http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/05/what-you-cant-help-doing.html

Not sure if the cover for Absolute 4 is a mock-up or the real thing. I suspect it's not the final, mostly because I'm pretty sure that face is from Sandman #1, and for Absolute 4 we'll be taking a cover portrait from somewhere in the last 20 issues.

...

Regarding the Julie Schwartz Memorial Talk at MIT on the 23rd of May: To reiterate from the other day -- over at http://cms.mit.edu/juliusschwartz/tickets.html we learn that Tickets to the event are $8.00 and will be available at the door, pending availability. There won't be any available on the door, because they have almost all sold out. The website has a list of places selling the tickets -- yesterday there were about 60 tickets still out there. So this is a sort of a last call -- you can try phoning the places at the website to see if they still have tickets...


...

An ebay auction with a story... I've been rereading some old Batman comics recently, although I don't think I'd want these. But the story that comes with them is wonderful...

I'm worried and upset about the earthquake in China. From Nancy Kress's blog I learned that at least some of the friends we made in Chengdu last summer are okay -- and so are the pandas.

...

Rice pudding re-prompt! Once you get home to proper milk, of course. "Your general guidelines for a batch of rice pudding please, Mr. Gaiman!"Thank you!! ^_^b

I'm working on it, honest. Decided to figure out the proportions I'd used by a) finding a very similar recipe on the web and starting from there and then b) fiddling with it.

Two night's ago's rice pudding (the web recipe) was much too salty and wrong. I fiddled with the proportions and last night's was a lot better but now too sweet. Tonight's rice pudding would have been perfect I have no doubt but I forgot to buy more milk, so I didn't actually make one.

Dear Neil,

The press down here in Brazil have enthusiastically announced you'll be here for the Paraty International Book Fair, first week in July. But since you're also scheduled to lecture at Clarion, I'd like to ask if this is true. Or maybe you have a doppelganger. Or maybe the organizers here had a dream. Or maybe you're taking a weekend of from Clarion down here in Rio (if so, it'll be winter here, and rainy, not the best time to come...) Best regards,Eric

That sounds right, yes. (I teach Clarion the 3rd week in July.)

Hello hello hello,

To quote one of your other fans, “I have a question for you about writing”. I find that my own writing will echo the style of which ever author I am currently reading. Any idea how I might get around constantly mimicking others?

You write more.

I don't think there's anything wrong with copying other people's styles -- it's a skill you'll need, after all. Many actors begin as mimics. You don't worry about it, and keep writing, and after a while you'll have written enough that you can't help sounding like yourself, whether you want to or not.

Style is what you get wrong, that makes what you do sound like you. Style is what you can't help doing. Style is what you're left with.

(I just googled "style is what you can't help doing" because it sounded half-familiar, and I wondered who said it originally, and discovered that it may actually have been me, as I found myself looking at an extract from a speech I gave to an audience of comics artists and writers in 1997 at ProCon in Oakland:

We are creators. When we begin, separately or together, there’s a blank piece of paper. When we are done, we are giving people dreams and magic and journeys into minds and lives that they have never lived. And we must not forget that.

I don’t want to sound like an inspirational speaker here. "Be you." "Be the best you that you can be." But this is really important. It’s something that we mostly lose track of when we starts, because when we start in comics we’re kids, and we have no idea who we are or what our voices are, as artists or as writers.

Young artists want to be Rob Leifeld, or Bernie Wrightson, or Frank Miller, just as young writers want to be Alan Moore, or Chris Claremont or, well, Frank Miller. You’ve seen their portfolios. You’ve read the scripts.

We all swipe when we start. We trace, we copy, we emulate. But the most important thing is to get to the place where you’re telling your own stories, painting your own pictures, doing the stuff that one-one else could have done, but you. Dave McKean, when he was much younger, as a recent art-school graduate, took his portfolio to New York, and showed it to the head of an advertising agency. The guy looked at one of Dave’s paintings—"That’s a really good Bob Peake," he said. "But why would you I want to hire you? If I have something I want done like that, I phone Bob Peake."

You may be able to draw kind of like Rob Leifeld, but the day may come, may have already come, when no-one wants a bargain basement Rob Leifeld clone any more. Learn to draw like you. And as a writer, or as a storyteller, try to tell the stories that only you can tell. Try to tell the stories that you cannot help but tell, the stories you would be telling yourself if you had no audience to listen. The ones that reveal a little too much about you to the world. It’s the point I think of writing as walking naked down the street: it has nothing to do with style, or with genre, it has to do with honesty. Honesty to yourself and to whatever you’re doing.

Don’t worry about trying to develop a style. Style is what you can’t help doing. If you write enough, you draw enough, you’ll have a style, whether you want it or not. Don’t worry about whether you’re "commercial". Tell your own stories, draw your own pictures. Let other people follow you.

If you believe in it, do it. If there’s a comic or a project you’ve always wanted to do, go out there and give it a try. If you fail, you’ll have given it a shot. If you succeed, then you succeeded with what you wanted to do.

"cust said he was at machine, waited 5 minutes for dvd to come out, left in frustration...then cust saw someone steal his dvd as it came out. Explained rental policy. decided it was his right to rant how *f-word*retarded our rental policy. he proclaimed how stupid it wwas that it was only 5 minutes, and he SAW the lady steal it. I explained to him over and over again that once the dvd vends out of the machine, we are no longer responsible at all for the dvd.. he said that we would get 25 dollars but end up losing 100 dollars in sales because he is going to tell everyone he knows not to use redbox again. Said he would gladly pay the 25 dollars just so he could tell everyone else not to use redbox and so he can laugh in our faces"

that was the actual note. Let me elaborate on it.

This guy calls in, saying how he was at our machine trying to rent 2 movies. the first movie comes out fine...the second movie takes like..5 mintutes to vend out, so frustrted and pissed off, he walks away. Now, some lady he had been talking with minutes prior, walks to to the machine to rent, and HIS dvd vents out so she goes "aww SWEET!" and takes it. clerk at the counter tells him "yo dude! that chick has your dvd"

so Mr. RubbingMcNuts calls me...the oh so cheery representative to state his predicament,. i told him there is nothing we can do. our policy states that once the dvd vends iout, we no longer become responsible for the dvd, unless the dvd is damaged...he stressed over and over how it was only 5 minutes ago, he SAW the chick take th dvd...and i kept telling him over and over how it's not our problem. 

he was fucking pissed. he kept using the f-word over and over. our rental policy is retarted. we are losing money.  Below are bits and pieces of his convo

"i want you to tell your supervisor how fucking STUPID your policy is, and watch as their stupid community college degree faces go "durrr, ok...""

"who MAKES these fucking policies?! they OBVIOUSLY don't have a PHD. You are not making fucking money!"
"We are sir. We are collecting on the 25 dollar fee for your unreturned movie in 25 days"
"Yeah! at the fucking price of losing 100 more in sales because i tell everyone else what jack asses you are"

"You're whole company is fucking STUPID. You fail at being a company! I'll be GLAD to take your 25 dollars, just so i can laugh in your faces at what stupid failures you all are"

the part i left out of the note, the part the title is refering to...the part that made me livid like my icon

i said and he said:

"I apologize you feel that way sir"
"Well, i am going to TAKE your fucking apology...oh..HELL! I'll take it, and then rub my fucking nuts in it *click*"





x-posted to call center

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/289809832/what_year_is_this_again.php

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/05/what_year_is_this_again.php

I am stunned that this t-shirt could be proudly displayed anywhere anymore.

Now get this: the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is running an online poll that is asking, "What do you think of the Obama t-shirt?", with two choices: "It's racist" and "it's fine". You might be wondering why the newspaper would even have to ask…but here's the kicker.

"It's fine" is winning.

Do you think maybe we can shift the balance there? Or should we just let this indictment of Georgia's racism stand?

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/289725460/unclear_on_the_concept.php

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/05/unclear_on_the_concept.php

Just what we need — another evangelical Christian theme park, this one in the planning stages in Tennessee. This one has one particular instance of blinkered blindness, though, that I thought was rather funny.

The Park is planned as an "edutainment" experience, combining education and entertainment. The Park is without a particular religious ideology or theology and does not promote specific religious beliefs of any kind; instead, it is designed to bring to life history of Biblical times and stories from the Holy Bible.

If you read the rest, you'll learn that this thing is taking fundamentalist, literalist reading of the Christian bible entirely for granted…how this translates into an absence of theology or specific religious beliefs is hard to understand, unless these people are so oblivious to the narrow theological domain of their beliefs that they are unable to imagine its grossly sectarian nature. Or unless they're really stupid.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/289671980/two_down_one_to_go.php

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/05/two_down_one_to_go.php

I'm getting there — I just gave my second final exam for this semester, will get them all graded up tomorrow, and then have one last exam to give on Thursday…then I'm free! Free!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BitchPhd/~3/289545955/silly-season.html

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/289462965/what_it_takes_to_sway_the_reli.php

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/05/what_it_takes_to_sway_the_reli.php

The fundagelicals were all up in arms over the human papilloma vaccine — it was recommended for all girls to prevent the sexual transmission of a virus that can lead to cancers of the female reproductive tract. They were agin' it; it might give their womenfolk the idea that sex is not a punishment, and a few thousand dead girls is a small price to pay for sin.

That might change now, though. Clinical testing has revealed that HPV can cause oral cancers in men, and they are recommending that all adolescents, not just girls, should consider getting the vaccine.

Now the religious right is going to face a dilemma. Shall they encourage this vaccination to protect their precious boy-children, or will it be sufficient to scream against the sin of heterosexual oral sex from the pulpit? And can they even bear to talk about such 'bizarre' sexual practices in church?

(via Saneblog)

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/289384503/a_poll_in_need_of_a_kick_in_th.php

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/05/a_poll_in_need_of_a_kick_in_th.php

In the wake of the recent efforts of a School Administrative District in Maine to expel evolution from the curriculum, we now have a pointless poll seeking the vox populi on this badly worded question: "A school board member in SAD 59 wants the topic of evolution dropped from high school science curriculums. Do you agree?"

While I agree that a school board member wants to do that, I think the poll actually intends to ask whether you want evolution dropped from the curriculum.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/289376632/get_ready_oklahoma_sally_kern.php

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/05/get_ready_oklahoma_sally_kern.php

Remember Sally Kern, the Oklahoma legislator who loves God and hates homosexuals? She had earlier sponsored something called the Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act, a ghastly piece of legislation that would require teachers to pass any old crap a student turned in, as long as the student said it was his religious belief — it prioritized belief over evidence. That bill died in a senate committee, fortunately.

But now it has been resurrected! The language from the earlier bill has been inserted into Oklahoma House Bill 2633.

A controversial provision in House Bill 2633 states that "students may express their beliefs about religion in homework, artwork, and other written and oral assignments free from discrimination based on the religious content of their submissions."

That is simply insane. It's a declaration that religion trumps everything, and gives students an escape hatch from learning — biology class would become an exercise in futility, in which lazy, stupid, or religiously indoctrinated students would simply parrot the book of genesis at their instructors, and expect to be given a good grade.

Sally Kern knows this.

"We are a very conservative state — a very religious state," Kern said.

And working hard to become a very stupid state, too.

Oklahomans, be afraid.