Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Heh-heh!
  

    
oh my gosh, i'm so embarassed, but i just spent three hours fighting
for Lord of the Rings Trilogy Tuesday tickets.  i got three, in the
end, but not without some bloodshed.  

i meant to say like two weeks ago, too, that i saw Eddie Izzard here
at the Wiltern.  i was so tired at the end of the show from all the
laughing that all i could do was sit there with a blank smile on my
face.
  

    
WHAT?!?!

Adriana: call me!  I need to know about this!
  

    
P.S.  You'll notice the complete *lack* of embarrassment about my
obsession, there.

Also: Adriana is a GODDESS!  Just because.
  

    
when you're good to mama, mama's good to you.
  

    
Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

Even I did not truly understand the magnitude of goddessness that
abides in Adriana.

Tickets have been purchased.  Together.  Loud squeals have been
emitted in unsuspecting offices.  And messy death has been averted.
  
And *that* is what the Thingie/Wellie family is all about.
  

    
Congrats on the tickets, you squealing fangirls, you!
  

    
Christy--thatnks for sharing the pix!  The one of you & your mom &
Himself is great!  And how cool that Claudia Gonson was there.  She
rocks.

Toaday in class we looked at an excerpt from Sundiata, an Epic of Old
Mali, and Sundiata and Soumaoro were playing the oldest game.  So I
told my students about it, and they thought it was cool.  Reading
Sandman is Good For You!

OK, time to write lesson plans, since I've been here for three hours,
and all I've done is go to tap class.   M.
  

    
You guys are awesome. And I'm in  freakin' Indiana. Boo. 

(It is pretty right now though)
  

    
And educational, too!

Mary, you take tap lessons?  Cool!  Thanks for liking the pics.  :) 
My mom likes the one with the three of us, too.  I think it was quite
an accomplishment for all three of us to look good in the same picture!

I didn't get a chance to meet Claudia, but someone told me that was
she.  Maybe if I do ever meet her, I will have listened to some
Magnetic Fields by then....
  

    
I just read _1602_ Part 3 before logging on; I'm sitting in Border's
while my friend John Mornini performs with his acoustic guitar.  At the
moment, he's singing Weird Al's "The Saga Begins."  (I thought he
might.  That's part of the reason I wore my _Running with Scissors_
T-shirt today.)

Anyhow, this is the first chance I've had to recount my Book Country
adventures!  Getting the pictures back has provided some of the
necessary inspiration, though, so that helps.  And I'm sure you all
won't mind indulging me.  :)

One of the first things I did Thursday morning was grab a _USA Today_,
make sure Neil was indeed in it, and buy it.  You know, I'm used to
seeing articles about Neil on the Web; in fact, most of what I've
learned about him came from the Internet, so he feels almost like an
online entity to me.  But seeing him written about in a well-known
print publication feels completely different.  I was just bouncing off
the walls, ready to inform the world at the slightest provocation that,
"Squeeee!  A friend of mine's in _USA Today_!"  (I felt the same way
about the _Entertainment Weekly_ magazine I got this past Saturday.)

Then I met my mom, and we picked up the rental car and drove to NJ. 
We found the NPR interview of Neil and Craig Russell on the drive and
got to listen to most of it, but had to turn off the last twenty
minutes or so while navigating our way around Jersey City.  I hope it's
still available online by the time I get around to retrieving it.

Friday was spent exploring NYC, getting lots of exercise, and visiting
the East Side Tenement Museum -- last two tickets of the last tour of
the day.  :)

But you guys don't want to hear all that.  You want to hear about the
Neil parts....
  

    
...and you shall.  But right now my brain is too tired to handle
writing *and* listening to music at the same time.

(The show was supposed to end at 10, but it looks as though it's going
to go straight through 'til closing time, when I shall be kicked out
and parted from my only Internet access outside of the office.)
  

    
Oh thank heaven.  He put the guitar into its case.  I can think again.

So Saturday was the reading at Equitable Cenntah.  My mother came with
me and was pretty excited to see Neil in person after hearing her kids
talk about him so much.  Neil talked about each of the _Endless
Nights_ artists in turn and how he got them to work on the project. 
When he got to Barron Storey, he read the Despair story before
continuing with the rest of the artist anecdotes.  Then he read "Crazy
Hair," following it with the Q&A.

After that we sat in line for a long time.  We met some delightful
people, Raphael and Leah, who made the time pass quickly.  (Raphy had
organized a local Neil reading at some point in the 90's, so he was
able to share some anecdotes.)

Once we were convinced that it wouldn't make us miss meeting Neil, we
went in to the Steve Martin talk.  We came in at the tail end of his
reading from his book, but we saw the whole Q&A.  Steve was cool and
fun, but THAT'S no surprise.  And at the end, he invited a little boy
onto the stage and did a magic trick for him -- making a ball
"disappear" by doing a bunch of hand movement and surreptitiously
throwing it over his shoulder, which the audience could see but the boy
missed entirely.  It was funny.

It was very strange to note that Steve's audience was about half the
size of Himself's.

So we got back -- our section of the line hadn't moved -- and
people-watched.  Mom was pretty impressed by how loyal Neil's fans are.
 Then I got to introduce her to Himself, and got that great picture. 
(The first words out of Mom's mouth as we moved away from the table
were, "He's delightful!")

We ran into Rocky very briefly, and later on I caught a glimpse of
Red-Headed Thingie Amy, but otherwise didn't see anyone I knew.  (Davey
wasn't at that event; she and I were doing our best impersonations of
Moving Targets as late flights, meandering plans, and sudden parental
ailments kept us playing phone tag for most of the weekend.)

After the signing, Raphy and Leah came with us to a late lunch at --
appropriately enough -- the Stardust Diner.  It turned out to be a loud
live show with singing waiters, which precluded conversation but was
very entertaining!  Mom and I ended up having to cut out quickly after
the meal, but fortunately, we'd all exchanged e-mail addresses back at
the venue.

That was Saturday, and I'm gonna get kicked out any minute now.

Have a great weekend!
  

    
Is it just me, or has neilgaiman.com been down all weekend?  I'm going
through withdrawal so bad I had to watch my Neverwhere DVD *and* buy
Endless Nights.  Sad, really.   M.
  

    
Mary,  add OfficialGaiman to your Friends list on livejournal -- his
posts are still coming through there. The journal has been down all
weekend.. it's not just you. He doesn't sound very happy right now. :( 
Although he manages to be really funny at the same time he's being
very unhappy. It's a peculiar trait of his.

Jouni,  if you're reading this -- I got an email from you this
morning, and I've replied to all your emails!! Apparently, you are not
getting them. I could forward them all to you, which strikes me as not
much good, if your email is not letting them through in the first
place. Is that a work email? Do they filter me or something? I just
replied to your last one as a sort of test. Let me know if you get it.
If nothing else, you can comment at my live journal, and we can talk
via that, if the emails continue not to get to you.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/maure/21935.html
I set up a post just for you.
  

    
You know you've done too many interviews in a row when you start
interviewing the interviewer....

Hang in there, sweetie.  You'll be home soon.  ((hugs))
  

    
Um, er, um.  I think it might be time that we brought Himself home, on
the double-quick.  Somebody's going to get bitten.  The site's back
up, by the way.

Yes, he is rather amusing when he's grumpy, at least from over here. 
Waaaaay over here.

Just a couple more days, Seanachie.  Just a couple more days.  M.
  

    
...and Lord willing, you'll have something waiting for you at
DreamHaven when you get home.

-Christy's been busy today
  

    
What I can't figure out, is apparantly he's going to be in California,
in San Jose, on Thursday. That just doesn't make sense to me... I
suppose it's on the way back home?
God, he's going to be a mess. 
  

    
Dan, Michelle, Martha: Well, propping up Himself as needed is part of
the Thingie/Wellie job description.  We'll be counting on you.

Christy: Thanks for the NY description.  I'm glad your mom enjoyed it,
too.  And here I thought all this time that you'd been having some of
those scotches with Davey, but you escaped!  Fiendishly clever of you.

Note to self: This madness can only last so long.  Really.
  

    
I don't think I can get down to San Jose!  Anyway poor Neil will already
have so many locals to touch base with--
  

    
Martha: I'm sorry if you don't get to go.  I'm sure you'll be missed.

Support beams for good weather and other good things would be
appreciated as I run off with friends for the remainder of the weekend
to host our second annual pagan camping festival.  Yay!
  

    
San Jose's a pain to get to for the carless.

I can't believe he's doing two events, _both_ followed by signings.  That's
nuts.
  

    
Email from Holley:

His time in the book fair sounded truly hellish and I think he was well
within his rights to be snitty to the interviewer. Although the book fair
people probably don't like that he basically said it was hell there. I
used to have a friend who used to say just that thing about New York. He's
a Texas guy. To his best friend. Who is from New York and went back to New
York. Actually, the New York guy was my best friend and still is and I
haven't seen the guy who considered New York the place bad Texans go when
they die for a long time.

I'm told via email that Wolves in the Walls and Endless Nights is on it's
way. I broke down this morning when I stopped in to get 1602 and bought
Endless nights at Bedrock Comics. In the lunch room I was eating my salad
and a couple of other secretaries sat down with me and since they were
there we talked instead but one of them opened up the book (EN). Now. I'm
at work. Conservative company. The woman in question read only craft,
sewing books and the Left Behind series. The other one does good to read a
newspaper occasionally. I'd forgotten there might be nude drawings in the
book and maybe even depictions of possible sex (Desire story). She's old
enough though so it wasn't too bad but you know the way it is in big
corporations about sexual harassment though come to think of it, I didn't
hand her the book and tell her to look at it, she just picked it up. And I
work in the legal department. Sigh. ANyway, I was trying to explain
Sandman and the Endless to two women who didn't know what an
anthropomorphic personification was at all much less about mythical beings
and such. But I did get across to them that this is not your usual BAM!  
POW! comic book and is a lot deeper. I think what impressed her was the
fact that many of the faces look like rock, movie or TV stars. Death in
the Death story, she said, looks like Stockard Channing. I hadn't noticed
till she said it but she does. We couldn't decide if the army guy looked
like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now or James Dean. Some pirate guy looked
kinda Johnny Deppish. I forget which rock star she said Dream looked like
but it was the one the Companion says Neil kind of wanted him to look like
when he started and then I told her he also looked a bit like the author
and showed her Neil's picture and she agreed so we actually had a pretty
interesting brief conversation. But I still haven't read it and must do
so. I spent about 30 minutes in the comic store. It's great going into in
the middle of the day when there's not anybody there but the clerks - who
also own the store because they liked comics. It's a great store anyway
and the clerks are real comic aficionados but usually they don't have time
to talk - cause then you get to have long animated discussions with 3 cute
guys about favorite comics people things. They knew about Dreamhaven.  
About Neil. Yay. And you find out things. Did you know they are bringing
out now all of the 10 Sandman books under new covers? I seem to recall
that coming up at some point recently.  I wish there were a slightly older
cute guy working there I could seriously flirt with but I'd feel funny
dating anybody younger than my son. Who turned 28 this week. It would be
nice to date somebody with the same interests somewhere. But I don't have
time right now. I have to move.

But the Fab 5, the Beatles impersonators, are coming back on October 24th
and I'm trying to get some pals to go with me to see them again. I'm
beginning to feel kinda fangirl making a point to go see them when they're
in town. It's really the other lady in the office though. She makes a
point to remind me - often. It also feels kinda strange because, of
course, The Fab Five these days is outta that new series about gay guys
making over straight guys and their houses and I hear the term a lot about
them because I watch Bravo a lot. Hm.

So that's me for now. I'm sure there are Well/Salon people who will still
be able to take care of our Neil when he blows through LA on his way home.  
Though too bad for Martha she won't be there. One day. One day he'll come
back to Texas or Louisiana. And I'll actually find out in time to make
plans to go see him. In person and everything.
  

    
Aww, Neil!  I was afraid you'd get sick, with all the running around
and not sleeping and Fall weather and such.  I'm glad you've been
catching up on your sleep, though.  Now, I'm not sure how much effect
I'll have saying this to someone who habitually does everything
above-and-beyond-the-call, but... please pace yourself and try not to
do anything you don't have to this weekend.  Take it slow.

And after you get back, the second half of my birthday present to you
is expected to be at DH on Monday.  I think it'll help.  :)

And you Californians and Carolinians (do we have any of the latter
lurking here?) --

Take good care of Unca Neil.  He always takes such good care of us. 
:)