Resume cautious blogging Mister Sandman Busy week
Photos over here: http://home.seriessystems.com.au/photos/fiji0705/fiji0705.html
By Anonymous, at
9:13 AM
McKean also did the illustrations for "The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish".
Thanks :~)
Dear Sir,
By Unknown, at
11:52 AM
P.S. Please don't out me at work. Please.
By Anonymous, at
1:03 PM
Bwah hah haaaah....
I don't know, I reckon I would have gotten something eventually... This google "David Dave Versace Canberra" gives a first hit with a good place to start...
By Anonymous, at
6:11 PM
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
After Ms Lindor comprehensively outed the existence of Lexifab to my work colleagues last week, I have been too busy at work and lazy at home to do any updates. But now I’m forcing myself, on the grounds that I don’t want to seem like I’ve got something to hide. Giles did manage to find an old oblique reference to himself in which I dubbed him The Young Punk, but in context it was not intended as a term of abuse, so I reckon I got away with that. I presume he’ll let me know if not.
The week in Suva was productive and a little more entertaining than my first visit. Apart from the fact that Giles and Wendy were much better company than monsoonal rains and horrific bouts of flu-based impairment, I did actually get out and see some bits of the city. I can report that it’s still pretty dingy, but we did discover a couple of acceptable bars and a reliance source of extremely good curry. We also stayed at a large bed and breakfast which had a fabulous pool and a glorious view of a serene valley, the bay and some mountains to the south. This all made me happy.
Less pleasing elements of the trip included the woeful performance of Queensland in the State of Origin final (which is huge in Fiji, by all accounts), getting hustled into buying crappy “genuine” folk art by fast talking scammers with “genuine” Fiji Tourist Board accreditation (wish I’d read the Lonely Planet Guide warning about that before the incident in question) and the rubbish tip fire that burned out of control all week and pumped vast quantities of probably highly toxic smoke into the aforementioned serene valley (and the lungs of the several hundred residents therein, who were advised to leave the area after about three days of said poisoning).
Anyway, we got out of it what we went for, and Project Porkpie is poised to leap into actual action. Giles and the developers will actually start coding (or preparing to code, or whatever) next Monday, which means we’ll have informally moved past the point of no return. It’s probably time I told the business owners they’re up for more money than previously advised, I suppose…
Neil Gaiman did a guest presentation at the ANU last night, so Si, ChrisT (newly returned from the wilds of the Orient), Ms Lindor and I went along. Lie probably a lot of authors, he didn’t seem all that comfortable in front of an audience – by his own admission, his preferred convention style is one where he sits in the vicinity of a bar for three days chatting to anyone that comes past and occasionally dashing off to be funny at a panel for an hour before resuming his place – but he did have his moments. Without careful reference to his incredibly popular web page, he seems mostly to be touring to promote Mirrormask, a semi-animated film written by Neil and directed by long-time collaborator Dave McKean. McKean, certain of you may recall, produced the gorgeous, eclectic and occasionally quite disturbing cover images for every issue of Gaiman’s Sandman series. From the couple of short clips shown, Mirrormask is gloomily beautiful, deeply strange and unmistakably a McKean production. The pick of the clips almost defies description – a collection of tailors’ mannequin/robot/jack-in-the-boxes dress the heroine in goth stylings while singing The Carpenters’ Close to You - but is utterly compelling. I would say “Don’t miss it”, but Neil was pretty pessimistic about the schedule for its theatrical release in Australia, so perhaps “Don’t hold your breath” is a bit more on the money.
He also did a reading from his nearly-released new book Anansi Boys, which is one of the more fun fantasy titles in recent memory. The scene he read was very reminiscent of Douglas Adams (in fact sounded a lot like the interplay between Ford and Arthur in Hitchhiker’s but I have absolutely no complaints about that. He also mentioned that he and Roger Avary’s version of Beowulf now seems likely to be made, and that Terry Gilliam’s version of Good Omens is as likely to be made as it ever was (which is to say, who knows?). He did mention that Gilliam’s script includes a scene with Gilliam and William Shatner, so I really do want to see it myself now.
I didn’t feel like standing in line for probably more than an hour for an autograph (and in any case I forgot to bring my copy of Good Omens, or for that matter any of my favourite issues of Sandman) and nor did Simon, but I would love to have asked him if he ever thought his script for one of the Modesty Blaise movies would be made. Trouble is, it would have been a rhetorical question…
Seem to be packing more and more into each day at work, which is strange and satisfying, but why exactly is it that the more work you do, the more work you seem to have left to do? I feel like I used to have time to ponder deep philosophical insights like these, once upon a time…
Fiona’s been away in Adelaide doing training all this week, but she’s back tonight. Normality soon to be reinstituted, and not before time.
7 Comments:
Good to see you.
I must object to being labelled the outer. I only mentioned such a thing existed. Based on just this information, he would never have found it. You were the one who told him to google for "lexifab". And you spelled it.
L.
L.
