Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Starting to get really excited about seeing Neil!  Looks as though my
friend Tom and I will be staying in the City that night (well, one of
the boroughs, anyway) with Ben, who probably won't make it to the
signing but is available for hanging out afterwards.  It'd be cool to
see some people I met last time PLUS some new WellFOGs.

And with a place to stay; trains instead of driving; and a brother and
a big male friend with me to look after me, I'm thinking MAYbe it
really is a good night to learn about single malts....

Neil, you are of course invited to come along.

Just ordered my mom's and my tickets to the Book Country reading next
month, too.  (Déjà vu!  Didn't I just make two road trips in a row just
to see a green-eyed eccentric with a wicked wit?  Only that one was
Steve Taylor.)

Maure -- Your description of Naperville also sounds like the planet
run by It in _A Wrinkle in Time_....

Mimi -- OK, so what DOES "Kimi wa kareinaru hana" mean?

Starbucks is very noisy on a Friday night.  A few minutes ago, I
thought I overheard someone say, "I felt better after I smacked him." 
I now realize she's speaking Spanish, though, so that probably wasn't
what she said.  Still, I think it would make a good pseud.
  

    
The Problem of Susan will be in Al Sarrantonio's upcoming book
"FLIGHTS".

I haven't seen the new show (is it BOUNCE?) but Mary Roane might have
done -- has it happened yet, Mary?

...

The PW article was terrific, but filled with tiny goofs (American Gods
didn't get the World Fantasy Award, for example) that made me wish
he'd sent ti to me to read first.

Actually what SANDMAN spawned was the Visigoths.

I'll see lots of you in New York, I hope. It'll be hot! Sweaty! a
nightmare! But fun!

...

I think that as of now, all the time in NY is officially committed.
And we're still waiting on the USA Today photo shoot...
  

    
Oh, Glen -- I saw a guy in a Utili-Kilt at that festival I went to
last month.  It had that brand name on the label and everything.  So
somewhere in Illinois, I was thinking of you.

Also met some Neil fans, but that's no surprise at an arts festival. 
And when I was telling this one woman about Neil, she said that when I
got back I should tell him that, unbeknownst to him, I was praising him
to some stranger way out on a farm in Illinois.

Ooh!  Slipped by Himself himself!  Hello, Neil.
  

    
Christy--you came to Illinois & didn't tell us?  Shame!  We don't bite
(much) and we are very, very good at getting people to spend money on
books (just ask Stagewalker & Neil), and we will feed you whatever you
like (if you can't get it in Chicago, you don't want it.  Trust us). 
And we are Unusual.  And very Suspect.  And so far we have not taken
anyone to the Shambles and left them........have we?  There's the
oddest ticking sound.....

Yes, Neil & Adriana, I did see the new Sondhem.  It's called Bounce. 
It needed .........time.  And Nathan Lane, who, I understand, was to
take the role of the gay brother, but didn't.  I saw it in previews on
a Sunday night, and a friend of ours who had seen it the previous
Friday really hated it--felt there was no rhythm, pacing was off,
didn't care for the characters, etc.  I saw it with my choir director
Les, who was a PA for Sondheim during the original Broadway production
of Sweeney Todd, and we did not hate it--pacing was still a trifle
slow, but you could tell how much progress had been made in those 2
shows on Saturday.  Les says Todd came together the same way--it takes
time for his shows to gel, for the actors to find the rhythms of each
scene.  Fortunately, Todd had Len Cariou and Angel Lansbury. 
Unfortunately, Bounce doesn't. None of the actors seem quite up to it. 
They're not awful, but they ain't Nathan Lane, either.  The characters
just don't make much of an impact, and that's a pity.  It was sort of
a mediocre evening of theatre.  The only song that's at all memorable
is the title song (which is in at least half the scenes) and I only
remember that because it's *very* evocative of another mid-tempo B'way
number that was itself so banal that I can't remember what it is.  It
definitely isn't "No One's Gonna Harm You", or "Have a Little Priest",
either, for that matter.  Les bought tickets to go again at the end of
the run, because he's so curious to see what it turns into.  I'm pretty
stinkin' curious myself, and I'll report his review when I get it.

And how very odd that you put up that link to the Greenaway story on
the blog, Neil, since I just bought a copy of The Draughtsmans Contract
in a truckstop on the way back from Orlando (I have no idea what that
& Billy Elliot & Up At The Villa were doing in the $3 bin at a
truckstop, I just work here).  I haven't had a chance to watch it yet,
but now I'm looking forward to it.

Off to Ye Olde Bristol Renaissance Faire tomorrow (OK, later today)
with DebbieandChris.  If I don't run off with a long-haired boy in
tights, I'm going to see Ziggy Marley on Sunday.  (For $6) Yay!

(No particular LHBIT, I just love RenFaire for the .......visual
opportunities it provides.)

I'd better shut up now, as Debbie has just spit Mountain Dew all over
her computer reading this. It's 5:15 bloody a.m.  Why am I awake?  And
why do I have to go put clothes in the dryer before I can go to bed? 
Ugh.

Mary, Chief Cook and Bottle Washer of the Roane Home for Wayward
Goldfish (and what does a goldfish have to do to become wayward, I
should like to know?)      
  

    
Well, it's no lemon-scented sticky bat, but we had a close encounter
with a flying rodent around Chez Williams this evening. It was a very
cooperative bat, strangely enough. Cooperative enough to sit still for
pictures, even. The whole sordid tale can be found at my blog,
http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=bill_squared&tab=weblogs&uid=28628
502
. Gotta love rural-ish living. ;-)
  

    
I spent the productive parts of today further refining the redesign of
NESFA's at-con sales form, partly to build in specific instructions
and detail for Torcon and partly to address an assortment of apparent
confusions that I've noted in managing the Press' sales tables at
several recent conventions; and in updating the bookmarks.doc so we can
produce another batch of giveaway bookmarks with the latest titles on
them for Torcon. Periodically amused myself by replaying
http://www.quigmans.com/elements.swf and getting it mostly memorized
again. (I used to have it, and still can recite the Masochism Tango and
Old Mexico with a high degree of reliability...)

We had an excellent thunderstorm again this afternoon, which
unfortunately was all sound and fury with no clearing of the air. Oh
well.

Mary (and Bill): thanks! for reminding me about Stratford ON. I knew
about that Festival but hadn't connected it to this trip. Now we're
thinking about the schedule and may actually manage a performance of
something.
  I think I'd almost rather see a photo of Neil leaning out the window
of a pink car than emerging from a coffin.
  I felt the same way about the PW story. There is some amusement to
be had from keeping in mind that genre readers include a high enough
percentage of geeks that the writer is probably hip-deep in corrective
emails by now, heh.
  So how were the, er, visual opportunities at RenFaire today?
  If I can find a copy of Laurel Winter's "why goldfish shouldn't use
power tools" I'll send it to you.

Bill, that's a great unsticky bat story. And photos! (That was one
laid-back-lookin' bat you had there, on Mickey's head. And cuuute.)
  (Maure: insert [bats, not-house, belfry] comment here. <g>)

** Oh HO! Do we really get to teach Christy about single malts this
Friday? I'm in. Walker has this favorite pub that he says is right
around the corner from the bookstore... **

Neil: Regarding story poems in the next collection: yes, please. _I_
read them, multiple times, sometimes aloud. I'd very much like to have
another set, and I like having them mixed in with the prose stories
just as I appreciate having different lengths and styles of prose mixed
together. A collection shouldn't be homogeneous--it's not necessarily
"boring" that way, but it does tend to dull the effect of each piece.
  

    
> Actually what SANDMAN spawned was the Visigoths.

Well, that explains the inherent, er, enthusiasm, of your fans.  I
think we do a fair job of besieging whatever venue we participate in.
  

    
Davey -- if you can locate them, Robertson Davies's books on the first
three years of the Stratford Festival (RENOWN AT STRATFORD, TWICE HAVE
THE TRUMPETS SOUNDED, THRICE THE BRINDLED CAT HATH MEWED) are, well,
they're by Robertson Davies.  There seems to have been only one edition
of each, and an omnibus, back in the Fifties, so this is probably a
library job.  I assume that they will eventually reappear, since there
seems to be the intent to reprint all of Davies, though the process is
not alacritous.  Then again, Pamela Dean and I may be the only people
(at least below the 49th Parallel) who are actually waiting for them.

One historically fascinating note: Davies speaks well of two
supporting characters in one of the plays (I've of course forgotten
who/which), who are Douglas Rain (the voice of HAL 9000) and that
promising young Shakespearean, uh, William Shatner.

I'm pretty sure they weren't Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
  

    
My dad always maintained that Shatner was a terrific young actor
before he turned into a caricature of himself.  He loved him in
Judgement at Nuremburg.  Perhaps he had read the Davies book.

Davey--Ah, the sights for sore eyes to be had at a Renfaire.  We had a
great time, spent too much money, learned never to buy mead at a
Renfaire, (look, the first time I had the stuff was at Bunratty castle
in Ireland, and those folks make *mead*--the same stuff that's served
in Paradise.  It's not my fault that I'm an optimist and thought the
stuff at Faire would be comestible) and did not get rained on. 
Unfortunately, it rained all day Sunday, so we missed Ziggy.

Let us know what you see at Stratford.

Am insanely jealous of everyone going to the signing on Friday.  If
you run into lost Wellies, hug them & tell them to come visit.

Mary (down 1 Black Moor)
  

    



From Holley Nowell:


I remember Shatner when he was good also. If you go back to the very first
few episodes of Star Trek, before they decided he'd have the blonde-bimbo-in-
every-port cliché attached to him, he was acting. Kirk was a sensitive, shy,
withdrawn intellectual guy with a wide range of emotions. He played him well.
Then they rang in the changeling and he became the action hero guy who has a
driving ambition to always WIN at any cost. His stock facial expressions
could be categorized and numbered. He didn't even have to read the script
directions. The director just called them out by number. "OK. Shatner. Now,
in this scene, start with #11! Now switch to #14; now #8!. Now the fight
scene. Get your shirt ripped off. Heave that air in and out of your lungs.
Makeup! Let's see some sweat on those pecs. Now # 7, #2, and do the #18 that
melts the chic into your arms. Clinch, Clinch. Now cut. ... Cut ... Um, I
said CUT!

Even the first couple of episodes of TJ Hooker were pretty good until he got
lazy and they cloned Kirk and put him in a police uniform.
  

    
Neil: I vote yes, please, on story poems.

Quoth Davey:

> all sound and fury with no clearing of the air

To combine topics... there's a Ren Faire Shakespeare group out here
who do very funny, very risque, very abbreviated versions of
Shakespeare plays ("The Full Montague," "Much Ado be doo be doo")
called "Sound and Fury".

Mary: The first "real" mead I ever had was at Bunratty, at the
beginning of the evening dinner show, there.  We'd been running around
all day like mad tourists, hadn't had anything to eat for most of the
day, threw on something approaching dinner wear, and ran over to the
castle.  Then they handed us these big ol' mugs full o' mead.  Color me
tipsy in 10 minutes flat.  I thought it was fabulous stuff at the
time, and I still think it's well done.  But the Bunratty's mead
marketed over here (I think Trader Joe's carries it sometimes) doesn't
seem to have quite the same magic, which doesn't make much sense.  In
the past year or so, I've begun preferring the more dry, champagny
meads, though.  Bunratty's is pretty sweet.

Can't speak much about Shattner, although I found Tim Allen's spoof on
him in "Galaxy Quest" oddly endearing.

"Didn't you people ever *watch* these shows?!?"
  

    
That really wasn't meant as the Stock Shatner Slap -- he certainly did
do good work in pre-Trek TV, when there were good scripts and
direction (and without either of those, anybody's likely to look pretty
bad, though John Gielgud would have -sounded- good delivering the
dialogue from "Spock's Brain."  "Brain . . . brain.  What, then, is
this brain, is't matter or art?")  Shatner was in more than one episode
of the THRILLER series, hosted by Karloff, which had stories by people
like Bob Bloch (and Robert Howard's "Pigeons from Hell," which was
genuinely scary).

And, of course, there's the immortal "Project Strigas Affair" ep of
Man from UNCLE, which features Shatner -and- Nimoy a few years before
You Know What, David McCallum disguised as a Commie Bad Guy in makeup
that makes him a dead ringer for Leon Trotsky, and a
sucker-the-villains story that could easily have been on Mission:
Impossible.

Which suddenly reminds me of Martin Landau's reasoning for turning
down the role of Spock, but there ain't no such thing as a free
association.
  

    


Holley Nowell writes:



I don't remember (arghhhh!) Shatner and Nimoy on UNCLE. I loved that show.
But I was too young to recall much of it. I wish they'd put it on again
somewhere.

And I never heard the Martin Landau reason for not being Spock. Egad. He'd
have looked much he same. Please elucidate.

Oh, my pirate name is Black Ethel Bonny. From Nail's page.
  

    
     "Project Strigas" was a first-season episode, when the show,
while hardly grave, wasn't as self-consciously jokey as it later
became.
     Brief-as-possible summary:  The ambassador of a (small, unnamed)
East Bloc country is constantly raising hell at the UN over Yankee
imperialism and so forth; it's believed that he's acting as a prop for
a (very large but still unnamed) East Bloc country, and it's decided
to, well, get rid of him.  (This was one of very few times that UNCLE
acted directly, rather than responding to an Evil Plot.)
     Shatner is an exterminator (of the insect sort) with a failing
business who agrees to be a stalking horse for the operation.  He and
his wife start to show up at diplomatic dinners, hinting that their
work is really a front for Something Very Big -- this is Project
Strigas, a mythical project to develop a gas ("Strike Gas") that will
put whole enemy armies to sleep.  He's then set up to be "blackmailed"
into revealing the "secrets" to Ambassador Klink -- er, you get my
meaning.
     Meanwhile, Nimoy, as an agent for the unnamed KGB, shows up to
find out what's going on.  To neutralize -him,- Illya pretends to be a
"real" Not The KGB Guy (the Trotsky makeup cannot be an accident, and
is a great in-joke) who convinces the already paranoid ambassador that
Nimoy is "really" the one trying to disgrace him.
     Good triumphs, of course.  The Bad People are recalled by their
respective unnamed countries, and Illya (who has "committed suicide" in
front of them) shows up at the airport to wave goodbye.  And
presumably Shatner gets his business bailed out by UNCLE, or maybe he
just gets a job cleaning the headquarters building of nonelectronic
buts.

     And now, the Landau story (he told this on "Actors Studio'):  The
character he played on MISSION, "Rollin Hand," was specifically
written for him by Bruce Geller, who had studied under Landau at Actors
Studio West.  The character was in fact originally named "Martin
Land."  Landau turned Geller down, and pointed out that he really had
to change the character's name.  This was before word processing, the
dear gone days of fixed-pitch typewriters, so Geller made a change that
didn't alter the letter count or even all the letters.
     Landau is then offered the part of Spock -- as I recall, he was
the first one offered it.  But upon hearing that Spock "has no
emotions,"* he felt that there was nothing an actor could do with such
a character (note that Actors Studio is very much a Method shop) and
said no.  So he walks out of Roddenberry's office and runs into Geller
down the hall (both shows were originally from Desilu), who offers him
the job again.  Landau realizes that "Rollin" is, as he put it, not
just a more varied part, he's a whole rep company.  And he signs on.

*Roddenberry was big on this idea.  You may recall that the original
pilot (cannibalized for the series) had Majel Barrett as "Number One,"
the first officer, who was also emotionless, though allegedly human. 
Roddenberry was, of course, big on lots of less-than-deep ideas, as
anyone who saw his work after he got to put something approximating sex
into it will have noticed.
  

    
I love Mike's posts.  He knows stuff.

Iron Mary Bonney 

Arrrr.
  

    
Oh, yeah, on the story poems thing--I *really* want a book of verse,
someday, but I suspect I will be older & greyer before that happens. 
So put 'em in the next short story collection, and if a couple of 'em
get printed twice, so much the better.

There is no such thing as Neilstuff I don't want to read.
  

    
Hiho,

First, a plug for Tori's Lottapianos Tour: It's positively marvelous.
Both Tori and Ben Folds are so wonderful it was a real treat to see
them and hear their music. Everybody go!  And go early, so you don't
kick yourself for missing any of Ben Folds performance! (Adriana: I'm
still ripping my hair out for not spotting you at the Greek Theater.
Two ships! Passing in the night!)

Neil, on story-poems: Do please keep them in. Personally, I love them,
and the way they operate within a collection... I think it's more
evident when you hear them on the CDs (like <i>Telling Tales</i>), but
even reading them on the page sets up a rhythm for the book as a whole,
crescendos and diminuendos. (I liked "Harlequin Valentine" and "The
Wedding Present" quite a bit, but I lived for "A Writer's Prayer,"
"Boys and Girls Together," and "In The End." *hearts*)  Also, whenever
I lend out my copy of <i>Smoke and Mirrors</i>, everybody so far has
come back with a strong, positive reaction to "Nicolas Was..."  -- it's
the one they remember most vividly (having knocked their socks off)
and that's one of your story-poems.

Christy -- I'll email you what it means. It sounds weird in English,
and involves a slight word play, so I won't take up space and bore
anybody else with it. ^_^;

Hope everybody has fun at the New York signing! ^_-
  

    
Neil: What Mimi said. 'zactly.

Mimi: I won't be bored.  I want to know what it means, too.  I missed
that bit at SDCC.
  

    
The Dreaming just posted this handy tidbit:

And the word from Borders is:
We will start giving out passes (like numbers) at 1pm. They will be
colors, 50 for each color, rather then numbers. The first 200 will see
him read, those after that will have to listen to him only.


Now I just have to figure out just how early I'd have to arrive to be
in the first 200.
  

    
Wow, I almost forgot to get this posted...

Today's my last day with post-it-yourself Well access. I simply don't
have the time or energy to frequent all of the Well discussions, and
don't see the cost-to-benefit ratio for my infrequent posts here and
the email address. :-(

It's been scads of fun, and of course I'll continue to lurk around
here and email infrequent stuff to the hosts, but this is my personal
swan song here.

*poof*
  

    
'Bye, Bill!  Don't be a stranger!

Speaking of strangers, if anybody ses Len in NYC, tell him I said
"Hi!" and he should e-mail us.

Mary (down *2* goldfish, dammit)
  

    
I gleefully call everyone's attention to
http://www.locusmag.com/2003/News/News08Log1.html or
http://www.worldfantasy.org/awards/, wherein Our Hero is nominated for
TWO World Fantasy Awards, and a goodly number of other friends are also
listed.

Mike, I guess you've just peeled the veneer off Boston's pretense at
being a center of literary culture (nevermind our theatre): the BPL has
no copies of those Davies titles; I'll have to request them through
interlibrary loan. (Added to my list for later.)

So Bill's going to be another Lurker in the Shadows--and I'll have to
keep reading his blog for more cool bat stories. Oh, OK. See ya 'round!

Mimi, I won't be bored either, and I like word plays. What's the
translation?

Mary, have you been letting those fish duel with edged weapons again?
(I'm sorry about the little guys, really.)

Another NESFA Press packing session last night has got us almost
finished stuffing books into boxes, but I'm still mired in form design.
<sigh>

Off early tomorrow morning for a day of devilment (Hi Neil!) and
debauchery (Christy! single malts! woohoo!) in NYC, then on to
Philadelphia for the family fun.
  

    
Email from Jouni:

Hi Neil and others...

Finally saw the cover of the Finnish edition of 'Coraline'. It was
subtitled 'Varjoja talossa' ('Shadows in the House' in English). I'm
really looking forward to see the translation (especially the
'Ratsong')... and that reminded me...

Neil -- A question, if you are reading this... Who does the subtitles to
foreign editions (I mean when there isn't one in the original english
edition) and who decides if the translated book needs a subtitle or not?

Bill -- I welcome thee among us... among 'The Lurkers of the Well' ;-)

Oh, and I also put couple of new pictures to my online picture garage
(under the title 'ADS 2003')... yes, they are Neil-related. Had loads of
fun doing them. Go see them in...

http://www.geocities.com/jouniac/picts.html

Jouni (waiting Neil's Scandinavian tour)
  

    
Okay, I've told my boss I won't be a work tomorrow.

So, if you see a guy in a Utilikilt walking around the signing, walk
up and say "Hi Glen".  If you remember me from the last signing, you
can then add, "What did you do to your hair?"
  

    
*sigh* It's days like this that make me miss New York so hard.  

Yes, what Mimi said about Lottapianos.  It was truly one of the best
Tori shows ever, and I've seen a lot.  Ben Folds is her perfect
compliment.  Go go go.