The turtle moves.
I can now say with complete certainty and truth I've shook the hand of a knight. Sir Terry Pratchett came to New York this weekend, and I was there in line to say hello.
He'd come to the city for New York Comic Con, a fairly big deal in the industry - not as big as San Diego, which is large enough to conquer modestly-sized European countries, but big enough to attract major names. Like Terry Pratchett. I didn't go see him there; if he'd just come for the Con, I wouldn't have seen him at all. He spoke there Friday to a huge gathering, and Saturday afternoon, he spoke at the Union Square Barnes & Noble to a much smaller, intimate crowd of less than 150 people who happened to be lucky enough to hear about it beforehand. I got there two hours early to get a seat in the front row, and spent most of that time talking to the fellow geeks waiting for him to arrive. It was a pretty good way to spend two hours, talking about education reforms and tenure systems in American colleges and universities, hard ciders, the shifts in cultural attitudes towards children and the associated lightening and darkening of fairy tales as entertainment versus oral tradition and morality tales, the various Doctors Who, stuff like that. We all waited and waited, knowing he'd be coming, some of us writing questions for him to answer or dashing out to get a copy of Dodger so we could stay. It was a decent way to spend two hours.
I kept looking around like a meerkat, glancing about as the hour got closer and closer - would I see him? When would he arrive? Was he -
And then, there he was. No trumpets and heavenly choirs. No silence. No fanfare, nothing to mark it. Just a man...just a man and his fabulous hat. There was no mistaking that hat.
He took the ramp up to the stage, not the stairs - that was something I noticed. And the way he held his hands, how he picked up his coffee cup in three distinct movements and was very careful about drinking from it and putting it back. The times when he had to look inside himself for his words, and when the words flowed out of him. I know he's going. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would to see it. He was very much there on the stage, very much happy to be there.
During his conversation with his assistant, they talked about the writing of the book and the necessary research, the goddess Narativa, the writing of Nation and the nature of endings. I learned he was there for the first episode of Doctor Who - no, the first Doctor Who - no, the first Doctor Who! - when they talked about who they might have played by David Tennant. He spoke about a woman who had him sign a scythe to engrave, and how she grabbed a beer can he'd used to make something half Foster's beer and half Englishman - an Australian! His assistant read for a bit and then they took questions, from how to write humor (let it flow from the work, don't go looking for it, if it's there it'll appear), the origins of the Duck Man (Daniel Pinkwater is to blame), how things are going with The Watch (very well, and they'd call it CSI: Ankh-Morepork if it weren't for copyright violations, so they don't), and why he writes such strong female characters (he has a wife and a daughter). He talked about the nature of language, and how assisted suicide isn't something that can rightly be called murder. He talked about writing in a chapel and running out of libraries, and I'll quote, "If you have enough room for books, I don't want to talk to you!"
His days of signing books are over, but his days of being photographed are not. Rather than try out everyone's camera, his assistant took photos of everyone, one at a time, sitting next to Sir Terry, which will eventually be uploaded onto a Flickr account. I was in the front row and one of the first ten people to be able to shake his hand and say hello.
When I got to him, I shook his hand and said hello - and told him how much it meant to me to hear him talk about endings, I'd just written something where the characters couldn't live together happily ever after in the south of France at the end, it wouldn't have fit the story.
And he said yes, that's true with endings: "What's nice isn't always what's right."
"Yes, that's it exactly - thank you for finding a way for me to tell it so neatly and simply, as you always do so often and so well."
And I could tell, sitting right next to him, that he meant it when he said, "Thank you."
I left the stage having shook his hand and exchanged words with him, meaningful words. I'd gotten dressed up for the occasion in the sort of dress I wear to job interviews to make a good impression. I was walking on clouds, and I knew I'd lost one more regret.
Yesterday, I shook the hand of a knight, spoke with him, and had the chance to tell him how much his words mean to me. When I was in my freshman year of college, Going Postal was on its US tour in San Francisco, on a night when he was within two miles of my dorm room. I didn't go. At the time I thought he'd come again, that he might have another tour on another night near another street that didn't scare me so - I didn't go see him because I was scared of going out of my room at night in such a big, strange, dangerous city. The night passed, when I read the novel I was blown away as usual, and it became something to think about and sigh. Then his diagnosis was made public, and I wasn't scared so much as terrified: I'd lost the chance to see him forever. It was something I came to accept, that being scared cost me something. I've since learned it's all right to let myself be scared and to not be held back by fear, which was a valuable lesson, and I still looked back and wished I'd known better then, not now.
When yesterday came, I was finally able to toss that lost chance aside. Being able to say that just as much as being able to say I heard him speak, and finally having had the chance to thank him for his words.
He'd come to the city for New York Comic Con, a fairly big deal in the industry - not as big as San Diego, which is large enough to conquer modestly-sized European countries, but big enough to attract major names. Like Terry Pratchett. I didn't go see him there; if he'd just come for the Con, I wouldn't have seen him at all. He spoke there Friday to a huge gathering, and Saturday afternoon, he spoke at the Union Square Barnes & Noble to a much smaller, intimate crowd of less than 150 people who happened to be lucky enough to hear about it beforehand. I got there two hours early to get a seat in the front row, and spent most of that time talking to the fellow geeks waiting for him to arrive. It was a pretty good way to spend two hours, talking about education reforms and tenure systems in American colleges and universities, hard ciders, the shifts in cultural attitudes towards children and the associated lightening and darkening of fairy tales as entertainment versus oral tradition and morality tales, the various Doctors Who, stuff like that. We all waited and waited, knowing he'd be coming, some of us writing questions for him to answer or dashing out to get a copy of Dodger so we could stay. It was a decent way to spend two hours.
I kept looking around like a meerkat, glancing about as the hour got closer and closer - would I see him? When would he arrive? Was he -
And then, there he was. No trumpets and heavenly choirs. No silence. No fanfare, nothing to mark it. Just a man...just a man and his fabulous hat. There was no mistaking that hat.
He took the ramp up to the stage, not the stairs - that was something I noticed. And the way he held his hands, how he picked up his coffee cup in three distinct movements and was very careful about drinking from it and putting it back. The times when he had to look inside himself for his words, and when the words flowed out of him. I know he's going. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would to see it. He was very much there on the stage, very much happy to be there.
During his conversation with his assistant, they talked about the writing of the book and the necessary research, the goddess Narativa, the writing of Nation and the nature of endings. I learned he was there for the first episode of Doctor Who - no, the first Doctor Who - no, the first Doctor Who! - when they talked about who they might have played by David Tennant. He spoke about a woman who had him sign a scythe to engrave, and how she grabbed a beer can he'd used to make something half Foster's beer and half Englishman - an Australian! His assistant read for a bit and then they took questions, from how to write humor (let it flow from the work, don't go looking for it, if it's there it'll appear), the origins of the Duck Man (Daniel Pinkwater is to blame), how things are going with The Watch (very well, and they'd call it CSI: Ankh-Morepork if it weren't for copyright violations, so they don't), and why he writes such strong female characters (he has a wife and a daughter). He talked about the nature of language, and how assisted suicide isn't something that can rightly be called murder. He talked about writing in a chapel and running out of libraries, and I'll quote, "If you have enough room for books, I don't want to talk to you!"
His days of signing books are over, but his days of being photographed are not. Rather than try out everyone's camera, his assistant took photos of everyone, one at a time, sitting next to Sir Terry, which will eventually be uploaded onto a Flickr account. I was in the front row and one of the first ten people to be able to shake his hand and say hello.
When I got to him, I shook his hand and said hello - and told him how much it meant to me to hear him talk about endings, I'd just written something where the characters couldn't live together happily ever after in the south of France at the end, it wouldn't have fit the story.
And he said yes, that's true with endings: "What's nice isn't always what's right."
"Yes, that's it exactly - thank you for finding a way for me to tell it so neatly and simply, as you always do so often and so well."
And I could tell, sitting right next to him, that he meant it when he said, "Thank you."
I left the stage having shook his hand and exchanged words with him, meaningful words. I'd gotten dressed up for the occasion in the sort of dress I wear to job interviews to make a good impression. I was walking on clouds, and I knew I'd lost one more regret.
Yesterday, I shook the hand of a knight, spoke with him, and had the chance to tell him how much his words mean to me. When I was in my freshman year of college, Going Postal was on its US tour in San Francisco, on a night when he was within two miles of my dorm room. I didn't go. At the time I thought he'd come again, that he might have another tour on another night near another street that didn't scare me so - I didn't go see him because I was scared of going out of my room at night in such a big, strange, dangerous city. The night passed, when I read the novel I was blown away as usual, and it became something to think about and sigh. Then his diagnosis was made public, and I wasn't scared so much as terrified: I'd lost the chance to see him forever. It was something I came to accept, that being scared cost me something. I've since learned it's all right to let myself be scared and to not be held back by fear, which was a valuable lesson, and I still looked back and wished I'd known better then, not now.
When yesterday came, I was finally able to toss that lost chance aside. Being able to say that just as much as being able to say I heard him speak, and finally having had the chance to thank him for his words.