Yvette's Inner Geek Blog

Smiles are best when you’re not expecting them, and sometimes you accidentally find a smile in the most unlikely of places.

I feel like I’m channeling Delerium* right now: Isn’t there a word for this sort of thing? For seeing a smile in a garbage can and some dishes on the counter, or for seeing a rabbit in a cloud, or for seeing shapes in tea dregs at the bottom of a cup?

It’s like found art, but different. A found smile?

*referring to a character from The Sandman series of graphic novels by my favorite author, Neil Gaiman. I’m not actually a huge fan of the Sandman artwork—it’s too garish and early 90′s for my tastes—but the story and writing are OMNOMNOMNOMamazing.

If you are not already a fan of Neil Gaiman, here is another reason why you should be: his recent blog post Why defend freedom of icky speech?

He gives an intelligent, easy to read, and in-depth response to a reader’s very valid question about why he supports the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund‘s (CBLDF) fight for Iowan comic collector Christopher Handley’s right to collect (what I personally find creepy and icky) lolicon manga.

Gaiman unequivocally supports our first ammendment right to Freedom of Speech, even when the content in question would probably disgust and mortify a large majority of the world’s population.

I grew up with a cursory appreciation of freedom of speech — censorship was something already in the history books for me, with an occasional current news story about another attempt at censorship by the Ridiculous Conservatives. I mean, I remember the 1999 uproar over Chris Ofili‘s artistic rendition of the Virgin Mary on a canvas embellished with elephant dung, but I wasn’t involved enough in politics of any sort to take sides when good ol’ Mayor Guiliani declared “There’s nothing in the First Amendment that supports horrible and disgusting projects!”

Nearly ten years later, after realizing that some of the graphic novels I actually own have been affected by that gray mess of censorship in the past, I am ready to take a stance. I may not personally approve of the very ideas of fetishizing children, oppressing women, abusing drugs, senseless murder, or conservative religion, but I’m not going to prevent someone else from writing or talking about them or creating comics and art and movies about them.

Ideas themselves don’t actively cause harm, and drawing a line or making exceptions to the concept of Freedom of Speech defies its very purpose.

Gaiman sums up this reasoning quite nicely:

Because if you don’t stand up for the stuff you don’t like, when they come for the stuff you do like, you’ve already lost.

Oh, Neil. Today I hate myself even more for not driving to Las Vegas to meet you.

Several months ago, I learned that Neil Gaiman was going to be the keynote speaker for the Vegas Valley Book Festival. This is the closest he’s come to visiting Utah since I moved here, since I live only 5 or 6 hours away from Las Vegas by car (depending on how many times I stop to stare at the weird and magical-looking Yucca trees along the way because remember, I’m from the Midwest).

I have a major literary crush on Neil Gaiman. His English accent is also wonderful, and listening to him read his own writing delights me in a very primitive (yet somewhat highbrow) manner.

I made a hotel reservation and hoped that Ben and I would be able to take a long weekend to Vegas… spend some time at the Book Festival with Neil Gaiman on Thursday and then galavant around the tourist-ridden city of gamblers and 3am steak & egg breakfasts.

But lots of little things contributed to canceling the trip altogether. Vegas itself isn’t that thrilling for us anymore, we have more pressing needs for our cash right now, Ben is still a little sick and would have to take time off work for a guy on whom his wife has a literary crush, etc.

I even briefly considered going by myself just for a day or maybe overnight, but ultimately decided not to. I consoled myself with the knowledge that as much as I love Neil Gaiman, and would love to meet him someday, there would surely be tons of people at the free festival and I didn’t really want to drive 10-12 hours for a quick keynote and to stand in line forever for a brief encounter and book signing.

And then Neil Gaiman posted this on his blog yesterday from Las Vegas:

Just did a lovely signing — only about fifty people altogether, which meant that I got to talk to everyone and draw in their books, admire their tattoos and so forth. Really pleasant.

DAMMIT DAMMIT SONOFABITCH DAMMIT! I should have been there.

Yesterday’s Mystery Bird that was stuck in my chimney is no longer a mystery! It was a female red-shafted Northern Flicker (photo from Cornell’s ornithology website, taken by Keven T. Karlson).

I was impressed with Cornell University’s ornithology website (which is what you’ll visit if you click on that first link) both for the multiple photos and the ability to listen to a clip of the bird’s song/noises. I’ve definitely heard that bird outside our house before, and it’s really cool to know what I’m hearing now.

I’d been sitting on that blog post for a few days, all the time wondering what kind of bird that was and trying to figure it out from online searches and my two birding books (National Geographic Field Guide and Birds of Utah). I finally decided to email Sharon Stiteler over at Birdchick.com to humbly request assistance, and was surprised by her lightning-quick response with a positive ID of the bird! She said that she was checking email at the time and thought my question was a fun challenge. And then she linked to this blog and challenged her readers to ID the bird…. cool!

Incidentally, Sharon’s profile claims her blog’s purpose “To show the world that you can be a birder without being a geek.” Well, I’m a geek, so I hope it’s okay that I want to be a birder!

I started reading Sharon’s blog at some point a while back when Neil Gaiman linked to her. They’re friends who pursued (and subsequently blogged about) a joint beekeeping adventure. And since I’m a wannabe birder, I stuck around and love looking at all the pretty birdy pictures and hearing about her adventures.

I’m a wannabe birder thanks to my good friend Susan from college. She was a fellow zoology major (until I switched gears and majored in English) and ended up in the field of ornithology after graduation, where she’s been ever since. Susan introduced me to pishing, which I’d like to try more often. I am jealous of all the exposure she’s had to owls. Because I think owls are neat, even when they’re being fed frozen mice.

While hunting for an ID for my mystery bird, I also came across the Utah County Birders, who apparently go on field trips (field trips! wheee!) and have monthly educational meetings. I don’t think that I will ever be a hardcore digiscoping birder, but I am definitely interested in learning more about birds. And since I neglected my natural interest in college by only attending one or two Naturalist Club meetings (before the field trips! boo!), I might just check them out.

The cool thing about learning is that even if you become a primo expert in a certain field, there’s somehow always more to learn. I don’t expect that I’ll become an expert in birds. I just want to know more about them!

And maybe find out which birding book should be the next addition to my library?

If you’re in the San Francisco area, I hope that you’re going to WonderCon for me. I’m really hoping to make it to the San Diego Comic Con this year for the first time. I’ve never lived closer to California, and yet after 2.5 years in Utah I still haven’t visited.

I may be going to San Francisco for a couple of days to see the big sights (Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman’s Wharf, Pacific Ocean, etc.) while my Norwegian visitors are here in March. The only other time I’ve been in California was in San Francisco, but I don’t have any memories because I was only a year old. Bummer.

How’s this for weirdness: as I was typing that last “San Francisco,” Shirley Simms was singing the name through my computer speakers–I’m listening to the Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs: Part 1 and I didn’t realize that track number seven “Come Back From San Francisco” had started playing.

Now here’s something that we all have to wait for, no matter where in the world we live: the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline. I like the novella (though it’s not my favorite Neil Gaiman book), but the movie looks like it will be absolutely delicious… it’s an animated stop-motion film done by the same people who brought you that little cult classic called Nightmare Before Christmas. The Soundtrack will be by They Might Be Giants. Squeeeee!

Neil Gaiman just announced this little (official) teaser trailer:

January 2009 is very far away. I’d put it on my calendar, but I don’t have a 2009 calendar yet!

Working until 8pm on Friday evening sucked. Working again for another couple hours on Saturday  sucked even more, even though I was working remotely from home. The hour that I worked on Sunday sucked the worst. Overall, suckage in conjuction with recent working hours. I will be taking a break to get my damn hair cut (and colorized? who knows?) sometime this week.

In the meantime, Neil Gaiman has this to say about what I should do about writing my damn Sundance stories on this blog, as well as how to proceed with my writing career:

So I guess I better get on that or risk being eaten by flowers (that kind of make me want to sneeze just looking at them… that would be a double whammy to be eaten by flowers while silmutaneously having an allergic reaction to them. Sounds like stuff from a B-movie horror flick to me.

In case you were wondering, American Gods: A Novel is my favorite book by Neil Gaiman. It’s a beautifully told story (because Neil Gaiman is teh awesome) with darkness a humor, great prose, mystery, a travel adventure, and an anachronistic mash-up of deities and heroes from all sorts of world myths in modern rural America. It’s probably my favorite book period, but as I am a great lover of books (Valentine’s Day is hell for me–trying to convince all those books that they’re each the only one) I think it’s safer to say that American Gods will always be in my Top 5.

If I ever went back to school for a Master’s degree in something literary, it would most likely be folklore and fairy tales. I think I’m most fascinated with their ability to survive and thrive across so many centuries and how one idea can transcend so many different cultures and yet still be the same basic story. And all that without the Internet! OMG how fab!

Okay, the literary geek-out is over (for now), and I should be leaving for work.  

One more thing before I call it a night: two links.

Wil Wheaton’s blog entry, Patton Oswalt on geeks vs. nerds

Neil Gaiman and his guest blogger daughter Maddy get the lolcats treatment on Livejournal’s new community, lolgaimans.

"Helsinki Complaints Choir." What a great name for a song, video, book, almost anything. This is a lovely music video to watch as winter sets in that you may watch more than once. I know that I have! Link snitched from Neil Gaiman’s blog. Enjoy!