Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I had this dream last night. It's one I've had before. Several Times.
A pal of mine I no longer speak with much who used to want to be a
writer and had written some stuff I'd read which she never turned in to
be published had some friends. In the dream they and I are playing out
some scenario. There's David in his long black caped cloak and black
hair pulled back in a little pony tail with black ribbon. Wearing
black. There's another guy that has a room that moves on cables above
us and has the exterior papered in black and white pictures. There's
the endless stream of gushy words from her about her favorite author
and why he is.  There's the musician with the neon lighted room that
pulses to the music. But last night the dream was more defined. The
black and white pictures were all from Sandman. The guy in the cape
looked like the caped Dream in his 2nd or 3rd visit with Hob. The words
she writes and the author she gushes over is Neil Gaiman. The music is
the songs Neil writes. So, I guess I had a Neil Gaiman dream altho he
was't actually in it. 
  

    
Michelle -- So what color(s) is your hair now?

Slipped by Dodge dreaming of Dream.  It sounds like a great moving art
exhibition kind of deal.  Love how Neil's multiple talents come into
play!
  

    
Hmm, I had been wondering when the Nebulas were; I knew they were
around this time somewhere.

Neil -- Congratulations on the BSFA award, and on all those
nominations!  Please, do put up "A Study in Emerald" and let us know
when it's up; I know I'd love to see it.

Neil cont'd -- It sounds like somebody (You?  Julia?  Lorraine?)
should start updating "Where's Neil" again.  Here we are hearing for
the first time today that you're a guest of honor at a con that takes
place in less than a week!

I guess I should come out and ask, then:

Will you be at the Pittsburgh Comicon?
  

    
Christy -- Penguincon's been up on WHERE'S NEIL since just before
Xmas, honest. (I just checked.)
http://www.neilgaiman.com/where/2003_12_01_archive.asp#107221425859782512
I probably should do an update, but most of the appearances are
listed.

There's nothing wrong with teabags, if you're making a cup for one
person. As long as the tea's good, the water's good, and you're using
boiling water. (I use britishtea.com but there are dozens of websites
out there who'll sell you tea from the UK. I used to buy the Ty-Phoo
really fresh, am now drifting between Yorkshire and some of the
Fairtrade teas, especially the African ones.)

No plans to be at Pittsburgh, no.
  

    
Ahh, such a newbie mistake for me to make!  Thanks for pointing me in
the right direction, Neil, and also for answering my Pgh question.




(files away tea info for future Wicked Plots)
  

    
atm, the hair is mostly black with lots of red... like nearly neon
red. In a week it will still be mostly black with red, but hidden in a
bunch of black and white twisty extensions.

Hrm... now wondering if Neil will be at Mythcon (I think that's what
it's called).

And in other (and actually topical) news, there's an announce list you
can sign up on now for official announcements about the Fiddler's
Green convention coming up in November (er, it's the Sandman convention
I've mentioned from time to time). The list is for the convention
planners to get important convention news out to everyone simply and
effectively. If you're interested in finding out more about the
convention (useful stuff, like "when will there be a website?"), go to:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fg-announce/
(For those unfamiliar with the site, yahoogroups is a free service.)
If you don't want to use the web, you can also join the announce list
by sending an email to:
fg-announce-subscribe@yahoogroups.com 

okay, off to bed. 

-squeaks
who wonders if the kitty will smother her this evening.
  

    
Hey gang,

If any of y'all are interested in the upcoming Sandman convention, you
should check out:

http://www.fiddlersgreencon.org

And kudos for Miss Tree for putting the site together!

-squeaks
  

    
Let me just note that Fiddler's Green starts on Exploding Whale
Remembrance Day.
  

    
Tempted to go, just to remember exploding whales.  <g>

(Actually, I probably won't go because I haven't read _Sandman_ yet,
and have probably gathered too many spoilers as it is.  It'd be cool to
see Neil so close to his birthday, though.)

Neil -- Congratulations on the Nebula!  I KNEW it!  :D
  

    
Squeaks -- Too bad you couldn't come see _Les Mis_ with me and my
friends last night.  Your hair would have fit right in!
  

    
How scary is it that I recognized the Les Mis quote before I even read
your post?  Theatre geek me am!

Neil--Congratulations on the BSFA & the Nebula!  You rock!  I think
you're going to have to build a separate building in which to store all
the trophies.  <<Has weird Graceland flashback.  Tries to imagine a
Neil version of Graceland.  Brain melts and runs out ears.>>

If you substituted tiny laptops for private jets, it almost works. 
The Black room, instead of the Jungle room?  All the furniture being
ominous black beanbags?

I will go lie down now, until this fit passes.

Mary (reading Alvin Journeyman by Orson Scott Card)

P.S.  Am directing 3 student-written one acts for performance in front
of the school on May 18.  Good thoughts, and suggestions for a *comfy*
loony bin to be committed to, appreciated.
  

    
But Mary, I thought you *were* just designing a comfy loony bin!
  

    
Uh, exploding... um, whales? Oooooooookaaaaaayy. Perhaps that should
be written into the welcome speech? eek.

Christy - I'm just jealous you got to see Les Mis. It's been about 15
years since I've been. Mind you, like Mary, I pegged the quote right
off.  (and am now singing it in my head in sort of a bizarre medley
with music by the Andrews Sisters and Devo)

Mary - good luck. I'm sure everything will go over just fine. And this
looney bin seems comfortable enough (tosses a pillow in her general
direction).

OMG!!! Did anyone read Neil's Nebular acceptance speech, as read by
Harlan Ellison? (it's on the blog at neilgaiman.com) I thought I was
about to rupture a spleen or something laughing so hard that Harlan had
to say 'science fiction' like that. Go Neil! 

-squeaks
who now needs to re-read Sandman
  

    
Yeah. It was really good. Especially the part where he makes him read
the stuff he would have made him read while saying he's not going to
make him say that because Harlan will get him back.
  

    
squeaks - you can get the whole story on the exploading whale here:
http://perp.com/whale/index.html  

It has a link to the video, but I didn't test it.
  

    

And happy WELL anniversary to Neil.
  

    
I remember the exploding whale story. Ick. 
  

    
EW! Why did you send me there? I mean, ... EWWWW! Who needs video when
you can see the spatter in the stills?

-squeaks
who will now re-read the acceptance speech to make herself feel better
about having to order food for dinner in a minute
  

    
Good catch, Adam!  Happy belated Well Anniversary to Neil!
  

    
There are many disgusting things in history.  This is one of them.
That's the whale - not Neil's anniversary.
  

    
Speaking of disgusting, yesterday I showed a friend the blood-and-guts
cake Neil linked to a while ago.  It is a rare endeavor that gets BOTH
an "Oh!  Gross!" and a "That's beautiful" from the same person.

-Christy can't look at that page for long
  

    



Jouni Koponen writes:



Oh. Humans are SO SMART ;-)

'Hey. There's a rotting whale corpse on the beach. What shoud we do?'

'Hmm. Let's see... I GOT IT! Let's BLOW IT UP!!'

(crowd cheers)

Tee-heehee... It's really heehee... horrible and hehh... not at all fu...
hihihi... funny, but...

BWAHH-hah-haa!!!

Jouni (rolling on the floor)
  

    
Hi, Jouni!
  

    
Well, my brother just raised the curtain on his comic-art dealership
site this week (http://www.gothamcityart.com/index.php)!  I swear, he's
got so many sidelines; any day now this guy is going to look at me and
say, "You have ONE job?"

You folks might be interested to know that he's got some original 
Jill Thompson Sandman art right now: 
http://www.gothamcityart.com/detail.php?stocknumber=00120&title=&pen=100&ink=9
6&comment=

and note how he evangelizes for Sandman itself in the copy.  The mark
of a true addict.  :)

I'm afraid to read the scan of the page because of spoilers.

I see he's got some Dragonlance stuff in there, plus of course plenty
of Larry Hama.
  

    
Question from Ben:

<BTW - do you or any of your friends know of a fantasy writer named
Roger Zelazny?  I'm sitting on a stack of paintings by Lou Harrison for
his book "9 Princes of Amber," but I'm a little out of my element on
this one.  I don't know very much about it besides what I can find on
the Internet.>

Any thoughts on Zelazny, Harrison, _9 Princes_?  TIA.