Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Thanks for your congratulations... if, as Reg points out, I don't wind
up in Salman Rushdie's spare room, it should be enormously fun to do.
There are many Ramayanas, after all, and this will be a 100 minute
one...

Daniel -- it's the story of an exiled prince whose wife is stolen by a
Demon King, and who goes to war to get her back.

Michelle -- so what music did you find?

Jinx -- Do you mean the SAG strike that just finished, or the next
one? Or the WGA strike?

Len -- I know what I'd like musically, and it'd be closer to
Cornershop that Steven Schwartz (I spent an evening with him a long
time ago, in a transvestite bar in Soho. Honest. He's a friend of my
friend Anne bobby.) But we'll see...

Mimi -- let me know how the translation reads.
  

    
Neil-- I'll bet that Schwartz was a lot more fun when he spent time in
transvestite bars; these days he's so earnest. Love Godspell, though. 


Ever since Howard Ashman died, I think there's been a real dearth of
good songs for animated musicals... a pity, with all the good, starving
musical theater writers in the world.

The Cornershop idea is dead on.  
  

    
Neil~ I meant the possible impending strike. With Hollywood rushing to
finish movies before March, do you think that any of the projects
you're involved in will come to fruition? 

Jinx who now has ceiling tiles falling and has to go or would get into
more detail
  

    
Ooooh.  If I committed some terrible
don't-insult-a-person-with-whom-the-person-to-whom-you're-talking-has-spent-an
-evening-with-in-a-transvestite-bar
faux pas, please forgive me.
  

    
Jinx--  Good luck with the tiles!





Why do you have cats in the ceiling?
  

    
Len~ I have to very cute and very much pain in the butt cats (see
link)
http://sites.netscape.net/tjcarlosn/homepage

I also have a drop ceiling with a few tiles missing, due to running
cable wires. Well the little :gritted teeth: darlings have found a way
to climb up and explore around up there, only one of them is rather,
well since she can't read, fat and keeps falling through the ceiling.
It's not the most pleasent thing to wake up to, rather a start to say
the least. 

Jinxie who also had 2 other cats and 2 dogs living with her as well
  

    
Cats in the ceiling, wolves in the walls.
What's next, giraffes in the halls?

Eh. 

Sorry, couldn't resist.
  

    
moles in the moldings
rats in the radiators
ewes in the eaves
cornish hens in the cornices
skunks in the sconces
gibbons in the gables
  

    
and unicorns in the snow covered landfill.
(no one would ever look for them there, after all).

FWIW, they taped Izzard's "Circles" at Town Hall a few months back (I
think for HBO).  Brilliant stuff, different tone than "Dressed to Kill"
or "Unrepeatable" or the rest.  Unfortunately, about an hour and a
half into the program the sound on the wireless mic went out.  They
switched to a stationary microphone (and he did a funny bit to seque
the switch), but that too went dead.  He seemed more amused and
embarassed than angry or nervous about the difficulties, and included
the audience as well as the crew in his verbal wanderings while they
were trying to get the sound back up. Eventually, he sent us all out
for an intermission (much to the delight of the deli owner on the
corner, who had been trying to close his shop), and about a half hour
later, the wireless was up and running again, to much applause. Sadly,
all the difficulties meant that to get the show done by midnight, the
second half of the show was done at about 100 mph, and the routines
felt rushed.  

Sorry, just rambling.  What is it about Neil Gaiman conferences and
discussion groups that makes it so difficult to keep on topic anyway?
  

    
Sorry, was there a topic?  :)
  

    
Japanese version of The Dream Hunters:

Sandoman  Yume no Karibito - Doriimuhantaa -
(The Sandman "The Dream Hunters")
Publisher: Interbooks Co. Ltd.
ISBN4-924914-33-9 C0979
Author: Niiru Geiman (Neil Gaiman)
Art: Amano Yoshitaka (Yoshitaka Amano)
Translation: Yumemakura Baku (Baku Yumemakura)

The publisher has a website at: http://www.interbooks.co.jp/
and a Sandman site at http://www.interbooks.co.jp/sandman/index.html
(Japanese language site)

You can't order books from them, but they recommend
http://www.bookservice.co.jp/order3.htm  for book orders. They do seem
to deliver overseas, but the whole site is again in Japanese... ^_^;

Neil - FYI, there's a Reader's Voice corner at the Interbooks site for
Sandman, generally filled with 'Please publish the translated Sandman
series through to the very end!' (they're up to Dream Country) and
'We're so glad to be able to read Sandman in Japanese!' comments. ^_-
You've got fans there too!  And will let you know how Dream Hunters
read once I'm done with it.

Michelle - glad you were able to make it to Kyoto! To get a flavour of
Japanese history/culture, I'd take Kyoto over Tokyo any day. :P 

Sarah - Kafkaaaaaaaaaa~~!!! *hearts*

Len and Randi - Community effect?? ^_-

-- Mimi
  

    
Neil - Stuff I found and stuff that actually was used are two very
different stories. 

What I found included some Tori, Sarah Brightman, Grandaddy, Mira,
Sophya, Rasputina, Bonzos, Danny Elfman, more Danny Elfman, and just
when you thought you couldn't take it any more, yet more Danny Elfman,
and tons of upbeat classical bits, featuring Waltzes (mostly
Tchaikovsky), minuets, and a couple Brandenburg Concertos.

What got played were a few classical pieces (mostly Mozart), stuff
from Edward Scissorhands, and the Princess Mononoke theme (inst), along
with a bunch of Tear Garden and LPD and whatever else Fernando found
in his cd books and off Napster.

Then the band (the Rosin Coven) played. AWESOME show. You don't get
much better than a man in tophat and tails playing xylephone while a
chick in a corset pumps the accordion, all with the rest of the band (9
or ten of them total) going just as nuts on stage, getting the crowd
to scream along to Gorey stories.

There was also a fire performance that I took lots of pictures of, and
many beautiful and zany costumes that I didn't take enough pictures
of. When I get my cd cataloging project done at home, I'll put
everything up on my website. Gimme a week.

-squeaks, who found many other Gorey-ish clothing options after the
fact.
  

    
Len - Gnus in the niche?

Mimi - I tended to not think much of Tokyo just because I always went
there to visit my family. It's like not really seeing much of the
attraction of San Francisco when you've always lived there. Now that
it's been so long since I've been, I'd just be happy with seeing the
airport again. And I *know* that there is countryside and scenery in
Japan, I've just yet to see it. It's probably my next *big trip* after
Oz.

-squeaks, watching Princess Mononoke with a hip-hop soundtrack
blasting from the downstairs neighbor... doesn't work at all.
  

    
Hello all!  Back from Kyoto and there are 75 (!!!!) new messages in
this conference.  Bliss.  

Mimi:  Thanks for the info on ordering Dream Hunters in Japanese... I
tried scouting around on amazon.co.jp but (though it will display them)
I can't type Japanese characters on my computer so I couldn't do a
search.  Looks like now I'll be able to buy myself another Christmas
present.  

Michelle:  I want your job.  Or at least your fashion sense. 
Definitely please please put up the pictures so we can see them.  
  

    
Emily - Welcome back.  One of these days I need to learn Japanese. 
And German.  And Greek.  And why not throw Sanskrit in there while
we're at it.  

Mimi - Kafka is such a Cool Writer.  So sad and tragic.  Died young
and beautiful, all that.  :p  And that's not even getting into the
writing itself.  As I read him, I often feel his imagined presense
behind me, clucking away.  "Max, you bastard, those were meant to be
burned."  :P

Michelle- Yay for LPD and Tear Garden.  I adore Edward Ka-Spel.  I
envy you for getting to see the Dots live too; they were in Minneapolis
*with* Dead Voices On Air over the summer, and alas, 'twas an ID show.
 *Kicks 1981* 

And and attempt to get back to the topic, let me toss my
congratulations on to the pile, and ask a silly little question I've
always sort of wanted to ask.  Neil, what word processing program do
you prefer?
  

    
Sarah - I don't really think there is a topic here. 

And while we're talking about things I don't think, I don't think
there is a word processing pgm I prefer any more. I liked word perfect
up to 5.1, and now use word perfect just because I have files in wp 4.2
(and even a few in 4.0) which word perfect reads best, but there's
nothing out there for *writing* on any  more, in the way that Final
Draft is for writing scripts.

Michelle -- it sounds wonderful.

Emily -- if you type Sandman on Amazon.co.jp it takes you to all the
Sandman books...

Mimi -- that's astonishingly helpful of you. Thank you so much.

Len -- not at all. I barely know the guy -- he's a friend of my friend
Anne's and we watched a strange Soho show together. I think as a
songwrititer he's, at best, uninspired.

Jinx -- re Hollywood. Oh, I never worry about whether Hollywood things
will happen, strikes or no strikes. If they do, that will be nice. If
not, the money subsidises the stuff I *do* make happen.

And the oddness with which things do and don't happen -- look at Terry
Gilliam, whose Don Quixote went belly up during shooting when the
actor fell off his horse, and who is now hard at work on Good Omens as
a prime example...
  

    
By the way, who suggested the Sandman in his globe as in Sandman #1
snow globe idea? When DC shot down the Delirium idea I suggested the
naked Sandman idea, and it got a thumbs up...
  

    
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/issues/1997-06-05/feature.html/page1.html
is the single coolest, strangest and most odd thing I've read in ages.
Go and read it. 
  

    
Neil... that's fascinating. It made me want to cry. It kind of
reminded me of what little I saw of the Candyman... just the idea of
urban folklore.

Oh... you were in my dreams last night. I saw you somewhere and for
some reason my brother and I couldn't go home, so you said we could go
to your house. When we got there, it wasn't like what I've seen of your
real house (in Faces of Fantasy)... it was small and dark and very
cluttered and in the city. I looked through your books and my brother
did something on your computer. After awhile, my brother and I left.
The rest of the dream involved going on a plane to Egypt with some of
my neighbors. They had a ton of drugs, and I was worried we were going
to get caught. I remember asking how they planned to hide 18 lbs of
cocaine.. they said it was 'well-concealed.' 

I tend to have really, really strange dreams, and I often remember
them. My ex-boyfriend thinks if I got more sleep I might not remember
my dreams as much. Who knows.

Sorry this is so long.

Everyone check out the band Man or Astroman? !

-shira
  

    
I think it was first suggested by streak in post 1175.
  

    
Neil - Wow, awesome link! Um, Sandman globe idea... far as I can tell
we discussed it on afn-g years ago when they were talking about the
Death Action Figure. Don't remember who brought it up here tho'. Is it
going to come with the helm, ruby and bag o'sand just out of Dream's
reach? :D

Shira - Man or Astroman... hmmm. Guess I'm more in a Built To Spill
sort of mood... and Grandaddy (but you already knew that).

-squeaks
who now has a Dolores, a Sorrow, and a Danni to add to her mousey
family. Dolores & Sorrow are even twinlike!
  

    
        Yes, I was the guy who suggested the naked, captive Dream.  So DC's
going ahead with it?  Sweet.  I haven't felt this Ubergeeky since Astro
City ran the photos of me as Jack-In-The-Box confettiing Kurt Busiek.
:-)
  

    
Congrats to Streak!  You're a credit to Geek Culture.
  

    
technically speaking, don't you have to eat live animals to be a geek?

-squeaks, who has always preferred the term 'nerd'. ;-P
  

    
        I use geek for someone deeply devoted to a given subject, to the
point where they know way too much about it, and spend a lot of their
time on it.  Thus, you get comic book geeks, film geeks, kung fu geeks,
computer geeks, etc.  Having been picked on in junior high school is
also implied.  Nerd is just the kid who studied really hard and got
straight A's instead of having a social life.