started a discussion AND put up a photo album in 'Travel the World', then realised there's this category. so here are the previous posts.

Posted July 05, 2005 12:27 AM
went to Neil's first public appearance in Singapore yesterday!! it was obviously harder than usual for him to put his best face forward after having a very long flight, very little sleep/rest and having a very MUCH larger crowd than was expected by the organisers. don't know why they (organisers) didn't expect that big turn out - why, he's a rock star!


Posted July 05, 2005 12:29 PM
today - found out again that i'm not quite cut out to be a 'papparazzi'; 'coz when i wanted to take a photo with Neil, i was brusquely told off by Ms Huff and Ms Puff that "u can't!!", even though i had been queuing for 6 HOURS (for the book signing) AND i wasn't in the way, i actually did not kick up any fuss. Neil did say it was ok and i finally managed to get ONE photo with him.
ah well, the high price of being his fan.

i also wanted to take photos for a few nice girls just after me but was immediately "SHOO-ED" off 'ground zero' and outside the barrier they had created around him.

and no, absolutely no one was mobbing him or anything (hey, this is Singapore after all!). just the usual people gone atypically amok with 'power'.

that was the first and ONLY time i've ever actually really queued for anything, from 4pm to 10pm!! Neil did have a dinner break followed by a talk from 6.30-8.30pm, but the bookstore refused to give out queue numbers, so the poor fans had to stay "in line" (some people never get tired of flexing 'power' just for the sake of it). thank whatever gods there are that those girls immediately behind me were such a nice bunch and made the loooooooooooooong wait somewhat bearable.

which made the fact that i couldn't get good shots of them with Neil, (the 'tight security barrier' not only restricted people but views as well - couple of 'security' guys kept standing right in front of the table, not to mention also those on the left, right AND behind!!), all the more irritating. there were actually 4 'staff' to hand one's items to be signed to him!

Neil's definately getting the rock star treatment here.

I'm popping around all the discussion threads to tell people: they enormously underestimated Neil Gaiman's popularity, and have been doing so for the longest time, despite the fact that everything with his name on it outsells the flipping Bible. I restocked the Sandman shelves for three years, and the American Gods/Neverwhere/ Good Omens shelves for two, at a insane pace, and I really don't think ours was the only store racing to keep up with demand, so WHY they were so skeptical, I don't know. Maybe because he's mostly famous for comics (oh oh see my discussion topic on Sandman and the Censorship Board to see what MITA thinks of 'comics').

They did not have a proper idea of how much time should be allotted to his signings, nor how long the queues would be. It was only when registration for his library talk maxed out within a day that they suddenly realised, oops.

As a book trade person, I have to sheepishly admit that, in fact, it's relatively standard to disallow photos when the queues are long. HOWEVER, to get around that, always ASK THE AUTHOR directly for permission. Once the author says yes, nobody can stop you. But don't take too long or you get shuffled off right quick. And don't expect the poor bloke to look up and strike a sexy pose...

Kino management is anal about people sitting on their floors (officially, staff are not allowed to sit even to stock low shelves - seriously. You should see our thigh muscle development).

That you guys all turned up and waited against all odds proved all us small fry employees right, and all the ivory tower managers wrong, so I'm glad you did! Please go ahead and give some stern feedback to the organisers about their severe lack of foresight.

Malaysia Star had a report on Neil's visit.

i thought this place was only for topics related to the 'American Gods' tour, so i set up a photo album and discussion in 'Around The World'. the below posting's from there.

Posted July 08, 2005 10:56 AM
ok, finally, the synopsis of Neil Gaiman's last public bookstore signing on 6th July. (was it just a couple days ago that i met the King of Dreams??).

met up with the nice bunch of gals from the day before. met only 1 security person today who was obviously getting a power trip from telling people not to step over an invisible line, eg. he seemed very satisfied after telling a scholarly, meek looking woman to step back just 3 inches, and she wasn't a fan, she was merely trying to look at what's going on.

now, we are NOT talking about people 'doing their jobs'. these are the 'Huffs and Puffs' of the world who go amok when given some sort of authority, however small it actually is. and these people tend to only flex their 'authority' at people they perceive to be 'lesser' than them. and this particular Mr Puff did prove this point through a few incidences.

other than that, the experience was a much more pleasant one than the night before. we managed to get quite a few photos with Neil and it was all quite pleasant and civilised.

poor Neil though. he actually turned out earlier than the expected time and signed till very late. i didn't see him have a break for HOURS! i think he must have broken some kind of record for signing!

after we all parted, it was almost like the end of an era, albeit a very short era. we all met because of Neil (yea, we're on first name basis now that we've met all of 4 times), and who knows when all of us have the chance to be in the same space-time continuum again...