Tesla Coils, A Stardust Cover, A Sinister Photograph of Beautiful Women, and a small and unfortunate murder.

I'm home, after ten days in New York and Boston and Cape Cod. I've left Maddy behind in New York, where she is doing an internship before going off to college. Then I left Amanda behind in Boston, where she  is packing before she goes to France and Italy to do interviews about her new album before she flies to San Francisco for her art show and Kickstarter-backer concert.

It's a beautiful night. I'm told it was evilly hot while I was away, but it's glorious now, a night filled with fireflies, somewhat spoiled by Lola dashing off into the darkness while walking through a cornfield, and returning in triumph with a young raccoon she had just caught and killed.

Barnes and Noble have once more started to sell the Sandman graphic novels (along with the other DC Comics graphic novels they'd stopped selling) in their brick and mortar stores, so I am happy to link to them once again. I doubt either boycott actually did anything, but mine made me feel marginally empowered. Anyway, they are selling copies of STORIES, the anthology I edited with Al Sarrantonio, in hardback, for $2.99. (It contains my story "The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains", and many other wonderful stories by wonderful authors, and it won the Shirley Jackson award and the Locus award for Best Anthology.) I'm not sure how long they'll be selling them at that price.

Here's the video (via the Open Spark project "Your Music Played By Lightning") of the 8in8 song Nikola Tesla, words by yours truly, played on enormous Tesla Coils. It is impossible to describe the glorious nerdy rush of pride I felt looking at (and listening to) this.

Here's a fan-made-video of the song with lots of cardboard in it, and fewer giant electronic zaps...

There were many wonderful things on the kitchen table waiting for me, but my favourite was the mock-up of the new edition of Stardust.

There hasn't been a hardback of the prose-only version Stardust in print in the US for about 13 years. I'm not sure why not. Jennifer Brehl, my editor at William Morrow, talked to me about what I wanted to see in a book. I told her I wanted it to look and feel like something from 90 years ago, like the books I treasured as a kid that I found in the school library (the ones I'd buy for a penny in the school library sales, and loved ever after). Bless her, she got it. She took all my blathering and went off and has started making it into a book. 

She's commissioned Charles Vess (with permission from DC Comics) to do a frontispiece, an illustration and chapter headings for the new book.

The cover will look a lot like this.

And Charles just sent me a finished, painted illustration for it:

It will be really beautiful. There's a regular edition and there will also be a signed limited very fancy and quite expensive edition (Amazon's is the only link for the fancy edition I can see so far).

Here's an Indiebound link to the regular edition. A Barnes and Noble link to the regular edition.

...

Something else that was waiting for me when I got home was an envelope of photos from Lomo. I love my LCA+. I love the strange greens it produces when I use Agfa films. I love having forgotten what photographs I took, and then the delight of seeing them and of finding out what happened.

This is my favourite photo from the envelope, I think because it's faintly sinister: artist Cassandra Long and (coincidentally but delightfully) Lomography's online chief, Alexandra Klasinski, at Amanda's Brooklyn end-of-Kickstarter celebration party.

And finally, a thank you to Dan Guy, Webgoblin of this parish, who has taken blogger and this template and made it do things it was never meant to do, which should actually allow you to share it places across the web, in the way that people today like to do. (If you want to share it somewhere else, drop him a line at http://neilgaiman.com/feedback/ and ask...)

Labels: 8in8, B and N, Cassandra Long, Charles Vess, lomography, Stardust, Tesla

Hang on, I thought, if I read this in a book I'd be a bit worried

The shots of the hare carcass and eagles have mysteriously vanished from my computer, so here is the highland cow who stares at me when I ride my bike.

My favourite, perfectly non-fictional conversation from today:

Scene: Somewhere in the Highlands & Islands. In a car. George is a local, and I am giving him a lift home.

Me: You know, George, I think that wood over there is where the golden eagles nest. There's a pair I've seen around a lot -- the ones I saw eating that hare -- and they always seem to go back to the wood around that black house on the hill. I've spotted both of them perching in those trees...

George: Could be, Neil. They wouldn't be disturbed much - the people who own that house came up from down South, but they stopped coming when they discovered it was haunted. (Realises he may have said something wrong. Decides to add something cheery.) At least your place isn't haunted.

Me: No. But it's cursed.

George: I wouldn't pay any attention to that. (Pause. Then, helpfully,) As long as you don't try and leave the house to your son, everyone should be fine.

Michael, my son. Not cursed yet.

PS: Not sure how long I'll be at Number One on this TIME list of the 140 Twitterers to follow -- probably not long -- but you can stop Sarah Palin's inexorable rise into first place by voting for me at http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2058946_2059139_2059131,00.html

PPS: These black and white photos of fairy tales look more like fairy tales do in my head than anything I've ever seen before: http://www.evilsunday.com/disturbing-fairy-tale-black-white-photos/

Labels: feeling like you're in a book, lomography

There's a Weeping Angel In My Honey and Other True Things

I went to LA to spend Thanksgiving with Amanda's family, but before Thanksgiving Amanda and I were guests on Kevin Smith's inaugural "Starf*cking" interview, at his Smodcastle, a fifty-seat theatre in Hollywood, in front of a live audience. It was a three hour show, or longer - Kevin interviewed me and Amanda, then Amanda played, then I read "Being An Experiment...", after which I inveigled Kevin and Amanda into helping me do a scene from AMERICAN GODS as a three-hander.

You can listen to it soon: http://smodcast.bandcamp.com is where it'll go live (for a 90 cent donation for all of the three chunks - or more, if you are feeling affluent, all of which goes to The Wayne Foundation) (this is The Wayne Foundation's Mission Statement).

(Photos by Allan Amato)

This is Amanda at soundcheck.

And once that was done I felt like I was off-duty and stopped taking photographs, so the adventures that followed are pretty much unrecorded, photographically. I saw lots of friends, travelled by train (Christopher Salmon's film of The Price got its kickstarter funding as I was having breakfast on the train from Los Angeles to Santa Fe. 2001 of us funded it. You are all awesome), played the melodica with Amanda's three-year old nephew Ronan, rewrote a film script, and copy-edited the American Gods Tenth Anniversary edition.

I meant to blog about NPR's Science Friday Broadcast of the 2010 Ig-Nobel Awards, (as described at http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2010/09/banned-books-and-ig-nobels.html) at http://www.npr.org/2010/11/26/131608853/silly-science-honored-with-ig-nobel-prizes (you can download the evening in podcast form here).

Then I got home, in a snowstorm, to find a Weeping Angel in a jar of honey. (A photograph and explanation of sorts can be read in http://www.birdchick.com/wp/2010/12/lets-get-weird-with-honey/).

I've spent most of the last day on deadlines. But sometimes I've walked the dogs. (I love this photo. It's so hard to get them both looking in the right place.)

Cabal is walking better each day.

The whole Snow thing is completely new to Lola, who tends to walk with her tongue out, licking as she goes.

The white dogs tend to vanish in the snow when I'm walking them, especially at dusk. Really vanish. From the front you have noses and eyes. From the rear, they're invisible...

These photos above were all taken with my Nexus 1 phone, using the Vignette camera app. (I talked about it on NPR at http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/tech-report/2010/12/neil-gaimans-favorite-photography-app-vignette-for-android.html)

The one below was taken with a real film camera - a Lomo LC-A+. The Lomo people have just done an interview with me (you can read the questions here at http://www.lomography.com/magazine/competitions/2010/12/02/lomoamigo-neil-gaiman-interview-rumble-winner-announcement) and offered any of my blog/Facebook/Twitter followers a 15% discount on anything from the Lomo shop (here's the US one) if you put in NEILHIMSELF as your checkout code.



Right. Tomorrow, more bloggage. And not just a list of stuff I meant to tell you...

Labels: blue ribbon honey, dog photograph, Ig Nobels, kevin smith, lola's tongue, lomography, weeping angels

Amazing Audio Things, and Pictures. No Blood Anywhere.

For those of you who missed it, here's the NPR "Open Mike" piece I did on audiobooks... You can listen to it here, or download it, or email it...

And here, at closer to full length, are the interviews I did with Martin Jarvis and David Sedaris. If you enjoyed the piece, they are filled with wonderful bits that didn't make it in. And the Martin Jarvis interview is practically a masterclass in how to approach doing Audiobooks.

(The strangest moment for me in the Martin Jarvis interview is when he talks about remembering the voices of teachers, and names John Branston and Dick Glynne Jones. I went to Whitgift School in Croydon, which Martin had also attended twenty years before me, and I was taught by both of them. I was in John Branston's production of Julius Caesar at the Fairfield Halls -- and was taught O-level English by Dick Glynne Jones. As he said their names, I thought "He can't be talking about the same people..." but of course, he was.)

There's a sort of interview with me, and a gallery of snapshots, over at http://www.lomography.com/magazine/lomoamigos/2009/11/30/neil-gaiman-shoots-with-the-lc-a-plus. I love the low-tech magic of the camera, and the wonderful hodgepodge nature of the shots, particularly the ones that are a mixture of art and documentary, such as the moment when a collapsing shelf deposited the contents of a make-up bag into a toilet, Amanda's doomed attempts to make friends with sheep, or a photo that should not have come out (given the amount of available light) of my goddaughters watching the DVD of Coraline with their 3D specs on...

For me, the most exciting bit is that they gave Dave McKean a camera to play with. I can't wait to see what he did.

I've grabbed a few more shots from their gallery. Here's the Queen of Sheep herself...

Maddy's friend Claire, at San Diego airport...


And here's Ivy McCloud (almost invisible, far right) and my goddaughters and their friend...

...

I was reading the book "Coraline". I finished then told my parents about it. I was wondering if this book has any religouiseness to it. I tried, but only found what you've writen so i'm hoping you can tell. Just curiose

I don't think so. Although I think people bring religious points of view to books, and read them from those perspectives.

You sounded good on NPR this morning, so good you need your own radio show.

If I sound good, it's because Maeve McGoran, my producer, and Barry Gordemer, the editor, did such a sterling job. Finding the time to make this, to do the interviews and put it all together, took months. I'd love to do more radio, for NPR or for Radio Four in the UK, but I think it will always be little one-off projects. But I loved doing it.

...

Here's one that contains a Graveyard Book spoiler:

Dear Mr. Gaiman:

How is Silas erasing Scarlett’s memory of events preceding justified in The Graveyard Book? When the reason given isn’t satisfactory, and is it?, doesn’t it become the Problem of Scarlett? You know what I mean. I've just about read the Problem of Susan from Fragile Things which was so brave of you to write or, rather, re-write.

I thought it was so god-like of Silas to do what he did at the same time so unnatural of him to. It meant a reasonably strong character like her couldn't stare reality in its face bravely and overcome it which is what fairy-tales are about, be it children's, YA's, or adult's.

Your Sandman fan,
Ahimaz.

Silas did what he did because he thought it was for the best. Whether it was the wisest thing he could have done, in the circumstances, remains to be seen.

....

Hi Neil,
I live in Naperville, IL, and I just heard about your appearance in February for the Naperville Reads program. No one around town seems to have a whole lot of information about the events so far though. I was wondering if you had more information about what you'll be doing here, and if any of the events will be open to the public? Thanks!

I don't know yet. When I get a schedule, I'll put it here, and at Where's Neil.

Hi,
Before I book flights I was wondering if you could let us know if you're doing a signing at the NZ talk, or if you plan on doing a signing elsewhere in Wellington that weekend? I'd hate to have to get back on the plane only to discover later that I'd missed out on a signing op at Arty Bees Books by mere hours...
And your Captcha anti-spam thing just asked me to write down "$2-mil manistee". I thought you should know.

Mike

I think there's a signing or two involved, but it'll be organised by the Festival (tickets to the main event at http://www.nzfestival.nzpost.co.nz/writers-and-readers/town-hall-talk-neil-gaiman (The signings normally follow the events.) I plan to go to Amanda's gig, and will probably sign afterwards to keep her company.

Hi, Neil! Are going to sign any books at UCLA on February 4th, 2010? If so,before or after the discussion? Or do can we buy signed books?

I don't believe there are signings at the UCSB or the UCLA talks. I know I've been asked to sign sheets to stick in books (or perhaps to presign books), so there will definitely be something available.

Hi Neil,

Don't know if anyone's pointed it out to you, but the postscript at the end of your article in The Writer's and Artist's Year Book has the films of Beowulf and Stardust being released in 1987!

Ooops!

Regards,

Mark

Yup. And the wonderful Chris Riddell is Paul Riddell in the text as well. Ah well. Mysterious goofs happen.

...

Finally, a message from Beth at Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs:

Would you please put up a little plug for the current Vampire sets and tees? I'd like people's winter money to go to a good cause, and we're getting to our cutoff date on orders that we can get out to people in time for Christmas. The perfume plus tarot card sets are at:

http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/vampiretarot.html

And the tees are at:

http://www.blackphoenixtradingpost.com/vampiretarot-bptp.html

The Snow, Glass, Apples locket is at:

http://www.blackphoenixtradingpost.com/neilgaiman.html

We still have a few sets of Sunbird left:

http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/sunbird.html

I'm happy to plug them here. They'll make great gifts. The Sunbird scent is amazing, comes with a chapbook, and is almost gone. The proceeds from the scents and tee shirts go to the CBLDF. The proceeds from the lockets and medallion go to Alzheimer's Research.

Labels: audio books, BPAL, David Sedaris, lomography, Martin Jarvis, NPR, old teachers, the queen of sheep, Where's Neil, Whitgift

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I went from there to Jinan, Wuqiao and Beijing.

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

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

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

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

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

...

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

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

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

....

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

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

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

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

Good point. Here is Coconut welcoming me rapturously home:

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

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

There. Goodnight.

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