Thanks to NLC for alerting me to the fact that someone has posted my German TV interview on YouTube. It’s all in German of course, so who knows what they’re saying. But it looks really good! All slick and professional, with little slow-motion bits that make things appear dramatic and luminous instead of the gritty, everyday way they really are.

They show the sex scenes in my book! Imagine that happening in this godforsaken land of puritans.

Evidence of my big Eisner Awards kiss with Ellen Forney has finally surfaced. Velvet Park Magazine just posted an extravagantly lengthy and comprehensive video interview with me that they shot at the San Diego Comic Con. It’s like 15 minutes long. The interview, sadly, not the kiss. But should you grow impatient, the action starts about half an inch from the end of the scrollbar. Ellen told me not to worry, she’d just grab my head and take care of everything. All I had to do was think of England.

If you’re a Neil Gaiman fan, (thanks, Kate McKinnon for mentioning his blog a while back–it is indeed excellent) keep watching after the kiss and you can see him presenting me with the Eisner award for best Reality-Based Work. Later in the ceremony, Jonathan Ross copied Ellen’s idea and gave Neil a big kiss, though Neil doesn’t look very happy about it. (thanks again to Dr. Empirical for that link.)

And here’s a video interview with me that just went up on PopCultureShock.com. Man, what a dork. This was at The MoCCA festival last month in New York City.

On the linguistic front, there’s been a new ruling in the “Dykes on Bikes” case that I posted about two years ago. Remember how the SF Dykes on Bikes won a battle to trademark their name with the patent office, who thought it was “offensive?” Apparently, after that, some guy decided HE was offended, and took the patent office to court. But it’s okay. Dykes won.

Oh, and thank you to the several people who’ve posted or emailed me about this cartoon about Fun Home by Paul Sizer. I met him at the American Library Association convention last month and he did this piece for the site of an online comic strip about librarians called Unshelved.

They also did segments on James Kochalka, and New Yorker artists Harry Bliss and Ed Koren. I managed to record the segment with Ed too. You know Ed’s stuff, those gentle, furry monster people. They look just like him.

I just figured out how to transfer stuff from the VCR to my DV recorder, and thence to YouTube. So I’ll post these quick before someone tells me I’m breaking the law.

Here’s a short take on one of the panels Alison participated in at NY ComicCon from blogger Ron Hogan.  For the record, DTWOF does not endorse any particular blogger or received kickbacks in exchange for blogger publicity. For the purposes of this forum, it’s a piece that gives some background about conferences like NYCC while briefly addressing comics and the publishing industry as well as the potential removal of Fun Home from a Missouri library. 

Folks in Florida and thereabouts will be interested to know that Alison will appear in Ft. Lauderdale on March 13th.  Details on the Appearances page.

Hey, I’m in New York. And I just met the awesome Rachel Maddow, of the eponymous Rachel Maddow Show on Air America. She interviewed me because I’m in town for the big Comic Con and it’s gonna air on her show later tonight.

Here’s a photo of me right now in the Barnes & Noble cafe where I’m posting this. The guy next to me just pointed out that this mural depicts great writers who are watching over us as we sit here slurping lattes, inspiring us to do something more productive with our time. That’s James Joyce in the middle but I’m not sure who those other people are.

Today Nerve.com put up their comics issue. It includes an interview with me about Fun Home with a guy named Peter Smith. I had a good time talking to him, and during our conversation he revealed to me that his mother had just written a memoir about her father. Who’s your mother? I asked. Janna Malamud Smith, he replied. She’s the daughter of Bernard Malamud. My Father is a Book came out last spring, and I read a review of it at the time with great interest but hadn’t gotten around to actually getting a copy.

But I’m right in the middle of it now, and it’s amazing. So far, a lot of what she’s doing is examining Malamud’s fiction (he wrote The Natural, and won the Pulitzer for The Fixer) and tracing its autobiographical roots. She’s a therapist, so has lots of smart psychological insights about this. But she’s also a great writer, so what could come across as detached is actually quite moving and intimate.

But what I’m interested in is the relationship between autobiography and fiction, which is what my post here yesterday was about—Virginia Woolf’s actual father throwing the flowerpot being transmuted into the fictional Mr. Ramsay finding an earwig in his milk and tossing the jug out onto the terrace.

Why are we so fascinated with knowing what parts of fiction come from the author’s real life? I know some purists think it’s wrong to fixate on this, that focusing on the writer diminishes the work. But I’m always wondering when I read a novel, how much of this really happened in some form or another?

I guess this is why I like writing autobiographically so much. It cuts right to the chase. Why bother disguising your life as fiction if everyone’s going to interpret it as truth anyway?

Oh, and to close this loop…in my interview with Bernard Malamud’s daughter Janna’s son Peter, we discuss the fiction/reality divide a little bit.

Why did I just spend the better part of an hour on this post? I said yesterday I was going to stop frittering away my own autobiographical urges in this seductive, ephemeral, slapdash medium.

Thanks for correcting my misspelling of junco. And I’m sorry to disappoint all you composting fiends, but I basically use that thing as a big garbage can/raccoon feeder. I never turn it, and I never use the compost.

And yes, AnotherOregonian, there is new strip out. I’ve been meaning to put it up, and will do so immediately.

Oh, and get this. Fun Home is a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award, in the memoir category. Uh…finalist? Nominee? Holly my publicist said I was a finalist, but this article says nominee. The mechanics of awards selection–from long list to short list to winner–are very confusing to me for some reason. But whatever the proper term is, I’m on the list. Do I sound smug? I am.

This number one business can go to a person’s head. I’m getting an urge to invade Poland.

On that note, for a little reality check…has anyone seen this op ed piece in today’s New York Times? The White House forced the editors to delete all kinds of information from an article about US-Iranian relations, stuff that’s already in the public domain. Chilling news on an otherwise unseasonably warm day. Thanks to my pal Val for passing this along.

If that harshes your buzz, consider taking part in the Global Orgasm for Peace before midnight. Thanks to Maggie Jochild for alerting me to this earthshattering event.