I realised that when I wrote "The Moon Moth" in the commentary on Hiding the Elephant a couple of days ago, I meant "The Mascot Moth". "The Mascot Moth" was David Devant's vanishing lady illusion. "The Moon Moth" is my favourite Jack Vance short story.
Stan, the caretaker of the ancient log cabin motel, now small apartments, one of which I go to to write things, is no longer caretaking, and will be moving to sheltered accommodation. He came to me today to see if I was willing to take Boomer, his dog, because Boomer adores me, and Boomer, as Stan will be the first to tell you, growls and snaps at most everyone else. He was an abused dog that Stan rescued from an animal shelter.
I'll probably say no, mostly because I'm not here all the time; and while Boomer adores me there's no guarantee that anyone else in the house would be Boomer-adored in quite the same way, or would want to look after him while I was on tour. But it makes me sad.
I was sure I'd written about Stan before, and I did, almost exactly a year ago, at http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2003_02_09_archive.asp#90310758. Oddly, Stan's political opinions have sort of shifted, I think, to a sort of general condition of "all them politicians, they just lie like rugs".
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Just a reminder, this Sunday is the CORALINE reading and interview at the Fitzgerald Theatre. According to http://www.mpr.org/www/books/talkingvolumes/index.shtml it will be broadcast live over the web, as well as on Minnesota Public Radio. It's from 2:00-4:00pm Central Time.
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No, the New York Times Obituary for Julie Schwartz isn't by Harlan Ellison. Harlan's trying to find a place to run it currently -- it's 2000 words long. (I put him in touch with the Guardian, but it was over their word limit for obits.) (Here's the Daily Telegraph obituary -- as good as any Telegraph Obituary, which is very, except for the bit about Eleanor Roosevelt being governor of New York in 1929, which is from an alternate universe.)
Harlan's battle with AOL continues. The Ninth Circuit appeal court has sent the case back for trial. Lots of info about it at http://www.authorslawyer.com/c-ellison.shtml and a discussion of what that means from Harlan's lawyer at the Scrivener's Error Blog.
And Harlan's story "Goodbye to All That" has been nominated for a Nebula. As have a number of good things, including Coraline. Congratulations to all the nominees. Details at http://www.locusmag.com/2004/News/02_NebulaNominees.html At http://www.sfwa.org/awards/2004/nebfinal2003.html there are links to many of the stories (and excerpts from longer works) up online, for those of you who would like to read them.