In which our heroine is a total squealing fangirl

I have internet at home again! Huzzah. Anyway, the most notable thing that happened this week was that, on Tuesday, I met Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman!

Amanda Palmer is half of the band The Dresden Dolls, and recently released a solo album. I saw her back in September, and she is fabulous. Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite writers of all time, and if you knew just how much I read you'd realize how big a statement that is. His book American Gods is one that I can read and re-read over and over again-- I probably read it at least twice, maybe three times, a year. (Meaning that I've read it at least ten times.) He is something of a celebrity for me, and when I found out that he and Amanda Palmer were doing a reading together in Dublin, I figured I had to be there. Amanda's solo album is called "Who Killed Amanda Palmer," and features liner notes written by Neil. Also, they are releasing a book to tie in with the album-- it has artistic dead photos of Amanda, accompanied by Neil's short stories.

The show was absolutely fantastic. First of all, the venue, Chapters, is an awesome bookstore. It's the largest independent bookstore in Ireland, and has a huge used collection. As well as a really impressive graphic novel section. The staff were all really nice and helpful... which is important, as what they had thought would be a "small, intimate bookshop reading" had five hundred people turn up. Yeah, the place was packed. I got there at about 4:30-- it was supposed to start at 5-- and managed to get a decent seat on the floor. I wasn't too close, but I had a great view of Neil and Amanda.


(Sorry it's so blurry, I was zooming over a lot of heads.)

Since there were so many people, there were some technical difficulties in getting the reading going. For one thing, they decided to limit the signing to one item per person. ("So if you've brought your entire Sandman collection, you're shit out of luck," said Neil.) The book still isn't out, won't be out for a couple weeks, but they did material from it. They took turns, with Neil reading stories from the book while Amanda displayed the accompanying photos, and Amanda singing and playing the ukulele. Yes, the ukulele.

And. Neil and Amanda. Oh man. What can I say? Seeing Neil Gaiman read was almost surreal. I have seen so many pictures of the man, watched lots of videos of him speaking, and I read his 'blog, so when he walked up to the mic it was hard to grasp that this was the real man standing in front of me. I was definitely star-struck at first, just sitting there grinning excitedly. Neil Gaiman is, absolutely, a bard. His reading was pretty much magical. And he has a beautiful voice, and can somehow make the words "shit out of luck" sound genteel.

Amanda Palmer, of course, is gorgeous. She has an amazing, beautiful voice, and the fact that she did an acoustic set on the ukulele just makes her the more awesome. She played a Cure song, a song of her own composing, and Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees," all of which were beautiful in a way you don't associate with the ukulele. Her show back in September was awesome, but that was a big concert; this was much more personal, much more like a conversation. She is also an absolutely cute, funny person, and the way she and Neil bantered was adorable.

After the reading was over, there came the signing, and a made chaotic rush to form a line ensued. I was nervous because I only had an hour to catch my bus, but luckily ended up at the front of the queue. (I guess the signing took over three hours to get everyone!) Since there were 500 people behind me, I wasn't exactly able to talk to them, but I did get to say hello while they were signing my things. (I brought my copy of Amanda's album, and bought a copy of The Graveyard Book at Chapters.) I would just like to say this: Neil Gaiman said my name. *swoon*

(From left to right: some other fan in line, Ayla about to explode in squealing, Amanda Palmer signing my CD, Neil Gaiman talking to me!)

And, my booty:

I love Amanda's handwriting, especially the swirly curly way she wrote my name!


That is EXACTLY what I want my headstone to look like. *swoons some more* You can't tell in my webcam photo, but Neil signed with a fountain pen in dark brown ink. Including an ink spatter by the moon. Gorgeous.

Hooray for meeting famous people! I took some videos, but I have to mess with them a little. I'll post 'em as soon as they're up on youtube. Also, Neil talked about the show on his 'blog. Wee!

weekend update

Wow, I actually had an interesting weekend, for once!

Saturday I wasn't planning on doing anything, but then my friend Bri invited me over for movies with some friends from the Medieval Studies department. I brought over a bottle of shiraz and some Fererro Roche dark chocolates. We watched American History X (a totally appropriate Valentine's day movie) and talked about racism, and then watched Music and Lyrics and talked about how good Hugh Grant looks without a shirt. (Conclusion: very.) Nothing exciting, but it was nice to be out with friends for Valentine's day.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it here before, but I am in the NUIG Orchestra Society. We had a concert last Monday, actually, playing a Schubert symphony. Anyway, yesterday, we had an extra-long rehearsal. Usually we meet for 90 minutes on Monday nights, but Hugh (the conductor) wanted us to take a whole afternoon because we were learning new music. We're playing some Mozart pieces, which we will eventually combine with two choirs. The rehearsal was in Esker Monastery, about 20 minutes outside of Galway. That was cool. It was a beautiful secluded building, and the monks kept popping their heads in to tell us that the music was lovely. There were some snags, because none of the parts I had were actually written for B-flat clarinet. (NB: your garden-variety clarinet is in the key of B-flat and probably 98% of music is scored for it.) One was written for an A clarinet-- this isn't too unusual, I have run into A clarinet scores before. But two were written for C clarinet! I've never even seen a C clarinet. Transposing that is easy, though, and the pieces were really simple, so I was able to do it by sight. Transposing from A to B-flat is a lot more difficult, though, and the piece had four flats already. Luckily, Hugh knew someone who lived nearby that had an A clarinet, so we took a 10-minute break from rehearsal and went to get it. And man, that was so fun! I'd never played an A clarinet before. It's just a little bigger, so that took some getting used to, but the tone is just gorgeous. Hugh is going to try transposing that movement to B-flat, but I'm hoping that we can just find an A clarinet for me to play. Yay music.

Anyway, after rehearsal we all went back to Hugh's house, and he made dinner for all 25 of us! We ate lasagna and drank wine and hung out with his wife and two little kids. Overall, it was a really nice night. I'm really happy that I decided to join Orchestra Soc. I've been playing the clarinet for 13 years, and when I'm not in an ensemble I start to get stir-crazy.

quick note

Again, sorry about the scarcity of updates. (Not that there is much new in my life-- I spend all day at my cubicle, reading and taking notes and writing papers, occasionally going to a class. In the evening and on weekends, I cook, I crochet, and I watch movies on my laptop.) I am still having problems with the internet at my apartment, mainly that I don't have internet at my apartment right now, and I'm probably going to cancel the service I have and get a new provider.

Anyway, I wanted to throw up a quick note. My weekend was uneventful but lovely-- lovely mainly because it was uneventful. Very relaxing. The weather has been mostly cold but dry lately, with "hard frosts" at night and very little rain. As much as I miss Michigan summers, I think Irish winters (or lack of winters) makes up for it. It's pretty much like a Michigan autumn year-round.