Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    

Continued from <inkwell.vue.169>
  

    
Howdy Gaiman's Wolves.  I came to Inkwell in the fall of 2001 and you
were talking up a storm.  And you're still at it!  Maybe you could
start your new topic by telling us occasional Inkwellers who you are
and what you are talking about!  
  

    
Um, I'm Mary, I live in Chicago, teach in the inner city, and babble
about anything, really.  Mostly we talk about Neil, and his excellent
genes <<unclenches fists, tries to accept piles of grey hair>>

(Sorry, the above is a continuation of a joke from a previous post. 
I'm not really jealous of Neil at all.  Really.  Honest.)

Frequently we talk about books we love or loved.  And goldfish.  And
cats.

What else do we talk about y'all?

Mary (who finished Ender's Shadow yesterday, and will not have any OSC
until Crystal City, which she just ordered, comes in)
  

    



Jouni Koponen writes:




Yay. A new topic.

Oh, my name is Jouni Koponen and I'm the 'official hang-around weller' since
I'm really not a member but I've been around, well since the first
Gaiman-topic really...

...but some day, my dear wellers, when there's no powerty or hunger in the
world, when all the wars have stopped and men treat each other as equals and
when I have a net connection in my home...

...I promise you,

...I WILL become a Well member.

Jouni
  

    
Will Entrekin.  Long time reader, sometime poster.
Discovered this topic through the Dreaming (often referenced in Neil's
blog), started coming in around 2000.  Off and on membership, more on
than off.

As for what I talk about, well, I think we all talk about everything
(isn't the rule of this topic simply that there is no topic?  A Zen
Cohen, if you will), and so I tend to throw out whatever comments I've
got if I've got them.  A lot of times I don't, so I don't.  I have to
admit, I love this topic mainly for its diversity; no matter what comes
up, somebody usually has something to say, and the tangents alone were
well worth the price of membership.  The only thing we really *all*
have in common is that we've read something by Neil, and enjoyed it,
and happened along here, and found other people into things like Neil
and Tori and science fiction and fantasy and Harry Potter and movies
and culture and art and beauty and love and all the other wonderfully
trivial things we tend to burble on about.
  

    
Back when I was stalking Neil via his GEnie topic, he declared that
his topic was about anything that might interest him - mostly that
still holds true.

Now that this has been going on for a long time, and Neil has his own
blog (http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/journal.asp), he writes here
less frequently.  But we still talking about his blog here, along with
anything that might interest him.  However, after doing this so long,
we are also talking about things that interest each other.

I think I first e-mail a post back in Jan 2001, after getting the link
(like Will) from The Dreaming.  It took me a year and a half to join
the Well - but here I am. 
  

    
Has anybody let Neil know that we froze the last topic and given him
the new one? I'm sure he's smart enough to figure this out when he
comes though. Duh.

I'm from Houston, Texas. I didn't start knowing about Neil until after
he'd been to Aggiecon. Darn. And the possibility of him coming down
here is remote. Sigh. So I guess I'll have to save my cash and try to
make it to one of the places he's going to go during his next book
signing. 
  

    
Didn't we have a discussion about Beatles faux groups at one time? Was
that here? Well, anyway, there's this group, The Fab Five, here in
Houston that do a really good job of sounding like the Beatles. And
dressing like them (they just bought striped bell bottoms to wear
instead of the tights they were wearing). And so forth. A lady in my
office is really really into them and every time they are at a location
she thinks I can go to, she makes sure I know all about it. I've used
my health as a reason not to go every single time. But, this Friday I'm
going.

See.  There's this woman who used to be a pal of mine many many years
ago. A couple of years ago, I realized I hadn't seen her in a while and
got in touch and we went to see The Two Towers Lotr.  That's when I
discovered that, egad! Horrors! This woman was exTREMEly prejudiced!
I'd not noticed before and it was a rather subtle thing that I'd
apparently ignored in her before but it stuck out suddenly now. I think
perhaps she's become more audible about it. And she sends me emails I
cringe from. So, I haven't really seen her in the last two years since
but she keeps sending emails. So, somehow she found out about the Fab
Five playing at Mike's this Friday and wants to go. 

I gotta go now. She's one of the PPPP people. Perfect hair; Perfect
makeup; Perfect nails; Perfect clothes. Yadig? And Mike's is a DIVE of
a BAR. Not really really bad but a beer type bar and she's always been
a champagne type person. We'll be sitting with my pal from work and
about 15 to 20 other fans. And since she's made friends with the band,
they'll come to our table during intermission. I want to see how she
reacts to us all. 

A little bit of mischievousness and a little bit of giving her another
chance kind of thing. 

Should be interesting. Hm. 
  

    
So how did you discover by going to LoTR that she was prejudiced? She
dissin' elves or something?
  

    
Heh!
  

    
We were early and were sitting midway up the theatre when a group of
young black youths and another group of young hispanic people came in.
She turned to me and said "Here comes the denizons of the great
unwashed." That was startling but I figured I hadn't heard her right or
she didn't mean it the way I thought. Like, she'd just made a
tasteless joke or something. Then afterward she declared to me that she
loved J.R.R. Tolkien and said he had it right when he made all the
good guys in his book white and all the orks and Hurakai and evil
people etc. 'darkies'. She expounded at length on the subject. (Yes, I
did say something about that.) Then she started sending me emails that
made me cringe. I've asked her not to and some of the worst ones have
stopped. It's as if, since she became somewhat computer literate, she's
sought out all the websites and all the reports that support her
narrow and somewhat frightening point of view and it has fed her
prejudism so that now she feels no need to keep such biases under wrap
because she has justification. See, right there, on the internet. This
report. See? It wouldn't be there if it wasn't true, would it? And
support. See, there are other people who feel the way I do and they are
good Christians, they say so right there, so it must be ok. 
  

    
<<<shudder>>>  I didn't used to want to believe there were people who
said stuff like that and were _serious_... but I recently heard about
some of the things my friend's landlord says, and it just made me
CRAZY.


Hey, Dodge, if it's mischief you're after, I've got a little
experiment you might like to try.  When you see your friend tonight,
maybe slip it into the conversation that J.R.R. Tolkien was a
_Catholic_.  I wonder what would happen...?



Sorry I haven't been around much this week, folks.  I'll be playing a
little catch-up this weekend, I hope.
  

    
eww. sorry you had to deal with that.
  

    
Well, I dealt with it by not being available to pal around any more.
But email is so easy that she actually keeps in touch with me via that.
Used to, I merely had to stop calling her to lose touch. It grieved me
because I've known her some 15 years or so and she used to be such fun
to go about with. My movie buddy. Dancing buddy. When I got free
tickets or she did buddy. I knew that deep down we had little in common
but we did like to do the same things and you know when you're single
you need a friend who will do things with you. 
  

    
Yeah... growing apart stinks.  :(

Adam and Will -- I don't think Scary Trousers is still up at the same
place it used to be; that link broke a long time ago.  If you can find
it somewhere else, though, then that'll be worth knowing about.

Neil -- Oh, look at the little skinny white boy! 
<inkwell.vue.169.1916>  That's a baby picture, all right, and an
adorable one.  <g>  You're just a BOY!  And even though it's not the
_AG_ picture you told me about, I finally got to see you with long
hair!

When was that, anyway?  (I'm guessing from around when I was Holly's
age.)  And what was variant about that Sandman?  And was Brian Hibbs
the artist?

The Squeakinator -- New teeny kitten?  Pictures!  Please, pictures,
before the creature gets much bigger!  If Kurt's bringing home kittens,
I'd say you've got yourself a keeper.  ;)

Mary --
<You're like a walking commercial for the benefits of eating raw,
dead, fish 3 meals a day.  ;-)>

Really.  He could be the Jared of sushi.

Safety post.

-Christy, who hopes it really does help, as she has happened to crave
practically nothing BUT sushi all week
  

    
Mary cont'd --
<I think it's lovely that you have genes that allow you to look 10-15
years younger than your current age>

Indeed.  It's a little known fact that this
(http://www.neilgaiman.com/gallery/gaiman.asp) was taken when young
Neil was 19.  <eg>

I'll admit, though, that one from 1993 that he originally called
"scary" could have been taken this year.  He really doesn't seem to
have aged.  ('Course, it's a teeny picture.)

I'll add my welcome to (slf)... though if you've been here before and
I just forgot, I apologize.  It's been seven topics, ya know?

Welcome to (keta), too!

Safety post.
  

    
BTW, nice new topic!  :)  Yep, it was "The Wolves in the Well," and I
was going to suggest that, as usual, something be added to indicate
that this was the ongoing Neil convo.  So "Neil Gaiman's Wolves in the
Well" works great!  Thanx, Dave!

Hi, Jouni!  :D

<5> -- <[Neil] declared that his topic was about anything that might
interest him - >

And 'most everything does, so there ya go!

Nice job introducing the topic, everyone.  I don't think I could add
anything, except maybe that Neil Gaiman is an author (among other
things).  But that much could probably be gathered by the fact that
this is in <inkwell.vue.>.

Think that covers everything.  G'night!
  

    
My name is Martha Soukup and I started this business of Neil on the Well oh
very long ago.  But I haven't talked much for a long time, partly because I
had this play commission that was driving me nuts and striking me with guilt
besides.

A play!  That's almost as long as a novella!  (It's only some hundreds of
words shy of novella length, and that's only because the stage notes are
very, very spare.  I want to see what the director wants to do.)  That's
_too long_.

But mere hours ago I finished the final draft, stage three of a half-year
project, and less than a week from now it's being performed as a staged
reading.  Now I can't decide if I'm less guilty--because it's done--or more
guilty--because it took so long and it's just a play.

(Traveling Jewish Theatre at 470 Florida in San Francisco, if anyone has
nothing better to do next Saturday at 2 p.m.  $10 at the door, though I
expect like last year they'll accept smaller donations.)

(They do get very good actors at PlayGround productions, I can promise that
much at least--)

http://www.playground-sf.org/bestof.shtml
  

    
Um, I'm Michelle (a.k.a. anything to do with a mouse, including
'squeaks'). And I admit, I've got a problem. But is there a support
group for 'stalkers anonymous'? Ooooh no. (Sorry, I ramble a lot.
Yeah.)  So, I'm sort of like Neil's favourite stalker. I think that was
mostly started as a joke (gawd, I hope so), but it's stuck in the
nicest way, so I've kept it. 

I've been posting on the Well since (I think) the first Neil topic,
but I'm much more prolific as a 'Thingie' on the alt.fan.neil-gaiman
newsgroup. I've been known to occasionally post on some of the other
Well topics too, but not very often.

I tend to talk about whatever is on my mind, and stuff I like (which
often amounts to the same thing), and whatever I say can probably be
condensed to half it's length, but I tend to not know how to do that,
so I come across as talking a lot and not having much to say.

As for kitten - her name is Polly (and, like a good pirate/parrot, she
squawks, sits on your shoulder, and has a black patch (of fur) over
one eye). As the runt of the litter, she's growing at about half the
rate of her siblings, and will probably only grow to about half the
size of Thing e (her big - currently still very mean - 'sister'), but
then, Thing is about 12 lbs right now and still not entirely full
grown. They're both calicos. 

And once I process all the photos of wedding, honeymoon, and kitten
and put them up on the website, I will post a link here. But as that's
something along the lines of 800 photos to process, sift through, and
then selectively scan and convert into hypertext, it'll be a while. (I
still haven't finished posting all the burning man photos from last
year either). I'll get to it, but don't hold your breath. ;)

Dodge - That SUCKS! I'm sorry you've had to go through that. ((hugs))

Martha - Nice to see you again! I'd love to go to the reading, but my
brother's wife is graduating from UCLA that weekend. When is the actual
play being performed, or do you know yet?

-squeaks
who will, one day, know how to speak more efficiently, but in the
meantime, I'll just keep talking really fast. :)
  

    
Oh, heaven knows if the play will ever actually be mounted in a full
production rather than in this workshop production.  (A staged reading, for
the two people who don't know it, is like a regular play, but the actors are
still carrying their scripts, rehearsal has been minimal, and there aren't
all the costumes and props a full production would have.)

Probably I'd have to be, like, _self-promoting_--in an arena, San Francisco
theater, I'm very much an outsider to, though I've met a few nice people
through PlayGround--and the odds of that....
  

    
Congrats on getting it finished, Martha!
  

    
I hope you'll be putting it in book form some day so those of us who
may never see it performed may run out and buy it and read it at least.

Went to the Beatle Boys night and danced and closed the place down and
got home around 3 am. Paid for it the next day with a bad back and
aches in places I probably haven't moved greatly in many years. Ah,
well. It was worth it. The Woman stayed until the 2nd intermission and
then left. She was there when I arrived with a date who was elderly and
he didn't like the loud music. They asked me if I didn't think the
band was too loud for this small place. 'Um'. I said. Can't you just
FEEL the beat in your chest? they said. 'Um, Yes.' I said. I was nice
and didn't say, 'Ain't that the point?'. She didn't like the
'nightclub' as she called it. Closer to a honky tonk but I'm not
complaining. I like the more casual air. They will probably take in the
Beatles group when they play at The Sands. A much higher class club I
understand but it has a $40 cover charge. Whoooeeee. Too much for me to
pay when I can go to Mike's for free.  She was surprised that a band
that can get a gig at Sands would deign to play at Mike's. But they
started there and like it.  She still looks about 30. And she's older
than me. I'd say around 60. But there was no unpleasantness. We chatted
between songs then they left. And the rest of us danced the night
away. I got to see 2 of the guys without their hair on and they look so
different in regular clothes. I don't think I'd recognize them if I
passed them on the street. They all have day jobs. Two of them are
lawyers. And wives. Well, one has a girlfriend. We had to protect him
from The Fan in her absence. We're not the groupies, we're the Moms. 
Haha. Anyway, loads of fun had by all. And then one of the girls took
pictures. Egad. Argh. I look so old! But who cares. When I dance, I'm
young again. 
  

    
Not owning a publishing house at all, I wouldn't advise people to hold their
breath on publication of the playscript!

Anyway let's see what the audience thinks of it Saturday....
  

    
Hullo. I'm something to do with this place, although I'm no longer
quite sure what.

And I'm thrilled that Martha has finished a full-length play, and that
Michelle is married  (originally Michelle was Not a Stalker, but
probably through murder, blackmail and intimidation she's made it to
favourite stalker status).

Just finished reading "10% of Nothing" and have decided to go to war
against crooked agents & vanity presses.
  

    
Uh-oh.  I wouldn't want to be on the other side of a war Neil's taken up.
  

    
Neil, for this place, you are icing on the cake. 

We come here now to meet as friends with a common interest (read
obsession) - you and your writing - and we talk comfortably about
everything. And then you pop in and we get giggly and excited and say,
OOOH! Look! Neeeeeiiiiiillllll! SPOKE! Sigh. Happy now. 

And no, that's not really it. You're here often enough that you're our
comfy pal also. One of us. Here. Talking. And sometimes I stand in a
store and see a display of your books or read a newspaper that talks
about the latest award you won and it feels just a little strange that
I feel like you're my pal. LIke my pal I go to the movies with. My pals
I go to the gardens with. My pal that's insane over a faux Beatles
group. Just like everyone else on this board whom I have never met.
Never seen in person. Never heard the voice of. 

And I come in here and read what Dan and Martha and Squeeks and
Tinymonster and everyone is doing and it makes me want to DO things and
CREATE things and not just exist from day to day just getting up and
getting dressed and going to work. I've got this life here with all of
you and just a bit on the rest of the Well, in which I can talk about
ANYthing and not face those glassy eyes you get sometimes when you are
enthusing with somebody that has NO interest in what you are saying.
And I go home and paint and read and write and DO the things I wouldn't
do if I hadn't been inspired by all you people here. 

And I thank you all for welcoming me here.