Zoom. A Miscellany. Zoom zoom.
Just a mixed bag of (hopefully) entertaining (to people other than myself) and unrelated (by anything other than the man being quoted) quotes, with (twice hopefully) very few parentheses. --RRNN
“Zoom (me arriving) Zoom (me leaving)”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/21/06
“That's about it for excitement today, other than noticing in the mirror that I actually now have a beard. I have a theory that no-one can recognise me with a beard, which, despite no-one ever not recognising me bearded, I persist in believing, because I surprise myself each time I look in the mirror.”
-- Neil Gaiman 11/22/02
“Family dynamics, while complicated, tend to include love as a major component.”
–Neil Gaiman 09/25/02
“I'm not entirely sure how I feel about learning that there really were hobbit-sized members of the human family (and of course they rode ponies and fought dragons. Or ran away from them). It's like someone discovering fossil remains of a one-horned horse: something suddenly slips from idea-space into the world.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/28/04
“Had a wonderful day in St Lucia. Wonderful scenery wound with roller-coaster roads. I visited the "drive-in volcano", stood under a waterfall and got magnificently wet, and I left with a general sense that a day was not nearly enough time to spend in St Lucia.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/26/04
“While I was at World Horror Con, something truly horrific had happened at my house. Er, ladybirds. Well, not really ladybirds, which many Americans call ladybugs, but some kind of beetle that looks almost exactly like a ladybird. They crept into the house in the autumn and hid in cracks. Today was the first day of summer, with temperatures in the 90s. (Five days ago there was snow on the ground and it was the end of winter. Spring seems to have been omitted this year, and will probably finally turn up in July where it will turn out to have been put under some newspapers, or to have slipped behind a chair, and been forgotten about.) The ladybirds-which-aren’t have decided that hot weather means that they should immediately breed in record numbers without bothering about going outside, so they creep everywhere, making otherwise normal surfaces move and writhe like something in a Ramsey Campbell short story, and they dive bomb people who are trying to write their journal entries. Also if you flick them off your pillow, they emit an extremely unpleasant smell and you have to stop typing and go and wash your hands.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/16/02
“Someone on the FAQ line told me that the ladybirds are actually japanese bean beetles. Everyone told me to vacuum-cleaner them up (which would work better if this weren't a very old house with very high ceilings) to avoid the smell and to move them in quantity. One person added: ‘our dog has taken to eating them (I guess because they move - dogs, go figure), and without getting too graphic, let's just say that the digestive system of the common canine does not alter their odor.’ Aren't you glad you know that?
I can add one piece of information to the whole japanese bean beetle lore: goldfish will eat all of a japanese bean beetle, even the spotted wing case, but they don't eat the wings. I figured that out when I notice the drifts of beetle-wings on the top of the water in the goldfish-tank.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/17/02
“Lacking bear pepper-spray, I walked home across the garden last night singing very loud bear songs, which went something along the lines of, "Lalala, I am singing very loudly to alert the bear to my presence, Lalala because most of the websites I've found talk about making noise and giving bears lots of time to get away, Lalala also I do not want to startle a bear at all because according to everything I've read on the subject bears do not like being startled." You don't have to worry about rhymes with bears. They don't mind about rhymes. Or tunes. Or scansion. Frankly, hypothetical bears are a very easy sort of audience.”
-- 05/12/06 Neil Gaiman
“Had one of those conversations last night with academic and critic Gary Wolfe about children's literature, fantasy, Lucy Clifford, E. Nesbit, how fiction ages and changes, what Victorian fantasy is still read and so on that I only left, with regret, when I realised that I was about to turn back into a pumpkin, and stumbled bedwards. It was the kind of conversation which remind me why I enjoy conventions, despite all the bits I don't.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/13/02
“I met Jerry Juhl this evening. Former head writer of the Muppets. One of my heroes. I acted really cool, even though this was the man who wrote dialogue for the Great Gonzo. I even learned why Chris Langham was a Guest on the Muppet Show (which will allow me to impress certain friends in the UK with my newfound knowledge the next time I see him). Every now and then in interviews, I get asked "Is there anyone who would turn you into a quivering fanboy?" and I lie and say not really. But I got to eat ice cream with Jerry Juhl... I mean, how cool is that?”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/03/02
“Well, one reason I've kept this blog up is that, in a lot of ways, it helps undercut all the Cult Of Personality stuff. While it's probably much easier if you want to be a hero just existing in people's heads, being whatever they want you to be, it's also more than a little odd, and probably very unhealthy. I'd rather, at least as long as I keep up this journal, try and remain as accessible as I can while still being able to get the work done and have some privacy; I have no desire to be anyone's hero. I'm a writer, and a very lucky one in that I've mostly been able write what I wanted to, and enough people like to read what I write that, unlike the great majority of writers, I can make my living writing (I'm a Beowulf, rather than a Dante, in Neal Stephenson's brilliant analogy). And that's enough.
I didn't sign up for this to be a hero, or any of that nonsense: I'm here to tell stories. And the stories aren't me.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/29/04
“When I'm ready to stop, I will. I always do. The important thing in that interview was "For me, it's always that Mary Poppins thing. I'll do it until the wind changes." I started blogging in Feb 2001, certain that I'd do it until September 2001, but I've enjoyed having a soapbox, not to mention somewhere to witter on about writing and socks and things too much to stop. Still, one day the wind will change, and I'll either stop or take a break or something, probably as an initial step towards becoming a mysterious recluse rumoured to have tissue-boxes on my feet and a long scraggy beard. Mostly what I was trying to stress was the oddness of realising that there are A Lot Of People Reading This, and the weird feeling that gives -- the knowledge that something small I do for fun somehow matters, and that if I stopped people would care.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/28/05
“One of the best things about this blog, for me, is that it's the diary I don't keep.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/29/05
“You know, just for the record, and I hate to spoil anyone's fun, but no,
http://www.myspace.com/neilgaiman
has absolutely nothing to do with me. I'm not writing the blog there either. (And a note to any future would-be me-impersonators: Please work on your spelling. hygene?deticated? assumtion? And, for obvious reasons, I can't ever imagine describing myself as a red-blooded American...)”
- Neil Gaiman 04/29/06
“At least, in my head I'm English. Although some English people hear my accent as American.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/24/04
“I'm 44, and I do not have a beard this week.”
–Neil Gaiman 11/21/04
“Also ate some very nice sushi for lunch. Very interesting. Now on my way somewhere else.
Zoom zoom.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/02/02
“Zoom (me arriving) Zoom (me leaving)”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/21/06
“That's about it for excitement today, other than noticing in the mirror that I actually now have a beard. I have a theory that no-one can recognise me with a beard, which, despite no-one ever not recognising me bearded, I persist in believing, because I surprise myself each time I look in the mirror.”
-- Neil Gaiman 11/22/02
“Family dynamics, while complicated, tend to include love as a major component.”
–Neil Gaiman 09/25/02
“I'm not entirely sure how I feel about learning that there really were hobbit-sized members of the human family (and of course they rode ponies and fought dragons. Or ran away from them). It's like someone discovering fossil remains of a one-horned horse: something suddenly slips from idea-space into the world.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/28/04
“Had a wonderful day in St Lucia. Wonderful scenery wound with roller-coaster roads. I visited the "drive-in volcano", stood under a waterfall and got magnificently wet, and I left with a general sense that a day was not nearly enough time to spend in St Lucia.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/26/04
“While I was at World Horror Con, something truly horrific had happened at my house. Er, ladybirds. Well, not really ladybirds, which many Americans call ladybugs, but some kind of beetle that looks almost exactly like a ladybird. They crept into the house in the autumn and hid in cracks. Today was the first day of summer, with temperatures in the 90s. (Five days ago there was snow on the ground and it was the end of winter. Spring seems to have been omitted this year, and will probably finally turn up in July where it will turn out to have been put under some newspapers, or to have slipped behind a chair, and been forgotten about.) The ladybirds-which-aren’t have decided that hot weather means that they should immediately breed in record numbers without bothering about going outside, so they creep everywhere, making otherwise normal surfaces move and writhe like something in a Ramsey Campbell short story, and they dive bomb people who are trying to write their journal entries. Also if you flick them off your pillow, they emit an extremely unpleasant smell and you have to stop typing and go and wash your hands.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/16/02
“Someone on the FAQ line told me that the ladybirds are actually japanese bean beetles. Everyone told me to vacuum-cleaner them up (which would work better if this weren't a very old house with very high ceilings) to avoid the smell and to move them in quantity. One person added: ‘our dog has taken to eating them (I guess because they move - dogs, go figure), and without getting too graphic, let's just say that the digestive system of the common canine does not alter their odor.’ Aren't you glad you know that?
I can add one piece of information to the whole japanese bean beetle lore: goldfish will eat all of a japanese bean beetle, even the spotted wing case, but they don't eat the wings. I figured that out when I notice the drifts of beetle-wings on the top of the water in the goldfish-tank.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/17/02
“Lacking bear pepper-spray, I walked home across the garden last night singing very loud bear songs, which went something along the lines of, "Lalala, I am singing very loudly to alert the bear to my presence, Lalala because most of the websites I've found talk about making noise and giving bears lots of time to get away, Lalala also I do not want to startle a bear at all because according to everything I've read on the subject bears do not like being startled." You don't have to worry about rhymes with bears. They don't mind about rhymes. Or tunes. Or scansion. Frankly, hypothetical bears are a very easy sort of audience.”
-- 05/12/06 Neil Gaiman
“Had one of those conversations last night with academic and critic Gary Wolfe about children's literature, fantasy, Lucy Clifford, E. Nesbit, how fiction ages and changes, what Victorian fantasy is still read and so on that I only left, with regret, when I realised that I was about to turn back into a pumpkin, and stumbled bedwards. It was the kind of conversation which remind me why I enjoy conventions, despite all the bits I don't.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/13/02
“I met Jerry Juhl this evening. Former head writer of the Muppets. One of my heroes. I acted really cool, even though this was the man who wrote dialogue for the Great Gonzo. I even learned why Chris Langham was a Guest on the Muppet Show (which will allow me to impress certain friends in the UK with my newfound knowledge the next time I see him). Every now and then in interviews, I get asked "Is there anyone who would turn you into a quivering fanboy?" and I lie and say not really. But I got to eat ice cream with Jerry Juhl... I mean, how cool is that?”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/03/02
“Well, one reason I've kept this blog up is that, in a lot of ways, it helps undercut all the Cult Of Personality stuff. While it's probably much easier if you want to be a hero just existing in people's heads, being whatever they want you to be, it's also more than a little odd, and probably very unhealthy. I'd rather, at least as long as I keep up this journal, try and remain as accessible as I can while still being able to get the work done and have some privacy; I have no desire to be anyone's hero. I'm a writer, and a very lucky one in that I've mostly been able write what I wanted to, and enough people like to read what I write that, unlike the great majority of writers, I can make my living writing (I'm a Beowulf, rather than a Dante, in Neal Stephenson's brilliant analogy). And that's enough.
I didn't sign up for this to be a hero, or any of that nonsense: I'm here to tell stories. And the stories aren't me.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/29/04
“When I'm ready to stop, I will. I always do. The important thing in that interview was "For me, it's always that Mary Poppins thing. I'll do it until the wind changes." I started blogging in Feb 2001, certain that I'd do it until September 2001, but I've enjoyed having a soapbox, not to mention somewhere to witter on about writing and socks and things too much to stop. Still, one day the wind will change, and I'll either stop or take a break or something, probably as an initial step towards becoming a mysterious recluse rumoured to have tissue-boxes on my feet and a long scraggy beard. Mostly what I was trying to stress was the oddness of realising that there are A Lot Of People Reading This, and the weird feeling that gives -- the knowledge that something small I do for fun somehow matters, and that if I stopped people would care.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/28/05
“One of the best things about this blog, for me, is that it's the diary I don't keep.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/29/05
“You know, just for the record, and I hate to spoil anyone's fun, but no,
http://www.myspace.com/neilgaiman
has absolutely nothing to do with me. I'm not writing the blog there either. (And a note to any future would-be me-impersonators: Please work on your spelling. hygene?deticated? assumtion? And, for obvious reasons, I can't ever imagine describing myself as a red-blooded American...)”
- Neil Gaiman 04/29/06
“At least, in my head I'm English. Although some English people hear my accent as American.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/24/04
“I'm 44, and I do not have a beard this week.”
–Neil Gaiman 11/21/04
“Also ate some very nice sushi for lunch. Very interesting. Now on my way somewhere else.
Zoom zoom.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/02/02
posted by Really_Rather_Not_Nice at 7:49 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home