Christopher Moore's Blog

Hey Kids, these photos more or less illustrate the last blog, so, you know, memorize the blog, then look at the pics, or something. Finally got a connection fast enough for pictures.

On the road in Germany: My “escort” and press person, Katrin, enjoys a moment of rebellion as she smokes with both of her toes almost outside of the little smoking square.

Munich: Actor Christian Ulmann reads from my book in German. (He’s a TV star in Germany.)

Munich: Christian and I laughing like loons.

Cologne: Some of my incredibly good-looking readers.

Cologne: I think this pretty-much shows what my readers have in common all over the world: goofiness.

Cologne: Joln, my translator, joins me at the author table.

Rape seeds and windmills on the train from Cologne to Berlin This is the only picture in this section that I took. Charlee took all the rest.

The Berlin Trainstation: Like a Cathedral built to honor safty glass.

City of Bears: This Blue Bear taken from a moving cab.

Berlin even has killer robot bears!

Christian got sick, so Katrin filled in as translator.

Dietmar Marque (this has to be the wrong spelling — sorry Dietmar, I’m sure Katrin will write me to fix this and I will.) did the reading. Unprepared and cold, he did a terrific job. His day job is as an events director for a book store chain.

Michael, and enthusiastic reader, wants to be a translator when he gets out of school.

We lost her name, but another enthusiastic Berlinisch fan.
ON TO ITALY

View from my hotel in Milan. You thought I was kidding, didn’t you?

The Cathedral in Milan. The big arch on the left is the entrance to the shopping center. On the right, there’s a jumbotron as tall as the cathedral that plays underwear and shoe ads all day. Really.
Comments: http://bbs.chrismoore.com/viewtopic.php?t=14867&highlight=

Note: Posted with the help of Ken… internet cafe in Germany wouldn’t even let Chris post a blog, much less upload photos. Hopefully, photos to come. So, as you may have gathered, I’ve finished my German book tour, but here’s the summary. Frankfurt is nice. Seems to be growing like crazy. Good art and stuff. (Good architecture — see Berlin below.) The people were very friendly, helpful, and they all speak English. And I don’t mean “most” or “they know a few words.” They ALL speak English. Fluently. They are embarrassed for you when you try to say things in German, and it’s the only time they’ll interrupt and say, “It’s okay to speak English.” Munich. Beautiful. Amazing museum (the only one open Monday). Saw some Klimt and Shiele. Stunning people. Tall, fit, clear skin — not as blond as you might think, but frightfully good-looking.
Germany is a very pretty country. Even from the air, Germany looks mostly like forest. Up close the forests are dense with almost no undergrowth, the trees straight, as if they’ve been cultivated. All of Germany is clean. Really clean. Like, you could do surgery in them. Even the fencerows where the trains run are clean and free of litter. The windows in the tenements are all clean, even up to the seventh and eight floors. Yes, there’s graffiti, but no dirt. The trains are something out of the future. Glass doors between cars open and close with better efficiency that you saw on Star Trek. Spotless, modern, fast, quiet. Even nicer than the Chunnel bullet trains.
It’s no news that the Germans love order, but it’s so manifest in the countries infrastructure, the frightful efficiency of everything — even the doorways in Frankfurt where the junkies were shooting heroin were spotless. I’m not quite sure how to look at that.
Which is not to say they have a perfect society or anything. As we were walking back to the hotel in Frankfurt on the day Charlee took the “Plaza pictures”, a young man ran by me and dropped his wallet. Well, being the upstanding guy that I am, I picked it up and said “Sir! Oh Sir!” in a couple of languages. In English I said, “Sir, you dropped your wallet. Your wallet, sir! You dropped it!” In German I just waved his wallet because I don’t know how to tell say, “You dropped your wallet,” in German. Although, if he had needed know if Hanzel was in the library or to order a couple of coffees I was fucking ready.
Well, he turned, waved at me and shook his head, and that’s when the police pulled up, jumped out of the car and tackled him. “Oh good,” I thought. “They will give him his wallet back.” And that’s when I heard someone far behind me yelling, and when I turned, there was a guy running toward waving and shouting some nonsense in German.
Well, by this time, the kid who had run by was in handcuffs, presumably to keep him from resisting my kind return of his wallet. I held the wallet up to the other guy who kept running at me, saying, “Is this your wallet?” and he kept pointing at it, and saying something back but not saying yes. And that went on for what seemed like some time, and so I said, “fuck it” and dropped the wallet and walked away.
So, I don’t know what happened with the nonsense, pointing guy, but the kid was in the back of the police car and the policeman asked us if we say anything. And I said, “I didn’t really see anything. I heard the wallet hit, but I didn’t see the kid drop it. I looked when I heard it hit and I saw the kid run by. I mean, I thought he dropped it, but he might have kicked it. Actually, I would make a bad witness, I think,” I said, which was true.
And then to cop looked at Charlee and she nodded fluently in German. So the cop asked for our passport, and Charlee gave him hers, because I still have some shit I need to clear up from that time I started a religion in Micronesia, and I haven’t heard back yet from Free Credit Report Dot Com. “Mine’s at the hotel,” I said, with a German accent to make things easier on the cop. By that time I guess he had decided that I would not make a very good witness, so he sort of walked away shaking his head.
(This is where you kind of have to give it to the Bush administration. Because W. has been the face of America for seven years or so, expectations for us are so low that if we just make it through a day without pooping on the sidewalk or killing a bunch of their citizens we get like a big Special Olympics hug.)
Evidently the wallet guy is the only guy in Frankfurt who doesn’t speak English. Probably why the kid took his wallet.
So, where was I? Oh yeah, Cologne, which doesn’t smell as nice as you might think, but that’s because they actually pronounce and spell it Koln in German (with an umlaut, or two dots over the O, which I have no idea how to do on this keyboard). And Koln, of course, is German for poop chute. Which, didn’t smell as bad as you might think.
Cologne has the prettiest cathedral from the outside I think I’ve seen. Baroque to the point of looking unreal — more like the seahorse skeleton of a cathedral. (Sorry no pics. Working.) Didn’t see much of the city, actually. Travel and work that day. People were very nice and again, just sort of stupidly good-looking. Not fashion conscious like the French and Italians — jeans and T-shirts, they look like Midwesterners in dress – maybe Midwesterners who work out a lot.
Some of my readers in Cologne – most of them were this good-looking Beside me is actor Christian Ullman, who has his own show on German TV. Behind us, more of my readers. I think we can see a spirit that unites our two countries around my books: total goofiness.
From Cologne to Berlin was one yellow rape-seed field after another — dotted with massive windmills (see below) and broken up by small but dense forests.
Berlin is sort of a bear of a city. That’s the city symbol, the bear, and the way that San Francisco has painted hearts all over the city, and Chicago has painted cows, they have painted bears (standing up on their hind feet) everywhere, , sort of looking wildly out of place because of their whimsy among such an imposing gray hulk of a city. I suppose there’s something to be said for reducing a city to rubble and rebuilding it all at once. That’s why San Francisco has its “Victorian Charm” and Paris has that consistent “Restoration/2nd Empire Look” thanks to the Prussians shelling the shit out of it in 1870 and Hauptsberg (sp?)building up the slums around the Louvre Palace. Berlin is like a monument to modern design, with the architecture of the post-war rebuild (and let’s face it, the 50s and 60s were not high points in architecture) giving way to all sorts of glass and chrome spirals and glass monoliths. Every German city seems to have some sort of a space needle, but Berlin’s is a giant ball speared five-hundred feet up on a great stainless spike — like the cocktail onion just plucked from a leviathan Gibson . It houses a TV studio, a restaurant, and office space. The train station looks like the cathedral to a religion that worships safety glass. It’s probably five blocks in every direction green glass with very little stainless framing. Everything except the space needle seems to have giant shoulders: the Brandenburg Gate, the Parliament building, even the Sony Center — another Sci-fi glass complex that would make San Francisco’s Sony Metreon want to crawl under the Bay Bridge and slit it’s own shiny throat in humiliation.
MILAN Anyway, I do go on. Sorry, I’m just trying to avoid thinking about the miserable hotel we’re in here in Milan. Oh my fucking God eight pound. baby-Jesus on a fucking pogo stick, did the people on Travelocity lie! You know what should be in the reviews, I mean, besides that it’s clean, or that it’s not far from a train station or the Domo? I mean besides that there are nearby restaurants and clubs, as well as ATMs and a gelato place? They should mention THAT IT’S ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE PRISON! That’s something I sort of need to know. Something I want to know. It makes a difference in my hotel choice. Not only does our room overlook what appears to be the test track for Moto Guzzi, and it has (and I’m not kidding) bulletproof storm shutters you lower instead of having black out drapes (did I mention that I’m not kidding?) There a graffito on the prison wall across from our room, that says, “Libre Fabio!” (Again, not kidding, I’ll send pics if I can.) I was all, “I didn’t even know that Fabio was in prison. Obviously taken down on a butter counterfeiting charge.” But it turns out that there are many criminals in Italy named Fabio, so it’s probably not THE Fabio.
There’s a long list of things about Milan that I could note — like, why I see now why we import our criminals from here. There are only two things a Milanese person should be: a seventy-year-old man in a driving hat arguing with other old men in front of the espresso place, or a seventeen year old girl trying to look sophisticated. Both of those Milanesians are just adorable. Other than that, they either look like criminals (mostly pimps) or coke whores. After being around Germans for a week, I have a new appreciation for what skeezy, snotty motherfuckers the Milanese are. I’m reserving my judgment on the rest of the Italians, but if they measure up, I think it’s regrettable that that Germans didn’t clean the sleaze-bags out of this country when the Italians thought they were friends. And yes, my opinion has largely been formed based on the desk clerk at our hotel who is probably, at this moment, arranging a conjugal visit for one of the neighboring convicts with some grimacing coke whore in giant sunglasses and silver baby-skin leather spiked heels who will pretend to be his wife so he can shag her against the bulletproof shutters of the room next to ours and she won’t even bother to remove her sunglasses, the cigarette from her lip, or her spiky infant-skin shoes while Fabio pounds away at her like a great, sleazy sewer/rat jackhammer, and the desk clerk films the whole thing and then projects in on the kitchen walls for the staff in the morning while he urinates into the espresso machine.
We will probably be changing hotels. Probably.
Later, after we moved…
Okay. Then next day. We changed hotels to a place near the Duoma. (Italian for Cathedral). Much better. Everyone is dressed beautifully. Don’t get me wrong, the guys still look like criminals, just more up-scale,international criminals. And the women only look like coke whores when they are standing still. That’s the problem with the new anti-smoking laws that are being implemented around Europe: when you stand by a doorway smoking, while wearing tall “come-fuck-me” pumps, a short skirt, and lots of make-up, well, you kind of look like you’re working. I’m just saying. While downtown Milan is much nicer than the prison district, it’s still a great place to find people who look like they are selling sex or drugs. And Milan, don’t blame me for for pointing this out, but if you didn’t want to seem like a skanky whore, you shouldn’t have put a shopping mall on one side of your cathedral and a jumbotron running lingerie ads on the other. Maybe if you’d taken a little time between worshiping your mothers and selling your sisters you might have heard the story about Jesus driving the money changers out of the temple. What I’m saying is, there is a point where shoes can become too fucking important. But I give Milan credit: it’s not easy to be more narcissitic than Los Angeles, more vain than Paris, more sleazy than Las Vegas, more smug than San Francisco, and more rude than New York, all at the same time.
More as soon as I get a decent connection…
Ciao!tale.

comments

Really having trouble findind time and an internet connection at the same time, but here’s a general update. First, Get aquainted with some more of the nice people from Frankfurt.

Heidi was from the Alps region of Bavaria and was not quite sure how to get acquainted with men in the big city of Frankfurt.

Dieter knew that his luck would change as soon as he got to touch the legendary Christmas Muslim.
Erik always traveled with a large group of close friends.

While Lars preferred one close friend, with whom he could be “intimate”.

The seeing-eye dog concept is different in Germany. Here Greta und Marta show the way to their retriever Schwienfleich, who, although not blind, can’t see shit without his glasses.

Here we see the age-old tradition of trading your soul for something shiny.

Fatima takes a break from hating us for our freedom to enjoy her oppression as a woman of the Muslim faith.

Markus was relatively sure that there’d been a kid in there not five minutes ago. He suspected his wife would be angry with him.
And so we leave Frankfurt, on to Munich and Cologne:

While the German trains are very advanced, they are years behind in their camouflage technology. Here a bullet train fails miserably at blending into nature.

Along the way, we pass the factory where Fox News Commentators are manufactured.

After being soaked in hatred and ignorance, they are fired out of this cannon.

People on the train read the day’s news. This is the front page. I don’t understand much German, but whoever this politician is, she’s getting my vote.
More Germany later, but for now, a little bit of Italy:

The first place we stayed, was rated tops in Routards (tards with butter) in 2006 and 2008. They lost their rating in 2007 while they were uptarding.

All the bathrooms in Italy have an extra bowl for washing your junk. Note the muffin towels as well as the port on the wall, which I presume is the blow dryer.

Speaking of junk, being secure in my masculinity, I would have totally bought this car we saw in Milan, except I couldn’t fit my huge junk into it.
Later, near Lake Como:

The Giordanos only get one channel, but if you watch it long enough you can bleed from the palms and feet, so, better than cable, really.

The Authorguy is surprised in his hotel room by a paparazzi.

Here he regains his composure and once again exudes profound coolness. (Shut up, it could happen.)
More later. The waitress at this internet cafe is giving me the Italian Stink Eye.
Ciao!
Comments: http://bbs.chrismoore.com/viewtopic.php?p=196895#196895

Live from Frankfurt
Okay, kids, I’m in Germany. Germans are really nice. They seem like Americans until they start talking, at which point, well, they seem way more German. (And when they speak English, they are a little better at it than we are.) But they look like us. More than French or Italians or alien insect people do.
I’ve taken upon myself to personally apologize to every single German person for our president being a fucking idiot. This may take up much of my free time here.
On the cultural differences file: They put a tiny bag of Gummi bears on your pillow in the hotel at night. I’m not kidding.
I’ve always been a little dubious about the practice of the mint on the pillow — you know, nothing like a little bit of sugar and caffeine right before a good night’s rest. Sure, Gummi bears are way better. Then, around four in the morning, as I was still trying to tongue errant bear bits out of my molars, I thought, “not so much.”
Comments: http://bbs.chrismoore.com/viewtopic.php?p=195569#195569

Hey kids, just a note to let you know that I’m off to book tour Germany and do some research in Italy. I won’t be able to check messages, e-mail, or comments very much until June. If I get a place with a good connection and I have some time I’ll try to post some pics or a quick blog.
If you’re a bookseller and going to BEA in Los Angeles at the end of May, I’ll be signing there. See ya.

So, it’s been some time since we had an art lesson. For those of you joining the party late, you’ll find links to the earlier lessons below. These are only meant to share with you the delight of discovery that I experience as I drag my dumb ass through the great museums of the world. Today, we turn to the first time to religious themes in painting.
Keep in mind, up until the 16th century, almost all art depicted either history or religious events, largely because the funding for art came from royalty or the church. Therefore, for aritists to stretch their muscles, as far as subject matter, they had to do it either in the context of religious/historical events, or depictions of myth. Thus, we find the same subjects explored over and over again, by many, many different artists. Walk through any art museum and you’ll see a multitude of Madonnas and Childs, Adoration of the Magis, the Assumption of Mary (which I’m not clear on, but from looking at the paintings, I think it has to do with Mary going, “Well, with the wings and halo and bits, I assume you’re a fucking angel.” but we shall cover that in a different lesson.) No, today I want to talk about young girls getting head.
I was wandering through the Chicago Insttute of Art one day last year, when I happened onto this painting the Dutchman Jan Sanders van Hemessen, tucked away among the Madonnas and Crucifixions:

BECAUSE GIRL POWER RULES, MOTHERFUCKER! – Van Hemessen 1600s
The actual title is Judith with the Head of Holfernes. Now, Judy is clearly A)naked B)not particularly shy about it C)in possession of some upper body strength, and D)sporting a crashing big sword. But look just behind Jude’s left butt cheek. Oh yes, the big and more than somewhat detached head of a bearded guy. I was intrigued.(Yes, it appears that Judith has missed a few days at the gym, but later I would find out that she was 19 at the time, so I think the weight can be attributed to “freshman spread”, which a lot of girls go through in their first year of college. She’ll lose the weight when she stops living off beer and ramen noodles.)
So I walked on, and in the next wing I happened onto this painting from 1663, by Feice Ficherelli, also called, Judith with the head of Holfernes:

MUM, SEEMS YOU”VE DROPPED SOMETHING
This is my favorite Judith painting, because Judith is clearly saying, “What head?” After that, I had to go look up what was up with Judy…
Turns out that the story of Judith comes from the Book of Macabees, which is one of the Apocrapha, or what most refer to as the Bogus Books of the Bible. Seems that Jerusalem was under siege by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, and the city was just about to surrender, when a beautiful young widow, Judith, said, “Wait a second. Let me go to the general’s camp and see what I can talk him into.” She was accompanied by her maidservant, who you see in a lot of the paintings. Long story short, Judy chatted up the General (Holfernes), had dinner with him, got hims all fired up, then sawed his head off. Her deed done, she had her maid stuff the head in a bag (I’m not kidding, she didn’t even get dressed. Just, “Grab the head, Midred, we are outta here.”) In the morning, the Babylonian army was all, “Oh, these Jewish babes are fucking crazy. We gone.”
Here’s Ruben’s take on it.

THERE. THAT WILL DO QUITE NICELY. CAREFUL, THE CARPET IS NEW
Here Sirani shows how a couple of kids from the neighborhood have stopped by to help.
CAN WE HIT IT WITH A STICK, JUDY, PLEASE! IT WILL BE EVER SO MUCH FUN.
(note how Judith seems, well, a little detached from her task of bagging the head)
Once you learn the story of Judy and the head, they start coming out of the woodwork at you. Of all the bible stories, why this one, I wonder? It’s about the innate danger of cute girls, isn’t it? Or is it? Hmmm…
These next two are my nominees for cutest Judys:
This one by the Florentine painter, Carravaggio, who was so violent, the Knights of Malta threw him off their island after he painted (yes) The Beheading of John the Baptist, in their chapel. Carravaggio didn’t draw anything. He painted the figures right on the canvas (or wall). And he uses Italian working people as his models. Judy here appears in other paintings as the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene. (Only not sawing anyone’s head off).

LIKE THIS? YOU THINK? OKAY, A LITTLE TO THE LEFT…
This cute Judy has the best outfit ever. by Cristofano Allori
HE LOOKED SURPRISED. DON’T YOU THINK HE LOOKED SURPRISED?
Best hat for head-chopping: By Cranach:
I’M SHY, REALLY. THIS IS MY FIRST HEAD CHOPPING. DO YOU LIKE MY HAT?
This one is actually Salome, which is another great Jewish girl getting head story. Also by Crachach, who loved him some hats:
NO, HE’S JUST SLEEPING. LITTLE DROWSY MAYBE. BUT CHECK OUT THIS HAT!
Then there’s just naked Judys. This one’s by Hans Baldwin:
THAT’S RIGHT, I’M NAKED, SHAVED, AND I’M CARRYING A SEVERED HEAD. YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT?
These are the Sneaky Judys. You know, just trying to get it done and quietly and get home: This one is painted by a 17th century Florentine woman,(extraordinary for the time) Artemisia.
WHERE DID YOU PUT MY FUCKING CAR KEYS? LOOK UNDER THE HEAD.
also by Artemisia (I get the feeling she may have been sending a message about standing in her way as a painter)
ANOTHER ONE IS COMING. OKAY, MAKE ROOM IN THE BASKET. I’M GOING TO SHOW HIM MY BOOBS TO STARTLE HIM, THEN START CHOPPING..
Here Artemisia stops being coy and gets down to it:
HOLD STILL MOTHERFUCKER! BLANCH, WHAT’D YOU SHARPEN THIS KNIFE WITH, A MONKEY’S BUTT?
Here she paints it again. It’s like, “Look, I like the way this story ends. Don’t fuck with me.”
NO, I DEFINITELY LIKE IT BETTER WITH THE PURPLE DRESS, DON’T YOU? I SAID HOLD STILL!
I think Artemesia would have liked this Judith by Giorgione:
‘KAY, TELL ME AGAIN HOW THIS DRESS MAKES MY ASS LOOK BIG? GO AHEAD.
Here Dijk Maruitshuis has a Judith who is clearly explaining what just happened.
NO, DUDE, IT WAS SO WEIRD, MY TOP SLIPPED AND HIS HEAD FELL OFF YEAH, FELL RIGHT THE FUCK OFF. GUESS HE HAD A SERIOUS BOOB ALLERGY– LOOK FOR A MEDIC ALERT BRACELET OR AN INHALER OR SOMETHING.
Here’s a very coy Judy by Vincent Sellaer, a Flemish painter:

NO, IT’S NOT MINE. OH, THE SWORD? UH, I WAS GOING TO MAKE SOME STIR FRIED VEGGIES OH MY, I MUST HAVE DROPPED MY APRON!
And finally, the sexiest Judith, by Gustave Kiimt, around the turn of the 20th century, one of the few Art Nouveu painters (we’ll talk about that another time)I looked at prints of this painting for years, thinking it was someone that Kilmt must have known, since he used the model for other paintings. It was only after I learned about Judy’s Head that I saw the head in the picture. (lower right corner, duh)

SHAGGED IT OFF HIM. WHY? YOU BUSY?
So, that’s the art history of Judith and Holfernes. Maybe I’ll do the story of the only biblical girl to get more head than Judith, Salome, when I get some time. Meanwhile, here are the links to the earlier lessons in art:
http://bbs.chrismoore.com/viewtopic.php?t=4301
http://bbs.chrismoore.com/viewtopic.php?t=4313
http://bbs.chrismoore.com/viewtopic.php?t=4319
COMMENTS: http://bbs.chrismoore.com/viewtopic.php?p=194327#194327

Hey kids. Not to get all “it’s all about me” on you, but here’s another interview I did recently with the Amazon Kindle Blog Peeps. I was just going to paste the link, but I honestly can’t find it.
The Authorguy talks to the Kindle Peeps.
You’ve been writing for quite awhile now and have certainly secured a certain fan base and popularity as an author. How would you describe your “average fan” and to what do you attribute your ability to maintain this cult status?
Well, I think the secret to cult status is not to sell enough books that anyone actually thinks anyone else has ever heard of you. I’ve achieved this by a targeted program of stealth publicity, which utilizes cutting edge technology and is enormously expensive, but remains totally undetectable. My average reader is a 37 year old trauma nurse who is divorced and has 1.7 kids. I have fans that are 13 year old Goth girls and 70 year old grandmothers (not at the same time) but nursie is the mean.
How do you react when a new book is about to be released? Do you pop Percocet, go into hiding, or is this all just old hat?
Yes popping Percocet and hiding is my normal, day to day life. Usually what I’m doing before a book comes out is working out at the gym a lot to get in shape for the book tour. I know that sounds ridiculous, but a different airport, hotel, bookstore, and crowd every day for a month can really wear you down. I find that the better shape I’m in, the better chance I have of not getting sick. As a writer you spend a year in a room making clicky noises on a keyboard, with little to no outside contact, so you develop the immune system of a bubble boy. Then you go out, climb into a can with 200 other humans, and get hurtled through the sky while breathing each others fumes, then eat and drink strange things and have a couple of hundred people line up to shake hands and breathe on you every night – and you don’t know where any of them has been. I’m not saying it’s not fun, I’m just saying that you can catch the sniffles or the plague pretty easy. So, you know, push ups and treadmill and stuff help.
Do you consider your career as separate from the rest of your life? Do you have a sort of “home from work” mentality, or is the writing just a natural part of your lifestyle?
Writing is what I do and who I am. My entire life revolves around the book I’m working on, the one I’m about to start, or the one that just came out. Either by research, travel, promotion – whatever. I think about it all the time. And I like it that way.
Although all of your books have been optioned for films, you have said that as of yet “none of them are in any danger of being made into a movie.” Which novel do you think would translate best into this medium and since you’ve already exercised your screenwriting chops with ‘Griff’ would you prefer to write the screenplay?
I’m not really interested in writing the screenplay for any of them. Originally I wanted to do Bloodsucking Fiends myself, but since then I’m worked in Hollywood a little and I’d rather not work under those circumstances. With books I don’t have some lawyer second-guessing what I write. I’d like to see A Dirty Job made into a film for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the Hellhounds, who are giant, 400 pound, indestructable dogs who eat toasters and stuff and basically rule. I think it would be cool to see them. Chris Columbus has that book and I think he’s terrifically talented, so I’m really hoping to see it made.
To give ‘You Suck’s’ goth teen Abby Normal the right vernacular, you spent a lot of time trolling MySpace and various vampire-themed websites and blogs. What is the most alarming or hilarious thing you came across in your research?
I think the biggest surprise was the casualness that kids had toward sex. I sort of expected the dread and the darkness and the morose attitudes, but the sex thing threw me. I remember reading one girl’s blog talking about having had sex with three different guys in the previous 24 hours and coming home to find her step-father having a wank in the living room, and she sort of listed all the events with about the same gravity as she did describing buying a new “Emily” hoody. I incorporated that sort of jaded precociousness into the character, but it was definitely not what I expected. The funniest thing was the way these Goth kids would change from morbid to perky with whiplash transitions. One sentence talking about the meaningless of life and how it wasn’t worth going on in the uncaring, harsh world (horny for the grave, is the term I use for it) and the next going off about the great new green Carebear that their mom bought them today.
This month marks the first anniversary of Kurt Vonnegut’s death. Which of his works influenced you the most?
Galapagos and Bluebeard. The first because of it’s take on human evolution, about how our big brains really weren’t that great an idea, and the second because of the unorthodox way in which it’s told, with Vonnegut saying that you could arrange the passages in any order and they would still work. And you know what, he’s right. I experimented with it. Overall, his influence was his “getting away with it”, if that makes any sense. It inspired me to try to get away with it, too.
While you’re working on your novels, you very helpfully keep fans at bay (or at least try to) by suggesting books to read while they’re waiting for the latest Christopher Moore offering to be released. What are you reading now?
Well, I think we all know that because you work for Amazon, you can probably look at my buying record and answer that. (But I’ve blocked the web cam, so you can’t actually WATCH me read. And the helmet blocks your Amazon purchasing waves. And just try and get by the garlic over the door!) Anyway, I suppose we’ll go through this ruse as if you don’t really know. I’m reading The Private Lives of the Impressionists, by Susan Roe, and Vincent Van Gogh: A Self-Portrait in Art and Letters by H. Anna Suh. I just finished reading Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon. I have about fifty books I’m supposed to be reading for comment, which I’ll never get to, but I assure you they are all wonderful and everyone should buy two copies of each.
You’ve held down an eclectic mix of jobs prior to becoming a successful writer from roofer to DJ, and have hung around with marine biologists and taken flying lessons to research the occupations of the characters in your books. If you weren’t a novelist, how would you like to make a living?
How would I like to make a living? I think being a marine mammal biologist would be very cool. I wouldn’t mind doing stand-up or radio if I could do it without someone telling me what to do all the time (although I have no delusions about those things being easy.) I’d like to take pictures for a living, too. What I’d probably be doing, though, is waiting tables.
Who was your favorite Buffy: Kristy Swanson or Sarah Michelle Geller?
That’s tough. I liked them both, but I guess because of the seven-year run of the series, Sarah Michelle Geller is my iconic Buffy.
In the postscript of Lamb, you ask people not to take his take on Christ’s missing 30 years as serious stuff. How much negative feedback did he actually get from readers? How many of those had actually read the book vs. just taking offense with the premise?
I’ve received over 20,000 e-mails regarding Lamb since the book came out in 2002. Three (3) have been negative. Two were from people who hadn’t actually read the book (both from Alabama, by the way), but who just didn’t like the idea of it. I’m sure they are happily performing some act of human cruelty on behalf of God right now. The other was from a retired Monsignor from Montreal, who took issue with my theology, which is completely understandable. As a Catholic monsignor you are not trained to take the Gospels as being “open to interpretation”.
If you were hosting a dinner party for eight writers, who would your seven guests be? What would you serve?
John Steinbeck, Lord Byron, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, William Shakespeare, and I would serve strawberry banana smoothies, because the blender would scare the crap out of Shakespeare and that might be fun to watch.
What’s the most absurd thing you own?
A tuxedo. Then again, maybe the stuffed squirrel wearing an Elizabethan gown. But that could come in handy. No, definitely the tuxedo.
You’re a fantastically funny guy. What or whom is funny to you these days?
I’ve been sort of immersed in British humor for the last couple of years as I worked on a book set in medieval England, which will be out next year, so lately: Eddie Izzard, Richard Curtis (screenwriter of Four Weddings and Funeral and Many Others), Mil Millington, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders in their various series. (The Vicar of Dibley, which stars French, was written by Curtis as well.) P.G. Wodehouse. H.H. Munro. As far as comedians, I always go see Jake Johannsen and Paula Poundstone when they are in town. I like My Name is Earl, a lot – Jamie Pressly always cracks me up, and I thought 30 Rock got pretty good as the season went on. The Office is good, but it kind of makes me squirm, as does Larry David’s show. Except for Mil Millington, I haven’t discovered many “new” funny writers in the last few years. I’d love to, but I keep picking up books that say they are funny but simply aren’t.
You’ve gotten to dive with whales and take trips to the South Pacific as book research. In Christopher Moore’s perfect world, what would be next?
I’m going to learn to paint with oils and speak French (yeah, at the same friggin time). Really. I want to do another whale book and hang out with the killer whale guys (they’ve invited me to hang out), but my agent keeps telling me not to do it because people hate whales, so that has to wait until he has a heart attack.
Comments: http://bbs.chrismoore.com/viewtopic.php?t=14624

Here you go kids. Interesting to compare how I change my history as I go along. “Then, when I was the King of Austria….”
http://popculturezoo.com/archives/134
Comments: http://bbs.chrismoore.com/viewtopic.php?p=190253#190253

Für Meine Deutschen Freunde:
These are the scheduled events for my German book tour in May. I don’t know what to expect any more than you do, but I’m told there will be an actor, who will read my work in German, then they’ll make me read in English, even though I don’t read, then there will be questions and answers.
I speak about nine words of German, meine kinder, (does that mean kids?), so if you don’t know English, you might want to bring a friend who does. I suspect there may be a translator there as well, but if you do know English, keep an eye on them and make sure they are saying what I’m saying, you know, to keep them honest.
Monday, May 5th: Munich 8:00 PM evening event at Muffatcafé, Zellstr. 4
Tuesday, May 6th: Cologne 8:15 PM evening event at Mayersche Buchhandlung (book store), Schildergasse 31-37
Wednesday, May 7th: Berlin 8:00 PM evening event at babylon berlin:mitte (Cinema) Rosa-Luxemburg-Str. 30

Duck sauce Soy sauce?
So, today they found out that the U.S. Military shipped four helicopter batteries to Taiwan, except when the Tawainese opened them, months later — shazam!–the boxes were filled with missile warheads. Oops!
But the people in charge were quick to say that there wasn’t any nuclear material. Only the fuse that detonates the nuclear material. Hmmmm. I don’t know if anyone has heard about the problem with making a nuclear bomb, but evidently it isn’t getting the fissionable material — there’s a bunch of that missing. Turns out, it’s (and this is so cute) getting the device that will detonate it.
Now, I order stuff from Chinese people like three times a week. I’ve hardly ever opened the bag and gone, “Shit, I ordered Moo Goo Gai Pan, this is a nuclear trigger. Who had the nuclear trigger? You want chili sauce with that?” The worst that’s ever really happened is that they only gave us one stale-ass fortune cookie instead of two. (And did you know that the fortune cookie was invented in San Francisco, not China? Yeah, funny thing, turns out we shipped the recipe to them accidentally in a box full of Plutonium 235.)
I’m just saying, this does not inspire confidence.
Were these the same guys that sent bombers flying over the U.S. with nuclear bombs on board and few months ago?
I don’t have any military experience, so I don’t want to assume that I know better than our commanders on the ground, as they say, but how about this…
How about we put the smart, efficient people in charge of, oh, I don’t know, watching nuclear weapons. I know it’s an all volunteer force, and the bar has been lowered to about the same standards as what it would take in a girl you’d take home when you’re twelve drinks into the night and it’s five minutes before closing time (a pulse*), but can we just put the smart people in charge of the nukes?
*no offense meant to girls with a pulse, i find that totally attractive in a woman.
Comments: http://bbs.chrismoore.com/viewtopic.php?p=189460#189460