I have a great deal of respect for author Neil Gaiman. While I was first introduced to him through his Terry Pratchett collaboration, Good Omens, other works like American Gods and Stardust have made me quite a big fan. Now that I’ve acquired a growing interest in graphic novels, hopefully I can add Sandman to the list of Gaiman works which I’ve read.

Now, for a bit of a tangent. Authors, particularly big ones, don’t typically have a very many personal interactions with their fans. Of course, there are books signings, and the occasional meet and greets, but otherwise, communication is kept fairly minimal, or sporadic. Personally, I think the advent of the internet is probably one of the greatest things that could ever happen for the relationship between authors and their readers, responsible for breaking down the walled garden that separates ourselves from our literary idols, and giving us something tangible, and much more personal to reach out to.

I remember reading about how, in the early 90′s, British author Terry Pratchett was one of the first to embrace the internet as a forum for communication with readers and fans. Think, for a moment, about just how archaic internet message boards and group-based communication were at the time. Usenet, one of the precursors to our modern day message boards, was in its infancy. And yet, almost 20 years ago, some authors were beginning to realize the merits that the internet had for communicating with their readers.

Today, it amazes me just how close one can get to some of their favourite authors and writers. Twitter, the short-message internet service, seems to have become a haven for literates and creative types, where every fleeting thought and whim can be unleashed upon the web for whoever happens to listen. Having finally been convinced into getting a Twitter account of my own, it’s amazed me just how many of my favourite authors and individuals have taken to the service. Neil Gaiman, whom I spoke fondly of before, was one of the first authors I noticed on Twitter – it was with him that Pandora’s Box was opened. Warren Ellis, Ryan North, Richard Stevens, and a number of other journalists, websites and individuals have all started their own tweets as well.

It may not seem like a whole lot, at first – short, web-based communications that never exceed 140 characters. The messages – or tweets – usually delve into the mundane, and might not necessarily contain anything of substance; nothing makes me smile more than seeing Gaiman having trouble with an Android phone, or Warren Ellis ramble drunk. Yet, the point of all this is, it’s a personal part of their lives that they’ve chosen to share with the world. And while it may be mundane, it sure helps to know there’s a real, tangible, person that we can identify with, behind the books and stories.

Blogosphere, I ask you: why is it that we are celebrating Christmas already?

It’s the beginning of November, and I already know that, come Tuesday, Toronto’s downtown core will be lit up like a Christmas tree. Or something similarly denominational, that people will inevitably fight over as the festivities reach fever pitch.

In truth, the whole affair just seems a bit overwhelming. When I was living exclusively in the suburbs, I accepted my coddled, commerical-free existence with open arms. More than anything, it meant I didn’t have to stare into the darkened depths of Abercrombie every damned morning, as the Hollywood-chiseled mannequins stared back with their soul piercing gaze. But now, such an experience has essentially become a weekly ritual, meandering through the depths of Toronto’s Eaton Centre on a daily basis, a shelter from the elements on my way to school.

Yet, while I can escape the elements, there’s no respite from the barrage of business. This being my first, true Toronto Christmas, I can only imagine things will get worse. Much worse. Carols will be sung. Holiday jingles will be ingrained into my memory. Glitter from store displays will become inexplicably stuck on my face. It will only be a matter of time before I begin to gouge my own eyes out – with cinnamon sticks, no less.

Don’t get me wrong – the hopeless romantic that I am, I love Christmas, particularly a white and snowy one. Yet, it’s depressing to think that, as the temperatures hit an unnatural high of 18 C all week, I’ll be facing Christmas full on, and non-stop in a matter of days. And I’ll be laughing – from insanity, no doubt – all the way.

All the way ’till January.

Last night’s Halloween was a bit of an adventure – one that involved women, copious amounts of revelry, and…milk. Dare I say, it was the best one yet, in the history of ever.

This particular tale found its beginning last weekend; it was during one of my regular musical downloading binges, I became particularly enamored with the British band Blur. While already a fan of their ever-popular Song2, there was simply something startling different about Coffee and TV, another single released around the same era, which I had yet to hear. While it’s a deeply effective retelling of guitarist Graham Coxon’s struggles with alcoholism, I think it was ultimately the music video’s lovable milk carton protagonist that captured my heart.

It was then I knew – I had to become him.

Work began late Wednesday evening on a Halloween costume in his likeness; in-fact, likeness isn’t even the proper wording – exact replica was my intention. Thus, spray paint was bought. Cardboard was gathered. Tea was served.

After two solid evenings, and a Friday morning of finishing touches, this was the result:

After beholding the beautiful form of his milky-white exterior, it was then that I truly knew what it’s like to create something so beautiful, a proper description is impossible. Words failed me, and I was in awe; somewhere in the background, an angel sang.

Commuting with this creamy creation proved to be a challenge. After walking it down to the Streetsville GO Station, I was judged rather fiercely by a number of middle-aged women gathered at the terminal. Apparently, having a life-sized milk carton is taboo in today’s society. After similar, quizzical looks from the GO transit driver, the carton was loaded into the annals of the bus, and to Toronto I went.

After a couple hours worth of frivolity around Ryerson’s student residence with a few friends, we left the University with one destination in mind – Toronto’s Church street. Now, a bit of background knowledge on this particular section of Toronto: the area, particularly Church and Wellsley, are considered Toronto’s central gay community. My friends and I knew this going in, and being your stereotypical, liberal university students, looked forward to an interesting Halloween experience. Besides, anything particularly scarring would simply be drunk into oblivion later that evening. The joys of residence.

It was an interesting experience, for the most part. We ran into a number of interesting characters, some well-known, some obscure. A couple of highlights from the evening included witnessing far too many people dressed up as the Joker – the psychotically creepy Heath Ledger rendition, no less – a thong-clad Batman figure, and Fear and Loathing‘s Hunter S. Thompson.

Yet, little did I know how much of a celebrity I would become last evening. From the moment my friends and I arrived within the blocked off portion of the Church street parade, I was swamped – it was standing room only, and particularly difficult for this here milk carton to move around. Constantly, I was stopped for pictures – apparently everyone thought the novelty of being a giant milk carton was fairly high. Of course, I obliged; naturally, there’s nothing I enjoy more than spreading the good-natured values of dairy consumption to the denizens of Toronto’s downtown. Not to mention the abundance of good-looking Asian women, who, inexplicably, swooned over me – a lactose love-affair, if I’ve ever seen one.

Of course, I learned a particularly interesting lesson last night; fame is…exhausting. It got to the point where, while the constant attention was amusing at first, it ultimately become a chore to even move down the street. While first I felt a sort of peculiar fascination, I soon found myself with a similarly quizzical expression, akin to the women at the GO station that morning – what was so interesting about Milky, anyways?

I quickly formed a theory, particularly after seeing this particular billboard. I was a Milk carton. In a gay neighbourhood. Where billboards were rife with promotion for the new Sean Penn movie, Milk. A film, I quickly found out, which chronicled the life of San Fransisco gay rights advocate Harvey Milk.

Shit. I had inadvertently made myself into the evening’s unwitting gay icon.

Alas, my theory may be off, but the evening was a blast, nonetheless. The entire process, since it’s inception a week ago today, seems like it’s taken much longer than that to come to fruition. Yet, it was exciting to pull off, and even more amazing to see my creation so well received across the downtown community.

But the best part of the evening? Meeting those 10 or so people, who actually knew the Blur source material which I was from. Obscure though I was, part of the fun, when it comes to evenings like these, is identifying how many people there are like me out there. As the night drew to a close, I was all too delighted to meet one particular man, a native of London, England, and my last fan of the night.

Like a kid on Christmas, “You’re the best fookin’ costume I’ve seen in the last couple years, mate,” he declared.

I beamed.

Advice for the day: Easily solve problems by declaring parts of your life to be non-canon!

Now, with that out of the way, a bit of housecleaning seems to be in order. Apparently I actually have readers on The Horrible Fanfare now. It seems that shamelessly advertising my link via MSN is paying off – a couple people have already messaged me, apparently entertained by the fanfare.

Google analytics has come in handy as well, for tracking usage, statistics and the like. That, in conjunction with the Google Adsense data fed to me, makes for a fairly comprehensive site-tracking tool. It’s just so damned easy these days that it almost makes me miss the stat-counters of old – I’m tempted to put one in for nostalgic purposes.

That, and :blink: tags, perhaps. The nineties were awesome.

In other web-related news, myself and a few others around Ryerson are attempting to set-up a residence-oriented publication. While it was originally meant to be released in print, complications and costs means it’s been bumped to a web-based presentation. Which means I get to flex my web-design skills yet again:

A couple things regarding my adventures in web design: I’m completely self-taught, working mainly from books, web examples, and the advice of friends. Like most things in life, I really think this is the best way to go about learning things, particular when it comes to technology. With the amount of breadth and depth technology possesses, it’s impossible to cover it all within the constraints of a course – practice and observation seem to be key.

Next up: coding the beast.

Now, being a huge James Bond junkie, the release of Devil May Care had me incredibly excited. The series isn’t quite literary genius, but the laughable puns and engaging action always make me smile – albeit, a little guiltily. Thus, you could say I jumped at the release with enough fervour to make even the most slanderous Fox News anchor envious. Meanwhile, the small portion of my mind which usually tries to convey reason (and occasionally, tasty recipes involving dairy) was brushed aside.

You see, I’ve never quite understood the concept of one writing under the guise of a long-dead author; immediately, I noticed that Devil May Care was, in fact, not a creation of the late Sir Ian Fleming, but written, instead, by one Sebastian Faulks. With the abundance of unfinished material left after his death, I’d hoped his estate might have pulled a Tolkein and worked something from that; but alas, my hopes were quickly dashed.

I’d like to think that the whole point of being a writer is bringing your own personal perspective to a piece, as opposed to emulating a past one. If anything, this notion of an author “writing” as a person from the past seems like nothing more than a way to raise one’s profile – riding on the coattails of another’s success, if you will. That being said, I felt a little dubious, but purchased it anyways.

Now, who is Sebastian Faulks? In all honesty, I still don’t know, just as I don’t know who Kingsley Amis or Christopher Wood is – both former sanctioned Bond writers. Mind you, in no way am I trying to discount their takes upon the Bond franchise; instead, like with anything, I just can’t help but feel that the products are but palatable facsimiles of the source material.

…Which brings us to Devil May Care. In most respects, the book is standard Bond fare. You’ve got James Bond, of Her Majesty’s secret service, women, and a number of fancy, 60s oriented cars. But it’s the few instances in which Faulks tries to deviate from the standards that didn’t impress me. The one thing that makes the Bond franchise so enduring is that, in a sense, so is the character himself. The amount of havoc and chaos which Bond is often subject to never quite wears him down; it’s this simple notion that connects each book so expertly.

So, you can probably imagine my displeasure when Faulks began to transform Bond into more of an aging legend – a has-been whose time in the service is nearing its end.The result is that Devil May Care often feels a little more like a journey into the soul for Bond, and not into the Soviet homeland. At other times, the wanton disregard for authority reader’s have come to love seems absent; following an accident, Bond dutifully obeys the doctor’s orders, insofar as to avoid Martinis for almost half the book.

My biggest gripe with Faulk’s re-interpretation of the classic Bond comes in the novel’s structure. One of Fleming’s more striking qualities was his ability to advance the action at a pace that drew reader’s in, but didn’t lose them in the process. Faulks, while capable of building the action, doesn’t seem to know what to do once he’s gotten there. Bond’s escape from mastermind Julius Gorner’s drug-producing facility is executed in an appropriately grandeur fashion; it’s when the time comes to dispose of the antagonistic adversary that Faulk’s seems to run out of steam. In fact, Gorner’s death is probably one of the most anti-climactic disposals I’ve read in years – he commits suicide in the gargantuan paddles of an American steamboat. Yawn.

Despite its occasionally annoying flaws, I couldn’t bring myself to quite hate the book. What many critics agree on is Faulk’s strength at tapping into the nostalgia of the Bond franchise. In that sense, I was happy enough to be reminded of my Bond-filled youth – all the normal fare was, indeed, present. But a reminder was all it really proved to be, lacking a great deal of the edginess and flair which Sir Ian Fleming commanded so many years ago.