I'm home, and it's... well, nowhere near as cold as it should be. It was (in case you are interested) the warmest January 5th on record in this part of the world. And I'm really enjoying the warm weather more than I feel I should.
So, I last posted on New Year's Eve, in Melbourne.
January the First was quiet and extremely hot. Amanda completed her blog about our wedding, which she'd started writing almost a year earlier. (You can read it at http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/15120706154/the-wedding-blog. When I finished reading it for the first time I got extremely sniffly. You have been warned.)
For the curious, my own Wedding blog is here: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2011/01/yes.html. It's much shorter than Amanda's, but was written closer to the event. It ends with a paraphrase of a line from Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.
By perfect coincidence, we celebrated our first wedding anniversary on January the Second in Melbourne watching The Importance of Being Earnest, starring Geoffrey Rush as Lady Bracknell, seats thanks to actor Toby Schmitz, who played Jack Worthing, and had noticed me on Twitter asking for suggestions about what to do that night in Melbourne. Great cast, great production, beautifully designed and put on. It made me think a lot about surfaces and about Oscar Wilde, and what art means and what it does, and the tension between those things. Then, somewhat subdued, as if it had become real that I was flying away and Amanda wasn't, we had dinner and went to the posh hotel we were overnighting in, and, in the morning, I went to the airport. I won't see her now for about three months. Expect occasional wistful posts in the next three months.
I stopped off in Los Angeles on my way home. I saw Scott and Ivy McCloud and their daughters, my fairy goddaughters, Sky and Winter. I don't see any of them enough. The best thing about being my age is knowing people for a Long Time. Long enough that they've had children. Long enough that the children are now adults, or young adults.
I saw Harlan Ellison, and kvelled at his book of essential short stories and essays Encountering Ellison: Harlan 101, for which I'd written the introduction.
(You can get your own copy of it at http://www.cafepress.com/harlanellison).
I had a meeting at HBO about American Gods. Then I flew home. And it was unseasonably warm for January.
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| It is unseasonably warm, think the dogs. Not that we're complaining. Hunting season has stopped and Cabal's neckerchief is now only for show. |
I've been keeping a tumblr blog for a few months now, at http://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/ and rather enjoying it, posting links to small things or odd things that caught my eye or made me smile.
Yesterday was Charles Addams' Hundredth Birthday, so I posted this on Tumblr, the Addams Family cartoon I bought myself when I won the Newbery Medal. It was originally done as a British Telecom ad, and I saw it in the tube, in London in the late 80s. (Addams had lost the rights to the characters at the time, so only drew them when other people got the rights then hired him to draw).
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| The captions read: “I do hope it’s who you think it is, Fester.” And then, “It’s all been wonderful, Grandma – and Fester has at last established his ancestry!” It was to tell people - Americans, mostly -that it was cheaper to phone America than they thought. |
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And all that was just by way of prelude to posting about Viriconium by M. John Harrison, a book I introduced in 2005 and helped to bring out an audiobook of in 2011. But I think I'll put that off one more night. Viriconium deserves its own blog entry.
(Also, in Neil Gaiman Presents: Anita has her first review, while Swordspoint just garnered its first award, an AudioFile "Earphones" Award, with a review that says:
Richard St. Vier, swordsman extraordinaire, often fights duels to protect the honor of a noble—or just the highest bidder. But to fight for his own and his friends’ honor is a more complicated matter. There are so many rules for every kind of engagement—battle, politics, and, of course, love. Author Ellen Kushner delivers her utterly unique blend of modern fantasy and nineteenth-century novel of manners with absolute conviction, affectionate humor, and perfect phrasing. “Neil Gaiman Presents” has provided original music, lively soundscapes, and the voices of some of the audio world’s most distinguished performers. Hearing Katherine Kellgren, Dion Graham, and others sharpen the cutting, insightful dialogue is pure pleasure. B.P. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award
Congratulations to Ellen Kushner, author and narrator, and to the cast, and to Sue Zizza, who is not namechecked here, and who directed and conceived the production.)
Incidentally, while I was in Australia I read Lift, by Rebecca K. O'Connor. I'd been curious about it ever since I saw that Rebecca saw me tweeting about ACX, decided to do an audiobook of her book using it, and Kickstartered the money to get into the studio and record it. It seemed a very creative way of using the world to make things happen. I hoped the book was good. It was, and now I'm really looking forward to the audiobook.
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I should go and write some more.
Labels: bloody labels, Charles Addams, dog photograph, Ellen Kushner, Harlan Ellison, Scott McCloud, the absence of Viriconium, Unseasonable warmth not that I'm complaining, why I am a Fairy Godfather, Winter