It's Baaaack...

A Satanic tomato will not be held down for long.
--RRNN


“I'm forever running across accounts of people who notice the faces of saints, gods, mothers of god, and the like, that turn up, as a Message from Above, on their grilled cheese sandwiches or their burritos or something, and until now, I have to admit, I have scoffed.
That, of course, was before I went out into the garden and found myself face to face with The Satanic Tomato. I picked it and brought it inside.
I do know that the appropriate religious response to these divine food manifestations is to put it on eBay and to rake in the cash; and yet I fear that if this tomato fell into the wrong hands, it'd be Armageddon, before you could say Demonic Salad Vegetable. ..”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/02/05


“Lots of people writing to ask me to eBay the satanic tomato for charity. My hesitation on this is simply that it's a tomato. They don't last long. By the time an auction would be done, I'd be sending someone a rotted, icky thing that would no longer resemble a tomato.
Having said that, if anyone can figure out a way to make money for Katrina relief out of a demonic one-horned tomato that's currently sitting in the fridge looking slightly less bouncy than it did yesterday, let me know. Er, relatively fast… In the photo, He was sitting in all His Infernal Awfulness on a copy of the new mass-market paperback edition of Smoke and Mirrors.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/03/05


“I need to sleep, so this is just a hasty post to say that you are an amazingly inventive lot, and while freeze-drying, lacquering or any of the other demonic tomato-based suggestions were really good, the overwhelming vote is for...
Demonic Salsa.
We'll figure out the details tomorrow.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/05/05


“Right. So we decided to do a label or two for the Salsa. There has already been one gratefully accepted offer of art for a cartoon label, and then I thought that, in addition to that, it might be fun to try potential photographic labels. Not sure whether I'll use one of them, all of them, or none of them... Two of them are me and the tomato in question. One is the kitten, planning total world domination. I shall leave it to you to figure out which is which. Frankly, I like to think that I could be the Paul Newman of Satanic Salsas. Or, failing that, at least the Tony the Tiger of Satanic Salsas. Having said that, of course, I think that, in their hunt for the face of Satanic Salsa, most focus groups would pick the kitten...”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/05/05


“Went off into the garden, picked many tomatoes, not to mention the last of the onions, and sorrell, basil, cilantro, jalapenos and other hot and sweet peppers, garlic and everything except limes (which I bought), and I made a large quantity of salsa.
The devil-tomato is in there, although I forgot to save the seeds. Lots of jars have been bought and prepared, and tomorrow while I'm off talking to press people, it'll all be canned. I haven't figured out the label bit yet, but whatever I do will probably also involve numbering each bottle. And then I expect we'll eBay them, or something.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/06/05

Vewwy Bad Wabbits

It is my wife's birthday on the 16th of September.
Happy Birthday Honey!

And as for the quotes? It's all bad bunnies this time around, from MORBID TENDENCIES. --RRNN

“Almost forgot to mention, this morning's post brought the first of Windy Lewis's bunnies. I bought several of them at the World Horror Convention, where they were the hit of the art show: my favourite being a fluffy purple three-eared, six legged bunny with huge alien eyes. Somewhere I decided that really what I needed to make my life perfect was the Strangely Disturbing Bunny of the Month Club, and Windy agreed. The June Bunny is amazingly cute, and sits, semi-octopus-like, on four legs, rather than the usual two. There are no pictures of Strange Bunnies up yet at Windy's Morbid Tendencies site, but I'm sure there will be eventually.
Good night.”
-- Neil Gaiman 07/10/02


“You know, I should do a photo gallery or something here of the collection of Strange Bunnies I've been sent ever since I asked Windy Lewis to start the Bunny of the Month Club and sign me up as the charter member. Every month I am made happy... Last month's was a centaur bunny. The one before that was a snow white bunny with one huge yellow eyeball, which would pull out from its body on a string with a horrendous ratcheting noise, and then slowly pull itself back. There's the bunny with the single ear and a lightbulb inside its head, and the Baba Yaga bunny with chicken legs, and a gorgeous mismatched patchwork bunny who reminds me of Delirium. They arrive wrapped in cloth, with mysterious notes and, on occasion, props, inside sealed-up coffee cans, to ensure that they don't get damaged on route, and they never do. From this, we can deduce that Windy (a) has a unique imagination, (b) understands packaging and (c) drinks a lot of coffee.
It's the perfect gift for the person who has everything except really disturbing monthly bunnies. (And Windy's ordering instructions, at http://www.morbidtendencies.com/botmc-details.html, are hilarious, as she explains what you get at different price points...”
-- Neil Gaiman 03/14/03


“The mail today included… a new Bunny of the Month Club Bunny (two-faced, this one, like Janus, with little pink dungarees, and red eyes on one face and blue on the other).”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/03/03


“Ah, you're probably thinking of Windy Lewis's Morbid Tendencies site: http://www.drizzle.com/~morbid/art-buy.html is a good place to start, but make sure you click on the info about the Bunny of the Month Club. (The last one to arrive, about ten days ago, was a Bunny-skin Rug. The one the month before that had two heads. "Oh," said my wife. "Finally one that isn't disturbing. Two heads. Well, compared to most of the bunnies she sends, that's kind of sweet." "Yes," said Maddy, happily, who had seen what I had seen immediately. "And look, one of the heads is dead!")”
-- Neil Gaiman 06/18/03


“Q: Just out of interest, was there anything waiting for you that wasn't by you, and didn't have a story by you in?
A: Of course. Lots of things. A Disturbing Bunny, for a start.
Q: This would be from the Disturbing Bunny of the Month Club, I suppose?
A: Of course! http://www.morbidtendencies.com/botmc-details.html has all the details, not to mention photos and suchlike.
Q: And this particular Bunny was...?
A: Pink, with huge werewolfy teeth and an enormous red velvet tongue. His mouth opens all the way, like a thylacine's. He also has a green bathrobe. Holly is trying to decide whether or not he will be accompanying her to Bryn Mawr this year, in case she needs something you can both cuddle and use to terrify burglars.”
-- Neil Gaiman (from a Q&A with himself) 08/23/04


“While on your right, the latest Bunny of the Month from Morbid Tendencies and Cat Grey. (After the first year or so we actually took the bunny frequency way down so now they arrive every few months and are always a delightful surprise when they do.) This is the bunny equivalent of the Eyeball Kid.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/07/06

Even More Maddy Madness

I discovered I had a rather large collection of Maddy-related quotes all collected and ready to go that I'd forgotten about. Since she was so popular in the last post, I thought I'd go ahead and use them, with the hope that too much Maddy is not a bad thing in the eyes of the folks who haunt this blog.

WARNING! SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION AHEAD: Also, I'm trying to get a bit more serious about maintaining my own blog over at RRNNT's, so click on over (in my sidebar (you may need to scroll down if I haven't fixed the problem yet) and give it a check. Mostly just comic reviews right now, and some fun announcements about a few of my family and friends, but soon I'll be all dark and foreboding again. Thanks.
--Really Rather Not Nice.


"My only contact with technology is a single phone call home each night, to read a chapter of Daniel Pinkwater's LIZARD MUSIC to my daughter Maddy.She has a copy of her own, at the other end of the phone, and fills in occasional paragraphs."
-- Neil Gaiman 10/11/01


“Yesterday I went to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival to watch a seven year old daughter play the violin in public. People put money into her basket. She smiled at them very sweetly, and kept on playing. It's good to know I have a back-up plan if this writing lark falls to pieces.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/02/01


“Last night Miss Maddy watched the episode she missed on Thursday "America's Next Top Model" on a Tivo 4000 miles away, and it made me smile, mostly because I'd never watch something like that for pleasure, but watching it with her, as she covers notepaper with the names of the contestants she likes, crossing them out when she decides she doesn't like them after all, drawing thumbs downs next to them when they don't get selected or get sent away, makes it somehow enormously enjoyable.”
-- Neil Gaiman 03/12/06


“I took Maddy for a walk down to Covent Garden, bought her shoes (light blue Converse high tops) and fish and chips then wandered up to the British Museum and we had a cup of tea in the courtyard. I showed her the Reading Room, and failed to explain to her why it was so magical for me, or why getting my first Reading Room Card was so unutterably cool and important (I was about 21 and wanted to read rare James Branch Cabell stuff, and to research Caspar Hauser, for, I think, a radio play I was writing). She sort of took it on trust, and I hauled her through the Egyptian Room trying to explain why the Rosetta Stone was cool, but mostly she just wanted to be back in the hotel talking to her friends back home on the hotel computer.”
-- Neil Gaiman 03/12/06


“I need to leave almost immediately to go and work on Black Hole, so have spent the last two days Not Blogging, but instead doing things like going and buying lots of small samples of blue paint for Maddy's wall, and putting them on so that she could decide what colour it's going to be (and let her use up the excess sample paint writing MADDY WAS HERE on her wall in leftover Ocean Mist), sorting out the firefly lights so they're now working, checking out the plum trees and the grapevines and getting songs onto Maddy's iPod Nano (a gift from Paramount for Stardust's first day of shooting; I already had one from Beowulf's first day of shooting). Also took Maddy to Dairy Queen.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/21/06


“This morning I got up early (landed late last night, in a blizzard) and drove Maddy about 40 miles to a Young Author event (she wrote a story for school that got her into it, and decided that she wanted me to take her, rather than her mother, mostly I think so that she could say "You'll enjoy it dad. There will be some real authors there, and you may even get to meet them," with a straight face. Little minx).”
– Neil Gaiman 03/19/05


“Maddy (aged 8) would like it mentioned here that she's off-school with Something That's Going Around, and she doesn't see why I should get all the sympathy, especially as she'll be back at school on Monday. She'd also like me to mention that she and I played Scrabble this afternoon.”
-- Neil Gaiman 02/28/03


“And read to Maddy again tonight, for the first time in five days. She came down to World Horror for a couple of days, and had a very good time indeed, as only seven year olds can have at conventions. (I doubt many of the other convention attendees made much use of the hotel swimming pool, for example. Well, I know I didn't.) She discovered she likes fountain pens, after borrowing mine to sign with, and she was approached to write poems by a Tanguera editor. "I'd love to read some of your poems," said the Tanguera. Maddy looked uncomfortable. "Your dad says they're really good." Maddy shifted from foot to foot. "And we pay ten dollars for every poem we use." Huge seven year old grin at the prospect of unbounded wealth ahead. "Dad will send you some of my poems," she said, very definitely.
I reminded her of this tonight. "Oh," she said. "It's all work, work, work. Once I get home from school I have to practise my violin, and I have to do reading for school, and then we do reading... now I have to write poems too."
I suppressed a smile. "At least you aren't bored," I pointed out.
"I'm never bored," she said, as if that were obvious. "It's just I'd like a bit more time to play on the computer."
-- Neil Gaiman 04/17/02


“Took part in a much more pleasant mass signing last night, made really fun by the fact I had small daughter Maddy there to help out. Helping out mostly consisted of leaning over my shoulder and saying "Are you going to do a drawing for them?" whenever she liked the look of anyone, or wanted to see a drawing. She took exception to the goldfish I would draw in people's copies of DAY I SWAPPED MY DAD FOR TWO GOLDFISH and would add more bubbles coming out of the goldfish mouths. She also, very proudly, signed several books for people who asked her to. ("I signed Madeleine in that one, for a change, instead of Maddy," she told me, at about signature number three, thus indicating that she was finding her own solutions for the big question of How to Sign the Same Things Over And Over WIthout Getting Bored Or Repeating Yourself. Then, having had enough, she went off to the hotel pool to swim, and I kept right on signing.)”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/13/02


"Just told Maddy that I have to go away for a few weeks to make the short film. She was pretty sad, and so was I. You'd think that as we grow older, partings would be easier, but they never are."
-- Neil Gaiman 11/07/02


“Now I must go. A small girl needs to watch CARNIVAL OF MONSTERS, and you know how it is...”
–Neil Gaiman 02/03/06