Journal

Thursday, May 22, 2003

keeping on keeping on

Neil, just to let you know, if you got the Herbin Invisible Ink, Sam Fiorello of Pendemonium advises that it's *NOT* safe for fountain pens, but for dip pens. Usually not-safe means it can either 1) eat the ink sac/pen barrel or 2) gum up the works by not being water-soluble. --Kathy.

And that's what I love about having this blog, I think. Along with the flip side of it, which is getting things like this:

This isn't a question,it's a thank you.
Yesterday out of the blue I found myself thinking of a book I half-read a few years ago, and felt the urge to hunt it down again and finish it. Unfortunately what I could remember of the book was this; it was a book of stories within stories like the arabian nights or decameron; i had a feeling the author was Polish; it may have been a Penguin classic.That was the sum total of knowledge that my memory deigned to share with me, its been bugging me in that "its on the tip of my tongue" way for the past 24 hours and god knows how much longer I would have been suffering, but 30 minutes ago I decided to check to see if either you or jonathan carroll had sites I could bookmark on my new laptop. Lo and behold what should I find casually scrolling down your journal but a reference to Patocki's Saragossa manuscript.
So thanks Neil. Thank you for your apparent omniscience. I'll be sure to check here for the answers to life's little mysteries in the future.

Ceara


Very wise. Herbin's Invisible Ink will gum up your fountain pen as well.

One from my friend Rob Elder about Book Crossing


Neil!

I think you may have mentioned these folks before, or some org like them,
but here are more people "setting books free":

Here's the link

Hope all is well,

Yours,
R http://www.robelder.com


and this next one made me wish I wasn't on the slowest hotel phone line in Paris:

NH Audubon has an extensive site about the Peregrine falcons which have been nesting in downtown Manchester for the last few years. Today they went live with streaming video. It is really, really cool. In fact, it's so cool, I've been sending this to just about everyone I know (which is really unusual for me).

http://www.nhaudubon.org/research/pcam.htm

I've been watching the chicks sleep, stretch and get fed on and off all day.

Sheila


finally

I am searching for a story I heard at your Salt Lake City reading. It started out with the line "Time is fluid here". Can you please tell me where I can purchase this? I have been in contact with several people including Dreamhaven Books and none can seem to tell me where to buy this. If you could I would really like to own this and show people this amazingly haunting story.

It's called "Other People", and was published in the anniversary issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction (F&SF) in Oct 2001. I looked at their website and found that you can order the magazine through the F&SF website at http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/backish.htm and Paypal it.

I'm sure that story will be in the next short story collection, which is sometimes called These People Must Know Who We Are And Tell That We Were Here, and sometimes called Fragile Things, depending on my mood. And it won't be out until after the next novel, so you don't need to start looking for it yet.

....


Today -- up at 5:45 am, flew to Montpellier (lovely city) where I signed, was interviewed, talked to several classes of kids about Coraline, and had lunch, but not in that order. The last day of the tour...

Tomorrow I get up at 6.00 for a 6.20 taxi to Gare du Nord, where I Eurostar to London an attend the readthough of Mirrormask, do any needed rewrites immediately after, get an actual night's sleep in a hotel, get up early and -- finally -- fly home.

I am tired and I am weary. I could sleep for a thousand years...