Journal

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Monday, Colbert, and tabs galore

This is what I wrote yesterday, but didn't post. (I went to sleep instead.)

I'm on the plane home from New York right now, with Maddy. (Mike flew back to San Francisco at the crack of dawn this morning.)

The New York stop on the way home was to appear on
The Colbert Report - they had asked me to a couple of weeks ago, and we'd set this date. I came close to cancelling last week, but thought it was the kind of thing that my dad would have liked me to do -- and, perhaps more importantly, it was something I'd agreed to do for my own son. So I did it. (Having said that, that's pretty much it for interviews and such for a while. Also pretty much it for introductions, blurbs, and appearances at children's parties. Some bloggage, some twitterage, and probably not an awful lot of either until I'm rested, caught up on work, and feeling a bit less, well, tender.)

I love
The Colbert Report. It gets Tivoed in my house and it gets watched.

Originally, I didn't. Caught the first few when it spun off from the
Daily Show, and wasn't impressed - didn't like it, didn't get it. It was the fact it became my son Mike's favourite TV programme that drew me back. And when I came back, I loved it.

I found myself fascinated by the multiple layers of the Colbert persona (the character of Colbert is an idiot, but a really smart idiot, played by a very clever man) and the way that the persona is allowed to say the unsayable. (The "rearranging the deckchairs on the Hindenberg" line, for example.)

Had no idea whether I'd work on it, or enjoy it when I was actually on it, mind you.

I think I worked and I really did enjoy it -- I loved having no idea where things were going to go (no, it was not rehearsed, no, I had no idea that mentioning Tom Bombadil would produce that result).

Before the show, Stephen Colbert said hello, shook hands and told me what I am sure he tells every guest, that his character is an idiot, and to be passionate and make my points regardless.

Because I hadn't been home in a while, and didn't have that many clothes with me, I found myself doing the interview in the suit I'd taken to the UK and used through the whole of the funeral stuff. Which was strange. I'm never quite sure if I'm me when I'm dressed up.

Afterwards, I was taking my family to have dinner with Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly and their family, so at the end of the interview, when Colbert asked for an illustrator to make people lose all hope, I suggested Art, to make Art smile. And it did. Have now suggested that Art actually does do "Fuck It, We're all going to die". (I read art's latest book (or rather, a newly introduced, newly afterworded, book from 1977) BREAKDOWNS on the plane home -- astonishing, beautiful work.)

...

I watched you on the Colbert Report. In all seriousness, might I suggest smart casual instead of a suit the next time?


Sure you can. But the suit was what was in the funeral luggage, and I had neither the time that Monday nor the inclination to go clothes-shopping, so (shrugs).

...

Let's close some Tabs:

This is an amazing interview with Dave McKean, filled with glorious art. http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/?p=1599

This is me a bit late in March, but Joe Hill is doing a support your Indie Bookstore giveaway. http://joehillfiction.com/?p=714

BUST magazine has a buy cheap Coraline-the-Musical tickets offer up at http://www.bust.com/component/option,com_mojo/Itemid,31/p,1761/.

And over here's the info on Coraline-the-Musical: http://www.mcctheater.org/currentseason.html. Tickets will go on-sale on Monday and I will probably have a code of my own to offer then, either here or on twitter. In the meanwhile over at http://www.mcctheater.org/shows/08-09_season/coraline/music.html they have samples of three of Stephin Merrit's songs up.

Blueberry Girl interviews that wander a little: Newsday and New York Daily News.

After the last trip to Toronto for Coraline I felt guilty enough whenever people pointed out that I hadn't gone to Toronto on the Graveyard Book tour, that when I was asked, I said yes to appearing at the Luminato Festival in June:

An Evening with Neil Gaiman
Celebrated for novels such as American Gods, graphic novels including The Sandman
series, and this year’s Hollywood blockbuster Coraline, Neil Gaiman graces Luminato
at An Evening with Neil Gaiman. In conversation with his fans at the Jane Mallett
Theatre, Gaiman presents the Canadian premiere of his latest novel, The Graveyard
Book, an innocently sweet yet dark tale about a young boy raised in a cemetery by
ghosts and spirits. Gaiman was awarded the 2009 Newbery Medal for the work.
Moderator Mark Askwith (Producer, SPACE) leads a dialogue between audience
members and Gaiman as fans are encouraged to ask questions of the modern-day
master of fright before a book signing. An Evening with Neil Gaiman is presented
by Scotiabank.
Monday, June 8 at the Jane Mallett Theatre
$15


Who sent me this link to a Coraline book review I really enjoyed? At this point I will probably never know. Several people sent me this link to P Craig Russell being interviewed about the Coraline graphic novel, and the house he based the house in the book on.

Audrey Niffenegger is one of my favourite people, and gave me a guided tour of Highgate Cemetery West, when I was working on The Graveyard Book and had got myself stuck. She was researching a novel herself, and had got so deeply into it she was working as a guide. Was thrilled to see the book is now finished, and sold.

And finally, on this page, there's a three minute video of me talking about audio books.

There. I got through a whole tabclosing without ever mentiong the PaulandStormaline teaser.

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