A Day.

A long, strange day. In the taxi downtown this morning I learned that there had been a sudden death in the family, and I went down to the sunshine of Union Square to phone people, and sort logistical things out, and breathe. Several people suggested that I cancel the signing, and I even thought about it for a moment, and realised that I couldn't: there were hundreds of people lined up outside Books of Wonder, and it gave me something to focus on. So I went and did the reading and Q&A, and Charles did his slide show, and apart from reading Blueberry Girl itself, where I found myself getting a bit shaky, everything was wonderful, and for the next six or seven hours I found that the rhythms of the signing, and the incredible niceness of the flow of people, made everything proper and bearable and good.

So this is a thank you, to everyone at the New York signing, all the people in the lines, all the staff, even the ones who gave up and went home. All of you, from me. You helped a lot. You probably didn't know it. But you did.

Labels: Blueberry Girl, books of wonder, songs, thanks

still off the clock

So. Home. Fell asleep at about 5.00 am, woke up about 11:30 am, so not back on US time yet.

Today I did some bee-things with Bill Stiteler (we put in a queen excluder today prior to splitting the Olga hive next week) then we planted a bag of overlooked hyacinths we found in the garage, and watched some Dr Who with Maddy (we're now up to Planet of the OOD). Also I walked the dog.

I've just been informed that due to a transfer credit-hour technicality I can't graduate with my college class & must get ONE CREDIT in summer school and walk next year if at all.

Neil, could you tell me anything to cheer me up? An anecdote, a song excerpt, news ("Jill Thompson and I are going to do that Delirium Miniseries we've been talking about for a while!"), anything?

Sincerely,

Nathan Henderson

I'm sorry to hear that, Nathan.

The biggest news that doesn't involve walking along a fallen tree over a river with a dog following behind me is that NPR has picked ANANSI BOYS for the Bryant Park Project book club. Details at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90309379
and at http://www.npr.org/blogs/bryantpark/2008/05/book_clubs_new_pick_neil_gaima.html

And in other news... I thought that this was still confidential, but it's been announced on this blog and I assume it's not confidential any longer. So it's definitely news. Hurrah for PEN. Now I have to come up with a story...

Songs? Let's see -- I wrote a song for Peri Lyons' one woman show that you can hear a demo of at her myspace page. It's a 3.00am-in-a-bar song for a generation that's much more likely to be found in front of computer screens than in bars at 3.00 am.

Over at Chris Ewens' Hidden Variable website there are longish clips from lots of Hidden Variable songs two of which are mine -- I'm really proud of "Unresolving". Also, I hope Chris finds a record label for it soon.

How was that?

...

It looks like tickets for the MIT talk on the 23rd are going fast -- http://community.livejournal.com/millionyear/34688.html -- although I believe that MIT are keeping tickets back to sell on the day. (Nope. See next post.)

Over at Lurid.com, Craig Russell talks more about the adaptation he's doing of Sandman: The Dream Hunters, and you can see more of the art, along with the adaptation he's been working on for the last couple of years of Coraline. (You may or may not be able to see the embedded footage -- although it's now better than it was.)

Labels: birdchick, hyacinths, MIT talk, P Craig Russell, songs

American Gods Blog, Post 6

So... permissions are in on Greg Brown's song In The Dark With You (which starts Chapter Fourteen) and Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends (which starts Chapter Thirteen). I decided that I'd start Chapter 6 with the public domain Midnight Special rather than Iggy Pop's Sister Midnight, but that was more because it was slightly more appropriate than because of the public domainness or otherwise of the thing. I've also, with a little regret, changed an Alan Moore song-quote into a Ben Franklin Poor Richard quote, because it said the same thing and fitted the theme slightly better on several counts. And because Ben said it first. No word yet on Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, or on the Robert Frost, ee cummings or Yeats quotes. (The Yeats is from The Second Coming, which I almost consider public domain these days, considering it's been quoted to the point of cliche -- which is why the character who quotes it, quotes it when he does -- but I thought it polite to ask.) I'm waiting to see how much Please Don't Let me be Misunderstood comes in at before I start negotiating with the Tom Waits people over a couple of lines of Tango Till you're Sore.

There are probably more than 20 chapters in the book, but all the rest of the chapter headers are from dusty and out of print books.

Incidentally, I'm trying to decide whether to put a bibliography in the back of AMERICAN GODS, or whether it might be more fun to put it up online here (when we open that wing of the website).

Labels: American Gods, American Gods Blog, quotes, songs