are treating our own POW's the
same way our soldiers are treating captured Iraqis.  Our motives may be
suspect.  And war is not a "method."  It's organized killing and
destruction, usually with a specific aim.  But it sometimes manages to
accomplish something good.

So I'm not burying my head in the sand about this.  But the black and
white are so entangled that it all looks gray to me.

And I filled up my gas tank this morning, just like always, so I could
drive to work.
  

    
"rarely seen _but_ extremely dangerous"
  

    
Pamela,  you hit on many of the things that keep my head spinning and
my stance on the war on the fence. Thank you for expressing this so
eloquently.
  

    
*putting head on desk*
  

    


Dodge (hnowell)

This one is actually ABOUT Neil and works. As I've said, I've just started
reading Sandman issues. I think there are only 3 of the 10 I haven't gotten
yet. I have several questions. Maybe you experts can answer. If Neil comes
in, maybe he can.

1.    WHY does Desire have it in for Dream? He's the only one (we see) her
setting women onto so he can fall in love. At first I thought it was maybe
because of Nada and what Dream did to her as that is the reason she blew up
at him during the confab at Destiny's place BUT Desire was the one that put
Nada into Dream's life also so this getting Dream in trouble bit was long
standing I see. Why? Surely she knew that if she arranged for him to kill a
member of his own family, he would be punished. So that means she wants him
DEAD. That's a little extreme for sibling rivalry, surely?

2.    Does Dream BECOME Daniel? Or does he just make sure there's some
capable somebody present to take over when he's gone? I thought the latter
but read somebody's comments that suggested the former.

3.    It seems to me that this suggests that Dream WANTED to die and
throughout centuries arranged things consciously or subconsciously so that
would happen. Is that true?

4.    Destiny suggests that Delirium could possibly save Dream if she went to
him to help. Could she have? How? Seems to me once the deed (killing Orpheus)
was done, it was only a matter of time before the 3 caught up with him and
nobody could stop it. Except the schism in Destiny's book and garden
suggested the outcome was not a done deal and there could have been a way
around it.

Well. Anyway. I'd meant this one to be a SHORT post. Shorter than most of
mine anyway.
  

    

Hmm. Some shots in the dark:
Desire hated Dream. Dream always acted cocksure, arrogant, always looked
down on it. See Desire's speech at his wake, for instance, and its talk with
Despair at the end of Brief Lives.

2. A point of view.
Morpheus/Dream dies. A new point of view on dreaming becomes incarnate with
Daniel as the seed.
Or something like that.

3. That's what Death insists was the case, yes. Either Dream was being
disingenius at his end or it really was subconscious. But the only thing
keeping him going was a shell of responsibility, by the end. He was too
bound by them to do as Destruction had done. But he was no longer interested
in 'living', if that is what you can call their existances.

4. A few thoughts. (a) Maybe she could have. After all, he thought he could
'win' out in the end so long as he didn't leave the Dreaming, which he only
did because Nuala called him, which SHE only did because she met Delirium
who said 'I tried to get him to leave the Dreaming.' Maybe if that hadn't
happened Dream/Morpheus would still be sitting in his castle enduring the
punishment. However...
(b) Maybe she DID help him. Maybe what he really needed was for all that to
happen, to be able to move on without abandoning his responsibilities. The
only way he could do that was to die and let another Dream take his place.
  

    
Martha- Thanks for the link.

Mousie- I'm glad you and your boy are okay and not arrested.

Pamela- great post. Ideally, John-Mike is right. In a democracy we
shouldn't HAVE to have lots of money to make things happen, and
continuing to think that we do will probably only make things worse. I
just don't know how to turn things around in this country to make it so
you don't have to be rich to have a say. I've thought and thought
(imagine that:P) and I just don't know. It's been this way for so long
and it will probably take a long time to fix. Perhaps we'll have to hit
rock bottom like Rome did before people will open their eyes. I hope
not.
Obviously, big oil is a problem. My dad and I argue over this all the
time (well, not since his stroke). But there are other working options.
The Quaker boarding school I attended was 90% solar powered and we
never had any problems. Of course, that's on a small scale, but it
still works. People will say that it doesn't. Don't believe them. 

Madman- Great post! (I've been saying "Great Post" a lot lately.
Obviously I need to extend my vocabulary.)

I'm working on the last two scenes of my play. I don't want it to end.
I don't want to say goodbye to my characters. It's been so much fun.
Boo hoo. 
  

    
Miss-Mousey -- copy at will.  Thank you for asking, and for wanting
to.

Dodge/Madman -- while I cannot (obviously) speak for Neil, and am not
in any way quarreling with the discussion, this kind of thing being
interesting* -- setting up a story must inevitably create lots of
possibilities, only one of which is going to get worked out.  The trick
is to make the one you decide upon seem to have been inevitable in
retrospect.
    Sometimes the question "So was X actually planning to have X do Y
to Z before Alpha got Omegaed up the proverbial wazoo?" has a very
specific answer, and sometimes, well, that was a possibility, but you'd
rather not nail it down, and sometimes, hey, I'd have done that if I'd
thought of it in time."

*At least when it is being conducted by people who are actually
thinking about the possibilities, as they are here, and aren't just
trying to settle a convention-hallway argument about what would happen
if Buffy and Giles got into a fight with the Mario Bros. at Disney
World.  (The answer to that one is obviously that Spike would hurt
himself laughing, and then go show the people on the Twilight Zone ride
something -really- scary.  But I digress.)
  

    


Dodge (hnowell)

Good points all and gave me some things to think about. And some of that puts
into words what I was thinking. But I think I've figured out WHY Desire hated
Dream enough to want to assist in his death.
First, it occurred to me that yes, Sibling Rivalry can be as bad as actively
wanting the brother dead - don't we see that in Cain and Able? The older
siblings are more sure of themselves and their opinions and purpose and
sometimes rub the younger ones the wrong way.
I haven't got The Wake yet and am eagerly awaiting to see what you mean.
I did go back and read The Doll House though where Dream confronts Desire in
her domain. He tells her that They, The Endless, do NOT manipulate the
mortals. That, on the contrary, the mortals manipulate them as they are
products of our consciousness. They are the toys, the dolls. He goes on to
emphasize. But Desire, after he leaves, in a talk to herself, rejects that
premise. She states that IF she believed that, she would become insane like
Delirium or leave like Destruction. Then, rather than thinking about it any
more, she forgets and goes on since she exists "in the now". Desire believes
that she controls people and cannot get her mind around the reverse.
Way deep down inside she is afraid Dream is right and there he is existing,
reminding her every time she sees him or hears of him of that belief that
she'd rather forget and deny. And as she reiterates to herself that SHE is
not a doll, the next frame pulls back to the exterior of Desire's domain - a
giant doll of herself. Her Doll House.
So, basically, you've got the arrogant know-it-all older brother who reacts
very badly to her "games", and who resists her machinations, and who
represents a point of view she cannot live with. One she wishes to eradicate.
And the best way to eradicate a bad reminder is to get rid of its vessel.
Dream.

I agree about the might have beens. They are what make it interesting. Very
like life. How can you have a chain of events without the might have beens?
Dream could have escaped dying and suffering by leaving the Dreaming and
going away.
In the scene with Death. It is ironic that he hands her a loaf of bread to
throw at him. She does not though she gets him to create some pigeons to eat
it. Harking back to The Sound Of Her Wings. But back then, he still had some
hope. Some reason to live. He needed to be put back on the path and she
provided him with the reasons. But he was cheered up by knowing of The End of
things. Knowing she would be there when it is over. Understanding the purpose
for their existence. But somewhere along the line, he realizes that it
doesn't have to be HIM as long as it is SOMEone. Destruction left a HOLE.
Over and over in succeeding scenes we see them asking, Have you found him? Is
he back? Delirium is still there but not quite there. Providing a function
without being totally present. Desire, when it suits her, becomes unavailable
temporarily. Especially when she has done something she knows the others
(Dream) is not going to like. But they are the younger ones. Not so aware of
their responsibilities. Unlike Destiny. Death. Dream. Destiny sometimes
dreads to turn the page but he does. Death has a pragmatic attitude. This is
the way it is so be it. Dream agonizes. Why was Dream the one captured in the
spell Burgess did? Because Dream was more like people think Death to be. He
grieved over each loss. Resisted change. But Death is all about change.

Now I'm getting too long again. Sorry.