Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Holy crap, Davey!  Time to get a whole new cabinet.

Sigh... I am really beginning to wish that I had read _Sandman_, or
had the time to read the whole thing now, or had not had all my money
drained by personal things, etc.  Fiddler's Green is sounding better
and better, and I sure would love to try for a chance to let Neil teach
me about sushi.

Neil -- I almost died laughing at your Summary of Each Chapter.  It
almost sounds like a Mad Lib!  (I think the scariest part is that even
this collection of non-sequiturs manages to tie itself together at the
end.  It comes just close enough to making sense... without getting TOO
close.)

And I am unabashedly afraid of some of your fans -- though, oddly, not
the Stalkers or Dangerously Crazed ones.
  

    
I do have a yellow rubber ducky, in the bathroom. It's never looked
particularly sinister to me, but maybe it doesn't mean to... <cue MARCH
segue into screaming PSYCHO violins>

Christy, you do know there's an airfare war going on right now, don't
you? It couldn't hurt to just _look_ at the flight prices, could it?
Heh heh.
  

    
The first time Neil posted a link to Fredo Viola I must have missed
it.  Yesterday, I downloaded 11 tracks off his website - and I'm really
enjoying 10 of them.
  

    
Let me just say that whenever I check Neil's journal since yesterday,
I keep reading "Shatner's Bassoon" as "Shatner's Bosom."

Now I'm sure Will has quite a set of man-bosoms, but it's not
something I particularly want to think about.


Just finished the first chapter of _The Hobbit_.  Based on other
people's evaluations of Tolkien, I was expecting it to be like gnawing
through _The Iliad_, *in* the original language.

But that's not the case at all.  It's even funny!  So far.
  

    
Personally. I always found the Hobbit and LotR a very easy read. I
think it has a lot to do with the way you deal with the words in your
head. I LIKE words. I like to see them get a workout and I love
imagining the scenes and the people and the events they portray. 
  

    
Maure & Miss-mousey
Am going through some old NG postings and found in 2002 a reference to
kitty shoes and mouse shoes which Maure was wearing but, alas, there
is no link. Do you still have?

Also, Miss-mousey was trying to sell her skirts in a local consignment
designer shop. I'm curious how that went?

Well. Just old biz. 
  

    
Dunno if I posted anything about it here, but I am now jobless (by
choice, mind you). Have also decided that unless we're hurting for cash
and it's close by, I won't be working retail again in the foreseeable
future. 

You know, for someone out of work, I sure don't have any time for
sitting and relaxing and enjoying my time off. I've been doing nothing
but huge projects and running tons of errands. I'm utterly astonished
to find that it's nearly 3PM and I've been up since 6:30 and I didn't
even get to do one of the things I was supposed to do today (not my
fault, the stupid office I was meant to be at decided to be closed
until Monday). any way...

Davey - do not taunt the mirror. In fact, don't even look at it (er,
what's left of it). Make Chip deal with it. :) It's possessed, simple
as that. And either it's full of a spiteful and angry spirit, or it's
suicidal. Either way, it's too much for you to have to bother with in
your post-con state. :)

Christy - Airfares are low to Fiddler's Green. You could always find a
roommate for the convention. The CBLDF is a wonderful cause. Neil will
be there. Mirrormask (or at the very least, parts of it) will be
there. Many cool people in general will be there. NOT too many fans
will be there. You have no good reasons not to go (at least, none that
I've been able to count as 'legitimate' from what you've posted). And
you'll have plenty of time on the plane to read Sandman. :)

Or you could always just set aside The Hobbit and read Sandman
instead. I have yet to finish reading all of The Hobbit. I still can't
get through it. I liked LOtR just fine, but The Hobbit killed Tolkien
for me. After not-finishing the Hobbit, I refused to read LOtR for
years. Once I finally picked up the books to read (since the movies
were coming out) I was surprised to find I liked them, so I went back
to The Hobbit. Nope. Still can't do it. It just bugs me. 

As for the skirts, Dodge, the little designer shop was only sort of
interested once the proprietress saw the skirt (basically, she liked
the look of it, but didn't think she'd be able to move them at her
shop), so I decided to not bother. Then life continued to happen and
I've only had time to make 2 since (one of which I wore for my
wedding).

erk, back to more projects.
  

    
Michelle -- If it's voluntary, I guess congratulations are in order! 
Getting out from behind the cash register is a wonderful thing, even if
you were peddling comics (or music, like your last job).  I can
understand about all the other tasks you've still got to do, though --
especially with all the creative projects you tend to have going!

Your reaction to _The Hobbit_ sounds like a lot of the ones I've
heard.  _The Silmarillion_ is supposed to be even more tedious, but
I've got a long way to go before I get to that one.

I would read _Sandman_ if my brother hadn't taken it back.  I did just
buy a copy of _Violent Cases_, though.  That will be my reward when I
make significant progress on a current project of mine.  I may take an
incommunicado, stay-at-home vacation next month and enjoy it then.

Which reminds me -- you know how guys are always saying they had
crushes on Betty Rubble as kids, or how they think certain animé
characters are "hot"?  That would always kind of make me think, "Hm. 
How can you have a crush on a cartoon character?"

Open to the first page of _Violent Cases_.  Find out.


Easy for you to say that drained resources aren't a "legitimate"
reason -- you've got a husband!  What I've got to show for 12 years of
"adult" life is a bit private for a .vue forum, but let's just say that
consistently doing a good and responsible thing has made me come out
looking, ironically, like a squanderer.

That said, I do occasionally go out and do something for myself, out
of pure rebellion, dutiful debt be danged.  For this, I've got
competing temptations.  For one thing, there are the Hugos.  They're
more expensive, but as far as Boston is, it's closer than Minneapolis. 
Less spoiler risk too.  I'd love be there to see Neil win something,
obviously, but whether he does or not, I'd imagine watching him emcee
would be lots of fun!

Then there's a proposed Virgin Islands sailing trip with my dad's side
of the family in the Spring.  That I may prefer over anything Neilish
(sorry Unca N.), but I've gotta figure out how to get there first.  In
fact, I've gotta find out where they *are*.

-Christy the Geographically Forgetful
  

    
Ah. Christy. I know what you're saying. I've been a dutiful consumer
and little to show. I think that's why I'm rebelling next year and
going to Burning Man. After that... I'm going to start traveling at
least once a year. I wish I had the money this year to go to Fiddler's
Green but too much (financial) stuff has happened and just can't go.
Besides. I've used almost all my vacation already. Danged. I'm working
toward buying a house a few years from now. But every time I get on
sort of even keel, something happens and that gets moved a little
further along. So, I think I'll just start having fun. I want to get to
the end of my life and not have so many regrets about things I've
missed as I do now. 

Miss-Mousey: Shame about the skirts. They sounded really cool. 
  

    
Sista, I can sooooo relate.
  

    
Christy - Virgin Islands are a totally legitimate excuse not to go. :)

Dodge - I don't even want to think about buying a house in the next
few years... even though it looks like we might be doing something
similar. 

and on a brighter note - it took 20 hours longer than I thought it
would take, but all the cds in the house (including all the burned
mixes) are properly labeled, spined, in alphabetical order, and put
away for the first time since I moved in over a year ago. We now have
room for only about 10 cds until we get a new home, but at least the
cds we have are findable!

and now to continue the burning man organizing. (erk)
  

    
At the bottom of the Vault of Heaven theme picture is a TURTLE! Shades
of Terry Pratchett. Cute.
  

    
In the Neil Gaiman Journal - all of you know this...
I'm going to - gasp - commit an offense and copy this part because I
want to make sure Neil is right and Sim gets deluged with letters
that's why. 
From August 2nd journal entry.

"Dave Sim has made an extremely generous offer to readers of this
journal (and indeed, to readers not of this journal, but just people
who simply hear about his offer elsewhere on the Internet. Memes
propagate, after all), which is the kind of offer that I found as
interesting as he did. It's this:

"If you'd like to read one of the Sandman parody issues of Cerebus,
Dave will send you one. He'll send it to you very happily, free of
charge. He will sign it for you, too. And he won't charge you a thing.
Not even postage.

"And if you're wondering what the catch is, it's this: Dave wants to
know (as, I have to admit, do I) how many of the people out there in
internet-land will actually go and do things that don't involve
passively clicking on a link and going somewhere interesting. So what
you have to do is write Dave a letter (not an e-mail. Dave doesn't have
e-mail) telling him that you read that he'll send you a signed
Cerebus, and telling him why you'd like him to send you a copy. It's as
easy as that. And, quite possibly as difficult.

"The address to write to is:

Aardvark Vanaheim, Inc
P.O. Box 1674 Station C
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada N2G 4R2

And for those of you who read the comic section, I'm gonna go post it
there also.
  

    
Dodge: Yep. Wrote mine this morning.

Squeaks, I did make Chip deal with the mirror, as a matter of fact.
He's still dealing with the mirror, or at least with the shop that
wants to replace that job with another done exactly the same way, which
I won't have in my home. I did help with the cleanup, though, and
sweeping, dustbustering, and mopping the bathroom floor clean of glass
splinters so we can stand barefoot on it, twice in one month, was all I
ever plan to do it.
  I think owning a house beats renting an apartment hands-down.
Mortgage rates are still low, too, and you could have a garden...

Christy, I enjoy THE HOBBIT every time I read it. It just doesn't
strike bone-deep to me the way certain parts of LotR do. (Damn Peter
Jackson for a character assassin anyway.)
  The VI sailing trip sounds lovely, and definitely a priority. But
honestly, I've been to Worldcons and worked Worldcons over many years,
and I live in Boston, and please believe me, if you're in a position to
choose between Boston for Worldcon and Minneapolis for Fiddler's
Green, come to the Green. Everything Neil said about Mythcon vs
Comic-Con is about as valid for Fiddler's Green against a Worldcon; and
there will be other Worldcons, on the Eastern Seaboard, even; and Neil
will win more Hugos. (And I can't even offer you our guest room for
Noreascon, it's already allocated. I'm sorry.)

I've caught a truly vicious summer cold and am presently living on
Sudafed and ice pops. Had an interesting conversation with a friend
last night about the latter--he said his mom used to use ice pops as a
silly cold compress for fevers when he was a kid, and I asked didn't
you get all sticky that way? to which he replied no, the pops would
melt in the plastic-coated wrappers but not drip. Well, everybody knows
that real ice pops only have paper wrappers, right?
  

    
Right, because the plastic ones are clearly Otter Pops, not ice pops.
(or at the very least, they're Otter Pops in disguise).

Not only did I write Dave Sim, but I chose pretty stationery and wrote
in a coordinating colour pen - with sparkles! <insert evil snickering
here>

mmm. Otter Pops...
  

    
I've written to Dave Sims on a nice post card of Philadelphia.  I
figure that buying a $.40 card is a fair trade for a free comic.
  

    
<112> -- Isn't the turtle meme something from ancient Greek
philosophy, originally?  But to show how little I really do know,
what's Vault of Heaven?

I'm sure Neil doesn't mind you copying, Dodge (I just almost called
you Didge -- world music fans will laugh), since he did say to spread
the word.  I wonder how long Sim's offer will last?  My inclination
would be to wait a little while, until the initial influx of mail has
died down a little bit.

Davey -- Thanks for narrowing down the field a bit.  That does make
sense about the Mythcon:Comicon::FG:Worldcon comparison.  Hope your
cold is going away.

Otter Pops -- they're like Fla-Vor-Ice, aren't they?  We just got a
bunch of those for the 4th of July, and I still have a few in my
freezer.  Takes me back, which I wasn't even expecting!

Neil, did I ever congratulate you on winning those Eisners?

I hope Maddy's feeling better, and I hope you both get to go see Holly
and Italy.  It sounds wonderful.
  

    
Vault of Heaven is this year's theme for Burning Man
(www.burningman.com). And maybe I'm looking at a different picture
(there are a bunch), but I didn't see a turtle anywhere. Is it one of
the pictures at the base of the observatory dome?

Who cares how long Sim's offer will last, I'm just curious how many
things he gets in the mail in the first 10 days.

Geez, is *every*one sick?

-squeaks
who insists that everyone quit it and get better NOW, dag nabbit!
  

    
I swear I saw a turtle. Honest. Really. There is one. I swear. I
copied the picture to my database. But I haven't taken the time to go
back to the site and figure out where the picture is. Too busy. Will
try to do that soon.
  

    
http://www.burningman.com/themecamps_installations/bm04_theme.html

Here it is. The theme picture with turtle at bottom. 
  

    
Ah, and now I know where the story comes from, too!
  

    
Oh, well sure, if you look at *that* photo there's a turtle... ;P

In the meantime, I'd like to take a moment to say "squeeeeee!!"
because I'm all excited about MirrorMask.

-squeaks
not ready for Burning Man this year... but then, am I ever?
  

    
So. Do we know if and how extensively MirrorMask will be released? Or
will we have to wait for the DVD to see it. 
  

    
There's a 3-year-old girl missing from Antioch, CA.

Antioch is in the Bay Area, isn't it?  Since I know some of you only
read this topic, I'll put this link here:

http://codeamber.org/viana/
  

    
I don't think anyone's sure how widely released MirrorMask will be
yet. It was *originally* planned as a 'straight to video', but its
popularity has been pushing that idea out so that it can show up on the
big screen. I think right now they're talking about 'limited' release
- but by the time 2005 rolls around, that might be out too. I guess
we'll just have to wait and see - and in the mean time, help talk it up
and promote it and buy all the merch. :)

Antioch is east of the bay - WAAAAY out in the burbs, but technically
still the bay area. Anyone on the freeways out here will see the Amber
Alerts on the freeway signs pretty regularly.

-squeaks
who just realized that Fiddler's Green is only a few months away - EEP