The Wonderful Weekend of Gaiman

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Whew! I had a full weekend that seemed to largely revolve around Neil Gaiman for some reason.

Friday: Noelle and I were supposed to see Nine Inch Nails, but the show got postponed, so we went to Neil's signing in Berkeley with Zak. I split out of work a bit early and slogged through rush hour traffic, got onto BART, then hoofed it through downtown Berkeley to find that the tickets weren't at Cody's but at the site of the reading. Arrived there sweaty, disheveled, and not at all gruntled. Neil read a bit from Anansi Boys and then did Q&A for about an hour. That made me more gruntled. And the signing began. And went on. And on. And on. After about four and half hours, we finally got to Neil. Noelle got her iPod signed (that's in the picture). Neil looked really tired at that point and probably still had another half hour to go, at least.

Saturday: Spent much of the day reading Anansi Boys. It's the story of Fat Charlie, who is the son of Anansi, the spider god of legend. Fat Charlie has not had much of a relationship with his father who really embarrassed him as a child before. Anyway, Anansi dies and Fat Charlie find out a.) he's the son of a god, b.) he has a brother Spider he's never known about and c.) his brother has gotten all the "god stuff." Fat Charlie arranges to meet his brother and his life takes a turn for the worse from there. This book started off a little slow, but picked up speed and I ended up staying up all night reading it. I think like this one almost as much as Neverwhere, which is my current favorite Neil story.

Sunday: Saw Mirrormask with Noelle and Kevin. This was an awesome movie, just what I hoped for. The visual effects were just crazy, absolutely crazy. It's a kind of an Alice in Wonderlandesque tale. The main character Helena ends up in a strange fantasy world where she resolves to awaken the white queen and restore balance to the world which represents her unconscious mind (I think). I will probably go again.