Practically Arkham

Am in Providence for the day, helping settle my son into his new living quarters. I think he needs a copy of the Library of America H. P. Lovecraft as a housewarming present, so that when the geometries of the house become subtly wrong, and he finds himself having to rummage through old newspaper clippings to find out what happened to the apartment's prior tenant, he'll at least know that this is perfectly usual. That way he'll also know to keep a diary explaining all this for us, and finally vanish... in a welter.... of italics and ellipses...

Let's see. Terry Gilliam says he still wants to make Good Omens. (It's at the very end of the article.)

Dave McKean talks about Signal to Noise.

Time Out talks about the Locarno Film Festival:

But best of the lot was Dave McKean's first feature, 'Mirrormask' (written with Neil Gaiman), which makes marvellously inventive use of both digital animation and live action to turn a teenage girl's feelings of guilt about her mother's illness into a funny, frightening and absolutely engrossing odyssey into a weird and wonderful darklands populated by all manner of bizarre beings. A terrific addition to the tradition of films that includes the likes of 'Time Bandits' and 'Brazil', it boasts an extraordinarily strong lead performance from Stephanie Leonidas (currently on our screens in 'Yes'); trust me, this young woman will go far.

The Associated Press has picked up on the First Amendment Project auction, in hundreds of newspapers around the world. (Here's an example.)

Chris Bridges is funny and wistful about it.

And I like CNN's opening paragraph For the right price, Stephen King will kill off your mother-in-law.

Mr. Gaiman,Back on March 5th (I love your journal's Search function!), there wasn't a decision yet about whether the five "missing" stories would be in the mass marked edition of Smoke & Mirrors, or be held til next year's short story collection.Assuming you know by now, what with the mm edition coming out soon, what was the final decision?Thanks much,Mark James

We decided to leave them out, to keep the edition consistent, and put them in the next short story collection, which should be out around this time next year, and which will probably be called Fragile Things.

Right. Gotta run.