Journal

Tuesday, July 31, 2001

AMERICAN GODS BLOG, POST 144

http://www.cnn.com/2001/COMMUNITY/07/30/gaiman/index.html is yesterday's online conference. It links to the CNN interview of last week. (I said Venn Diagrams, but love the idea of Zen Diagrams. One circle labelled One hand Clapping, the other labelled Sound: now, grasshopper, where do they intersect?)

Today I'm doing an interview with Audiofile about audio books -- then a little rest from interviews before the Australian Interviews begin. (Oops. Nope. Lorraine-my-assistant just said that the interview's not till next week. It just migrated onto the wrong to-do list.)

Trying hard to get caught up with everything waiting for me, which was too much to do anyway; and then I had a rather unexpected meeting with A Director in a secret room round the back of Minneapolis Airport on Sunday morning which means that my plate suddenly got a whole lot fuller. Heigh ho.

Yesterday I caught up on the final script for Harlequin Valentine which means Diana Schutz at Dark Horse can sleep a little more easily. Today it's Ramayana and looking over the stuff that came in from NY on Avalon. And the SANDMAN Calendar -- a piece of interesting merchandise I'd long since given up on asking DC to do (I first proposed one in about 1993 -- it would have had the dates of famous dreams on it, and all sorts of great things. They said no, as people didn't buy calendars... but that was then....) which has suddenly turned up.

Wizard sent me an e-mail apologising for printing stuff they knew wasn't true when they printed it. It was, it seems, a mistake. They've promised to check such material with me in the future.

I am on record (in an long-gone interview in I think Cemetary Dance, called The Luggage In The Crypt) as not liking The Sound of Music. I was taken to the film many times as a small boy, not yet in a position to fight back, and disliked it more every time (why, I asked myself, why would that cool Mary Poppins have traded in her umbrella and carpet-bag for this?) (Many years later I wound up standing next to Julie Andrews on a stage, listening to her swear like a trouper -- not that surprising, with a moment's reflection, as a trouper is exactly what she was -- and I decided that she was definitely a lot more Mary Poppins than Maria.) Anyway, I now have a daughter who is barely older than I was when the Sound of Music was first inflicted upon me, who has decided that the Sound of Music is the single best thing in the world, and must be sung at all times and played at all others. I think that's what they call karma. Or poetic justice. Or something.

They have announced that the heat index is in the Please Do Not Go Outside zone. i think I'll be working in the basement library today, rather than out by the lake. (It's a wonderful cabin-office, and has No Telephone, but it also has No Air Conditioning.)

And I got sent the cover of the new edition of The Books of Magic, with the very cool new John Bolton cover this morning. A lovely piece of work...

And on with the motley.