It took a lot of work, but I'm happy to say that, after 9 months of missing each other, Ash and I are reunited. Lots of happy tears. I'm humbled and grateful to be here. Photo by Amanda Palmer
Labels: amanda palmer, Aotearoa, Ash
Showing posts with label amanda palmer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label amanda palmer. Show all posts
Where I am, what I'm doing, how I'm doing and how I got here
Hullo from Scotland, where I am in rural lockdown on my own. I'm half a world away from Amanda and Ash, and missing both of them a lot. We check in on screens and phones twice a day, when I get up and before I sleep (which is when they go to sleep and when they get up) but it's not the same.
I was in New Zealand with them until two weeks ago, when New Zealand went from the Level 4 lockdown it had been on for the previous 5 weeks down to Level 3. I flew, masked and gloved, from empty Auckland airport to LAX, an empty international terminal with only one check in counter open -- the one for the BA flight from LAX to London. Both flights were surreal, especially the flight to London. Empty airports, mostly empty planes. It reminded me of flying a week after 9/11: everything's changed.
I landed in London about ten in the morning, got a masked car service to a friend's house. He had a spare car (bought many years ago as a birthday present for his daughter, but she had never learned to drive), with some groceries for me in a box in the back, waiting in the drive, with the key in the lock. I drove north, on empty motorways and then on empty roads, and got in about midnight, and I've been here ever since.
The journey was, as I said, surreal. It was also emotionally hard. Amanda and I had found ourselves in a rough place immediately before I left (my fault, I'm afraid, I'd hurt her feelings very badly, and... actually beyond that it's none of anyone else's business). We agreed that we needed to give each other some space, which had been in very short supply in lockdown in New Zealand. So it was a sad sort of flight, even without the world in lockdown, and a sad sort of drive.
(You can read all about how we got to New Zealand and why we were there at all at http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2020/03/on-beach.html. And, for the curious, the song that's currently stuck in my head is mostly Al Stewart's “Warren Gamaliel Harding”.)
I needed to be somewhere I could talk to people in the UK while they and I were awake, not just before breakfast and after dinner. And I needed to be somewhere I could continue to isolate easily, which definitely isn't our house in Woodstock, currently at capacity with five families who have fled Manhattan and Brooklyn and Boston.
Once the world opens up and travel gets easier Amanda and Ash and I are looking forward to being together again in Woodstock. (Yes, I've seen the newsfeed headlines saying I've moved to the UK, and even that we're divorcing. No, I haven't moved the UK, and yes, Amanda and I are still very much together, even with half a world between us.)
Thank you to everyone who's been kind and nice and helpful, while Amanda and my problems got rather more public than either of us is comfortable with. We love each other, and we love Ash, and we will sort ourselves out, in private, which is much the best place for things like this.
It's rough for almost everyone right now – some people are crammed together and wish they weren't, some are alone and crave companionship, pretty much all of us are hurting in one way or another. So be kind. Be kind to each other, be kind to Amanda (who is getting a huge amount of undeserved internet flack for this, some of it really cruel), and if you ever meet him (he will tell you very seriously everything he thinks about zombies, or his latest zombie-supplanting discovery, Richard Scarry's detectives), be kind to Ash.
Neil
PS: Amanda and I wrote a letter together, for the curious and for the bits of the world that is wondering what's going on, and whether they should worry about it. Feel free to send anyone who wants to know how we are and what's happening to read it.
Dear Everybody.
This has been a hard few weeks for us. We are not getting divorced. It’s not that exciting.
We love each other very deeply. As sometimes happens during the course of a long marriage, we have hurt each other. We have lived our lives individually, and then as a couple, very publicly (and right now, too publicly).
This has been a hard few weeks for us. We are not getting divorced. It’s not that exciting.
We love each other very deeply. As sometimes happens during the course of a long marriage, we have hurt each other. We have lived our lives individually, and then as a couple, very publicly (and right now, too publicly).
We have been trying to figure out how best to love each other for twelve years. It is fair to say that this relationship has been the hardest, but also the most rewarding, collaboration of our lives.
Living in lockdown is hard. Working on a marriage, as everyone married knows, is also hard. And we are very aware there are thousands, probably millions of people who have been dealing with their own versions of problems like ours over the last few months – and many face situations that are far worse.
We will sort out our marriage in private, which is where things like this are best sorted. We're working together to try and do this better. We care about each other so much, and we have a small boy we love and delight in, and those are reasons enough to work together to fix things.
So that's what's going on. It's not as much fun or as interesting as the newsfeed headlines made it seem.
For anyone who felt the urge to choose sides on this, trust us, there really aren't any sides to be taken: we are on our side, and we're on Ash's side, and we hope you are too.
None of us know what the future is going to look and feel like, right now, and that's scary. We need to be able to have each other’s backs. So please, if you can, have our backs, and we will do our best to have yours.
None of us know what the future is going to look and feel like, right now, and that's scary. We need to be able to have each other’s backs. So please, if you can, have our backs, and we will do our best to have yours.
And to the vast majority of people out there who have been kind and sane and supportive to both of us, and to each other, thank you, we love you and appreciate it, and you, so very much.
Peace, and definitely love,
Peace, and definitely love,
Neil and Amanda
Labels: amanda palmer, Ash, Life in lockdown, married life
A long catch up (and go and see Amanda Palmer's show)
I stopped blogging in April when my friend Gene Wolfe died. I wanted to write a blog about Gene, who he was, how we were friends, and it just made me too sad.
So I stopped writing that blog, and then felt bad writing about the other things that have happened, like Good Omens coming out as a TV series when I hadn't yet written about Gene.
I miss him still, and kept wanting to send him postcards over the last few months, just as I usually did when I travelled. And then I remember I can't send Gene things any longer.
So Gene went, before I could show him the TV adaptation we made of Good Omens, which had been a book he loved.
It came out on Prime Video May 31st, and people loved it. It broke several records for Amazon, in the US and the UK and around the world, which made me happy. We got three Emmy Nominations, and already started being nominated for and winning awards. Everyone wants us to make some more, and while Terry Pratchett and I had long ago plotted out a whole novel's worth of More, I'm still figuring out whether or not and if so how it could happen.
Then it was announced that Netflix had won the bidding war to be the company that brought Sandman to television. I'm Very Involved in making it -- I'll be cowriting the pilot episode, and working closely with Exec Producer David Goyer and Showrunner Allan Heinberg to make sure it's always Sandman, the one that people who read and loved the comics will recognise and love.
Meanwhile, I had stopped being a Good Omens showrunner, and started becoming a writer who stayed at home and looked after a small boy and also wrote, while his wife went off on tour.
And then we crossed the ocean, and are now based in the UK until the end of the year and are doing the same thing again.
I'm at home, Amanda is (mostly) on tour.
I get Ash dressed in the correct school uniform (PE or Formal) and onto the bus (we always go straight up to the top floor of the bus and he always tells me the rules of traffic lights), and I take him to school.
Occasionally I'll be doing things in public this year, and I'll try and announce them here:
The National Theatre's adaptation of The Ocean at the End of the Lane begins on Dec 3rd and runs until the 25th of January:
It's recommended for people aged 12 and over. Tickets are available here: https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/the-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane
And in one of those nice coincidences that make it look like I actually know what I'm doing, this year also brings the illustrated edition of The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Elise Hurst is an Australian illustrator who passed me some of her work to look at after an event, and I was immediately impressed. Her work looks (or can look) like mid-20th century children's book illustration, but with a strange edge to it that seemed perfect for Ocean.
She and I will be in conversation on the 14th of November: here's the details, and how to get tickets -- https://membership.theguardian.com/event/an-evening-with-neil-gaiman-and-elise-hurst-69018926467
Here's a photo Amanda took of me telling a children's story that won't be published for about a year, at an event in Camden for her Patrons (from Patreon). Douglas Mackinnon, director of Good Omens, made it black and white and haunting. Ash is the one looking up at me at the front...
....
If you are in the UK, or Germany or Austria (Graz!), Paris or Prague, Luxembourg, Ireland or Denmark, I wanted to urge you to go and see Amanda in concert on this tour. (https://nointermission.amandapalmer.net/) The show list: http://amandapalmer.net/shows/
This is a very special show. It's about life and otherwise. It contains a friend's illness and death. It contains three abortions (one on health grounds) and a Christmas Day miscarriage. It contains the arrival of Ash.
It's called There Will Be No Intermission. And normally, there's an intermission, because it's a long night.
It's important, it's beautiful, it's powerful, and it's even funny.
So I stopped writing that blog, and then felt bad writing about the other things that have happened, like Good Omens coming out as a TV series when I hadn't yet written about Gene.
I miss him still, and kept wanting to send him postcards over the last few months, just as I usually did when I travelled. And then I remember I can't send Gene things any longer.
So Gene went, before I could show him the TV adaptation we made of Good Omens, which had been a book he loved.
It came out on Prime Video May 31st, and people loved it. It broke several records for Amazon, in the US and the UK and around the world, which made me happy. We got three Emmy Nominations, and already started being nominated for and winning awards. Everyone wants us to make some more, and while Terry Pratchett and I had long ago plotted out a whole novel's worth of More, I'm still figuring out whether or not and if so how it could happen.
Then it was announced that Netflix had won the bidding war to be the company that brought Sandman to television. I'm Very Involved in making it -- I'll be cowriting the pilot episode, and working closely with Exec Producer David Goyer and Showrunner Allan Heinberg to make sure it's always Sandman, the one that people who read and loved the comics will recognise and love.
Meanwhile, I had stopped being a Good Omens showrunner, and started becoming a writer who stayed at home and looked after a small boy and also wrote, while his wife went off on tour.
And then we crossed the ocean, and are now based in the UK until the end of the year and are doing the same thing again.
I'm at home, Amanda is (mostly) on tour.
I get Ash dressed in the correct school uniform (PE or Formal) and onto the bus (we always go straight up to the top floor of the bus and he always tells me the rules of traffic lights), and I take him to school.
Occasionally I'll be doing things in public this year, and I'll try and announce them here:
The National Theatre's adaptation of The Ocean at the End of the Lane begins on Dec 3rd and runs until the 25th of January:
It's recommended for people aged 12 and over. Tickets are available here: https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/the-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane
And in one of those nice coincidences that make it look like I actually know what I'm doing, this year also brings the illustrated edition of The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Elise Hurst is an Australian illustrator who passed me some of her work to look at after an event, and I was immediately impressed. Her work looks (or can look) like mid-20th century children's book illustration, but with a strange edge to it that seemed perfect for Ocean.
She and I will be in conversation on the 14th of November: here's the details, and how to get tickets -- https://membership.theguardian.com/event/an-evening-with-neil-gaiman-and-elise-hurst-69018926467
Here's a photo Amanda took of me telling a children's story that won't be published for about a year, at an event in Camden for her Patrons (from Patreon). Douglas Mackinnon, director of Good Omens, made it black and white and haunting. Ash is the one looking up at me at the front...
....
If you are in the UK, or Germany or Austria (Graz!), Paris or Prague, Luxembourg, Ireland or Denmark, I wanted to urge you to go and see Amanda in concert on this tour. (https://nointermission.amandapalmer.net/) The show list: http://amandapalmer.net/shows/
This is a very special show. It's about life and otherwise. It contains a friend's illness and death. It contains three abortions (one on health grounds) and a Christmas Day miscarriage. It contains the arrival of Ash.
It's called There Will Be No Intermission. And normally, there's an intermission, because it's a long night.
It's important, it's beautiful, it's powerful, and it's even funny.
Labels: amanda palmer, Ash, Gene Wolfe, Good Omens, sandman tv, The Ocean At The End of the Lane, There WIll be No Intermission
Watch DEMOCRACY melting in water colours
We were in Toronto on November the 11th, the day after we heard Leonard Cohen died, and four days after the election. I was there as tour nanny, but Amanda asked if I would do something on her stage. I loved the spoken word version of Democracy Leonard Cohen had recorded, and so I went to YouTube, worked out what lines from the song he had dropped for the poem, and what he had moved, and read it on the stage.
And then I did it again in Chicago and Minneapolis.
We recorded it, me taking time from the recording of the audiobook of How The Marquis Got His Coat Back to record it, and email it to her, Amanda recording her piano accompaniment up a mountain in a snowstorm, then Jherek Bischoff and a string section doing glorious quiet things to make it sing. We gave it to PEN America as a gift, to draw attention to their sterling work and to help raise funds for them. Then David Mack painted many paintings (there's one below this), and Olga Nunes animated them into a video.
It was all funded by Amanda’s Patreon, and I thank all 9000-odd people who support her and it.
It’s a very beautiful video. I could post the YouTube video here, but I’d rather you went and watched it at the PEN America page, at https://pen.org/donate-democracy.
If you watch it, and it it moves you, reblog it. I hope people watch it. I hope they care.
You can buy the track too, at Bandcamp. All proceeds go to PEN America as well. https://amandapalmer.bandcamp.com/track/amanda-palmer-neil-gaiman-democracy-leonard-cohen
Labels: amanda palmer, Democracy, Former webelf makes good art, Jherek Bischoff, Leonard Cohen, Olga Nunes
Seminudity of the daughter-embarrassing kind.
It's been ages, and I kept promising myself I'd do a blog update, and then other stuff would happen, and somehow in there the blog never got updated.
So. Right. Lots of stuff has happened since the last time I posted. (OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE came out in paperback in the UK and US. It's still on the US bestseller lists. Please read it. I'm very proud of it. I did a tour for THE TRUTH IS A CAVE IN THE BLACK MOUNTAINS, with Eddie Campbell and the FourPlay string quartet, and we sold out The Warfield and Carnegie Hall and the Barbican and we very nearly sold out Usher Hall in Edinburgh. CHU'S FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL came out for little kids. I helped Amanda edit in the last three days before she handed in her book, which was wonderful, and I handed in the manuscript for my next short story collection, TRIGGER WARNING... although I'm still finishing the last story in the book.)
(Backstage at Carnegie Hall, with Maddy.)
On Wednesday I went to LA for a few days of meetings and such. I learned what's happening with the AMERICAN GODS TV series (all good and on-track), with the John Cameron Mitchell movie of my story "How To Talk to Girls At Parties" (it's all looking wonderful. Elle Fanning will play Zan, the second of the girls that Enn meets at the party. The story continues after the short story is done, and is still set in 1977, in Croydon). Other things, just as good. I saw a preview of my old friend Cindy Shapiro's rock opera Psyche (http://www.psycherockopera.com/), and was really impressed by how powerful the music and staging of the myth were.
While I was talking to people, my wife Amanda (rock star, just wrote a book out in November) was working at Bard College with a director and some young actors.
Amanda's step brother Karl, a few years older than her, whom she idolised, died when he was in his mid-twenties, of ALS, so when Chris Anderson of TED challenged Amanda to do the ice-bucket challenge, she did. In a wonderful video.
And then she challenged me.
I thought about it. I was in LA (where the Californian water shortage is a very real thing. It's a drought). I wanted to be informative (because people sent me icebucket challenge videos to watch, and I had to go and google to figure out what was going on). I wanted to make it clear you could donate AND challenge. And I wanted it to me memorable.
Amanda gave me the key. She pointed out that she had done her challenge fully dressed. And not, as people might have imagined, naked or semi-naked.
I called Allan Amato and Olga Nunes, fresh off the Temple of Art Kickstarter, and they agreed to come and film me on the beach that afternoon.
And to bring Death. Because ALS is a fatal condition. So I packed my novelty bowtie, and headed out...
While I was talking to people, my wife Amanda (rock star, just wrote a book out in November) was working at Bard College with a director and some young actors.
Amanda's step brother Karl, a few years older than her, whom she idolised, died when he was in his mid-twenties, of ALS, so when Chris Anderson of TED challenged Amanda to do the ice-bucket challenge, she did. In a wonderful video.
And then she challenged me.
I thought about it. I was in LA (where the Californian water shortage is a very real thing. It's a drought). I wanted to be informative (because people sent me icebucket challenge videos to watch, and I had to go and google to figure out what was going on). I wanted to make it clear you could donate AND challenge. And I wanted it to me memorable.
Amanda gave me the key. She pointed out that she had done her challenge fully dressed. And not, as people might have imagined, naked or semi-naked.
I called Allan Amato and Olga Nunes, fresh off the Temple of Art Kickstarter, and they agreed to come and film me on the beach that afternoon.
And to bring Death. Because ALS is a fatal condition. So I packed my novelty bowtie, and headed out...
Please watch it. If you like it, share it...
(All of us post-bucketing, except for Best Boy Cat Mihos, who took the photo.)
I embarassed my daughters. So far, Karen accepted the challenge but hasn't posted a video (https://twitter.com/KarenGillan2/status/503101560814321664) and George has done it -- and called me a bastard, into the bargain. (http://youtu.be/mJYx2UtPTWc)
Labels: ALS, amanda palmer, Icebuckets, Seminudity
Life and Otherwise
Life. I took Amanda to the airport early yesterday morning, to fly to Australia, but the aftereffects of the previous day's blizzarding meant that she didn't go anywhere, and now flies to Australia tomorrow. I've felt guilty about how happy I am to have an extra couple of days with her. (Of course, I don't really get an extra two days: mostly she's off rehearsing for the Sydney Festival -- she's doing ten days there (you can learn about it here, if you are in Sydney), and is going to pretty much have to get off the plane and onto the stage). But we grab meals and yoga and we get two extra nights. And I do not mind at all.
I know where I'm going on Tuesday when we close up this house, which is a relief. (You can follow me on the road trip and learn where I am going that way.)
My friend Cat Mihos (she of the Neverwear website) is out helping me move. Which right now means she is going around the house putting labels on things, and I am writing this blog.
Two days ago, I went with Amanda to the memorial for her Latin teacher and friend, Michael Fiveash. He taught her about mythology. She had asked me to read Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn as part of the "Evening of Truth and Beauty". I never met Dr Fiveash, but as long as I've known Amanda she had wanted me to meet him -- even more so since I told her about the book of retellings of myths I'm working on. It never happened: he died before we talked. By the end of the memorial I felt I knew him.
I found myself brooding over what kind of memorial I wanted, in the unlikely but inevitable event of my ever being dead, and decided that whatever else happened, I would like this song by Jake Thackray either played or sung by a friend.
...and while I'm feeling morbid, I thought you'd probably want to know that deaths caused by lightning strikes in America this year are the lowest they have been since records have been kept. Only 26 people died from lightning strikes, down from 432 deaths in 1943 to just 23 in 2013.
Given that lightning strikes are obviously the clearest and most measurable indication of God's displeasure, it's nice to see that God is obviously very pleased with America. (There's a nice diagram here: http://www.wunderground.com/news/lightning-deaths-down-2013-20140103)
...
I have a copy of A PARTICULAR BOOK in front of me. Very soon, I will have read it aloud in its entirety and this event will have been videoed. This will be a special secret thing I'm doing for Patrick Rothfuss's Worldbuilders Fundraiser. I'm also giving them a signed copy of the glorious limited edition of Ocean at the End of the Lane, and of course, there is the copy of Stardust that I donated in 2008, which may be back in the running and winnable once again.
...
This was my very favourite of the FORTUNATELY THE MILK videos made by people to celebrate the publication of the book. It may be my favourite video of recent months. I would have bought Lauren Beukes' novel The Shining Girls even if I hadn't seen this video, because Joe Hill said such good things about it. Here you go:
I know where I'm going on Tuesday when we close up this house, which is a relief. (You can follow me on the road trip and learn where I am going that way.)
My friend Cat Mihos (she of the Neverwear website) is out helping me move. Which right now means she is going around the house putting labels on things, and I am writing this blog.
Two days ago, I went with Amanda to the memorial for her Latin teacher and friend, Michael Fiveash. He taught her about mythology. She had asked me to read Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn as part of the "Evening of Truth and Beauty". I never met Dr Fiveash, but as long as I've known Amanda she had wanted me to meet him -- even more so since I told her about the book of retellings of myths I'm working on. It never happened: he died before we talked. By the end of the memorial I felt I knew him.
I found myself brooding over what kind of memorial I wanted, in the unlikely but inevitable event of my ever being dead, and decided that whatever else happened, I would like this song by Jake Thackray either played or sung by a friend.
...and while I'm feeling morbid, I thought you'd probably want to know that deaths caused by lightning strikes in America this year are the lowest they have been since records have been kept. Only 26 people died from lightning strikes, down from 432 deaths in 1943 to just 23 in 2013.
Given that lightning strikes are obviously the clearest and most measurable indication of God's displeasure, it's nice to see that God is obviously very pleased with America. (There's a nice diagram here: http://www.wunderground.com/news/lightning-deaths-down-2013-20140103)
I have a copy of A PARTICULAR BOOK in front of me. Very soon, I will have read it aloud in its entirety and this event will have been videoed. This will be a special secret thing I'm doing for Patrick Rothfuss's Worldbuilders Fundraiser. I'm also giving them a signed copy of the glorious limited edition of Ocean at the End of the Lane, and of course, there is the copy of Stardust that I donated in 2008, which may be back in the running and winnable once again.
...
This was my very favourite of the FORTUNATELY THE MILK videos made by people to celebrate the publication of the book. It may be my favourite video of recent months. I would have bought Lauren Beukes' novel The Shining Girls even if I hadn't seen this video, because Joe Hill said such good things about it. Here you go:
And according to the Guardian, I "slugged it out with Jonathan Franzen"... by which they mean a lot of people read this edited version of my Reading Agency talk. I'm really glad they did.
Right. I'll steal a question from Tumblr to answer, then bed:
Is the BBC radio adaptation of Neverwhere available for sale in any format?
Yes. It's up on Audible and iTunes for download. It was also produced as a set of 4 CDs, but the AudioGo company who made the CD went bankrupt, and I can't find any CDs for sale at present. I'm sure it will be a CD again, soon enough.
(And thank you all for the encouragement with the social media break. I appreciate it.)
Labels: amanda palmer, Jake Thackray, Lauren Beukes, Truth and Beauty, what God thinks
Back from the Blog Dead.
My whole tour is done, and I am tired and happy.
I just saw a beautiful, moving play called THE EVENTS at the Young Vic, starring Neve McIntosh and Rudi Dharmalingam (and a choir). It was about empathy and violence, and I highly recommend it.
Tomorrow, I will tell you about the last week in the UK, about FORTUNATELY THE MILK, about the astonishing show last night at Westminster Central Hall, about Breakfast TV and the Reading Agency Speech.
I will give you some tidbits first, though. Here's my BBC Breakfast Time appearance
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jq6kd
The Saturday Live Radio 4 programme with me (and Tori, and a yeti) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03ccvtp
Here's the Guardian's edited text of my speech: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-future-libraries-reading-daydreaming
And here's the School Library Journal on the Alamagordo N.M. attempted banning of NEVERWHERE: http://www.slj.com/2013/10/censorship/neil-gaimans-neverwhere-banned-at-new-mexico-high-school/
But now... I hand this blog over to the lovely Amanda Palmer. Who is very beautiful and wise, but uses capital letters only when she has to:
I just saw a beautiful, moving play called THE EVENTS at the Young Vic, starring Neve McIntosh and Rudi Dharmalingam (and a choir). It was about empathy and violence, and I highly recommend it.
Tomorrow, I will tell you about the last week in the UK, about FORTUNATELY THE MILK, about the astonishing show last night at Westminster Central Hall, about Breakfast TV and the Reading Agency Speech.
I will give you some tidbits first, though. Here's my BBC Breakfast Time appearance
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jq6kd
The Saturday Live Radio 4 programme with me (and Tori, and a yeti) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03ccvtp
Here's the Guardian's edited text of my speech: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-future-libraries-reading-daydreaming
And here's the School Library Journal on the Alamagordo N.M. attempted banning of NEVERWHERE: http://www.slj.com/2013/10/censorship/neil-gaimans-neverwhere-banned-at-new-mexico-high-school/
But now... I hand this blog over to the lovely Amanda Palmer. Who is very beautiful and wise, but uses capital letters only when she has to:
neil and i did a kickstarter about two years go, to sell pre-orders/pay for a tour recording of our “evening with neil gaiman and amanda palmer” tour up the west coast in fall 2011.
the kickstarter raised over $100k with about 3k backers, and we took two engineers on the road with us (many of you know jaron luksa, my veteran sound guys…he was one of them, and he brought his pal ken). they recorded every show in HIGH FIDELITY and then neil and i spent the rest of the fall and winter picking out our favorite tracks from what was probably about twenty+ hours of recordings. (that was slightly agonizing). that tour was pretty magical, and lots of unexpected things happened…including a fan of ours dying at occupy vancouver a few days before we got to town. one of the songs is dedicated to her. neil combatted his stage fright. i tried to work on my stage-control issues. we both learned to give each other space. we took questions every night from the audience and surprised ourselves, and each other, with some of the answers (so now there’s a “best of ‘ask neil and amanda’” on the record). mostly, we watched our fanbases merge, like a giant family wedding, and were relieved that no brawls broke out.
we asked our friend cynthia von buhler to make the art (it’s a hand-made cut-out, and gorgeous) and we packaged the whole she-bang onto 3 CDs.
around christmas 2011 – to tide them over, since the kickstarter backers were waiting for their discs (it took a WHILE) – we sent everybody a digital collection of material that didn’t make the final cut. it was called “a prelude to an evening with…”
here’s the variant cover (still cynthia’s art, adapted by @indeciSEAN):
and then eventually everybody got their discs in the mail and everybody was pretty happy, so yay.
this was the original artwork on that first kickstarter-edition:
then we didn’t do anything…..we didn’t release it online to the public or put it on sale in stores….no iTunes, no bandcamp, no topspin, no nothin. we wanted the kickstarter backers to enjoy it and i was already in the full throes of preparing “Theatre is Evil”. so we waited.
NOW – or, well, next month – is the moment we’ve picked (ta da) to release it to the general public…ALMOST the same tracklisting, but all-new packaging (so that the kickstarter edition stays super-special).
we also made VINYL. the whole album would have taken up (gulp) 6 sides, so we pared our favorites down even further and condensed everything onto two records.
this is the NEW packaging:
we also thought long and hard about what kind of merch to offer along with the album – since we know you love good merch, and christmas is coming.
we picked things we’d give each other and our friends and families: moleskine jounrals (blank, of course, cuz fuck lines), teapots & tea towels, mugs, and fuzzy velvet posters. we tried to bundle things in such a way that made the ordering pretty simple. the pre-sale of these bundles will end around november 1st. some of these items will make it to the webstore, but some may not – it all depends on order quantities. here’s the “super deluxe” bundle with all this awesomeness:
SO, your best bet is to order NOW before halloween night…all orders placed during this period will definitely arrive in time for the holidays.
(while we’re on the topic: all orders made from the webstore by december 1st SHOULD also be good for holiday delivery, but we can’t control international customs so…)
i deliberately chose songs for this tour that i HADN’T ever released but was aching to…songs like “dear old house”, “gaga, palmer, madonna”, “i want you but i don’t need you”, and “look mummy no hands” have been huge live favorites but didn’t quite fit on “Theatre is Evil” so they were burning a hole in my pocket. i consider these the official versions.
there’ll be plenty more noise on the socials to remind you, and i DO hope you all pre-order, but if you’re holding out for any reason…
on november 19th, the album should be available in stores (more on where as we get details) and online in the usual spots (bandcamp,amazon, iTunes, etc.)
we’ll have the ENTIRE digital collection (the three disc’s-worth and the “prelude” EP – over 5 HOURS of material) up on my webstore for $10+
if you *ARE* one of the 3k kickstarter backers, WE THANK YOU SO MUCH for making this project possible. we wouldn’t have done it without you.
and if you want to help the cause and push the album forward, write some thoughts/reviews about it all (you’ve had it for a while, you’re entitled) down in the comments (or anywhere on the web) to help us, please. and include the pre-order link – bit.ly/EveningWithPreOrder – anywhere you are talking up the record.
here’s the final track listing:
Disc 1: NEIL SOLO1 – My Last Landlady
2 – The Rhyme Maidens
3 – The Day The Saucers Came
4 – Feminine Endings
5 – The Winter Gardens
6 – In Relig Odhráin
7 – The View From The Cheap Seats
8 – I Will Write In Words Of Fire
9 – The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury
10 – Making A Chair
11 – 100 Words
Disc 2: AMANDA AND NEIL1 – Margaret Cho Introduces the Show
2 – Makin’ Whoopee
3 – (Introduction to “The Problem With Saints”)
4 – The Problem With Saints
5 – Jump (for Jeremy Geidt)
6 – Ask Neil And Amanda
7 – (Introduction to “Broken Heart Stew”)
8 – Broken Heart Stew (by Amanda)
9 – Poem for Amanda (by Neil)
10 – Poem for Neil (by Amanda)
11 – Electric Blanket (a duet, feat. Amanda Palmer & Jason Webley)
12 – Psycho
13 – (Introduction to I Google You)
14 – I Google You
Disc 3: AMANDA SOLO1 – I Want You, But I Don’t Need You
2 – (Introduction to “Dear Old House”)
3 – Dear Old House
4 – (Introduction to “Gaga, Palmer, Madonna: A Polemic”)
5 – Gaga, Palmer, Madonna: A Polemic
6 – (Introduction to “Judy Blume”)
7 – Judy Blume
8 – I Don’t Care Much (with Lance Horne)
9 – Map Of Tasmania
10 – (Introduction to “Do You Swear To Tell The Truth, The Whole Truth & Nothing But The Truth So Help Your Black Ass”)
11 – Do You Swear To Tell The Truth, The Whole Truth & Nothing But The Truth So Help Your Black Ass
12 – (Introduction to “I Will Follow You Into The Dark”)
13 – I Will Follow You Into The Dark (for Ashlie Gough)
14 – Look Mummy, No Hands
15 – Ukulele Anthem
Bonus: A PRELUDE TO AN EVENING WITH… (which is available with the digital)
1 – Intro
2 – Ampersand
3 – Runs in the Family
4 – Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar
5 – Blake Says
6 – Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire
7 – Do You Swear To Tell The Truth, The Whole Truth & Nothing But The Truth So Help Your Black Ass
8 – Zombies and Shy People
9 – Drinking With John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester
10 – Making Mixtapes
11 – Everyone Should Have a Hobby That Could Kill Them
12 – It Was All Going So Well
13 – On-Stage Dating Service
YOU CAN ORDER HERE.
AGAIN, ORDER BY NOVEMBER 1st FOR THE XMAS DEADLINE!!!!!!!!!
if you have any questions not covered here, eric’s being a dear and helping out HERE on the forum.
also, do us a solid: ONCE YOU ORDER, share the joy & link, spread the word! please? make friends jealous of velvet posters!
BONUS for OZ/NZ: @POSstore has 1 of 10 LIMITED EDT 7″ vinyl that you have a chance at winning…more info at bit.ly/AFP7inchOH!! and ONE MORE LAST THING!!
NEW YORK (and surrounding areas): to celebrate the release of the record, we’ve added a (second) EVENING WITH NEIL & ME show on FRIDAY NOVEMBER 22nd at town hall (since the first night sold out super-quick). there ARE still tickets available, but they’re moving fast. you can grab yours HERE. it’s gonna be a fun couple o’ nights.
.....
And just adding that the ordering window on the teapots is just about to close, so if you want a teapot, order now at http://bit.ly/AnEveningWithPresale.
And just adding that the ordering window on the teapots is just about to close, so if you want a teapot, order now at http://bit.ly/AnEveningWithPresale.
Labels: amanda palmer, an evening with neil and amanda, BBC, daydreaming, Fortunately the Milk
The Art of Asking
In a day and a half over half a million people have watched this talk, at the TED website and on YouTube.
I am so proud of her. Really: I've never been happier than when I watched her get a standing ovation, and watching this video go viral is an absolute joy.
It was hard, sometimes, over the last six weeks, while she worked on her speech. Genuinely rough, sometimes: it was like having a third person in the marriage. There was me, Amanda, and there was Amanda's TED speech, and she was spending a lot more time with her TED speech than she was with me.
Initially I was grumpy and jealous and I felt left out, and then, once I heard her give an early version of the speech, I got caught up in the fun of watching her craft it (and watching her figure out how to get it down to 12 minutes), and toward the end I was loving the process of watching her give her speech to college kids and to our friends and just to me and Anthony, and when I got a cold I even banished her from the house for a few days, because I didn't want her speech being derailed by sickness...
Then we went to TED, and it was all worth it. She went on between Sergei Brin and Larry Lessig and she gave her speech. The people who came up and congratulated her over the next few days were people you've heard of, the ones who make the world different.
And when someone came up to me that afternoon and said "You must be Mr Palmer", I said, Yes, I supposed I must be, and I beamed like a madman.
Watch the speech.
It's called The Art of Asking.
When she was working on it, I thought it was about her Kickstarter, and probably applicable to musicians, but hearing people talk to her about it, and watching it go viral, I realised that it's about so much more than that.
...
(I'm in the UK right now for a couple of days. I've just been the Keynote Speaker at the Cambridge WATERSPRITE Student Film Festival. Today I'm going to be in London with the BlackBerry film crew looking at paper stock and such things for the Calendar of Tales. Tomorrow morning is the NEVERWHERE Radio 4/Radio 4 Extra Press Conference and I get to meet BERNARD CRIBBINS. Proper Blog entry SOON.)
Labels: amanda palmer, art, Asking
Transcendent Jet lag: also an Elephant, Lunatic Heroes, Bad Sneezing & Media
I'm in Nantes, France, at the Utopiales Festival. A bit jet-lagged, but happy. I turned 52 about 40 minutes ago.
This morning I rode on a carousel and saw an elephant. Here is the elephant:
Tickets for the event are available at: http://lunaticheroes.bpt.me
If you're anywhere in the Boston area, come to Lexington and say hello.
...
Would you like me to demonstrate how bad a sneeze-actor I am? You would? Then watch this...
Apparently, Media looks and dresses a whole lot like the lovely Amanda Palmer. (It's a painting, not a photo.) She's June...
(I love the Lucy-Amanda creature talking to Shadow in the comic at the start of the month...)
You can order your Worldbuilders Calendar directly from Pat at http://thetinkerspacks.
I hope you order yours. They'll make great gifts. And I trust that next year's Worldbuilders Fantasy Calendar will consist mostly of hunky Men-of-Fantasy wearing not very much at all, to balance things out.
...
Sleep. It's time.
This morning I rode on a carousel and saw an elephant. Here is the elephant:
(Both of these things and more at http://www.lesmachines-nantes.
I just spent some of the last 40 minutes looking at the dailies from my Doctor Who episode. I won't put any spoilers about it up here, not yet -- not even things that probably aren't really spoilers, like the villain, the working title, or any of the stuff that's all over the web right now. (Google and it will all be yours...)
Dave McKean is here in Nantes. He drew me a birthday card...
I was in Vienna on Monday, kicking off a secret project with Lomo. (See some of my Lomo photos here, along with a Very Odd Interview).
One reason I'm a bit jet-lagged is that I flew with Amanda from Vienna on Tuesday morning to Boston, where she voted and we saw her best friend Anthony, who is having some very serious health issues, and then the next day I flew to France.
(Amanda wrote a beautiful heartrending blog about who Anthony is, his illness, and his part in her life at her website here.)
Anthony's written a book, introduced by Amanda: stories about his life and family, called Lunatic Heroes. He's a terrific writer, and the book's good. He's having a book launch on the 20th on Nov in Lexington Ma., and Amanda and I are going to be reading/performing that night to support him. (I'll be reading some of my new novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane.)
The tickets for the reading are $10 each, and the money from the tickets is going to cancer care and research.
If you're anywhere in the Boston area, come to Lexington and say hello.
...
Would you like me to demonstrate how bad a sneeze-actor I am? You would? Then watch this...
It's the trailer for Chu's Day. Chu's Day will go on sale on January the 8th. It's for really little kids. (Here's an Amazon link.) Please spread the video around.
...
Cool author Patrick Rothfuss is the guiding light and force behind the Worldbuilders movement, which exists mostly on his blog and raises money for Heifer International. As he explains on his blog,
Heifer International is my favorite charity. It helps people raise themselves up out of poverty and starvation. All over the world Heifer promotes education, sustainable agriculture, and local industry.
They don’t just keep kids from starving, they make it so families can take care of themselves. They give goats, sheep, and chickens to families so their children have milk to drink, warm clothes to wear, and eggs to eat.He's been giving away amazing books to people who donated, over the years. This year he's doing a calendar, with art by Lee Moyer. They asked if they could put a character from American Gods into it, and I said yes.
Apparently, Media looks and dresses a whole lot like the lovely Amanda Palmer. (It's a painting, not a photo.) She's June...
(I love the Lucy-Amanda creature talking to Shadow in the comic at the start of the month...)
You can order your Worldbuilders Calendar directly from Pat at http://thetinkerspacks.
I hope you order yours. They'll make great gifts. And I trust that next year's Worldbuilders Fantasy Calendar will consist mostly of hunky Men-of-Fantasy wearing not very much at all, to balance things out.
...
Sleep. It's time.
Labels: amanda palmer, Anthony Martignetti, Chu's Day, Dave McKean, Doctor Who, Pat Rothfuss, worldbuilders
An extremely exciting week
So, last year I recorded a piece for a This American Life episode about adventure. It's a little memoir about adventures, and how I mostly don't have them.
It wasn't the piece I originally wrote, though, which was a short story. Or rather, it was the piece I originally wrote. Ira Glass wasn't sure about the personal one, when I sent it over, and wanted a short story, so I wrote a short story instead, but the producers preferred the personal memoir, and outvoted him, so that was what I recorded.
Ira Glass still liked the short story, and mentioned to Dave Eggars that I had a short story that he liked that nobody had read, and Dave Eggars wrote to my agent and asked if he could read it for McSweeneys, and I was happy that it wasn't going to be completely forgotten forever (I'd already forgotten it existed, and hadn't given it to anyone or submitted it anywhere, so it was just sitting getting dusty on a hard drive somewhere). I wasn't sure if it was any good, and had to be nudged by Dave several times to send it. It was called Adventure Story.
Having emailled it to Dave I forgot about it again. And then, in the post, this arrived:
I opened it. And I thought, I've got story in McSweeneys!
I read the story, a little nervously, now it was printed, and thought, and it's good.
It's a great issue of McSweeney's. The Jason Jagel comic insert, Topsy Turvy, is wonderful, the collected writing is, as always, excellent, varied, powerful (the book 2 account of a week in Rwanda; the writing that inspired the Egyptian uprising...). Beautiful production values.
You can get a copy of it at McSweeneys: https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/mcsweeneys-issue-40
I'm really happy and proud and thrilled to be in it. Thank you, Ira Glass.
...
The New York Times has a page of me talking about books and what I'm reading and suchlike on it. (The blue picture is Jillian Tamaki's wonderful picture of me from it.) (They edited out the bit where I had President Obama talking about a hooker eating a man with her nether bits, which in retrospect might have been wise, but made that section less funny.)
You can read the rest of it at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/books/review/neil-gaiman-shares-his-reading-habits.html?_r=2&ref=books&pagewanted=all
...
Amanda's Kickstarter has been an enormous success -- currently it's the most successful music Kickstarter ever. In six days it has got over 10,000 supporters and has raised over $555,000 towards putting out the CD and book and taking the band on a world tour.
She wrote about it on techdirt..
I went to Chicago and delivered this year's annual Zena Sutherland lecture. Zena was an editor, a reviewer and an influential figure in the world of children's books. I wish I'd known her - everyone who had known her described her as "a pistol!" and they all talked about her in ways that made me so very proud to be this year's lecturer. (Here's an online obituary.)
(The first Zena Sutherland lecture was delivered by Maurice Sendak. The second by Lloyd Alexander. Yes, I was very intimidated.)
My lecture was called
which I mostly pronounced "What the [very bad swearword] is a children's book anyway?" when I read it onstage. I got to say things like...
...along with the story of how I was very nearly expelled from school, at the age of eight, for telling a classmate a dirty joke I'd heard from some kids on the walk home, and a lot of pondering about what children read and why and how authors can figure out whether or not they are writing a book for children or adults.
It'll be published in The Horn Book in the autumn.
...
And by now you are undoubtedly thinking, what an exciting week. And you would be right. This was the most exciting week ever. Because...
I hived a swarm!
I walked the dogs in the woods. I heard something buzzing gently, and it seemed to be a tree. I looked closer... It was a swarm of bees high in a buckthorn tree...
Now, when a hive gets overcrowded, or just feels the time has come, the bees swarm. Three quarters of the hive, along with the queen, take off to find a new home, leaving the remaining bees behind to raise a new queen in the old location.
Swarms of bees are scary. You've probably seen one. They are also relatively harmless -- bees in swarming mode are not grumpy, not out to sting you, they've filled up on honey which actually makes it physically difficult for them to sting anyway, and mostly they just want to find somewhere new to live.
I prepared an empty hive. I put a couple of frames of honey into it from a hive that could afford to lost them.
Then, with two friends (Hans, who cut down the tree, after we decided it was just too high for ladders, and author Kelly McCullough, who saw me tweeting about it and decided that giving a swarm a home would be more fun than writing or revising that afternoon) we made it happen.
Hans cut down the tree (a good thing, because Buckthorn is a bad thing). Kelly helped and suggested I sing the Winnie the Pooh "I'm just a little black rain cloud" song, in case it helped. I did. It did. . I caught the swarm in a cardboard box as it fell, and Kelly and I transported it to its new home, poured in the bees.
While I was fairly certain we had not lost the queen when the tree fell, I also put a frame of brood from the Russian hive in, with a couple of queen cells (they are much bigger than usual bee-larva cells, and look like peanuts) ready to hatch on it. If a queen in a hive hears another queen about to hatch, she simply heads over and stings it. If she's not there to sting it, it hatches and the hive has a new queen.)
The dogs sat the whole thing out. They've had experiences with bees in the past.
It wasn't the piece I originally wrote, though, which was a short story. Or rather, it was the piece I originally wrote. Ira Glass wasn't sure about the personal one, when I sent it over, and wanted a short story, so I wrote a short story instead, but the producers preferred the personal memoir, and outvoted him, so that was what I recorded.
Ira Glass still liked the short story, and mentioned to Dave Eggars that I had a short story that he liked that nobody had read, and Dave Eggars wrote to my agent and asked if he could read it for McSweeneys, and I was happy that it wasn't going to be completely forgotten forever (I'd already forgotten it existed, and hadn't given it to anyone or submitted it anywhere, so it was just sitting getting dusty on a hard drive somewhere). I wasn't sure if it was any good, and had to be nudged by Dave several times to send it. It was called Adventure Story.
Having emailled it to Dave I forgot about it again. And then, in the post, this arrived:
I read the story, a little nervously, now it was printed, and thought, and it's good.
It's a great issue of McSweeney's. The Jason Jagel comic insert, Topsy Turvy, is wonderful, the collected writing is, as always, excellent, varied, powerful (the book 2 account of a week in Rwanda; the writing that inspired the Egyptian uprising...). Beautiful production values.
You can get a copy of it at McSweeneys: https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/mcsweeneys-issue-40
I'm really happy and proud and thrilled to be in it. Thank you, Ira Glass.
...
Do you prefer a book that makes you laugh or makes you cry? One that teaches you something or one that distracts you?
Yes.
Wait, do you think those things are exclusive? That books can only be one or the other? I would rather read a book with all of those things in it: a laughing, crying, educating, distracting book. And I would like more than that, the kind of book where the pages groan under the weight of keeping all such opposites apart.
You can read the rest of it at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/books/review/neil-gaiman-shares-his-reading-habits.html?_r=2&ref=books&pagewanted=all
...
Amanda's Kickstarter has been an enormous success -- currently it's the most successful music Kickstarter ever. In six days it has got over 10,000 supporters and has raised over $555,000 towards putting out the CD and book and taking the band on a world tour.
She wrote about it on techdirt..
There's a great story about how bamboo grows. A farmer plants a bamboo shoot underground, and waters and tends it for about three years. Nothing grows that's visible, but the farmer trots out there, tending to this invisible thing with a certain amount of faith that things are going to work out. When the bamboo finally appears above ground, it can shoot up to thirty feet in a month. This is like my kickstarter campaign. The numbers aren't shocking to me, not at all. I set the goal for the kickstarter at $100,000 hoping we'd make it quickly, and hoping we'd surpass it by a long-shot.
I've been tending this bamboo forest of fans for years and years, ever since leaving roadrunner records in 2009. Every person I talk to at a signing, every exchange I have online (sometimes dozens a day), every random music video or art gallery link sent to me by a fan that i curiously follow, every strange bed I've crashed on...all of that real human connecting has led to this moment, where I came back around, asking for direct help with a record. Asking EVERYBODY. Asking my poor fans to give a dollar, or if nothing else, to spread the link; asking my rich fans to loan me money at whatever level they can afford to miss it for a while....
And they help because they know I'm good for it. Because they KNOW me.
I went to Chicago and delivered this year's annual Zena Sutherland lecture. Zena was an editor, a reviewer and an influential figure in the world of children's books. I wish I'd known her - everyone who had known her described her as "a pistol!" and they all talked about her in ways that made me so very proud to be this year's lecturer. (Here's an online obituary.)
(The first Zena Sutherland lecture was delivered by Maurice Sendak. The second by Lloyd Alexander. Yes, I was very intimidated.)
My lecture was called
“What the @#$%&*! Is a Children's Book, Anyway?”
which I mostly pronounced "What the [very bad swearword] is a children's book anyway?" when I read it onstage. I got to say things like...
Children
are a relatively powerless minority, and, like all oppressed people,
they know more about their oppressors than their oppressors know
about them. Information is currency, and information that will allow
you to decode the language, motivations and behaviour of the
occupying forces, on whom you are uniquely dependent for food, for
warmth, for happiness, is the most valuable information of all.
Children
are extremely interested in adult behaviour. They want to know about
us.
Their
interest in the precise mechanics of peculiarly adult behaviour is
limited. All too often it seems repellent, or dull. A drunk on the
pavement is something you do not need to see, and part of a world you
do not wish to be part of, so you look away.
Children
are very good at looking away.
...along with the story of how I was very nearly expelled from school, at the age of eight, for telling a classmate a dirty joke I'd heard from some kids on the walk home, and a lot of pondering about what children read and why and how authors can figure out whether or not they are writing a book for children or adults.
It'll be published in The Horn Book in the autumn.
...
And by now you are undoubtedly thinking, what an exciting week. And you would be right. This was the most exciting week ever. Because...
I hived a swarm!
I walked the dogs in the woods. I heard something buzzing gently, and it seemed to be a tree. I looked closer... It was a swarm of bees high in a buckthorn tree...
Now, when a hive gets overcrowded, or just feels the time has come, the bees swarm. Three quarters of the hive, along with the queen, take off to find a new home, leaving the remaining bees behind to raise a new queen in the old location.
Swarms of bees are scary. You've probably seen one. They are also relatively harmless -- bees in swarming mode are not grumpy, not out to sting you, they've filled up on honey which actually makes it physically difficult for them to sting anyway, and mostly they just want to find somewhere new to live.
I prepared an empty hive. I put a couple of frames of honey into it from a hive that could afford to lost them.
(This is Hans, He is like a midwestern, less Jewish, less orange-rocky Ben Grimm.)
Hans cut down the tree (a good thing, because Buckthorn is a bad thing). Kelly helped and suggested I sing the Winnie the Pooh "I'm just a little black rain cloud" song, in case it helped. I did. It did. . I caught the swarm in a cardboard box as it fell, and Kelly and I transported it to its new home, poured in the bees.
While I was fairly certain we had not lost the queen when the tree fell, I also put a frame of brood from the Russian hive in, with a couple of queen cells (they are much bigger than usual bee-larva cells, and look like peanuts) ready to hatch on it. If a queen in a hive hears another queen about to hatch, she simply heads over and stings it. If she's not there to sting it, it hatches and the hive has a new queen.)
(Panoramic photo magic: here is Kelly on both sides of the swarm's new home at once.)
Labels: amanda palmer, bamboo, bees, in which the dogs are sensible for once, McSweeneys, new york times article, swarm
Happy Birthday Amanda, and the Future of Music
This makes me so happy:
It's such a sweet, funny video. Even if you have no interest in my wife or what she does, you should click on it and watch it.
Her Kickstarter went live at 7 this morning, and it's already 93% funded, mostly so far by people who are using it to pre-order the limited edition version of the CD. (Given the number of people who seem sad that they did not use Kickstarter to order an EVENING WITH NEIL GAIMAN AND AMANDA PALMER CD - which turned out, given the amount of money the Kickstarter raised, to be a 3CD set with a special, will-never-be-for-sale bonus extra CD as well -- I am not at all surprised that people are buying. I love the way that Kickstarter allows people both to be patrons of the arts and to directly support the creation and manufacture of the thing they want, cutting out the middlemen.)
And it's her birthday today too.
Last night I saw some students at Harvard perform an immersive dance piece inspired by The Graveyard Book, and it was one of the sweetest, most haunting, life affirming things I've attended, and a wonderful way into her birthday.
Today, we're taking a quiet day together. In a few minutes we'll wander out and get some juice and walk in the sunshine.
I'm writing a speech I will be delivering in Chicago next week, with the working title of "What the [very bad swearword] is a Children's Book anyway?" It's about, well, what Children's fiction is, something the book I'm writing right now has me thinking about all the time. It has a seven year old hero, and magic, and terror, but it doesn't feel like a kids' book, and the attitudes and content are profoundly adult.
Anyway. So much to catch up on here. I hope you enjoyed the Stephen King interview.
Labels: amanda palmer, birthdays, dancing the macabray, Kickstarter, What children like
America Will Eat you
Hullo everybody
I'm off in hiding, writing. It's good. I did a road trip to get here - I stopped in New Orleans and got an extreme haircut and a hot towel shave. Last time I went off into hiding to write a novel I let my hair and beard grow, and I didn't want to repeat myself. I look... odd, I think. But I feel like I'm in disguise, which is an excellent feeling for an author to have.
I got to my hideout, which is the house where I started writing American Gods a dozen years ago, then drove three and half hours to see my cousin Helen and her husband Sidney. (Helen's mother and my great-grandfather were brother and sister.) They are 94 and 90 respectively. (Helen told Sidney she was four years younger than she was, claiming back her years during World War II, where she survived the Warsaw Ghetto and worse, and only told him how old she really was forty years later, when her older sister, Wanda, died. If you have three hours, watch this YouTube video, done for the Shoah project.) Then I drove home, to the place I'm staying.
I spent yesterday not doing much of anything - recovering from the drive, getting settled in. Today, however, I'm writing.
Do not expect much in the way of blogging while I'm writing.
Here are two fun things...
The first is an awards acceptance speech I filmed for SFX. They gave me an award for Screenwriting Excellence for my Doctor Who episode The Doctor's Wife. I tried to give the kind of measured and well-thought-out speech that an occasion like this demanded.
I'm off in hiding, writing. It's good. I did a road trip to get here - I stopped in New Orleans and got an extreme haircut and a hot towel shave. Last time I went off into hiding to write a novel I let my hair and beard grow, and I didn't want to repeat myself. I look... odd, I think. But I feel like I'm in disguise, which is an excellent feeling for an author to have.
I got to my hideout, which is the house where I started writing American Gods a dozen years ago, then drove three and half hours to see my cousin Helen and her husband Sidney. (Helen's mother and my great-grandfather were brother and sister.) They are 94 and 90 respectively. (Helen told Sidney she was four years younger than she was, claiming back her years during World War II, where she survived the Warsaw Ghetto and worse, and only told him how old she really was forty years later, when her older sister, Wanda, died. If you have three hours, watch this YouTube video, done for the Shoah project.) Then I drove home, to the place I'm staying.
I spent yesterday not doing much of anything - recovering from the drive, getting settled in. Today, however, I'm writing.
Do not expect much in the way of blogging while I'm writing.
Here are two fun things...
The first is an awards acceptance speech I filmed for SFX. They gave me an award for Screenwriting Excellence for my Doctor Who episode The Doctor's Wife. I tried to give the kind of measured and well-thought-out speech that an occasion like this demanded.
The second is that if you go to this Audible link you can listen to the newest in my Neil Gaiman Presents audio series at Audible.com, The Adventures of Doctor Eszterhazy. Seventeen hours of glorious, funny, profound and delightful stories about Dr Englebert Eszterhazy, who Sherlocks his way through some remarkable stories in an Eastern European Balkan Empire.
And this is something Amanda just sent me... it's the video done for her cover of Nirvana's "Polly", done for a Nevermind tribute album. Scary, grueling, ultimately triumphant, based on a true story.
Labels: amanda palmer, Avram Davidson's Adventures In Unhistory, Doctor Eszterhazy, Helen Fagin, Hiding, running and screaming really loudly, Writing again
It's beginning to look a lot like a Christmas Card out there
I went to Chicago on Friday and took part in the recording of the "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me... Royal Pain In The Year" 2011 Special. It airs on BBC America (TV) and on Public Radio on December the 23rd. I was the "Not my job" guest, and answered three questions. Whether or not I got any of them right, you will have to wait until the 23rd to find out.
There's a conversation between Shaun Tan and me in the Guardian right now, and it's fun. We talk about art and suchlike. In the photo above we were standing behind the Edinburgh Book Festival authors' yurt taking it in turns to point at imaginary interesting things.
It's at http://www.postwartrade.com/neil.html and consists of a T shirt, a poster, a beautiful huge arty high-end photograph, and a tote bag. All of them except the photo are the beautiful Cynthia von Buehler image above. If you buy over $100 worth Amanda will write a thank you card to you, but today is the last day of Cards. (If you missed the Xmas cards deadline, you can still buy the stuff.)
...
Over at Kitty's Neverwear site, the cool NEW thing she has for the holidays is this:
It's my Rhysling Award-nominated poem "Conjunctions", here illustrated by wonderful Finnish artist Jouni Koponen, who did the amazing "Day The Saucers Came" poster, and it is for sale at this page. (There's an article by Kitty there about the poem too.)
Lots of other amazing treasures, posters, t-shirts, prints, and suchlike, at Neverwear: http://neverwear.net/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=4 will show you the prints that are currently available.
...
You can give Audiobooks as a gift. Honest, go and visit Neil Gaiman Presents. because you might know someone who wants to listen to Swordspoint, or Land of Laughs, or Pavane... It's the green "Give as a gift" button over on the right. And of course, they're also available in iTunes.
...
And, for person who has everything, I'm not sure that I've mentioned on this blog that Absolute Sandman Volume 5 is now out.
It contains Endless Nights, The Dream Hunters, the P. Craig Russell Dream Hunters, and strange small uncollected things that we'd forgotten about when we did the first four Absolutes that people then wrote here to remind me about.
...
On December 28th, I'll be doing An Evening With Neil Gaiman in Sydney, NSW. Special Guests, the FourPlay string quartet.
Date and venue and all information will be in the next blog. Keep the date free.
...
And finally, on Dec 31st in Melbourne, Amanda Palmer is having a mammoth musical New Year's Party and Masquerade. I'm hosting it with her, and I will be reading things, and there will be music and guests -- including The Danger Ensemble, Marieke Hardy, The Jane Austen Argument, The Bedroom Philosopher, Mikelangelo and Saint Clare, Lyndon 'Flaming Violin' Chester, Lance Horne "and another special guest so special we can't even announce her yet."
It's a limited ticket, one-off event, with regular tickets, VIP tickets (VIPs get STUFF) and all sorts of strangeness.
Tickets are at http://revoltproductions.com/melbourneevents/byevent/NYE1 If you're in Melbourne and over 18, I hope I'll see you there. It should be unlike anything else.
There's a conversation between Shaun Tan and me in the Guardian right now, and it's fun. We talk about art and suchlike. In the photo above we were standing behind the Edinburgh Book Festival authors' yurt taking it in turns to point at imaginary interesting things.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/02/neil-gaiman-shaun-tan-interview
In it we learn that a new biography of Kurt Vonnegut "undermines his warm, grandfatherly image".
I read this and thought, I'm going mad. Who on Earth could read a Vonnegut book and think that he was a grandfatherly bundle of warm fuzzy happiness? I mean, I read Vonnegut first as a ten year old, and it was shocking because he could joke in the face of such blackness and bleakness, and I'd never seen an author do that before. Everything was pointless, except, possibly, a few moments of love snatched from the darkness, a few moments in which we connect, or fail to.
"Warm humour and homespun Midwestern wisdom"? Bizarre. I bet it was either written from a press release, or by someone who'd never read any Vonnegut.
Signed, the man who wrote the Introduction to Vonnegut's "God Bless You Dr Kevorkian"
...
It snowed yesterday night, and today the world looks like it only looks here once a year. Fresh snow, for the first time, makes the world look like a Christmas Card.
And I thought, Oh bugger. Holidays. Gifts. I should do a useful blog about that. So...
Tomorrow is the cut off-deadline for the CBLDF's "Spirit of Giving" campaign. If you want a signed book from any one of 25 creators, order quickly: http://cbldf.org/homepage/cbldf-cyber-monday-25-amazing-graphic-novelists-personalize-your-gifts-in-the-spirit-of-giving/
ST: I don't know about you but when someone first mentions an adaptation, I have, probably a little bit inappropriately, a feeling of weariness at revisiting that work after I'd struggled with it for so many months or years. But then the second thought is "Wow, what a great opportunity to fix up all those dodgy bits."
NG: It's so nice to hear you say that. Somebody asked me recently if I plot ahead of time. I said yes I do, but there is always so much room for surprise and definitely points where I don't know what's going to happen. They quoted somebody who had said: "All writers who say that they do not know what's going to happen are liars, would you believe someone who started an anecdote without knowing where it was going?" I thought, but I don't start an anecdote to find out what I think about something, I start an anecdote to say this interesting thing happened to me. Whereas I'll start any piece of art to find out what I think about something.
ST: Exactly.
NG: I'm going to learn something I didn't know when I began. I'm going to discover how I feel and what I think about it during the process. I will break off little bits of my head and they will become characters and things will happen and they will talk to each other.
ST: Exactly, creating a character is like impersonating another being, so that you can find out what you think about something. You really find out what your style is when you diversify – setting something in a fictional landscape, the far future or distant past. A lot of people think of style or personality in terms of things you do often, but it's not really. It's what you do under duress, or outside of yourself. I don't feel I know myself really well because – again it's that emotional thing – sometimes I feel a little embarrassed by the amount of emotion that comes out in a story. I don't realise that there's so much of it locked up or in denial and then it comes out in the process of doing this conscious dreaming exercise.
Big thumbs up on that.
Baffled, however, by this article on Kurt Vonnegut at Guardian Books, which seems as wrongheaded as an article can be.
In it we learn that a new biography of Kurt Vonnegut "undermines his warm, grandfatherly image".
"A new biography of acclaimed American author Kurt Vonnegut, beloved by fans worldwide for his work's warm humour and homespun Midwestern wisdom, has shocked many with a portrayal of a bitter, angry man prone to depression and fits of temper.
The book on Vonnegut, who died in 2007, lifts the lid on the writer's private life, revealing a man far removed from the grandfather-like public figure his millions of devotees adored."
I read this and thought, I'm going mad. Who on Earth could read a Vonnegut book and think that he was a grandfatherly bundle of warm fuzzy happiness? I mean, I read Vonnegut first as a ten year old, and it was shocking because he could joke in the face of such blackness and bleakness, and I'd never seen an author do that before. Everything was pointless, except, possibly, a few moments of love snatched from the darkness, a few moments in which we connect, or fail to.
"Warm humour and homespun Midwestern wisdom"? Bizarre. I bet it was either written from a press release, or by someone who'd never read any Vonnegut.
Signed, the man who wrote the Introduction to Vonnegut's "God Bless You Dr Kevorkian"
...
It snowed yesterday night, and today the world looks like it only looks here once a year. Fresh snow, for the first time, makes the world look like a Christmas Card.
And I thought, Oh bugger. Holidays. Gifts. I should do a useful blog about that. So...
It's also the last day for Amanda Palmer signed Xmas card for orders from http://postwartrade.com/ over $100, which I mention as they now have a page of stuff from the Evening With Neil and Amanda tour - a limited amount, as it's the leftover merchandise, and when it's gone it will be very gone.
It's at http://www.postwartrade.com/neil.html and consists of a T shirt, a poster, a beautiful huge arty high-end photograph, and a tote bag. All of them except the photo are the beautiful Cynthia von Buehler image above. If you buy over $100 worth Amanda will write a thank you card to you, but today is the last day of Cards. (If you missed the Xmas cards deadline, you can still buy the stuff.)
...
Over at Kitty's Neverwear site, the cool NEW thing she has for the holidays is this:
It's my Rhysling Award-nominated poem "Conjunctions", here illustrated by wonderful Finnish artist Jouni Koponen, who did the amazing "Day The Saucers Came" poster, and it is for sale at this page. (There's an article by Kitty there about the poem too.)
Lots of other amazing treasures, posters, t-shirts, prints, and suchlike, at Neverwear: http://neverwear.net/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=4 will show you the prints that are currently available.
...
You can give Audiobooks as a gift. Honest, go and visit Neil Gaiman Presents. because you might know someone who wants to listen to Swordspoint, or Land of Laughs, or Pavane... It's the green "Give as a gift" button over on the right. And of course, they're also available in iTunes.
...
And, for person who has everything, I'm not sure that I've mentioned on this blog that Absolute Sandman Volume 5 is now out.
It contains Endless Nights, The Dream Hunters, the P. Craig Russell Dream Hunters, and strange small uncollected things that we'd forgotten about when we did the first four Absolutes that people then wrote here to remind me about.
...
On December 28th, I'll be doing An Evening With Neil Gaiman in Sydney, NSW. Special Guests, the FourPlay string quartet.
Date and venue and all information will be in the next blog. Keep the date free.
...
And finally, on Dec 31st in Melbourne, Amanda Palmer is having a mammoth musical New Year's Party and Masquerade. I'm hosting it with her, and I will be reading things, and there will be music and guests -- including The Danger Ensemble, Marieke Hardy, The Jane Austen Argument, The Bedroom Philosopher, Mikelangelo and Saint Clare, Lyndon 'Flaming Violin' Chester, Lance Horne "and another special guest so special we can't even announce her yet."
It's a limited ticket, one-off event, with regular tickets, VIP tickets (VIPs get STUFF) and all sorts of strangeness.
Tickets are at http://revoltproductions.com/melbourneevents/byevent/NYE1 If you're in Melbourne and over 18, I hope I'll see you there. It should be unlike anything else.
Labels: absolute Sandman, amanda palmer, Conjunctions, Kurt Vonnegut, Melbourne New Year's Eve, shaun tan, Wait Wait