Cats in the Sauna and Boiling Water Tricks

The dogs are enjoying the cold. (Except for last night, when the thermometer in the kitchen that measures the temperature outside dropped as far as minus 20.6F, which is minus 29C, before announcing that it had taken itself offline.)

I tried the magic boiling water trick late last night: boil a kettle, pour the water into a cup, walk outside at minus 20F and throw the boiling water into the air, where it turns instantly to powdery snowy dust. I did it. It worked. I'd pressed the wrong button on the phone and had failed to record it for posterity. I decided I wasn't going to do it again, because there are lots of people doing it on YouTube already (and even some respected institutions). Nor was I going to sit outside in the cold looking at meteors. Instead I went back down to the bottom of the garden and wrote.)

The weird thing is that, once we get into the depths of winter, -20 will be a temperature I look forward to. It's -40 I don't like. (And once we get to -40, which is the same in F or C, I do not care about things like windchill.)

I read once that at minus 70 F, there is a gentle tinkling noise that your breath makes as it freezes and falls to the ground, but I am happy not to put this to the test.

Anyway...

The Dogs are enjoying the weather.

The Cats are not. The cats have more or less taken up residence in the sauna...

There used to be seven cats in this house. There were always seven cats. As one died off or went walkabout, never to return, another would turn up at the back door. But two large white dogs sort of put an end to that, alas. So as the older cats have died off, the house cat numbers have diminished.

Coconut, who was once Maddy's kitten, is the youngest. He's a very amiable, easygoing sort of a cat.

And then there's Princess, who is not amiable, and is only easygoing in the sense that the mad old lady who lives down the road and glares at you when you walk past her house is easygoing if you don't disturb her. Princess is the oldest cat we have. She arrived here on June the 26th 1994, Holly's 9th birthday, but I'd glimpsed her at a distance, a feral ghost living wild in the woods for a good year before that. She's feisty and grumpy and likes making people do their trick for her, which is turning on the tap so a trickle of water comes out, and then waiting while she drinks a little.

She glares at you if you turn the tap off before she's done.

She also likes making visitors pet her. In the old days she would let you know she was done with being stroked by viciously sinking her teeth into you, deep and hard, but she's too old for that nonsense now. I used to have to muzzle her before I could trim her nails or remove knotted balls of fur. Now she'll submit to anything. Beneath the fur she weighs nothing at all...

And I just discovered that she has a lump on her left cheek. I'll get her to the vet... I hope it's not something big and bad. I've grown so used to having a bad-tempered but beautiful cat that I need to warn visitors about. She's outlasted all the cats I loved and all the cats I bonded with.

And I think she's grown very used to me.

When Zoe died, it was really easy to explain to people how much you could miss a sweet, gentle cat who was nothing but a ball of utter love. I'm going to have a much harder time one day, months or even years from now, explaining why I miss the meanest, grumpiest and most dangerous cat I've ever encountered.

Sigh.

...

Back to work. Let me point you at this eBay auction for the CBLDF.

You can buy Frank Miller's drawing chair, the one he did Dark Knight and Sin City and 300 at (careful! if you buy it you may find yourself with drawing abilities you did not previously possess, but you may also start covering your face with bandaids after being beaten up by problematic dames and crooked cops, and the next thing you know you'll be coming out of retirement and fighting crime grittily in a wrinkled costume*).

Or buy someone the final copies of the Tony Harris illustrated "In Reilig Oran", a poem I wrote that we did a limited edition of earlier this year for the Chicago Comic Con. It's signed by me and Tony. (These are BUY NOW, so you can buy one and still get it in time for Xmas. Hurrah.)

And if you're wondering why to support the CBLDF or take out a membership... well, they are currently actively fighting things like this. (I know. It's very vague. At the point where things move on a bit it will be less vague and announcements will be made..)

*This statement is not approved by the CBLDF. Or the FDA. Or anybody who approves statements.

Labels: Cats, Princess, strange things you can do in the winter, The Valley of the Shadow of Death of Cats

Time. It's waiting in the wings...

I'm behind on blogging right now, as I try and get ahead (well, catch up) on work.

One hasty thing for you lot to ponder: in about ten days, on the 9th of February, this blog will be nine years old. (It started on the americangods.com website, and then, when we were given the neilgaiman.com domain, transmigrated. This was the first actual post.) The webgoblin pointed this out to me, and we think we should do something to celebrate the blog's 9th birthday. I have absolutely no idea what.

If you have any ideas for wonderful things that would make people happy, let me know. Or, better still, let the all-powerful webgoblin know, at http://www.neilgaiman.com/feedback/

Thank you all for your Zoe letters and notes and thoughts. Maddy sent this to me a couple of days ago. It's her as a toddler, playing with Zoe as a kitten:

...and because time always brings things even while it takes things away, this is Maddy as she is now, over Christmas in Scotland, taken by me on my Lomo:


...

Off to LA for a friend's Bat-mitzvah, then next week I'm talking at UCLA and UCSB. (Details and ticketing info at http://www.neilgaiman.com/where. In each case, the numbers of people involved mean it's very doubtful that I'll sign anything after, although I'll try and sign stuff before so they can have signed objects for sale.) (And a very early warning: I know where I will be on the Hallowe'en weekend 2011.)

Also, I think this is the first time I've won an award for a poem, so thank you to all at Starshipsofa, and the Mythic Delirium crew. (And, per that link, there are still a few copies of the Mythic Delirium Anniversary Issue with "Conjunctions" in it.)

Labels: birthdays, blogging about the blog in a strange mirror-like pattern that leads into infinity, Cats, what Maddy looks like

Zoe update

I slept in the attic bedroom again last night. Zoe seemed weak and listless when I went in, and was huddling on the floor by the heater. She smelled weird, like bile. She got out of bed a couple of times in the night, to throw up a couple of teaspoons of foam. Then I'd clean her up and bring her back to the bed, and she'd snuggle and purr.

When I woke up this morning, she was in her cat bed on the floor. I cleaned up the vomit-foam that had happened while I'd slept. Now I'm off to drive through something that appears from wunderground.com to be a full-on ice-storm to go and get Olga from the airport and bring her back to spend a last day with her cat.

And I'm wondering what it is about this small blind cat that inspires such behaviour -- mine, Olga's, Lorraine's.... I've had cats in this house for 18 years, and there are cat-graves down by gazebo. Two cats died of old age last year. It wasn't like this.

I think it may be the love. Hers, once given, was yours, unconditionally and utterly.

Right. Off into the ice-storm. (Yes, I am taking a big four-wheel-drive thing, not the Mini. Yes, I will drive very carefully.)

Labels: Cat Vomit, Cats, ice-storms, is that what people do?

Zoe, part two

So far, a profoundly odd day. I slept up in the attic bedroom with Zoe, much to the irritation of my dog. The above was the view when I woke up, captured on Nexus 1 camera (as was the accidental video, below). Weirdly, no allergy symptoms at all. Normally I have to wash my hands after touching her, or my eyes itch and swell and go red. No problems at all today. And I lay in bed with her while she did that kneading-dough thing that contented cats do, and checked my email and learned that a TV series I've been working on for 12 years has just come together, and then the phone rang and I was offered a film to write and direct, and it all seemed very unreal and unlikely and far away.

I'll sleep with her again tonight. Olga (her other person - here's what she writes about Zoe) flies in tomorrow, and the attic bedroom is Olga's that night.

Zoe can't eat or drink - the tumour blocks the oesophagus, and she throws up everything, even water - and we're hydrating her subcutaneously. On Monday, Lorraine and I take her to the vet (edit; no we don't; the vet comes here, which will be much less traumatic for her), who will put her to sleep, which is a euphemism, and we stay with her to the end.

Thank you all for your kind and sensible messages. They mean a lot.

...

Something small that made me smile:

Did you know that people over at the Amazon Blueberry Girl page have started writing their reviews in Blueberry Girl meter?

I didn't, but I looked, and they have, I particularly liked Mariana Chaffee's.

It is good to make art in odd places.

Labels: Blueberry Girl, Cat Vomit, Cats, I miss the days when I used to make sure that there would be at least one amusing or interesting label

Zoe.

There is a cat named Zoe who lives with us. It's like living with a fluffy bundle of love. Fourteen years ago, she was a barn kitten in a place my daughter used to ride. The farmer went down to the barn, threw a towel over the kittens, caught her, brought her to us and we went home with her. She was a barn cat, although there was definitely some Siamese in there somewhere.

She spent the first few years of her life loving us and avoiding strangers. A few years ago she went away with a friend who fell in love with her and was loved in return and it seemed cruel to part them. When the friend (Olga, former webelf) became a travelling gypsy-girl Zoe came back to us, theoretically waiting until Olga had a permanent place or country again. Zoe's lived in the attic for a while. About eighteen months ago I realised that she was completely blind. People go up to the attic, or sleep in the bedroom she lives in, and they love her, and she loves them back.

(Here is Kyle Cassidy on his LJ writing about the Zoe experience):

She lives in the turret, wary of the Great Rambunctious Dog that lives downstairs but can't get through the cat door (much to his dismay). She spends most of her days on a bed, resting comfortably. But when a person comes into the room she lifts her head into the air and makes noise "mewp! mewp!" as if to say "I'm here! I know you can't see me, so I shall make this noise to guide you!" And when you scratch her head she appreciates it like no other cat. And when you leave, she makes the noise again, lifting her head as though to say "foul winds have blown you from me! you are lost! I shall make this noise so that you can find me again!" -- and, of course, you can't leave, so you go back and pet her again and again. "I used to try and write in the turret," Neil told me, "but the only thing that would happen was that I'd pet Zoe all day." This is not in, and of itself, a bad thing but it interrupts the Great Works of Literature. Whenever there was down time (when I wasn't out photographing some author or eating dinner or looking at the bees) I would say "I'm going upstairs to pet Zoe," and Neil would smile and say "that sound like a lovely thing to do. She would like that very much."

She's been throwing up a lot this week, so we took her to the vet. They found a mass inside her, blocking off the pathway between her mouth and her stomach. No food or water was getting in. Last night we took her to the U of M veterinary hospital, where they investigated further.

The news is as bad as it could be. It's a tumour, it's huge, it's malignant, it's rare, it's extremely fast-growing. There's only been one case where they even tried operating on a cat to remove it, and the cat died the next day.

I want her to come home from the hospital, and die peacefully among people who love her.

Two cats died last year - Pod and Hermione - but they were eighteen, and so old it was a mercy of sorts, and was expected. I was sad, but their deaths just felt like the final page had turned. This one hurts.

...

I was going to write a long blogpost today about how I was quoted as saying I "wasn't anyone's bitch" in the New Yorker (something that I don't remember saying, because it's not the kind of thing that I'd say, unless we'd just been talking about the Entitlement Issues blogpost) and how yesterday I was deluged with FAQ emails (and a handful of Twitters) explaining, with varying degrees of civility (which I appreciated) or incivility, that having used that phrase undid all the good I'd ever done by writing positive women, supporting RAINN etc, because it showed that I was minimising the horror of rape and revealing my underlying misogyny (I think it started here); and I apologised a few times on Twitter and in the New Yorker chat; and how this morning's FAQ email has been filled with people saying "Look, I'm a feminist and I have to tell you I'm really disappointed in you for giving credibility to those people from yesterday who are trivializing very real issues..."; and how I'm rapidly moving into "a plague on all your houses" mode; but honestly right now, I haven't the heart, and probably it's only getting to me because I'm actually really worried and upset about a very small cat. So I think it's better that the blog goes unwritten, and if you have strong opinions on the matter you should post them on your own blogs, and, for the time being at least, leave this one alone.

Labels: Cats

The Author Comes Home, and displays many photographs of his travels

I went to XinjiangProvince in Western China to continue researching my Monkey/China book. This is the photo I took of a scenic building that, I discovered when the men came out to arrest us, turned out to be a police station. If you're in Kashgar do not take pictures of this building. Trust me on this.

This is what I was researching and working on. (As seen in a little town square, on the way to Yarkand):

Xinjiang Province is going to be hard to write about. It's like walking into the Arabian Nights in some ways, and like going back in time in others. It was especially like going back in time on this trip, as, following the Uighur riots in Urumqi in July, the Chinese Government turned off the Internet, text messaging and all international phone calls in or out of the region. I had a great guide who was terrified I'd talk politics, and I rapidly discovered that everything except conversations about the spice-sellers in the market...

... or discussion of the pomegranate crop, counted as politics. It made my journey even stranger than it might have been already.

While I was there my camera started misbehaving: I hadn't even realised it had a motor in it, but the motor started vibrating gently, producing some very beautiful shots that weren't really what I wanted...

Like this shot of a lady in Yarkand market selling peppers and tomatoes that seem to have turned into jewels.

After a great deal of reflection I decided not to buy a camel in the market in Kashgar. Here are two camels I didn't buy.

In the Russian market in Urumqi I bought a new camera I don't like anywhere nearly as much as my old, sporadically-vibrating one.

I went from there to Jinan, Wuqiao and Beijing.

This photo, taken in Beijing was one of the highlights of my trip -- and was one the main reasons I went back to China. I wanted to talk to Liu Xiao Ling Tong (the stage name for Mr Zhang Jinlai), who played Monkey in the Chinese television version of Journey to the West. (Here's his blog.)

Then I went to Chengdu. I don't have photos on my camera of the Galaxy Award ceremony, or the speech I gave at Sechuan University, or the visit to the Earthquake Zone and the talk I gave to the kids there. (Science Fiction World and I are starting a library for them.) (If I can get some photos I'll put them up.)

And I was not able to take photos of the encounter with the fourth holiest Buddhist in China, because he is not to be photographed.

So instead here's a photo of Amanda Palmer, who joined me for my last few days in China, on the side of a mountain having been recognised by some happy Chinese tourists...

More photos of China and Singapore in my next post, I hope. In summary: Singapore was wonderful, but the visit was much much too short: we were there for about 50 hours altogether. Once again, the food was amazing and the people delightful.

...

Let's see. A quick handful of links...

A theatrical production of Neverwhere in Chicago next year is producing a fascinating visit-to-London blog over at http://neverwhat.blogspot.com/.

I'll be at the Arts Festival in New Zealand in March. Here's the Town Hall event - http://www.nzfestival.nzpost.co.nz/writers-and-readers/town-hall-talk-neil-gaiman, and it looks like I'll be doing some other events while there. It may sell out fast, so if you're interested, get tickets early. (And do not miss Margo Lanagan, who will also be there, for she is an Incredibly Good Thing.)

....

Through most of this summer I was playing with a Lomography Camera. The kind with film in, where you have no idea what you took until it's developed. (The one I used was an LC-A+.) I'm starting to love the results, especially when everything comes in slightly oversaturated. They look like pictures of dreams.

(Middle photo of the amazing bubble by Miss Holly Gaiman. Who is fundraising.)

(And you can, of course, click to embiggen the pictures.)
...

And finally, people sometimes write in and point out that, when I return home, I post pictures of my dog, rapturously dashing somewhere or dancing or stick-wielding to welcome me home. "Why do you not ever post pictures of cats?" they ask.

Good point. Here is Coconut welcoming me rapturously home:

Here is Princess, doing her version of a rapturous welcome, glad that I have not forgotten the trick that she taught me to do, during my time away. The trick involves turning on the tap in the guest bathroom and letting her alternately drink and attack the water with her sharp teeth, until she gets bored:

I'm sad to say that while I was away, Hermione died. She was the surviving member of the two mad cat sisters who live in the basement library and Do Not Mingle, and she was almost eighteen. You can see her in this Photosynth of my library downstairs (needs Silverlight). It feels strangely unbalanced to be in a house without Pod and Hermione in it.

There. Goodnight.

Labels: Cats, China, lomography, monkey and me, photos of dreams

Too tired

This is just a very short , very late-at-night post to say that I attended the Edinburgh International Book Festival, and I enjoyed myself, and I did my solo event and the other one with Ian Rankin, and they were both delightful. The signings were amazingly efficiently run, and the one-item-per-person rule was on the one hand, cruel, and on the other hand meant that on the first day I signed for 500 people in 3 hours.

(This was my favourite Fringe show so far.)

It's strange being somewhere with someone, and stranger being somewhere with someone who is working a lot of the time. I'm way behind on my email, and will go off the radar in a few days to just go off and write and walk and rest and recover.

Sad news: my cat Pod died, in her sleep, of old age yesterday. Lorraine blogs about it here. Pod was a bit mad, but she loved Lorraine (which is good). Right now I find I'm more worried about Hermione, her sister, alone in the library...

Tomorrow it's Amanda's Edinburgh gig. Then on Monday she'll be trailing after me for a couple of days while I go and check out locations and suchlike.

Labels: Cats, Edinburgh, posts you write when you really ought to be in bed

Scrapbook, and cats.

In five minutes I head for my gate to fly to NY. So some quick photographs, courtesy of Kyle Cassidy.

This is Coconut, yawning fiendishly.

 

Next are two photographs of me and Zoe, who is blind and lives in a bedroom in the attic.

 

 

Me. My dog. My house. My grey streak which is really kind of cool.

 

Pod and Hermione. They are 17, and sweet, but still mad.

Hermione likes me. Pod still hasn't made up her mind.

And finally, a couple of shots of my other houseguest of last week, the lovely Amanda Palmer. Off duty and off the web. (I can be seen in the background blogging.)

(I have to ask Kyle is he took any photos of Princess he didn't give me, as she slept in the spare room with him. We didn't see Fred.) Right. To the gate.

Labels: amanda palmer, best week ever, Cats, dog photograph, seven photographs

Head Wounds for Men

As of 7:30 tonight, Stephin Merritt has luggage and a Bouzhouki, and is a happy, happy man.

(Picture of Mr Merritt shortly before his luggage arrived. He was pretty happy then, too.)

I don't really want to talk about the thing Stephin and I are working on yet -- it's early days. A strange sort of thing that's all our own little private project. When it's ready, I'll talk about it. Today was mostly spent filling out little cards of different colours with words like "Decapitation" and phrases like "Strangling is Cheap" . Tomorrow, Stephin starts writing songs...

The Graveyard Book is up for an LA Times Book Award and an ABA Indie World Award. I am up against friends in each case, and don't mind if I win or not but am happy just to be nominated, as any extra awards and nominations after the Newbery are just icing on a wonderful cake.

Hi Neil, I've seen so many of your posts lately showering your beautiful big white dog with love! Not that there's anything wrong with that, but with stories you've written like "A Dream of a Thousand Cats" and "The Price" I've always figured you for a cat person. I myself have a fondness for dogs but ultimately I'd consider myself a cat person, and whenever reading your "cat" stories I find myself thinking "Yes, he gets it! He understands cats!" (not that we humans can really ever understand cats). So, I must ask, do you consider yourself a cat person or dog person? And, by the way, your dog is very beautiful and looks to be quite a nice doggy according to your pictures. Thanks for your time on a silly question.

-Andy Christensen

I'm a cat person who got adopted by a dog. Resistance is useless. I definitely didn't pick him. We just sort of found each other when we needed each other. And I carry on being a cat person.

I wish the cats and dog liked each other -- instead the house is now divided into Cat and Dog territory, by a dividing door:

Fred the Black Cat, who had been living out in the garage, abandoned the garage and moved grumpily further and further out into the woods. The rest of the cats just shrugged and got on with their lives. (It's actually easier during the Winter, when the cats tend to stay indoors. In summer Cabal will still tree a cat every few weeks.)

Neil, you say your only convention plans are for something in August. Does this mean you won't be at the ALA in Chicago to collect your Newbery Award in person? We librarians will be crushed if you aren't at the gala (and expensive!) dinner where all youth awards are presented.

Sorry -- I wasn't thinking of the ALA as a convention. Yes, I'll be there -- I'll be giving a Newbery Medal speech (which I have to write by the end of the month argh) and I will also be doing something on behalf of the CBLDF.

Hi, Neil,
A friend of ours just opened a comic book coffeeshop in San Francisco - Caffinated Comics (www.caffcom.com) and I was wondering if you might be willing to give this new venue a plug in the blog. Their grand opening was March 1st and we came home with a Sandman I didn't previously own and Charles Vess' illustrated version of Stardust. It'd be great if you could help them out with a shout out - San Francisco's first green comic book coffeeshop!
Thanks,Mira

Consider it plugged.

Which reminds me, at http://time-shark.livejournal.com/237449.html  and at http://www.mythicdelirium.com/#anniversary you will learn about the next issue of Mythic Delirium. Mike has been asking me for a poem for years, and finally he asked me when I'd written one. In this case, one about a trout heart.

Labels: Cats, Dog, Stephin Merritt

In which the author goes for a walk and then tries to answer some of the things in the mailbag

So I got home yesterday at sunrise. Slept all day. Was up all night but not good for much. (This is what sunrise looks like when you get close to my house.)

Today I slept until early afternoon. Then got up and walked the dog. I got very used to using the camera as a diary while I was in China (as a back up for a notebook, and sometimes a substitute), so took the camera along on the walk.

G. K Chesterton observed that one of the best things about being away is that you get to see what you come back to with different eyes.

Found myself amazed by the size of my house, for example. There are a lot of people in China, and they live, on the whole, in much smaller places than mine. (Actually, that's probably true of most of the world: it takes a certain idiocy to want to live in an Addams Family House in the first place). But having, over the last month, met a number of families in which several generations lived in one apartment, spread over -- or squeezed into -- a couple of rooms, it seems really strange to have so much space.

I saw many vegetables growing, pumpkins even, while I was in China, where I also learned that pumpkin vine tips make a great stir-fry-vegetable (if you peel off the fuzzy stuff first). And was happy to see that I had a few pumpkins in my garden. Not many, but enough.

Was pleased to observe, on my walk, that the falling-down barn has not yet fallen down.

Astonished and delighted to see blackberries. I planted the one blackberry bush about five years ago, and people would always decide it was a weed and mow it or cut it. Finally, earlier this year, we put big metal rods up to persuade people not to mow over it, and now I'm home and, gosh, blackberries. Not as nice as the ones in my grandma's back garden, when I was a boy, mind.

Also a grape-trellis covered with grapes. Really yummy ones.

Lorraine tells me that Cabal was depressed while I was away, and he went off his food and moped. He's been extremely happy since I've been back. I have not the heart to tell him I'm going off on tour soon. (Maddy knows, but she assures me that as manager of the volleyball team she will probably not have time to really miss me. She is probably just telling me this to make me feel better.) (I just read that to her and she says, "Say 'PS Maddy will totally miss me', so they don't get any wrong ideas.")

A tree in front of my writing gazebo has been cut down, I notice. It was a sapling when the gazebo was built, but had grown and was cutting off the light.

Brightly coloured fungus on the side of trees. Tomorrow, when I walk, I may look for giant puffballs in the woods, but without enthusiasm, as they are my least favourite of the edible mushrooms. (Which reminds me -- when I was in China I was fed something called both Bamboo Pith and Bamboo Fungus, also known, less appetisingly, as the Stinkhorn. I googled and wound up learning all about the unexpected but, for ladies at least, gratifying qualities of the fresh stinkhorn. Dried and reconstituted with bamboo shoots, it would not have the same effect.)

And also, while I was gone, the remarkable Hans put in an electric fence. There have been more and more sightings of bears in this region, and we've been assured that an electric fence will keep bears out of the beehives, as long as the bears don't get to them in the first place. (Which is to say, if you have a beehive and a bear gets into it and then you put up an electric fence, the bear will cheerfully go through the fence to get to the honey.)

And because, not unreasonably, the last time I posted dog photos, many people asked for pictures of cats, and because I don't think Coconut (who was, long ago, Maddy's kitten) has ever been photographed in this blog, here are Princess (sitting) and Coconut, in the front hall, where the dog is not allowed to go.

I went to the Humane Society today and picked up their list of Things They Need, and gave it to Lorraine. She went out and bought bleach and cat food and peanut butter and so on, then went up to the Humane Society to drop the stuff off.

She returned much later carrying a cardboard box containing a calico kitten with whom she had fallen in love, and was last seen taking the kitten home to introduce to her Bengals. This is Princess glaring at the calico kitten...




And this is Lorraine's new kitten, puffed up and halloweeny in order to persuade everyone that she is in fact a very big cat indeed.

...

There's an interview with me over at Goodreads -- http://www.goodreads.com/interviews/show/12.Neil_Gaiman?utm_medium=email&utm_source=Sep_newsletter

and lots and lots of Coraline movie information out there, probably too much to link to without it being overwhelming, but
http://photos.latimes.com/backlot/gallery/coraline is a terrific photo gallery at the LA Times, and there's a really good article about Laika studios and Henry and the Coraline team from the Oregonian at http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/09/huge_artistic_stakes_are_ridin.html.

Several people wrote to ask what I thought about Eoin Colfer writing a new Hitchhiker's book -- for example,

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/fiction/article4773155.ece
In regard to the above, did they ask you to do it, and would you have accepted if they had?

Nobody asked me to do it, but then, when Douglas asked me if I'd like to adapt Life, The Universe and Everything for radio I said no, and that was with Douglas alive and asking. (Dirk Maggs did it, and did an excellent job.) It seemed a thankless task.

I like Eoin very much, and wish him well with the book. He'll probably write a sixth Hitchhiker's book with more enthusiasm, and certainly faster, than Douglas would have done. But it won't be a Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's book.

For the record, if I don't get around to writing a sequel to something while I'm alive, I'd very much rather that nobody else does it once I'm dead. It should exist in your head or in Lucien's library, or in fanfic. But that's me, and not every author feels the same way.

Hello Neil,

This is almost a dangerous question to ask you, because it is about something John Byrne has said. But as a large proponent of libraries, I was curious as to your thoughts on something he recently stated regarding trade paperbacks in libraries:
"Ever since I started writing for a living, I have found myself viewing libraries somewhat differently than once I did. I think we are all in agreement that libraries are A Good Thing -- but are they A Good Thing right across the board? When we have niche products like comics, is it really a good idea for them to be available in libraries?"

I don't think it's a dangerous question, and it has a remarkably easy and straighforward answer, which is, Yes, it's a very good idea for them to be in libraries.

Hello Neil,

First off, I hope this email finds you well.

I've planned to attend the Library of Congress book festival and just wanted to know if there are any general rules of etiquette for your signings.

Is there a book limit for signing?

Can a say a few words about how much I enjoy your work in person? I promise it won't last longer than 15 nervous seconds.

Most importantly, how early should I arrive before the likely rush of other frothing fans?

These questions constantly roll in my mind. I'd hate to add extra weariness to a likely hot, humid, noisy,(yet still awesome) festival.

Thanks for coming to the southeast!

Sincerely,
Dan

The book limit will depend on how many people there are, and how many people I can get through in the time I've got. It'll be announced at the signing, but it won't be more than three books, and it may well be only one.

And of course you can talk to me. Most people seem to use the signing line as an opportunity to say thank you, and most authors are pleased to hear that they've made a difference, or just to be thanked. We like it if you say hello, honest.

How early you should get there? I don't know. Each time I've signed at the LoC Book Festival it's been different. According to the website this time it's:

Teens & Children Pavilion

11:45-12:15 pm (This is a short reading from The Graveyard Book, and a Q&A).

Book Signing

1-3 pm (and it'll probably go longer if they don't need the space, but may be cut off if they don't have anywhere to move it to, or have something else planned for me at 3.00pm).

We may wind up with people who would like to be at the reading/Q&A who skip it in order to be early in the signing line. But that's if the book festival has actually told people where to line up for the signing, which they may or may not do.

Last time people were in the signing line before dawn. I don't think that would work this time, as I'm not doing a morning signing. So we'll see.

Hey Neil,
I would love to know what time the Columbia University reading is taking place on September 30th. I am very excited t go but don't know what time to arrive. Thanks.

-Dan

The details are now up at http://www.neilgaiman.com/where/ -- according to which it starts at 7.00pm.

I see in "Where's Neil" that you'll be doing a signing in New York City and Philadelphia. With New Jersey right in between, why not a stop here?

Because the people who aren't on the East Coast, some of whom are travelling hundreds of miles to get to the readings, would rise up as one person in their anger at the unfairness of it all, and destroy New Jersey in their rage. Which would be sad, because there are lots of bits of New Jersey that are actually quite nice.

When Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, she (allegedly) attempted to get books she didn't approve of out of the public library. This is scary. Are free speech organizations like the CBLDF and the First Amendment Project going to take this issue on?

No. They are too busy fighting actual cases of censorship from all the way across the political spectrum, to bother with partisan silliness. (Here's the Snopes report on Palin's non-existent Bookbanning.)

What you fight is specifics: bad laws, bad arrests and the like. People trying to ban books and comics and people trying to stop other people selling or publishing or creating comics and books and suchlike.

You don't fight "alleged attempts to get books out of a public library" ten years ago. To "take this issue on" I suspect would consist, Father Ted-like, of people walking around Sarah Palin with placards saying "Down with This sort of Thing" and "Careful Now", which would probably not result in increased freedom of speech. Although it might be funny.

Hi Neil! This Andrew Drilon (I was the creator "Lines and Spaces", the Alex Niño tribute comic which won the Philippine Graphic/Fiction Award last year). I've been making lots of short comics since then, under the banner title Kare-Kare Komiks, and they've gotten nice comments from people like Emma Bull and Warren Ellis, so I thought you might be interested:

http://www.chemsetcomics.com/category/kare-kare-komiks/

Anyway, I'll be posting "Lines and Spaces" there tomorrow, for those who are planning to enter the contest this year (the deadline's at the end of the month), and I'm hoping you can help spread the word.

Consider it posted.

Labels: Cats, CBLDF, completely abandons the idea of writing lots of labels and goes to bed instead, Coraline movie, Douglas Adams, mushrooms, national book festival

In which the author is grumbly

Long day. Everything that has to be signed is signed, every telephone interview is done. Conference calls etc all dealt with. And at the end of a long working day, I now need to start writing. It's meant to be more fun than this, but I'm up against the wall on a research trip, and time is declining to be stretchy in the way I want it to (40 hour days.... 19 day weeks....)

I failed to go with daughter Holly on her Chicago road trip as well. Which would have been fun.

It looks there will be good news for all the people who have paid for Neverwheres from Hill House (or anything overdue from Hill House). I'll have more concrete information very soon.

And anyone who is waiting for a refund on the cancelled Tulsa Event, Mammoth Comics will be making sure the refunds happen -- apologies: I think absolutely everyone who could have screwed up on this one did, in a sort of Perfect Storm of screwedupness. But things should sort now. And guilt, if nothing else, will bring me to Tulsa sooner rather than later.

I hate to be nosy, but did you take Zoe to the vet? Blindness in aged cats is most commonly caused by hypertension (high blood pressure, as I am sure you knew). This condition can be secondary to kidney failure or dysfunction or hyperthyroidism. We do not see primary hypertension in cats generally. The second most common cause would be retinal atrophy, but it is much less common. Unfortunately, with neither disease is the blindness reversible, but if Zoe has an underlying disease, her well-being could be improved by treating it.

Thanks for allowing me to give unasked for advice, but I find that often my patients owners don't realize that disease in one area can cause a more obvious sign in another.

Sorry if you knew all this stuff already.

Shera
a kitty vet (and huge fan)

I put this up because I thought it might be useful for other people as well. Yes, we took her to the vet today, who established that, yes, she is indeed blind. And is currently doing a whole set of tests on her. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for her. She's an astoundingly sweet-natured cat, who we've had since she was a barn-kitten: she fell downstairs when she was younger, and had her hip screwed together -- she's never been as active since. But she likes to be loved more than any cat I've known. (Worries.)

[later]

She's back from the vet. It was indeed high blood pressure. They're trying to decide whether she needs medication. (She was hugely overweight when we got her back, and we put her on a long diet, so she's now at normal weight, which may help anyway.)

...

Words of wisdom from Sherman Alexie, writing about the Seattle Sonics trial:

52. I don't believe in magic. But I do believe in interpreting coincidence exactly the way you want to.

53. Do you know why Indian rain dances always worked? Because the Indians would keep dancing until it rained.

...

Eddie Campbell has a new book out. This is always exciting. It looks particularly wonderful, and there are extracts at:

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/07/comics_leotard.html

...

Here's The Guardian talking about The Hugos. (I should say that, as far as I know, The Guardian is the only major newspaper that ever reports on the Hugo winners.)

Cloned Dog Owner Manacled Mormon for Sex is possibly my favourite headline ever. It's on the Guardian front page, today. (The story, although with a different lead line, is up at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/08/usa)

...

Nalo Hopkinson and Geoff Ryman are talking about their first Clarion Week (and everything else) on the latest AISF podcast: http://www.adventuresinscifipublishing.com/2008/08/aisfp-58-nalo-hopkinson-and-geoff-ryman/

...

Mister Punch photo series from the LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-ca-0810-puppets-pg,0,1074139.photogallery?1
to accompany this article.


This is happiness. From the BBC and Jamie Hewlett (and his Zombie Flesh Eaters team) and Damon Albarn, present: Monkey, Sandy, Pigsy journey to the Olympics... (if it doesn't work, check at http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympics/monkey/7521287.stm)

Labels: best headline ever, Cats, Eddie Campbell, hill house, Hugo Awards, Mister Punch, monkey and me, Sherman Alexie, tulsa oklahoma

Eyeless in the Attic

I discovered tonight -- was heartbroken to realise -- that Zoe the cat who lives in the attic (my cat to begin with, but these days am really just looking after her until she can be reunited with her person, currently overseas) is totally blind: she was navigating entirely by memory and whiskers (I was writing up in the attic, in the house's Tower Room, which I've just turned into an internet-free, phone free, writing den).

I adore Zoe, but am terribly allergic to her.

Normally this is not a problem -- I simply wash my hands after stroking her... but when you realise your cat is blind you go and pick her catnip from the garden and then you put her in your lap while you write and you stroke her and let her rub herself all over you... and now I have to stop writing to have a bath, because my eyes are swollen and red and almost too itchy to see out of. Sigh.

Hey Neil,
I was at Amanda Palmer's (fantastic & glorious) concert in San Francisco last night, and she performed "I Google You". I know you already posted a video of it, but... here's another, & of somewhat better quality. It can be seen on YouTube, if you so desire:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QEQaJXU1mA

yrs.,
Molly



That's more like it. You can see Amanda, and you can hear the song both at the same time...

Meanwhile, the remarkable Peri Lyons (for whom I actually wrote the song) (not because I was Googling her late at night, but because she asked me last December to write a song for her one-woman show) will be doing the aforementioned show in New York (The Metropolitan Room: 34 West 22nd St Betw. 5th & 6th Ave. - New York, NY 10010) later this month -- details at The Metropolitan Room Website, here.

...

The Graveyard Book is reviewed and rounded up at the School Library Journal Blog: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1790000379/post/1970030997.html?nid=3713

I'm going to keep posting links like this. The Graveyard Book is, I think, my favourite of all the things I've done, and I'm proud of it, and it makes me happy when other people like it too.

...

Dear Neil,

I am so incredibly excited about the Vegas event in November since you always seem to bypass Nevada completely, but I was wondering if you're also doing a signing for the festival. If not, I'll have to content myself with ordering signed copies of things instead. It's vitally important for this question to be answered, you see, because if the event is a signing I am going to have to go out and buy a hardcover copy of one of your books so I'm not embarrassed by my [extremely] careworn paperbacks.

Many thanks,
Hannah St. John

I'm sure there will be a signing there, yes. But you don't have to worry: you may be embarrassed by old, well-read paperbacks, but I'll be flattered.

Labels: Cats, early reviews of The Graveyard Book, i google you, peri Lyons

please stop my assistant becoming a mad cat lady

Let's see. First things first,



My assistant, the Fabulous Lorraine, is fostering two Bengal cats, and says they're really ready to go to someone who'll love them. They were sad, scared things when she got them, and they've really turned from sad cats into rather wonderful things. She says it's time for them to find a good home because she's going to get attached to them otherwise (and she already has two Bengal cats, so risks turning into a mad cat lady if nice people don't come and adopt them). Their names are Sabrina and Ginger and they come as a pair. If you're interested, head over to Lorraine's blog.

Hi Neil. This past weekend I tried to introduce my girlfriend to sushi. It didn't go so well. She did try, and put on her best game face, for this I can only appreciate her more. Unfortunately the sushi wasn't as fresh as it could be and was over-wasabied. She is willing to try one more time (did I mention my appreciation and acknowledge my luck?) We will be driving from Des Moines to Minneapolis so I thought I would see if you had any favorite area sushi bars. Thanks.

The rule for any new thing is try the best you can find. Always. There are people who have eaten supermarket sushi, and cannot understand why anyone would want to eat rubbery, fishy, possibly slightly slimy, chilled fish on dried-out cold rice-pudding for pleasure, and think that's what sushi is. Whether it's Sushi or anything new, try the best. That way, if you don't like it, you know you don't like it, rather than a sad shadow of the thing it could be.

There are lots of solid sushi places in Minneapolis -- I really like Sakura in St Paul, as much for the people who run it as for the (mostly very good) food. Origami can be nice, so can the two Fuji-Yas. Kikagawa's okay. Other people swear by (or at) some of the others. About five years ago I wrote on this journal, in reply to a similar question that,

“To be honest, Minneapolis sushi is much of a muchness. There's nothing that's outstanding, like a Nobu, and nothing I've had so far that's been dreadful (apart from Fuji Ya when they first put sushi on their menu, about eight years ago, but they soon got the hang of it). I tend to go to Sakura in St. Paul, because Miyoko and her staff treat me like family, and the food's good.”

I was about to opine that this was because we were a long way from the sea, then I remembered that Katsu in Chicago is one of the best sushi restaurants in the world, and it's just as far from the sea as Minneapolis.

Hi Neil.

I don't think I've seen you mention this before: With the renewed interest in "Watchmen" of late, I was wondering about the 'special thanks' you received in the collected edition.

What kind of contribution did you make? Or was it just for being such a nice guy? ;)

Thanks

Robin

I thought I must have answered this here, but googled it and couldn't find anything. However I did find this interview by Brian Hibbs up at the Dreaming. (Well, in The Dreaming's google cache -- it's just been redesigned and relaunched hurrah!, and I think a few links may be broken.)

I remember Alan ringing me up when he was writing Watchmen #3, and said, "Neil, you're an educated bloke. Where does the quote `Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?' come from? I think someone said it when they were dying, but I don't know when."

I went out, and found it for him, rang him back, and said, "No. It's
Genesis. God threatening to nuke Sodom and Gomorrah." He said, "Thanks", then
went off.He rang me back a few months later and said, "Neil, I haven't any
quotes for the titles of #7 and #8. This is what happens in them, go find me a
quote." So I went off and got him "Brother to dragons, and companion to owls..."
from Job for #7, and the poem for #8, Eleanor Farjeon's "Hallowe'en". "On
Hallowe'en the old ghosts come."Also, while I was researching the Old Testament
stuff, I was working my way through a huge Biblical concordance, getting various
details. It fell open to a page on obscure history, and the name Rameses jumped
out at me. I discovered this quote that said, roughly, "I've killed all these
places, and left the widows weeping there. Everything is at peace, and
everything is great in the world." So I rang up Alan, and said, "What do you
think of this?" He said "Great! I'll stick it in #12" So you've got Ozymandias
quoting Rameses in Watchmen. (ED: #12, Pg. 20)

Which is pretty much it -- I also lent Alan the bird-book from which he got the quotes on owls that Daniel Drieberg uses in the back of Watchmen 7,

(It was really interesting reading a nineteen-year-old interview with myself. Or someone a lot like me, anyway. Cocky little bugger, wasn't I?)

FYI: If Charles Schultz drew Sandman
http://docshaner.deviantart.com/art/Charles-Schulz-s-Sandman-93543466

Hope you're well.

Cheers,
jon

Good grief!

I was recently reading a recent Fantagraphics Peanuts collection, and slowly realised that I'd read (and re-read and puzzled over) all of the Sunday strips as a very small boy. I had a book called Sunday's Fun Day Charlie Brown and never understood the title until a few weeks ago.

And finally, a lovely video interview with Tori about the Comic Book Tattoo project, and her own history with comics and plans for the future.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2008/08/tori-amos-on-he.html

Labels: Cats, Peanuts, sushi, Watchmen

like cats and dogs

I just went to the movies by myself for, I think, the first time in my life (if you don't count the years I spent in the 80s as a film critic), to see Hot Fuzz. (Nobody else wanted to go but me.) Which I loved, didn't think was too long, and wish it wasn't only showing in one small cinema in a 50 mile radius of my house. The delight in making it came through all the way.

Hi,
Earlier this year you posted link to a podcast by Penn Jillette in which he mentions you and National Gorilla Suit day. I think that the podcast is no longer accessible. If it is, can you point me to the right place? I wanted my husband to hear it.

Thanks,
Heidi

I've searched and I think I've found it at
http://www.pennfans.net/view/Audio_Archive/PennRadio/Penn.Jillette.Radio.Show.2007.01.31/

Hi Neil! As I'm more of a cat person, I 'feel' for your cats! Are they jealous of your new dog? ~ Cancan =)

Jealous? No. Princess is alternately furious with me and desperately affectionate, Coconut (Maddy's cat) is mostly blase but also a bit more affectionate, and Fred is plotting on ways to get revenge on the dog for having treed him yesterday evening. It's the kind of thing I could be really funny about, but the truth is it's rather worrying -- the dog is convinced he needs to protect us from Fred, and has only actually barked twice since we got him, each time inside the house to warn us that Fred was walking around outside and might get us if Dog didn't protect us,meanwhile Fred on seeing the Dog arches his back like a Halloween card cat, swells to twice his size and makes strangled yowling noises to indicate his extreme displeasure. As far as the two mostly-house cats go, I think we'll be fine at getting them more or less to tolerate each other. Fred, however is a law unto himself, and it's going to be interesting.

...

There was apparently a Stardust ad in the LA Times today -- details and the ad at http://www.slashfilm.com/2007/05/06/stardust-movie-posteradvertisement/

Not sure about that tagline. Hope they can come up with something sharper before August. (My own suggestion, "Stardust. It's not a sequel to anything," was appreciated but, probably wisely, rejected.)

Rupert Everett (who plays Secundus) talks about Stardust at http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=20235

Somewhere I have a wonderful photo of all the ghosts sitting on a green screen mantelpiece -- I'll see if I'm allowed to post it here.

...

The bees on the apple blossom are some of them recognisably from my two hives, but there are also at least three other kinds of honeybee turning up. Which is a good reason to post a link to http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2007/05/where_the_bees.html...

Labels: apple blossom, bees, Cats, Dog, Fred the Unlucky Black Cat, Going to see films on your own, National Gorilla Suit Day, Penn Jillette, Stardust movies

Some animal thoughts...

Fred the cat tends to get into scrapes while I'm away, and I arrived home yesterday to find him with half of his face shaved and on antibiotics, having tangled with something. Whenever he gets into fights he gets infected. Tonight he's staying with the vet as the infection got worse.

I ought to be very worried, but I'm not. I suppose by now I think he'll pull through because he always pulls through. He must be on life 15 or 16 by now: last year when I was on tour with Fragile Things, I was called about a minute before the Google Author Talk and informed that Fred had to be put down (which left me pretty shaken), but it didn't happen. He got through that, just as he gets through everything else.

Some animals are survivors.

Maddy's largest goldfish is called Moonbeam, and he's about nine years old, and has outlived every other goldfish we've ever had, and even survived an accidental case of poisoning about five years ago that killed off everyone else. He's now about a foot long. And there were five fish in that tank two weeks ago. The two smaller ones have now mysteriously gone, and Moonbeam looks astonishingly well-fed and happy, and I suspect that I need to rethink the whole Where The Goldfish Are situation.

I recorded the previously unrecorded tracks from M Is For Magic today in Minneapolis. Very different stories -- it was fun recording them though. Two from when I was very young ("How to Sell the Ponti Bridge" and "The Case of the Four And Twenty Blackbirds"), one from about Ten Years Ago ("Don't Ask Jack", which I couldn't believe I hadn't already recorded. You can see Jack here) and one story from when I was older ("The Witch's Headstone" now just out in WIZARDS:Magical Tales From the Masters of Modern Fantasy).

Like all audio recording it was fun, and then it got harder, and then I walked away quite braindead. I don't know anything else that's quite so exhausting in the same way. Still, I love doing the audiobooks. (And I just realised we need to update the information at http://www.neilgaiman.com/works/audio/)

(Teddy Kristiansen just sent me a link to his blog, where you can see the M Is For Magic cover, from roughs to finished painting: http://teddykristiansenblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/work-process.html)

On the way home from the recording, driving through the rain, just as I pulled off the freeway to head home, I saw a large, pale dog on the side of the sliproad. I went in a couple of seconds from a first glance thought of "Oh, he's just wandering around and knows exactly what he's doing," to, on a second glance, "He's absolutely terrified and if he isn't actually lost he's really scared of all the cars and in danger of bolting onto the freeway," .

I pulled over, crossed the road and hurried across to where he was. He backed away, skittish and nervous, then came over to me, shaking. No collar or information, just a choke chain. And big. And very wet and very muddy. With cars going past, I decided the wisest thing to do was to put him into my car while I figured out what to do. The car was the Mini. I opened the door and he clambered in. The dog took up most of the Mini that I wasn't in and a fair amount of the Mini that I was in. Big dog, small car.

I phoned my assistant Lorraine, and asked her to let the local Humane Society (really nice people with a no kill policy) know we'd be coming in soon with a dog, then I drove home, narrowly avoiding death on the way (it's amazing how much you can't see when a huge dog fills the car and your field of vision). I ran around the garden with Dog until he'd tired me out. (I really hope he'd just got lost, and his family are looking for him; it would be hard to imagine someone abandoning a dog that cool.) Then I put him into the back of a car much bigger than the Mini and took him to the Humane Society, where they fawned all over him. ("I think he's a husky-wolf cross," said the Humane lady who took him, and she could be right.)

I think he's probably a survivor too.

Labels: Cannibal Goldfish, Cats, Dog, Fred the Unlucky Black Cat, M is For Magic, Mini, Survivors, Teddy Kristiansen

American Gods Blog, Post 67

Let's see. In no particular order...

1) Furball the cat is just fine. She turned out to have been asleep under my bed, and will be professionally shaved on Monday. Thank you for asking.

2) The second half of SNOW GLASS APPLES will go up on scifi.com on the 7th of June.

3) Today's mail brought the new paperback edition of Smoke and Mirrors, my short story collection. Which means it will turn up in the shops any time now.

4) Today also brought the audio book of American Gods. I started listening to it, as a quality check, and was swept up into it. George Guidal, who is one of the top people, if not the top person, in the world of audio books, reads it. it's a wonderful little package of about 14 cassettes. (The CD version will be out for the end of the year.) Harper Audio should be pleased with themselves. I'm thrilled... it's unabridged, and it made me very happy. It's not cheap, but I think I'll send some out as Xmas prezzies this year.

Now playing: I Am Kloot's "Natural History". Good band, but I keep thinking of John Clute, the preeminent SF critic, and wondering whether they're fans...

Labels: American Gods, American Gods Blog, audio books, Cats, I Am Kloot, John Clute, smoke and mirrors, Snow Glass Apples

American Gods Blog, Post 66

So I learned today that Chris Ewen, who is half of the Future Bible Heroes among many other things, has decided to make up for the fact that Boston is shamefully and scabbily mistreated on the upcoming signing tour (viz. by me not going there) by holding a shindig. Said shindig will be at the Man Ray club (http://www.manrayclub.com/) -- click on Special Events: it's for Over 21s. "Come dressed as your favourite Neil Gaiman character or god and enter our costume contest to win fantastic prizes". "Fetish or Costume attire only"

They'll have books on sale there (and we'll try and make sure they have signed books for sale), and so all the Boston readers (who are over the age of 21 and willing to dress up) can get together and have a good time. (Probably have a better time than you'd have had in a long line waiting for me.)

I think it's a wonderful idea. If there's anyone else out there who wants to hold a "The bastard isn't coming to [Anchorage/KansasCity/Orlando/NewOrleans etc] -- but we're going to have a party anyway" event, drop a line to Jack Womack at jack.womack@harpercollins.com, and we'll try and help (and list it in this journal). Those of you in Helsinki, Hobart, Hong Kong and other such places who want to get together and party (or even just designate a pub for an American Gods get-together) should also contact Jack. If there's enough of you, we'll make a page for you here and at the forthcoming neilgaiman.com...

...

Often people come to me and say "As a bestselling author, with many published works to your name, and a basement full of awards, most of them in need of a good polish, you must have some words of advice for the world that you wish to share."

And I do.

It's this.

If you have a 25lb long-haired calico cat whose fur is all matted into evil dreadlocks, and who is too fat to properly clean herself, do not put fresh batteries into an ancient beard-trimmer and attempt to shave her. You will only cause distress to the cat, and create a mess. There are professionals who will happily do this kind of thing, for a small fee. Leave it to them.

(This has been a public service announcement on behalf of Furball the cat, currently believed to be hiding in the attic in a severely traumatised state.)

Labels: American Gods Blog, Best Of, Boston, Cats, Chris Ewen