One Hates to be a Bigot...

Yesterday afternoon I met my old downstairs neighbor, M., to accompany her to a Neil Gaiman reading at Yale. M. lives in Manhattan now, but came back to New Haven to hear Gaiman; she was super-excited about it.
In general, I think you could say that I don’t give a hoot about Gaiman. I’ve never had anything against him, per se, but his fan base – which, as I’ve experienced it, is way too SCA for my tastes – is enough to make me insane. M. and I had a lovely light meal and walked to Sudler Hall, practically giggling at the ill-coiffed, Jethro-Tull t-shirted crowd. If I didn't see anyone in a Rush t-shirt, it's only because I was busy gawping at the Tull shirt.
One hates to be so bigoted but then again, one enjoys it so much...
(Ok, I’m being catty. I’m sure these are all lovely people. But Jesus Christ, not well-dressed, or, in many cases, particularly attractive. It’s odd, I felt, because Gaiman himself is not a bad-looking guy. Why doesn’t he have a better influence on his audience? But I’m getting ahead of myself here.)
M. and I sat down in the half-filled hall and I mused, “It’s a good thing we got here early, this place is going to be packed.” By 7.30, it was beyond Standing Room Only. It really was packed. The audience was actually invited by John Crowley (organizer of the program) to sit on the stage; there was just nowhere else for people to go. M. and I sat in our seats expectantly, and entertained ourselves with people-watching.
“You know,” I said to M., “I think I might be the only person here who has never read a thing by this guy.”
M. laughed. “I think you’re right. These people are, like, beyond fandom.”
Gaiman slinked onstage and everyone drew in their breaths; their God was before them.
Gaiman introduced first by John Crowley, and then by Isaac Cates, who I had the pleasure of chatting with a few times when I worked at the bookstore downtown (I helped him order some graphic novels for a class he was teaching at Yale last summer). He’s a nice guy, very smart; I just like him, on a visceral level. I thought, “Boy, Cates must be beside himself, introducing Gaiman.” It’s like a comic geek’s wet dream. Cates was, of course, smart, funny, and gracious; and then Gaiman took the podium.
I braced myself to be bored to tears.
Within about five seconds, I knew I was not likely to be bored. Gaiman was intelligent, and a good speaker – in that polished, cute-English-guy-trying-to-seem-approachable-and-real-even-though-he-does-not-live-at-all-a-normal-life way; “I’m a geek like you,” though obviously he’s gone far beyond traditional geekdom, and it’s turned him into (surely) a rich desirable man. He began, if I remember correctly, by reading a poem, which was light and funny. I thought, “Hey. I know this guy’s work.” And I suddenly remembered that when I was a junior in college, my roommate Cassie insisted that I read a book called Good Omens, even though it wasn’t my usual cup of tea. (For that matter, tea isn’t my cup of tea, either. I’m a coffee drinker. Ethical Man remembers that in one of our first conversations, in 1992, he offered to make me a cup of tea, and I snorted, “Tea is for child molesters.” Well. Quite a statement there. I’ve mellowed a tiny bit since then – I now drink tea when I’m ill – but I basically think compulsive tea-drinking is silly, though I’m willing to put up with it in actual English people.)
Well, back in ’92, I thought Good Omens was damn funny. I don’t remember a thing about it now, except that there was this thing about a cassette tape left in the car; any cassette tape left in the car would eventually turn into Queen’s Greatest Hits. This was a great gag. The plot of the book doubtless bored me, but the gags like that kept me going, and in the end, as a bookseller, I recommended Good Omens to those who’d like that kind of thing. Basically, Gaiman was fine with me, if in small doses.
So I was wrong. I wasn’t the only person in Sudler Hall who’d never read Neil Gaiman; I was just one of the 250 people who had read him. (Though I can guarantee still that I’d read the least Gaiman of anyone one there. These were, as we’ve said, rabid fans.)
Having read his poem, Gaiman then read a short story from the forthcoming Fragile Things, about two boys going to a party and hoping to get lucky, in mid-70s England. It was exactly the sort of story I’d’ve hoped for in such a reading. It was funny; it didn’t get overly weird-spacey on me; and Gaiman read very, very well.
So a wonderful time was had by all. Gaiman read one more poem, as I recall, and then took some questions (five or so – not many), in which he showcased his wonderful charming self and everyone ate it up (“My favorite short story is Chivalry, and I was wondering…” “I’m so pleased that that’s your favorite story! It’s been optioned by Harvey at Miramax, and…”), and then it was all over. There was no autograph session, which I know many people found disappointing. On the other hand, given the number of people there, it would have been sort of insane. So folks very politely and understandingly filed out into the summer night.
I walked M. back to the train station, talking about the reading, talking about work (M. has a job, so, really, we were talking about her job), about the rental market in New York – you know, the kinds of things people talk about. I said, “I’ll have to read that short story the girl said she liked so much.” M. said, “It’s in the collection that I have in my bag – I’ll lend it to you!”
So when I got home last night, I read “Chivalry,” sitting on the front porch. It was pretty clever. I was impressed. (Not that it exactly matters to anyone if I’m impressed, but, I’m just saying, I was.) I went into the house and said to Ethical Man, “Hey, I just read this funny story, about this old lady who finds the Holy Grail at an Oxfam shop.” Ethical Man smiled and said, “Sounds like a clever premise for a story.” “Yeah,” I said. “It was. You should read it sometime.”
He won’t. But it’s ok. I’ll have read it for the two of us.