Monthly Archive for July, 2002

If you read no other part of this post, read the link in [4].

Published
by
Benjy
on Tuesday July 30, 2002
in Internet, Nostalgia, Politics, They Might Be Giants and Web
. Closed

So I ultimately found the answers I was looking for, as both my newsgroup post and the mailing list archives yielded the information I wanted.

First, the name that included "bugs" that I thought was a rumored Factory Showroom name was "Insect Hospital," and it was actually the rumored title of the album after Factory Showroom.

Another rumored title of the album after Factory Showroom was "Thing," and other rumored titles included "Alien Autopsy" and "Jesus, Hitler, and Me." [1] Several of these were apparently titles that Flans just threw out at concerts.

As for Mink Car's "other" names, there was of course Unreliable Narrator. Other options in the emusic poll that I mentioned apparently included "Enter," "Our Name Is Called John," "Damage In Translation," "Gigantor," and "Human Sacrifice." Someone claimed that "Producer Adam Shlesinger (spelling?) also suggested that last years album should be called Yes! to make a kind of double-album thing with No!." Another TMBG name was apparently "Secret Mountain Laboratory." And finally, the TMBG mailing list's inside joke was to refer to the album as "Matt's Life Savings," though that apparently wasn't a John thing.

    [1] Which was obviously a joke, but a very funny joke if you know the context. [2]
    [2] Context being, back in '99, Time was running a "People of the Century" poll and soliciting online votes and submissions. Jesus and Hitler were battling for 1 and 2, but at some point John Flansburgh's name [3] was submitted, so TMBG fans were rallying to get him up to number 3. Flansburgh's name was eventually removed from the poll. Jesus, however, remained, despite his much more tenuous claim to "person of the century..."
    [3] Flansburgh was chosen for this, because Linnell had just been named 1998's 9th most beautiful person in a People Online poll. [4]
    [4] No joke. Make sure you check out John Linnell's commentary on this situation here. It's a great read.

In search of long forgotten TMBG rumors.

Published
by
Benjy
on Sunday July 28, 2002
in Music, Nostalgia, They Might Be Giants and Web
. Closed

Tonight I got the bright idea to try to research rejected TMBG album titles, and frankly, this was probably the most frustrating thing I've ever tried to find on the web.

Of course, one of Mink Car's rumored titles was "Unreliable Narrator", and another rumored title was "Matt's Life Savings." But last spring on emusic, TMBG posted a poll with a few more possibilities, letting people vote on their favorite. I tried to find a reference to that list in the alt.music.tmbg archive at google groups, but more or less failed.

The other notable list I was looking for was some posts I thought I remembered from before the title of Factory Showroom was announced back in 1996. I found a post from flans that in addition to mentioning "Factory Showroom" also mentioned "Chimp," "At Large" (short for the previously rumored "At Large in New York"), and "Boro-Wide." The thing is, I remember originally reading that post, and I thought I remembered other rumored titles from before that post. And I could have sworn one of them included the word "bugs."

Anyway, I posted to alt.music.tmbg asking for help, and I'm in the process of downloading the archives of the tmbg mailing list that I was subscribed to at the time (thank god for foreach, cut, and wget) since their search widget is broken. I'll let you know what I find.

And please don't ask why I started researching this, because I honestly don't remember any more. It's become one of those itches I just have to scratch.

Stew Reviews 12/69 Love Songs

Published
by
Benjy
on Sunday July 21, 2002
in Music, Reviews and The Magnetic Fields
. 3 Comments

So I was trying to write a review of TMBG's No!, but I got distracted thinking about the process of writing a music review. I thought back to many of my earlier album reviews, where I had a pretty established format -- I'd introduce the album's background, and then highlight a couple of songs that were notable in some way -- and then finish up with an overall recommendation.

But lately, when I've tried to write an album review, I've failed pretty miserably. On the one hand, there was my review of TMBG's Mink Car, where I couldn't bring myself to focus on just a few songs, and so just commented on all 17 songs in a bare bones list format.

And a little before that, there was my review of The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs, where I more or less floundered and failed to say much of anything useful at all. In particular, I didn't have much to say about notable songs on the album.

But I've been rating a lot of music with iTunes 3, and I happened to listen to all of 69 Love Songs again today while doing ratings, which gave me a list of my favorite songs on the album pretty easily. I ended up rating 15/69 of the songs as a 5, and another 14 as a 4. Even though my average rating for the album was only 3.315, it's important to remember that there are 69 songs on this sucker.

Anyway, in a fit of procrastination, I decided to pick my four top songs off of each volume and write up why I liked them, to supplement my old anemic review. While reading this list, I recommend opening the lyrics so you can follow along at home.

    Volume 1:
  • Absolutely Cuckoo - Volume 1, Track 1 - This song just left me grinning madly the first time I heard it, and it still never ceases to make me at least smile. I rather identify with the obsessive traits this song expresses.
  • Reno Dakota - Volume 1, Track 5 - I love the sing-song sound of this ditty and all the clever rhyming, but most notably, I love the line "You know you enthrall me and yet you don't call me it's making me blue -- Pantone 292."
  • I Don't Want To Get Over You - Volume 1, Track 6 - Really, I just really like the sentiment expressed by this song. Here's the first verse: "I don't want to get over you. I guess I could take a sleeping pill, and sleep at will, and not have to go through what I go through. I guess I should take prozac, right, and smile all night at somebody new. Somebody not too bright, but sweet and kind, who would try to get you off my mind. I could leave this agony behind, which is just what I'd do if I wanted to but I don't want to get over you." I could really see myself expressing these sentiments.
  • My Sentimental Melody - Volume 1, track 20 - This song evokes lots of imagery for me: I see the man sadly standing at the door, singing the song to the girl who just calmly broke up with him. I like the idea of his words coming true -- of his sentimental melody some day bringing a tear to the terrible flirt's eye. But honestly, I think it's the sound of a light being clicked off at the end of the song that does it for me. It conveys this huge sense of finality, and I see the man turning off the light, shutting the door, and walking away to leave the girl to think about what he said. I like the idea of closure a lot, and that click somehow conveys "the end" to me like little else could have. The click also gives me the impression that the man (and this song) is saying "I'm over you, and you might think you're over me, but you're not."

    • Volume 2:
  • When My Boy Walks Down the Street - Volume 2, Track 3 - This song just puts a spring in my step and quite honestly, makes me want to dance down the street. And truthfully, I do have a little dance that I'll do to this song when I don't think anyone is watching. And stranger still, the only part of the lyrics that are relevant are "when my boy walks down the street" and "life just kind of dances through ya'." Every other reason I like this song and dance to it is just because of the music.
  • (Crazy for You But) Not That Crazy - Volume 2, Track 10 - Honestly, the main reason I used to like this song was because of what I thought the lyrics said. Of course, I still like the song, and now I have an amusing little story to tell about it, but I don't like the actual lyric as much as the lyric in my head.
  • Promises of Eternity - Volume 2, Track 12 - I really love all the imagery of the "what if's" in this song, especially "What if the clowns couldn't be clowns, and all those painted smiles gave in to plaintive frowns?"
  • Long-Forgotten Fairytale - Volume 2, Track 15 - I really like this song for a lot of reasons. I really like the description of the break-up, because it's just so simple and pragmatic and matter-of-fact: "I saw you last in summertime. You said you hated long goodbyes. You said there's nothing to explain, in every life a little rain, et cetera." I really like way that they fall back together is described as being magical and fantastic and like a fairytale and out of control: "And a long-forgotten fairytale is in your eyes again. And I'm caught inside a dream world, where the colors are too intense, and nothing is making sense. There's a floating town of eiderdown in a mist of mystery. There's an old enchanted castle, and the princess there is me, decked out like a Christmas tree." And I really like all the descriptions of the internal struggle the narrator is dealing with. Really, I just like this song a lot.

    • Volume 3:
  • Busby Berkeley Dreams - Volume 3, Track 3 - First, this song is very pretty and makes me feel sadly nostalgic (which is a good thing). Second, I absolutely adore the line "I should have forgotten you long ago, but you're in every song I know."
  • Meaningless - Volume 3, Track 12 - This song has great lyrics, and you ought to just go read them all. But honestly, there isn't one single part of it that jumps out at me as being my favorite, so here's the first bit: "Meaningless. You mean it's all been meaningless? Every whisper and caress? Yes yes yes, it was totally meaningless." The whole song is variations on that.
  • Love is Like a Bottle of Gin - Volume 3, Track 13 - Oh, this song is absolutely great, and isolating any tiny bit of the lyrics would do an injustice to it. In short, it does a fantastic job of explaining why "love is like a bottle of gin, but a bottle of gin is not like love." It works just as well as poetry as a song, too, so you should go read it right now.
  • How to Say Goodbye - Volume 3, Track 18 - Well, mainly I like the line "The only thing I could ever feel, I can't believe it wasn't real...," (Really, I'm just tired of writing this, and I'm skimping on why I like this song. Sorry. But rest assured, it got a 5.)

So, for those of you who have heard 69 Love Songs, what are your favorite songs? And for those of you who haven't, I highly recommend you go check it out right now.

My actual reason for doing this was to encourage people to go check out The Magnetic Fields. Look at it this way: Any band which Neil Gaiman likes and arranged to do readings in front of as an opening act, and any band which Terry Pratchett recommended to me personally, can't be all bad.

Scripts to make your iTunes 3.0 headless.

Published
by
Benjy
on Friday July 19, 2002
in Feedback, Hack, Programming and iTunes
. 2 Comments

I was playing with iTunes 3.0 and totally loving the new Ratings and Smart Playlist features today when I realized that I was having a few issues with how these features were fitting into my workflow. Here were my two biggest problems:

  • To rate the current song, I had to stop what I was doing, and either go to iTunes and select the rating, or navigate iTunes' hierarchical Dock menu, both of which took enough time that I wasn't rating songs as I was listening to them.
  • iTunes has to play the end of the song in order to increment the Play Count field and update the Last Played field. This means that if I want those fields incremented but don't actually want to listen to a whole song, I have to go into iTunes and inch the player to the end of the track.

So I took the tools I had available to me and hacked up some scripts to address these problems for me. I made some little Applescripts that will set the rating of the currently playing song to the specified value, and which will skip a song by advancing the currently playing song to 1 second before the end of the track so that the Play Count will update.

Then, I put these scripts into a folder which I configured my LaunchBar to know about, and now I can change the rating of the currently playing song or skip the currently playing song from any application with just a few keystrokes. (Of course, these things should work from your quick application launcher of choice, and aren't tied specifically to LaunchBar.)

This combination is working killer for me tonight, but I don't know if other people would put up with the little quirks that I put up with because I wrote them and know why they exist.

So I'm hesitant to do something like put these scripts on Version Tracker, but if you want to check them out and give me feedback, please do:

Headless iTunes Scripts 1.0 (~210 kb)

update, 2002-07-31: Instead of Launch Bar, I've been using Key Xing to invoke the scripts, because it's faster, easier to launch, and because it runs the non-application compiled scripts a lot faster than LaunchBar can invoke the compiled application versions of the scripts. Also there isn't the interface issue with control returning to LaunchBar after the script runs with Key Xing, because control never switches to Key Xing like it does with Launch Bar.

If you were wondering why I made application versions of those scripts, its because Launch Bar doesn't have an AppleScript execution environment, so the only way I could launch the script through Launch Bar was as an application. Key Xing, however, has an AppleScript execution environment, so it's much faster.

So far I've managed to rate 1548 of 3898 of my songs. Whew, so many to go.

Like the people chained up in the conga line.

Published
by
Benjy
on Thursday July 18, 2002
in Concerts, Music and They Might Be Giants
. 2 Comments

Okay, here's the transcription of what They Might Be Giants played tonight at the Fillmore. I used my Palm V tonight, and last night I used paper, and I find it interesting to contrast how much more I was able to take down as far as quotes go with the Palm. The main advantage was the backlight. Anyway, this is a fairly straight transcription of the set list and quotes. In the next couple of days, I might do some sort of compare and contrast thing of the concerts, and just ramble about how I felt about the concerts and so on.

The opening band, Noe Venable, played 2 more songs tonight than last night. Um, one of them was called Tinkerbell. What more immediately springs to my mind were the TMBG songs she mentioned, which tonight were Chess Piece Face and Turn Around, but she again mentioned the Conga Line. "I have one more song and then They Might Be Giants will come on, and then we'll all be congaing out there together."

It was nice that during the gap where they were setting up for TMBG after Noe Venable that they played some nice Tango/Salso music, as opposed to last night's irritating loud rap. Also, Alert caught me totally grooving to this music, and she called me on my claim that I can't dance. Heh.

  • Clap Your Hands
  • New York City - Woohoo!
  • The Sun
    "It is so hot that everything on it is a gas: iron, copper, extension cords, and those little things you use on a phone cord to split one jack into two lines... These things would all be a gas."
    "The sun is so large that a million earths could sit... fit inside. Actually, technically, they can sit inside."
    "The nuclear reactions between San Francisco and Berkeley, Berkeley and Oakland, Oakland and Berkeley, Berkeley and San Francisco, and San Francisco and Oakland." -- After flans said this, it was amusing to see him stop and look out at the audience and smile approvingly at the audience's reaction. [1]
  • "So we have a new album out..." -- flans
    "No!" -- audience
    "Yes we do..." -- linnell
    "No!" -- audience
    "Yes, we do..." -- linnell
    "We're at the stage of our career, like springsteen, where what our audience is yelling just doesn't make any sense, but we still get it." -- flans
    "This next song is off of our new album." -- linnell
    "No!" -- audience
    "Yes, it is." -- linnell
  • Bed Bed Bed
  • In The Middle, In The Middle, In The Middle - "This song has sound advice for kids and adults alike." -- flans
  • Everything Right is Wrong Again
  • "So when we were making this children's album, everyone was wondering if we were going to become a children's show. So at about that time I started trying to cut back on coffee, but I started drinking this Red Bull shit. Y'know, the secret ingredient in this stuff is Tourette's [2]. But it's really not fitting in with this 'less swearing' stuff." -- flans
    "You mean this 'less swearing' shit. And it's pronounced Turrets, because it's the chemical." -- linnell
    "They grow it naturally deep in the south american rain forest." -- flans
  • John Lee Supertaster
  • Dead
  • I've Got A Fang - I like this song a lot live.
  • Dr. Worm
  • "This is from John Henry... from the much maligned Elektra label. The title of the song is ... The title is the first line of the song, so I'm not going to spoil it for myself."
  • Meet James Ensor
  • 4 of 2 - "This song is about a clock. Kids like clocks. They're right there between Dinosaurs and Ponies." -- flans
  • They Might Be Giants public service announcements, with a crazy driving beat by Linnell's little magic synth box.
    Flans mentioned the new rarities cd they're selling on the tour called They Got Lost [3], and then said "This next song is on that CD. But it doesn't have this beat. [pause] Stop that thing. [pause, quietly] It's driving me crazy."
  • On The Drag
  • It's So Loud In Here
  • Robot Parade
  • Don't Let's Start - Double woohoo!
  • She's Actual Size
    During the drum solo customer service, #3 was "Lars Ulrich from Metallica," [4] after which Dan shook his head a lot, and Flans finally relented and had him play someone else for #3.
    Afterwards, Flans said "And a big round of applause for Dan Hickey for putting up with that song." So true.
  • "We were nominated for a Grammy this year... And when we won, my first thought was "I guess Sting's check didn't clear." Don't boo, I'm just tellin' it like it is. We all know how the music business works." -- Flans
    "Now we're saving up for a Nobel Prize." -- Linnell
    "Myself, I'm only up for a Science award. None of this peace shit." -- Flans
  • Boss of Me
  • Istanbul - Have I mentioned recently how much I like Dan Miller's acoustic guitar intros for this song? Well, I do. I'd be happy with just the acoustic guitar without Istanbul following it, in fact.
  • No!
  • Fingertips
  • "It was at exactly this point in the show last night [5] that I smelled chocolate chip cookies. And I didn't think about that again until right now. But there aren't any cookies here. Someone must have ate them." -- Linnell [6]
  • She's An Angel - Triple woohoo!
  • How Can I Sing Like a Girl - Um, I just don't like this song very much, I'm sorry. It's got some good lines, but I don't like the song as a package.

    • First Encore:
  • Violin
  • Birdhouse In Your Soul
  • The Guitar - I'm very tired of hearing this song live, but I think they need to do it so Danny Weinkauf gets his chance to show off his bass skills.
  • Everybody Conga - "People in the front, Conga towards the back, away from the stage, get in the fucking line!" I love the conga line, and if Noe Venable (the opening band) had anything to do with getting this played (she demonstrated that she was a TMBG fan by referencing the conga line), then I want to pat that little girl on the back. We started out very close to the right side of the stage, right in front of Linnell, and ended up left of Flans when it was all done. "Conga even faster, during this next song..."
  • No One Knows My Plan - Quadruple woohoo! But alas, the conga line died when this song started, which is silly, considering *this* is the conga song.

    • Second Encore:
  • Spin The Dial
    * Train's Drops Of Jupiter became "I Dance Like a Girl" with a lot of amusing dancing by Flans. It had Danny Weinkauf cracking up.
    * They came across The Who's My Generation [8], which they did a great job picking up.
  • Older, with a reprise of My Generation. Also, Linnell totally messed up the end of the song; He somehow ended up singing "this day will soon be over and now it's even sooner" after the improv break, and he ended the song with "And now it's even sooner, and now it's even sooner, and now you're older still." I was amused.
  • James K. Polk - I'm sick of this song just like The Guitar, but without this where would they fire the Confetti Canon?

    • [1] We decided afterwards that the reactions between Oakland and San Francisco would be the most violent, based on the whole weird anti-SF ad campaign that Oakland's got going on (sorry, a google cache was the best I could offer).
    [2] Actually, the secret ingredient is Taurine, which is close enough to make this funnier.
    [3] 1. "They Got Lost" is a really fantastic name for a rarities CD (the song by the same name aside). 2. Of course, these are only rarities if you didn't subscribe to TMBG Unlimited last year, like I did.
    [4] Which is much funnier in the context of last night's discussion about Lars.
    [5] Except they didn't play She's An Angel last night, so I'm not really sure what he's talking about. Maybe he meant after Fingertips...
    [6] Emily Dickenson indeed [7].
    [7] Only one person is going to get this joke.
    [8] This was rather ironic, because TMBG's song I Hope That I Get Old Before I Die was a twist on My Generation's lyric of "I hope I die before I get old"

Nothing tastes the same…

Published
by
Benjy
on Wednesday July 17, 2002
in Concerts, Music, San Francisco and They Might Be Giants
. Closed

Below is what I'm pretty sure is an accurate set list and a few quotes from tonight's TMBG concert at the Fillmore. I ran into numerous people I know in some capacity. I had some dinner with Zack (who I met first on the way tot the TMBG concert in September, and then in a few other places in the interim, and who I told about this concert when I ran into him at the Gaiman reading.) and his company before the concert at some japanese place that I ended up irritated with.

I find it interesting that I go to such lengths to document set lists of concerts I attend, even though someone who wasn't at the concert will never be able appreciate it. But here's why I think I do it: When I took CogSci 1, the instructor said that studies have suggested that people enjoy vacations more before (the anticipation) and after (the memories) than they enjoy actually being on vacation. I want to be able to remember my concert experiences, so that I can enjoy them later. The set list and quotes serve as a framework which will jog my memory later.

  • Clap Your Hands - this was a great song to start a concert with.
  • James K. Polk - Double confetti canon action!
  • Cyclops Rock
  • Bed Bed Bed
    "I'm thinking that song should be longer." -- flans
    "Oh, how about some bonus beats then?" -- linnell, as he starts playing the song again.
    "No, I was thinking ahead to tomorrow night." -- flans
  • "This is another song off of No! with a repeating title, In The Middle In The Middle In The Middle."
  • "This is Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead from our album Flood Flood Flood." -- linnell
  • (Which means that I can now cross the top song I wanted to hear them play live off my list.)
  • John Lee Supertaster
  • Fingertips
  • She's Actual Size - This had the same drum solo customer service that they've been doing since last fall, and the "Dan wants to hear you scream but there's two problems: he's wearing earplugs, and he's playing the drums really loud. It was a strange mixture of the last two times I've heard this song live. Oh, another new thing to the Drum Solo Customer Satisfaction was Flans saying "The expected hold time for your Drum Solo is 15 to 20 minutes."
  • About the drum solo customer satisfaction, after the song:
    "I'm still waiting for you to throw Lars Ulrich in there." -- linnell
    "We'd have to work on the tom during sound test for that... Which song is next, I still can't read the setlist." -- flans
    "This is a song we wrote with Lars..." -- linnell
    "When we were still working with Lars, before he fucked up that whole mp3 thing. But I still don't know what song that is." -- flans
    "Lars is German, so he'd call it [something in german]. That was a clue for the guys. We're speaking Deutsch up here." -- linnell
  • Birdhouse In Your Soul
  • Boss of Me
  • Man It's So Loud In Here - and good god was it loud. This was the point where I wished I'd brought a second dose of aspirin.
  • Robot Parade
  • The only reason I can tolerate robot parade is because it almost always makes for some amusing improvish stuff:
    Flans: "I miss Dan, our guitar playing friend... Oh, hi Dan. Do you want to play the acoustic guitar for a really long time? I'm self conscious of being up here by myself."
  • Istanbul with yet another lovely acoustic guitar intro by Dan (Miller)
  • Yeh Yeh - I still love this song love, but it didn't feel nearly as polished as it did last fall. Also, Linnell was playing a Tenor sax instead of the Bari.
  • No
  • TMBG Public Service announcements
  • "Ready guys? [pause] Oh, I start this song by myself." -- flans
  • On The Drag - Ooh, this was good live. I like this song a lot.
  • Everything Right is Wrong Again
  • "This song is for you social drinkers." -- flans
    "Woohoo!"
    "And that doesn't mean those of you shouting "woo!" I mean those of you who are standing there quietly and asking "What's he mean social?" -- flans
  • Drink
  • "This next song is about my friend..." -- linnell
    "Friend!" -- flans, screaming
    "He's segmented." -- linnell
    "Segmented Segmented!" -- flans
    "I don't know what else to say about this song, other than my friend went to medical school in the caribbean islands, where they'll give anyone a degree." -- linnell
    "Carribbean!" -- flans
    "Don't throw your life away like my friend did." -- linnell
  • Dr. Worm
  • I Palindrome I

    • First Encore:
  • Violin
  • 4 of 2 - I like this song a lot. "This song is about a clock that told the fucking wrong time." -- linnell
  • How can I sing like a girl? - I didn't like this very much live, quite honestly. It felt like it went on far too long.

    • Second Encore:
  • Spin the Dial - The two things that I can remember from this were:
    * They came across Love Line, and flans lowered the volume and said ominously: "We were on this show. The doctor is the scary one."
    * And they came across Breakdown by Tom Petty, which they did a rather good job of picking up.
  • Older, with another verse of Breakdown with some improvised lyrics (about not paying the rent on a sublet) in between "Time" and "is marching on."
  • And finally, The Guitar. I'm tired of hearing this song at concerts, but I suppose it's a nice way to end a show.

It's funny that the song that's stuck in my head this time is John Lee Supertaster, even though I'm not particularly fond of that song.

Expect another one of these after tomorrow night's concert.

You know you’re not in Berkeley when…

Published
by
Benjy
on Monday July 15, 2002
in Bakersfield, Berkeley, Cars and Parking
. 1 Comment

You know you're not in Berkeley when, if all the parked cars squeezed together, there'd be about five more parking spots on that block.

There’s a brute force solution to this problem.

Published
by
Benjy
on Monday July 8, 2002
in Apartment, Berkeley and Pictures
. Closed

It's a good thing I already live here, because if I had just seen the For Rent sign and wanted to live here, I'm not really sure how I'd interpret it them.

Have I mentioned how much I love the management of my apartment building lately?

One good movie does not an infallible director make.

Published
by
Benjy
on Wednesday July 3, 2002
in Books, Gaiman and Movies
. 4 Comments

Tonight at Neil Gaiman's reading of Coraline, he mentioned that the Coraline movie adaptation would be directed by Henry Selick, the guy who directed The Nightmare Before Christmas.

This news was met with much enthusiasm by the audience, because, well, The Nightmare Before Christmas didn't suck.

What no seemed to remember was that Henry Selick's last movie was Monkeybone, which, uh, did suck.

So we'll see.

Neil Gaiman reads Coraline to Berkeley

Published
by
Benjy
on Wednesday July 3, 2002
in Berkeley, Books and Gaiman
. Closed

Tonight I saw Neil Gaiman read his new book, Coraline. Yes, all of it.

I got to the church at about 5:20 and found Kevin waiting in line, saving a spot for me. While standing outside and waiting, a man in a wheelchair asked me who was speaking tonight, and what he'd written. It was an awkward question, because I knew there was no way the man would have heard of anything Gaiman had written. I rattled off Gaiman's books, and then the man asked what he primarily wrote about.

That was an even harder question. "Stories," I decided after a pause. "The stories people tell, and how stories affect people, and how people believe in stories."

And to my confusion, the man in the wheelchair said "Well, he may have another fan," as he rolled off.

The ticket said that the doors would open at 5:30, but we didn't get in until about 5:45. At 6:30, someone came out and announced that, at the author's request, we would be starting 15 minutes late, because many of the will-call tickets hadn't been claimed, and "there are lots of people coming in from out of the area who don't know what parking's like around here."

The place was pretty full, though there seemed to be adequate seating for everyone. Kevin said that out of 800 tickets, there were only 45 tickets left for sale at the door.

A very nice touch was that the first three rows were reserved for people who brought children with them. Especially nice, considering that the book is as much a children's adventure as anything. And about two of the three rows actually had people with children in tow, which was very cool to see.

Another very nice touch was that they were piping a multitude of the more mellow Magnetic Fields songs through the church before the reading and during the intermission.

So Gaiman came out at around 6:50. "Here's what we're going to do," he said. "I'm going to very quickly answer a few frequently asked questions right up front to give commuters a few more minutes to get here, and then I'm going to read Coraline to you. And then about halfway through we'll take a break, and then I'll finish reading Coraline to you."

For the record, the frequently asked questions that he pulled out of his head to answer were:

  • A little news about a Corline movie (to be directed by the guy who directed The Nightmare Before Christmas, and staring Michelle Pfeiffer as the Mom and the Other Mom, apparently).
  • "Tori's new album is wonderful, and that's all I'm going to say about it."
  • And news that he's currently writing some new Sandman stories that will come out as a hard back volume next February as part of Vertigo's 10th anniversary.
  • And those were his faqs. Of course, if you read his journal, you probably knew that already.

So then, he read us Coraline, and we had an intermission, and then he finished reading Coraline, just like he said he would.

He did a remarkable job, and only had one real slip of the tongue, when he accidentally said "Caroline" when it was supposed to be a "Coraline." Though later, he subtly referenced that by improvising and having one of the characters who gets her name wrong say "Caroline, Corline, Whatever your name is, ..." where the book only had a "Caroline." (I was following along in my own copy occasionally, and since that character calling her Coraline (instead of Caroline) was out of place, I double checked and noticed the improv.)

As for the book itself, it was good and short and fun. It is, after all, a children's/young adult novel. It's got a lot of Alice and Wonderland aspects to it, complete with a sarcastic cat... It was cute and I enjoyed, but the ending left me a little irritated in a niggling details kind of way. Considering that Gaiman read it *out loud* in 3.5 hours or so, you could probably read it in an hour or two yourself.

We got out of there at about 11:05. You do the math.

But it was a fantastic evening, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was well worth my time and money.

When it was all over, someone shouted "Read it again," to which Gaimain paused briefly and then simply said "No." It carried that strange quality of finality that only a british accent can.