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In January, I was here: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6L1zPW0YW7k/TS5aT3tPlMI/AAAAAAAAgTM/K7xR6eVllSQ/s400/IMG_20110110_122809.jpg I was given a copy of this. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6L1zPW0YW7k/TS5aTs3yGrI/AAAAAAAAgTE/zemBTt8O9TI/s1600/IMG_20110110_122305.jpg And I recorded my part here, with Producer Matt Selman directing me as hard as he could. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6L1zPW0YW7k/TS5aTb4HXHI/AAAAAAAAgS8/BESygAF2CYg/s400/IMG_20110110_111600.jpgAnd now, eleven months later, here we come... walkin' down the street... we get the funniest looks from... No, that's something else. Anyway, I like this shot because I am wearing a suit and tie. http://latimesherocomplex.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/simpsons-twilight-huger-games-gaiman-4.jpg?w=600 If you're in the US, then the episode of The Simpsons with me in it, "The Book Job", goes out tomorrow. 8 pm or 7 Central. If you're not in the US, then you may have a while to wait until it's on. No, I haven't seen it yet either. I am hoping to watch it tomorrow with a daughter, her friends, and probably doughnuts. ... I learned from Mark Evanier's blog that Les Daniels had passed away. Here's the New York Times obituary. I had Les's book "COMIX. A HISTORY OF COMIC BOOKS IN AMERICA" as a boy, and loved it and learned from it. I didn't meet Les until I was a guest at NeCon, in Providence, Rhode Island. I really liked him, I got to thank him for COMIX, and it's good to say thank you. My obsession with Jack Benny really started when Les and I were talking about radio, and I was saying that the best radio comedies were all British, pointing to Hancock's Half Hour and the Goons and Round the Horne and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Les agreed that they mostly were... but then there was the Jack Benny Show. And a few weeks later, he sent me some cassettes, so I could hear for myself. And I was both convinced and hooked. Thank you, Les. View the full article

I'm home from the tour. I'm tired and a bit sick (some sort of cold thing) but happy to be back with my dogs in my house. Already the tour is feeling a bit dreamlike and unreal. (Did Amanda really sing me a surprise Lou Reed/ Velvet Underground song in each new location? Did Amanda and John Cameron Mitchell also sing me "I'm Sticking With You" in Portland?) http://www.anotherrainysaturday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/palmer_gaiman_4.jpg http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6120/6324949402_9ed225b721.jpg http://www.anotherrainysaturday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/palmer_gaiman_15.jpg I'm glad that I got to be with Jason Webley on the Eleventiest Night of All. This blog has brought me many good things over the years, but I'm most glad of the friendships I've made through it I wouldn't have made otherwise, and I would never have known Jason if I hadn't mentioned, here in this blog, back in the dawn of time, how much I liked a video of a song of his called "Eleven Saints". http://media.whosay.com/90944/90944_la.jpg Neil Gaiman on WhoSay My best friend and I went to your "An Evening With Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer" show in Portland on November 8th and it was incredible. The two of you inspired both of us to grow as artists and people. For that, thank you. That said, I was wondering if you could tell me the name of that incredibly creepy song you sang at the end - the one where the disturbed man tells his mother about his killing spree. And how did you find it to begin with? Was it a popular song or something obscure you stumbled onto? It's a song called "Psycho" written by a blind American songwriter named Leon Payne about fifty years ago. I ran across it as one of the extra bonus live tracks on Elvis Costello's Almost Blue album, where he covered the version done by a man named Jack Kittel (which I eventually heard on a collection of songs that Elvis Costello had covered). When I first started going out with Amanda I would teach myself to play songs, which I would play her over the phone, and that was one of them - I think because I liked a version of it that was more lonely and plaintive and crazy and slow than the versions I'd heard. During our drive from LA to San Francisco Jack Kittel's version came on (I'd plugged my phone with much random music on it into the car stereo), and Amanda asked if I'd like to sing "Psycho" to an audience larger than her. And, nervously, I said "maybe..." (Which reminds me: this article on Amanda is the best thing I've read about her so far, in that it reads like an accurate portrait of the woman I married and the person I know. I missed it when it first came out. http://www.popmatters.com/pm/tools/full/150167) http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6113/6327419295_b8fd37a702.jpg I've not seen Tom Stoppard for years (July 2008 in Brazil), so was delighted to learn I'll be sharing a stage with him in Melbourne Australia on December the 16th. Not actually sharing it -- he'll be on it from 7 until 8, and I'll be on it from 9 until 10. But nearly. And if you want to see both of us talk that evening it gets cheaper. Details at http://wheelercentre.com/calendar/event/tom-stoppard-neil-gaiman-package/ Talking of stage-sharing: I mentioned here how much I loved the panel I did with Connie Willis at World Fantasy Con in San Diego. That panel has now been uploaded to YouTube. You can watch it in its entirely. It is Connie and me talking about craft and Where DO We Get Our Ideas and all that for an hour. ... Let's see. What else? Absolute Sandman Volume 5 came out. And that is most definitely the last Absolute volume of Sandman unless and until I actually write some more. Dear Neil, First of all, thanks to you and Amanda for a wonderful concert last week. It was really, really marvelous to be there with you. I'm wondering if the recordings of the tour will be available for those of us who didn't get in on the Kickstarter eventually? Second is this: I'm a recently declared English literature major taking an introductory course to British - or, since we also read Beowulf, Anglo-Saxon literature. Although I see you as a very modern writer, and also the type of writer many people who absolutely couldn't ever stand to be an English lit major would read books by, reading the first book of The Faerie Queen I was repeatedly reminded of Stardust, and I know you also did the screenplay for Beowulf. How do you see this type of English tradition in relation to your own writing? Is it a conscious, deliberate, or completely unintended influence? And do you have any advice for me for surviving the rest of the term (Milton, Pope, Blake)? Carolyn I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm not sure if the physical CDs will be available beyond the Kickstarter supporters (it'll be a 3 CD pack), but the audio downloads will be available for everyone. How do I see that tradition in relation to my own writing? I don't really think about it much: I love the poets you refer to, mostly (I never liked Alexander Pope's writing as much as I like Pope himself, or at any rate the version of Pope that I read as a boy in the James Branch Cabell Story "A Brown Woman" -- you can read it here, if you're curious). I read it all for pleasure, whether in school libraries or on my own, trying to understand how it all fitted in to the stuff that I already knew that I liked, discovering poets I liked and poets I didn't care for. Advice for surviving it? Lord, I hate to think of good writers as people you should survive. It's why I worry when I'm told I'm being taught in schools and colleges. I'm sure that Thomas Hardy wrote good books, and wish I'd come across them on my own, and all I know is that enforced reading of Thomas Hardy at school left me with a dislike of his books that's visceral, real and undoubtedly unfair. Will you in the near- or slightly-more-distant-future teach a writing workshop? Perhaps. I loved teaching at Clarion, but I also walked away from Clarion with 18 people whose lives and careers I now felt part of in a way that surprised me. I might do it again one day, probably should do, but am in no hurry. Neil, Your post - http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2003/06/tommy-leprechaun-dies-organs-are-built.asp That link that 'goes' (went) to the Missoulian is dead.... do you have a copy of that Tommy the Leprechaun story?...it was most excellent - yes, that short little man touched many lives.... I am, Phantasmagorical - Tommy gave me many pieces of 'magic'..... Thanks,John Oh, I met the man who murdered the man who stole his clothes - at MSP - I worked at the prison.... It's sad. So many of the old links from the blog are dead. (And many of the images have vanished as well.) But we're in luck here: I checked archive.org and it still had a link to the original story. You can read it here. Reading that old blog entry reminded me of the existence of this, from the dawn of the Internet, and I looked on YouTube, and found it once again, and I post it here for anyone who wonders what the original 1944 Warner Brothers version of Lord of the Rings, starring Humphrey Bogart as Frodo and Peter Lorre as Gollum, actually looked like*: *Not a true statement. For purposes of humour only. Void where prohibited. View the full article

The tour is over. It was amazing, and it got better. Vancouver was fantastic. Portland was amazing. Seattle was almost as amazing as Portland, but it was the only stop on the tour I didn't do mostly new material at because we were webcasting it. http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6113/6327419295_b8fd37a702.jpg I went looking on Flickr for a photo of me last night in Seattle - Amanda surprised me on stage with her signing "Take Back Your Mink", accompanied by a small, well-choreographed burlesque troupe, and then presented me with a birthday cake. But there were no photographs of that up yet, so here is a photo someone took of me in Vancouver.Portland and Seattle were filmed. All the shows were recorded. We'll be releasing a triple CD of the tour to Kickstarter supporters, and there will also be a digital download. I don't yet know how the film of the last two gigs will be released or what it will be once it's edited. It's my birthday today.I'm 51. There is no way I can get my head around 51. It sounds so terrifyingly grown up. I know that I am remarkably fortunate: there are people I love who who love me, and I make my living making art that I take pleasure in making. I don't know what else I could ever ask for.So many birthday wishes coming in. Thank you, each and every one of you. I'm very grateful. View the full article

Does the author presume the editor of the future will get paid more? Hopefully that will be the case.

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