Then, tomorrow was another day...

Yesterday I did a panel with Richard Price, and then I signed for (according to the newspapers)about six hundred people for five and a half hours. Normally I try very hard to be as nice to the people who've been waiting for hours as I was to the people at the beginning, but I think I may have been ordering the people at the back of the line around a bit just to make sure I finished before the Tom Stoppard talk started at seven. (I finished with 25 minutes to spare.)

The crowd was lovely, and all amazingly good-humoured given how long they were standing around.

Anyway. Five and half hours, which is about five hours and ten minutes longer than anyone else here, which meant that I was suddenly peered at suspiciously, as if revealed as some kind of odd alien being, by other writers with whom only that morning I was sharing jokes and food. I think they have now forgiven me.

[Edit to add, that was a joke, and the other authors were remarkably nice about it all. Tom Stoppard, who stopped in during the signing, thought it hilarious.]

After the Stoppard panel, which was marvellous, like a master class, (I'm typing this on the computer in the hotel lobby, and was just tapped on the shoulder by a Newspaper photographer who wanted me to come and pose for some shots, and seemed a bit baffled when I pointed out that I was working) -- one of my favourite moments was when asked how he would direct a Hamlet, and he took the (odd) question and talked about what he wants from actors, "Clarity of utterance." Then I went to dinner with one of my Brazilian publishers. I hadn't really eaten since breakfast over twelve hours earlier, and I discovered that when you are given a very large passionfruit caipirinha after a five and a half hour signing and on an empty stomach, you know it's working because your feet go numb. Possibly the feet simply went away. Luckily, my feet returned before I had to walk back to the hotel, but it was extremely odd.

Today it's the end of FLIP and the Desert Island Books panel, and I will read a bit from James Thurber's The Thirteen Clocks.

With still a million things to say...

Today the Arcadian idyll turned into something an awful lot more like work. TV interviews all morning, press conference all afternoon. Oh well.

Neil,I'm in Campinas-Brasil, and it's a 5-hours-car trip to Paraty. If I get there, most likely on Saturday, where can I find you since I don't have a ticket to Flip? I really, REALLY would love to have you sign one of books. I, like many in this sunny country am a major fan of yours. I REALLY love your books! And I'm dying to get my hands on Graveyard Book and Neverwhere...Thanks for the attention Livia

Let's see... first of all, you don't need a ticket for FLIP. You do need a ticket to get into the main tent where the authors are talking, or to sit down and watch the overflow screen -- but you can watch the interview without sitting down or listen from anywhere near where the big screen overflow place is. Richard Price and I will be talking at 11:45 am. As for signing, there will be a signing at about 1.00pm on Saturday in the signing area, which will undoubtedly go on for a while. We will probably have to limit the number of things I sign (so for heaven's sake don't hitchhike or drive carrying all the Sandman books plus another set for a dying friend -- they won't get signed. It will be two, maybe three things are most). I'll stop signing at 7.00pm when Tom Stoppard's talk starts, because I want to hear it.

I'll also be on on Sunday at the DESERT ISLAND BOOKS panel at 5.00pm -- there's no signing planned after that, though.

There may be more signing, there may not -- probably not, as the organisers haven't planned for it. I may sign stuff if you bump into me on the cobblestones or in the town square and ask nicely or just hold something out and smile (I have been so far, but it'll depend a bit on how many people try and whether I need to get from place to place) especially if you can do it without making it look like I've suddenly decided to do a signing in the street.

The morning found me miles away...

Still in Brazil. Still with Miss Maddy. Still having a lovely time.

Bought lots of books in the Paraty Festival bookshop today -- and saw many beautiful Brazilian editions of my stuff I hadn't seen before.

My favourite article read on the plane, incidentally, was the wonderful The Magic Olympics -- with tricks explained! by Alex Stone, in Harpers, which you can read online at: http://harpers.org/archive/2008/07/0082095 (my second favourite was the Gopnik article on Chesterton in the New Yorker, but it's not online, and I think he missed the boat about Chesterton politically). [My mistake. The Harpers article is only readable for subscribers.]

Hi Neil,You wrote a lovely story, told by Abel (I believe) about crows sitting in judgment on their storytellers. Somewhere along the way, this story became fact in my head. I was wondering if there is any truth to the myth, or if it's just myth. Maybe you could pass the question on to the Birdchick?Thanks!MRM

The description of corvids sitting around one of their number, cawing back and forth, and then sometimes killing it and sometimes flying off is something I've run into in old bird literature (and more recently as well -- since Sandman 40 came out I've read an eyewitness account of it in the Smithsonian Magazine). As to why it happens, I don't think you'll find any bird people who claim to know.

I should mention that the collective noun for rooks is not a parliament (which is actually the collective noun for owls) or it wasn't until I wrote Sandman 40, anyway. Mostly it's a building or a clamour of rooks. Sometimes it's a storytelling of rooks, which sounds like something I might have made up anyway...

Does Neil have an official myspace page? If so what is the adress?

No, I don't. There's an unofficial one, or more than one out there. I keep meaning to set up official myspaces and facebooks, but really tend to feel that keeping this place under control is more than enough for one author, and it never happens.

Hi Neil--Not really a question for you, just comment. You mentioned Tom Stoppard in your blog today. They say you should never meet your heroes, but they never say how cool it is when some of your heroes meet each other and get along so well. You seem to get along well with just about everyone. What just makes me smile is that so many of them are heroes of mine (Dave McKean, Roger Zelazny, Tom Stoppard, Philip Pullman,... ).Good luck growing up to be Mr. Stoppard. You seem well on your way.Have fun!
Geoff

Actually, you should never meet your heroes if you want to keep them as heroes. They may wind up as friends or as disappointments or as pleasant surprises, but once you know them they immediately stop being heroes. (I've turned down several opportunities to meet Stephen Sondheim socially, because he's practically all I've got left. Even David Bowie, who I've never even met, has managed to transmute in my head most of the way from DAVID BOWIE ZOMG!!1!* to my friend Duncan's dad.)

But then, I'm not sure about heroes at the best of times. I wrote about it at http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2004/10/whatever-happened-to-sancho-panza.asp
and still feel pretty much the same way now.

The most remarkable thing about Tom Stoppard (leaving aside the whole him-being-a-genius thing) is he's twenty years older than me, and he has my hair!

This gives me hope.



.......

*correct !!1! punctuation assistance here by Maddy.

Now, when twilight dims the sky above...

Maddy and I are now in Brazil. We got to the airport in Sao Paulo where the driver and Tom Stoppard were waiting, and then we drove down to Paraty. (At no point did I say to Tom Stoppard, "Funny old world innit? You wrote a film called Brazil, and now we're here." Tom Stoppard is, I discovered, who I want to be when I grow up. I did, however, tell him how much I liked his Waterstones story card.)

Anyway. All is good. We went off on a boat to an island and had a very late lunch, or a very early dinner, and after dinner I lay down on the roof of the boat as it chuntered back to Paraty and watched the sun set and slept under the stars, waking just before we docked.

I have a plan for Saturday -- I spoke to the Festival organisers and they seem happy with it. After the programme item (starts at 11:45, finishes around 1.00pm) I'll sign for whoever's there for as long as it takes. I figure this may take a while, but basically anyone there who wants a signature, whether they made it to the official event or had to content themselves with the big screen overflow or are just wandering around Paraty clutching an ancient Portuguese translation of Sandman. So if you were wondering whether or not it was worth your while making the trip to Paraty, yes, if you're here then, I'll sign your book.

Not a question, just a post on a glorious clockwork tower I thought you might enjoy.
http://cabinet-of-wonders.blogspot.com/2008/06/san-marco-clock-tower-venice.html

I was thinking the other day that it had been a while since I'd posted a link to cabinet of wonders - http://cabinet-of-wonders.blogspot.com/ - as I've been enjoying the recent grand tour, so I took this as a reminder. (My favourite recent article was http://cabinet-of-wonders.blogspot.com/2008/06/languages-of-tone-and-rhythm.html)

dear neil,
did you know that people are selling the graveyard book on abesbooks.co.uk?? is that allowed??

i've entered the epitaph competion because well i just had too what with the desperation and the sweaty paws and whatnot! Even so it feels a little like cheating, and in the unlikely event of winning a copy, i do think i might miss out on the all hallows atmosphere!

just thought i'd do a little 'grassing' seeing as i was in the neighbourhood, the stink of spoilsports to me! they wouldnt allow that with that Potter boy so why Bod?!

davey

Well, the publishers didn't send out advance reading copies with the Harry Potter books -- they were extremely strict about shops violating the on-sale date, though, which is a slightly different thing. Here you have books that people have been sent or given that they are putting up for sale on eBay or Abebooks.

The covers of the ARCs all say "Not for sale" on them, but most of the copies for sale are being sold by booksellers who got them at Book Expo America, and many of those booksellers use the sale of the various advanced copies of books they got there as a way to fund their trip to Book Expo. Which is my way of saying I can't get mad about it.

I'm most disappointed when copies proudly proclaim themselves to never have been read. The reason for the advanced reading copies is so that people can read them. So I hope the people who buy them on eBay or elsewhere read them and tell people about them, and don't just put them away in the dark as collectibles.

Is "bugger me sideways with a coracle" a real expression, or did you make it up?

You mean the two things are mutually exclusive? Everything has to be made up first... I mean, take the following as an example:

Hey Neil,

I found the most interesting thing today. I received a book order today including Creating Circles & Ceremonies by Oberon and Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart. It's a Pagan ritual book. Anyway, I was looking through the appendices and they had a section listing Pantheons of different cultures and religions. Guess what was included in the list? THE ENDLESS. I was shocked! Apparently, people have created very successful rituals using the archetypes of The Endless. I guess your characters have taken on a life of their own! Just thought you might be interested in knowing that little tidbit.

Sincerely,
Christina

Brazeeeeeel....

Maddy and I are off to Brazil in a few minutes. Well, we're off to New York where we change planes. But basically, we're off to Brazil together. She has the disarming smile. I have the unlikely facial hair. We're like Green Arrow and Speedy, only without the boxing glove arrows, the costumes, the similarity of gender and... okay, not really a good analogy, but what the hell, we're hitting the road. Or we will if the car turns up.

...

It turned up. We're now in JFK in the airline lounge. Soon we will get on a plane that will take us to São Paulo. I have bought Maddy every possible magazine a 13 year old girl could want, not to mention a bunch of books. I will carry on writing stories in longhand on the plane. Or sleeping. I could sleep.

...

Want a badge made out of my thumbprint and signature? Or Tanith Lee's lip-print and initials? Details at http://www.freewebs.com/grikmeer-match-it/ although the eBay links don't seem to be active yet.

Also we are all very proud of the former web elf.

The New Paranoia

I have friends who practice ultra-safe computing when crossing borders: examine their computers and you'll find yourself on something almost data-free, so you'd not be looking at encrypted files, you'd simply not be looking at files -- the same kinds of things that Cory Doctorow describes in Little Brother.

And I've always thought they were being, well, silly.

And then I read, in the LA Times, an article that began:

Authorities need a search warrant to get at a computer in your home, and reasonable suspicion that you're up to no good to search your laptop in other places (like if you're surfing bomb-making sites while using WiFi at a coffee shop).

But the rules change when you're crossing the border back into the United States. And that has raised concerns from business travelers, privacy advocates and some lawmakers about the vulnerability of the huge amounts of information people carry on their laptops and other digital devices.

The legality of the practice hinges around whether searching a laptop is the equivalent of looking in your luggage, or more like a strip search.

U.S. Courts have ruled, as recently as this spring in a case stemming from a search at LAX, that there's no need for warrants or suspicions when a person is seeking to enter the country because any "routine search" is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. In effect, it's like luggage: anything and everything in your laptop, cellphone, BlackBerry or digital camera can be examined and copied by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents.

And also copy any songs or films from my iPod, I assume...

Which leaves me going "Yes. And customs has the right to inspect a book I'm reading, but not the right to make a copy of the book. Why would they have the right to copy my data?" It seems deeply wrong. Or like I may, at least in the world of computing, find myself joining the ranks of the friends I always thought were maybe just an eensy weensy little bit paranoid.

Hi Neil! I see you answered this person's question if you're going anywhere else here in Brazil other then Paraty.

And you also said that you have to wait and see if you will be able to do a book signing or not. Well I called Casa Azul (the institution that is organizing the FLIP event) and they said that it is up to each author if they want to have a book signig section or not after they lecture, and a book signing booth will be set up and ready for the authors who agree.

So the main thing is, since it is up to you I would like to know if you will agree on having a book signing/meet and greet, for it will be the only reason for me to travel so far, so I can meet one of my idols.

Hope to see you there!

xoxox

Marie
If it's up to me, then I'm sure I'll be doing a signing.

A few weeks ago I bought tickets for your night in Tulsa, OK. Today, as I went to search again for dates, I'm seeing rumors that the event has been cancelled. All traces of this event have been removed from Mammoth comic's website and Neilgaiman.com. Am I missing something here? Is the FBI reprogramming my memory? Or, quite simply, is the event cancelled. Why am I the last to know these things? Anyway, hope you're having a lovely day and I will have to send my copy of American Gods to you to be signed. It is a very special copy you know, belonged to my late best friend, Adam. Goodness, I'm rambling...good evening.


Jaclyn Long

It was definitely cancelled, I'm afraid. I'm astonished that Mammoth Comics have simply vanished any mention of it, rather than putting up information to let people know that it was cancelled, and to make it easy for any tickets to be refunded. When I was told that the event had been cancelled I was also told that they'd make sure that people knew and that it would be made easy for people to refund their tickets... [Edit to add -- Shawn from Mammoth Comics got in touch and it looks like it's a bit messier than that, and some of the mess seems to have come from the people representing me. But now I know that there's a communications breakdown, it'll get sorted.]

Sorry that it's not up as a cancelled event at the Where's Neil address, it was meant to have been. (I really, really miss the old blog system of Where's Neil. It drove everyone else mad, especially the folk running the website, but it meant that events didn't simply vanish once they'd happened, and it was easy for information to go up and hang around.)

Not cute

Today I had, emergencies, houseguests, strawberries and a yellow fever vaccination, more or less in that order. (For the concerned, the baby raccoons were gone by yesterday afternoon, and I think it's a good bet that they went off with their mum. Today's cuteness quotient was filled by The Chipmunk In The Drainpipe, but I didn't take photos.)


Hey, Neil!

You're coming to Rio de Janeiro for an event in July, yeah? Is there any chance you'll do signings anywhere other than Paraty? Tickets for your lecture sold out a couple hours after they became available; you have a bazillion fans here!

I don't think so; I was asked if I'd like to do a small, invitation-only event for perhaps a hundred people in Sao Paulo after the Flip Paraty festival, and I said no -- mostly because an event for a hundred people seemed like a good way to upset a few thousand people who wouldn't be able to be there (given what happened last time I signed in Brazil -- http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2001/05/american-gods-blog-post-57.html). I said I'd love to do a big enough event that many people would be made happy, but I don't think anyone wanted to do that. So unless something changes in the next two weeks -- and I promise I'll post it here if it does -- no, it'll just be the FLIP event. (And the Desert Island Books event -- I'm reading at that as well).

And a few people have written to ask about signings at FLIP and whether I'll be signing and suchlike, and the truth is I have no idea -- I'll find out and post here what I find.

...

I've been a fan and supporter of the Guys Read website and project, which encourages young male humans to read books. I was pleased when I recently discovered that the UK has its own project - Boys into Books, which despite sounding like a ghastly attempt to transform our surplus young into reading matter, is a very sensible thing: http://www.sla.org.uk/boys-into-books-overview.php

They have a list of recommended books for boys at http://www.sla.org.uk/boys-into-books-11-14.pdf and tell us that:

From mid May until mid September 2007, state schools in England having at least 20 boys of this age group were able to order 20 titles from the list, which were delivered, ready jacketed, free of charge, and also two sets of three Boys into Books posters and 450 postcards.

Which is the kind of thing that I wish would spread beyond the UK, and which should be revived every few years in the UK. So I thought I'd mention that here.

...

With the help of the webgoblin, I recently upgraded my Panasonic W7 from Windows Vista to Windows XP, and it now runs like a dream. It's nice not to have to wait for words to appear once more.

Let's see... The Rogue Artists Ensemble have reworked their Mr Punch performance and will be bringing it back on the stage -- hope I can catch it this time. Lots of information up at http://broadwayworld.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=29261 -- although I suspect their previews are in July and not, as posted, in April.

Today I did the proofread on the back matter of Absolute Sandman Volume 4 (which will be out in November). The script in Absolute Sandman Volume 3 is for Sandman 50, which is (in my opinion) the least interesting Sandman script -- although Craig Russell's amazing pencils make up for it a bit. So to make up for it in Absolute Sandman Volume 4 we have the first script for The Kindly Ones and the last script of all, the one for Sandman 75, along with lots of pencils and breakdowns. (You can see a lot of the original pencils for the work that Bryan Talbot and John Ridgway did on Sandman 75, to Charles Vess' breakdowns.)

And I got a call from Vertigo editor-queen Karen Berger asking how I'd feel about another volume of Absolute Sandman, one with Endless Nights and Dream Hunters, and perhaps the Sandman Midnight Theatre story, and the story at the beginning of Dust Covers in it.... I'm not sure. I like that Sandman is one four volume book. Having said that, lots of you have written and asked about it, and Endless Nights and Mr Amano's lovely Dream Hunters are both out of print as hardbacks, and it would be nice to see that art that huge. I suppose I'd feel fine about it if we called it something other than Absolute Sandman Volume 5. Absolute Sandman Supplemental maybe?

...

And for all the people doing the SFX hundred favourite authors meme, it's Samuel R Delany, not Delaney. Just saying...

And I tried to find the SFX list on the SFX site, and couldn't. But I found a terrific little Q&A with Paul Cornell on writing short stories at http://www.sfx.co.uk/page/sfx?entry=author_interview_paul_cornell

...

Oops. Nearly forgot -- over at the Subterranean Press website, you can win a UK Advanced Reading Copy of The Graveyard Book: http://www.thegraveyardbook.com/2008/06/win-an-advance-reading-copy-of-the-uk-edition-of-the-graveyard-book/

You write your own epitaph to win. And from the ones people have posted, I am extremely glad I am not judging.

American Gods Blog, Post 57

So now it's the day after the signing. 1,200 people were in the signing line (an attempt to cap the line was abandoned after a riot was threatened, I learned afterward) and records were broken for books sold at a signing (700 plus) and I was out of there by 11:30 at night, and that was all good.

The people were friendly. There were amazing gifts in quantity. My two phrases of Portuguese impressed everyone, and I managed to do 200 people an hour mostly because no-one really tried to stop and chat. But by the end of the signing I had utterly and completely lost my voice.

Now, a day later, I'm communicating in something between a whisper and a croak, and doing a lot of Harpo Marx style wordless stuff, and I'm hoping I can talk by the time the Argentinian signings and interviews start.

I suppose it's better that something like this happens now, rather than on the AMERICAN GODS tour.

The people at Conrad have been the finest hosts I could have hoped for, and the Brazilian people are even more enthusiastic and delightful than I remembered. If it weren't for the traffic in Sao Paolo this place would be perfect...

American Gods Blog, Post 56

Actually there are two other UK signings on Saturday the 14th of July: Ottakers in Norwich at 11:00am and Waterstones in Canturbury at 7:00 pm. I'll post the details when I get a chance.

Sorry about the silence. I went to Brazil and have had a difficult time getting online. Right now I'm in an office in FNAC, a book and stationary store in the heart of Sao Paolo. There's a noise coming up the stairs like the low susurrus of a horde of vandals on their way to sack a city, or possibly just the crowd at a rock concert, which seems to be the people here to get their books signed. I'm meant to do a reading first, and may perversely do an American Gods reading, or less perversely a Sandman:Dream Hunters reading (in English, not in Portuguese, although the Brazilian edition is the one I'm here for.)

Sore throat, mostly from shuting to be heard at the Rio book fair, where the background decibells were scary, and from continual interviews ever since.

Did an MTV interview today that was enormously fun.

And I have to go as the TV crew are here to interview me (45 minutes late. This is Brazilian Time, and it no longer causes me to turn a hair, although if this were the US I'd be having kittens.)

American Gods Blog, Post 52

Okay. It was a Blogger problem. Which is good to know. In my naivety I thought I'd broken it.

Today was nightmarishly busy, and strange. And I think the Douglas thing shook me up a lot more than I had realised.

Too many e-mails asking for 'appreciations' on Douglas, or quotes on his death ("Why me?" "You wrote the book about him.") Most of the time I just sent them here, and told them to use what they wanted.

Wednesday, I drive down to the House on the Rock for the photo session for Entertainment Weekly.

Friday I go to Brazil -- I'll be at a book fair in Rio on Saturday and Sunday (signings), then to Sao Paulo -- Tuesday evening is a signing at FNAC. (What is FNAC? I do not know. See how exciting this is?)

Then to Buenos Aires (it's in Argentina. You knew that.) Details on what I'm doing there as they come. Then back to the US.

By the way, the UK tour dates (and the US dates) are on the May 4th blog entry -- you'll need to go to archives to see them.