(Neil Gaiman, photo by Kimberly Butler)

Inspired in part by the idea of connections put forth in the Froud/Gaiman post and futher inspired by this post (which represents a great deal of what I hope this blog and my reading challenges can accomplish), I decided to throw Neil Gaiman and his fans a little more love by featuring 13 You Tube videos related in one degree or another to the man himself. Some are of him reading or speaking about a particular subject that (in my mind) has some connection to the themes in the Once Upon a Time II Challenge. Others are projects by those who have been inspired by Neil Giaman or have some obvious connection with him. All but one of these are a couple minutes long or less. Enjoy! Although this may seem obvious, sound is required for the true enjoyment of these pieces. All are work safe.

Unless of course reveling in your geekness would result in job loss or a trip to the looney bin.

1. I am beginning with Instructions again despite the fact that many of you (hopefully) watched this in the last post. If not, don’t cheat yourself. This is a wonderful poem. It makes a perfect beginning because, as I’ve mentioned before, Instructions is the unofficial poem of the Once Upon a Time Challenge.

2. The above is a simply wonderful little video called Alia’s Poppet Movie. Inspired by the creations of Lisa Snellings-Clark (who many of us discovered because of Neil Gaiman) and featuring many works of Neil Gaiman, this is a clever, creative little film. I love the music choices. And who doesn’t want to get more of a peek at those bookshelves?

3. The third is a short segment of a Tori Amos interview. She has some wonderful things to say about Neil. For many of us, Tori Amos is inextricably linked with Neil Gaiman as their work has such a connection. Many of Tori Amos’ songs, including my favorite, Tear in Your Hand, have references to Neil and his work.

4. Speaking of which, there is Tori performing Tear in Your Hand. Keep your ears open for “If you need me, me and Neil’ll be, hanging out with the Dream King”. And of course you all know who the Dream King is. 😉

5. This is another video that demonstrates just how much Neil Gaiman’s work can inspire others and how amazingly creative people really are. This is high quality stuff. The creator, Bonsai Ninja, describes it thus:

[This is a] booktrailer for Neil Gaiman’s novel Coraline, done for a contest. To answer some questions: titles are in Italian, meaning “we’ve been waiting for you””who are you?””I’m your other mother”. The music is from the 3rd piano concert by Rachmaninov, played on a celesta.

6. And speaking of Coraline, the above is a snippet of animation from the movie. Seeing the ghost children really has me excited about how amazing this film is going to look in 3-D.

7. Above is the only truly long piece (at almost 9 minutes). It is a has very dark picture quality but is well worth listening to. It is Neil Gaiman talking about H.P. Lovecraft. I discovered Lovecraft last year and I became an instant fan. His work has a certain something about it that appeals to the gothic side of my nature. Lovecrafts’ work certainly fits within the mythological category of the Once Upon a Time II Challenge in my opinion.

8. This is Neil Gaiman reading The Day the Saucers Came. It is one of my favorite stories in Fragile Things. It is fun listening to it and hearing the appropriate laughter from the audience.

9. A fantastic live action version of Neil Gaiman’s children’s book, The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish.

10. Dave McKean is also inextricably linked with Neil Gaiman. His imagery is the quintessential (I’m in danger of overusing the word over the past two posts, but it is a fun word) Gaiman imagery for nearly everything Neil Gaiman has created. This is a short video based on William Shakespeare’s Sonnet No. 138.

11. Above is the bit from Mirrormask where these odd creations perform a creepy transformation with a slightly skewed version of Close to You.

12. I love Mirrormask, so I simply had to include the trailer.

13. I began with a poem and will end with one. I include this not only because I like it, but because Nymeth mentioned in the comments of the last post that this was her favorite Neil Gaiman poem.

Happy Thursday everyone!