Just finished a long "Mirror Mask" revision phone call with Dave Mckean. They're well into casting, and he's storyboarded almost all of it. I was meant to just be making notes toward the next revision but often wound up just saying "Hang on a sec'" and then typing the sort of dialogue we needed, certain I'd not remember why a line needed to be changed and to what when I came back to it tomorrow. At one point I had a character wittering on about the concept of deja nu -- the feeling that not only have you been through these events before but that last time round you weren't actually wearing anything. I have no idea where that came from, other than the lateness of the hour, and doubt it will survive the next revision, so I record it here for a bemused posterity.
Another lovely review of Nalo Hopkinson's anthology Mojo:Conjure Stories at http://www.sffworld.com/authors/h/hopkinson_nalo/sffreviews/
mojoconjurestories.html -- so far a really impressive crop of reviews. (And there's a brief essay by Nalo about the book at http://www.twbookmark.com/authorslounge/articles/2003/march/
article16758.html)
mojoconjurestories.html -- so far a really impressive crop of reviews. (And there's a brief essay by Nalo about the book at http://www.twbookmark.com/authorslounge/articles/2003/march/
article16758.html)
I spoke to Jill Thompson, who wanted me to let people know that here's the link to the Quicktime Scary Godmother promo.
Over at Jill Thompson's site is a preview of her book At Death's Door -- it's a manga style retelling of some of Season of Mists, mostly from Death's point of view, along with a strange and wonderful story of Jill's about what Death, Delirium and Despair were doing while the dead were coming back. It's lovely stuff, very Jill, funny, odd, delightful.
You can also learn on her site about the Scary Godmother Animated Special, which will be showing in Canada in October.
I've just started to realise how many things have deadlines around the middle of next week, and am a bit worried. If I journal a bit less for a few weeks, it'll be because I'm trying not to bring editors to the point of actual cardiac arrest.
You can also learn on her site about the Scary Godmother Animated Special, which will be showing in Canada in October.
I've just started to realise how many things have deadlines around the middle of next week, and am a bit worried. If I journal a bit less for a few weeks, it'll be because I'm trying not to bring editors to the point of actual cardiac arrest.
The second half of the Alan Moore interview is up at Ninth Art - Snake Charmer: An interview with Alan Moore, Part Two and it's terrific.
I started rereading Voice of the Fire today, because I have to write an introduction to it. Normally an introduction just says what you're reading, tries to put into some kind of context, tells you that the author is a pleasant enough fellow, and points you on your way.
The trouble with Voice of the Fire is I've met too many people who read the first 20 pages and gave up, so I think the introduction is going to have to be a sort of set of suggested narrative strategies for travellers visiting the strange and unfamiliar land that is Northhampton over the last 3000 years...
I started rereading Voice of the Fire today, because I have to write an introduction to it. Normally an introduction just says what you're reading, tries to put into some kind of context, tells you that the author is a pleasant enough fellow, and points you on your way.
The trouble with Voice of the Fire is I've met too many people who read the first 20 pages and gave up, so I think the introduction is going to have to be a sort of set of suggested narrative strategies for travellers visiting the strange and unfamiliar land that is Northhampton over the last 3000 years...
Links from Jonathan Carroll arrive without comment. They just turn up in e-mail, and I always click on them with a slight nervousness, as I never know what I'll get. Today it was The Brick Testament, at http://www.thereverend.com/brick_testament/: bible stories in Lego. With warnings of nudity for those bible stories with small naked Lego characters in them.
Hi Neil
As a pedantic scientist, I feel the need to correct a small error in your last post yesterday... the Guardian article was penned by Matt Ridley, who is a famous Oxford-educated science writer, not, as you stated, by Mark Ridley, who is a famous Oxford-educated evolutionary biologist. Mark and Matt are often mistaken for each other, but are different creatures entirely.
Finally, was slightly puzzled by your comment on suspension of disbelief being more important in non-fiction... from my own perspective I disagree, as scientists are trained to treat everything they read (work-related, anyway) as complete hogwash until convinced otherwise, which probably goes a long way to explaining our argumentative natures, but is a necessary strategy in a world overrun with bad science.
I don't often get time to read stuff outside of the scientific literature, but when I do your stories always entertain me. Thanks for that.
Simon
Never ever post late at night after a long day of Disney. You get your Ridleys confused, for a start, and make a twit of yourself. Mea culpa.
I suppose what I meant about suspension of disbelief and non-fiction is something that, for me applies to all forms of non-fiction. A literary critic who begins a book by announcing that something is "a Baskerville hound -- important for not barking in the night-time" has just confused two Sherlock Holmes stories (the Hound of the Baskervilles and, if memory serves, "Silver Blaze") and has also cast into doubt, for me at least, anything else such a literary critic might have to say. (I'd be quite forgiving if it was a scientist making that kind of error.)
Anyone who's ever had the experience of reading a news story in a newspaper written by a journalist who had managed to get both the wrong end of the stick and most of the key facts and names wrong knows that you can look at newspapers with a jaundiced eye for a while after that.
The kind of big dumb mistake (like, er, confusing Mark Ridley and Matt Ridley) that somehow invalidates the rest of the points the writer makes, no matter how valid and sensible they were.
It's the same phenomenon I'll get in fiction when something small isn't right. There's an otherwise marvellous novel in which a time traveller arrives in 18th century London and asks for a specific street, and is told "it's a few blocks over that way" which tells us that the writer is American, and, for those people who know and live in London (a city in which the concept of a city block has yet to arrive in the 21st century) it can throw you out of the story.
Regarding the blog on Sunday, April 06, 2003
How about the fragile X comment: "an easily identified genetic cause of terrible mental retardation"? From what I've read in the papers, fragile X girls _might_ be slower than average. Boys are more affected, but still, "terrible mental retardation"?
Veera Luhtala
According to the National Fragile X Foundation at http://www.fragilex.org/html/what.htm Fragile X syndrome is a hereditary condition which causes a wide range of mental impairment, from mild learning disabilities to severe mental retardation.
In regards to your comment about Mark Ridley's article about sci-fi, I think he's almost got a point if looked at from the point of view of the mass market. Almost because his evidence is good but his conclusions are wrong. Most people's exposure to sci-fi in text form began and ended with the some Crichton novel - xenophobic, paranoid, afraid of the future. What movies do people go see? 2001 (computer goes insane), The Matrix (computers go insane), The Terminator (computers go insane), Event Horizon (we go to outer space and go insane), Attack of the Clones (George Lucas goes insane), Aliens (travel to space at the behest of an evil corporation, meet exciting alien species, get eaten by them). Even movies in which nobody goes insane or gets eaten have a distinctly anti-technology bent (Gattaca). But this says less about screen writers than it does about the kinds of projects Hollywood will green-light. I'm not sure if this means the market is afraid of the future and Hollywood is giving people what they want, or if it means that Hollywood is afraid of technology. Well, we know Hollywood is afraid of technology. Either way, no one's making "The Demolished Man", or even "The Songs of Distant Earth" into a movie.
Although they did make The Bicentennial Man into a movie, even though one might wish that they hadn't...
I wouldn't have minded "the future is often depicted as a place where a technical fix has gone wrong, where androids stalk a devastated urban landscape..." It was that "always" that got me. A lot of written SF is hopeful, a lot of TV SF is hopeful, a fair amount of movie SF is ultimately hopeful. And a lot of scientists I've run into in the last twenty years will talk about the SF that got them fired up when younger and propelled into SF careers.
Personally, I think sloppy science writers (and I'm not talking about Mr Ridley here) have more to blame for people being worried about genetically modified stuff than novelists or screenwriters. People don't go and see Jurassic Park and come out going "No, these scientists are meddling with raw stuff of life itself! How can they think that bringing back Dinosaurs is going to end happily? I shall write to my Member of Parliament or Congressman and ensure that such dangers do occur in actuality," whereas they do read article about genetically modified pollen from corn killing off monarch caterpillars on the nearby milkweed, and worry, even if the study doesn't actually record if any caterpillars died...
Anyway, I thought the Ridley article was interesting and made some excellent points. I also thought he made some stupid ones in the middle. There.
And on to something much more important.... The two last words on people flirting while dressed as Funny Animals.
I recently spent a weekend at Disney with my friend who plays several costumed characters. The majority of the characters she plays are male so she is encouraged to flirt with the female park visitors, which she finds terribly amusing, especially when their boyfriends get defensive! So just remember ladies the next time Pooh or Mickey grabs your butt or gives you a hug or a kiss it's more likely a Michelle than a Michael bestowing the affection.
cheers,
Kathryn
and
Hi Neil,
With all the talk of Disney you might want to check out an article on the excellent Mark Evanier's POV Online about the guys inside the suits. Mark's site is an excellent mine of information.
http://www.povonline.com/cols/COL309.htm
Best wishes,
John Innes
Publisher, Sight & Sound
London, UK
Holly, seven years ago, aged around ten, on our previous trip to Walt Disney World, Stopped Believing in the autograph thing because she kept running into Goofy. And she got him to sign her autograph book twice.
And the signatures were very different. She kept comparing them. And she stopped believing, just like that.
and finally....
A late addition to the cartoon character flirting thing... I met Kelly 9 years ago while we were working as Tom & Jerry on the Irish Sea Ferry route.
Now we've two kids and a mortgage: cartoon flirting has a happy ending!
...
Several people have written to tell me that the GRIMBLE books are readable online. I'm going to check with the copyright holder before I post the URL (or at least, ask his daughter to ask him). If he's happy for them to be up I'll post the link. If not, I won't.
...
Hi Neil,
Seeing as you seem to be bombarded with questions about what it's like/ what it takes/ how it feels to be a writer, I thought your readers might be interested in this article I found called "How to be a Writer" by Lorrie Moore, someone who apparantly won the Associated Writing Programs Award for best short fiction.
http://www.katharsis.org/lorriemoore.htm
It's funny, honest, and occasionally horribly accurate.
Torie Atkinson
Lovely. "Later on in life you will learn that writers are merely open, helpless texts with no real understanding of what they have written and therefore must half-believe anything and everything that is said of them," made me nod, and smile.
As a pedantic scientist, I feel the need to correct a small error in your last post yesterday... the Guardian article was penned by Matt Ridley, who is a famous Oxford-educated science writer, not, as you stated, by Mark Ridley, who is a famous Oxford-educated evolutionary biologist. Mark and Matt are often mistaken for each other, but are different creatures entirely.
Finally, was slightly puzzled by your comment on suspension of disbelief being more important in non-fiction... from my own perspective I disagree, as scientists are trained to treat everything they read (work-related, anyway) as complete hogwash until convinced otherwise, which probably goes a long way to explaining our argumentative natures, but is a necessary strategy in a world overrun with bad science.
I don't often get time to read stuff outside of the scientific literature, but when I do your stories always entertain me. Thanks for that.
Simon
Never ever post late at night after a long day of Disney. You get your Ridleys confused, for a start, and make a twit of yourself. Mea culpa.
I suppose what I meant about suspension of disbelief and non-fiction is something that, for me applies to all forms of non-fiction. A literary critic who begins a book by announcing that something is "a Baskerville hound -- important for not barking in the night-time" has just confused two Sherlock Holmes stories (the Hound of the Baskervilles and, if memory serves, "Silver Blaze") and has also cast into doubt, for me at least, anything else such a literary critic might have to say. (I'd be quite forgiving if it was a scientist making that kind of error.)
Anyone who's ever had the experience of reading a news story in a newspaper written by a journalist who had managed to get both the wrong end of the stick and most of the key facts and names wrong knows that you can look at newspapers with a jaundiced eye for a while after that.
The kind of big dumb mistake (like, er, confusing Mark Ridley and Matt Ridley) that somehow invalidates the rest of the points the writer makes, no matter how valid and sensible they were.
It's the same phenomenon I'll get in fiction when something small isn't right. There's an otherwise marvellous novel in which a time traveller arrives in 18th century London and asks for a specific street, and is told "it's a few blocks over that way" which tells us that the writer is American, and, for those people who know and live in London (a city in which the concept of a city block has yet to arrive in the 21st century) it can throw you out of the story.
Regarding the blog on Sunday, April 06, 2003
How about the fragile X comment: "an easily identified genetic cause of terrible mental retardation"? From what I've read in the papers, fragile X girls _might_ be slower than average. Boys are more affected, but still, "terrible mental retardation"?
Veera Luhtala
According to the National Fragile X Foundation at http://www.fragilex.org/html/what.htm Fragile X syndrome is a hereditary condition which causes a wide range of mental impairment, from mild learning disabilities to severe mental retardation.
In regards to your comment about Mark Ridley's article about sci-fi, I think he's almost got a point if looked at from the point of view of the mass market. Almost because his evidence is good but his conclusions are wrong. Most people's exposure to sci-fi in text form began and ended with the some Crichton novel - xenophobic, paranoid, afraid of the future. What movies do people go see? 2001 (computer goes insane), The Matrix (computers go insane), The Terminator (computers go insane), Event Horizon (we go to outer space and go insane), Attack of the Clones (George Lucas goes insane), Aliens (travel to space at the behest of an evil corporation, meet exciting alien species, get eaten by them). Even movies in which nobody goes insane or gets eaten have a distinctly anti-technology bent (Gattaca). But this says less about screen writers than it does about the kinds of projects Hollywood will green-light. I'm not sure if this means the market is afraid of the future and Hollywood is giving people what they want, or if it means that Hollywood is afraid of technology. Well, we know Hollywood is afraid of technology. Either way, no one's making "The Demolished Man", or even "The Songs of Distant Earth" into a movie.
Although they did make The Bicentennial Man into a movie, even though one might wish that they hadn't...
I wouldn't have minded "the future is often depicted as a place where a technical fix has gone wrong, where androids stalk a devastated urban landscape..." It was that "always" that got me. A lot of written SF is hopeful, a lot of TV SF is hopeful, a fair amount of movie SF is ultimately hopeful. And a lot of scientists I've run into in the last twenty years will talk about the SF that got them fired up when younger and propelled into SF careers.
Personally, I think sloppy science writers (and I'm not talking about Mr Ridley here) have more to blame for people being worried about genetically modified stuff than novelists or screenwriters. People don't go and see Jurassic Park and come out going "No, these scientists are meddling with raw stuff of life itself! How can they think that bringing back Dinosaurs is going to end happily? I shall write to my Member of Parliament or Congressman and ensure that such dangers do occur in actuality," whereas they do read article about genetically modified pollen from corn killing off monarch caterpillars on the nearby milkweed, and worry, even if the study doesn't actually record if any caterpillars died...
Anyway, I thought the Ridley article was interesting and made some excellent points. I also thought he made some stupid ones in the middle. There.
And on to something much more important.... The two last words on people flirting while dressed as Funny Animals.
I recently spent a weekend at Disney with my friend who plays several costumed characters. The majority of the characters she plays are male so she is encouraged to flirt with the female park visitors, which she finds terribly amusing, especially when their boyfriends get defensive! So just remember ladies the next time Pooh or Mickey grabs your butt or gives you a hug or a kiss it's more likely a Michelle than a Michael bestowing the affection.
cheers,
Kathryn
and
Hi Neil,
With all the talk of Disney you might want to check out an article on the excellent Mark Evanier's POV Online about the guys inside the suits. Mark's site is an excellent mine of information.
http://www.povonline.com/cols/COL309.htm
Best wishes,
John Innes
Publisher, Sight & Sound
London, UK
Holly, seven years ago, aged around ten, on our previous trip to Walt Disney World, Stopped Believing in the autograph thing because she kept running into Goofy. And she got him to sign her autograph book twice.
And the signatures were very different. She kept comparing them. And she stopped believing, just like that.
and finally....
A late addition to the cartoon character flirting thing... I met Kelly 9 years ago while we were working as Tom & Jerry on the Irish Sea Ferry route.
Now we've two kids and a mortgage: cartoon flirting has a happy ending!
...
Several people have written to tell me that the GRIMBLE books are readable online. I'm going to check with the copyright holder before I post the URL (or at least, ask his daughter to ask him). If he's happy for them to be up I'll post the link. If not, I won't.
...
Hi Neil,
Seeing as you seem to be bombarded with questions about what it's like/ what it takes/ how it feels to be a writer, I thought your readers might be interested in this article I found called "How to be a Writer" by Lorrie Moore, someone who apparantly won the Associated Writing Programs Award for best short fiction.
http://www.katharsis.org/lorriemoore.htm
It's funny, honest, and occasionally horribly accurate.
Torie Atkinson
Lovely. "Later on in life you will learn that writers are merely open, helpless texts with no real understanding of what they have written and therefore must half-believe anything and everything that is said of them," made me nod, and smile.
It can be very dangerous to offer opinions on subjects you don't know anything about. I'm reading http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/opinion an article by Mark Ridley about why, scientifically, we've never had it so good, and I'm thinking, ah, finally an article that my SF writer friends would, on the whole, agree with (most SF writers being such because they rather like the future, and think it's a good, or at least an interesting place, and that the sorting out of some problems just makes others that are fun to write about), and then I got to the bit where I learned who to blame for people being scared of the future and thinking that things have only got worse since 1903...
"Novelists and screen writers have a lot to answer for. How many movies have you seen set in the future in which you thought - what a nice place to live? Thought not.
The future is always depicted as a place where a technical fix has gone wrong, where androids stalk a devastated urban landscape. I have recently noticed a lot of people suddenly worrying about nanotechnology. Could Michael Crichton's "Prey" have anything to do with this?"
Oh, right. I thought. An idiot.
Which may have been an unfair reaction, but is one that is perfectly justifiable. And, because suspension of disbelief is much more important in non-fiction than it is in fiction, my suspension of disbelief for the entire article went out the window.
"Novelists and screen writers have a lot to answer for. How many movies have you seen set in the future in which you thought - what a nice place to live? Thought not.
The future is always depicted as a place where a technical fix has gone wrong, where androids stalk a devastated urban landscape. I have recently noticed a lot of people suddenly worrying about nanotechnology. Could Michael Crichton's "Prey" have anything to do with this?"
Oh, right. I thought. An idiot.
Which may have been an unfair reaction, but is one that is perfectly justifiable. And, because suspension of disbelief is much more important in non-fiction than it is in fiction, my suspension of disbelief for the entire article went out the window.
Interesting article forwarded to me by Bob Morales,Michael Medved on Captain America on National Review Online. I suppose it's because Medved made his name as a film critic (not the kind that writes interestingly about films to leave you yearning to go back and see it again, but the kind that makes fun of Plan 9 From Outer Space and Robot Monster) that he assumes that no-one's actually writing the comics he's talking about, or that Bob Morales's agenda and politics are the same as John Ney Reiber's (neither of whom are mentioned in the article).
Hi Neil
On Saturday the Independent had a feature on Diana Wynne Jones that managed to mention JK Rowling hardly at all:
http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/interviews/
story.jsp?story=393990
Best wishes
Tom
I noticed, and was thrilled.
Not a FAQ, but those of your readers who are also interested in Tori Amos can see a list of her favorite books (including American Gods,
of course) in the San Jos� Mercury News book section:
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/
books/5550873.htm
Diana in San Jos�
Tash likes stories with scary ladies in them, eh? I shall remember that.
...
Spent the day at Disney-MGM, mostly so that Maddy could ride the Tower of Terror, which she (and Holly and I) did, three and a half times. (The halfth time was the first, and the car broke down as it was about to move forward into the twilight-zoney bit, and nice men had to come and get us out and lead us down a back elevator and start us over again).
Now back in hotel room for an hour to unwind, do e-mail, and nap, before going back for the Fantasmic show.
...
And a final e-mail from Will Shetterly...
Emma and I are selling a few things on ebay. Two of them might be of
interest to your web log readers: a "Return of Pansy Smith and Violet
Jones" Flash Girls CD and a Gregg Press hardcover of Delany's
DRIFTGLASS. The full list is at:
http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&
userid=elbnws&include=0&since=-1&sort=3&rows=25
But if this seems like the tip of the wedge into turning your blog into
"Neil "Great Deal!" Gaiman's Guide to Awesome Internet Auctions!", feel
free to ignore this, honest. Will.
Really, I'm only posting this because I'm trapped in a hotel room with two girls who happen, coincidentally, to be singing more or less random lines from "Post-Mortem on Our Love" while jumping on each other and shouting things like "It's 'on our love', not 'of our love', Daddy, you wrote the song, tell her!"
Hi Neil
On Saturday the Independent had a feature on Diana Wynne Jones that managed to mention JK Rowling hardly at all:
http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/interviews/
story.jsp?story=393990
Best wishes
Tom
I noticed, and was thrilled.
Not a FAQ, but those of your readers who are also interested in Tori Amos can see a list of her favorite books (including American Gods,
of course) in the San Jos� Mercury News book section:
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/
books/5550873.htm
Diana in San Jos�
Tash likes stories with scary ladies in them, eh? I shall remember that.
...
Spent the day at Disney-MGM, mostly so that Maddy could ride the Tower of Terror, which she (and Holly and I) did, three and a half times. (The halfth time was the first, and the car broke down as it was about to move forward into the twilight-zoney bit, and nice men had to come and get us out and lead us down a back elevator and start us over again).
Now back in hotel room for an hour to unwind, do e-mail, and nap, before going back for the Fantasmic show.
...
And a final e-mail from Will Shetterly...
Emma and I are selling a few things on ebay. Two of them might be of
interest to your web log readers: a "Return of Pansy Smith and Violet
Jones" Flash Girls CD and a Gregg Press hardcover of Delany's
DRIFTGLASS. The full list is at:
http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&
userid=elbnws&include=0&since=-1&sort=3&rows=25
But if this seems like the tip of the wedge into turning your blog into
"Neil "Great Deal!" Gaiman's Guide to Awesome Internet Auctions!", feel
free to ignore this, honest. Will.
Really, I'm only posting this because I'm trapped in a hotel room with two girls who happen, coincidentally, to be singing more or less random lines from "Post-Mortem on Our Love" while jumping on each other and shouting things like "It's 'on our love', not 'of our love', Daddy, you wrote the song, tell her!"
Maddy wanted to go to Seaworld, so we spent today at Seaworld Orlando, which was something that would never have occurred to me on my own.
Poking around the Seaworld website before we left, this morning, I noticed they did a thing where you a) paid a bit more and b) got a six hour tour, including getting to meet penguins, go backstage and visit the manatee hospital, get preferential seating at all the shows, lunch, skip all the lines and have a tour guide.
Now, in my experience, giant amusement parks work best if you have someone on your team with the kind of mind and approach to life that generals, war gamers and top tacticians are famous for. Someone who's prepared spend hours, weeks before, to figure out what attractions you'll hit, in what sequence, when the lines are longest, how to avoid trouble. The kind of person who'll write the day's agenda down on bits of paper and give a copy to each member of the party.
Neither Holly not Maddy is that kind of person, and as for me, har-bloody-har, I could not organise my way out of a wet paper bag, so the idea of a guided tour immediately became a very attractive one. We're only here for a couple of days, so I plonked down a credit card...
And it was marvellous. Close encounters with penguins, dolphins, stingrays; we watched the feeding of some injured baby manatees; the shows we saw -- the Shamu killer whale show, and the Sealion and Otter show -- were delightful. The rides were fun. Even the lunch was edible. And when we were almost done, having seen and done everything, Maddy pleaded with our guide, and we were whisked back for a second go on the Journey to Atlantis watercoaster ("and got soaked for the second time," said Maddy, leaning over my shoulder while I write this in the hotel room).
It was a long day, but it was made very pleasant indeed by having someone else know when we were meant to be where. And we just enjoyed ourselves and learned things and fed fish to sealions and dolphins and fed squid to stingrays, and it was good.
Tomorrow, things will probably get rather more Disney.
Poking around the Seaworld website before we left, this morning, I noticed they did a thing where you a) paid a bit more and b) got a six hour tour, including getting to meet penguins, go backstage and visit the manatee hospital, get preferential seating at all the shows, lunch, skip all the lines and have a tour guide.
Now, in my experience, giant amusement parks work best if you have someone on your team with the kind of mind and approach to life that generals, war gamers and top tacticians are famous for. Someone who's prepared spend hours, weeks before, to figure out what attractions you'll hit, in what sequence, when the lines are longest, how to avoid trouble. The kind of person who'll write the day's agenda down on bits of paper and give a copy to each member of the party.
Neither Holly not Maddy is that kind of person, and as for me, har-bloody-har, I could not organise my way out of a wet paper bag, so the idea of a guided tour immediately became a very attractive one. We're only here for a couple of days, so I plonked down a credit card...
And it was marvellous. Close encounters with penguins, dolphins, stingrays; we watched the feeding of some injured baby manatees; the shows we saw -- the Shamu killer whale show, and the Sealion and Otter show -- were delightful. The rides were fun. Even the lunch was edible. And when we were almost done, having seen and done everything, Maddy pleaded with our guide, and we were whisked back for a second go on the Journey to Atlantis watercoaster ("and got soaked for the second time," said Maddy, leaning over my shoulder while I write this in the hotel room).
It was a long day, but it was made very pleasant indeed by having someone else know when we were meant to be where. And we just enjoyed ourselves and learned things and fed fish to sealions and dolphins and fed squid to stingrays, and it was good.
Tomorrow, things will probably get rather more Disney.