Toluu : Neil Gaiman's Journal

Neil Gaiman's Journal

Neil Gaiman's Journal: started February 2001 when nobody knew what the word Blog meant. Talking about writing, comics, books, films, bees, demonic tomatoes, cats, travel and a dog ever since.

Short, tired, trout-filled post...Today: posted by Neil
So yesterday I flew down to Chicago to see the Amanda Palmer show. It was wonderful. I was going to sign for people with Amanda afterwards, but a deadline was growling at my heels so I nipped back onto the tour bus and wrote something for the Independent on Sunday that was meant to be a Christmas Ghost story, but the ghost story I was writing was so damned depressing I decided to leave it for another time and wrote something about being being a little Jewish kid lobbying my parents for a Christmas Tree instead. The deadline was five in the morning (my time, 11.00 am London time)and it was done by one in the morning.

I rode the tourbus home from Chicago.

When I woke, there was an email from the editor in London saying she'd accepted it. I was thrilled and then I panicked -- what if my parents thought it was libellous? I sent it to my Dad, and got a message back saying he thought it was funny.

Took Amanda, Zoe Keating and half the Danger Ensemble, and the dog to a trout farm. Ate too much trout, cooked wrapped in newspaper, later in the evening. All's good. I'm tired but well fed and happy...

I'll try and do a catch up blog post soon, answering questions and such. In the meantime, I just want to say the best thing about being on the Horn Book's BEST OF THE YEAR list is the company I get to keep. It's good to be on a list w
Two tee shirts, a party invitation and talking fishDecember 3: posted by Neil

A CBLDF T-shirt. You can buy it and wear it. It will love you and tell the world that you like the First Amendment.

A deluge of mail this morning. So far there's about 300 messages saying "Yes, thank you," and "Oh. I get it," and precisely one chiding me for defending the distasteful and saying he 'agreed with Jess' (and after a brief exchange of emails, of the kind where it became apparent we were saying the same thing, the author mentioned "By the way, I also donated to the CBLDF after your blog post. ;-)" And he's in Australia.). Ms Jess wrote back to say "Thank you," and, "...donate I will. Believe it or not, I actually own Lost Girls, and plenty of other things that could've, at one point, gotten me bitten by obscenity law... I needed an external prod, and you helped. Off I go to donate..." Which made me happy.

The CBLDF website is at http://www.cbldf.org/. You can buy a basic membership here, or go and explore the things t
Why defend freedom of icky speech?December 2: posted by Neil
This is a bit long.Apologies.I'd meant to talk about other things, but I started writing this reply this morning and got a bit carried away.

I have questions about the Handley case. What makes lolicon something worth defending? Yaoi, as I understand it, isn't necessarily child porn, but the lolicon stuff is all about sexualizing prepubescent girls, yes? And haven't there been lots of credible psych studies saying that if you find a support community for a fetish, belief or behavior, you're more likely to indulge in it? That's why social movements are so important for oppressed or non-mainstream groups (meaning everything from the fetish community to free-market libertarianism) -and why NAMBLA is so very, very scary (they are, essentially, a support group for baby-rapists.)

The question, for me, is even if we only save ONE child from rape or attempted rape, or even just lots of uncomfortable hugs from Creepy Uncle Dave, is that not worth leaving a couple naked bodies out of a comic? It is, after all, more than possible to imply and discuss these issues (ex. if someone loses their virginity at 14, and chooses to write a comic about it) without having a big ol' pic of 14 yr. old poon being penetrated as the graphic. I also think there's a world of difference between the Sandman story-which depicts child rape as the horrific thing it is (and, I believe, a
A small fit of madness, or a good idea. Not sure.December 1: posted by Neil
Right. I'm trying to get caught up on things, so first of all, just a few hasty links:

Steve Bissette (one of three authors of the book about me and the stuff I wrote) is running a small competition for bookshops at http://srbissette.com/?p=2101

The Graveyard Book has made it onto another few Best of the Year lists: http://www.briankeene.com/?p=887,
http://www.bartsbookshelf.co.uk/2008/10/19/the-graveyard-book-by-neil-gaiman/
Boing Boing Holiday Gift Guide list #1 (Books for younger people)
Boing Boing Holiday Gift Guide list #2 (Fiction) [Which reminds me -- Damien Walter did a great interview with Cory Doctorow at http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/nov/25/cory-doctorow-little-brother]

http://www.animationarchive.org/2008/11/more-on-our-coraline-suitcase.html has the best list so far of m
Finally, a useful postNovember 27: posted by Neil
When it comes to Thanksgiving, there is only one thing I seem to be expected to do, and that is make the cranberry jelly.

And seeing I have to sit in the kitchen for another twenty minutes, and only stop to stir or skim sometimes, I thought you might possibly need to know about cranberry jelly. It's possible. This is the internet, after all. And real cranberry jelly tastes about a million times better than stuff in tins.

I learned how to make Cranberry Jelly from a wonderful cookbook called Beat This, by Ann Hodgman. (It's more or less out of print, I think, but new and used copies abound on Amazon.)

You take a pound of fresh cranberries, two cups of water, two cups of sugar (I tend to use less, as I like it less sweet), and a pinch of salt.

Wash the cranberries, removing any soft ones.

Bring the water to a boil. Add the cranberries, the sugar and the salt.

Boil for a long time. No, longer than that. About twenty-five minutes, skimming off the pink froth when you notice it, and stirring whenever you remember.

It's done when the cranberries get thick and syrupy: I use a cup of cold water and drip some in -- when the drop holds its shape, you're good.

Then you realise you don't have a jelly mould, but remember that there's always some tupperware somewhere, so you let the cranberry jelly cool off just a little (to avoid melting the tupperware. I know it's not likely