Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
What about a chiropractor instead?  That should be safe.
  

    
Or a naturopath.
  

    

Or the chiropractor could recommend a legit masseuse, too, probably.

Good luck with all of this.  

(And you may have come to the Bay Area before, but I didn't know you
then!)
  

    
        I remember glancing through the "Masseuse" ads in the Yellow Pages
when I was still too young-looking for even a 7-11 clerk to sell me
real pornography.  I didn't blush, but then I'm not English. :-)
  

    

Sunny has something to say on that front:

"Coming out of very short lived lurker mode to say:

Dear god men!  What kind of masseuses do you have there?  My *mom* was a
masseuse and now you are all making *me* blush...Do you know how hard it is
to do that?!?!

Oy Veh.

*I* looked in *my* yellow pages, and all the ads are very tame, thank you.
Sheesh.

Sunny
Whose back has been thoroughly shocked out of pain."
  

    
Ah, well, I'm writing in the Land of the Extreme Yellow Pages. I'm
sure that back at home in the midwest all the massage ads are for,
well, massage, And not euphemisms for strange and intimate services
that writers with achy shoulders don't actually need.
 
I'm cheating right now -- just writing the good bits that i know
exactly what happens in them, the ones I've been waiting to write for
anything up to a couple of years. Then I'll do the stuff where I don't
know what happens.

137,000 words typed so far. And I have tea. Life is good.
  

    

Darrien Addison writes:

Hi Neil,

Unrelated thoughts:

I say you should keep the hair... until the questions about it become
unbearable.  Seems like everyone is getting shorter hair thesedays, and it's
a slightly disturbing trend.  Fight for the hair!

Windows NT workstation should still give an option to remove IE in the
add/remove programs function.  If it doesn't, try downloading the latest
version, the uninstalling it.  Of course, this waste more time than actually
being here, and I know which I'd prefer  ;)

If you're not paid for your appearances, do they at least cover hotel/flight
costs?  If not, do you have to foot the bill yourself?  That must end up
being *really* expensive.  And, well, I'm confused about the differences
between the Guardian Angels tours and normal appearances, other than perhaps
being a more dedicated block of time away from your family.

***
Then he adds:

Okay, I can't respond cohesively, so more randomness:

Massages: You could look for Reiki adverts as well; many of them do "normal"
massages as well.  It might also help if your hands ache in addition to your
shoulders.

"Home": I thought you lived in MA?  Don't tell me those sneaky Mid-
Westerners have claimed that too!  They will ruin autumn  :(
  

    
Hey!  Midwesterners aren't sneaky!
 
Okay, maybe some are.
 
But I don't think anyone did anything sneaky to try to get Neil to move
here.  Not that I know of, but then you never know.
  

    
Darrien -- NT certainly does give you the *option* to remove it. When
you click on that it tells you what you can add to it, but doesn't
actually allow you to remove it... if you see what I mean.

Yes, most places I go pay for travel and hotel. Unless it's something
like NEcon where I went under my own steam, because I wanted to see
friends. But I get to do one of these every three or four years now...

At a normal appearance or con or whatever I'll do a short reading,
signing, panel discussion -- whatever I'm meant to do.

The Grauniad Angel Tour appearances, we take a small to medium sized
theatre, and I get up on stage and read stories and poems and such for
about 90 minutes. Get off, let people go to the toilets, buy CBLDF
merch etc, while reading the questions on bits of paper they've handed
in. Then get back onstage, spend about 35 mins answering as many
questions as possible, and then do one big final story -- so I'm on
stage for somewhere between 2 and a half and three hours normally. No
signing, but I sign a pile of stuff that's on sale at the CBLDF booth
beforehand.

Very different to a say, 30 minute reading and 30 minute Q and a and
then a 4 hour signing.

& no, I've lived out near Minneapolis for the last 8 years


n
  

    
And here's something that amused me...

........

FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECTION

Buchwald, in a decision reported on Wednesday by the New York Law
Journal on its Web site (http://www.nylj.com), found that DC's use of
the Atlas ad was a parody entitled to protection as free speech under
the First Amendment.

"We're considering an appeal," Hogue told Reuters. Attorneys for DC
could not be reached for comment.

The Atlas company accused DC of infringing on its trademark in a 1991
Doom Patrol story titled "Musclebound -- The Secret Origin of Flex
Mentallo," the Law Journal said.

Flex develops a muscular body to get revenge on a sand-kicking bully.
He also wears leopard-print swim trunks, as Charles Atlas did in a
photo often used with the ad.

But the plot takes a different twist, Hogue explained. Flex, after
becoming a hero, beats up the woman he is with and tells her, "I don't
need a tramp like you anymore!"

"We felt that tarnished the goodwill of Charles Atlas," Hogue said,
his expression pained.

Such misogynistic and vulgar behavior is something Charles Atlas
"would never" have been guilty of, he said, recalling the wholesome
attitudes of Atlas, who died in 1972 at the age of 80, and of his
long-time partner, ad man Charles Roman, dead in 1999 at 92. Hogue, who
is also a lawyer and a movie producer, bought Charles Atlas Ltd. from
Roman in 1997.

After learning from his lawyer on Wednesday about the comic book
publisher's legal victory, Hogue said: "I don't know if they want to
win it that way. That means people can go out and do parodies of
Superman. They may have won the battle but lost the war." 

........................

Yup. This opens the door for Wally Wood to do SUPERDUPERMAN alright...
  

    
More from Sunny:

>Hey!  Midwesterners aren't sneaky!

Oh.  Yes.  They.  Are.

Neil?

What is that one Flash Girls song that has Christopher Robin in it?  It was 
one of the first few songs they played at CONvergence, and I kind of have it 
stuck in my head, only I am not quite sure if I do or if I am imagining it, 
and it's driving me up the wall, and no one knows what I'm talking about 
when I say, "That one song with Christopher Robin in it dag nabbit!"

So...does it exist?  And is it coming up on their next album?  Or did I miss 
it with the first?  In which case I will be a very unhappy gal.  And I will 
scourge the Earth until I find it.  Because that's how much I want that 
song.

And for anyone else...

Jacket Gal got a very sweet letter from a guy (umm...she thinks) about that 
one jacket thingie that she bought.  He is from Cathartic Comics, and JG has 
never heard of it and feels bad.  She was wondering if any of you knew 
anything about them.  She would really appreciate any help in this matter.

Thanks.

From
Sunny...Who is jonsing for the Flash Girls
&
JG...Who wants her jacket so she can get the courage to call up her first 
ever ex boyfriend, "Dresses-Like-Death" Dave, to exact revenge.

Really, really going now.
  

    
Sunny -- the song is called BUCKINGHAM PALACE. Lyrics by A.A. Milne,
tune by er whoever wrote the tune. I could tell you if I were home.
It'll be on the next album.

I thought you *were* the jacket girl. Is there another? And did the
CBLDF send it yet?

medium-good day today. Slightly under 2000 words written but I've
actually mapped everything out to the end, so I feel more or less
confident.
  

    
yay! for good writing days.
 
Now I'm gonna have "Buckingham Palace" stuck in my head all day, but
that's a good thing (for a while, at least).  Happy it's gonna be on the
next album.
 
Adam Stemple has said (on the Flash Girls mailing list) that the Fabulous
Records website will be updated with info on the next Flash Girls album.
 
Fab Records site: http://members.aol.com/hatfield13/fabrecords/
  

    
>flash girls

i've got girls??

                        %^)
  

    

Charles Atlas had a longtime partner?
  

    
That was my response exactly.
  

    
Jen writes:

Roommate and I just bought tickets to the Chicago stop on the tour.  Man I 
hate ticketmaster.  Not looking forward to the bus trip either.  Best Friend 
lives in Chicago now though so the trip shall have several pay offs.  Anyone 
else here going to that stop? (besides Neil of course)  :-)  

Jen
  

    

And Sunny replies:

Jen-

I might be going to Chicago GA.  I have a good friend in Minneapolis who 
wants to go (two actually, but one has parents who would be really miffed if 
I kidnapped her to Chicago to see Neil Gaiman, and I am just not down with 
miffing parents), so I might.  I am definitely going to LA GA, though, 
although tickets don't yet seem to be available for that reading.

Sunny
Who needs to remember that cigarettes are not food.
"Don't drink, don't smoke...what do ya do?  Subtle innuendos follow..."
<happy dancing for no good reason>
  

    

Sunny also writes:

>It'll be on the next album.

Yay!  I am so pleased.  So so pleased.  The A.A. Milne thing makes mucho
sense...

>I thought you *were* the jacket girl. Is there another?

Jacket Gal is my new alter ego.  I feel the need to talk about her in the
third person, since a) it's fun having an alter ego and b) Jacket Gal
doesn't have to feel silly about being Jacket Gal.  Sunny Girl does since
she now wishes she had some money to go and visit someone who makes her
smile an awful lot, but just by sheer virtue of having a someone-who-makes-
her-smile-a-lot means that she no longer has *any* money.  But...Sunny Girl
doesn't feel too silly since she knows she helped out a very good cause.  So
sorry to confuse.  I am a confusing gal, methinks. Ooh...A new alter ego,
Confusing Gal...

>And did the CBLDF send it yet?

Well...maybe they sent it...but it certainly hasn't ended up on my door
step. :(  The check cleared a while ago, so I am thinking they are just hell
busy.  It's cool.  It doesn't really start to get cold here for another
month yet, so I'm okay in the jacket department (I hope it fits...I tried to
no avail to get the CBLDF boys to let me try it on at San Diego...I mean
you're a dainty fellow...and I am decidedly undainty, I think).  And I don't
really want to exact revenge on my ex-boyfriend.  It's just that revenge
fantasies about my exes keep me warm and cuddly at night.  Now is that scary
or what?

When it does get here, though, a friend of mine who is also a photographer
wants to do a photo shoot with it.  Umm...rather a photo shoot of me in it
(you know...I get all kinds of creepy requests from guys regarding this
impending photo shoot).  Any suggestions on how not to look like an idiot in
a photo shoot?  Is it as painful to see photos of yourself posing as it is
to read your own responses to interview questions?

Are there any Inkwell readers who would like to see the photos once I put
them up on my site?  If yes, then I will post the link, if no...well then I
won't. :P

Sunny AKA Jacket Gal (shhh...secret identity and all that)
Who is in a very giggly mood, and writes long thingies when she is in a very
giggly mood.

**
(Go ahead, Sunny, show us Neil's jacket!)
  

    
Dainty?

Well, he's _polite_.  But he's English, so there you go.
  

    

And then Sunny said:

>>Dainty?

>Well, he's _polite_.  But he's English, so there you go.

Well I meant as in delicate.  Rather like you could snap him in two if you 
breathed on him the wrong way.  Um...no offense to you Neil.

Maybe I should have said skinny?  Little?  Petite?  Small boned?

Either way, I am none of those.  Except for perhaps little.  But even though 
I am little, I am *not* little.  Especially in the jacket area.

Sunny
Who has spent way, way too much time online today.
  

    
Ah, he's slender, but he's tough.
  

    
The trick to photos is: throw out the ones in which you look like an
idiot. One photo in a roll where you look human is a good average. Use
that.

& I think you should contact the CBLDF about the jacket, wherabouts
thereof. I thought they would have sent it to you immediately, as I
remember Chris Oarr talking about smashing the case it was in to get it
out, due to the lock being jammed or something.

Mr Gaiman has decided that declining to comment on his daintiness or
otherwise is probably the wisest course of action. And he could happily
lose a few pounds.

And I need information: so, does anyone here speak colloquial
Icelandic? I need the Icelandic for "Hullo. How are you?" or whatever
the equivalent is.

Got asked for a story for a book. Remembered a long-ago piece of
fiction I thought would do the trick. Hadn't looked at it for about 7
years -- last time I read it I decided it wasn't good enough for ANGELS
AND VISITATIONS. This time (they faxed it to me from home) I read it
and couldn't for the life of me figure out how anyone had deemed it
publishable. I felt like ringing the editor and telling him off. They
paid me about $500 for it too. Bizarre. Still, there's a core silly
idea there I might resurrect or rewrite... if I have a quiet year with
nothing to do.
  

    
Just checked and saw that Someone Else got the Hugo for best related
book. Someone Else being not Dream Hunters and not Science of
Discworld. Which is a relief.

The book has just stopped behaving itself. ("it's like wrestling a
bear. Some days the bear's on top. Some days I'm on top.") Currently
it's on top, and I don't have time for it to be silly. I'm trying to
write a war, and the book doesn't think it's going to work.

I think I may steal from Zelazny and Sophocles and Shakespeare and
have someone report back to our hero on the status of the war -- or the
battle, really. He's tied to a tree, so he'd probably appreciate some
news.
  

    
Look Linda!  I subscribed!  Yay!

Neil!  I may be able to help you with the Icelandic thingie…but I just
at this moment found out another Thingie knows the answer, so I’ll
give her a chance to post it, since I am a Well Hog.

In any case, you should check out the studies of Robson Bonnichsen,
who is currently one of the most respected archaeologists in the field
of early America thingieness (<---wow look how articulate I am :P).  My
dad's boss went all fan-boy when he found out I was marrying "Rob
Bonnichsen, *the* Rob Bonnichsen's" son.  It made me giggle a lot.

I contacted the CBLDF today.  I have nightmares that the jacket will
end up in Idaho on some guy's porch, and immediately turn him into a
hellion.  And since I already fall under that category, I think, I
would much rather have it come here.

And of course now I will fret that they maimed the real jacket beyond
belief breaking it out of it's prison, and that they are making a
counterfeit to send to me.  

"Mother's always give a worst case scenario" -Calvin to Hobbes

Sunny
Who, herself, has lost 15 pounds since May, but still doesn’t think
she’s at all dainty.