quote:

looking for studio audience to attend the reading/talk on Sept. 6. There'll be lots of chances to ask questions, and he'll read two excerpts from Spook Country.

fingers crossed, people.

would anyone in the mid-Ohio area happen to be going to any of these?

hi everyone. i am a bit nervous asking this, but, i figure you guys know more than i do so youd be the best folks to ask.

i was planning to go to the signing today in new york city, but, im very nervous.

i was going to bring my copy of neuromancer to sign, but, did not know if that was bad form or not. although i do own a copy of spook country (still reading it), i am much more interested in meeting him and maybe getting him to sign neuro.

any input is welcome (just as long as it isnt abusive )

Gibson has been (in my experience) a very gracious signer. You have very little to worry about.

Hi Gaia,

Lots of people bring all sorts of things to be signed, some of them only tangentially related to the author. Some people bring huge stacks of books. If all you're getting signed is Neuromancer and maybe a copy of Spook Country, you'll be one of the more reasonable ones.

Just don't ask him to sign body parts, especially not your own, or copies of Neuromancer movie scripts he didn't write.

quote:

Originally posted by colin:
Just don't ask him to sign body parts, especially not your own....

Aww... and my boyfriend was *so* looking forward to my signed breasts!

Hi kindly WGB folx...time for my semi-yearly post! This time, I'm iScribing from a gangsta lean against the Union Square BN's Art and Archi section, to recount the rundown of this evening's Q&A for you punters. That is, unless that major dude down the front with the black Goth queue and the cataracted eye has that mythical future-to-be 'objet du jour,' the Chip-in-the-Head (TM). Or, heavens forfend, someone else in this line has an iPhone. As they say in Guadalajara, "Imagina te!" (rolls eyes).

(mind you, all the following will be mealy-mouthedly paraphrased by Yours Truly...)

1) Q: You were in Toronto during the late 60s? (WG confirms) Did you attend Marshall MacLuhan's Monday night (?) reading sessions? Could his idea of the "electronic condition" prefigured your "cyberspace"

WG: Denies having attended; says something about the proximity to such thinking probably taught him more how to take such things for granted, rather than cull influence from. Says that the sessions, and the ruminations, were no doubt "groovy" in the vernacular of the time.

2) Q: Audiobooks on your works are either scare or disppointing. (lists existing audio works, my personal fave being the author-narrated "Neuromancer" - CW) Any plans to offer more, or improve on the existing?

WG: Confesses to not being a huge audiobook aficionado; says he'll "keep it in mind."

3) Some little kid precociously and eruditely asks if the old man in SC, the one that "orchestates everything," was influenced by (not sure who the kid refers to here, whether it's the old matchstick-figure-making Japanese guy from ATP, but he mentioned PR...I dunno, worsened by not having finished SC yet...I had a WG conflation mind-fart moment)?

WG: Says it might have crossed his mind.

4) Some sci-fi granddad asks if WG's ever had a Leon Uris Omnibus moment, and wanted to get together with other genre "luminaries" to compile some fantastic albatross (emphases mine).

WG: Remarks that he's probably been avoiding that very thing for the better part of 30 years. (big laffs from audience, self included)

5) You've used many marginal, quirky "niche" objects throughout history of your books -- German calculators, etc. -- which if any are your favorites?

WG: Says that he sees himself as an amateur anthropologist of sorts, but without the "agnostic indifference / detatchment," or something, of the anthropologist, and that to cohere to any particular "tribal fetish" object would attach a tribal alliance, a construct to which he'd rather not belong.

6) A woman asks how / why he came up with the character of Hubertus Bigend from PR.

WG: ( more to come , I'm getting close in line...)

BTW: Read Chapter 39 of SC, with Union Square Park outside the window behind him...

[originally posted via iPhone from Union Square Barnes & Noble, NYC; edited to provide cross-linkage from Part 1 to 2 and vice versa.]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: skydancer,

A couple of photos I took at tonight's signing in Union Square. The quality's fairly low as they're cropped from iPhone shots.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/emmastory/1121364284/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/emmastory/1121363114/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/emmastory/1120520237/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/emmastory/1121360810/

quote:

Originally posted by charmakarmacat:

quote:

looking for studio audience to attend the reading/talk on Sept. 6. There'll be lots of chances to ask questions, and he'll read two excerpts from Spook Country.

fingers crossed, people.

Greetings, O Ethereal One.

Just got an email from the folks @ CBC - looks like I'll have a pair of tickets. One of those will be available, if you want it, and aren't offered a pair yerself.

Looks like there is still space available. The woman who sent the email said to spread the word, so anyone able to make that date should put in an entry.

d0000000d....

now that's what i call a solid.

quote:

Originally posted by charmakarmacat:
d0000000d....

now that's what i call a solid.

I don't know - coming from someone as not-solid as yerself, sounds like an insult to me!

Kidding.

I'll have the tickets themselves in a couple of weeks, according to the email.

Hopefully we can get a meat together, once ye've materialised.

Now I wanna be able to pick you guys out on the radio....

You gonna ask "The fuldog question" ?

quote:

Originally posted by martin:
Now I wanna be able to pick you guys out on the radio....

I'll be the silent one.

quote:

You gonna ask "The fuldog question" ?

i've been sparse here lately. what's "the fuldog question"?

quote:

Hopefully we can get a meat together, once ye've materialised.

yes. we're overdue. and i believe i owe you a beer or three.

quote:

Originally posted by charmakarmacat:
yes. we're overdue. and i believe i owe you a beer or three.

I wasn't counting, I swear.

quote:

Originally posted by charmakarmacat:

quote:

You gonna ask "The fuldog question" ?

i've been sparse here lately. what's "the fuldog question"?

"The fuldog question"

Heh - worth it just to see the general audience do the "What the cock?" double-take.

Of course, that won't translate, over the radio - except in your head.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Konrad,

quote:

Originally posted by Kitsune:

quote:

Originally posted by colin:
Just don't ask him to sign body parts, especially not your own....

Aww... and my boyfriend was *so* looking forward to my signed breasts!

colin's post was bad enough, but kitsune, you are a bad girl.

-mr.gibson, could you sign these, please?
-um. what are they.
-breasts.
-um. i can see that.
-oh don't worry, they aren't mine. just getting them signed for kitsune, or her boyfriend anyway.
-um. sure. at least it wasn't fuldog's head!
-pardon.
-if it had been fuldog's head, you would die! i like fuldog!

"And would you mind using this tattooing needle? I built it myself using instructions off your internets!"