Gaiman, Me and Kbox

Now I want to stress that Rachel being the new Kian Teck isn't a bad thing. Loyal Rachel supporters please do not come after me with a parang. I meant that her blog is probably the most read blog in the year 1 cohort. (and attracting quite a bit of attention from the year 2s as well). With that out of my hair (or what's left of it), I shall go on to give a small recount of the short meeting between Gaiman and me.

Monday July 4th 2005 - 1630hrs
Carrying a shitload of books and statues (one), I made my way up to the 6th level of Orchard Cineleisure from the basement carpark where had I spent the last 15mins tearing open carefully wrapped pristine condition books just so that I could facilitate the signing. There was already a bustle of activity outside the cinema. COMICSMART had set up a booth and were selling Gaiman books like hotcakes. Nevermind them. I brought my own. Amazingly, they were holding the signing in the cinema as well. Which meant that we had to tear our tickets like regular cinema-goers and this gave me a chance to scoot around the various other cinemas to see what was showing. Imagine my surprise when I saw FF4. I thought it wasn't supposed to be out till Wed?! Ugh. Anyway I digress.

As the tickets were only purchased the day before, we had very bad seats right at the end of the cinema. Ordinarily it wouldn't be so bad. However, the toilet was malfunctioning and there was an overflow of pang sai water. I didn't know that. I put my books (in a bag) right on top of the wet floor. Not a good way to start the event. I glanced around the room and discovered that there was a bunch of young, possibly sec school girls in the center row. Normally I wouldn't notice them, it's not as if they're chio or anything. (Insert pedophilic jokes here) it's just that they were bloody noisy. Rowdy. Noisy. Were they in the wrong cinema? I was thinking along the lines of how the hell would they appreciate AMERICAN GODS, NEVERWHERE or GOOD OMENS (well... MAYBE Good Omens)... then I realised that Gaiman also did CORALINE, THE DAY I SWAPPED MY DAD FOR TWO GOLDFISH and WOLVES IN THE WALLS. Still, I was shocked to find that kids would actually pick up those 'children' books. If anything, they read like Tim Burton's Oyster Boy. Hardly a kiddie read. Oh well.

Gaiman came onto the stage 5mins after that. He was surprisingly funny. Unlike the stuff he writes. He cracked a joke about how people figured out how the collaboration on Good Omens was done. Him doing a serious book with Pratchet over his shoulder throwing in the funny bits. He gave an interesting opening regarding his upcoming novel (sequel to AMERICAN GODS) the Anansi Boys. Frankly speaking, without reading the program, I thought the bloody twerp in the next aisle kept repeating NANCY BOYS. Ala Nancy Drew - Hardy Boys (also see the 3 Investigators). Apparently the opening went along the lines of somebody's father (Anansi) dying in a karaoke bar in a most embarrassing fashion. He tripped up after suffering a heart attack (?) and as he fell, he grabbed out at the thing nearest to him and it happened to be the top of a woman and he pulled her tube top down exposing her breasts. Hence his son was then sent away to a home or something where he had a conversation with someone associated with the family, with her saying that his father was a God (continued from American Gods) and the boy was going "No..." She insisted "Yes..." And he replied "If my father were a God, wouldn't I have some powers or something inherited from him?" And she just said "Oh. Your brother has all of those." Interesting, funny and like totally weird. I seriously don't know how much of this is true, since he made up the crap about Dave McKean and the masks in the interview, this might be fake too. Ha.

The supposed highlight of the event was a screening of an extended trailer for MIRRORMASK and several behind the scenes shots. Truth be told, Dave McKean's visuals were nothing short of amazing. It's just that... I was confused. Confused by the complexity of whatever the hell was going on and the fact that there was no trailer but just a few cut scenes which lasted all of 10 minutes, I felt slightly disappointed. But hey. Never watch the whole thing cannot give comment ya. What I can say is that it's visually stunning and well... remember the Carpenter's song CLOSE TO YOU which was also used in the Shu Qi chick flick? (in an attempt by the director to seem artsy, since everybody's doing it these days...) Well, CLOSE TO YOU just got a whole lot weirder and scarier. Eerie.

Finally we had the book signing and it was irritatingly slow. Gaiman did his best to please everyone and my brother got a Sandman statue signed. Gaiman put a #1 on it as he said it was the first Sandman statue he signed. Impressive. Today I shall bring a Death over to Kino. Alex (Name dropping alert!) got a nice HC signed for G. Happy Birthday~ (not that she'll actually read this la..) Sad to say, I didn't have anything signed for myself. All for friends, birthday or whatnot. Oh well. I'll try today. If still don't have. LAN LAN. It's just a signature anyway.

Before I left the cinema, I heard something that really made me feel like killing the sec sch girls. Apparently not only did they try to cut queue for the signing, they were also the reason why the trailer for NEVERWHERE didn't screen. Coz there was nudity. SCREW THE MGS GIRLS. Ugh. Underage still come for what. Irritate adults only. This only goes to show that kids should be seen not heard. In extreme circumstances they shouldn't even be seen at all. (case in point, here)

Sadly, the signing ended long after the projected timing. Which meant i only had 5mins to get to Tampines for a Kbox session with Wayne (from the states - yes I will go read your blog) and Yuanz (from aus! - stop being so horny!) Obviously I couldn't make it on time. So I was late. But the session was nice. I managed to destroy my already destroyed voicebox. Ended up with a mix between a croak and a (insert horrible sound here). Did not manage to reach high notes and basically massacred every single song that came my way. I shall try harder next Thurs.