I travelled to the airport this morning in a car with Boris and Mrs Spassky in the back, which was odd as I'd put a reference to Fischer Vs. Spassky into the script for "Black Hole" a couple of days ago. Cultural references shouldn't travel in the same car as you.
Let's see. I did an event for kids yesterday afternoon, then late last night was the event for the Festival volunteers -- I was sat on a large red throne and interviewed by Death, Delirium, Destruction and Destiny, among other people. It was fun, and odd, and strangely sweet, and then I signed until nearly one in the morning. Other interesting things I did yesterday would include coffee in the hotel lounge with fellow guests Kiran Desai and Mohsin Hamid, mistaking Colin Thubron for James Lovelock, and failing to get drunk with Jonathan Ames (went to bed instead).
Ran into an old acquaintance in the baggage hall at Gatwick which was nice (and he helped magic me through customs).
How was dinner with Chuck Palahniuk?
Nice, thank you. I had the fish.
I discovered today that Chuck's teaching at Clarion West in 2008, while I'll be teaching at Clarion. (Details at http://www.boingboing.net/2007/09/09/instructor-rosters-f.html). The Clarion website is at http://theclarionfoundation.org/ and author Robert Crais made me wistful in Mantova by telling me about his Clarion in 1972, taught by Chip Delany, Gene Wolfe, Joe Haldeman, Roger Zelazny, Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm...
Someone wrote to ask if the gigantic polaroid camera was the same kind as in this article -- http://www.making-ripples.com/2006/09/excuse_me_did_y.html -- and it looked exactly the same, yes. (The photographer, Marina Alessi, said there were three cameras in the US and two in Europe.) Someone else wrote to tell me that there's a bigger one -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/essays/vanRiper/011120.htm.
I imagine the coming lack of film will doom that one as well....
Back home, Sharon Stiteler caught the bees on a coffee break, then harvested the honey. With my dog. And I am not there. Sigh.
...
If you want to see National Theatre of Scotland/Improbable production of The Wolves in the Walls ("a musical pandemonium") you can get tickets at https://secure.newvictory.org/newvictory/tickets/production.aspx?PID=86
(and read about it at http://www.newvictory.org/show.m?showID=1028522).
For all the people writing to ask me if it's also going to be showing up in LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Minneapolis etc, as far as I know right now there are no plans for it to go anywhere else. Having said that, if people from local theatres see it in New York and want to bring it in, then all will change.
Hi Neil! In response to the question on Little Red Riding Hood posted a few days ago, the book by Jack Zipes called "The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood" (1993) has a translation of the traditional French oral folktale on which Perrault based his literary reversion :) It's a great resource. Hope all is well! - katrina
And it's by Jack Zipes. Who is my co-Keynote Speaker at the Fantasy Matters conference in Minneapolis in November. (Lots of other cool people and good writers will be there including Patrick Rothfuss and Pamela Dean.)
Details of the me-interviewing-Susanna-Clarke event in London on September 25th are at http://www.sci-fi-london.com/news/article/1185402300/6 (or http://www.sci-fi-london.com/news/article/1188643748/8).
Going to eat something now.
Labels: one of those posts that covers lots of things I can't be bothered to label