The whole Cheesecake Menu Thing Explained, with photographs

I met Sara Benincasa eight years ago, when she interviewed me in a bathtub. (I was in the bathtub. Sara wasn't even wet.)

She's an author and comedian and the sort of person who has strange ideas and acts upon them. So when she tweeted me the other night and asked me if I would read the Cheesecake Factory Menu live, if she raised half a million dollars for the charity, I did not ask any of the obvious questions (like, why would I read the Cheesecake Factory Menu aloud? or Who would want to hear this? or even How would you ever make that much money for something so unlikely?). Instead I said I'd like the money to go to Refugees, please, and sure. ( And I added, "If you get to a million dollars, I'll also read the entirety of Fox in Socks after the Cheesecake Factory menu.")

And then Sara did something even more unlikely. She set up a page to allow people to donate at Crowdrise.com... and people started to donate. Lots of them.

It's been up a couple of days since then, and we are (as I type this) 8% of the way to the target at over $42,000. It's started to be picked up by newspapers -- here's the LA Times,  and the Boston Globe, and even the Guardian.

Let's do what we can to spread the Crowdrise address around the world: https://www.crowdrise.com/neil-gaiman-will-do-a-live-reading-of-the-cheesecake-factory-menu-if-we-raise-500000-for-refugees/fundraiser/sarabenincasa

And I will do my own bit for it. I will put up something unique to this blog.

Probably you are thinking, will he write about his time on the Red Carpet at Cannes for HOW TO TALK TO GIRLS AT PARTIES?

It is not that. (But here are costume designer Sandy Powell, channeling Ziggy Stardust, and star Elle Fanning eating colour-coordinated macaroons.)

Perhaps you are thinking, Will he perhaps post photographs of Gillian Anderson as Media in the next episode of American Gods incarnated as Ziggy Stardust also eating colour-coordinated macaroons?

I will not. I do not believe such photos exist. 

Instead I will put up photos of my elf-child, Ash. I will see him on Saturday, and the Cannes red carpet would have been much more fun if he had been on it.

...

Whether or not I get to read the Cheesecake Factory Menu in public (or Dr Seuss's tonguetwisting Fox in Socks) I will be doing a few more readings and talks this year. Tickets are going fast:

06 Jul 2017

Austin, TX

Long Center Presents Neil Gaiman

07 Jul 2017

Dallas, TX

An Evening with Neil Gaiman

08 Jul 2017

Houston, TX

Society for the Performing Arts presents Neil Gaiman

09 Jul 2017

Washington, D.C.

An Evening with Neil Gaiman

10 Jul 2017

Hartford, CT       

An Evening with Neil Gaiman

Each of these should be links to the event -- all of them are solo me just reading and talking and answering your questions, except for the Hartford one, where I'll be interviewed by the NYPL's very own Paul Holdengraber.

Labels: baby photo, bowie, Cannes, How to talk to girls at parties, macaroons, Refugees, Sara Benincasa, the Cheesecake Factory, Ziggy stardust

In Which John Cameron Mitchell Meets Girls At Parties...

(Left: John Cameron Mitchell. Right: Amanda Palmer. Middle: Two Ladies checking out the menu of the place we were having lunch last summer who probably have no idea they were even in this photograph).

Life is weird and wonderful and filled with strange coincidences. Exactly two years ago to the day I blogged about watching, and really liking, John Cameron Mitchell's film Shortbus (at http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/no-coherent-theme-of-any-kind.html).

And now, two years later, JCM is on the road talking about Rabbit Hole, his new film, and in an interview we learn...

Mitchell then volunteered details about another project he’s been developing. “I’m also working on something with Neil Gaiman. It’s an adaptation of a short story called ‘How to Talk to Girls At Parties.’ It’s a sort of British, punk-era story that involves an alien girl on her spring break. I’m going to supervise an adaptation with a British writer and eventually direct.”

You can read the short story, which was nominated for all sorts of awards when it was released in 2006, at Neil Gaiman’s website. If “Rabbit Hole” proved anything it is Mitchell’s amazing versatility and range and seeing him dip into the world of Lovecraftian science fiction, wrapped around a period comedy set in 1970s England has us positively giddy. Certainly, plenty of exciting stuff on the way from a director who refuses to be pinned down to any one style.

And it is all true. He is going to be making it, and I'm really happy about this.

I've not said anything up until now, but I think the deals are all pretty much done, and seeing he's talked about it, I'm happy to confirm it. I'm not going to be writing the script, but I've been sent treatments and outlines, and watched it start to look like a movie. I love his work (I think I learned about him from my daughter Holly, who loved Hedwig and the Angry Inch) and think he's one of the nicest, smartest people I've met in the film world.

Here's a cool, almost abstract short film he made recently, starring Russell Tovey and Sir Ian McKellen and Marion Cotillard, which I love for several reasons. David Essex singing 'Rock On' is only one of them.



Those of you wondering about the story of How To Talk To Girls At Parties can read it, or download it and listen to me reading it, at http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Cool_Stuff/Short_Stories/How_To_Talk_To_Girls_At_Parties. (The film that John plans to make begins with the short story, and then goes on from there.)

(Oops. Nearly forgot. The last part of the Kevin Smith Smodcastle Evening is now up and live: http://smodcast.bandcamp.com/track/chapter-3-neil-gaiman-reads

It contains me reading "BEING AN EXPERIMENT ON STRICTLY SCIENTIFIC LINES..." and is followed by a reading of a chunk of American Gods, which I read the narrator's part, and get Kevin and Amanda to do the other parts. And which made me wonder about doing a full-cast audio book of American Gods... You can listen to it for free, but it's a donation if you want to download it. And for whatever it's worth, I think this podcast is for "mature listeners" only...)

Labels: How to talk to girls at parties, john cameron mitchell, two ladies that I don't know who they are

Bet you thought I was dead

The best thing about going off and writing, and not having a phone or internets and things, just a tiny rented cottage, pen and paper and stories in your head, is that everything gets sort of simple and I remember why I do this writing thing and why I love it.

When I got stuck, I'd change notebooks and write an introduction or something similar that someone was waiting for. Then I'd go back to the story. I never turned on the computer, except once to check a detail.

Oddly enough the story that seemed the lesser of the two (most of the chapters of The Graveyard Book are also stories), which is called "The Friend" was easy and comfortable to write, while the one I was excited about, "The Hounds of God" (which I may retitle either "Miss Lupescu" or "The Ghoul Gate" on the next draft, or I may not) was sort of odd and lumpy and is going to need a lot of repainting and moving of heavy furniture when it gets typed up. Still, it has some really good bits in, and I love the ghouls, particularly the Bishop of Bath and Wells and the Duke of Westminster.

I'm on page 98 of the book, and including "The Witch's Headstone" I think I'm actually half way through the book right now. Although some of the final chapter-stories are going to be long ones.
I'm writing a poem that runs through the next chapter, a P.L. Travers-like fantasia called "Danse Macabre", which I think is going to be chapter 5, after the already-written "The Witch's Headstone". Then I'm not sure. Then it's a chapter called "Every Man Jack". Then the last chapter, probably.

Probably more than you really wanted to know, but I'm an author who's been writing a book, and mostly it's what my head is filled with, and it's interesting if you're me.

(Most of the spare bits of head are filled with something that may eventually be called Lyonnesse.)

The worst thing about going off to write for a bit is returning to civilisation and finding several thousand emails needing to be read, work mail, personal mail, Blog FAQ mail.... I'm not sure I'll ever catch up.

Thanks so much to the webelf for having fun and posting links in my absence. It looks like she enjoyed herself, and she put stuff up I probably wouldn't have thought of, so that was good, and I am grateful. (I'm still trying to figure out where she got the Holly picture from, mind you.) Amused that she found, and hustled for votes for the blog awards (even more amused when I discovered that I was also nominated as Hottest Daddy Blogger [?]).

I think I've solved a mystery no one even knew was mysterious. The web elf is your wife, isn't she? Don't forget my no-prize if I'm right!

I think only Marvel can give out no-prizes. But no, you are wrong. The web elf is the web elf. I think she looks like Dave Sim's Regency Elf, only more webby, but I could be wrong, and often am.

Hello,I would like to ask you if you are planning to write comic-book series like "Sandman"?Regards - Paweł Deptuch, POLAND

No, I already did that.

Right now I don't think I'll ever do another 2000 page comic story, but as I said, I've been wrong before...

NEIL,

I'm trying to find my place in writing, and I am leaning towards the Screenplay format. Since you write in almost every format, Which is easier?

1. writing a comic

2. wirting a movie

3. writing a novel

Signed,Bob Castle.

I think it depends on which one I'm not doing at the time. When you aren't doing it, the other ones are always easier, and the kind of thing that you're writing is much too hard.

...

We've now overhauled http://www.neilgaiman.com/exclusive/shortstories/partiesstory, the "How To Talk to Girls at Parties" main page, and it now has a bit more explanation of what it is, links to the text version and the audio version of the story, and links to the other Hugo nominated short stories.

http://www.nippon2007.us/hugo_nominees.php has all of the Hugo nominees up, and links to all but one of the novellas, novelettes and stories, and even one of the novels.

There's a small and valid-up-to-a-point controversy going on about not enough women being nominated for Hugos this year. (For example, this from Bookslut.) (The up-to-a point bit for me is where it's implied by some commentators that the Hugo nominations are imposed from outside, rather than simply voted for by fans and readers who are eligible to vote. They're the Hugos, you get to vote for them as a member or supporting member of the WorldCon, and if you want to see something on the list next year, vote for it. Tell your friends to vote for it. Look at the 2004 Nomination details: in 2004 it only took about 25 votes, sometimes less, to get anything shorter than a novel on the list.)

...

An interview in connection with the PEN World Voices Festival next week in New York -- http://www.wildriverreview.com/worldvoices-neilgaiman.php.

Labels: How to talk to girls at parties, Hugo Awards, Mostly just me going on about a book nobody else has read yet that's still mostly in handwriting anyway, PEN world voices festival, Webelf Wonders

And Certainly Not In Anyone's Attic

This is a message from your neighborhood Web Elf. Mr. Gaiman reports he is knee-deep in Chapter Three, and things are going well.

I've asked the Oracular Ball if he will ever be returning from his mysterious whereabouts, and it told me: Tomorrow I plan to plant things, and to walk around the garden a lot.

Which, I think, is a good sign.

(Because there are no more videos about The Graveyard Book, here is a YouTube video in which Neil reads Locks, from Fragile Things.)

The text for the Hugo-nominated How To Talk To Girls At Parties is now up at Cool Stuff & Things, along with the audio.

This came in from Terri Windling, who is selling her house:

Want to own a 16th century fairy tale cottage in England, complete with goblins on the kitchen walls painted by Brian Froud, Alan Lee, Charles Vess and other artists? Here's an extremely rare opportunity to do so. The cottage is located in the middle of a small, bucolic country village at the edge of Dartmoor...perfect for a writer, painter, or dreamer seeking inspiration in the countryside. More information is available on Phillip Fowler's website.

Lucy Anne, who runs The (del.icio.us) Dreaming, wrote to remind that tickets for the Rogue Artists' stage adaptation of Mr. Punch are on sale.

Finally, here is one of Holly's favorite songs as a small girl. (Mostly because it's rather wonderful.)



And here is Holly as a small girl, at about the time this was one of her favorite songs. (Mostly because I think by posting this, we are giving Cute Overload a run for their money.)



Regards,
The Official Web Elf

Labels: Froggyland, holly's favorite songs, How to talk to girls at parties, paraskavedekatriaphobia, posts where elves promise the author is not being kept tied up in anyone's basement, Rupert Bear

Help, I've Been Kidnapped By Elves

This is a message from your neighborhood Web Elf. Neil is off waging a great battle against a pile of blank paper, and he has asked me to tell you he is Alive and Well. (For the curious, there's some rogue footage of Neil reading a chapter of The Graveyard Book on YouTube that may tide you over till he returns.)

There's also an article today about Neil Scary Trousers Gaiman over at The Independent.

For those who have been eagerly awaiting the audio for the Hugo-nominated How To Talk To Girls At Parties, you need wait no longer. Neil can be found reading it over in the land of Cool Stuff & Things, in mp3 format.

Lastly, here is a song. Just because.

Regards,
The Official Web Elf

Labels: How to talk to girls at parties, Hugo Awards, Neil Scary Trousers Gaiman, posts that assure that the author is safe and has not been kidnapped by elves at all, The Graveyard Book

How to Talk to Authors Without Voices

I learned from http://www.boingboing.net/2007/03/29/hugo_nominees_announ.html that the Hugo Award nominees have been announced. And (happy bounce) "How To Talk To Girls At Parties" is on the list of nominees. I'd already received one email from a friend telling me that if it was nominated I wasn't allowed to decline the nomination as I did with Anansi Boys. When the Hugo people asked last week if I was willing for the story to be nominated I said yes (and was thrilled to be nominated, and was happy to accept).

The story is in Fragile Things and was also in the January cover date Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. There's a worthy tradition (a recent tradition, but a tradition) of getting Hugo nominated short stories up on the web to help level the playing field and allow the voters to read as much as possible, and I'll get the story up somewhere here soonish.

Thanks to all who nominated it, and to the people who read the first draft and made sensible suggestions (especially Chip Delany), and to Jonathan Strahan who commissioned it and never got to publish it.

The list of nominees, as Cory says at Boing Boing, is really impressive and fine company. A good year to be on the list, whether one wins or not. (I tend to take my joy from nominations. What happens after that is just a horse-race.)

Now I have to ponder whether I can make the time to get to Japan for Worldcon this summer...

PS: Just noticed that Girl In the Fireplace was nominated. Having predicted it would get a Hugo back in this blog almost a year ago, I'm pleased we got this far.

PPS to add -- here's the comnplete list of nominees from Locus Magazine: http://www.locusmag.com/2007/03_HugoNominations.html
and not from the official site at http://www.nippon2007.us/hugo_nominees.php

Labels: happy posts, How to talk to girls at parties, Hugo Awards