I want to read everything there is to read by and about Neil Gaiman, as he the executor and proprietor of the world I’m wrapping my brain around as if it were my job because currently, it is.  This man is a brilliant purveyor of character meets history meets whimsy meets nightmare. There are infinity articles, interviews, books, like so much that I want to stop time, find a hammock that will hold me for three years as I read it all, but so far my favorite is a book that’s been made out of a commencement speech he gave a few years back, in which he tells the grads: when things are bad, make good art. The more I read of his, the more it feels fitting that my brain meets him now, as he is kind of my oracle, telling me things that I so badly need to hear.  He acknowledges that as a writer, you are a person in the world, and so things are going to go badly. He says:  “I think you’re absolutely allowed several minutes, possibly even half a day to feel very, very sorry for yourself indeed. (THANKS NEIL YES. I DO SOMETIMES, AND I WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO, OCCASIONALLY.) And then just start making art.” (OKAY FINE, YOU DON’T HAVE TO YELL.)