On New Year's Eve Where I Am.

How on earth did that happen? I promised a blog tomorrow, and that was over a week ago. I wrote an essay, and I wrote a short story, and I went to Sydney and did a reading with a string quartet, but I didn't blog. And now I'm sitting backstage at Revolt in Melbourne preparing for a New Year's Eve Party- Masquerade-thing and I missed my blog. So while there is wireless, there is hope, and I am writing this.

Many exciting and wonderful things have happened in the time that I have been not-blogging. For example, I was quoted by Tom Stoppard.

My story "A Case of Death and Honey" from A Study in Sherlock and the upcoming Jonathan Strahan edited anthology Best SF and Fantasy of the Year Volume 6 was written about on the Tor.com website in a way that made me happy. Short story writing is a lot like Don Marquis's description of poetry writing as flinging rose petals into the Grand Canyon and listening for the boom. Normally there is silence, so even a little response to a short story is a good thing for an author. You can read the Tor.com piece, by Niall Alexander, at http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/12/the-adventure-of-the-devils-foot-neil-gaiman-and-the-great-detective.

The first volume of Les Klinger's remarkable four volume Annotated Sandman comes out in a couple of weeks: reserve your copies from your local comic store or bookshop now.

Here's a great article about Allegra Rosenberg, who makes Time Lord Rock in Chicago. She's sixteen, although I said she was fifteen when I introduced her from the stage when I was doing the Not My Job quiz on "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me".

And you can listen to the Wait Wait interview at http://www.npr.org/2011/12/24/144146842/author-neil-gaiman-plays-not-my-job. (You can read it there, too. But listen to it, don't read it.) I can't embed it.

However, the recent Symphony Space SELECTED SHORTS is embeddable, and I have embedded it. It has me reading "Troll Bridge" along with one of my favourite Jorge Luis Borges stories, "The Circular Ruins".

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I was about to tell you about M. John Harrison's Viriconium sequence being available on Neil Gaiman Presents as a beautiful audiobook. I want to do a whole post about that in the next couple of days, though. So for now, go and investigate if you wish to get ahead: www.audible.com/pd?asin=B006L88VMY&source_code=NGAOR0002WS101911
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I had a marvellous time with the FourPlay String Quartet in Sydney a few days ago. Flew home and went straight to the Melbourne City Library where Amanda and I read (me) and sang (her). We'd announced that we'd be there on Twitter just before my plane took off, and about four hundred people showed up.

Melbourne City Library is amazing. It has a piano, and librarians so nice and creative I wanted to take them on the road with me. We'd be Neil Gaiman and his posse of travelling librarians.

I love this photo of me, eyes closed, listening to Amanda play:

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Talking about good photographs...

It's from photographer  Rasmus Rasmussen's website at http://rasmusrasmussen.com/2011/12/29/webley-palmer-and-gaiman-aka-favorite-photo-of-2011/ 

He says,

Throughout any given year I shoot thousands of photos, so when I was recently asked which one was my personal favorite of 2011, I had a difficult time answering. However, when thinking about it over a couple of days, the one above kept jumping out at me.
On 11-11-11 I documented Jason Webley‘s concert at The Moore in Seattle. That was where I caught this moment in time. Webley is talking about the virtues of love, while Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer sit together behind him, listening. 

There is a love story there, and it starts with a look of genuine happiness on Jason Webley’s face, as he looks up into the light, sharing his joy with (and for) the audience. Amanda Palmer represents that audience to me, relaxed, attentive and having a good time, and Neil Gaiman ties the story together, looking down at his wife with complete adoration and a smile that says simply: “I Love You.” 

There is enough intimacy in this photo, that I felt a little like a peeping tom as I put it through post processing, like I was crashing a private party. I actually had to remind myself that it was taken at a public event. That is why this is my favorite photo of 2011. It makes me feel like giving my wife a kiss, putting on some good music and take pleasure in the little things in life.

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And for New Year's Messages... I have to write one for tonight in Melbourne as soon as I finish this.

It has to be as good as the ones I've written for this blog, over the years. Normally I don't stop and think. I just write what I'd want in the coming year, and hope that other people would want that too.

Someone just turned one of them into a poster:

And here's a mash-up of a couple of them, delivered from the stage in Boston, two years ago today...

Labels: annotations, fourplay, I want a posse of Travelling Librarians, In Australia they run out of 2011 early, Jason Webley, Selected Shorts, Sherlock Holmesery, Tom Stoppard, Wait Wait

Something really cool. Read this one.

This morning's meeting just got out early, so I have time to Blog a little. As Maddy says, W00t.

I'm in New York right now, having meetings from dawn until long after dusk on all manner of things, including a movie adaptation someone cool wants to do of one of my short stories, some people who want to adapt a novel as a musical. I recorded some Public Service Announcements for National Library Week. Lots of finding out what's going to happen now Marvel owns Marvelman (more information when I am at liberty to talk). Had an Annotated Sandman discussion. Saw conjoined twin sisters Evelyn and Evelyn play their debut gig (Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley are presenting them to the world. They are very shy).

Tomorrow morning is the first PETER AND THE WOLF rehearsal. Very happy and a bit nervous about it (it'll be on Saturday Night in New York. Details are at this link.)

Saturday, January 16, 2010
7:00 pm
WFC Winter Garden

Lower Manhattan’s own professional classical music ensemble, The Knickerbocker Chamber Orchestra, continues its second season with a new twist on a classic work and a world premiere! Sergei Prokofiev’s children’s classic, Peter and The Wolf, is given new life when special guest Neil Gaiman, winner of the 2009 Newbery Award and author of Coraline, narrates this tale.

The evening proceeds with the world premiere of And Bold To Fall Withal – Henry Hudson In The New World composed by Gary S. Fagin for tenor and chamber orchestra. The work celebrates the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's sail into New York Harbor and features Jason Danieley who was described by The New York Times as "the most exquisite tenor on Broadway."

It's in the New York Times. It lasts an hour. It's free. See you there?

Most exciting news was an email from The House on the Rock. Now The House on the Rock is a real place about an hour west of Madison Wi, that I write about in American Gods, and I had to tone down my description of it and leave things out in the book in order to make it believable.

It's a monument to kitsch and wonder and madness and uncertainty. It contains the largest carousel in the world, which nobody ever gets to ride (although people ride it in the book. It takes them somewhere). I know that people read American Gods and then visit the House on the Rock, because they tell me at signings and in email, and it looks like the House on the Rock has noticed this too.

Tom Kupsh at the House on the Rock suggested some kind of event for fans. I asked what he had in mind, and this is what I got back:

Here are the ideas we have so far:

--Although the tenth anniversary of publication is 2011, we would like to do something this year (and maybe next year as well). We would like to do this over the Halloween weekend--perhaps a three day event.

--I suggest you go to our web site at thehouseontherock.com and see the facilities that we have at the three sites. We have a limited number of rooms--about 200; there are a great number of rooms available within easy driving distance. We also have some conference rooms available and are accoustomed to handling large groups.

--We are working on a way to allow a limited number of guests to ride the carousel.

--We want the fans of American Gods to give us their ideas about what the weekend should be.

--We want all the suggestions, ideas and guidance we can get from your end.

--Most of all, we want you to come and celebrate with us.

If you're interested and you have ideas then send them to me through the FAQ line and I'll make sure they get to Tom. What kinds of talks or panels (for example) would you like to attend? Or give? Do you want to dress up as American Gods characters? (I don't think I've ever seen any American Gods COSplay.) Do you want... well, I don't know what you want. But if you tell me, I'll tell Tom.

I'm pretty sure it'll be one hell of a Hallowe'en.

Labels: annotations, Marvelman, Peter and the Wolf, The House on the Rock

a few final copyright thoughts before we leave the subject entirely

I ought to be proofreading The Graveyard Book. I used to love proofreading, but that was many a year ago now, especially as I have both the US and the UK versions to proof, so anything one of them picks up I have to consider for the other, and I have to read both versions back to back, not because they are different but to see what the copy editors did on different sides of the Atlantic. (Shakes head, ruefully...)

The May event at MIT isn't sold out, it's just the tickets were offered to MIT students/staff first. This according to friends of mine at Pandemonium and The Million Year Picnic, both of which are now selling tickets.

A quick Google gave me http://community.livejournal.com/millionyear/33091.html
with lots of information on the MIT event.

If you want to call to reserve tickets (617-492-6763), you must pick them up within 48 hours. No call-in reservations for tickets after May 14th. Four tickets maximum.

I've noticed you're on the speakers' list for the Children's Book Council Australia's conference in May. I was just curious if you'll have time to do a signing in between your two gigs.

If not at the CBCA, do you have plans to do one while in Melbourne this time around at all?

Thanks in advance

-S

If you click on WHERE'S NEIL it will take you to http://www.neilgaiman.com/where/ and you will learn about the three Melbourne, two Sydney and one Hobart events next week. And to answer some other frequently received questions, I do know that it's been twelve years since I was in Perth and a decade since I signed any books in New Zealand, yes. I am also aware that it is unfair on the people in Brisbane and Adelaide that I'm not signing there, and it's even harder on the people in Canberra because, having only one body and two potential locations it could be in, I picked Hobart (where I had not been for a decade) rather than Canberra (where I was in July 2005).

I am compelled, after reading your thoughts on the JK Rowling Lexicon case, to try to sort out in my head if it bears resemblance to your dealings with certain characters you created for MacFarlane's Spawn series. Obviously the cases are different, but I see vague similarities.

While it (the lexicon) existed only on his website, and no one was profiting from it, then I see no issue naturally. The minute it gets published in book form, he stands to make oodles of money from it. Let's face facts here, people would buy it in droves. In that case I feel that he either HAS her permission to do so, or does not. If he does not (which clearly he doesn't), then does it not put him in the wrong? Does he not require her permission to make money with characters and places and ideas she created? Should he not have approached her perhaps to begin with?


I just saw these vague similarities. I realize he is not taking the created characters and making new stories with then (ALA MacFarlane was doing), and taking credit.......it just seems wrong to me. If it's a poorly done book, then that reflects on, not only her, but her world as well doesn't it?


They're similar only, I suspect in that at the end of the day they aren't about the things that people (including the people who were involved in the litigation) thought they were about. I thought the McFarlane case was all about Creators' Rights, and trying to make Todd keep his promises, and his copyright filings claiming that he'd written the issues that I'd written, and all sorts of suchlike things. I think in Todd's mind it was all about proving that He Made His Rules And Was Really Tricky And Everybody had To Do What He Said, or something like that.

But really, in the end, in the appeal court, after the trial jury had delivered their verdict and I'd won all 17 counts on the case, it all came down mostly to this: does the clock start ticking on a copyright breach case when the breach is committed or when it's discovered. There's a three year statute of limitations on copyright claims. In 1996 Todd had filed his copyright claims , claiming to have written Spawn 9 and the Angela series, then three years later, in 1999, he let me know he wasn't going to honour any agreements he'd made with me for the stuff I'd created. Had my clock already run out? His lawyers were certain it had, and even some of my lawyers thought I was on shaky ground.

And the Posner legal decision at the Appeal was, essentially, nobody is expected to patrol the copyright office looking for breaches, and the clock only started ticking the moment I found out about it. (The whole Posner decision is up at http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/tmp/CR1FGCDA.pdf and is really pretty interesting reading.)

In the Time-Warner-Rowling-Vander Ark case it's not about "is he making money from her ideas?" or "will this stop fan websites?" or any of that stuff that people are talking about on line. It doesn't matter from a legal perspective that Ms Rowling was doing or planning her own encyclopedia, or that the money is going to charity, or any of that stuff, although I'm sure Ms Rowling feels it does (because I would, if I were her).

As far as I can see it's only about a couple of really grey areas of copyright law -- I suspect, and I am SO not a lawyer, that it will come down to whether or not what Mr Vander Ark had done to Ms Rowling's work in his Lexicon was sufficiently "transformative" as to render it a new work.

There's an online annotation of Sandman. If the people who did it -- or if someone else -- decided to publish it, I couldn't stop them even if I didn't want it to come out, even if Les Klinger had finally persuaded me to get DC Comics to let him do an official Annotated Sandman. (Someone asked when Les's Annotated Dracula comes out -- it'll be in October 2008.) That's because it's obviously a transformative work -- it's based on my work, but it springs off from it.

If someone did a website in which everything in Sandman is listed in alphabetical order, as a concordance or lexicon... whether or not I was going to do one doesn't matter. Whether or not someone else is making money off my work and words and ideas doesn't matter. Whether it's a good lexicon or a bad lexicon doesn't matter. Whether it quotes me extensively may or may not matter (how extensively I'm quoted is a matter of Fair Use, but paraphrase me and you are home and dry on that count). What matters is whether it sufficiently transforms what I've done into something else by taking those entries and putting them into alphabetical order. How much original work is being done? The King James Bible is in the public domain. If you made a lexicon or concordance of the King James Bible, listing every person and place mentioned in there, something that would take you a lot of time -- you could copyright it. If someone copied it -- simply took your King James Bible Lexicon book and put their name on it -- could you sue them? Should you?

And, personalities aside, and all the newspaper commentary and most of the bloggage and online opinions, that's the kind of thing that this case will come down to in the end.

Hi Neil,

Like yourself, I am a fan of Harlan Ellison. However, as a feminist, I get really sick and tired of Ellison's misogyny.

I was wondering how you reconcile the fact that Ellison is your friend and an awesome writer with the fact that he can be really sexist. I'm especially curious because you have two daughters. (And one that went to a women's college! I went to Mount Holyoke, myself.) What do you tell them when Ellison makes denigrating remarks about women? I sincerely hope that you do more than merely laugh it off and regard it as "Harlan being Harlan." Even though he's funny as Hell, his attitude is really damaging. Besides, relying on sexist humor is beneath him and I really don't understand why he does it. I dislike it when Ellison claims to use such humor in a reclaimatory way. He's a white man -- he cannot reclaim sexism on the behalf of women.

I appreciate you taking the time to answer my question.

Best,

Emily Neal


You know, in my presence over the years Harlan has made some astoundingly denigrating remarks about studio executives, the Walt Disney company, a number of restaurants we've eaten in, several eastern European publishers, food in England, the English (except -- possibly, sometimes -- for me and his wife), editors, other publishers, a (male) science fiction critic, television producers, Fantagraphics, friends of mine, movie producers... the list goes on and on. When Harlan's rude about my friends in my presence I tend to point out they're my friends and he's being a twit, and he either looks shamefaced or he tells me I'm an idiot for liking so many people. There are lots of people, and some classes of people, like studio accountants, that Harlan has been less than civil about. I don't ever remember "women" as a class being on the list. (I remember him once being extremely rude about a female studio head, but that was in her role as a studio head, not in her capacity as a woman.) Which means I read your letter and I'm as puzzled as if it were asking how I can stand Harlan's attacks on people of colour, or the left-handed, or jazz musicians.

As for "Harlan being Harlan," I'm reminded of what the producer of the documentary Dreams With Sharp Teeth, Erik Nelson, said, when I told him that I thought the film was unbalanced, and he should interview some of Harlan's enemies. He said, "That's what Harlan said. I told him, 'Harlan, you're your own worst enemy'."

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Off to Australia on Saturday...

Labels: annotations, australia, copy editing, copyright, Harlan Ellison

American Gods Blog, Post 77

Strangely enough, I just realised that the last two posts haven't published, although Blogger obviously thinks they did. (note added later. They have now.)

Up early this morning to put comments on a zip disk filled with photos, going off to the neilgaiman.com site people. I don't yet have much of a sense of what they're doing or putting up, but we can modify it as we go. Yes, this journal will stay alive through the tour (for a start, it may be the easiest way to let people know what's happening in case of any sudden changes), and I expect it'll stay here and we'll link to it from neilgaiman.com...

Cheryl Morgan, who does a zine called Emerald City, e-mailed me her review of American Gods, which made me very happy, not because it was a good review (which it was, in both senses, favourable and well-written) but because Cheryl had clearly read the same book that I was trying to write. (As perhaps opposed to a recent interviewer, who kicked off with "Well, I've read your book. You must really hate America, huh?")

....

To summarise yesterday's lost annotation blog -- I want to make a space on neilgaiman.com where there can be, if people have any interest in doing it, annotations of American Gods. Partly because I'm sure that people will enjoy sharing knowledge ("Actually, both the Burma Shave ads Gaiman quotes are invented, and the Largest Carousel in the World does not play the Blue Danube Waltz..."), partly to help the Casual Reader ("Czernobog, also spelled Chernobog or Tcharnobog, was a dualistic slavic winter god now remembered chiefly for his appearance as the black winged thingie who appears in 'A Night on Bald Mountain' in the original Fantasia...") and partly as a help to translators around the world, who are good people with a thankless task, but who can sometimes get the wrong end of a stick, or just not know where to look for information.

(I saw a recent edition of Stardust -- and I will not embarrass anyone by saying from which country -- where "Redcap" was annotated as "Bow Street Runner, an early policeman" and "Unseelie Court" was demonstrated to be a nonsense word derived from the three English Words "Un" "See" and "Lie"; which showed me that the translator lacked a dictionary of fairies -- for a redcap is a rather nasty goblinish fellow, with teeth, while the Unseelie Court is the Court of all creatures of Faerie who are actively antipathetic to people, all the ogres and suchlike.)

Don't know whether we'll do it with a message board, an e-mail list, or an e-mail to a central e-mail address yet. I'll probably keep half an eye on it -- not to censor it (I have no problem with the 'Gaiman clearly has no idea how the internal combustion engine actually works, as what he describes here is impossible...' type posts) but just to make sure it doesn't contain information that is simply wrong. (Such things have been known. See "unseelie" above.)

Now to post this... and to hope it publishes...

Labels: American Gods, American Gods Blog, annotations, book reviews, Stardust