Journal

Sunday, August 10, 2003

A Long Day

Let's see.... so, yesterday was long. Village Voice interview over breakfast, then I flew back to Minneapolis. Lorraine and Maddy picked me up, and we stopped in at DreamHaven and signed several boxes of WOLVES IN THE WALLS and a lot of TELLING TALES. Then watched Charlie Bethel's terrific one-man Beowulf at the Minnesota Fringe, which really made me want to change one thing in the last part of the Beowulf Script I did with Roger Avary to make it even closer to the original tale. Fast food falafel with John M. Ford and Elise, and down to the Northrop Centre to watch Tori.

I had a complete set of children there, which made me very happy.

Went back before it started so Maddy could play with Tash (who is, for the record, the single funniest nearly-three-year-old on the planet.). Asked Tori about the Snow Cherries song, as in "Er, didn't you say to tell people it wouldn't be on the Best Of CD but you'd do it during Lottapianos?" And she said, "Yes. But then we recorded it... it's going to be on the Best of CD." So there'll be two songs people haven't heard, "Snow Cherries From France" and the completely new one (which is political in nature, and is about now and also goes back to the days when Tori used to play as a young piano girl in Washington to congressmen, and to their call girls). Although it sounds like some of the old tracks are going to be amazing as well -- they went back to the original tapes, and have done the mixes they would have done back then, if they'd had the time...

Then the gig -- I missed all the Scarlet's Walk gigs, due to being in the wrong place, and was very happy to hear songs like Carbon live-in-a-big-hall for the first time.

Then Maddy and I drove through the night to Chicago, in my first road trip in my Mini (and the GPS system brought me straight to the hotel front door). (Well, I drove, and Maddy mostly slept.) I'll be at the next two shows -- if you see me there, feel free to say hi. If I'm on my own, I'll probably stop and say hullo back, and if I'm escorting an almost-nine-year-old daughter who is having an adventure around, I may not.

I'd promised myself (and my assistant Lorraine) that if I got tired on the drive, I'd stop at a motel. What hadn't occurred to me was that the point where the drive would become Hell would be the last 20 minutes, where stopping at a motel really wasn't option. But I made it.

Tori had a room waiting for us. I slept the morning away, while Maddy went off with Tash and grown ups. And I'm posting this mostly for all the people who said "you're driving through the night? After a marathon in New York? Is that wise?" to agree that, possibly it wasn't. But it was really fun. Except for the last twenty minutes.

...

There's a great interview with Grant Morrison over at http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=2662.

Over at http://www.smallblue.com/ you can get Endless Cursors.

And I have several hundred FAQ type messages to go through... please accept my apologies if your question or message hasn't been put up or replied to. There's only so much space, and only so much time....