Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Things seem almost sorted out for the Ticketmaster bit.

Except I seem to be doing two gigs on friday the 26th in LA -- I
suppose they're listing the CBLDF members reception as a seperate
event, instead of being a differnet category of ticket.

Sigh.
  

    
Re Anna Sunshine Ison: I just got the following e-mail from her...

"if your frriends say :what is that sketchy sunshine doing: you can
tell
them, she is interviewing beauty queens. yup, really and more today. i
have
been going to the Rehearsal. anyway,i am alive.
lovelovelove
miss viajo"

So there. And my friend's baby is on the news, so I can breathe a sigh
of relief, and there, I can keep a secret for a long time.
  

    
You could keep a secret until the end of time, I think.
  

    

Doing another ignorance demo here:  why is your friend's baby on the
news?  I keep feeling like I should know!
  

    
I'm thinking Neil only has one friend whose baby would particularly be in
the news, but I haven't been following the entertainment news so it's just a
guess.
  

    

I had no idea that <neilgaiman> was such a HOTTIE!

(great pictures!)
  

    
Tori Amos gave birth to a lovely baby daughter.
 
Amos' record label didn't even know she was pregnant.  A truly fine
well-kept secret.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/rolls/20000907/en/tori_amos_gives_
birth_to_a_daughter_1.html
  

    
Shira asks:

Neil-

Have you ever read _Punk: The Original_?  It's a collection of articles from 
Punk 'zine.  The book (and 'zine, I imagine) features interviews with Lou 
Reed, Sid and Nancy, and others, and it's put together gorgeously.

You've probably read this (or the 'zine itself)... but, y'know, I thought I'd 
mention it in case you weren't.

-shira (very, very sad that the Twin Cities' only always all ages venue that 
hosted shows of local and touring bands - the Foxfire Coffee Lounge - has 
closed abruptly.  Sigh.)
  

    
Shira -- no, I haven't seen it. Sounds wonderful -- I suppose they've
got it at DreamHaven.
***
 Got home from hibernation early this morning. SLept on the sofa at
RenFest for much of the day after spending the morning with the kids (I
got maybe 2 hrs sleep on the plane.

I get a day or two here before going to Sweden for the Book Festival.
I will play with the kids more, bathe, say hullo to the pumpkins, and
stare at the mound of correspondence...
  

    
Yow!  And I think I'm tired!
  

    


From: Reg <reg@acepia.net.au>
To: inkwell-hosts@well.com
Subject: For Neil Gaiman

Hi Neil.
Glad to hear that you've had a few hours at home. I hope you get a bit
more time to yourself once you've finished the manuscript. You've
certainly earned it.

Just thought I'd mention a few idle thoughts to keep you occupied until
then though.

First of all, I happened to be rereading your Miracleman work yesterday
morning and then in the course of an afternoon's bookstore trawling I
picked up a mid-to-late sixties Marvelman Annual. The difference in the
writing styles was almost surreal and it made me wonder what led you to
write about the character. Was it the intriguing way that Mr Moore
developed the concept, or was it some deeper childhood affection for
Marvelman? I could easily believe either explanation.

Second, after hearing your thoughts in "Notes From The Underground" and
your earlier mention here of Yeti in the Underground on Doctor Who, I
thought I'd mention the story, which you've probably heard, of the
Doctor Who production team asking for permission to film that story in
the real Tube and being refused. At which point they went and built a
Tube set twenty feet long, made the story and after it was broadcast,
received a letter of complaint from the London Underground Authority for
filming in their tunnels without permission. I'm not sure whether this
will make you feel happier or sadder about the look of the Neverwhere TV
series.

(As an aside, I'm afraid I did smile about your reference in NFTU to
Douglas Adams as having to be locked away in a hotel room to finish a
book. I hope you appreciate the irony of the moment.)

Finally, I've just spent the weekend in the company, both real and
virtual, of a number of fans of your work and I wanted to say thank you
for giving such a strange and disparate group of people a point of
common reference. We all had a lot of fun.

By the way, Tree says Hi.

Reg
  

    
Martha -- I just read your Salon Big Brother articles... fascinating
stuff, even for (especially for?) those of us who've never watched the
programme.

Reg, you're very welcome. I'm always bemused by the, as you say,
strange and disparate (but on the whole extremely nice) bunch of people
who get together and party, marry, travel etc having, as far as I can
tell, nothing in common except they've read my stuff. Or had a friend
who did.

I think that London Transport now proudly claim that WEB OF FEAR was
filmed in their tunnels. The wheel turns.

Miracleman -- Alan asked me to write it. It was very much Alan's thing
all the way for me: the Shazam knock off Marvelman barely registered
for me, as it was out of print by the time I was 6 or 7...

I've always been a big fan of the
going-to-a-hotel-and-finshing-something theory. It only works for about
ten days at a time though. After that it starts to fade into
blankness.

Trivia: Ian Fleming used to write all his novels like that. He pointed
out that it is important to go somewhere you don't like.  

More trivia: When Douglas Adams first did it he had Sonny Mehta of Pan
Books sharing the hotel suite to make sure he was writing and doing
nothing else. Sonny got the nice room and watched a lot of videos.

Say hullo to Tree for me. 


***

Who wrote the "Lady Life's a piece in bloom?" poem -- the one Orton
took the Ruffian on the Stair line from? I can't remember...

There. I thought every time i post a "who did..." or "what was..."
here the reply is google based, so I checked with google, and it's W.E.
Henley, and the whole poem actually goes:

Madam Life's a piece in bloom
Death goes dogging everywhere:
She's the tenant of the room,
He's the ruffian on the stair.

You shall see her as a friend,
You shall bilk him once and twice;
But he'll trap you in the end,
And he'll stick you for her price.

With his kneebones at your chest,
And his knuckles in your throat,
You would reason--plead--protest!
Clutching at her petticoat;

But she's heard it all before,
Well she knows you've had your fun,
Gingerly she gains the door,
And your little job is done.

1877
  

    
I thought that Henley was the 'Booze and the Blowens" translator, and
a little hunting proved that he was. It's a loose but delightful
translation of Villon's poem, and seeing that this is a day of culture
or something...

......

Suppose you screeve? or go cheap-jack?
Or fake the broads? or fig a nag?
Or thimble-rig? or knap a yack?
Or pitch a snide? or smash a rag?
Suppose you duff? or nose and lag?
Or get the straight, and land your pot?
How do you melt the multy swag?
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.
 
  
Fiddle, or fence, or mace, or mack;
Or moskeneer, or flash the drag;
Dead-lurk a crib, or do a crack;
Pad with a slang, or chuck a fag;
Bonnet, or tout, or mump and gag;
Rattle the tats, or mark the spot;
You can not bank a single stag;
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.
 
  
Suppose you try a different tack,
And on the square you flash your flag?
At penny-a-lining make your whack,
Or with the mummers mug and gag?
For nix, for nix the dibbs you bag!
At any graft, no matter what,
Your merry goblins soon stravag:
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.
 
  
THE MORAL 
It's up the spout and Charley Wag
With wipes and tickers and what not.
Until the squeezer nips your scrag,
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.
 
  

    
Spent a quiet day -- had a long bath, slept a bit, watered the
pumpkins (the giant one is getting biggish) and then settled down to
watch the giant thunder & lightning storm. Reading a gently dull book
on the mysterious islands of the atlantic ocean. 

Took a look at a bunch of books with short stories by me in -- all
reprints and years bests and such, except for one where I introduce
Lafferty's IN OUR BLOCK.

Tomorrow is the rest of the mail, and then to Sweden. Will write en
route...
  

    
Don't forget to write!

I've spent the last two days nursing a stuffy head and covering the Big
Brother internet feed for Salon.  I am so tired of RealPlayer right now, you
wouldn't believe.
  

    
Martha, okay. If I can't get on the web I'll e-mail you and you can
post it. And if I can't get online, I'll post when I come home.

Anyway, I've enjoyed your articles. They make me pleased that I don't
have to watch the realplayer feeds. Or the show.
  

    
Oh and the poem in 513, for those who are wondering what language it's
in, is in victorian thieves cant -- the blowens are women of easy
virtue for example...
  

    
At this point, I wish I could take a break and read my articles instead of
watching the feed....
  

    
Neil - Oh good.  Now at least I know what one line means! 

My SO met Muhammad Ali yesterday after finishing a performance put on
for Ali at the Visy Cares Centre.  It was all rather exciting.
  

    <scribbled>
  

    
Sorry.  Doing that double post thing.
  

    
Amanda -- if ever you see Ricky Jay's show, the high point of it is
his reciting that poem, and he defines a number of the terms.

Martha -- but look at this way: you are suffering so that that other
people can be vaguely amused, educated and entertained.

Amanda -- how cool...

Today was an interesting day. A tornado warning meant that much of the
afternoon was spent in the basement.
  

    
I aim to be vague, Neil.

Your day sounds far too interesting.  It's a good thing you have a nice
basement, but it must have got a bit close down there.
  

    

I deplore the fact that I am far too ignorant of the works of Neil Gaiman,
and in an attempt to rectify that fact, I went to the library, determined
to find some books and do some reading.  

The only book they had, mysteriously filed under "S" was _The Sandman Book
of Dreams_, which, dang it all, was not by Neil Gaiman at all, but a bunch
of other people, writing *about* Neil Gaiman's Sandman, which, of course,
the lot of you already know!

The library did a search, and located _The Sandman_ at a library in a
nearby town, and some have been requested, so, in the meantime I checked
out the book that was available.

I open it, and the first thing I see is the dedication, which says,
mysteriously, "This book is for Harlan Ellison, Jane Yolen, Martha Soukup,
and Charles de Lint.  With apologies - Neil."

Won't you please clear up this mystery for me, Neil, and help me dig
myself out of this Pit of Ignorance (PoI) that I find myself mired
in?  Why Harlan?  Why Martha?  And why the apologies?
  

    
It's pretty simple.  When the publisher contracted for the book and Neil
solicited stories, DC was saying that authors could use DC characters, plus
would retain the rights to their stories.

When the stories were submitted and selected and the actual contracts came,
it turned out DC had decided they would only allow the stories to be
purchased as what's called work made for hire.  In work made for hire, the
copyright belongs to the publisher instead of to the author.  They did cede
the right to the authors to sell the stories to any Year's Best anthology
that might want them, but that was it.

I asked DC if I could retain the rights to a non-DC version of my story,
since it only had one character from Sandman and DC (the uncombed one).  DC
thought about it for about twelve seconds and said nope.

(Aside: the contract wasn't even legal, strictly, since work made for hire
must be contracted for in advance, rather than submitted, already written,
unsold, on speculation.  They took stories already written and then issued
work made for hire contracts--which stated that the stories _would_ be
written, since that's how WMFH contracts work.  Just a picky point.)

At any rate, the four authors mentioned had offered stories to Neil, and
found ourselves unable to agree to the WMFH contract.  Jane sold her story
somewhere else (sans DC characters), I think Charles de Lint did the same,
and if you want to see mine (minus a few paragraphs in which the uncombed
one made an appearance), it's in the anthology _Starlight 1_, edited by
Patrick Nielsen Hayden.

Neil had no reason to feel bad for something DC did without consulting him,
but he was nice enough to put in that mysterious dedication.