Again a strange week. Long blog on the train Thursday 7 October 2010, at 10:27 SENT BY
No, I do not mean a bad week. Just a curious. I hang with my work is still behind and commute between Boston and New York back and forth.
Friday I drove to New York. Arrived just in time to see the readings by Michael Chabon and Zadie Smith at the Festival of New York who wanted me to come. I would have embarrassed me during the reading of Michael almost because I was very close to steady, but just managed not to do it (it was something personal and a long story). Here's a too dark picture of Michael and Zadie is after the readings.
The hotel, the New York had booked for me had the best view on earth, even in the bathroom:
On Saturday I met Daniel Handler for ice cream (as already announced in this blog). I would have liked to met the author Lemony Snicket, but unfortunately he was prevented under mysterious circumstances, and Mr. Handler came as his deputy.
This photo is reminiscent of the event. I'm on the left. Mr. Handler holds the ice.
After this shot I've let my hair cut.
And then Holly and I set off with the lovely Claudia Gonson and her beautiful newborn Eve. We had a Sushi, except Eve, and then we were in the Evolution shop where I bought a replica of a dodo skull.
The dodo-head was a gift to the Countess by Cynthia Buhler , had a birthday. She works as an illustrator and artist who also throws parties, and that night it was her birthday party. She had decided, the engagement of Amanda and me to celebrate.
There were dead mermaids and there was a turret on the roof.
I've never been to such a party, nor do I think I'll ever be back on a comparable. If you can win a prize celebrations, has Cynthia (a mermaid was the first won in a tub, was then carried around in a bed).
The next morning I had the interview with Dana Goodyear on the New York Festival, it was really fun. (You can see a summary of Entertainment Weekly read here: http://shelf-life.ew.com/2010/10/06/5584/ ).
And then back to Boston. And then the train to New York to attend the celebration of the Best American Comics 2010 that I, as guest editor accompanied.
...
This morning I've noticed that I am one of the 175 nominees for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award: http://alma.se/en/Nominations/Candidates/2011-eng /
I do not know all of the 175 other nominees, but I know who left me with a feeling of joy and the high degree of unworthiness to be on this list . ( Quentin Blake claimed. And David Almond .)
(Incidentally, was Dave McKean gave me a copy of Slog's Dad, a story by David Almond, which he illustrated. It touched a and beautiful and the kind of thing that you get stuck and be surprised. Here is a review of the FPI blog ).
(And Dave McKean gave an interview on Bookslut about the new edition of Cage:
http://www.bookslut.com/features/2010_10_016702.php )
... There
The Graveyard Book it now in the States in paperback. I wanted the already mentioned several times, I forget it again and again. Here is the link to Amazon to prove it. And here is the link Indie Bound to buy it from an independent bookseller.
And here is a list of public libraries in the States, just in case you want to borrow it and read want.
...
This I've got this morning from the Hurricane Intermediate School.
We are a library of a sixth-and seventh-graders school. A student came with the book Stardust to us and showed us on page 69, the word F ** K. If you do not want your students read this, you do not buy this book for the library and not for domestic use.
Very wise advice. Even if I do not really know why you should not buy at home when the students are not to read it. And I do not understand why I get the letter. But this is definitely a reason why was sold Stardust not just for the sixth year. It is a book for adults and it would get YALSA Award because it is a book for adults, teenagers like that, and it was published as a book for young adults in the States, but never as a children's book.
And because we spend level to the point, people from the wording or address, are
a sentence in the Graveyard book is called "mass graves are a good place to munch a meal." It is an attack on the Chinese. I know you meant it only funny, but I can not stand it!
I wrote back and said,
that we in English 'Plague pits is good eating "said. Were there Chinese Pestgruben? And can you explain to me why this is an insult to the Chinese? I would hate to have attacked the Chinese people unwittingly, and would like to know why it is offensive.
This was the answer
I'm sorry, the book which I read was a translation into Chinese, and the sentence you have written now - "Plague pits is good eating" - translated into Chinese means "tens of thousands of men were tortured to death and buried in pits." And between 1910 and 1930, when the Chinese government is very weak and the country from Western countries and Japan was colonized, the government could not defend its own people, so many workers from factories that have received funding from abroad, such as coal mines, died .
I know now that there is a translation error and it's not your fault.
shows the Chinese translation:
"Plague pits is good eating" in Chinese, if I translate, is " 鼠疫 坑 很好 吃 " and is not an insult. The translator wrote " 万人坑 很好 吃 " and that is insulting.
Aha. Apologies to all Chinese readers, who feel offended (although I know that this blog behind the Great Wall of China protection simply cut off and no one reading this ever will).
About http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2010/04/what-neil-gaiman-said.html Debbie Reese has correctly pointed out some time ago that I last year, something really stupid and offensive words, but I've been asked by the ABA, why not let the Graveyard Book play in the U.S. have. I think I have tried everything, more with my head than with my authors interviewee head to answer - and described how my potential cast of characters in a cemetery in the European style in a small U.S. city (such as the UK city in Graveyard Book ) perceived. I remember that I thought even then that I had said really a stupid thing. But silly things to come during an interview out of your mouth and then makes it more simple.
I was a bit upset because of the first post from Deb (mainly because I "but that obviously was not what I meant" reading) was also on Twitter, and was foolishly unfriendly, but when I called (from Pam Noles ) and again looked at the actual words they say, I noticed that people were very reasonable, what I said to indicated what I thought: namely a) that in the states before the arrival of white colonists in the 17th Century was no population, and / or b) that I dismissed the murder of the natives, and quite simply that c) the natives were kind of irrelevant in American history. (None of my intention. But only intention was to bring you so far.) And it also says no such thing as "dead Indians" and hidden, meant funny or not, the shadow of the sentence "only a dead Indian is a good Indian " out.
people asked me how I am with the phrase "a few dead Jews" in its place Interview had felt what I was also again a sense of guilt. For something that I have not thought of when I wrote the Graveyard Book , was to put some of my Jewish cemetery. I wanted, but neither the history nor the funeral worked.
Maybe I should Graveyard Book write history with some secret buried dead American Jews and some natives, who are far away from home.
Anyway, I apologize all those affected, especially Debbie Reese. has
My sister sent me the Graveyard Book to Halloween. I've just finished reading. I really enjoy until I came to an extra at the end of the book. Why you had to mention Stephen Colbert in her acceptance speech for the Newberry Medal? Now it will be forever on the back of the book. Too bad. Their stories will remain long after anyone knows who he was, let alone taking care of him drum. I think you should stop thinking ahead, and especially before you clog up your words and especially your Books with sudden needs.
why. Er. Because I wanted? Because it made my son happy that I was on his show and there is no sudden needs over the happiness of your children? Because it was a Newberry-acceptance speech, which was held in 2009 and it tells about things that were 2009 to date? Because Mr. Colbert Tolkien's description of Tom Bombadil cited?
Here is the link to the episode of the Colbert Report , which is in question. See if it changes your mind, I resenting correspondent. I have just a little vulnerable (I wear the suit I wore to the funeral of my father) and he is very friendly.
One of the things I love about your work so is that I always had the impression that you had worked out a consistent and relatively complete world that is the story. I've been trying for months to create such a world, and I'm at the point that my head says, explode it, if I do not now write down, but my problem is that I do not know where to start. When you start working on a story in a new universe is playing, what's the easiest way to start?
catch on with the story. Always. (Unless you're Lud in the Mist ). The world is there that the story happened to her. You do not tell the story of the world, until you have begun to tell the story that happens on the Isle of Man. You tell the story and background and history to come in when they are needed. The same applies to worlds that you build yourself.
The train grad into Penn Station.
This means that I barely even have time to pass the Big Best News of the day: that may have been the reason for the mess after the colony collapse investigated in hives http:// www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/science/07bees.htm
It is raining outside - not doll but steady - and the wind is blowing and howling alternately. Things that should not be blown hither to be blown ago, and I am reluctant to run the dogs know how to do it properly. 
