Long day. Everything that has to be signed is signed, every telephone interview is done. Conference calls etc all dealt with. And at the end of a long working day, I now need to start writing. It's meant to be more fun than this, but I'm up against the wall on a research trip, and time is declining to be stretchy in the way I want it to (40 hour days.... 19 day weeks....)
I failed to go with daughter Holly on her Chicago road trip as well. Which would have been fun.
It looks there will be good news for all the people who have paid for Neverwheres from Hill House (or anything overdue from Hill House). I'll have more concrete information very soon.
And anyone who is waiting for a refund on the cancelled Tulsa Event, Mammoth Comics will be making sure the refunds happen -- apologies: I think absolutely everyone who could have screwed up on this one did, in a sort of Perfect Storm of screwedupness. But things should sort now. And guilt, if nothing else, will bring me to Tulsa sooner rather than later.
I hate to be nosy, but did you take Zoe to the vet? Blindness in aged cats is most commonly caused by hypertension (high blood pressure, as I am sure you knew). This condition can be secondary to kidney failure or dysfunction or hyperthyroidism. We do not see primary hypertension in cats generally. The second most common cause would be retinal atrophy, but it is much less common. Unfortunately, with neither disease is the blindness reversible, but if Zoe has an underlying disease, her well-being could be improved by treating it.
Thanks for allowing me to give unasked for advice, but I find that often my patients owners don't realize that disease in one area can cause a more obvious sign in another.
Sorry if you knew all this stuff already.
Shera a kitty vet (and huge fan)
I put this up because I thought it might be useful for other people as well. Yes, we took her to the vet today, who established that, yes, she is indeed blind. And is currently doing a whole set of tests on her. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for her. She's an astoundingly sweet-natured cat, who we've had since she was a barn-kitten: she fell downstairs when she was younger, and had her hip screwed together -- she's never been as active since. But she likes to be loved more than any cat I've known.(Worries.)
[later] She's back from the vet. It was indeed high blood pressure. They're trying to decide whether she needs medication. (She was hugely overweight when we got her back, and we put her on a long diet, so she's now at normal weight, which may help anyway.)
Cloned Dog Owner Manacled Mormon for Sex is possibly my favourite headline ever. It's on the Guardian front page, today. (The story, although with a different lead line, is up at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/08/usa)
This is happiness. From the BBC and Jamie Hewlett (and his Zombie Flesh Eaters team) and Damon Albarn, present: Monkey, Sandy, Pigsy journey to the Olympics... (if it doesn't work, check at http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympics/monkey/7521287.stm)
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.
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.)
An apologetic note to say that I've just learned that for various reasons (none of which was really anyone's fault) the Tulsa Oklahoma event on June the 28th has had to be cancelled. (And, I am assured, all tickets will be refunded.)
I definitely want to come to Tulsa -- there are Lafferty archives to see, after all, and old friends to eat with -- so I think its been more postponed than cancelled, although it'll probably be in a slightly different form when next it happens.
A reminder that I'll be in Tulsa, OK, on the 28th of June: details at http://www.mammothcomics.com/events.php It seems to be an evening containing a signing, a Q&A and a screening of Beowulf into the bargain. I'm excited to go to Tulsa, because of the R.A. Lafferty connections. And Oklahoma is a state I've never visited.
Hi Neil,
Absolute Sandman Volume 3 will be out in a few hours. Since this volume will include stories from books 5-7 of the Sandman library, I was wondering if volume 4 will include "Endless Nights." I was also hoping that “Dream Hunters” will be part of the final volume but that’s just me wishful thinking.
-Tonichi
I have volume 3 here, and it's as lovely and as heavy as the first two, and I've just been proofreading Volume 4, which comes out in November, for the 20th anniversary of Sandman. (The only way I can make that work in my head is by telling myself that it's the equivalent of a comic I read in 1975, when I was 14 and discovering fanzines and the history of comics, that had a first issue in 1955 and stopped publishing in 1963... it would have been something from a bygone age. Instead we're in this strange world where each year more Sandman graphic novels are sold than the year before, as new generations discover them.)
My main obsession right now is to make sure that the sign in the park finally says Do Not Feed the Pigeons in Hungarian, rather than, um, pidgen-Hungarian. No, Absolute Sandman 4 doesn't contain Endless Nights or Dream Hunters -- it's already over 600 pages and will weigh over seven pounds. The four Absolute Sandmans when released will be over 2400 pages long and will contain all 76 issues of Sandman (including the special) and the four or five other stories from various specials, samplers and Winters' Edges -- all except the Jeff Jones Death short story, which will need to wait until DC does The Compleat Death...
Here's a rather lovely video of Kindermarchen, the Hidden Variable song by Gregory Maguire, directed by Kimberly Butler and Elberta Gaither. (You know, if you have a record company, you should release Chris's Hidden Variable CD on it... )
I'm presenting a screening of Beowulf and talking about that (and I have no doubt, everything else). And I'm kind of excited as I have never been to Oklahoma, and I will, I hope, get to look at Lafferty stuff while I am there...
...
Lots of people have been writing in asking me for my opinion on the proposed Orphan Copyright legislation.
The only thing that most of the emails coming in on it right now have in common is the conviction that common people are being disenfranchised, and that if the legislation goes through you will now be forced to pay to register copyright on something in order to seek damages – which has, I'm afraid, always been the case. You own your copyright at the moment of creation, but, at least in the US, you still have to register it and pay the registration in order to pursue damages for copyright infringement.
I heard you were reading at Comic-Con New York. While that would be awesome, $500+ is very steep so keep us informed on other eastern US appearances, please!
There's a party/reception for VIPs (VIPs being defined here as "people who have bought $500 tickets") at which you get a gift bag, preferred seating and I sign stuff for you. But a ticket for the actual event itself is only $20, which is much cheaper -- plus $30 for a membership to the convention on Friday (or $45 for the whole weekend).
I'm planning on reading Orange, and some of The Graveyard Book.
...
Dear Mr. Gaiman,
With all due respect, what on earth are you thinking!
You sir, are an Englishman. Nevermind that you have seen fit to galavant over to the colonies for an adventure or three, you seem to have been taken in by those New World types.
I refer sir, to the fact that you seem to have GIVEN UP TEA!! Have you, at some moment in this overlong winter, taken leave of your senses? Think it through man! The answer is not less tea but MORE!! I suggest Assam, or failing that a pint of gin.
Yours worriedly,
Spike,
Oxford.
ENGLAND (having a cuppa).
Obviously I'm still English. If I'd become American I would have stopped drinking coffee.
