posted by Neil
Outside it's raining - not hard, but continually - and the wind is alternately gusting and howling. Things that shouldn't be blowing over are blowing over, and I am less inclined to walk the dogs than I ought to be.
Cabal is walking better each day. Lola (who no longer looks like she did in http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2010/06/not-dead-yet.html) is about eight months old and as big as he is, or almost, and bounds through the undergrowth like a special effect of a sped-up weightless rocket-dog. I do not think this makes Cabal happy.
I never wrote about Lola, did I? I should, and will, but not today. But for those who are wondering... we adopted her through Petfinder.com, and we got her to be company for Cabal (we seemed so much happier when we had Pearl staying here). She's growing up, is terrifyingly smart, and in photos you can easily distinguish her from Cabal because his nose is pink while hers is black.
Hang on. Let me find a photo from the day when Amanda and I drove down to the Wisconsin Dells and got her...
Hm. It already seems impossible that Lola was ever that small. Or that it was that warm here or that the trees had leaves on them.(For anyone going "How beautiful they are. I wish I had a White German Shepherd," right now Petfinder.com needs homes for 193 White German Shepherds. Do not get a German Shepherd (of any colour) unless you have lots of room for it, space for it to run, and are willing to put on your coat and boots and head back out into the wind and rain and walk it... sigh....)
...
This week my ARTHUR episode is up at the PBS site. It's only watchable from the US or with a US IP address, and I do not know how long it will stay up. But right now, you can see me and the Falafel in:
And Steve Fritz talks to me and PBS about it at http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5925092/an_animated_conversation_with_neil.html?cat=2
...
...
The next email came in back in May.
Now, I am very squeamish on all eyeball-related matters, and after I clicked on the links and looked at them, I thought these photos were beautiful, so I asked Alexx if he'd mind me putting them up on the blog. He said yes. Which was just about the point where the blog went onto a sort-of hiatus.
Today he wrote and reminded me (thank you, Alexx...) and I take great pleasure in putting them up here.
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By: Neil Gaiman,
on 10/25/2010
Blog: Neil Gaiman (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Mitch Benn, Arthur on PBS, All Hallow's Read, BBC, Add a tag
posted by Neil
Despite (possibly because of) not living in the UK for most of the year, I remain incredibly proud of the BBC.
It's facing a future of real-world budget cuts (of the kind that leaves me hoping that Doctor Who will not soon be about two people who live in a small flat in Cardiff having a tiddlywinks contest for the fate of the universe).
Mitch Benn is proud of it too. Watch this video to find out why and how...
Here's the story of how he made the video. He sent me my very own Proud of the BBC T-shirt which I would be wearing right now if it wasn't in the wash.
In lieu of me modelling it, I will simply point you to http://mitchbenn.com/proudofthebbc/
where you can get your own T-shirt. You can wear it all over the world to signify your pride in the BBC, or just show that you look wicked in a black T-shirt.
...
My episode of ARTHUR went out today in the US. (There are parts of the US where it has't gone out yet. Check your local listings. It's called Falafelosophy.) PBS have said they plan to get it up online soon - I'll put up a link when it is.
And here's an interview done by the Ace Hotel in New York when I stayed there. The interview includes vibrating ducks and the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck. Also a photograph of me playing the ukulele.
...
I loved this:
I have no idea whether this is the proper way to comment on blog entries. If it's wrong then just pretend that I didn't send it. :-)
A comment to the latest blog entry:
"You know, there aren't enough traditions that involve giving books."
When I and my husband moved in together, we joined our libraries. But we had one problem: all the books we both liked, and now had two copies of. In the beginning, we didn't do much about it. I mean - what if you decide you don't belong together anyway, then you want to take your books with you when you split, right? But after a while, we decided that we wanted to get rid of the duplicates - as a sign that we would live together forever, and not ever need two copies of Neverwhere again.
So we arranged our wedding according to this idea; we gave each of the guests one book (or cd) from our duplicates, so that they could share this decision with us. Also they got a good book - obviously it was a book that both me and my husband liked (Well - with the exception of The Sword of Shannara, which we would have given away both copies of if we had found anybody who wanted them. :-) and would have it as a memory of our wedding.
And yes, we've lived happily ever since (nine years now), I don't ever see the need of reacquiring any of the duplicates we gave away, and I like it as a ceremony; it had a lot more meaning to us than most kinds of wedding ceremonies.
Regards (and thanks for all those great books!)
Monika
and this:
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By: Neil Gaiman,
on 10/19/2010
Blog: Neil Gaiman (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Paul and Storm, Cabal and me, Arthur on PBS, L-0-L-A Lola, w00tstock, nine photographs, the blogs and the twitter and the public and the private, Add a tag
posted by Neil
I'm not going to say a lot about Campfire, not what happened or who was there, because it was a very private sort of a thing.
At first I was suspicious. I've seen a lot of late 1960s and early 1970s SF television, and whenever a bunch of creative people are taken off by a private plane to a mysterious location, they are normally either brainwashed or replaced by exact duplicates who are sent back to society with a mysterious and probably fatal agenda.
Private plane. Check. Mysterious location. Check.Uh-oh.
So I spent much of the journey to, and the first day at, Campfire convinced it was all much too good to be true, and expecting that when I went back to my room there would be my exact duplicate waiting in the wardrobe, holding a silvery gun...
I left Campfire reinvigorated, excited about art, and looking forward to getting back to work and happy to be writing again. I saw some old friends, made a number of new friends, learned so much about so many things, and was happy.
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So I spent much of the journey to, and the first day at, Campfire convinced it was all much too good to be true, and expecting that when I went back to my room there would be my exact duplicate waiting in the wardrobe, holding a silvery gun...
Everything pointed to that. Aha, I thought, when the buses pulled up: THE COMPOUND. I was expecting barbed wire and enormous dogs and no way to let our loved ones know what had happened to us when the robot duplicates returned in our stead.
The Compound turned out to be a really nice local restaurant.
The Compound turned out to be a really nice local restaurant.You could bring someone, and (as Amanda is still in Cabaret, and Maddy was on a school field-trip) I brought my literary agent, Merrilee Heifetz, not as my agent but as my friend of (now) 23 years. She had as good a time as I did.
Photo by Seth Godin
I left Campfire reinvigorated, excited about art, and looking forward to getting back to work and happy to be writing again. I saw some old friends, made a number of new friends, learned so much about so many things, and was happy.
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By: Neil Gaiman,
on 9/16/2010
Blog: Neil Gaiman (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Dog, Doctor Who, bigger on the inside, Arthur on PBS, do bactera wiggle?, seven things, the composition of rainbows, arbitrary spectrum composition thoughts, Add a tag
posted by Neil
Let's see if this works...When last heard from I was in Wales, for the Doctor Who table read. And then I was off the world picking plums.
I'm still off the edge of the world right now. I was exhausted when I got here -- more exhausted than even I knew, I think. Too much travel, too much nothing ever quite stopping, too many meals on the road. I felt old and creaky and tired.
I spent my first week catching up on my sleep, eating sensible meals that I made myself, mostly veggies and fruits and fresh-caught fish (courtesy of the neighbours, who would walk up the hill and tap on the window, and give me fresh-caught mackerel and such. I gave them bags of plums). I did a lot of walking. Then I got a bicycle, and started going on daily bike rides, two miles to start with, which turned into six to ten miles each day as soon as I started to get into it. I'd take photos of things I'd pass while bike-riding using my little Nexus 1 phone camera and then knit them together with a stitcher program called Hugin.
An interesting rock.
It may be a while before I'm ready to start writing it. Lots of thinking to do first. But it's the next big story, I think.
And somewhere in there I lost about 8 pounds, stopped creaking and feeling old and travel-weary and started smiling, and wrote a couple of things that people were waiting for. Didn't write many more things people were waiting for, but I don't feel too bad about it: everything will get written eventually.
On Saturday I stop being a hermit and hit the road. Later in the week I'll arrive in Wales, to see the first couple of days of filming of my episode and be interviewed by Doctor Who Confidential.
News from home:
1) Cabal had an operation to uncompress parts of his spine, as he was having trouble walking. He's recovering. I am still worried. We chat on Skype. Or at least, I talk to him and he tries to figure out where my voice is coming from. Lorraine has done an amazing job of being there and keeping everything going, as has Woodsman Hans, and I am grateful. Now we wait. Lorraine's been keeping things updated on her blog, at http://blog.fabulouslorraine.com.
2) On October the 25th, I'll be on PBS's Arthur. I play a writer called Neil Gaiman.
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By: Neil Gaiman,
on 2/2/2010
Blog: Neil Gaiman (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: zoom, Arthur on PBS, Add a tag
posted by Neil
I'm so behind.
In LA. Working hard, meeting people, sorting things out, the usual. Woke up this morning to a phone call from my agent, letting me know that CORALINE had been nominated for an Oscar. It would be nice if UP won Best Picture and CORALINE took Best Animated Picture, but truthfully, I do not believe that will happen.
Then went to record my part in PBS's "ARTHUR". I play me. And I also play a tiny imaginary version of me. (This is me recording my part, above. I am just wearing a black tee shirt, but it looks like I am wearing something much more interesting.)
Today, more meetings, then being interviewed for a documentary on the history of DC Comics.
Special thing: the people at Fantagraphics have put up a secret web-page to give readers of this blog a discount ($100, reduced from $125) on the Huge, Wonderful Three Volume Complete Playboy Cartoons of Gahan Wilson book they are publishing, and in addition are offering the first hundred people who sign up from here, free, a signed three-colour Gahan Wilson print, into the bargain. I wrote the introduction to one of the books, and am getting nothing back from this (in case you were wondering) but the warm feeling of getting 50 years of glorious, scary, disturbing and wonderful Gahan Wilson cartoons into the hearts and minds of the world.
The link is at: http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3750&Itemid=190
Labels: Arthur on PBS, zoom
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