Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Woo-hoo on the Eisner! Do you have to go someplace and have it presented to
you?
  

    
Eisners rain down on him from the skies.
  

    

I am afraid that I'd never heard of Keeler till you mentioned him.  I
almost said "I regret to say," but at those prices I don't regret it much.
  

    
"I regret that anonymous gift packets of his books have never arrived in my
mailbox."
  

    
I was at the Eisner Awards, and that particular award was accepted by
some representative from DC, as neither Mr. Gaiman nor Mr.
Japanese-name-I-can't-remember were present.  Left about halfway
through the ceremony because my hands were tired from clapping, I was
hoping to find somewhere to sleep, and I felt like hanging around the
hotel bar.  This latter strategy led to my getting reasonably drunk
with Darick Robertson and the nice couple that does _Astronauts In
Trouble_, which practice is probably why Mr. Gaiman skipped that con.
:-)
  

    
Yoshitaka Amano is the name, streak.

And did you find somewhere to sleep?
  

    
Not really.  Around 3AM me and a couple other young homeless geeks
were rousted out of the all-night movie room, and they let me crash in
the back seat of their car.
  

    
Let's see. Most important and silliest --

I've donated my leather jacket to the CBLDF to auction on e-bay. It's
not the current Leather jacket but the 1989-1996 one. If any of you
feel like spreading the word as widely as possible, please do so....

http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=393010433

is the link.

Elise -- i expect it will arrive here eventually, unless it doesn't. I
never got my YELLOW KID award from Italy.

Scraps -- I'm getting a couple of Harry Stephen Keeler facsimile
paperbacks -- you want 'em when I'm done? (Martha, ditto?)

Streak -- nah. I skip San Diego because I don't get to meet or see
anybody. It's like being a maggotty log at a woodpecker convention. no
fun.
  

    
I remember that jacket.

It's already up to $1000, though, so I think I've seen it for the last time!

As for the HSK books, I'll leave it up to your judgment if these are books I
ought to read--
  

    

I'm pretty sure I've got a Harry Stephen Keeler book around here
*somewhere*, but I may be confusing him with Octavus Roy Cohen, just
because of the thriple name thing. 
  

    

The jacket is now up to $1250 after 40 bids and 8 days remain in the
auction!  I'm gonna watch it on myEbay.

My cousin used to own a vintage leather shop on Melrose.  I wonder if you
bought it from him...
  

    

Neil, sure, you betcha.
  

    
 It's at $1425 now.  
  

    
And a lovely jacket it is, Neil.
  

    
It was on display at the Con, I recall.
  

    
Great jacket; not a bad photo, either. Are you going to leave bits and
pieces in the pockets for the new owner—-any ticket stubs, or chewed
ends of pencils? (The last second hand coat I owned came with a picture
postcard from Taormina stashed in the breast pocket, gum-smashed next
to a ratty old black and white of Robert Graves. ‘Twas damn neat.)
  

    
It's at $1525 with 45 bids and 8 days, 1 hour and 16 minutes to go!
  

    
It's topped $2000, with more than a week to go.

I figured it at $3000, but now I'm starting to wonder if someone will go
$5000.
  

    
Currently it's at $2225.... 

Linda -- I suspect I bought the basis of my *current* jacket from him
-- I bought it from a leather jacket store on Melrose in 1995. The one
being auctioned came from Aardwarks, I think.

Sally, No, but I wrote a little message to whoever gets it on the
inside leather in silver pen.

.........

The CBLDF is also auctioning "gold" tickets  to the four stops of the
Last Guardian Angel tour... 

394389620 Neil Gaiman Tour V.I.P. Tickets - New York  $255.00 13 8d 
20h  27m 
 394394920 Neil Gaiman Tour V.I.P. Tickets - Chicago  $402.77 18 8d 
20h  30m 
394397219 Neil Gaiman Tour V.I.P. Tickets - Portland  $132.50 12 8d 
20h  32m 
 394399644 Neil Gaiman Tour V.I.P. Tickets - Los Angeles  $210.00 12
8d  20h  34m 
  

    
Got The Mystery of the Travelling Skull by Harry S Keller in a strange
little pocket (illicit? bootleg?) reprint edition. Am reading it in a
gently stunned sort of horror. Would Martha or Tom like to go first?

Watching the Comedy Central run of LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN, which I
watched initially on BBC America. It's a show I really enjoy -- it
reminds me of what might have happened in an alternate universe in
which Kim Newman and I had taken the Peace & Love Corporation stuff we
wrote in the 80s onto TV. It's nastier than it is funny, after all.

And the reason I mention this is that I watched in stunned horror as
they pixilated the nude scene -- of a man in a fat lady bodysuit. As I
recall (from BBC America) it wasn't a very convincing bodysuit, not was
it meant to be: part of the joke was the naked 'Tubs' was played by a
man and thus obviously wasn't naked. The logic of pixilating it escapes
me... If anything, like so much censorship, it makes it dirtier.

Got my copy of A WOLF AT THE DOOR (Datlow Windling) today, with my
poem instructions in it and lots of cool pieces by other people, which
I want to read.

Finished CHAPTER THIRTEEN of AMERICAN GODS and am now in the final
part. There's a lot that has to happen but at least I'm no longer in
the beginning or in the middle any more.
  

    


From Sarah Rudek



Neil-

Hi, this is Sarah/Silth who was one of the Thingies at the CONvergence con.
There were a few questions I wanted to ask, but never did, muted by pride and
intimidation.  One of my newer fascinations is Andy Warhol and the whole
Factory crowd, and I understand you wrote a story in Miracleman about him.
Other than that, I really can't seem to find anything else about it - it
doesn't seem to be available in any of the currently accessible Miracleman
collections.  Would this be a task only for those willing to brave the
callused thumbs from flipping through box after box of used comics (or
bruised wallets, perhaps)?  I'm interested in reading it; not having it
signed and wrapped for collector's value.  I'd like to see how one of my
idols writes about one of my obsessions. : )  Also, speaking of heroes,
during one of the panels at CONvergence (perhaps it was West writes about
East?), you gave that us that little anecdote about watching Amano turning
into a quivering fanboy, adding '!
!
!
!
we all have those people we turn fanboy for'.  So, as a proud Thingie I'm
wondering who would cause Neil Gaiman to go into quivering fanboy mode?   : )
 Alright, thank you and good luck on American Gods.  It's already sounding
'goosebump league' wonderful.

-('.')-
http://www.crosswinds.net/~ambienteye
--
  

    <scribbled by scraps>
  

    
Hi Sarah --

well, it was one of the Golden Age stories. In memory it was MM #19,
although I could be wrong. It's in the collection THE GOLDEN AGE -- I
don't know if it's hard to find. DREAMHAVEN BOOKS
(www.dreamhavenbooks.com have most things). A Bookfinder check showed
people have it for $20 out there -- the collection. And a hasty look at
ebay has an MM 19 (I was right) at
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=390306391
if that's any use.

Who turns me into a fanboy?

mmm. Last time I remember turning into a quivering fan was in 1991
when I was introduced to Chip -- Samuel R. - Delany. I was staring at
my shoes and going red and muttering something inane, when I noticed
that he was doing the same. I got almost offended -- "You have no right
to go fanboy on ME, for heaven's sake, you're YOU" -- although I never
said it out loud.

There are people who ought to turn me into a Quivering Fanboy who
unaccountably didn't, like Lou Reed and Penn & Teller. And the day I
spent waiting for Bowie to phone (I got a call from Marvel Music saying
Bowie wants to work with you, he'll be phoning) taught me that Bowie
doesn't do it any more... (although somewhere in the back of my head
there was a 14 year old Bowie fan squeaking).

There are a few people out there who might do it, but I'd have to meet
them and see. Let's see... Eddie Izzard, maybe, Peter Greenaway maybe,
Tom Phillips (of A Humament fame) maybe... but probably not.

I was a journalist too long. I interviewed most of the people I wanted
to meet back then. Some became friends, some didn't. Pretty soon you
learn to separate the people from the work.

Sometimes it was pretty creepy meeting heroes: these days I'm a
Kenneth Williams fan again, but I sort of lost my capacity to be a fan
after my afternoon with Ken.

(I just looked up at the video shelf, and started listing people who
made or starred in things I think are or were cool and realised that
too many of them either are friends or people I interviewed or people I
ran into in a way that smacks of weird name dropping -- the Diana Rigg
story only makes sense if you realise that I was having dinner with
Albert Finney and Alice Cooper, that kind of thing. And I realised that
most of the people who would turn me into a fanboy are fictional -
Emma Peel, for example, or the Patrick Troughton Dr Who.) 

James Branch Cabell would turn me into a silly fanboy. So would Harry
Clarke. Bill Shakespeare. Fellini might. Tom Lehrer.

Gene Wolfe still does (and I've known Gene for around 17 years) but I
hide it brilliantly, and he never knows.

Sondheim would.
  

    
Went with the kids to the county fair. Got a touch of the sun which
combined with the bad food and the rides I had to go on as maddy wanted
to go on them to leave me sick as a dog who ate the kind of things
they sell at the county fair and then got spun and whizzed and rolled,
and then threw up.

Seeing the post above, I noticed I had put Tom Lehrer's name in a list
of famous dead people. As far as I know he is in fine health.
  

    
Hi.  I'm in Colorado, dehydrated, exhausted, finally back on line, and still
not experiencing one tenth of fatigue of a Neil Gaiman tour--