Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Jouni: Bwaaahaha!

Mary: sending fishy *beams* of health to the rest of your fishies

Best wishes to everyone travelling to see Neil (and each other) in
NYC.  Safe travels and much fun and delight be yours.

Tell him we said hi.
  

    
*ahem* Adriana's new EP is available for purchase. I have been
listening to the clips, and it sounds wonderful, Adriana, and I am, of
course, buying a copy. You must let me play bits of it on our radio
show next time.
  

    
oops . . . forgot the link. Buy it here:
http://cdbaby.com/cd/theendless2
  

    
Email from Jouni:

Oops. Misspelled the subtitle. It's 'Varjojen talossa' ('In the House of
Shadows' in English)...

Jouni 
  

    
Hey!  Maure outed me!  Thanks!  hee hee...
Thanks for the unsolicited plug.  We finally re-designed our site too:
www.theendlessband.com
Maure-OF COURSE you can play it, at any time, in any way, even to
laugh at it. 
  

    
Report from Border's:
They handed out the numbers a little early, and I am third in line.  I
just now met up with Glen, and right before that, Lucy from the
_Coraline_ signing.  'Course, I wouldn't know Davey if I saw her, but
I'm sure we'll hook up at some point in the day.

Lucy says Rocky's coming.  I have met Cat of the Neil-Designed Tatoo,
who is wearing a beautiful quilt-type dress that she made herself.  I
said she and Michelle should bond.

And, oh, yes, the lady who brought her REALLY really new baby to the
_Coraline_ signing last year is here with said baby, who looks a lot
older for a one-year-old.

Though the mezzanine where this reading is taking place is kind of
odd-shaped and not really conducive to holding an audience, I am in
prime picture-taking position.  And THIS time, I am not letting Mystic
ship them until they've put them online.

The seating area closest to the podium is being reserved for children.
 So far, we have the _one_ baby, though I'm sure more will show up
later, after their naps.

Rocky's here!!!  Since I'm standing slightly above her on a ramp and
she's sitting on the floor, she said, "Tell them Rocky says hi from the
ground."

:)

Well, I'm going to get a drink.  Wheee!

Luv,
Christy
  

    
> I now looked like a James Bond villain who had been cast in
> The Matrix.

*grins hugely* I can't WAIT to see that!  When will it come out?

> I'm 
> not actually sure whether I'll be reading the Wolves in the 
> Walls tomorrow, or the Wolveth in the Wallth. 

*falls off her chair giggling uncontrollably!*

     *

Christy: Thanks ever so much for the Live From the Scene of the Crime
reporting.  It sounds like so much fun!  I hope everybody has an
utterly fabulous time.  Pictures, please!

And please, *please* somebody tell us if he read Wolveth in the
Wallth.  Or The Problem with Thuthan.

And, yes, Adriana and Dave's new EP is haunting, sweet, scary and
wonderful.  A siren song of a recording.  Go get it.
  

    
can I quote you on that, Pam?
  

    
or, better yet...would you be willing to go copy and paste it into the
Reviews section at our www.cdbaby.com/theendless2 ?  i'll give you big
bucks.  

by bucks i mean deer.  or something.
  

    
You give deer in exchange for reviews?

....

wow
  

    
Hey, gang.  Christy and Davey here.  Christy is typing on her big
ancient laptop, but at least she got to _see_ Davey's cute little
Libretto. [DS--Which does _not_ have a wireless card; sometimes big ol'
Dells are the right tool!]

Pam -- He thounded abtholutely fine.

(I missed that journal entry; I'll catch up later.)
[I did, too--I think I left the house this morning before it was
posted--but Walker told me all about it when I got to the bookstore...
and let's not talk about clenching, OK?]

(Christy adds the obligatory "poor baby.")

OK.

  ~*Quotes from the _Wolves in the Walls_ Reading*~

"It's like a giant game of Duck, Duck, Goose."

"Omigod, that's big!  I love you!"

"I know I'm gonna sneeze on Neil!"

[And after the reading, when Neil was reading questions off little
blue cards (that came out of the walls...), one of his answers turned
into "And when you have the chance to make a movie about something,
don't call it 'A Short Film About --', because, when you do, you'll
spend the rest of your life telling people 'Well, I made this short
film about --', and they'll ask what it's called, and you'll have to
answer 'A Short Film About --', and they'll say no, what's it
called..." -- and Chip and I both said "third base!" And that was when
Walker swatted me.]

LOL!!!!!!!!!!, said Christy, who just heard about the Chip, Davey, and
Walker part of that story while Davey was typing it.

(Although of course, in real life it didn't sound like "LOL.")

[And now we're going to finish our coffees and log off, go look at
more books (yum), and eventually sccop up Walker and whoever-else is
around and all go to dinner and on to debauchery (single malts! yay!)
-- a live Wellian production of "Being an Experiment Upon Strictly
Scientific Lines" may or may not be posted later this evening.]

Oh, yeah, I met Walker, too!  And his beard is purple and his ponytail
is red.  Makes me almost wish I'd dyed my hair for the week.

Later!
  

    
> "Omigod, that's big!  I love you!"

*falls off her chair giggling uncontrollably for the _second_ time*

You two are GOOD.  No, really.  I mean that.  I think you've got a
potential alternative career, here.  Many thanks for the laughs!

     *

And Adriana... I'll be terribly happy to drop by and post something
into the reviews section, but I think there's already something
sirenish in there, so I might reword it a bit, so as not to sound
terribly unoriginal.

And deer--male or female--are always welcome.  They're one of my
totems, pagan girl that I am.
  

    
Adriana: Review submitted.  Actually a reworking of my original post
here in <296>.  Hopefully, it'll show up there in a couple of ays.
  

    
Ooooo, Jouni, I just laughed like an idiot.  I *love* those designs
for Shoggoth's!  The slogan is particularly apt.  ;-)
  

    
What can I say?

I got up later than I planned, arrived at the Trenton train station
while the train was leaving, but eventually arrived in NYC.  I got to
the Borders in time to be April 15th.  The clever people were using a
crossword-a-day desk calendar to mark your arrival.

(tinymonster) spotted me first and shortly after I saw Lucy
(http://www.luciar.com), then I had a little lunch with two random Neil
fans.  Returning upstairs I spotted (rocky-nyc), and made some new
comrades, including the A&E mole.

At 3, Neil read Wolves (with his black-tipped tongue) answered the
questions submitted on the blue index cards and did the signing thing.
I think Christy hit the highlights.

Afterwards I met (nytwlkr) and passed on a Utilikilt card.  I don't
think I ever caught the guy-from-The-Onion's name.  I was forced to
wait for hours to eat dinner, however said forcing was done by making
me sit with 5 attractive intelligent women and me the only guy - so I
really can't complain much.  I met (daveysnyder) at to dinner, where 
we had a table for 20.

I don't think I missed any Wellies, did I?  

Oh, and did I mention that we saw the proofs for Endless Nights?
  

    
Let's see...*checking clipboard*  One deer for Pam, and ... one llama
for Dan (I'm out of deer, sorry).  

All NYers: *extra loud, whistful sigh*  Where'd you go to eat?
  

    
More notes on Friday:
  Neil's reading was very fine and his little-blue-card responses the
usual mix of interesting and fun. The Borders staff were also very cool
about all of us Wellies and Thingies and Boardies hanging out
afterwards, and I was glad Neil had led a round of applause for the
store being reestablished with many of the pre-9/11 staff.
  The current store is architecturally fine, too, with a gorgeous main
room ceiling and set of internal columns. Does anyone know what that
building was before Borders moved in?
  I spent some time between the reading and dinner wandering around
the store, checking out various sections and also verifying a few
bibliography entries for Neil pieces in books I don't own; and the rest
of it talking with people I mostly didn't recognize until we traded
names. Now I have faces and voices for Christy and Glen and Rocky and
various friends from other electronic fora. Excellent!
  We were about 20 at dinner. Neil's-former-publicist Andy Heidel
found us a stretch of waterside tables at American Park, so Glen and
his lady friends went ahead to hold them (poor Glen, ahem) and the rest
of us followed once the after-work signing-line surge had settled down
and Walker was willing to leave.
  Christy (o brave! o foolish!) tried _two_ single malts, the
Glenkinchie and the Isle of Jura, and had a couple of sips of my
Lagavulin for comparison. (The first two are fairly light--since she
likes sweet drinks Walker and I decided she'd probably prefer the
lighter whiskies--and the last has a much stronger and smokier taste.)
I don't think single malt will ever be her first choice for a drink,
but it was fun to talk through some of the points with a group of
friends.
  **Sidebar query: For New York Is Book Country, a couple of NY-local
friends have said they're willing to scout places with a good selection
of ciders so we can have a tasting session on those. Anybody
interested? (I'm just as happy to be drinking a good dry cider as a
good whisky, each in its own time.)**
  And we all talked about all sorts of things together; and when one
part of the conversation veered into the political several people even
let me sound off about why everyone should vote anyway, even when it
"can't possibly make a difference" (Mike, you'd have been proud--I was
dangerously close to eloquent); and many of us agreed that we'd have
been much happier about the hawk that grabbed a chihuahua in the park
if it had been that little Taco Bell nuisance that was scooped up; &c.
  When dinner was over and people were starting to hug and head out,
just because we could, a handful of us who didn't want to quit even
when that would've been sensible walked about 10 minutes and waited
about 10 minutes--and rode the Staten Island Ferry out and back,
discovering that NYC is still a twinkling wonderland of faery lights
reflected in the water, and Lady Liberty is still one of the most
awesomely grand and beautiful symbols in the world.
  And then we walked back past Borders to make sure Neil wasn't
_still_ there signing books in his sleep (nope, all was closed and
mostly dark); and then we went our separate ways to homes and hotels.

Chip and I stayed Friday night in Secaucus, NJ, just across a bridge
from NYC, and drove the rest of the way to Philadelphia Saturday to
hang out with my family and celebrate my father's birthday at dinner.
It was a good dinner at a neat little restaurant, and except for the
last-minute change in desserts because the restaurant staff dropped
Daddy's cake that afternoon it went very well. Oops. I think we're all
more disappointed that they didn't take a photo of the results than we
were to lose the cake, but we'll be laughing over that story for a
while.
  We had breakfast with my folks this morning, then drove home. The
high point of the return trip was watching the odometer roll over at
100,000 miles while we were on I-84 in eastern Connecticut. (The car is
a '96 Saturn sedan. We don't take many road trips.) I also discovered
that even the interminable backup from I-84 onto the MA Turnpike at the
Sturbridge tolls is less exasperating with a Boiled in Lead tape
kicking the stuffing out of the car stereo.

I think I'm tired now. G'night all.
  

    
Wow, Davey, thank you for that great recounting of the day.  
  

    
*sigh*

Thanks, Davey.  Thingies & Wellies make magic.  I love that.
  

    
I was on the train on my way home from my part-time job (if you don't
teach all year, you don't eat all summer), when I heard somebody say,
"There she is!" and looked up to see 2 friends of mine, Mark & Andrea
NeCamp, getting on the train.  They were all hyper because they were at
Tori's show tonight & saw Neil.  They stopped & said hello to him. 
I'm glad they did, because they're fans, but they get kinda shy
sometimes.  Andrea actually worked up the courage to ask him how he
liked the show, and he sad the sound was better tonight than last
night, he thought.

<<sigh>>Me, I worked tonight.  Last night, too.  Bugger.

Mary (just finished Ackroyd by Jules Feiffer)
  

    
For those of us who don't visit our local comics shop every week like
we ought to, heads up:

1602 goes on sale tomorrow (actually later today), Wednesday, Aug. 13
for the princely sum of $3.50.  I advise purchasing it tomorrow,
because I have a sneaking suspicion that it will not stay on the
shelves long.

Mary ( reading A Cat on Jingle bell Rock by Lydia Adamson) 
  

    
Oops.  Thanks to Glenn, too!  Your own private harem is just *one* of
the benefits of the worldwide Wellie/Thingie-dom.
  

    
Unfortunately, I don't think I can get away with calling them my
harem.

But if any of them were to volunteer...
  

    
I don't get to read 1602 until they're all out, since I ordered them
from Dreamhaven during a Himself-related shopping spree and they dont'
ship them individually, but as a set. So while I get the joy of reading
them as a single story, I have to wait while you all savor the bite
size bits of it.

six on one hand... half dozen on the other...
  

    
Well, eight, actually, or at least that's the plan. I'm waiting for a
DreamHaven set, too, although if Greg brings any copies of #1 to Torcon
I may wheedle one out of him long enough to read it...

Spent too much of yesterday unexpectedly reassembling my closet after
coming home Monday evening to find a shelf/bar collapsing and in need
of immediate clear-everything-off-and-reattach-the-shelf-more-securely
response. Ended up rearranging things while putting them back, tossing
a few pieces into the Hadassah pile, and finding a purse I thought I'd
tossed a while ago and now it's just about the right size and pocket
configuration to haul around Torcon. Hm.