| |
| The Big Binan Move of November is tomorrow! So, today, I have to buy food to last me a week, a flashlight, jug, a laptop bag for the S10 and get my certificates from my previous employer (oh gosh, typing that feels good already). So, it's going to be a busy day.  But right now I'm sitting here in CBTL, drinking my favorite Moroccan Mint Tea Latte and leeching off on their WiFi. Bwahahahahah. This is so much better than spending time in my parents' office, while they pester me with stuff that I have to buy, yadda yadda yadda. Plus, I can chillax here in CBTL without any problem, with unlimited Internet. It's good. I'm already at 20K with NaNo, I actually got to the 18K mark Monday, but I didn't update because I didn't have Internet. :( That's also the reason why I couldn't join the word wars, even if I'm itching to (and even if I won't win for sure, cause ... the other guys type and think fast). As for Unforgiven, I think it's tredging the path that I want it to go, but I don't think I'm writing it the way I'm supposed to. Why can't all my writngs be as easy as the After Dark Saiunkoku Monogatari AU mashup?! Le sigh. And that was such a joy to write too. :( If I get through 50K on or before deadline, I will have more reason to celebrate than last year, for sure. Probably, I'll go have a party in a dorm, and cook up some pasta for the boarders or something weird. XD | |
|
| http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/very-sekrit-passphrase.html posted by Neil
There were 38 independent bookshops around the land who had Graveyard Book parties. The people at Harpers somehow got it down to 11, and they sent them to me to judge the winner. The winner gets me for a signing in December. I watched the 11 videos/descriptions/ photos. I watched them again. I watched them yet again, this time with Lorraine, my assistant, watching too and saying helpful things like, "They are all so good. Whoo. Don't know how you'll make a decision. Look at that! They're line dancing to Monster Mash! And that Death is on stilts, isn't he. Is that a horse? A horse in a store? These are amazing." The fourth time, Woodsman Hans wandered in from the deep woods (where he is making a pond) and watched them too.
Then I made my decision. I called Elyse Marshall at Harpers and told her. "Ah," she said. "I'll have to check with the lawyers to find out if you can do that."
So we wait.
...
Today it occurred to me that in the past when I've had friends on tour, I've often done special "Neil sent me" things, where people who come from this blog get some special free thing, which a) is nice for the people who get the free thing and b) tells the person on tour that people are really coming from the blog. I did it with Thea Gilmore (who is starting a new UK tour next week. People in the UK, go and see live Thea Gilmore, for she is wonderful: http://www.theagilmore.net for dates and venues.) I've done it for The Magnetic Fields, who, incidentally, have a new album coming out on Jan 26th. And then there's the Green Goddess restaurant in New Orleans, where you can mention the "Mezze of Destruction" to tell them you came from here and get sent something wonderful to eat or drink. (It changes, depending on what chef Chris DeBarr feels like making.)
I should do it for Amanda. I called her up and told her.
She called me back. "Beth and I have put our heads together and come up with a code phrase for people from your blog," she said. "So they say it and get a special free thing from the merch table."
"Fire away," I said.
"We think they should come over to the merch table and point to this poster...  ...and say 'That chick in the yellow corset crowdsurfing looks kind of hot. I wonder if she's dating anyone?' And then they get something for free."
I said I thought that was a very bad idea, because people might say that anyway, and it was an awful lot for people to remember. And what if they sold out of that poster early that night?
I said, "What about any variant of 'Neil sent me from his blog?'"
"Absolutely not," she said. "That's boring."
I told her to leave it with me.
And then I stared at this screen glumly, with nothing happening in my head, and real work I should be doing starting to nip at my heels. So I turned to the Oracular Orb of truth at http://www.neilgaiman.com/oracle/ and I clicked on the orb and shook it.
Here is Doug Jones and some strange man it said.
If you go to one of Amanda Palmer's shows on this tour, wander over to the Merch table, and say that you found about it from some strange man's blog. And something good will probably happen. (If they just stare at you, tell them it was me, and this blog. If they keep staring tell them that the chick in the yellow corset in the poster looks like she probably has a really nice boyfriend.)
....
This seemed like a very good cause to me: Hi Neil,
I am a long-time fan, and have even met you backstage at a Tori show (though that was many years ago!). I am writing to ask a bit of a favor.
About 10 years ago, I appeared on 20/20 with Tori, speaking about sexual violence. Since then, I've stayed close with Tori whose been a mentor of the best kind. I also started a nonprofit, Pandora's Project, that provides support, information, and resources to rape and sexual abuse survivors and their supporters. We operate Pandora's Aquarium, an online support group with more than 20,000 registered members.
Recently, I was named a 2009 L'Oreal Woman of Worth for my volunteer work with Pandora's. I was chosen for this honor from more than 2,500 applicants.
Now, one of the ten 2009 Honorees will be selected as the national honoree through a public online vote. Her cause will get an additional $25,000, and a lot of media exposure. This is the first time L'Oreal has recognized a sexual violence organization, and becoming the national honoree would allow me to shine a spotlight on this issue that affects so many women and women.
Voting is easy - people just need to go to the url below, enter their email address in the box on the right, and click the "submit vote" button. Each email address is allowed one vote, and voting ends November 24.
http://www.womenofworth.com/Honorees/Honoree2009Detail.aspx?nomid=5657c940-425b-47a2-879d-ed3c2d82b56f
I am wondering if you might be willing to send people to this voting link via your (infinitely popular) twitter or blog. I understand if it's not something you can do, but my experience running a small-budget nonprofit tells me it's always wise to ask!
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Shannon LambertI'll plug it happily. Your correspondent asks "Will you be reading the original version where the wolf actually is killed, and not the 'oh my goodness our kids can't hear about death' version in which they bring him to the zoo?"
I fear she's in error; in the original version, written by Prokofiev, Peter snares the wolf, then convinces the hunters NOT to kill it, but to take it to the zoo.I've been researching, and that's what I found out too. Wikipedia has a list of changes made in various versions of the story (Disney, for example, had the wolf not eat the duck). But the wolf was always taken to the zoo... | |
|
| 
Notes augmented
We've enhanced and de-bugged Notes. If you haven't tried it yet, now's the time! You can create a private note when you ban multiple users. You can also delete multiple notes at once. Lastly, paid users have the option to add a note (visible only to you) whenever you add or remove a friend (guaranteed to avoid embarrassing social mishaps). If you don't currently have a paid account, you can upgrade now! It only takes a few minutes and costs less than a bad shopping mall haircut (plus, it's way more fashionable)!
Product tweaks and bug kill
- In another effort to zap spam, comments containing links from domains LiveJournal deems untrustworthy are now automatically screened
- If you sign up to get notifications of the Writer's Block question of the day, you'll now see the daily question in the email notification, so you'll have a little extra time to ponder before you post. You can subscribe to Writers Block notifications here
- The issue causing random comments to vanish has been fixed!
- If you visit a LiveJournal page and get prompted to log in, you'll be returned to the same page after you sign in (Thanks, Dreamwidth)!
- If you don't edit the timestamp for an entry at all, the entry timestamp will indicate the time the entry was posted instead of the time the Update Journal page was loaded
- Comments with paddings/backgrounds render correctly within the comment box (and will no longer wrap outside the box and break frames/margins)
New FCK fixes rich text editor!
- We've updated our RTE (Rich Text Editor) to FCKeditor version 2.6.5
- When switching from the RTE to HTML editor, links for syndicated feeds are no longer broken
- RTE now functions properly in Safari 4.0
- An extra line/space will not be auto-inserted whenever you switch from RTE to HTML editor
- The insert image link now works correctly in all browsers
LiveJournal Cares
We’re pleased to introduce you to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) lj_cares, a new LiveJournal community dedicated to raising awareness and funds for U.S. charitable organizations that improve the health and well-being of people around the world. Each month, we’ll spotlight a nonprofit that is making a significant global impact through medical research, public outreach, and/or humanitarian social programs. Charities will be selected in accordance with the U.S. calendar of national health observances based on a high rating (of over 60%) on Charity Navigator and global scope of impact.
In this, our inaugural month of November, we will celebrate national adoption month by offering a charitable virtual gift (priced at $2.99) to support Love Without Boundaries, an organization that saves the lives of orphans with life-threatening diseases and places them in loving homes around the world. LiveJournal will donate 100% of the proceeds from the sale of charitable vgifts (we'll cover the cost of credit card transaction fees). To learn more about Love Without Boundaries, please visit lj_cares and read about how they helped save Baby Kang and the Rainbow Twins from fatal illnesses, who are now thriving in nurturing families. You can purchase your Love Without Boundaries gifts in the Virtual Gift shop.
Papered in postcards
A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to send in postcards to surround us with LiveJournal community. Thanks for coming through! We've received postcards all the way from Germany, Finland, and Canada and from all over the US, including Texas, Florida, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Indiana, Hawaii, and Oklahoma just to name just a handful. We're thrilled with our improved decor.
Please keep the love coming for one more week by writing to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be drawing the names of ten random contributors next Thursday to win paid account credits!
Photos of the week
We have more dazzling images posted by talented LiveJournal photographers from around the world. We're hoping to span the entire globe, so please continue posting and tagging. Of course, you can also sit back and enjoy the view at lj_photophile.
You can see a sample of this week's gorgeous photos and check out spotlight communities and awesome user content after the jump!
( Read more... )
Curtains
We thank you, once again, for joining us. See you next week! | |
|
| My band(s) are performing on two gigs this month. That's why i wasn't able to do youtube guitar covers / lessons huhuhu T_T November 21 - JCRUNCH at FREEDOM BAR (AsianChickenFest) November 28 - U.P. Ame no Jidai (AsianChickenFest Moonspeak) 4 songs each set XD well two are recycled but still very hectic whew! wish us luck ^_^  well if you want to see behind the pixelated image please watch us perform on those dates XD it will be a blast!!! | |
|
| Mom and Dad sit across a young girl across the dinner table. Only the young girl isn't really that young anymore. She has reached an age where she's been calling the shots in her life and has been acting like she can do anything without anyone's advice or counsel. Mom and Dad take everything in. Her perpetual disgruntled look. The way she drops her bag to the floor when she gets home. The way she enters the house after a hazy night without making any eye contact, except for the quick, requisite kiss on the cheek.
Mom and Dad have chosen to believe their young daughter has got it all together. She got good grades, she graduated with distinction, she went on to work respectable jobs. She hardly ever spoke. When she chooses to talk, her eyes light up as she tells her stories, wanting to communicate to her parents light-hearted moments and the occasional pebble in the shoe. She exiled her other stories to a vast valley of gray, a purgatory, if you can call it that. These were the stories that Mom and Dad should never hear. They reside in the valley occasionally to be visited by their daughter's close confidants, and nothing more. It is a purgatory because much was needed to purge. Maybe those stories will go away over time, but in most cases, they were there because if they won't go away, then the young girl will pretend they never existed.
Sometimes, in the dinner table, the young girl's body will be slowly clinking her utensils to put food inside her mouth. Nodding her head, eating as fast as she can, so she can retreat to her room. No soul resides in that body, for there are times that her soul was up in purgatory. She is with her vault of stories and she is looking down to earth, to Mom and Dad. There are days she has to tend to those stories, to make sure they never come out, to make sure they always stay right where they are.
For these were stories no parent would ever want to hear. About the times their young girl would take to drink, about the times she'd let go and have some boy she trusted force himself on her. The stories of how they never had a clue of what would happen right under their noses. About frantic cries for help, for mercy. Or the more bearable episodes where she would just black out and only have the ghosts of the previous nights haunt her the next day, or the next months to come. There were also the stories of how boys would be crying to this young girl, with pitiful tears dotting their eyes, begging her for forgiveness, forgiveness for their cheating and lying.
More importantly, the young girl also couldn't believe how she let herself descend into such a black hole. Sometimes, she just wants to reach out of the valley of gray, and ask Mom and Dad, when or why did the world start being so cruel. Or why is it that people with empty chasms for hearts had to exist. How can parents bear it when they know of their children's secret worlds? Of their secret pains? Of how the same charming boy who would shake their hands in the daytime would actually yell at their daughter, kick her in the side, or feed her heart to the hounds when they weren't looking. Of how their daughter gets reduced into a screaming, hysterical, pitiful wreck at the end of each conflagration.
And that's the point. They cannot know. Dinner proceeds, with everyone chewing. With Mom, Dad, and daughter discussing the weather. | |
|
| http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/radio-books-violin-lessons-also-haircut.html posted by Neil
Went in to KNOW radio station in ST Paul today and recorded an introduction to the NPR MORNING EDITION "Open Mike" piece I've been recording on audiobooks, and heard the edit. Asked them to see if they could find a bit more time in the piece for Audible founder Don Katz, who did an amazing interview and was pared down to about a sentence in the current edit. It'll go out in the next ten days, and as soon as I know when it goes out I'll put it up here. I talk to David Sedaris, Martin Jarvis, Don Katz and veteran audio producer/director Rick Harris in it.
Also popped in to DreamHaven and signed a bunch of books. The piles of books have grown so high, and the administration was proving so hard for Greg now that he is a one-man operation that I'm no longer personalising books there. But lots of signed books now in for the Holidays at DreamHaven's Neilgaiman.net site.
Spent much of the rest of the day driving around, being a dad, taking a daughter and her friend to violin, all that normal sort of stuff, and listening to Martin Jarvis's Good Omens audiobook as I did so. I'm about half-way through it now. It makes me so happy, especially hearing Adam Young read in something sort of close to Martin's Just William voice. Weirdly, I found it easier to hear what I wrote and what Terry wrote than I could if I looked at the text (which I discovered a few years ago, when I proofread the Harper Collins edition). The text is a bit of a blur, after all these years, but listening I'd find myself going, "Me... Terry.... Me in first draft, Terry in second.... Terry in first draft, me in second.... My footnote to his bit.... His footnote to mine..." feeling vaguely like an archaeologist. Even spotted a couple of tiny continuity goofs we should have caught 21 years ago that I may call Terry about and correct in future editions.
(She has an East Coast Tour on right now -
11.12 Portland, ME
11.13 Northampton, MA
11.14 Brooklyn, NY (SOLD OUT)
11.18 Philadelphia, PA
11.19 Falls Church, VA
11.20 Carrboro, NC
11.22 Knoxville, TN.
Go see her in concert. She's a wonder live. Tell her I said hi.)
I just read about your event in January, where in you will be narrating Peter and the Wolf. My husband and I are over joyed by this. We will hopefully be bringing our three girls up to see the performance. We did have one question though. Will you be reading the original version where the wolf actually is killed, and not the "oh my goodness our kids can't hear about death" version in which they bring him to the zoo? We are both, obviously, really hopeful that being you, and not afraid to scare children (thank you for that btw) will be speaking the true to the story version in which Peter shoots the wolf and then his dead body is paraded through the town as a trophy.
Thanks for your time,
~Cecily
PS- Do you know if there will be tickets for the event or the reception afterwards? It will be a long drive, and it would be nice to be prepared for either staking out seats all day or having tickets in hand. (We could not find any reservation information on the website)I'd forgotten - or never knew - that there was an alternative version. The script I was sent is the Zoo version. I'll investigate... And no, I do not know about tickets. I will find out. Dear Neil,
Your Web Goblin offered to post photos of Coraline pumpkins, and when they were told this, my 8 and 11-year old daughters decided to make some. Here they are, along with 2 emoticon pumpkins and a turnip.
http://www.steampunkfamily.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/IMG_01521-300x225.jpg
I used them to illustrate a ghost story: http://www.steampunkfamily.com/2009/10/philomenas-fright/
Three of the four of us were Coraline characters for Halloween. (The 11-year old went her own way as Susan Sto-Helit.)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37435081@N03/4077708519/sizes/l/in/set-72157622616148613/
The Other Mother is the scariest thing I've ever been for Halloween. All the children (even the 4-year olds!) knew who I was, and I elicited much nervous laughter when I offered to sew buttons in their eyes.
Thank you for being VERY SCARY INDEEDI love how many families were Coraline families, this year. If, like me, anybody else was intrigued by your mention of Kenneth Grahame's other works and wants to read them with a minimum of searching, they'll be happy to know both 'The Golden Age' and 'Dream Days' are available for free on the always invaluable Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/291
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/270
Thanks for mentioning them in the first place; I'm always interested in children's lit of that time that has managed to slip through my net.
- B. BolanderWhat a good idea. Two very beautiful, gently funny books by the author of The Wind in the Willows. I really enjoyed them, but stylistically they are, well, out of fashion, and will not be everybody's cup of Edwardian tea. Here's a passage that describes the illustration I put up yesterday, as small children steal through the house on a midnight expedition to obtain biscuits (ie cookies, if you are American): The Blue Room had in prehistoric times been added to by taking in a superfluous passage, and so not only had the advantage of two doors, but enabled us to get to the head of the stairs without passing the chamber wherein our dragon-aunt lay couched. It was rarely occupied, except when a casual uncle came down for the night. We entered in noiseless file, the room being plunged in darkness, except for a bright strip of moonlight on the floor, across which we must pass for our exit. On this our leading lady chose to pause, seizing the opportunity to study the hang of her new dressing-gown. Greatly satisfied thereat, she proceeded, after the feminine fashion, to peacock and to pose, pacing a minuet down the moonlit patch with an imaginary partner. This was too much for Edward's histrionic instincts, and after a moment's pause he drew his single-stick, and with flourishes meet for the occasion, strode onto the stage. A struggle ensued on approved lines, at the end of which Selina was stabbed slowly and with unction, and her corpse borne from the chamber by the ruthless cavalier. The rest of us rushed after in a clump, with capers and gesticulations of delight; the special charm of the performance lying in the necessity for its being carried out with the dumbest of dumb shows.
Once out on the dark landing, the noise of the storm without told us that we had exaggerated the necessity for silence; so, grasping the tails of each other's nightgowns even as Alpine climbers rope themselves together in perilous places, we fared stoutly down the staircase-moraine, and across the grim glacier of the hall, to where a faint glimmer from the half-open door of the drawing-room beckoned to us like friendly hostel-lights. Entering, we found that our thriftless seniors had left the sound red heart of a fire, easily coaxed into a cheerful blaze; and biscuits—a plateful—smiled at us in an encouraging sort of way, together with the halves of a lemon, already once squeezed but still suckable. The biscuits were righteously shared, the lemon segments passed from mouth to mouth; and as we squatted round the fire, its genial warmth consoling our unclad limbs, we realised that so many nocturnal perils had not been braved in vain.
"It's a funny thing," said Edward, as we chatted, "how I hate this room in the daytime. It always means having your face washed, and your hair brushed, and talking silly company talk. But to-night it's really quite jolly. Looks different, somehow."
"I never can make out," I said, "what people come here to tea for. They can have their own tea at home if they like,—they're not poor people,—with jam and things, and drink out of their saucer, and suck their fingers and enjoy themselves; but they come here from a long way off, and sit up straight with their feet off the bars of their chairs, and have one cup, and talk the same sort of stuff every time."
Selina sniffed disdainfully. "You don't know anything about it," she said. "In society you have to call on each other. It's the proper thing to do."
"Pooh! YOU'RE not in society," said Edward, politely; "and, what's more, you never will be."
"Yes, I shall, some day," retorted Selina; "but I shan't ask you to come and see me, so there!"
"Wouldn't come if you did," growled Edward.
| |
|
| Mechanics:* Leave me a comment saying "I am an AK-47/Katyusha/whatever weapon you know". * I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity. * Update your journal with the answers to the questions. * Include this explanation in your entry and offer to ask other people questions. I got this from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) mithlin_megil who asked the questions after I told her that I'm a Bat'leth (take that you filthy p'tahks!) XD ( Click me for the answers :D ) - Tags:meme
- Location:NUS
- Mood:cold
 - Music:AuditionSEA soundtrack
| |
|
| On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice. Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials. We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait! As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work. | |
|
| Hello guys!!
I hope you're all doing well!! (I'm in a very good mood so I do hope every one else could feel as good as I'm feeling! yay! Well!)
Concerning Ren's present, what do you think it could be??!!! Personnaly, I've thought about a piece of paper with a song dedicated only to Nana (a sort of Tribute). Or could it be a key to an appartment in London?! Or something related to their commun past?!
I hope you guys will be more creative than I was!! And I'm looking forward to see what you have coming with!!
(Sorry for my english!) | |
|
| School has just started >:
Boo.
But at least our workload is still work-able XD. Since it's mostly orientation time today :D. But quizzes start tomorrow >:. OB here I come.
So today, was mostly just lab work and orientation :D plus I just missed meeting the US Ambassador that visited our school >: Boo. And I wanted to meet her too, I heard she was really nice ^^
There was a convoy of cars that came by and I thought it was just a celebrity (even though I spotted a diplomatic plate). Plus, I didn't want to look like a loiter XD, but I should have stuck it out >:.
On happier news, MAE is opening for the Katy Perry concert on Saturday. I'm lukewarm when it comes to Katy Perry, but MAE :DDDDDDDDDD. They deserve their own show here (why are they just opening? >_>) but still, I want to watch :D. I making plans to buy tickets already XD.
WOOT.
(Still, I'm spending quite a lot of money, for the concert, for books and for a dress that I paid someone to sew X-x. Hehe I'm feeling a little guilty now XD)
Well off to finish my schedule and then study for OB ^^, - Mood:disappointed
 - Music:Great British Food -- Discovery Travel and Living
| |
|
| http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/murder-re-enacted.html posted by Neil
The Graveyard Book just won a literary award, which never gets old, and this one came with a medal, and also with a cheque. I thought, Hm. I have to get myself something with the cheque and I have to do it immediately, otherwise it will simply vanish into the day to day bank account of life, and I will never look at anything and go "Ah, that is the thing I got with my Graveyard Book Award."
So I bought this. It's "The Murder Re-Enacted": It's an E. H. Shepard illustration (he's most famous for illustrating Winnie the Pooh) from Kenneth Grahame's book The Golden Age. Kenneth Grahame wrote The Wind In The Willows, the story of Mole and Rat and Badger and of course, Mr Toad, also illustrated by Shepard.
I once read an essay by A.A. Milne telling people that, of course they knew Kenneth Grahame's work, he wrote The Golden Age and Dream Days, everybody had read them, but he also did this amazing book called The Wind in the Willows that nobody had ever heard of. And then Milne wrote a play called Toad of Toad Hall, which was a big hit and made The Wind in The Willows famous and read, and, eventually, one of the good classics (being a book that people continue to read and remember with pleasure), while The Golden Age and Dream Days, Grahame's beautiful, gentle tales of Victorian childhood, are long forgotten.
If there is a moral, or a lesson to be learned from all this, I do not know what it is.
Right. Off to K.N.O.W. St Paul to record the intro bits to my NPR piece on Audio Books, and I will play the Martin Jarvis-read GOOD OMENS on the car CD player all the way there.
| |
|
| Ngayon na lang kita nabisita ulit salamat at tinanggap mo pa rin ako dito sa mumunting page mo | |
|
| Title: The Demon Experiments
Chapter: 3. Captured again?
Synopsis: A/U When genetically altered humans find themselves out of the lab, how will they react to the world around them? And how will others react to them?Warning, slight yaoi
Genre: Adventure/Friendship
Rating: 'M'
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto~here @ finalu_beamu | |
|
| http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/half-lifetime.html posted by Neil
The editor at CBS Sunday Morning asked if I had any photos of my son Mike back at the period when I first had the idea for The Graveyard Book - late 1985. I looked. We really didn't have any. I wandered next door and asked Mary (his mum, my former wife and for these last five years my friend and next-door neighbour) if she had any photos from back then. "No," she said. Then, "Do you mean those transparencies? I have them in an envelope somewhere." She vanished and came back with a large manila envelope from a long time ago. "Here." Half a lifetime ago -- literally -- I was nearly 25, and working for magazines. Henry Fikret, who photographed a lot of the interviews I did, volunteered to take some photos of me and my family, and he did.A week later the envelope arrived, and I realised that everything he shot was on colour transparencies -- like huge slides -- and I was never sure what do with them, other than being fairly sure I couldn't take them down to Boots the Chemist and have prints knocked out. So they stayed in their envelope, and they kept their secrets, and were forgotten. Yesterday I had the transparencies scanned, and finally got to see lots of pictures I had never actually seen before of Holly as a baby, Mike at the time that I would have watched him riding his tricycle around the graveyard, and me... at exactly half my age: A young journalist who had sold a very small handful of short stories and two non-fiction books, with dreams of writing fiction and comics. At the time I was dressing in grey, but was getting tired of the way that you would buy something grey and take it home and discover that it was a blueish grey or a brownish grey, and wondering if I'd have the same problem if I just started to dress in black. And half a lifetime on, it seemed like it might be good to put one up here. I checked, and Mary didn't mind. What odd clothes we wore back then. What big glasses. And look, my hair is practically normal.    So long ago, and it went like the blink of an eye.
...
Birthday wishes are flooding in from around the globe. I wish I could reply to everyone personally, but it would take the next 365 days... so thank you. Thank you all.
... In January I will be part of a free concert for all ages on January 16, 2010, at 7pm, in the World Financial Center Winter Garden, New York. I'll be the narrator for the performance of Peter and the Wolf, performed by the http://www.knickerbocker-orchestra.org (whose website you should visit to get details).
Alan Moore is leaping aboard the Underground magazine bandwagon. Following the success of IT and OZ, Alan's Dodgem Logic is coming out. There's a great interview with Alan at http://www.mustardweb.org/dodgemlogic/
(And enormous congratulations to Alan, who is now a grandfather, and to Leah and John, who are now parents, and Edward Alec Moore-Reppion, who is now, um, born. A Scorpio, like his grandfather and his whatever-exactly-I am, sort of honorary great-uncle or something. Not that we Scorpios believe in that sort of thing, of course.)
Again, thank you all for the birthday wishes... | |
|
|  A lot of subbed eito-related vids today!   2009-11-06 Music Station [KyuJyoShow!! Opening+Talk+Performance] 2009-11-06 Minisute Hotel Point Room 0 Ep03 ROMES Ep03 関ジャニ∞ at HeyHeyHey [2009-11-09] 急☆上☆Show!! Performance  My wishes... they just keep on coming true. Because...  Shota has updated Kura'yas again (his 22nd entry yaaay!) Ahaha! And even Kura'nberry demands for more updates from him, and it looks like he's starting to stuff himself with food again! I really miss the "healthy" Tatsu... At last, more magazine scans from Vendy! It makes me want to buy Potato's December 2009 issue coz eito's on the cover! And darn it... one of my weaknesses are men in white shirt  They just look so clean and huggable. And they look as if they smell sooooo nice  After several episodes of bleeding (I have my period, my nose bled, and I accidentally cut my finger), I met up with neo_hippie_cat after my shift. We went to her sister kitsunemd 's Tatsu House and I finally met Aoi-chan  Aoi-chan is kitsunemd 's daughter and she's sooooooo cute!
She's the biggest fan of eito rangers and I think she have already memorized the whole eito ranger skit not only from Puzzle DVD, but also from 47 DVD!
France aka neo_hippie_cat introduced me to Aoi-chan as "Yasu's girlfriend". So when I went in the bathroom to change my clothes, she was asking France where Yasu's girlfriend is XDDDD And when I came back, she asked me if I went to Yasu's house to take care of him when he got sick. I crack up everytime she tells me something about the eito rangers like when the mannequin made Yasu cry. She even asked me kindly not to do the same thing to him! Isn't she such a sweetheart!?
She even drew something for me!
Today, I received some lovely stuffs!
My Irei Kanata postcards from puzzlepiece finally arrived
Irei is soooo gorgeous in those postcards that I feel guilty for putting my Musical Elisabeth pamphlet on sale 
( Irei <333 ) And France and Venice aka kitsunemd gave me Kagotsurube's flyer! It's sooooooooo gorgeous! ( Yasutsurube ) Ok guys! I shall go to work now! France really needs her own tag in this lj of mine and I'm just gonna do that later after work! See yah all! Should I say... doron?  | |
|
| |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif){kind=small}
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/newsinfo.gif){kind=small}
