posted by Neil
The weather outside is, well, a pain in the neck actually. All of the paths I used to walk on have melted and then frozen, so many of them are pure ice. The snow beyond the paths has melted down and refrozen into a solid crust too -- a crust almost hard enough so you can walk on it, but, alas, not hard enough to run on. Footing is treacherous, the moonlight is beautiful, and I have not yet seen the promised Northern Lights...For work today (and tomorrow, and I am sure Sunday) I am copyediting the galleys of the upcoming Tenth Anniversary edition of American Gods. Which is just what I was doing this time ten years ago.
Hello Neil, I was just wondering, who did you base 'King of Pain' on from "Three Septembers and a January" Is he Thomas Paine?
I find it strange, why is he incorporated into the same comic as the Emperor of America?
Thomas Paine is indeed in Sandman, but he's in "Thermidor", the issue before "Three Septembers and a January". No, the King of Pain was a real person, and is drawn as he was described, from the San Francisco of the time of Emperor Norton.
He's in the book because, well, who would you send to negotiate with an emperor but a king?
I'll try something I've not done before here, and embed a little of the book I found him in, Herbert Asbury's The Barbary Coast, in here from Google books.
And today's February pastblast request:
Hi, Neil,
Belated congratuations on your wedding! All the best to you and your lovely wife.
When you asked about the blog's greatest hits, two entries immediately came to mind. One was the Skippy show, and the other was the one in which you describe taking Maddy to school - Monday, December 05, 2005. You described something that I've since heard repeated by others (ex: a friend is married to Susan Sarandon's brother, and my friend has described Sarandon's children begging her not to go to the Oscars - "But Mom, it's so EMBARRASSING! Can't we just stay home?!"), that no matter how cool the rest of the world thinks you are, your children will always think you are a geek.
Words of wisdom :)
I just re-read the entry in question and I'm putting the whole thing up, mostly because I was astonished to discover that the NPR links from 2005 still work.
It's from http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2005/12/early-night.html
Up at the crack of dawn this morning to take Maddy to school. She doesn't like me taking her to school normally, because it's embarrassing, what with me driving her in the Mini, but today, Mary in Italy with Holly and my assistant Lorraine taking Lisa Snellings to the airport, I crawled out into the grey world and took her to school. Wearing a thick dressing gown and big slippers, because I wasn't getting dressed at that time in the morning for anyone. It was strangely poetic that the passenger door decided to freeze shut (it was minus 2 F), meaning that Maddy had the entire journey to school to confront the dread embarrassment of the idea that, on arrival at school, I would get out of the car in dressing gown and slippers and then she'd have to get out on my side. We negotiated, and instead of dropping her off outside the school, I found a discreet spot in the car-park, and she slipped out there, pretending as hard as she could that she didn't know me.
Did Talk of the Nation with Neal Conan in the afternoon -- I've always done it at KNOW in St Paul before (except for http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgDate=18-Sep-2003&prgId=5 when I was in DC in Sep0 Comments on The King of Pain Explained. An Absence of Northern Lights. as of 2/19/2011Add a Comment