Over the last 15 months I've got dozens of messages like this (picks one):
Hello, I recently heard your interview with NPR and just fell in love with the banjo version of Danse Macabre. I thought it was very clever and I wanted to be able to listen to it in it's entirety. I've looked and there doesn't seem to be a version that I can download via itunes or the like. If there are plans to release it, please let me know. Otherwise, I was hoping that I could get the track from either you or Bela Fleck. Please let me know. Looking forward to The Graveyard Book! Glenn
So I am delighted to announce that banjo king Bela Fleck has put the wonderful version of the Danse Macabre he did (with Ben Sollee on cello) for The Graveyard Book up on iTunes. Available for download at 99 cents. (I don't know whether there are any country limits on this, but there shouldn't be.)
Got to Cornwall about 4:30 am (I slept for an hour or so in the car, then read a script). Dropped off by car and driver at hotel. Glad to see someone up and about to check me in. Take my bags to front desk, tip driver handsomely. Driver drives away. Night-porter slowly establishes that I'm not actually staying in that hotel, but another several miles away, and that driver was a bit overenthusiastic in dropping me off at hotel. Also that you can't get a taxi in rural Cornwall at five in the morning so I am stuck there. I sit in the lobby and write Batman. Somehow, in my jet-lagged state, this all seems quite normal.
My cellphones do not work in this town, and they are out of charge to boot.
After three quarters of an hour the night porter turns up and takes me to a hotel room, magicked into existence just for me, and everything is suddenly wonderful. I sleep for six hours, have a long bath and then go down to see my friends who are having a joint 50th birthday.
I eat the best Cornish pasty I've ever had for breakfast, and wash it down with cider (the alcoholic sort that doesn't taste even faintly alcoholic, so be wary) and listen to the seagulls and am happy. Also run into several old friends, which is good.
Am now in the hotel office, as my room doesn't quite reach the internet.
Lots of people have written in to ask about the Bela Fleck recording of the Danse Macabre that he did for The Graveyard Book.
(It was the musical piece that preceded Bill Hader's lovely "Vincent Price", for those of you who were at any of the readings.) It's on the audio book of The Graveyard Book --the one you'd buy at iTunes or on CD.
Some people asked about the cellist playing with him; others wanted to know if it would be available as a separate download. According to Mr Fleck: The cellist is Ben Sollee, a great young player from Louisville.
There are no plans to do anything else with it at my end, because it's Bela's music and he recorded it, and if anyone's going to put it up for download or something I think it ought to be him, not me. Bela Fleck's website is http://www.belafleck.com/. (I love this blog. I sigh that it would be lovely to have a Danse Macabre on banjo, and the best banjo player in the known universe reads it, writes in to ask if I'd be interested, and then records it and it's even better than it was my head when I suggested it. I mean, honestly, how cool is that?)
Here's the magical audio widget, for any of you who would like to hear some of it...
In most states, the deadline to register to vote by mail has just passed (see http://www.eac.gov/voter/docs/state-reg-deadlines.xls/attachment_download/file) but it's yet to come in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho* (mail-in today!), Iowa*, Kansas, Maine*, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota*, Nebraska, Nevada (mail-in has passed but you can still walk in and register), New Hampshire*, New Jersey, New York (today!), North Carolina (mail-in today or at one-stop stations until Nov 1), Oklahoma (mail-in today!), Oregon, South Dakota, Utah (walk-in), Vermont, Washington (walk-in), West Virginia, Wisconsin*, and Guam.
*in starred states you can also register on election day, if you miss the mail-in deadline, which is also true for Montana and Wyoming, whose mail-in deadline has passed. North Dakota does not have voter registration, according to that reference, so I guess North Dakotans just walk in and vote.
Please consider helping the votor registration effort with such a post on your blog.
