DOUBLE COULTON AT THE AIRPORT

HERE IS THE SHOCKING TRUTH about Jonathan Coulton's ability to write a thing a week:

TWO HEADS

TWO BEARDS

TWO IDENTICAL COULTONS

with a mysterious triangle hanging between them.

Here they are at LaGuardia airport as we prepare to fly to Chicago for the 2 shows.

(2PM at Borders on Sunday; 7PM at 2nd City on Monday: BOTH FREE)

THAT IS ALL

CASUAL FRIDAYS

hshirt
Originally uploaded by The Doifter.

Here is an ASTONISHINGLY UNRETOUCHED PHOTO of a shirt which, according to its creator, was made with her own two hands, and a THIRD, SEWING-MACHINE-SHAPED HAND.

I have examined this garment and may verify IT IS TOTALLY AUTHENTIC.

IT WAS A SUPER-PRIVILEGE AND GREAT THRILL to bother Neil Gaiman on stage last night at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

AND TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION: yes, those armchairs were as comfortable as they looked.

I FELT ESPECIALLY GUILTY because most people in life do not get to ask Neil questions while sitting in a comfortable leather armchair, unless they do so at home, via his journal. Where as of this writing he offers this news: he is flying to Washington DC today, and you may now buy his new book FRAGILE THINGS.

I think you know what to do next.

THAT IS ALL.

SPOTTED IN BROOKLINE, MA

Hobo sign
Originally uploaded by spi516.

MANY, MANY thanks to everyone who visited with us in my hometown of Brookline, MA.

I WAS GOING TO ASK if anyone happened to photograph the secret message spotted at the Brookline Booksmith, as I had forgotten to.

BUT LO, the internet and spi516 had already answered.

TONIGHT: Gaiman.

THE FUTURE: Chicago, city of THE FUTURE.

That is all.

THIS EVENING: BROOKLINE, MASSACHUSETTS

Take One
Originally uploaded by mrbikferd.

THIS EVENING, Coulton and I will be visiting Brookline, Massachusetts, a non-fictional town where I grew up.

THIS WILL OCCUR at 7PM, at Brookline Booksmith, a fine book smithy where they not only offer books made of wrought iron, forged on anvils, but paper editions as well.

Brookline Booksmith
279 Harvard Street
Brookline, MA 02446
617-566-6660

IT IS FREE.

Meanwhile, THE ACCOMPANYING IMAGE is offered by Mr. Bikferd, who steadfastly refuses to adhere to the NO DIGITIAL MANIPULATION STIPULATION of the h-in-sunrays pool, and yet I have to forgive him, for once again he has peered directly into my brain and produced from it uncannily an image I never dared hope I would see.

THIS PROCESS, I am happy to report, WAS PAINLESS.

Tomorrow I will cease to reward the guilty and return to featuring, GRATEFULLY, analog world images from AROUND THE WORLD.

Until then: that is all.

THE ANSWER, JUNIPER, IS 1,000 COPIES

But the 1,000 you have already purchased will suffice.

HERE IS THE MYSTERY IMAGE. It is a picture of a robot Mark Twain talking to a robot Benjamin Franklin.

CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, the actual corpses of Twain and Franklin were not made into robots for this popular exhibit in Florida.

WHICH IS TO SAY rumors of the robotic reanimation of Twain's corpse have been highly exaggerated.

That is all.

See you tonight. And/or tomorrow night in Brookline.

ROBO NEWZ-UP TO THE MINUTE

h in sunrays
Originally uploaded by Ape Lad.

Ape-Lad has risked arrest to bring you several h-in-sunrays chalkings from Walt Disney World.

One might say he even risked the dreaded fate of "mouse arrest."

HA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

That was rich.

Also: don't forget that tonight, at 7PM, Coulton and I will be at the Mark Twain House in Hartford, CT, presenting a special OVERLONG PROGRAM to justify your very kind entrance fee of thirty dollars (25 if you are a member).

Here is a small preview of what you will see.

That is all.

PS: If only Mr. A. Lad had been able to visit Club 33 with his chalk. Perhaps in a next life I will be so fortunate. For now, I have more good fortune than I can bear.

H IN HALF-RAYS

H in half sunrays
Originally uploaded by Ape Lad.

Ape-Lad asks the eternal question: WAS CARL HOLMES A HOBO?

"...Or perhaps half a hobo? This evidence from the Walter Foster Art Book "ABC of Lettering" by Carl Holmes, suggests he toyed with the idea."

To answer a question from the comments, you may add your found h-in-sunrays here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/hoboes/

THE EAGLE-EYED ED PAGE

AKA--A TOUR UPDATE.

As you may know, COULTON and I will soon be visiting many American cities.

I am sorry Canadians: no visits to your frozen lands this time. But feel free to take advantage of our loose border restrictions and caravan south to see us.

Meanwhile, Ed Page, of www.mcsweeneys.net and many fine illustrations, made a few corrections to the tour details when he posted them, kindly, as noted below:

BEGIN QUOTED TEXT

John:

I don't mean to nitpick; I just thought you might want to correct these minor errors:

1. MILWAUKEE: I believe the street address is "2262 S. Kinnickinnic Ave.," not "2262 Kinnicinnick Ave." Note the compass direction and the spelling of "Kinnickinnic." Also, "Bay View" appears to be two words, not just one, as you have it ("Bayview").

2. MINNEAPOLIS: The event starts at 8 p.m., not 7 p.m. (Not that it matters, but lest it cause confusion: I chose to call this your "ST. PAUL" show. Also, tickets are $15 and are available for purchase at this address.

3. RICHMOND: The street address is "1317 W. Cary St.," not "1317 Cary Street." Note the compass direction. I realize this is probably a rather insignificant point, but there does exist, I think, a possibility (and a remote one at that, I grant you) that for Hodgman fans who for whatever reason are not familiar with the streets of Richmond, having that "W." there may save a wisp of confusion. (Perhaps you removed the "W." as a subtle political statement. In which case, fuck yeah, bro!)

Sorry for being so quibblingly anal. Now you know why I'm a copy editor.

Ed

END QUOTED TEXT.

Additionally:

A) there is one special date we all forgot to mention in CHICAGO, a city that some believe exists:

Monday, October 2
THE SECOND CITY, CHICAGO
1616 North Wells Street
Chicago, IL 60614
7PM
BOOKS WILL BE SOLD HERE BY THE GREAT QUIMBY.

B)

Our event at the Mark Twain House of Hartford, CT on Sept 26 is ALSO NOT FREE. It costs $30 for non-members, $25 dollars for members. Proceeds go to help runaways on rafts. You do not get a discount if you dress up as Mark Twain. It's time for you to get over that.

Please always check here for refinements to this schedule, and thank you.

THAT IS ALL.

NOT WITH THAT PULSE TRAIN THEY AREN'T

White board H in sunrays
Originally uploaded by Drhaggis.

Thank you, Haggis.

AND WAIT... PLUS...

They have the nerve to play up the "green" angle of their homes, when in fact, everyone knows that a freestanding frame house is a heat and wind sieve compared to the energy efficiency of a home beneath the earth.

It makes you wonder why we went to all the trouble to destroy the damn ring in the first place.

That is all.

ZERO ROUND DOORS, ZERO SOD ROOFS

Because of the eagle eyes of Neil Gaiman, I am forced to make one last post before I leave today, and that is to draw attention to this.

I think if you are going to call your planned community "The Shire" and kit it all out to look like a fantasy village, you better be prepared to build some damn homes underground.

This is frankly infuriating. Especially since this "Shire" is in Oregon, where I happen to know that people not only **want** to live under the ground, they often do.

I am too angry to write more.

That is all.

THE PENALTY FOR CHEATERS

jail bird
Originally uploaded by Ape Lad.

I will be in another hemisphere. Expect upside down posting to begin on Monday

That is all.

A MESSAGE TO CAPTAIN JOY

ghostbusters uprising.jpg
Originally uploaded by captain joy.

Oh, Joy--

I enjoy a Peter McNichol reference as much as the next man, and of course this is brilliant.

But I should note again that the original intention of the game was to promote unretouched photos of actual h-in-sunrays markings. The idea of photo manipulation hadn't occurred to me.

That said, these things take a life of their own, and that is how it should be. I do not wish to be controlling. Those who wish to draw in actual chalk and those who wish to draw in virtual chalk are all equally thanked by me.

That is all.

PREPARE FOR COULTON VS. FLOATING SQUID

IT SHALL HAPPEN tomorrow.

TRIPLE ACTION

Greetings internet readers...

For those of you who have spoken renewed desire to play Burger Time and Triple Action, I can direct you to Intellivision Lives, an upstart group of former Intellivision programmers bent on keeping their strange legacy alive. They were the kind source of the original Plimpton image that inspired this one.

Meanwhile, thank you for reading the internet.

That is all.

MINATURE JAPANESE GARDEN? OR GIGANTIC SURFACE OF THE MOON?

It's Time
Originally uploaded by Bill_D.

AS OFTEN, miniature and gigantic seem to be the only options.

AND HERE IS THE REFERENT

WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS
Originally uploaded by hodg-man.

It still astonishes me that my publisher went along with this scheme.

That is all.

THIS IS THE REFERENCE

George Plimpton Digs Intellivision
Originally uploaded by scrubbles.

FOR JESSE, and those else who may not initially grasp it, this is the reference I was trying to make.

I TRUST IT IS CLEAR that my intent is homage, for with Plimpton, there is no comparison. I had the distinctly surreal pleasure of being edited by him once over the phone. There are few editors as gracious and astute as he was.

PLUS, he could boogie.

MORE HERE, including the now inevtiable COULTON SONG.

That is all.

BOING

I had been planning to link to this on Monday, but Mark beat me to it. It's only appropriate, as he got the whole thing started, after all. But, still: I will crush him.

To see the whole big thing, go here. Thank you, Xadrian.

That is all.

CITIZENS OF NEW YORK

I thank you. It was a wonderful debut of both the paperback and audiobook editions. Coulton and I were rusty, but your patience and mercy, plus the brandy, helped.

That is all.