Frankly, much too much stuff for one poor blog post to hold...

I meant to blog in Australia. I really did.

I also meant to get more sleep, jog, write and be a bit of a tourist. Almost none of these things happened.

Lots of other things happened, though.

I flew to Hobart, Tasmania. I have been saying for years that Hobart is one of the planet's secretly cool places, and people used to mock me for saying this. (Australian people would mock me. Other people would just stare at me blankly.) Over the last few years, however, the world has caught up a little with my opinions, and the MONA museum and the MONAFOMA (aka MOFO) Festival has a lot to do with it.

I rehearsed. I read a fairy story in the Theatre Royal Hobart. (I did other things there too: I sang "Psycho", and I did a reading of one of Amanda's songs, "The Bed Song", because she wasn't there.) Here's a video. Jherek Bischoff, Amanda's bass player and string arranger, made all the music happen. The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra provided the lovely string quartet.

Somewhere shortly after arrival in Hobart, I joined forces with Polly Adams.

I'm a patron of Tasmania's Bookend Trust, and Polly has inherited her father's conservation mantle, if not his Rhino suit, and is a patron of Save the Rhino. We got up early the next morning, and were taken off on a journey by Niall Doran of the Bookend Trust. We saw the devastation of the bushfires on the Tasman peninsula, learned the natural history behind the bushfires (basically, Eucalypts like fires - they clear the brush and help the seeds to germinate), saw an echidna by the side of the road, went on a wonderful boat ride (thanks to http://www.tasmancruises.com.au/) and saw awe-inspiring cliffs, seals and penguins (and a dead weedy seadragon), not to mention a place where the sea tips on its side...

...or it feels like it has. (Photo by Polly Adams.)

And then we were shows some of the fire devastation in Dunalley, and presented books to the primary school.

The primary school at Dunalley is not there any more. It burned down in the bushfires. They are putting up temporary buildings to house a temporary school while they build a new one. (We were joined by lots of nice people, including Robert Pennicott and Andrew Hughes, Tasmanians of the Year in 2012 and 2013.)

My publishers, Bloomsbury and Hachette, gave the school lots of my books, and lots of other books that they could use to auction or sell or include in the library. Here I am with Chair of the School Association Elizabeth Knox, Principal Matt Kenny, and various students and community members.

Frankly, I think Polly has a future in showing books to people.

(Photos taken from https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.10151236486214607&type=1 )

The school wrote about it at their blog entry at http://newdunalleyschool.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/a-visit-from-neil-gaiman/.  It's a really inspiring blog, as they chart their recovery from the fires and chart the plans for the new school...

Time was tight, so we flew by seaplane to Hobart so I could do an interview with ABC's Helen Shield (you can read about it and listen to it here: http://blogs.abc.net.au/tasmania/2013/01/neil-gaiman.html). (And Helen's interview with Polly is at http://blogs.abc.net.au/tasmania/2013/01/douglas-adams-little-rocket.html).

A mad dash to a quick rehearsal/soundcheck with Jherek and a string quartet, along with our special guests David Byrne and St Vincent, and an even madder dash back to the ABC studios to do another interview, this time with Triple J's The Doctor (You can read about it/listen to it at http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/thedoctor/blog/s3673304.htm). Then back to the Mona Festival. I got there at 7 minutes to 6. We were due on at 6, so I found a dressing room, changed clothes and went on stage to read "Click-Clack the Rattlebag", sing Psycho, and, my favourite moment of all, read my "Australia Day" poem with Brian Ritchie playing didgeridoo, and David Byrne making animal sounds on the guitar.

I listened to Kate Miller-Heidke singing wonderfully immediately after us (her cover of David Byrne's Psycho Killer was unbelievable. It was a bit like this:)

And then came the best bit of the whole night as Jherek and I had a close encounter with a guide dog puppy named Quinnell.

I nearly forgot to mention, a couple of days earlier Amanda had asked me on Twitter to recreate her famous Map of Tasmania photo from the last time she was there. So, with the aid of a Map of Tasmania apron and photographer Dianna Graf, I did. And then Polly did too.

and here is Quinnell the guide dog puppy in training with his coat on (he's not allowed to play and lick you when he has his coat on) along with Dianna Graf, who took many of the the above photos and, with Mark, her partner,  is training Quinnell. We're in Hobart harbour and it is very windy.

And then Polly and I were getting up at 6 am again and we headed to Melbourne, where we stayed with my friends Peter and Clare. They have the best house in the world.

I spent a day or so mostly being interviewed -- the photo is from the interview at http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/books/melbourne-in-authors-good-books-as-he-plans-next-fun-escapade-20130123-2d7e6.html.

I'd a talk at the Atheneum Theatre, under the auspices of the Wheeler Centre.  I signed lots of books for people, and then stumbled off for a late drink and dinner with lots of Melbournian friends, including Sxip Shirey, Meow Meow, and someone named Knibbs who can, like me, raise both eyebrows individually or set them scurrying across her forehead like startled caterpillars. ("Did you teach yourself in front of a mirror when you were a kid too?" "Yup.")

Four hours of sleep and I said goodbye to Peter and to Clare, and to Polly too (I'd pretty much adopted her by the time I left, so it was a sad goodbye made happier in the knowledge that I'd introduced her to lots of people who would be fun for her to know in Australia) and flew to Sydney, to the offices of Hachette, where I was interviewed, looked after by publicist Anna Hayward, had my photo taken by Tamara Dean (look at her beautiful photo art here and here) and then I had lunch with my Bloomsbury publishers and answered questions for them on video, and I ran to the Sydney Recital Hall where I met FourPlay String Quartet for a rehearsal.

I really love the guys from FourPlay -- it's such a delight doing stuff with them. We ran through the Fireball XL5 theme.  We took the first fifteen minutes of FORTUNATELY, THE MILK and they created music and sound effects on the fly. They made glorious bush sounds for the Australia Day poem.  Working with them now is so comfortable and easy.

Photo stolen from http://capriciousnerd.tumblr.com/post/41897844603/agaimanevening because she posted on Twitter that she had photos from the night at the exact moment I thought I ought to look for some.

During the evening I read the first 2 chapters of THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE. I did a Q&A and explained why secrets do not leak out of the Doctor Who office in Cardiff. I sang the Fireball XL5 theme because I had FourPlay with me and I wanted to hear what they did to it...

I read the first fifteen minutes of FORTUNATELY, THE MILK... (it is so silly. I love it so much).

And then I gave an acknowledgment of country, and read the Australia Day poem, and we were done. No signing -- it was a long event, there were about 1100 people there, and I was knackered, but I scribbled on things for the people at the stage door on the way out.

Production entity Jordan Verzar and Festival boss Ben Strout, Jemma Birrell (artistic director of the festival) and festival PR Ainslee Lenehan and I, along with my old Whitgift school friend James Croll, stumbled off for an exhausted drink and conversation after the show, winding up in the bar of the hotel I was staying in, the somewhat O.T.T. but beautiful "QT", where the people were so nice and helpful. And then I was sleepily packing and it was daylight again, and I went to see the people at Animal Logic, who had given up some of their Australia Day to show me the beautiful film work they had done...

I proofread the UK edition of OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE on the plane back to the US, and read Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor. I breakfasted with my son and daughter in law and daughter in San Francisco airport. I got home to Amanda...

I slept. I slept for three whole hours, and then the furnace in the basement belched out soot and smoke, the smoke alarms went off, the fire brigade arrived, and my hopes of catching up on my sleep were dashed. (Nothing was damaged. Nothing burned. And the Cambridge MA fire department are fast.)

The first of my episodes of SELECTED SHORTS went up on the radio. I got to select and introduce stories I loved -- in this case Ray Bradbury's chilling "The Veldt" read by Stephen Colbert, and James Thurber's "The Catbird Seat" hilariously read by Leonard Nimoy.

You can listen to it HERE.

(I'll be hosting for the next few weeks. Why don't you subscribe to the podcast? Information and links  at http://www.selectedshorts.org/podcast/. There are some great stories on the way.)

Then an interview with me went out on Morning Edition. You read about it and listen to it here: http://www.npr.org/2013/01/28/170085113/watch-this-neil-gaimans-imaginative-favorites It's about things I love, or things that influenced me.

No, I won't tell you what they are. Go and listen to it. It's fun.

(There were things on my list that we didn't have time to talk about: Doctor Who's Curse of the Fatal Death and the Magnetic Fields' Andrew In Drag video, for example...)

And I should stop writing this blog and go and write about weird stuff happening underneath London instead.

But if you've made it this far, the next week should be interesting. I'll be doing a really exciting (and quite goofy) Art Project, and you'll learn a bit about it in this film. (Along with seeing Cabal, alive and well and happy, three weeks ago.)

Labels: Amanda, David Byrne Yes Him, Dunalley, failing to sleep in on a Sunday morning, fourplay, Hobart, Is Tasmania Secretly Cool, kate Miller-heidke, Keep moving, melbourne, Mofo, Mona, Polly J Rocket Adams, Tasmania

Good evening Melbourne (and everywhere else)

In case you were wondering where I am - and I would not blame you if you were, for I frequently am unsure, and I keep tabs on me, -- I am in Melbourne, the one in Australia not the one in Florida. I am staying with my friends Peter Nicholls and Clare Coney, and am here with my wife, who is going to be doing all sorts of rock and roll things in Australia for the next few months.

I got here last week and promptly did an event for the Wheeler Centre, at the Atheneum Theatre, which was, despite the jet-lag, enormous fun, and even more fun because I got to spend time with Tom Stoppard, who I met back in 2007 in Brazil, and like enormously.

(Here's a photo taken in the Green Room beneath the stage, by Alison Croggan, who interviewed Tom.)



And with that done, my work here (the bits that consist of turning up on a stage, anyway) was 1/3 over. On the 28th I'll be at the Factory Theatre in Sydney for a Sold Out show, and on New Year's Eve I'll be part of Amanda's rather astonishing-looking Party. It goes from 8 pm until 2 am, features Amanda and me and Meow Meow and the Jane Austen Argument and all sorts of amazing people, and I'm planning to write something new and New Year's Evey for it. It's a small venue and is, Amanda assures me, her way of making sure that she goes to a New Year's Eve party that she loves. There are a few tickets left at http://www.revoltproductions.com/melbourneevents/byevent/NYE1

The episode of Selected Shorts in which I read TROLL BRIDGE has gone up at http://www.selectedshorts.org/onair/, with a direct link to the audio here. It's lots of fun, and there's a Jorge Luis Borges story as well.

Cat Mihos is doing something really nice over at Neverwear.net. She's giving something from the store away each day, to the person who has done something cool to deserve it. Some people are nominating themselves, some are nominating friends. You can read about it at http://kittysneverwear.blogspot.com/

In addition, she's giving $5 off each item in the store, with the code nice-kitty.


...


It's the time of year when I like to link to this Independent article I did a few years ago.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/neil-gaiman-hanukkah-with-bells-on-1203307.html

It begins,

I do not recall lobbying for anything, as a boy, as hard as I lobbied, with my sisters, for a Christmas tree. 

My parents objected. "We're Jewish," they said. "We don't do Christmas. We do Hanukkah instead." 

This did nothing to stop the lobbying. Anyway, Hanukkah was no substitute for Christmas. My parents, unlike my grandparents, didn't always remember to keep Hanukkah, and even when my mother remembered the festival, we children could see that a menorah and candles were not a Christmas tree. My parents kept kosher, went to shul on high holy days but that was the extent of things in our house. My grandparents were properly observant Jews. My parents were not particularly observant Jews, while we children were, quite simply, bad Jews. We knew we were bad Jews because we wanted a Christmas tree...

...

The "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" special goes out on the 23rd of December, on NPR and on TV. I'm told that there's a lot more of me on the radio than there will be on the telly. "I think once everybody got a look at it, they realized the throne thing we put you in was a terrible mistake," explained Peter Sagal. 

...

There are two new books up at Neil Gaiman presents, and I'm thrilled about both of them.

ANITA was a book I remembered from my teenage years. It's a book about a young witch in the 1960s. It has the best grandmother in fiction in it, better even than the one in the Addams Family. It's funny and sweet and creepy and moving. There's a sample of it at http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B006L7BA6O&source_code=NGAOR0002WS101911 - Nicola Barber reads it, and I think her reading is excellent.

Spot the mysterious typo on the cover...

If you loved the audiobook we did of Keith Roberts' Pavane... I'm afraid this is nothing like that at all.

..

Oops. Out of time. You will have to wait to find out about the other book. (We are going to see The Terminativity tonight. More tomorrow.)

Labels: Anita, melbourne, Tom Stoppard

shameless

Lots of people wrote to say that a G1 would work, sort of, in my area and that I should get it. A couple of people wrote to say that the stores outside of 3G areas actually weren't being sent the phones yet because of stocking problems and that I should get it. And people wrote to tell me I could buy it online. But mostly I just wanted to play with one and see what I thought.

And, having read another email, I think I may be being sent one now. So will play with it, if it arrives, and will report back here.

People have been writing to ask if I know anything about the Coraline movie video game, but I'm afraid all I know is what I've read in the news links.

...

If you click on http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=4395 you can watch Michael Dirda introduce me at the National Book Festival on the Mall. And then you can watch me talk about The Graveyard Book, and do a short reading, and then answer questions. I tell the story of how I declined to buy an elbow in China.

...

Remember the complaint from a reader in Melbourne about the difficulty in getting Graveyard Books there? Well, this just came in from Sydney. It's a shameless plug. Shameless. But seeing I'm currently writing BATMAN in a Moleskin that was a gift from Kinokuniya Sydney the last time I signed there (and in which lots of people wrote nice messages, doodles etc, before it was presented to me) I find myself peculiarly happy to shill for them...

Hi Neil and fans

Wholly molly we can’t wait for the Graveyard book to turn up! The whole front of the store will be stacked high with the hundreds of copies of both editions. And thanks to our friends at Allen & Unwin, we will even have limited stock of the limited edition (hence it being limited). People would have to get in quick before the staff buy them all though!

Our Christmas catalogue even has an “Everyone Loves Neil” section where all Neil Gaiman new releases will be listed i.e. ‘Coraline the Graphic Novel’, ‘Prince of Stories’, ‘The Graveyard Book’ adult and Children’s ed. and ‘The New Annotated Dracula’. Kinokuniya is the one stop shop for everything Neil.

Everyone in Melbourne is welcome to fly up and grab a copy, or you can order through our website www.kinokuniya.com and click the Australia link, we can send it down for just $12.

Regards

Steve Jones
General Manager
Kinokuniya Bookstores of Australia

Shameless.

Talking about shameless things, the wonderful Thea Gilmore is touring the US for the next month, supporting Joe Jackson. On her last tour, if you told her merchandise folk (which was probably her) that you found out about the gig from here, you got a free thingummy of some kind. You could try it this time...

The tour list can be found at http://www.theagilmore.net/gigs.cfm.

She's the smartest songwriter I know, has an amazing voice, and is astonishingly tall. After I mention her here people write to me and say things like,

hi neil,

i just wanted to mention that i saw thea gilmore at the fleece in bristol (uk) last night and was blown away by her talent. her voice just transported me and she's really funny and self-deprecating and the bridge of her nose wrinkles up when she sings which is beautiful to behold. i came to her through you mentioning her here so just to say-thanks! I will take notice of your music recommendations in the future!

amanda

and

thanks for mentioning Thea Gilmore the other week. I went to see her play and she was awesome.

Gemma

and so on. Check her out on her website or at http://www.myspace.com/theagilmore


Neil,
I am currently reading reports that you and Roger Avary have left 'Black Hole' due to David Fincher taking over the project and having a different idea of how to go about the creative process. As with everything in Hollywood, I take it with a grain of salt. Can you confirm or dispell this news? Thanks.
Logan M. G.

It's amazingly old news, and no, it wasn't "creative differences" -- I never met or spoke to David Fincher (who I think is a terrific director). Roger and I handed in our last draft of Black Hole to Paramount last August, before the writer's strike. When the strike was over, I heard from Roger, who had already written a film for David Fincher, that Fincher was on board, but that his method involved having draft after draft written, and then a month or so after that I heard from one of the producers that they'd brought a new writer on who would work cheaper than we would in order that David could have as many drafts as he needed, given that, contractually, Paramount would have to pay for every draft we did. (I don't know if the new writer was starting with the draft that Roger and I did, or starting afresh.) That was almost a year ago. At this point in time, and given how things move in Hollywood, I don't even know if David Fincher is still on board to do Black Hole any longer. Mostly, I just hope that whatever director they wind up with, and whatever script gets shot, it's faithful to Charles Burns' remarkable vision.
...

Ian Sinclair is Banned in Hackney -- http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/oct/22/hackney-library-book-ban.

Andy Riley is banned in Oregon -- http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/384107_bunnysuicide21.html -- or at least a lady who doesn't know what an ordeal is wants him and his book of bunny suicides banned...

"It is a comic book, but that's not funny. Not at all," Anderson told the Albany Democrat-Herald newspaper. "I don't care if your kid is 16, 17, 18. It's wrong."

Anderson contacted Principal Julie Knoedler, who told her about the district's book-challenge policy.

Anderson plans to fill out the forms, but she's not taking any chances. Once the review is over, regardless of the outcome, she plans to burn it.

"They're not getting this book back," she said, adding that if the library replaces it: "I'll have somebody else check it out and I'll keep that one. I'm just disgusted by the whole ordeal."

And I know what I want for Christmas.

...

And finally, another one from, I suspect, a parallel earth:

Dear Neil,

As a Borders (Waldenbooks, really, but same overall company) employee, I wouldn't blame you if you were calling for a boycott. I understand that it's bad for business, but the business is in bad shape as it is (and they treat us like we aren't people). A boycott might be the difference between whether it goes under or stays afloat, but there is absolutely no reason to be rude to someone who may or may not be calling for a boycott.

As I'm sure you understand, it's hard to sell books that you don't get from the distributors. Because the store I work at usually gets five or fewer copies of new releases, we do a lot of special ordering, and I guess we're lucky because most of the time people are willing to wait the week or two for the books to come in.

Special ordering things has its problems, too, though -- books take a very long time to come in when it says on the order page that both of our suppliers have multiple copies of this book in stock. It's ridiculous. But sometimes it works out nicely and books that are supposedly on back-order come in within a week.

So, I suppose, if people would remember to be patient, that Borders is not stocking some new books wouldn't be such a problem. (Remember: We can order almost anything if it's in print.)

Boycott Borders if you must. We'd prefer it if you didn't, but I'm not going to stop you, and I'm certainly not going to send you hate mail if you do. (Then again, maybe I'm past the point of caring what happens to Borders. There are other places to work.)

Thanks!
Sarah

It's the bit about how I "may or may not be calling for a boycott" that leaves my head spinning, Sarah. In this universe, I wrote a post explaining why I thought a Boycott of Borders was a very bad idea. And then got hate mail (and now sad "Boycott if you must, it's no secret we're in trouble" mail) from Borders people. Is there some kind of secret Borders messaging board where they discuss this, and decide that what I obviously meant by Don't Boycott Borders They Can't Stock Everything Why Not Support Specialist Stores Who Do Stock That Stuff was Boycott Borders? Tobias Buckell seems to be having the same mysterious problem.

Labels: black hole, Ian Sinclair, melbourne, more sensible things you could do than boycotting Borders, sydney

Reminder -- Australian events still to come

These are the remaining Melbourne and Sydney events, as rounded up for me by Sarah Tran, ace publicist...


Mon 5th May
1.00pm
Author Talk & Signing - FREE EVENT
Location:
Centre for Youth Literature
State Library of Victoria -
Village Roadshow Theatrette
325 Swanston St, Melbourne VIC

Contact: (CYL) 03 8664 7014


Mon 5th May
7.45pm
Dymocks Camberwell Literary Dinner - TICKETED EVENT
Location:
Georges Restaurant
819 Burke Road, Camberwell VIC

Contact: (Dymocks Camberwell) 03 9882 0032


Tues 6th May
6.00pm
Author Talk & Signing - FREE EVENT
Location: Books Kinokuniya
Level 2, Galeries Victoria, Sydney NSW

Contact: 02 9262 7996


Wed 7th May
1.00pm
Author Signing - FREE EVENT
Location: Dymocks George St
424 George St, Sydney NSW

Contact: 02 9235 0155

Labels: melbourne, sydney

What I did in Tasmania, with photos

Sarah Tran, Allen and Unwin publicity goddess, and I got to Hobart yesterday morning and were picked up at the airport by friends Dianna and Mark and their friend Wayne, who was driving something a bit like the original batmobile. This was a car called Darlene. I didn't ask why she was called Darlene.

(L to R, Mark, Dianna, Wayne, Me, Darlene. Publicist Sarah Tran is not in the photo as she is taking it.)

Beside the hotel, we saw this -- an icebreaker known as the Orange Roughy.

This was the view from my hotel window.

Here's Mark standing outside Ellison Hawker. After the ABC radio interview I went inside and signed lots of stock for them.

From there we went to eat, racing to be done in time for the event. We'd just finished eating when we got a call saying, "Everything's running late. Many people. Tickets. Argh. Don't come down yet." So we had dessert. Then I was introduced by Professor Jonathan Dawson (who I really wanted to chat to, but it was not to be) and I read a couple of new poems and a chapter from The Graveyard Book, one I'd never read aloud before, amswered some questions. It was fun. And then I signed. Lots of amazingly nice people, and at the end the people from Ellison Hawker presented me with a bottle of Tasmanian Single Malt as a thank you.

Then up betimes, and off to the airport, to Melbourne. Where it is raining and I have spent the day being interviewed.

I want to close some tabs -- so here are some depressing playgrounds, here's me being given my Weird Tales 85 Storytellers Certificate, a YouTube Arkham Asylum fanfilm, and a terrific interview with Charles Brownstein of the CBLDF about the Gordon Lee case, which will, I think, answer a lot of questions for people.

Also, Michael Moorcock, visionary, worldmaker, author, and editor, quite possibly also the man who inspired Alan Moore to grow a beard, was made Grand Master at the Nebulas. Here's John Picacio's speech -- containing interpolations by China Mieville, Jeff Vandermeer, Alan Moore and me myself, among others.

And from Eddie Campbell (who has posted a page of pencils), I learn that about half of the Campbell-Gaiman Spirit story is up online at Scans Daily. Honestly, I wish they'd post the whole thing.If anyone's going to cry foul for a copyright violation, they'll cry foul for six and a half pages as easily as they will all ten, and all the good jokes in the Tarantino parody have been left out...

Labels: beards, Eddie Campbell, melbourne, Moorcock, Tasmania