Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Congratulations to Mike for getting accepted into grad school!

It must be nice to know where you're going next, _before_ you
graduate.
  

    <scribbled>
  

    
Neil -- I liked _Violent Cases_!  (Hmm, if I didn't enjoy the violent
part, should I say "I liked _Cases_"?)  I finally read it last night,
all in one sitting.  Did Dave come up with that last page (except for
the few words on it)?  If so, I can definitely see what you meant in
your introduction about his ability to tell the story with pictures.

Fine work, both of you.
  

    
You know you are a fan when your 9-year-old gets you "Cages" for your
birthday. My friends in NY sent me "Murder Mysteries" (which I had
read, but didn't own) and that pretty much rocked.

In less than a month I'm getting my hands on the Portuguese deluxe
edition of Preludes at the Bienal. I'm curious to what makes it a
deluxe edition and will let you know.

"Anansi Boys". Hurry, hurry.
  

    
Georgia -- Happy Birthday!

What day was it?  Mine was Sunday.  :)
  

    
Happy Birthday to both of you!

Saw Himself last night.  He looks tired, but I have seen him in worse
shape.  (I was worried after reading on the blog about all the
deadlines he's had in the last few days.

He said, when I asked him how he was, that he was much better than 10
days ago, when he didn't know how all this would get done, and better
than 4 days ago when he was in the middle of doing all of it.  He
seemed like a weight had been lifted.

He read a couple of short bits from Anansi Boys--the beginning, where
Fat Charlie calls the neighbor lady to invite his father to the
wedding, and a bit where Fat Charlie wakes up with a hangover after
drinking with his brother.  V., v., v. funny.  The audience was very
responsive and knowledgeable, so there wasn't a lot of time wasted
telling people about Neil's work--they'd all read it. Gretchen
......whatshername was an excellent interviewer.  She knew Neil's work,
asked great questions, and got out of his way.  And he was, as always,
delightful.  Articulate, funny, charming......Neil, basically.  Then
he signed for 2-2 1/2 hours.  He was still vertical when that was over,
which I thought was nothing short of a miracle.  So I think he's OK. 
He's supposed to be back in town in 2 weeks for the Nebulas, but I
don't know if I'll get to see him then or not.  Gotta check ticket
prices, which I'm sure are high. 

September 20th for Anansi Boys.  I can't wait, even though my summer
vacation will be over & I'll be back in school (somewhere) by then.

Mary (reading War of the Flowers by Tad Williams)
  

    
Ooops, also meant to ask--what does it mean when a topic has been
killed?
  

    
Thanks for the Happy Birthday wish and the report, Mary!  I'm glad to
hear Neil seems to be doing well.

When I read that Anansi Boys excerpt on his site a while back, I felt
very proud of and very excited for him.

Reflecting on your slippage -- Frozen, maybe?  Or retired?  Or deleted
altogether?
  

    
Now I'm hearing that to a tune:


It's frozen or retired
Or it's deleted altogether

Sing dum-a-diddle-dum-a-diddle-dum-a-diddle-dost
I'm singing of the conference or the topic or the post
...


I'd better stop before I get hurt.  <eg>
  

    
> Ooops, also meant to ask--what does it mean when a topic has been
> killed?

To kill a topic is to remove it from the Well entirely.  Gone.
Kaput.  Fini.     Since killing a topic is so final, it's rarely
done.

Topics can also be frozen - which leaves them around, but prevents
any further postings.    Frozen topics can be thawed, that is - 
re-enabled for posting.

Topics can be retired - which also leaves them around, but doesn't
admit to their existance in the normal course of events.  One
must specifically look for retired topics.

Topics can be archived - which moves them from their birthplace
conference to a storage conf, an archive.  Archived topics are
almost always frozen as well.   If need be archived topics can be
brought back to their original conference and re-opened for posting.
  

    
Oh yes ...

You, the individual Well member, can choose to 'forget' topics.
A forgetten topic will not be displayed for you, but will be 
displayed for other users.   It's a sort of personal version of
retiring a topic.   Later, if you wish, you can 'remember' 
forgotten topics and they'll be shown to you again.
  

    <scribbled by dfowlkes Tue 3 Jul 12 10:14>
  

    
What danguy said. :)

Seriously, It's good to hear that Anansi Boys is living up to it's
plugging as a very funny book - not that I'd assumed anything was
exaggerated, but it's nice just the same when people react the way
they're supposed to. And considering what I've been reading on his
journal, I'm impressed he was vertical to begin with. If it were me
with all the deadlines I'd probably look comatose around now!

la la la, avoiding studying for a test tomorrow. ooh, and calling
about a "performance" by Ira Glass. :)!
  

    
I'd suggest having an interview topic for _Anansi Boys_ here... but I
don't wanna give the poor guy any MORE work to do around that time!
  

    
Wow.  A topic I had been reading about gay people and the Church was
killed a few days ago.  Thanks, Hal, for explaining what it was.  I
hadn't read it in a few days, so something must have happened while I
was gone.  Weird.

Tinymonster--hee-hee.  I do that sometimes, too.  If only you could
harness this power for good......

Poor laddie is on his way across the pond today.  He did say April was
going to be peripatetic.  Wonder what this mysterious TV project
is.........the good side of all this is we get more Neilstuff to look
forward to.  I just wish he didn't have to exhaust himself to produce
it.  He's gotta get to work on that cloning thing.......

Mary (reading Sleeping Over by Stacy Ballis--it's really funny) (and I
know her!) 
  

    <scribbled by dfowlkes Tue 3 Jul 12 10:14>
  

    
>  Wow.  A topic I had been reading about gay people and the Church was
>  killed a few days ago.  Thanks, Hal, for explaining what it was.  

Well .. things are often more complicated than they seem.   Some 
topics are linked.  That is - they exist in two or more conferences.  
There's only one stream of conversation, but members of several 
confs can post to it.  I think the topic you're referring to was 
linked between the Cross and Gay conferences.   

Due to the direction the conversation was taking the host of Cross
chose to kill the topic in Cross - which severs the link and removes
the topic from the Cross conference.  The topic lives on in the Gay
conf, however, and people who choose to read that conf can continue
to read and post to it there.  Hosts are much more willing to 
unlink a topic - knowing that it lives on elseWell - than they are
to kill a topic.

Today, however, the host of Cross chose to re-establish the link,
so the topic again appears in Cross.   For technical reasons based
in the UNIX system on which the Well runs, the same ol' topic you
read before in Cross now has a new topic number.   If you go back
to Cross to read it you'll see all the posts that were made during
the interim when the topic was unlinked.
  

    
Tiny - late Happy Birthday to you!

Thanks for the merry wishes Dan, Tiny and Mary! The date is actually
today, but the wonderful people who choose to love me have been sending
presents from everywhere and they've been arriving all week. It's one
of the good things of having gypsied around - packages from everywhere.

Anyway - I just saw the big news. Anansi is done, done, done *does a
little dance of jubilation* Between the new Harry and Anansi the whole
house is waiting for books to come out.

I agree with you Mary - it's a mystery to me how Mr. Gaiman manages
everything and keeps moving. I do suspect he does know what he's doing
and there's always the mad fun of trying to find out how much one can
do at the same time. Still, if I miss the journal for a week he's
usually in a total different country, with a total different deadline
than the last time. Amazing.
  

    
Am very happy. When do you think Dreamhaven will start accepting
orders for siggy again? Do they allow pre-orders for Neil's books? I
know. Terrible. I must have one book of his signed and I don't mind
waiting forever for that one but I also order a pre-copy from Amazon to
be read. 

Am reading Shadows Over Baker Street. The very first story is Neil's
'Study in Emerald'. Ah, what a wonderfully crafted story and the
'advertisements' are great. The rest of the stories are pretty good
also. 
  

    
Hal, thanks again for the info!  I'll go catch up on it now.

Isn't Study in Emerald delightful?  He's so good.

Neil should go to the South more often, Dodge.  I can't imagine
ordering my signed copies from Dreamhaven.  He just signed the last 2
things I needed Tuesday, so until Anansi Boys, I'm caught up.  I just
enjoy having him sign them while I'm there.  It would seem kind of
impersonal to get them in the mail.  Though now that I think about it,
Maure's signed copy of Coraline came from Dreamhaven, and Neil did
quite a nice job of inscribing that one.......;-)

(They have a routine they do at every signing:  Neil: And what's
*your* name?  Maure: Maure.  Neil:  What an interesting and unusual
name!  How do you spell it?  Maure:  M-A-U-R-E.  Neil:  Is it a
derivative of Maureen?  etc., etc.  So when Neil signed her copy that
she had held at Dreamhaven, he transcribed the entire thing.  She was
quite amused when she got it.)

Am teaching film history of the 30's & 40's.  We watched a little of
Casablanca today.  It's grey and rainy out, and I really want to curl
up somewhere cozy with a bowl of sinfully buttery popcorn, a bankie
(that's a blanket to most people) and a diet Coke and watch it all the
way through.  <<sigh>>  But I need to go see Turtles Can Fly and Look
at Me this weekend before they leave the Music Box, so maybe some other
day.  Not to mention that I have owned Seoul Raiders for 3 whole weeks
and haven't watched it yet.  Three whole weeks!

Too many movies, too little time............
  

    
I wish. But he rarely comes down here. I think the last time he was
here was at Aggicon (which I think is going on now) but that was a year
or two before I discovered him. I'da taken vacation days to see him.
I'm tempted to drive up Saturday because McCaffrey (Todd) is there but
not sure I'm that much a fan. Anne I saw years a go. Wonderful woman. 
  

    <scribbled by dfowlkes Tue 3 Jul 12 10:14>
  

    
I harrassed a couple of them for the upcoming _Anansi Boys_ tour, but
I don't know yet if it will have any effect.  Maybe possibly
Pittsburgh....
  

    
I'd think now would be a good time to tell your bookshop to call
HarperCollins and beg.  He's touring in September & October, and surely
they haven't booked every stop yet.......

Mary (reading Anam Cara by John O'Donohue)
  

    
I left a message with the guy who does the area Borders events.  Then
I called the lady who organizes events for the Rockville Barnes &
Noble, but _she_ said that stuff gets hammered out at headquarters in
NYC.  (I wondered if that could be translated as "I have no idea.")

Also mentioned it to my comic-store contact in Pgh, but I don't know
if he's mentioned it to Todd yet.  If they have Neil again, I hope they
give him a mic this time!