Tonight we went into LA to see Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer
perform…Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer type things. I don’t think they were
entirely clear when they planned this tour, and that was okay. While Amanda’s
music is not my thing, there are gobs of things I admire about her, and I am an
unabashed fangirl when it comes to Neil (see, e.g., the night I didn’t throw up
on his shoes—made more poignant tonight by a story he told where he had such
stage fright recently that he threw up). I also contributed to their
Kickstarter campaign, which was to raise money to record all six nights of this
tour.
There were readings by Neil, including one that he said we
hadn’t heard before, and I turned to Ken and said “But didn’t we hear this when
we saw him in Santa Barbara?” But it was different somehow; we think he read
only the middle bit earlier. Still very spooky. Still made me wonder if people
who hadn’t lived in the UK got the subtleties.
There was music by Amanda, some of which I knew, and while
again her style doesn’t speak to me, I can still appreciate it and appreciate
her talent and, for lack of a better word, energy. She wore the stunningly
gorgeous vintage Deco dress from the Oscars, and I only wished I were closer
(we were in about the 10th row, but there were tons of empty seats
scattered before us, which made me a wee bit grumpy) so I could see it better.
There were also things by both Neil and Amanda, including a
Q&A from Qs left in a box at the merch table, and a song or two. Oh, and a
costume contest partially judged by Margaret Cho (!).
The show made me lament the lack of a literary salon in my
life. I really do yearn for that. A perhaps monthly get-together, with wine or
tea, to discuss concepts and ideas and brainstorm and create. I can get it in
snippets, with some friends…just not quite to the level I’m craving. The
problem, in large part, is that the best friends for something like this are
scattered across the world. Still waiting for that transporter technology,
kthnxbai.
Anyway, after the utterly wonderful show, we went out to the
parking lot (after deciding not to stand in the loooooong line to get something
signed; all I had was the t-shirt I’d just bought, anyway) to discover the car
battery was dead.
The irony was that earlier that day I’d commented that the
car seemed to take a bit longer to start, something I’d noticed the previous
Thursday…oh well! AAA actually came quickly and we were back on the road. But
the car was still acting funny when we grabbed In-n-Out, and as we wound our
way up Highway 1, the headlights grew dimmer and dimmer until almost exactly 10
miles from home, we coasted over onto the shoulder.
This time it took AAA longer to arrive. Ken actually dozed
as we sat there in the silence and dark. We could see the faint glow of Oxnard
ahead and the stars above, but other than that, no light.
Sitting there at the side of the road, the cliff looming
above us on our right, the ocean down a cliff just across the road, in the dark,
on the night when the veil between the worlds is thinnest…let’s just say my
brain was in overdrive, busily trying to creep myself out.
And that’s when I heard the voices. Faint, murmuring voices.
Not constant—in fact, every time I convinced myself I was just hearing the wind
or the surf, the sounds would become more voicelike again.
Thankfully Ken was awake when people actually appeared on
the other side of the road on bicycles,
in the dark, with just a glow stick. It was like the fucking scary men from
Buffy that glide around and steal
voices, because I could not see the
bicycles. Gah.
Eventually AAA arrived and took my poor car to my fabulous
Swedish Car Guy, and we caught an expensive taxi home. I think we got there
about 3 am?
I did a brief Samhain ritual, lighting a candle for the
ancestors, burning a slip of paper on which was written something I want to
give up to make room for something positive in my life, and pulling a Tarot
card for the year. Six of Pentacles. I’m good with that.
The Wheel Turns. Thank you all for sharing this journey with
me.
