Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
What is the publish date for Endless Nights?
  

    
That info is hidden somewhere.  Dreamhaven says first edition "copies
must be reserved by June 15th"

Ah - Neil says it is a "September release", although Amazon claims
May.
  

    
I walked from Treasure Island to Monte Carlo and back last night --
it's crazy here, and I thought it wouldn't be a big deal, because I'd
lived in nyc and walked through Times Square at 3am hundreds of times.
I thought I was neon-weary and couldn't be shocked. Right.
  

    
Email from Holley:

Ah, Las Vegas.

If you have a car and you do go out to Hoover Dam, on the way, watch out
for the Historical Village. It has an Indian museum which is very nice.  
Then it has a street onto which houses from various periods in LV history
have been moved and restored. You can go inside and walk around the rooms
and look at the things the people who lived in the house used. Then
there's the post office where they have on the walls from the left of the
door all the way around to the right of the door, the front page of
newspapers all the way back to the settling of LV. It's interesting to see
the shift in what is News to be printed in LV. The first few talks about
finding nickel and other mines and then there's the Hoover Dam project and
the accidents which killed a few men then you see where the gambling
houses opened then a shift in the news which becomes all about movie stars
coming to LV until the front page is ALL about the glitz and glamour.  
Well. Historical houses aren't everybody's cup of tea but I liked looking
at them. They included a couple of antique carriages parked outside the
proper houses.
  

    
Almost oudda heah to go catch a plane to Sin City!  <waves to Maure> 
See you soon, girl!  Margaritas, here we come!

Mike: *big eyes* Wow.  Those were fantastic recommendations. 
*Mentally counts Cool Things To Do against hours in a couple of days* 
Thank you ever so much.  And I checked the weather forecast: 98-106 F
is, even for an L.A. girl, indeed hot.  The lobby recommendations will
definitely come in handy as oases.

Bill: Moving?  What moving?  I'll try to call soon.  Maybe Maure and I
can give you a ringie dingie from Vegas!

Davey:  Are you feeling better yet?  Just say no to mucus.  *hugs*

Mary: Many wishes for a wonderful, relaxing, fun recouperation break. 
It sounds like you got off to a great start with a visit with Neil. 
And I'd love to see "O" ("Eau"?), but two shows will strain the budget,
I think.  Maybe next time.

Holley: My sister's mother in law used to do the same thing as your
friend--buy antiques all over the midwest and refurbish them.  So my
sister's house is chock-full of gorgeous things.  Unfortunately, the
cost of shipping them out to California was prohibitive, so alack and
alas... I didn't get any of them before she retired.

DanGuy: It's always nice to hear about your children.

Michelle: You around?  Busy?  Still settling in?  Just wanted to say I
miss you around here.  Hope all's well.

Best wishes to everybody.  We'll raise a toast to you!  Thingies and
Wellies are the absolute best.  I always have so much fun when we get
together.
  

    
Pam -- Have fun!  Stay safe!

Danguy -- I can't believe Xander's almost two already.  (Of course, I
only read his birth announcement less than a year ago.)

Davey's sick?  I don't remember reading that.  Get well, Davey! 
(sends virtual green tea and hugs)
  

    
Well, the moving is only going to happen under two circumstances...
1) Someone offers us scads of money for our house; or
2) We find an absolute steal of a great house in a perfect location.
Neither of which, we believe, is actually going to happen, but we're
going to do our level best to try. Depending on whether a theoretical
home inspection requires significant work, the house could be on the
market in a month or less. Wish us luck.

Glen: Hehehe. Most excellent.

Oooh, new Neil CD. Dreamhaven is paging my wallet, I just know it.
  

    
Had a dream last night that implanted the idea in my mind that I was
going to see a play in the area, that for some reason had Neil doing a
guest appearance in it for opening weekend, and that I had tickets for
the second night...entirely by accident as I bought them without
realizing he was going to be there.

Five minutes ago I realized that this was complete bullocks. I don't
remember anything about the dream, but this little fiction just stayed
lodged in my waking brain.

Odd.
  

    
LOL!  Very odd.
  

    

So, Neil, how IS your Abba collection?
  

    

Oh, and last night I had the unpleasant experience of being informed or
maybe reminded, I don't remember, of the existance of Crowley/Aziraphale
slash. However, this did lead me to find the Annotated Pratchett File for
Good Omens, so it's not entirely a bad thing.
  

    

Er, not to imply that slash is necessarily a bad thing. Lord knows how many
of my friends would kill me if I took away their Legolas/Gimli or
Snape/Hermione or whatever.
  

    
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
  

    
Cue cheesy show intro music

LIVE FROM LAS VEGAS, IT’S…

THE MAURE AND PAM SHOW!

We’ll bring you all the best Vegas has to offer:

Hotel keys that don’t open doors
ATM’s that dispense no cash
Trams that go nowhere
Shuttles that don’t shuttle you
Fire made of water, and...
Mozzarella sticks with no mozzarella!

But wait!  There’s more!

For the low, low bargain price of $10, you too can enter...

*dah dah DAH!*

Sigfried and Roy’s Secret Garden!  (Enter if you dare.)
Where the white lion has the same hairstylist as Siegfried!

Take part in such exciting dinner conversations as:

“I have no respect for cows, because cows have no respect for
themselves.  (Imagine, if you will, a feral cow.  I rest my case.)”

“I want a blowhole, too.”

“I think it was actually some sort of displacement magic trick.  I was
*not* grabbing his ass!  But, maybe if I *had* been grabbing his ass,
Penn would have told me to stop grabbing his *shoulder.*”

Share in the hottest of insider information... the Mike Ford Walking
Tour of Vegas, complete with traffic advisories that could save your
life!  (And did.)

Find the latest in Vegas haute couture: giraffe and elephant hats at
FAO Schwartz!

Strippers Direct To You!  Experience the wedding of your dreams! 
Riders may not cross in front of the white line while the vehicle is in
motion.  Choose up to three tags until the little yodeling man climbs
to the top of the mountain.  We are not responsible for fatalities
resulting from the fifty foot Celine Dion breaking into full chorus in
front of the Coliseum.  The volcano will fire every 15 minutes.  High
limit blackjack and roulette.  Please do not pet the giant bronze
Siegried and Roy.  

“Everything you will see here is a lie.”
--Penn
  

    
And I got to do one of my few magic tricks as well. Which was fun.

...

I wish that I could show you people Mirror-Mask. I think I'm going to
spend the next year being really boring about this film. He's only two
weeks into shooting and it's working better than I could have dreamed.

Many, many years ago Dave McKean looked up at me from over a mexican
film and said "you know, I've never told anyone this, but I really want
to direct a feature film" and I said "Oh. Okay. One day I'll make it
happen..." and, with a little help from Lisa Henson, I have...

happy happy happy.

n  who just looked at some more digital dailies, and then looked at
some old ones again, just for fun.
  

    
er, mexican meal, not mexican film. sorry about that. 
  

    
It was opening night for my little ten-minute play, but that's not as
exciting....  But it does have an amazing cast.
  

    
I suspect it was far more exciting than the best Mexican meal anyone
around here has ever had, Martha.  (Note that's "best," not "most
technically dramatic two to eight hours later.")

I in fact suspect it was pretty darn exciting, period.

Congratulations.
  

    
I'm with Mike.

Congratulations, Martha... are you going to tell us about it, or have
you written about it somewhere else? Enquiring minds would really love
to know.
  

    
I'm with Neil & Mike.  Tell all!

And Neil's Magic Trick was very good.
  

    
Oh!  I thought I mentioned it an age ago.

www.playground-sf.org

and click on Emerging Playwrights Festival.

All I was doing was taking advantage of four of the six months of four-day
deadlines to write ten-minute plays.  But they put one of mine in the annual
show of the best short plays, plus they gave me a grant and a commission to
write a full-length play, which was hardly my intention!  What am I supposed
to do about that?

It's an Equity production with a really stellar cast and seven different top
Bay area directors, one for each short play (the actors each appear in
exactly three plays, so they had lots of different rehearsals to go to).
The writers were urged to come to all the rehearsals, which can't be normal,
and my director, a larger-than-life character who teaches and directs a lot
of Shakespeare, kept remarking that he just wasn't _used_ to a living
playwright.

Five shows a week through the end of the month.  I have to go tonight and
next Sunday night for post-show panel discussions and on the 21st for the
June Anne Baker Prize reception....

But--truly not as exciting as Neil's movies and everything, and possibly not
as exciting as the best Mexican dinner ever served!
  

    
So, went and saw Mary's most favouritest band ever, Janah, this
week-end, as they played two live shows in Chicago. I like them for the
same reasons I like Boiled in Lead, and I am a happy happy little
fangirl right now.  I am also a fan of their percussionist, Rick. He
bought me ice-cream!

Yay for Vegas hijinks! yay for Mirror Mask dailies! yay Martha!

Pretty much, in general, yay!

And I concur--neil's magic trick is indeed very good. I was utterly
fooled. (Keep in mind, I'm not very bright. Still. It was very good
sleight of hand. I was impressed.)
  

    
I just realized that it may not have been completely clear (because I
signed in instead of Maure) that the Vegas post was a collaborative,
totally sensory overloaded, mutually silly post by Maure and me.

     *

Vegas puts the "sur" in surreal.

Vegas is *not* a Pam place.

But I had a terrific time with Maure, anyway.  It was sooooo wonderful
to finally meet her in real life, and prove beyond all doubt that she
is, indeed, an uber-fabulous woman.

She's overcome her childhood banana bread trauma more than handily.

*ducks*

Yay! for Martha!  Congratulations on a wonderful cast.

And yay! for Neil and Dave!  What are the chances we'll see any of it
in San Diego?
  

    
> Vegas puts the "sur" in "surreal".

As in "south of real?"
  

    
Pam is such a gorgeous person. She and Penn and Teller were the best
parts of the trip. I didn't win any money, but lost just a few dollars,
and came home with a cold. 

Vegas is just really odd.

Pam,  you're not supposed to tell my weaknesses!! How'm I ever
supposed to be an effective superhero if every half-baked kid with
aspirations to be the next Lex Luthor knows to wave
fresh-out-tha-kitchen banana bread at me?? Gah!

Martha, hooray for opening night! I hope it went exceptionally well.