Neil Gaiman: Where to start

I posted the above photo of my new Locomocean cinema style lightbox with the words "Make Good Art" on it, and with the following quote from Neil Gaiman's Address to the University of the Arts Class of 2012:

“Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do.

Make good art.

I’m serious. Husband runs off with a politician? Make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by mutated boa constrictor? Make good art. IRS on your trail? Make good art. Cat exploded? Make good art. Somebody on the Internet thinks what you do is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before? Make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, and eventually time will take the sting away, but that doesn’t matter. Do what only you do best. Make good art.

Make it on the good days too.”

— Neil Gaiman

These words have given me comfort and the strength to keep going with my #10minsbeforebed project throughout this year of "growth opportunity".

One of the commenters on that instagram post said she'd not heard of Neil before, and asked where to start, and given that instagram doesn't let you post URLs, and this is a question I love to be asked, I figured I'd go old-school, dust of this here blog and write a blog post about it.

So here goes - a quick quite to where to start with Neil Gaiman.

The 'Make Good Art' Speech

The video of the full address is below, and absolutely worth a watch, or if you're not somewhere you can watch a video, click through using the link below the video and you'll find a full transcript which you can read at your leisure. 

Neil Gaiman Addresses the University of the Arts Class of 2012 from The University of the Arts (Phl) on Vimeo.

The Day The Saucers Came

Author Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) reads his poem "The Day the Saucers Came" at Minnesota Public Radio's Wits.

I love this poem beyond the telling of it. I heard it before I read it, at the book tour for Fragile Things, one of several books of short stories and other groups of words, which is also a fine place to start if you want to dip your toe in the Gaiman water without the commitment that goes with reading a novel or long story.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

One of his more recent books, written for his wife, musician Amanda Palmer. Never intended to be published, but I'm very glad it did.

American Gods

About to become a TV Series, which is hugely exciting.

Coraline

Theoretically a kids story, but a good, short read. Made into a fabulous stop-motion animated film.

From Henry Selick, visionary director of THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, and based on Neil Gaimans international best-selling book, comes a spectacular stop-motion animated adventure the first to be originally filmed in 3D! Coraline Jones (Dakota Fanning) is bored in her new home until she finds a secret door and discovers an alternate version of her life on the other side.

Sandman

Where it all started, for me. The amazing graphic novel series, of which Preludes and Nocturnes is the beginning.

Books for Kids

He's also written a bunch of books for kids, so if you know small people, you can get them started early with:

Chu's Day

Blueberry Girl

The Wolves in the Walls

The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish

The Graveyard Book

Other Favourites

I could go on and on and on, because he's a) so good and b) so prolific, but I'll just list a few other favourites here, and then stop, because basically, the tl;dr is - start anywhere, then keep going.

Neverwhere - You'll never see London the same again. Was made into a BBC TV series.

Good Omens - Written with Terry Pratchett.

Stardust - Worth hunting down the illustrated version because Charles Vess's artwork is beautiful, but the novel is still good. Was made into a film.

Enjoy!

Cycling to Work

I got a bike through the Cycle to Work scheme a few months ago. I got it (in accordance with the stated purpose of the scheme) for cycling to work, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't have severe reservations about actually cycling to work using it. I kept telling myself it'd be a really good thing to do, and it'd help me keep fit and all that, but I didn't really believe it. Which made the realisation that I really really enjoy it all the more surprising.

My first couple of commutes were pretty hairy and the elation I felt on arrival was more relief that I survived, but as time has gone on and I've become more familiar with my route (much more pleasant thanks to a top tip from a bikeist mate) I've relaxed into it and it's become something I actually feel disappointed about if I can't do for whatever reason.

My fitness is improving exponentially too. I've managed to cut about 25 minutes off my time and even when I'm not able to beat my route record (usually due to chronic headwinds), I feel less and less wasted when I arrive.

Quite apart from the health benefits, it gives me time to think and room to be inspired. My brain mulls over work problems and wedding plans and things gently slot into place along the way. It's great. I didn't even mind the day that it poured rain the second I set off and stopped when I arrived.

Of course, when it rains, the views aren't quite as impressive as these, more's the pity…

The view from above

I've always loved seeing things from different angles. In fact, one of the most exciting things that ever happened to me was getting my Nikon Coolpix 995 camera with ace macro function and swivel body. Suddenly, I could see detail I would and couldn't have seen before (the underside of flowers, etc.).

A few years ago now (five and a half, to be exact), I was lucky to be allowed up to the top of a very tall building in the centre of London. I was there to take publicity photos in advance of a charity abseil. I was very lucky to be allowed to do this (and also that they didn't make me read and sign the inch thick document most photographers are asked to sign before being allowed to take pictures at the top of this building) and I still love the pictures I took up there. I remember being totally blown away by details which I'd never seen before (and would, most likely, never see again).

I was reminded of those photos by the fact that I'm working in a very tall building at the moment. I unfortunately don't have the time I'd like to stand and gaze out of windows on high floors, but the time I do have is taken up by a childlike sense of awe at how amazing London is when seen from such a high vantage point, removed from the hustle and bustle of the rat race. It energises and inspires me.

I never got round to posting the photos I took that day, all those years ago, but I think it's time that I shared them.

For all it's grimness and grime, London is still an amazing city.

This moment in this place

It's the 1st of October. I'm not entirely sure how that happened. It seems like only a minute ago it was July and we were off to San Francisco on the holiday of a lifetime.

I'm in Bristol, doing some work for a local digital agency. I've been here for three weeks now and those three weeks have exceeded any and all expectations I had on accepting the contract.

As I write this, I'm sat on a bench at a picnic table alongside the SS Great Britain looking across the floating harbour. The sky is blue with only the merest hint of fluffy cloud and the sun is warming my back. A light breeze stirs the weeds between the cobblestones below and gently ruffles my hair. Some workmen at the next table are laughing and joking and the noise from the construction nearby is barely audible over my music and the hum of the Matilda of Bristol's engine as she putters in to the side to pick up a passenger before moving off again.

A picture may be worth a thousand words but there isn't a camera in the world—nor are there enough words—to fully describe the myriad of details that make this moment in this place so perfect.

Life is short and moments like this frustratingly few and far between. Sometimes the most important thing is to stop.

Take a breath.

Look around.

Do whatever it takes to be fully in the moment.

It really is a beautiful world.

Poetry

Along with (and possibly related to) my love of oratory, is my love of poetry. It's not something I talk much about, or actively pursue, but it's there nonetheless, and likes to creep up on me occasionally, to remind me it's still there.

Most recently, this was in the form of some absolutely wonderful trailers for the BBC's Poetry Season, which feature various folk apparently going about their daily lives as usual, but with a short interruption for some poetry, before continuing as if nothing had happened.

The first trailer I saw featured Lauren Laverne, then I saw the Phil Jupitus one (which I think is my favourite so far) and the Frank Skinner one. I'm not sure whether I've seen/heard the Hugh Dennis one, and I know I definitely haven't seen/heard the Robert Webb one. I enjoyed the ones I've seen so much that I wanted to see them again (without having to watch the BBC 24/7 to do it) and made my way to the microsite on the assumption that the videos would be online.

They weren't, and for two days, I couldn't even find any kind of listing of who/what/how many until a chance glance at the description of a google search result revealed their presence and the information was found at the bottom of the TV & Radio schedule page with no kind of identifying information around it.

So for the benefit of other frustrated googlers and because the List of BBC Poetry Season Trailers (scroll to end) doesn't include links to the poems, I've included some links here:

List of BBC Poetry Season Trailers

• Frank Skinner does Where Are the Waters of My Childhood? by Mark Strand
• Phill Jupitus does A Jar of Honey by Jacob Polley
• Lauren Laverne does On Leaving Some Friends at an Early Hour by John Keats
• Hugh Dennis does This Is Just To Say by William Carlos Williams
• Robert Webb does Love Song also by William Carlos Williams

The presence of the listing gave me a small spark of hope that the videos might be around on the site somewhere, just badly placed, but it doesn't seem to be the case, and nobody seems to have youtubed them either, which is a disappointment. If you've seen these up online somewhere, I'd be very grateful if you left a comment pointing me to them.

Anyway.

Random Live Poetry

It also reminded me of something that happened a couple of months ago.

I'd gone for a meeting with a new client and was killing time in Euston station because I was early, when I spotted a crowd of people around some camera equipment and boom microphones. Being the curious sort, I ambled over and tweeted thus:

no idea why, but just happened across Griff Rhys Jones reading WH Auden's Night Mail (youtube) on the station concourse. My favourite poem.

I then took and posted the following picture:

After standing around and listening a bit more, I finally asked someone what was going on and followed up with:

has discovered it's for a telly programme to be broadcast at the end of May. Will have to keep an eye out to see if I stayed out of shot.

In true form, I completely forgot about it until tonight. On checking the schedule it turns out I missed the programme by a mere two hours. Luckily, the programme - Why Poetry Matters - is available on the BBC iPlayer. If you're viewing this after the 27th of May 2009 or can't see it because you're outside the UK, my apologies.

Oratory

I can't quite remember when I realised how much I love listening to someone speak well enough about a subject to move me. There's a bit of my brain that gives the credit to West Wing, but realistically, it's probably more closely related to the many years I spent in various churches listening to sermons when I was a kid. That's not to say that I love to listen to sermons - I don't - at least, not for the religious content.

I suppose what I enjoy is being moved, and when you listen to someone who is passionate about their subject speak well about that subject, you can't fail to be moved in some way.

I want to be inspired. I want to learn. I want to feel. I want to care. I want to leave the room a changed person from the one who entered.

A couple of months ago, I downloaded all the available audio podcasts from the TED conference. Ever since, any time I go to the supermarket, I plug in my headphones and listen to a TED talk. I've walked and bought groceries listening to people talk about literally everything under the sun - and above it too, and there hasn't yet been a talk that I've skipped because it was boring. I've had my mind blown while buying broccoli and been inspired while trying not to buy ice-cream. Some of the topics have been things I wouldn't have chosen to listen to had I been on the site and given the choice, but the randomness of the method has opened my mind to things I'd never have thought about otherwise.

It's been fabulous, and I'm not even done with them all yet.

A few weeks ago, I came back from a days work at a client site and I was just exhausted. I flopped on the sofa with my station-bought salad and was idly flicking through the channels when I stumbled across the opening couple of minutes of The Speaker.

I stopped because it was a competition about public speaking specifically involving teenagers, but I have to admit that I was a little bit doubtful about how it would pan out. I wasn't sure that Oratory Idol was a format that could work, but somehow, it did.

It was Stacy (who will forever in my mind be "the gobby one") talking about her life that stopped me from flipping on to a different channel but I think it was too-cool-for-school Haroon's speech that made me put down both my fork and the remote and really pay attention, and from that point on, I was hooked.

I was inspired. I learned. I felt. I cared. It changed me.

It was compelling in a way I didn't expect. I lived and died with the kids as they worked their way through the tasks given to them. There were more than a few occasions where it was so uncomfortable that I couldn't bear it and had to get up and leave the room, and I was more affected than I thought I'd be when some of my early favourites didn't make it to the final.

I've always said that I hate being the centre of attention - and that's true up to a point, in that it depends what kind of attention. Watching The Speaker reminded me how much I've grown to actually enjoy being a Speaker myself, and throughout the series, I actually learned a lot. It's even left me wanting to learn more - to the extent of seriously considering joining a Toastmasters club to get more experience and hone my skills.

I know I'm never going to be Jed Bartlett from The West Wing, or Barack Obama, but I really hope that one day, I'll be able to look back and not only feel, but know that I was able to educate, inspire or move people the way I've been moved by many of the Speakers I've listened to.

Formula 1

I know who is responsible for my indoctrination into the world of F1, even if I can't remember exactly which year it was. I know that it became a thing, to plan weekends around the coverage. Saturday lunchtimes are about qualifying, Sundays are all about the race.

The build up starts slowly. A lazy sunday morning spent either in bed, or pottering around making breakfast to take back to bed depending on whether we've got company or not. Then comes the move to the sofa to watch the start of the coverage. If we've got company, I'll sometimes do some preparation for a big roast dinner while this is on, stopping when they interview Jenson Button (my favourite) or Lewis Hamilton (who caught my attention for the last couple of years while Jenson was languishing in crap car hell) or if there's anything particularly contentious or controversial happening.

As we get closer to the start, I begin to locate the various bits and pieces that are necessary to facilitate the required race experience: snacks, drinks, knitting and Sharky.

Sharky was a forgotten. I rescued him from the IKEA Warehouse in Wembley very late on Friday night and he's my "don't break stuff" surrogate. When things get tense or stressful, I grab Sharky rather than breaking HFBB's fingers, and when things get reallytense or stressful, he has been known to fly. Across the room. At the TV.

But I digress.

It's a tradition. Post-race is for talking about the race, eating Sunday dinner and trying to forget that we're on the slippery slope downhill to Monday.

I don't know why I'm gripped by F1 but Touring Cars leaves me cold. I think I've only missed one, maybe two races in the last several years. I even watched a race on Arabic TV while on holiday in Crete (the most bizarre part of which was that the commentator was actually Scottish and kept switching from Arabic to English with a Scottish accent and it distracted me no end).

I was gripped two years ago when Lewis Hamilton came on the scene and blew everyone's ears off and nearly won the Championship. I was gripped last year when he blew everyone's ears off again and nearly lost the Championship and I'm most definitely gripped again this year, now that my beloved Jenson looks like he's back in the running.

I'm so gripped, I'm even contemplating staying up for the next couple of hours to watch the practice session (now it's being broadcast as part of the shift in coverage from ITV back to the BBC) just to see for myself if Jenson's got a hope in hell or not.

The thing I'm most excited about though, doesn't have anything to do with the actual racing. Oh no. After enduring the godawful ITV F1 theme music from the last few years, I literally cannot wait to hear the "dum, dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum duuummm" of The Chain start up.

So come Sunday, I'll be on the edge of my sofa, clutching Sharky, hoping for a great race. Keep your fingers crossed the soundproofing between my house and next door is decent.

I might get noisy.

Battlestar Galactica

I'm a big nerd. A really big nerd. I'm nerdy in many, many ways, and one of those ways is Sci Fi. I think it might be something I got from my dad (who, against my mother's wishes, let me watch Dr Who when I was 3 years old). My introduction to the web was actually mostly through Sci Fi (although back then it was the Sci Fi/Fantasy Media Forum on Compuserve, specifically the Star Wars section), before I caught the Babylon 5 bug.

The B5 bug was a serious one, and it got so bad I even went to a convention (and the internet is so fantastic that not only are there still convention reports from people I was there with hanging around, but there's also an entire Wolf 359 photo set on flickr).

But B5 ended, and the bug faded, and other things took over - most notably West Wing, which I love with a passion beyond reason, and have rewatched in its entirety several times - but I still needed some good hard Sci Fi satisfaction (which sounds a lot dirtier written down than it did in my head).

Then along came Battlestar Galactica and blew my mind. I remember watching the Mini Series on Sky One, and then watching the repeat. I still deeply appreciate the gift of the Season 1 and Mini Series DVDs, at a time in my life when things were really shitty. I've held on through ups and downs through this show (and my life) and I'm both sad that its ending and eagerly waiting to see how it ends.

After more than two years of protesting that he didn't like the shaky camera work, I finally persuaded the HFBB to give it another try, and apparently, a 42" telly makes all the difference, and he loves it. We've been gulping it down in multi-episode chunks, seemingly unable to stop mid-disc, and have caught up to the last few episodes of Season 3.

I wanted to wait to watch the second half of Season 4 with him for the first time, but I just couldn't. With the advent of twitter, it's almost impossible to stay spoiler free, and I'd rather re-watch it with him and try not to give the game away than be spoiled myself.

I'm just about to watch Episode 19 of Season 4, and the final episode is shown tomorrow night in the US, and Tuesday in the UK, so in case I'm too depressed by the end and forget to say it out loud...

Farewell BSG. It's been frakking awesome.

Crowdsourced Music

I tend to be something of an obsessive, musically. When I like an album, I'll listen to it on repeat, sometimes for days and to the exclusion of all else. Lately, I've tended to go round the same albums or artists (Metallica, The Gaslight Anthem, Dolly Parton, Karine Polwart) but sometimes overlistening deadens the efficacy of the transformational effect on my brain, and it just doesn't do what I need it to do any more.

I've put the call out for recommendations on twitter a few times, and always got some interesting stuff in response. It's not always to my taste, but I do try and listen to each recommendation at least once, just to give it a chance.

At the tail end of last week I was in serious need of some bounce and so put the call out for recommendations again, but this time round, through the magic of spotify, I was able to make a collaborative playlist, which I could then share.

What I loved the most was that the majority of the music recommended wasn't stuff I'd have chosen myself, but all of it worked - even the inclusion of the West Side Story Soundtrack! I turned up the volume, danced around the house like an idiot and got more stuff done than I would have otherwise. It seemed to work for some other twitter folk too, which just adds to the fun.

So if you're in need of some bounce, give the Twitter Bounce Mix a go, and if you feel like it, add some tracks. If you can't get a spotify account, I'm sorry, but if you're feeling brave enough, you could try my last.fm library radio.

If you have your own collaborative playlist, post a link to it in the comments - I'm bound to wear out this playlist soon enough, and I'll be wanting something new.