posted by Neil
I am easily made happy. Today's mail brought a letter from AudioFile Magazine, with copies of the magazine along with Certificates saying that The Graveyard Book audio had won an Earphones award, and another certificate which said nice things about my reading aloud skills (Here's the full list of their Best Voices of 2008.)I think, more than anything I do, I get concerned about the audiobooks, and made happy when they (and I) get recognised. They're hard work; I'm very aware that I'm not a professional reader-of-books-aloud; and, most of all, they're personal. If you don't like a book I've written I won't take it personally: I'm not the story, after all. But if you don't like a recording of me reading something... well, it was me sitting in that studio for three days reading aloud to someone in another room, and yes, it's personal.
So, yes. Big happies all around.
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Several ones like this in today...
Kevin Murphy (Mystery Science Theater 3000's Tom Servo, and now of Rifftrax fame) wrote today that you are secretly Leonard Cohen. Are you? Photographic evidence points to yes: http://blog.rifftrax.com/2009/01/06/okay-now-what-the-hell/
Or to quote Kevin Murphy,
Why didn’t anyone else see this coming? Why am I the only one to realize that Neil is actually groaning, tortured, half-mad folk-rock poet Leonard Cohen, who maintains his astonishing youth and beauty by feasting on the pineal glands of innocent women?!I dunno.
You spend your adolescence dreaming that you'll grow up to be Lou Reed, and then you grow up to be Leonard Cohen. Having said that, 'Tower of Song' is one of the songs I would take with me to a desert island, even if, in Manila, my fingers once typed John Cale when my head thought Leonard Cohen.
(Strangely, as I write this, I'm sitting on the sofa with Holly watching Lou Reed introduce Leonard Cohen at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, as we clear out unwatched stuff on the TIVO).
I was wondering if you'd seen any of the coverage (boingboing, Ebert, QuestionCopyright) about Nina Paley's Sita Sings the Blues?
On the one hand, I think an artist using another artist's work as the basis of a movie should get permission/compensate that person. On the other hand, the creator in this case has been dead for twenty years, and forgotten for more. Meanwhile Nina is arguably generating value for the corporations that currently own the rights.
I also thought it was interesting that she's come to the conclusion that physical distribution is more likely *limit* the audience that can view her work.
It's a bitch. The film looks amazing from the description and the online bits I've seen. Music rights clearance issues are always a bitch. (Dave McKean ran into something similar with the Django music on The Week Before, which is why Keanoshow is only legitimately available outside the US.)
Still, at least Nina Paley has a plan.
Now that you have a Wii, will you be playing the Coraline Wii game? Or would that be incredibly boring for you since you created the world it is set in?
The Coraline Wii is a mystery to me. (It might be less of a mystery if I asked anyone at Laika about it, mind you.) Then again, I seem only to be using the Wii as an exercisey fitness thingummy at present. Weight is dropping, waistline shrinking, and scores are going up for the most part, I'm loving the yoga and the balance stuff, and my trainer was impressed yesterday at stuff I seem to be able to do I couldn't do before, like snowshoe up the side of a hill without getting out of breath. (My first time in snowshoes. Interesting things.)
I was wondering if you'd seen any of the coverage (boingboing, Ebert, QuestionCopyright) about Nina Paley's Sita Sings the Blues?
On the one hand, I think an artist using another artist's work as the basis of a movie should get permission/compensate that person. On the other hand, the creator in this case has been dead for twenty years, and forgotten for more. Meanwhile Nina is arguably generating value for the corporations that currently own the rights.
I also thought it was interesting that she's come to the conclusion that physical distribution is more likely *limit* the audience that can view her work.
It's a bitch. The film looks amazing from the description and the online bits I've seen. Music rights clearance issues are always a bitch. (Dave McKean ran into something similar with the Django music on The Week Before, which is why Keanoshow is only legitimately available outside the US.)
Still, at least Nina Paley has a plan.
Now that you have a Wii, will you be playing the Coraline Wii game? Or would that be incredibly boring for you since you created the world it is set in?
The Coraline Wii is a mystery to me. (It might be less of a mystery if I asked anyone at Laika about it, mind you.) Then again, I seem only to be using the Wii as an exercisey fitness thingummy at present. Weight is dropping, waistline shrinking, and scores are going up for the most part, I'm loving the yoga and the balance stuff, and my trainer was impressed yesterday at stuff I seem to be able to do I couldn't do before, like snowshoe up the side of a hill without getting out of breath. (My first time in snowshoes. Interesting things.)
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I liked http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/weekinreview/04gough.html?_r=1&ref=books so much I followed it back to http://www.juliangough.com/journal and then I clicked on http://www.juliangough.com/journal/american-gods-and-london-literary-novelists.html and was chuffed.
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And finally, The Office gives us http://princessunicorndoll.com/legend.shtml. They sell the t-shirts too.
And finally, The Office gives us http://princessunicorndoll.com/legend.shtml. They sell the t-shirts too.
Urk. Bed.
Labels: My Horn Can Pierce The Sky, tower of song, yes the neilhimself twitter account is me, American Gods, completely abandons the idea of writing lots of labels and goes to bed instead
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