tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14758117801277041472024-03-14T02:56:43.182-07:00Doug MacLeod - In the Front RoomThe place where I write.DougMacLeodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05291444835875083084noreply@blogger.comBlogger76125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1475811780127704147.post-84673504406036201302014-04-10T14:25:00.001-07:002014-04-10T14:25:25.953-07:00DiagnosisIt's discoid lupus.DougMacLeodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05291444835875083084noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1475811780127704147.post-47194517586459175722014-04-09T00:23:00.000-07:002014-12-18T13:31:42.982-08:00Damned Spots<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span lang="EN-US">Craig Smith and I made the CBCA shortlist
with our greenish book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Windy Farm. </i>You
can make it about sustainability, if you want to, otherwise just enjoy the
flying pigs<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">. </i>Craig’s pictures always
delight me and he somehow manages to find humour in just about everything he
does. (This helps when you’re writing what are purported to be ‘funny books’
and Craig is the decorator.) I’ve been lazy with the blogging, so this post is
for my stroke rehab team at The Alfred. I was supposed to be keeping a work
diary this week, to make sure that I didn’t work too hard and undo the good
recovery my brain is making by over-stressing it. I realise it all seems like
an egregious excuse for laziness. But seriously, I had two solid ten-hour
writing sessions last week, without a break and I knocked myself out
completely. I got an idea for a sequel to the body-snatcher book, involving the
head of Oliver Cromwell,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and I didn’t
want to let that bloody muse go when I had her in my grasp.Ten hours used to
be a reasonable, pleasant enough day’s writing<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for me.
These days it’s almost fatal. I have to stop work every hour, then meditate,
then … oh my god I just read this post back and I seem to have become Mozart on
his death bed all of a sudden, being coaxed by Salieri to write just one more crotchet or flying pig joke. To
compound the historical allusion, the doctor has found strange lumps on the
back of my neck, and they’ve cut them out to analyse them. I’ve either got the
Black Plague or Lupus or acute hypochondria or something even more worrisome. The odd thing about my visit to the dermatological department of the Alfred, is that the doctor kept dragging in more and more people to look at the curious lumps on my neck. Some were students, others were various plague specialists and yet others were paying members of the public at a bit of a loose end. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">It became like the state room scene, and if you do not know what I'm referring to there, why on earth are you reading this blog? It made me wish I'd gone to more effort with my underwear, but I wasn't expecting Groucho and the rest coming to spectate. I find out tomorrow what the lumps are.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">A<o:p></o:p></span>nd I didn't bother to fill out my work diary yesterday, because I was far too busy celebrating <i>The Windy Farm</i>'s success, but in a restful, meditative way. Quite.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6qAzyTbn86p5QrQhzN5EbrMF0Pv4zAkDtH9qoEinQ9mIHa9IvLDHX-t0hkRFGVnMnMu5Vpn9SNqI8wjrdP9owPgbgZjUmsF36w_BWfQRKUxBiBJNIzaKhpuCBBh1EYUbTOqr-OUBl9dw/s1600/Photo+on+11-03-14+at+3.13+PM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6qAzyTbn86p5QrQhzN5EbrMF0Pv4zAkDtH9qoEinQ9mIHa9IvLDHX-t0hkRFGVnMnMu5Vpn9SNqI8wjrdP9owPgbgZjUmsF36w_BWfQRKUxBiBJNIzaKhpuCBBh1EYUbTOqr-OUBl9dw/s1600/Photo+on+11-03-14+at+3.13+PM.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1f2326; line-height: 150%;">Is your
smartphone making you rude? Do you think technology is a distraction from
manners? How do we use technology yet remain considerate</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1f2326; line-height: 150%;">?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1f2326; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">These topics were discussed on ABC News Breakfast yesterday
morning, and of course there were numerous tweets from viewers who thought that
mobile phone usage had made people inconsiderate. Viewers complained about shop
assistants who took calls in the middle of making a sale – thus, not making a
sale. I commiserated. I’ve been on the number 96 ST Kilda tram alongside mobile
phone users whose conversations are so loud that you can’t even hear the guy up
the back who’s got a bottle of sherry in a brown paper bag and has remarkable recall of
the collected works of Rodgers and Hammerstein. (Why do so many derros know
every song from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My Fair Lady</i>?) Our favourite horror godfather Stephen King got so teed off with mobile phone users that he
wrote a big fat novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cell,</i> where mobile
phones have caused their users to become insane, vicious zombies, pulling
people apart with their own hands, but not without first checking their SMS’s
or downloading a more beguiling ring tone. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizNECqfaMlmnw-8m0QFzB05o-VxKkRRukiJyw92WFfAXjVGNgaczN6pwx7yLPfc7LS4vSMRgS-hoBlZYuFd5B2cU80HiUE_84h10pCtxYpNNUDwmb7_XXiR42yaq2FVhZv5qyGCLfVOaI/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-03-11+at+3.18.54+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizNECqfaMlmnw-8m0QFzB05o-VxKkRRukiJyw92WFfAXjVGNgaczN6pwx7yLPfc7LS4vSMRgS-hoBlZYuFd5B2cU80HiUE_84h10pCtxYpNNUDwmb7_XXiR42yaq2FVhZv5qyGCLfVOaI/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-03-11+at+3.18.54+PM.png" height="188" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1f2326; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As much as I enjoyed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cell</i>,
I think Stephen King’s novel seemed too much like the rantings of an angry old
man. You know, the sort of guy who is always railing at the local kids for
walking on his lawn. Nevertheless it will make a brilliant movie and collect
several billion dollars, provided Andy McDowell or Paul Rudd aren’t in it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1f2326; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This week I finally joined the smart phone generation, or the
‘21<sup>st</sup> Century’ as Steve Jobs preferred to call it, during his
zestier ‘alive’ period. I have a sweet, shiny iphone, which I am only gradually
learning to use. And my stubby fingers will never be able to manage that tiny
keyboard. But clearly it can’t be that hard. After all, I constantly see car
drivers using their smart phones, which they obviously wouldn’t do unless (a)
smart phones are easy to manage and (b) they’re homicidal idiots and Stephen
King was right.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1f2326; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Most of all, people (including Mr King) seem to resent having
other people’s phone conversations inflicted on them, when these conversations
are generally about stuff that really doesn’t seem so urgent that the ringer
could not have waited till he/she was off the tram or bus.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1f2326; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But there is a worse kind of overheard mobile phone call that
can really weird you out. On one Tuesday afternoon when I took the route 96,
all passengers were fixated on their tablets, iphones, kindles, or whatever
they use to make their journey more pleasant. Suddenly a cry of anguish filled
the tram. This wasn’t the sound of someone being attacked or harrassed (I know,
because I live in St Kilda and that’s a sound I’ve heard before.) This was the
sound of someone who has just received the worst possible news. It was news
that physically hurt. Everyone on the tram, even the sherry guy, looked in the
direction of the sound. It was being made by a young, tough-looking man who was
wearing a suit that seemed a little too small for him, and that had probably
been cleaned in a coin launderette once too often. The man in anguish cried out
again into his iphone. It was a girl’s name. Let’s say it was ‘Brie’ because it
usually is.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1f2326; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And what Brie, at the other end of the phone had just told the
tight suit guy (we’ll call him Brad because he looked like he should have been
one) was that their relationship was over. This obviously came as a surprise to
Brad, because his cries of disbelief and horror were absolutely genuine. What
followed was Brad trying to convince Brie that they shouldn’t break up, because
he was so impossibly in love with her that he would kill himself if she left
him. Seriously, the breakup by mobile phone was as dramatic as that. We passed
Middle Park station and Brad was still threatening self harm. At Fraser Street
he’d calmed down a bit. Then Brie obviously brought up some transgression that Brad
had made, because he reassured her that this would never <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">never</i> happen again, they’d already talked over this. He didn’t even
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">like</i> Wendy. And he hadn’t pashed her,
he’d just bumped into her at Southern Cross Station outside Pie Face. He could
probably get the CCTV footage, if Brie didn’t believe him. ‘Just <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">please</i> don’t leave me.’ The mood on the
tram changed from one of bland Tuesday afternoon indifference to genuine
concern for Brad. His agony was palpable. It touched something in all of us;
that terrible moment when we learn that a relationship is mangled beyond repair.
And not just any relationship. But the only one that seems worth anything and
that reassures you in the night at 2.00am when you used to get nightmares,
which will no doubt return. I wonder how many commuters were thinking of
offering advice to Brad? ‘Come on, you were too good for her anyway.’ ‘There’ll
be other Bries.’ 'I know what really happened at Pie Face. It was innocent. You're a hulluva nice guy.' I know I wanted to, but Brad seemed in no condition to take comfort
from strangers. And who could blame him? He was being dropped – by mobile phone!
That’s almost as bad as being dropped by an SMS or a Facebook post. And he
looked the sort of guy who doesn’t usually burst into tears in public and who
only just tolerates the Twilight movies because Brie likes them so much. Even
the sherry guy was stunned by what he had heard. He was silent. Clearly, he
couldn’t think of an appropriate song, though I’m sure there are several. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blue Sunday</i> springs to mind, though a
Jim Morrison vocal is hard to pull off. You really need to be on bourbon, not
sherry.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1f2326; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Several people left the tram a few stops early at Fitzroy
Street, to avoid Brad’s terrible, horrible ordeal. Before long it was just Brad
and me and the mobile phone with Brie at the end. Brad howled into his
instrument about how he would never again do what he had done that had so upset
Brie. Then Brad stopped talking when he realised it could no longer serve any
purpose. Brie had hung up. Brad immediately pressed return, but Brie had
decided not to take calls. Now was my chance to say something to Brad, but how
could it possibly pick him up after this epic separation? Brad walked toward me
and the back doorway as the tram stopped at The Esplanade. This was Brad’s stop.
Mine wasn’t till Luna Park. I wanted to tell Brad that things would get better,
that he mustn’t give up on being a good human being. I made eye contaxct with
Brad as he headed for the exit. Once I was on a tram with a young guy who was
‘chroming’, sniffing aerosol paint from a plastic bag. I remember seeing his
eyes as he entered the zone of unhurting, the place that he needed so badly to
reach and relied upon the paint fumes to get him there. The chromer had a dead
face. He was no longer in the normal human dimension. He had mentally checked
out. And that’s how Brad looked as he left the tram. I don’t think that
anything I said would have saved him from how he felt. I just hoped that Brad
wouldn’t throw himself under a car, or seek comfort in petrol fumes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1f2326; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And when I woke up at 2.00am that night I thought about Brad and
Brie, wishing they hadn’t made me an eavesdropper of their demise.</span><span style="font-family: Courier; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
DougMacLeodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05291444835875083084noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1475811780127704147.post-61474319555116423222013-12-27T19:59:00.002-08:002014-01-19T21:27:15.100-08:00Why a tiger?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Here'e the press release for my next Penguin, which audaciously takes on the theme of comedy and how it unites and divides us. Hmm yes. That's why we put a tiger on the cover.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpypa03gyozmRmBXDBT4WgBY6Mms6nx0taWhFqgCAqwgjvFIKLJ96tlR47Q1R8Tc03R-huqFLSJUJQtXunLU-njX6hZKeAqGFz3BJXm7JW6mkyUzldQe90gD3PmEwhA2hF3tNE9aCPkPg/s1600/Tigers+Press+rElease.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpypa03gyozmRmBXDBT4WgBY6Mms6nx0taWhFqgCAqwgjvFIKLJ96tlR47Q1R8Tc03R-huqFLSJUJQtXunLU-njX6hZKeAqGFz3BJXm7JW6mkyUzldQe90gD3PmEwhA2hF3tNE9aCPkPg/s320/Tigers+Press+rElease.png" height="320" width="229" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">On my <a href="http://www.dougmacleod.com.au/">website</a> you will find a book called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My Extraordinary Life and Death</i>. I used
an old trick, where I added silly captions to some unlikely pictures, in order
to build up a story. Here is the finished product.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ5ATrbJ4cBLQJfbt1u4CawFUeUeiy875A6Pndu4qvVVoPFFVYfbD_1fmho7H_cMXXZOlAZvApL-lZWiMDt2ay0wbP9eQC4AkXbdJemAon7JU5HdPNK8gDoIl9M462Ngiia403Y2MrzMI/s1600/MELADpng.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ5ATrbJ4cBLQJfbt1u4CawFUeUeiy875A6Pndu4qvVVoPFFVYfbD_1fmho7H_cMXXZOlAZvApL-lZWiMDt2ay0wbP9eQC4AkXbdJemAon7JU5HdPNK8gDoIl9M462Ngiia403Y2MrzMI/s320/MELADpng.png" height="314" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I
started doing it on my blog for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Inside a
Dog,</i> the website of The Centre for Youth Literature at The Melbourne State Library.
I was supposed to blog about my life three times a week, but really there
wasn’t enough to blog about. I don’t review books, so I couldn’t fill my blog
with literary critique.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I became obsessed with Project Gutenberg,
the on-line repository for books that are out of copyright and therefore free
to the public to download. One particular title, ‘Banbury Chapbooks’ gave me a
vast quantity of curious pictures that assisted me in coming up with a bizarre
story of my life. Here are some examples of pictures that caught my eye and suggested curious moments from someone's insane biography.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEy3X3ixLKk8eAGKvc8TZsBN8Ed13KnegBXrBl4MS4XhBVPaHTbzZKNDYFUJNGMR6ix_N6xn_rESLdNEtxXkeS71lNqXG4ctE9SZh7toIPDikmVSOWajb_d1qYdd1KnkhzzjWc2qcUc_k/s1600/Balloonpng.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEy3X3ixLKk8eAGKvc8TZsBN8Ed13KnegBXrBl4MS4XhBVPaHTbzZKNDYFUJNGMR6ix_N6xn_rESLdNEtxXkeS71lNqXG4ctE9SZh7toIPDikmVSOWajb_d1qYdd1KnkhzzjWc2qcUc_k/s320/Balloonpng.png" height="320" width="212" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiPDwDskytTIy5vLN7go82Kq_P2qKhq4Z1Bvoz5prnARNn9lW_I3MP91sPPlSlLPf_NpiW0olXTayXhzBhoodIb5HF6lZSRkifTb_vAn4pc5irdAl1yEqPYqnJIUAe1NyNKmXUqfwUy0U/s1600/Bombiepng.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiPDwDskytTIy5vLN7go82Kq_P2qKhq4Z1Bvoz5prnARNn9lW_I3MP91sPPlSlLPf_NpiW0olXTayXhzBhoodIb5HF6lZSRkifTb_vAn4pc5irdAl1yEqPYqnJIUAe1NyNKmXUqfwUy0U/s320/Bombiepng.png" height="320" width="316" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGhymzXjJs7YsamaFGQRmQ31YTwheUa2yx1ZbG0T68YgqD9M8KI-Vt60B93j-Tob_J-eyg6WfdFy4MAmlFa0FgxT8VzVjcDcYQzawhclE2qtY3IxQ7KBfrCkf7agY1b9KfuK2kf8-9tWA/s1600/annoy+the+cow.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGhymzXjJs7YsamaFGQRmQ31YTwheUa2yx1ZbG0T68YgqD9M8KI-Vt60B93j-Tob_J-eyg6WfdFy4MAmlFa0FgxT8VzVjcDcYQzawhclE2qtY3IxQ7KBfrCkf7agY1b9KfuK2kf8-9tWA/s320/annoy+the+cow.png" height="264" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I know it sounds easy to make a story out of pics with silly captions, but it wasn’t. I’ll see if I can
explain why.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-large;">COMEDY ISN'T EASY</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The theme of <i>Tigers on the Beach</i> is comedy and how it unites and divides us. Just to remind you, <i>Tigers on the Beach </i>is my next Penguin novel, not the collage book we are currently discussing, for the purpose of analysing comedy, something that Mark Twain suggested you should never do.</span></div>
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Paul Collins owns and runs an independent publishing company, and we're very glad he does, because it gives us authors one more shot at getting published. Paul has been of great help to a
number of authors and illustrators, and continues to publish with enthusiasm
and aplomb. His books always look good, largely due to Paul’s strong working
relationship with designer Grant Gittus. When Paul saw my blog story about the
bizarre things that purportedly have happened to me in <i>My Extraordinary Life and Death</i> he very kindly offered to publish
it as a book. I wasn’t sure about this, until Grant Gittus showed me how the
book would be treated. It looked fantastic, so I went about the task of
augmenting the story, and giving the whole thing a ‘comedy pass’. (That’s a
film and TV script editor’s term. It simply means adding more and better jokes.)</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I wanted to make the book as funny as
possible. Which brings us to why it wasn’t easy to do this book. Everyone
insists they have a sense of humour, but everyone’s is different. I did about
seven versions of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My Extraordinary Life
and Death</i>, all of which reside on my hard drive. I think a couple of them
are actually funnier than the finished product. The reason I had to redo the
book over and over is that Paul and his entourage (he tends to rely on quite a
few helpful people and has interns) kept disagreeing with me on what was
actually funny. I suppose that when comedy is presented so simply – a picture
with a funny caption – everyone believes they can do it and that their
way is better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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There was stuff that I thought we could
lose, for the benefit of the overall ‘story’, but other people wanted to keep
it. And I was obsessive about ‘plotting’ the book so that it really did cover
an entire life. I had a war chapter and a school chums chapter, which I thought
were both good, along with a few pages describing how the subject of the story (‘me’)
made his vast fortune, enabling him to lead a life of eccentric luxury. But
some people wanted to drop these chapters. I remember arguing with Paul about
whether to use the word ‘tavern’ or ‘pub’ for this picture:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisJXSGQauPIebOY5q9M12n1WHX8Rikxxul4K26KWdPeMuY4oH_YUjvJ2JT0S7oliJ-XetJYYzVj8oyL-om3-O668l8rbAThek8meTBQ-glEuLHn-zYHryFTGWL73XDVncMRWTwt-Y9i0Y/s1600/The+BAr:TAvern+perplex+png.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisJXSGQauPIebOY5q9M12n1WHX8Rikxxul4K26KWdPeMuY4oH_YUjvJ2JT0S7oliJ-XetJYYzVj8oyL-om3-O668l8rbAThek8meTBQ-glEuLHn-zYHryFTGWL73XDVncMRWTwt-Y9i0Y/s320/The+BAr:TAvern+perplex+png.png" height="305" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Paul wanted to use ‘tavern’ because it was
more suitable to the Victorian period in which the story seems to take place.
And of course ‘tavern’ means ‘pub’. Most people would know that. So why did I fight
for ‘pub’ instead of ‘tavern’? I’ve finally worked out what bothers me about
‘tavern’. It’s a fine and elegant word but it trips up the reader.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One is inclined to linger just a moment too
long, meaning the rhythm of the joke is lost. Jokes are like music. And even
the best gag in the world can collapse in an embarassing heap if the person who
tells it doesn’t have the timing or understand the joke’s ‘music’. Arguing
about this page became symptomatic of the whole book. I got angrier and
angrier. So did the Ford Street gang until they started giving notes like, ‘None
of us thinks this is funny’, to which I would respond , ‘I’m sorry, but I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do</i> believe it’s funny and it’s my bloody
book, etc.’ A sort of compromise was struck where we made a website that people
could visit and see the chapters that were deleted. I really like the one about
war. And there are four pages in the ‘general offcuts’, involving how the
book’s subject made such vast quantities of money. We'll come to those missing portions in a moment. I was pretty happy with the
end product, and we certainly got our fair share of good reviews. One
overenthuiastic critic even sompared it favourably with a new release from
Joseph Heller.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The critic was clearly bonkers.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US">Here is a link that actually will get you to the secret missing chapters of <i><a href="http://www.fordstreetpublishing.com/melad/index.html">My Extraordinary Life and Death.</a> </i>Don't get too excited. It's not like we just found <i>Fury From the Deep</i> in Ethiopia.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Paul works tirelessly to promote his
product.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I did more interviews for <i>My Extraordinary Life and Death </i>than I have for any pf my other books. I’ve bought a fair bit of stock from Paul,
because I don’t like to think that he is losing money on my title, which he was
brave enough to bring into his stable. But he surely must be. I haven’t seen
the book anywhere except on the odd sale table. I guess one of the problems is
that the book is so beautifully made and designed, that it’s rather expensive.
I had hoped that the book would be a ten dollar wonder, like the current crop
of ‘Popular Penguins’. I think the book would have had a much happier and more
commercial life if we had kept the unit price down. The quality of paper and
binding is simply far too good for such a silly joke. It retails for twenty
dollars, and I would urge you to buy it, if only to keep Ford Street from going
under. Although you probably will get a few laughs out of it. Andy Griffiths,
who knows a few things about comedy, is a fan, and the Oscar-winning movie director
Adam Elliot has also sent me a lovely email, completely unsolicited, about how
much he likes the book’s comedy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I have an embarrassingly long history of
producing mass market TV comedy shows. Look me up on <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0533882/?ref_=fn_al_nm_2">IMDB</a>. I’ve also written
quite a few ‘funny’ novels for young adults. I got some kudos for a funny book
called<a href="http://www.dougmacleod.com.au/library12.php"> </a><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.dougmacleod.com.au/library12.php">The Life of a Teenage Body-snatcher</a>.
</i>I have the runs on the board, so to speak. The Australian Writers Guild
even awarded me a citation for my contribution to Australian comedy.</span></div>
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This is what a citation looks like. And holding it is what we call a comedy writer. They never look happy, even when holding a citation.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXjxQxptPfGtiznTlMTk0S8zqVEy3RNcD89aR7o1Ck81dUpW40IvcuWJPAKlr60F9UmfXRQisMUmC2usls2UC2wxDYUkOx4O_-ZA6LoCiKDve3OU6gVoc09HGrz1QcuZZ8xc0CdqsguNM/s1600/Photo+on+png.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXjxQxptPfGtiznTlMTk0S8zqVEy3RNcD89aR7o1Ck81dUpW40IvcuWJPAKlr60F9UmfXRQisMUmC2usls2UC2wxDYUkOx4O_-ZA6LoCiKDve3OU6gVoc09HGrz1QcuZZ8xc0CdqsguNM/s320/Photo+on+png.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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It’s an
award that many of my former employees would probably dispute. But it’s still a
bloody award that I can hold up to the world to boast, ‘I’m good at comedy. I
always have been. And I bloody know why <i>pub</i> is funny and <i>tavern</i> isn’t in the context of page 110 of <i>My Extraordinary Life and Death.</i></div>
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DougMacLeodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05291444835875083084noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1475811780127704147.post-66621914919707470402013-11-26T17:41:00.000-08:002013-12-03T13:40:19.978-08:00More Fun with Rehab<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Dear reader,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I'm making brilliant progress in stroke rehab. Today I want to present you with one of the exercises.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(It's okay, I'm not breaking any rules.) My therapist gave me a block of type that had been badly punctuated. There was barely a full stop in the whole thing. Anyway, my job was to make it read like English and retype it. It struck me as I was doing the work that the prose had a surreal beauty about it. It was basically telling people what to do on days where some sporting event you don't like is taking place. It's not an article that was created to be taken seriously, or they wouldn't have made the references to Julie Andrews. Everything under EXERCISE is my corrected version of the copy.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglR5k7qP1bR69ZCVABchTbVeoUK0oi9WwV3-dYmCiUsr1zT1HOpddJgPcQO2uL9hFjAQ2szoVicbRDCbtycAS507WSTBINjNYd3wd09eafiu-qaRE3bE8MunIiUDAvbmlbqgtZmsNwklk/s1600/Julie+aNdrews.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglR5k7qP1bR69ZCVABchTbVeoUK0oi9WwV3-dYmCiUsr1zT1HOpddJgPcQO2uL9hFjAQ2szoVicbRDCbtycAS507WSTBINjNYd3wd09eafiu-qaRE3bE8MunIiUDAvbmlbqgtZmsNwklk/s320/Julie+aNdrews.png" width="247" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
J<span style="font-size: x-small;">ulie Andrews shows her obvious contempt for gridiron.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Everything under ADDENDUM is the instruction I felt I had to add, just in case readers didn't get the gist of the article. In other words, it was me just pissing about. My therapist pointed out that I had made some mistakes in rendering the content of the exercise, but that it seemed like I hadn't made any goofs in the addendum, which I guess means I preferred typing it. I wanted to make my therapist laugh. She did, then we continued with <i>Mathematics for Living. </i>(I can't put those on the blog for two reasons. They are copyrighted for medical use only and they are as interesting as algae.)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anyway, here we go with the exercise, which I believe Basil Fawlty would describe as a journey into the bleeding obvious. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">EXERCISE</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You don’t have to be a football fan to love
Super Bowl Sunday. You can have a terrific time without ruining the game for
others. ‘It’s actually a great day for non-football fans,’ says Julie Andrews,
author of <i>A Woman’s Guide to Football</i>.
You can go places and do things in relative peace because so many people will
be wrapped up in the game.<span style="color: red;"> </span>So, plan your activities and leave the
football fans to their entertainment. Here are Julie’s suggestions for having a
super time during the January 28 Super Bowl:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Celebrate the end of the season by throwing
a party for your non-football friends, with plenty of food, music and fun
activities. Have the party at the home of someone who has no fans in the house,
so you won’t be disturbing any serious football-lovers, Julie advises. Rent
videos you’ve been wanting to see. It’s a good day to get those hard-to-find
movies that are always out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Enjoy them
with your favourite snacks in a room away from the gridiron fans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Go somewhere you usually avoid because of
crowds. Shopping malls, amusement parks, hit movies and other attractions will
be less crowded because the Super Bowl keeps many people away. Find a quiet place
to enjoy one of those books you’ve been meaning to read. This could be a quiet
time when you can read without interruption. Spend time with a friend who’s not
a football fan. Plan an entire day that includes lunch at your favourite
restaurant and other activities that the two of you will enjoy together.
Consider joining the football festivities if you don’t really hate the game,
but you don’t understand it enough to be a fan. Take some time before the super
Bowl to learn about football. Julie suggests it’s not that difficult and you
may discover you actually enjoy it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">ADDENDUM<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Things to avoid when planning your special
non-Super Bowl Day:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Do not have your special gathering in the
sporting arena where the game is actually being played as there will almost
definitely be crowds there and you will find yourself in the very situation you
were trying to avoid! If you have an acid-throwing machine at your house, make
sure to switch it off before your non-Super Bowl activities take place. You
probably shouldn’t have an acid-throwing machine anyway, as Julie Andrews
argues at some length in her recent two volume bestseller, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Don’t waste your Money on Stupid, Dangerous Machinery that throws Acid.
<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Julie Andrews adds with a note of caution that
it is considered exceedingly poor form not to attend the Super Bowl if you are actually
a gridiron player on one of the two teams competing. Also, remember that many
people go to the game as a family, which of course will mean that their homes
are vacant for the afternoon. Seize the opportunity to burgle these houses as
you will meet little resistance, and you may also come away with quite a
substantial swag of contraband. It is best to steal small, valuable things that
are easily transported. Julie Andrews suggests it is unwise to steal
refrigerators as these are large, cumbersome and difficult to maneuver. You
will find it easier to hock items such as jewelry and up-to-date electronic
equipment. If your husband insists on attending the Super Bowl, despite your
imploring that he spend time with you, then you may care to pursue couples
counselling, or indeed shooting him if this does not render positive results.
Though Julie Andrews is quick to remind her readers that murdering your husband
can lead to all manner of complications. There is also the very real
possibility that your bullet may miss and Hubby may return fire, leaving you
dead and bleeding on the settee. Hardly the Super Bowl celebration one would
hope for! Toodle-pip!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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DougMacLeodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05291444835875083084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1475811780127704147.post-48273790568372477732013-11-25T22:40:00.002-08:002013-12-28T13:13:04.137-08:00And now … in new, improved GERMAN flavour<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span lang="EN-US">I’m not going to bore any of you with a
definition of onomatopoeia, because most of you already know, and if you
don’t, it doesn’t especially matter. In my very first verse book that I wrote for Penguin
(it was called <i>In the Garden of Badthings </i>and it was a long time ago)
one of the verses is nothing but a collection of nonsense words.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx7j6iqYMbJ11VnSfkHhr50dS8ap47aoFhQod_mg5WgWgSZqmv0XH-Gl6cY_9JlHAJMhFiuV8LV-wQz1eHM8GD4JCY71d8MB3kr_CIwkSXrrTcFi95uOgWFrupfRHaydwVTPj5Z3G9bDs/s1600/Garden+of+Badthings.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx7j6iqYMbJ11VnSfkHhr50dS8ap47aoFhQod_mg5WgWgSZqmv0XH-Gl6cY_9JlHAJMhFiuV8LV-wQz1eHM8GD4JCY71d8MB3kr_CIwkSXrrTcFi95uOgWFrupfRHaydwVTPj5Z3G9bDs/s320/Garden+of+Badthings.png" width="251" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">My first book of verse with Penguin. It's still in print, if you go for that kind of thing.</span></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US"> The verse is
called <i>A Swamp Romp</i>, and, when read
aloud, it’s meant to sound like trudging through a swamp. That’s all there is.
There’s no sharp sting in the tail, and nobody dies in a peculiar way. (I was a
little surprised when I read my second book of Penguin verse, <i>The Fed Up Family Album. </i>Just about every
character ends up dying in a weird way. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVK7XbZ9_aNP_p6iLv6Sr9DN2rHshnrZgiG9rwtrjZkA310hyphenhyphen3aFpdAtHgthpVBc5eDq63s1p4C6iI7EUBHzlgk5yJ32tIO5YOYM19OhJT4lsQNV53gjCX5DPSEvYQDpH3xIMMtCciZHE/s1600/Family+album.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVK7XbZ9_aNP_p6iLv6Sr9DN2rHshnrZgiG9rwtrjZkA310hyphenhyphen3aFpdAtHgthpVBc5eDq63s1p4C6iI7EUBHzlgk5yJ32tIO5YOYM19OhJT4lsQNV53gjCX5DPSEvYQDpH3xIMMtCciZHE/s320/Family+album.png" width="205" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">My second book of verse with Penguin. A complete bloodbath. The corpse count is higher than Romeo and Juliet, which manages to knock off all the teen characters except one.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">People are devoured by shearing
machines, or expunged by sculptures made of plumbing. One cousin meets her
demise in a knitting machine, and another in a coffin perched on roller skates.
It didn’t occur to me at the time that
the book is fixated on death, yet purports to be funny. A critic called David Tickell gave me a really hard time about it, and I now see why. I’m also
amazed that I can remember such a dreary name as David Tickell after all these
years. We pretend the bad notices don’t bother us, but of course they do. If
David Tickell were a character in the <i>Fed
up Family Album </i>he’d die a particular nasty and bizarre death, no doubt involving machinery. And yet he’s
probably a perfectly nice person. We always pretend to believe <i>that</i>, as well. He’s obviously <i>not</i> a nice person. He’s a
troglodyte, a reprobate and that 'c' word that I never use. CRITIC. We seem to have wandered off the point a bit. Here is the original version of <i>A Swamp Romp </i>as it featured in <i>In The Garden of Badthings</i>. (There's an illustration too but you really don't need to worry about that.)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxRPWSCsyRmi8Pi5D4-2L2vjyykraBf4P-EjiDXIqeMfea6y2VIYG8bH7hrn2Rigo14GZdZAmoJziwAN8bKbGNxXcnc6R6ag7jXlZq1cGwn7XbGuN86Ry4aSYoTQDco801vqQumOtDdYc/s1600/Swamp+Romp+English.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxRPWSCsyRmi8Pi5D4-2L2vjyykraBf4P-EjiDXIqeMfea6y2VIYG8bH7hrn2Rigo14GZdZAmoJziwAN8bKbGNxXcnc6R6ag7jXlZq1cGwn7XbGuN86Ry4aSYoTQDco801vqQumOtDdYc/s1600/Swamp+Romp+English.png" /></a></div>
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Makes no sense at all. Really doesn’t work
unless you’re prepared to read it aloud and indulge a horribly precocious
author.</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">To my knowledge, none of my work has been
translated into any wonderfully exotic language, not even French. <i>The Night Before Mother’s Day</i> was
translated into American English by the painless rendering of ‘Mum’ as ‘Mom’. I
was surprised when Penguin told me that someone wanted to translate one of my
poems into German. I was even more surprised when I learned that the poem they
wanted was <i>A Swamp Romp, </i>which really
can’t be translated from English, since it’s not actually in English to begin
with. I wished them all the best and was startled to find out, eventually, what a good job somebody had done of
translating Anglish nonsense into German nonsense. Here’s the German version.
(And German really is the ideal language to use if you’re going to create the
impression of trudging through a swamp.) Eins, zwei, drei …<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_BMLQtLwu3TyP9LCwchQXBJONuCDNrZMedMSj4DXk9fAc7TrBi5RIAuZ47xDy-Nj_ljHZTZtErjzzOezREwqUXq1wvB3h2hztnMG87Sj0X9fKqPUmR05pB-oWrjl360El7HxR937IHb8/s1600/Swamp+Romp+English.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_BMLQtLwu3TyP9LCwchQXBJONuCDNrZMedMSj4DXk9fAc7TrBi5RIAuZ47xDy-Nj_ljHZTZtErjzzOezREwqUXq1wvB3h2hztnMG87Sj0X9fKqPUmR05pB-oWrjl360El7HxR937IHb8/s1600/Swamp+Romp+English.png" /></a></div>
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I'm immensely flattered that someone went to all the trouble of making English onomatopoeia into German onomatopoeia. Here's the German book …</div>
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And here's the monster that apparently makes all those German onomatopoeic noises:</div>
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And here is the finished cover art of my next Penguin novel,<i> Tigers on the Beach</i>. It's due out early next year.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Pretty, isn't it? The book will investigate such topics as why there are so many weird deaths in a book that is meant to be funny (The Fed up Family Album, not <i>Tigers on the Beach). </i>Yes, it's a book about comedy.</span></div>
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<span id="goog_44039813"></span><span id="goog_44039814"></span><br />DougMacLeodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05291444835875083084noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1475811780127704147.post-9084766822114625252013-09-27T18:52:00.000-07:002013-09-27T18:52:29.007-07:00The Loneliness of Liz Lemon<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US">I love <i>30
Rock</i>, the series created by Tina Fey, based on her experience as a script
producer on NBC’s <i>Saturday Night Live</i>.
Tina Fey’s beautifully nuanced character is called Liz Lemon, and she has a fairly
ambivalent view if her job. But she is very sure about one thing. In the show
she has a team of writers working for her and they all hate her. Surely this is
paranoia? Why would they all hate someone who basically wants to do a good job
and behave like a decent human being? The actors try to beguile her with the
usual charming tricks that actors use to get what they want. But the writers’
hatred for Liz Lemon is blatant. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNA2YkLHWHRVxH6BIXbnbenXjy5dG951kzKJ0mZ9mmuDV_7SfGSJSk13BEWWvf31XuhJeVGM1Tmo8a_Kyu8KtFVgZndnTCT2JJnZwi1fRNbAxw8rLvjW05zbjQxrAH4gXjkwxHWVwZl3k/s1600/Lemon.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNA2YkLHWHRVxH6BIXbnbenXjy5dG951kzKJ0mZ9mmuDV_7SfGSJSk13BEWWvf31XuhJeVGM1Tmo8a_Kyu8KtFVgZndnTCT2JJnZwi1fRNbAxw8rLvjW05zbjQxrAH4gXjkwxHWVwZl3k/s320/Lemon.png" width="208" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US">Liz Lemon is right about all her writers
hating her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US">And I know that, because I used to have her
job. Okay, the show was <i>Full Frontal</i> and
not <i>Saturday Night Live</i>. But my job
on <i>Full Frontal</i> was to say ‘No.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -36pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">And that’s a terrible job. People will often do anything but say
that word, because they know what it leads to. I was the script producer on <i>Full Frontal</i> for a couple of years, where
my task was to prepare for air one hour of sketch comedy per week. And it had
to be ‘heartland’ sketch comedy. That is to say, the jokes had to appeal to
people who live outside the inner city. These outlers actually had to like it. Programmers
arrogantly tell you, ‘We make shows for the people we fly over.’ This creates
all sorts of problems. First of all, if you’re working in comedy in Melbourne, <i>none </i>of your close friends lives outside
the inner city, unless they have farms or islands. So, it’s 1996 and every week
I’m getting nagged by my many, many friend about why the show is so lame. I
sort of shrug and give a goofy smile that I think is endearing but probably is
as annoying as an Andy Mcdowell simper. And I remind myself that I’m being quite
well paid by people who want me to deliver them a rating of around 18 per week
on a regular basis. And that’s what <i>Full
Frontal</i> used to get. So, stuff the inner city, there were obviously a lot
of people in the suburbs who were watching <i>Full
Frontal</i> week after week, and why the hell would they do that if they didn’t
think it was funny?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS6a1gK8kY-39yeB9UkN_dnIi_uT1dGnT7pW-_46SakSYEepZBNv2PuDof5V7gzMFj6nu682CeF_8rSRReNr5u3MQpfYJ4Svd5MKw_3zMLuIKQR8j0hDGgqgLnIFWzMncOxUzLcQVAado/s1600/Alan.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS6a1gK8kY-39yeB9UkN_dnIi_uT1dGnT7pW-_46SakSYEepZBNv2PuDof5V7gzMFj6nu682CeF_8rSRReNr5u3MQpfYJ4Svd5MKw_3zMLuIKQR8j0hDGgqgLnIFWzMncOxUzLcQVAado/s320/Alan.png" width="240" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -36pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"> One year we employed the
excellent New Zealand-born comedian Alan Brough as a core writer for the show.
I fell in love with Alan, just like everyone does. He’s ridiculously charismatic.
And yes, he’s very funny. You can also talk with him about literature if you
want, because he actually reads, though my main aim was to extract from him two
minutes of broadcast-quality comedy script material per week. At first I was
sure it wouldn’t be hard. He was sweet, clever and funny. He also didn’t seem
like other sketch writers. He bathed, he cared about how he dressed, he flossed,
and he was <i>polite. </i>I was staggered by the air of politeness the
gentle giant brought to the scuzzy writers’ room in Dorcas Street. When Alan picked up a ringing phone, he didn’t give the usual Dave O’Neil ‘Yeah?’<i> </i>He actually told the ringer which
extension they had reached and asked to whom would they like to speak. At first
I thought it was some sort of wind-up, but I’m now convinced it was all quite
genuine. I think Alan was just born nice, like a lot of New Zealanders. I was
reasonably sure I’d have no trouble talking him through a script, maybe
suggesting a rewrite, or getting him to liaise with the performers, since his
script would have a better chance of being filmed if a performer was
particularly keen on doing it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -36pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">I’m not affable. I thought I was, but I’m not. And I discovered that
Alan Brough isn’t affable either – at least not when you say ‘No’. I was so
dumb, I didn’t get it at first. I asked the other writers what had happened to
Alan? Why had he stopped being nice? Things not going well at home? Some relative
fall into a mud spring? Pesky outbreak of ebola virus? The writers thought I
was being disingenuous, or probably an easier word that means deceitful. Surely
I knew why Alan Brough had started hating me. ‘Hate’ is probably too strong a …
no, we’ll stick with that. Finally Anthony Watt, who is one of those sketch
writers with a pretty impressive education behind him and who ended up
producing ABC’s <i>The Spicks and The Specks</i>,
explained to me that I had rejected a script from Alan. Alan hated me for the
same reason that all the writers hated me. I had said no. Actually, knowing how
keen I was to foster better producer/writer relations, I had probably given Alan
a whole page of notes as well, maybe even grand final tickets. (We were working
at Seven, after all, and there were usually good tickets to the tennis, the
footy and even the Olympics – though not, oddly, The Logies, even in a year
that we were nominated (it hurts, and it’s on my website, in the ‘Commercial
break’ section, if you’re interested. I didn’t think so). I know I would have
been polite to Alan, even though I had not used his work. Because, dammit, I
wanted lovely big funny Alan to <i>like</i>
me. I had heard reports of other script producers who had been so despised by
their employees that they had been forced into a graceless retirement up north
somewhere, maybe teaching the odd class in Advanced Irony at a TAFE college. But I was determined that wasn’t going to
happen to me. I’d be the ‘nice’ script producer. But unfortunately, as I was
soon to learn, you’re only nice if you say ‘yes’ and if that means we spend a
lot of money shooting a sketch that stiffs and that I’ve greenlighted, then
everybody, not just the writers, will stop liking me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -36pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">What amazed me was the speed of Alan’s transformation. I’d only
rejected a script for god's sake, I hadn’t told him that his
mother had a face like a bashed crab.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -36pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">I didn’t truly realise the depth of this writerly resentment until I
attended </span><span style="text-indent: -36pt;">Anthony Watt’s wedding and found myself listening to four speeches,
all of which were delivered by members of Full Frontal’s writing staff and all
of which included a cheap swipe at me about what a bastard I was.</span><br />
<span style="text-indent: -36pt;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_G1prINuevvZ0SMhGjsnDoUDPr2qNiuHRrw0x_C6NX-siPXO4J11tvbIqkS73wMwLC5ZRxI5g0FObuFHO3mSe_4YP_QrPRlKagfD-XltBPngPnY8-6XOArbIIDU1t8SSxxSdHE_NT7Gs/s1600/Shaun+mIcallef.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_G1prINuevvZ0SMhGjsnDoUDPr2qNiuHRrw0x_C6NX-siPXO4J11tvbIqkS73wMwLC5ZRxI5g0FObuFHO3mSe_4YP_QrPRlKagfD-XltBPngPnY8-6XOArbIIDU1t8SSxxSdHE_NT7Gs/s320/Shaun+mIcallef.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="text-indent: -36pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -36pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Shaun Micallef was such a rare and wonderful find that I not only
wanted him to like me, I wanted him to write an awful lot of sketch material
every week. He and Gary McCaffrie were easily the best writers we had. I had
been known to schedule Shaun Micallef sketches without them even existing,
confident in the knowledge that Shaun would come up with something. And Shaun was, indeed, the picture of what Alan Brough had originally been. He was courteous. He never stuck a phone receiver down the back
of his shorts to scratch his arse. (Neither did Dave O’Neil, but I swear I once
saw one of my writers do that.) Of course, it helped that Shaun was a strong
performer and he would be the one delivering the material, so he had a vested
interest in making the thing go as well as possible. Shaun Micallef will do
absolutely anything for comedy. He has been shaved completely bald on a ‘live
night’ for a gag, the nub of which escapes me. He has walked through the South Melbourne Shopping
Precinct stark, bollock naked except for a police cap and boots. The sketch
wasn’t the best we’ve done, but you have to admire courage like that that. He
has also done some of the most dangerous slapstick I have ever seen in front of
a studio audience. I had to make discreet enquiries about whether Channel Seven
would be liable to compensate Shaun (a lawyer, don’t forget) in the event of
his damaging himself. I was more concerned about losing the show’s main engine.
Without Shaun we really wouldn’t have a show. He was always nice, even when I
had to drop sketches that hadn’t quite worked though they were ‘conceptually
funny’. Shaun never used that expression. He’s not as pretentious as I am. No
one is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -36pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">A brief detour. Producer Alan Hardy has had a brilliant career. I believe he
‘discovered’ Kylie Minogue. She was under a chair somewhere. Though Alan was always doing great work, he was forever
known as ‘the son of Frank Hardy’. It’s one of the bugbears of having a famous
parent. And now that Frank is no longer the behemoth he once was, Alan is now
faced with another bugbear. He is now known as the father of Marique Hardy, yet
another behemoth who happens to be his daughter. I sat with Alan recently, though it can’t have been<i> that
</i>recently because we drank a fair bit and I haven’t done that for a while. We
were chatting like a couple of old luvvies about Shaun Micallef, when Alan mentioned an
anecdote that Shaun had told at some conference somewhere. Someone complimented
him, quite rightly, on the quality of his first ABC sketch series. Had it been
hard to do? Shaun replied that it wasn’t that hard to do, since it had already
been written. He had simply used all his sketches that had been rejected from
Full Frontal. Alan seemed to think this was incredibly funny. (So, I gather,
did the audience at the conference.) I
did not think it was incredibly funny because it was untrue and wrong, <i>wrong, <u><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">wrong</span></u></i><u>.</u> (Wow. Sorry about the font change but this hurts.) I won’t be
accused of being the man who turned down plasticine <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egu5m12XF2g">‘Myron’</a>, a mini
masterpiece that certainly would have been absorbed and, inevitably overwhelmed by <i>Full Frontal.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -36pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">That first ABC Micallef series really was a belter and I hated the notion
that I had rejected that much good stuff. I’ve never told Shaun I'm upset about what he apparently said at the conference. It would be awkward, so I had to pretend that I could take it on
the chin, just as all the comedy workers have to do. <i>The loneliness of Liz
Lemon.</i> How well I understand it.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -36pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"> Not long ago, Shaun did a
magazine interview about how dispiriting it was to join Full Frontal,
especially as he had submitted thirty scripts on his first go, and they had all
been rejected – the reader inferred, quite summarily. He’s right, I
did reject them, but I didn’t actually throw them into a fire while brandishing a crucifix, I rejected them
courteously. I don’t know if it really was thirty scripts, though it wouldn’t
surprise me, as Shaun’s annual scriptfall is huge. There were certainly a lot of
scripts in his first submission. But I do remember sitting with Shaun in his
first week and telling him that I thought the material he had submitted was
very funny (undoubtedly most of it was) but that I was concerned it might not
appeal to our show’s target audience, who might not be as familiar with the
movie <i>Greystoke </i> as Shaun evidently was. One of <i>Full Frontal’s</i> trademarks was a weekly -
usually dire - TV or movie parody. If we did a movie parody it had to be
something like Star Wars; any movie that was ludicrously well known, or ‘our
audience wouldn’t understand.’ (I had that direct from the Seven boardroom
boys. Channel Seven viewers apparently did not go to movies, perhaps in fear that they
might accidentally end up seeing an Australian one.) Now, Shaun had chosen to
write a parody of a movie that was not only ‘arthouse’ but that had also been
made in 1984, twelve years before our meeting. There were jokes that not even
the most ardent of Christopher Lambert fans – and there
must be dozens - wouldn’t have got. Most of our viewers would have been around four
in 1984 and probably thrilling more to the wit and wisdom of <i>Owly School </i>than an elegant retelling of
the Edgar Rice Burroughs tale of the mysteriously cross-eyed boy who was raised by apes and
eventually brought into society. Anyway, Shaun seemed affable enough about my
gentle rejection, and, thank god, he kept writing for me. Though he pointedly
resisted writing show or movie parodies since he rather detested them. There
was an incident … I remember casting Shaun in a live night presentation of a
parody based on the Fran Drescher series, <i>The
Nanny.</i> It turned out that cast member Kitty Flanagan could do a pretty good
impersonation of Nanny Fran Fein’s laugh. Anyway, a script was produced by four of <i>Full Frontal’s</i> regular writers. I tried to make it as painless as possible for
Shaun by adding a few good jokes for him – though I recall it wasn’t a
solid-gold script and was probably just a limp parody highlighting Australia’s
ineffably stupid government. We used that same formula for nearly every parody.
I wonder if anyone noticed? I thought that, in a way, casting Shaun was an act
of flattery. After all, we needed a handsome performer to play the debonair Mr
Sheffield, and while cast member Eric Bana was certainly handsome, he just didn’t
have the ‘class’ that Shaun had. And John Walker was so small he could only
play ants. Anyway, the sketch was never aired, or indeed completed. Shaun found
it impossible to deliver a single line correctly and seemed to have suddenly
developed Alzheimer’s. I think it was Shaun’s secret message to me that he would be writing his own
material from then on. Actually, it would have been better if he’d actually
told me this to my face, since we had already spent a motzer on a set that
passably resembled the set in the original TV show, wardrobe had sourced some suitably
outrageous stuff for the Fran Fein (Kitty) to wear, and make-up had spent hours
trying to get our regular cast to look like the cast of the famous American
sitcom highlighting the talents of Fran Drescher. Musician Yuri
Worontschak had already written a soundalike of the show’s theme song. I
really, really wish Shaun had said ‘No.’ But maybe he didn’t want me to get
offended.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtThApLjjmD-T3hWqLfQ_MdjcMimpaiTLE31RyKLSNAGJQWnNyDfqTQUxgosCV7S6PyfNy32xHMfPJnsw5Ohz9K1AUrTP6rjUDKBuaPxx5PNK05Z2H3VmnsM1dj7v0qt2EF3oh7Lm7X7o/s1600/morpho-butterfly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtThApLjjmD-T3hWqLfQ_MdjcMimpaiTLE31RyKLSNAGJQWnNyDfqTQUxgosCV7S6PyfNy32xHMfPJnsw5Ohz9K1AUrTP6rjUDKBuaPxx5PNK05Z2H3VmnsM1dj7v0qt2EF3oh7Lm7X7o/s320/morpho-butterfly.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -36pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Years later, in an awkward turning of tables, Shaun asked me to
submit material for his new SBS sketch program, <i>Newstopia</i>.<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIfH0vY2ANA">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIfH0vY2ANA</a> I knew that it was
probably a mistake, but I did agree to submit some stuff and my name even appears
on the IMDB writing credits of the show, even though nothing of mine went to
air. There’s a good reason for this. I felt embarrassed about submitting
to Shaun, as by now I was quite in awe of him. I did send him one sketch that examined the trope, oft favoured by
reporters, that if a butterfly beats its wings in Brazil, there ends up being
an earthquake in Australia, or somewhere on the other side of the world. I
think it’s to do with chaos theory, because everything is. One night I saw a journalist
trying to use the expression, but he became geographically confused. His butterfly was located in Paraguay and his
earthquake ended up being in Bolivia. That doesn’t quite work, because Paraguay
and Bolivia are too close together, they share a border, so the whole sentiment of
the expression is lost. It’s almost as if there really are butterflies in Paraguay
that are capable of causing earthquakes in neigbouring countries by beating
their wings. So I wrote a sketch that had Shaun arguing the point with an
interviewee, moving off the subject and wondering whether there should be some eradication program for
these South ameican killer butterflies. Even as I type this, I blush with embarrassment.
It wasn’t a good idea, I shouldn’t have turned it into a sketch and sent it to
Shaun. It wasn’t used and neither of us has ever mentioned it. Shaun didn’t
want to say no. He let me do it for myself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -36pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US"> The loneliness of Liz Lemon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -36pt;">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment-->DougMacLeodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05291444835875083084noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1475811780127704147.post-12910300320799720252013-08-22T18:12:00.000-07:002014-03-12T22:34:42.211-07:00Bloody Stupid<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I learned with sadness that Terry Pratchett
is suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s. I think I have a taste of what that
is like. This morning I managed to screw up two perfectly simple tasks. The
first was to confirm that the Foxtel repair person was coming today to fix my
clapped out Foxtel, as originally arranged. I rely upon Foxtel quite a bit at
the moment, as the days drag by and I’m still finding it impossible to write
and hard to read anything deeper than a Stephen King. Foxtel’s computer negotiated
me through various departments and eventually I got to the customer service
people. Why is customer service always the last option? And why do they always
tell you at the start of the recorded computer stuff that ‘options have been
recently changed, so please pay attention’? Surely the options can’t change
that often? Anyway, I waited and eventually spoke to a lovely man called Darryl
in India (I suspect ‘Darryl’ might have been an alias.) Anyway, there was a
breakdown in communication (my fault). Rather than confirm the appointment, I
managed to cancel it altogether. So I rang back, sat with the computer for ten
minutes, then desperately tried to reach Darryl and tell him I had made a huge
mistake. I wanted to reverse the decision that had been made by accident. No
way was that happening. I had to make a new appointment and the Foxtel man
will now be coming on Sunday morning. So, it’s just two days more without
Foxtel. No big deal but how the hell did I manage to cock things up like that?
I also renewed my membership with The Australian Society of Authors but gave
them a credit card number that was quite wrong. They rang me back about that
not half an hour ago. How did I manage to get three of the digits wrong? I had the
card right in front of me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">These seem like tiny things to you, and
indeed they are, but I make stupid mistakes like this every day. I’ve obviously
reached a part of my stroke ‘recovery’ (they assure me I’m getting better) where
I am useless at positively everything. No wonder they won’t let me drive. I’m
really not bothered that my short-listed book, <i>The Shiny Guys </i>didn’t win the big award. I forgot when it was all
supposed to happen and I didn’t know the books with which I was competing. But
cancelling the Foxtel man when I already had a perfectly good appointment <i>does</i> bother me, because it seems the
sort of thing a mentally impaired person would do. Suddenly I’m living in <i>Mother and Son </i>and I’m Ruth Cracknell.
How long will it be before I put something inappropriate in the fridge, to gales
of laughter from the polite and surprisingly indulgent ABC studio audience? I
never liked the show and now I like it a whole lot less. This weekend, will I
forget the rule about Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses and invite them in? Will I
walk down to Fitzroy Street and give away my money to everyone who asks for it?
(A lot do. Though it’s dropped off lately since I started walking and talking
like – well, a stroke victim. I guess even the junkies must realise that
someone who looks like an extra from <i>The
Living Dead</i> is probably unlikely to have anything on him that’s worth
taking.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">But, aside from a rather rapid descent into
dementia, things have been okay recently. I did my Book Week talks (no more
than two in a day, because that’s all I can manage before I close down). The
schools were all delightful hosts. I even got a present from St Kilda’s very
own Christian Brothers College. I nearly teared up. That’s something else I’ve
been doing lately; crying when I shouldn’t. I guess all the drugs I’m taking
make me a bit hyper-emotional. I cry at Sherlock Holmes stories. Toilet paper
ads. Funeral insurance ads where they tell me that my funeral could cost as
much as $20,000 and they imply that if I don’t pay a weekly premium to them, then
I would be leaving my penniless children to a life of prostitution and
drug-taking. (Okay, they didn’t actually
<i>say</i> that, and I don’t have children,
but I still found it sad enough to weep.) It drives me crazy that Penguin wants
to call my next book <i>The Opposite of
Funny</i>. And it really shouldn’t drive me crazy, because I realise there is
no way a publisher would make itself look so utterly stupid by putting out a
book with a title like that. Why not just call it <i>Don’t Buy This Book</i>? The first title was <i>Tigers on the Beach</i>, which is why Karen Scott did this amazing
cover art:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqnaTqxubX3cL_EQjl7YO8_3TYNEv_a-GeJB2JhqgN6LFeGzi55tP9R26biRdJbJZzMcck4mEIDP2JP8OAnlT3D2zDV4awt5PQsHgyxbAyZ-XPR3xwOEAtTTPeIus2L-3f9qeGTr2V43w/s1600/Tigers.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqnaTqxubX3cL_EQjl7YO8_3TYNEv_a-GeJB2JhqgN6LFeGzi55tP9R26biRdJbJZzMcck4mEIDP2JP8OAnlT3D2zDV4awt5PQsHgyxbAyZ-XPR3xwOEAtTTPeIus2L-3f9qeGTr2V43w/s320/Tigers.png" height="320" width="291" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I know the book
isn’t as good as the <i>Body-snatcher</i>
book or even <i>The Shiny Guys, </i>but I
don’t have the brainpower to make it better. My brain isn’t sharp enough for me
to be an author at present, which is why I’m relying so heavily on my editor,
Amy Thomas. She’s good, but I think I need to be taken to task more often. I
miss my old editor Dmetri Kakmi because he was quite hard and often I had to
justify and fight for the choices I’d made. Here is a typical example of Dmetri
editing a page from one of my YA novels. As you can see, he’s fairly ruthless.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqrSrj3b-hg8X6gSd-Pkf9lk7onCQZFgA0hVi81zyHUwnhT0hiOZLTEyPKsXcpuTLmpbZBIUJXY0GL60R6nsMKMDL1xBE-y81utBCguE0Wg2XMy6TTTYdQ0ROOeYrS3AeHoVRrQe8sYoE/s1600/Dmetri's+editing.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqrSrj3b-hg8X6gSd-Pkf9lk7onCQZFgA0hVi81zyHUwnhT0hiOZLTEyPKsXcpuTLmpbZBIUJXY0GL60R6nsMKMDL1xBE-y81utBCguE0Wg2XMy6TTTYdQ0ROOeYrS3AeHoVRrQe8sYoE/s400/Dmetri's+editing.png" height="301" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">But I kept my cool
with Dmetri, we found some good solutions and we both of us did the final draft
together. I don’t think I’d be able to keep my cool at the moment if I was in a
cover/title meeting at Penguin. I’d probably cry. God, it’s all so embrrassing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Anyway, this
afteroon I get to see my neurologist, Dr Palit, to talk about all the terrible
crap that has been happening and how we might go about fixing it. Maybe I
really <i>do </i>have early onset
Alzheimer’s? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">Speaking of funny, or the lack thereof, I went to give blood this week. It sounds benevolent but it’s because I have too much iron, and it needs
to be taken out from time to time, or apparently I'll get liver cancer. I think it's actually illegal to stick in needles that are bigger thank that. It stops being medicinal and becomes voodoo. But for some reason, the nurses always find
it very hard to find my veins, which is why my arm has trackmarks. (Probably
another reason that Fitzroy street people no longer ask me for money. They’ve
all got arms like mine. I’m a brother!) Behold my arm. You can just see the grey mess of trackmarks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Qx_mVk4cRcUH8shezfg5m3nyISHJCvBYKT_pEev4KvUhEMxSyertyy_mZqnFT5Y04JHUy2DZKSyBZ_eescSURPKpNIGEKnBw6cXIZBhJsVP5qDDT_e7I7x77KrpYgWlm0cYCrukcSJ4/s1600/My+arm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Qx_mVk4cRcUH8shezfg5m3nyISHJCvBYKT_pEev4KvUhEMxSyertyy_mZqnFT5Y04JHUy2DZKSyBZ_eescSURPKpNIGEKnBw6cXIZBhJsVP5qDDT_e7I7x77KrpYgWlm0cYCrukcSJ4/s320/My+arm.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Anyway, the nurses were making it hurt more and more and I was starting to tremble. (It
really is a bloody huge needle they use – 4mm, about the diameter of a roofing nail.) One nurse fancied himself as a
psychologist and asked me if my trembling was the <i>result</i> of immense pain or the <i>anticipation
</i>of immense pain. I confess I was at a loss to answer. Finally, after about a
dozen attempts to find the veins in my arm, they decided it would be a
good idea to give me a local anaesthetic, which is only a small needle
that doesn’t hurt, thus numbing the area before they started plunging in that
4mm roof nail. The doctor who was performing the venesection was a charming Indian
man with an expert bedside manner. He kept moving my arm gently and making
me hold it out. I had my eyes closed, but rapidly opened them when the back of my hand brushed the groin of his
trousers. I felt uncomfortable, but the Indian guy didn’t seem to
mind. I asked him if it was okay to have my hand where it had ended up. He shrugged. It was
fine, so long as got the blood out of my body. Then I pointed out - half jokingly - that when I give blood I usually have to squeeze on
something like a small rubber ball to assist the flow of blood. The doctor laughed and said, ‘I have nothing here for you to squeeze’.
He really did say that, and i thought it was funny, which is why it's here.. Sadly he was the only witness. And given my stunning
ability to cancel Foxtel appointments accidentally, or misread something that is right in front of my nose, I don’t make a particularly
reliable witness myself. </span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->DougMacLeodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05291444835875083084noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1475811780127704147.post-51793572699800643462013-07-15T16:26:00.000-07:002014-02-08T02:04:48.441-08:00On Suspension<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span lang="EN-US">As soon as the doctors diagnosed me as a
stroke victim, my driving licence was taken away. I think this a perfectly sane
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I had a driving test last week in a dual-control
car. My teacher David was very good. He specialises in helping to get stroke
survivors back on the road. As soon as I sat in the driving seat I felt a huge
sense of relief and confidence. Of course I’d be able to drive a car again, I
got my original licence without too much trouble and I’d been driving for
years. David asked me to drive out onto the beach road that links St Kilda to
Port Melbourne. It’s a beautiful road with the sea on one side. I used to drive
it every morning when I was working in Nott Street, Port Melbourne, which I did
for many years, putting together weekly sketch comedy shows and other
productions. It could be an exasperating job, and that drive to work, with the
sea on my left, lifted my spirits before I spent the day making decisions about
how we could make our productions as effectively and cheaply and humorously as possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br />
Now my instructor had asked me to drive that route again, and I felt secretly
delighted. This was my beautiful commute road. I was confident I’d be
able to negotiate such a simple drive. We started well by avoiding the usual
crazies on Fitzroy Street who really do seem to want you to run them over. Always
drive along Fitzroy Street carefully and slowly, especially outside the
Gatwick, and I’m not going to pass judgment, so please people, don’t send me
that blood awful poem <i>Blame the Gatwick</i>,
which is trotted out whenever something unsavoury like a murder happens there,
and fellow St Kilda citizens would prefer it hadn’t and express their alarm or
concern.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Back to the driving test. The beach road
was perfect, with no crazies wanting you to end their lives and wanting me to put them out of
their suffering. I drove in the right lane for a bit and was surpised to find
myself running over the cat’s eyes that divide the right lane from the left. I
swear I was driving as carefully as I could, but I kept hitting those cat’s
eyes. David took the wheel to direct me back to the centre of the lane. I
freaked out. It seemed to me we were about to drive up onto the plantation
strip that divides the northbound road from the southbound. I was convinced we
would mount the curb and maybe crash into the odd tree, but David told me
gently that he was actually redirecting me to the centre of the lane, where the
road laws dictated I should be. I remained freaked out. When David let me have
the wheel again, I determinedly drove the car back to where I thought we should
be, which was far too close to the left lane. Since I was so determined to enter the left lane,
David advised me to do so, after it was established that there were no cyclists
or cars in that lane. I felt relieved. We were no longer in danger of mounting
the right kerb, not that we ever had been. But I kept veering across onto the
bike path. After a bit of extra driving, navigation and parking around Port
Melbourne, where I saw that the Nott Street Address where I used to work had
been changed into a big white thing (I
wasn’t hallucinating, David saw it too) David told me to drive back home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The whole experience was unsettling because
it made me realise that I was suffering left side neglect and this was
definitely a result of the stroke.
People think I’m bunking off when I tell them I can’t do much because
I’m still stroke-effected. They think I’m lazy. But the damage to my basel ganglia
is very real and I’m not the man I was.
I asked David when we would have another test, expecting this might become a
weekly thing, the way it used to be. He suggested that three months would be a
healthy interval. (Three months! I can remember having my licence taken away
for three months when I was in my twenties and a lollypop man reported me to
the police because I had crossed over a school crossing while there was still
somebody on it. That sounds homicidal, but school crossings are a little different
from zebra crossings. In the case of zebra crossings, you may drive over them
carefully, provided the pedestrians have already crossed and are well out of
your way. But with a school crossing, you are in the wrong if you drive over it
even if somebody still has the heel of their foot on the crossing as they are
stepping off to the pavement. A three month suspension had seemed an eternity
then, and I was kindly ferried around by my girlfriend Carolyn, whose
understanding of road law was just a little less than mine. I had been a
passenger when she tried to overtake a tram on the right. Carolyn accused me of
being a bad passenger because I kept saying inflammatory things like ‘Stop!’ or
‘Please stop!’ or ‘Please don’t knock off the old lady with the shopping
trolley.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I deserved the suspension back then, I'm the first to admit it. Now, I’ve just been given another suspension while we
try to work out my left field perception problem. I deserve this new suspension
too. I positively, absolutely don’t want to cause a car accident, because I’ve
been in one and they’re nasty. It was in a Sydney cab, so I plead mitigating
circumstances m’lud.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Three months does seem an inordinately long
time between driving lessons, and who knows if I’ll be any better next time? I
don’t know what exercises I should be doing to improve my left side cognition,
because my neurologist is on holiday.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">My car is an unimpressiveVW Golf and I’ve had it for ten
years. Like al the VW Golfs in St Kilda it is silver. I mainly use it to drive to schools on the outer edge of suburbia; schools
that have been kind enough to pay me to speak with kids who are ‘studying’ my
books, poor sods. A few schools study my book <i>Tumble Turn</i>, which I give away with this site, and will continue to
do until Penguin reprints. Since the stroke, I can remember aspects of writing
that book much more clearly than ever, so I’m happy to talk about it. I find it
much harder to recall recent, trifling things, such as what day it is. The recent
break-in and theft of my computer means that I had to come up with a whole
series of new passwords, very few of which I am able to remember. No wonder I’m
nervous about getting involved with Internet banking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The stroke happened eighteen months ago.
Forgive me if I keep banging on about it, but it’s changed my whole bloody life and not for
the better. Someone made an extraordinary statement the other day. They knew someone who was about my age and who had
also suffered stroke. This person apparently said that the stroke was the best
thing that could have happened to him., I wanted to know in which alternative
universe this person lived, because I can think of absolutely nothing that is
good about a stroke. But apparently this person’s life improved because he
realized his lifespan was limited, not infinite, and if he wasn’t happy with
his lot, he had better change a few
things about his work and lifestyle. The trouble is, I rather liked being an
author, even though I sometimes grumbled about it. I would very much like to be
an author again, but I know for a fact that I can’t quite do it at the moment.
The most frustrating thing for me is I left my nice TV job to write novels,
that were profoundly ignored by the people who are not supposed to ignore this
sort of thing. I’ll admit, with apologies to my good friend Graeme Base, that I
was actually offended when his book <i>Truck
Dogs</i>, made the CBCA shortlist one year and <i>Tumble Turn</i> didn’t, and <i>Truck
Dogs</i> actually won! But just before the stroke, all that was starting to
change. My Penguin titles <i>The Life a
Teenage Body-snatcher</i> and <i>The Shiny
Guys</i> were starting to appear on shortlists. I was <i>finally</i> invited to speak at The Melbourne Writers Festival, and I
was getting more speaking engagements generally, though I think that was
probably because I was also script-editing a show, <i>Kath and Kim</i>, which had suddenly became very popular, and teachers
found it somewhat easier to get kids to watch an episode of the series rather
than look at one of my books before I came to speak. At a writers festival in
Kunanurra, pictures of Kath and Kim were pasted up everywhere, inviting the public
to see the show’s ‘creator’ speak about the experience of being terribly funny
and popular. You’d swear the lovely ladies from Fountain Lakes themselves were
coming to the Pilbara. I didn’t like being a spokesperson for their show,
though I’m proud to be a part of it. It is spectactularly unfair for Jane
Turner and Gina Riley who were the sole creators and writers of the series. I
have never seen two people work harder, and my contributions were relatively
minor, but you can read about that on my website. Somehow though, I was
starting to get noticed as a writer of books. The stroke rather rapidly put an
end to that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I’ll let you know how I get on with my left
side neglect. It’s probably more
interesting than writing about how bloody wonderful I am and the trials of
being a writer for young Adults. (There really aren’t that many trials. I quite
liked my old life.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->DougMacLeodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05291444835875083084noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1475811780127704147.post-56128275540526969842013-06-23T01:54:00.003-07:002013-06-25T00:34:35.467-07:00Tiger, Tiger<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span lang="EN-US">it's a bit of a rambling post this week. Nothing hilariously funny and shoe-related happened to me. (See previous post.)</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">After formerly expressing profound doubts I hjave about the quality of my current novel, <i>The Silence of
Tigers</i>, to be published by Penguin early next year, I have now decided I
like it again. I’m doing a ‘pass’ over the first draft, just to make sure the
characters’ names are spelled the same way throughout, and I haven’t committed any howlers involving bad
grammar, bad choice of words and just general badness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The reason I disliked the novel was that I
really hadn’t visited it again since my stroke, and was more or less under the
impression that everything I’ve been writing lately must be terrible. The book
has a plot that’s embasrrassingly simple and old fashioned – boy-gets-girl,
boy-loses girl, boy gets back girl by showing extraordinary strength, kindness
or magic, or thermo-dynamics or whatever. There are my trademark explosions. The book will annoy some people, I think, because it
examines the theme of comedy and how we are both united and divided by it. This means I have had to include examples of
jokes in their many forms. What I find funny, you may not, and yet you will
insist that you have a sense of humour, in the same way that I defend mine. I
did mention in my last post that the title ‘The Silence of Tigers’ is far too
poetic and would be changed. For the time being the book will be known as <i>The Best Joke in the World</i>, which shows
hubris on my part, as I know that critics just love to attack comedies. (Particularly if you're promising something pretty funny, such as 'the best joke in the world'. There
was a famous TV critic, tragically no longer with us, who would just itch to
savage any new comedy that came to Australia’s TV screens. His name was Ross
Warrneke, and his vitriol became so inevitable, that I stopped sending him
preview copies of new shows I had made. This naturally made him angry and he
went out of his way to watch the show as
it went to air. He then did what many critics do when they feel like savaging a comedy. He
quoted jokes entirely out of context and challenged the reader to find them funny. The
best jokes in the world can be made to appear lame, if you don’t quote them
correctly, or you quote the setup but not the tag, or vice versa. One of Warrneke’s more surreal pronouncements
involved the early <i>Kath and Kim</i>
shows, which were gaining quite a following. He refused to budge from his view that the show was awful, and that’s fair enough. The man was entitled to an
opinion, after all, and was indeed paid for it. But the most bizarre thing he
wrote was a piece where he blamed newspapers for elevating the show’s status by
overpraising, such as trumpeting that two and a half million Australians had
watched one of the episodes, which was apparently some kind of record, but Mr
Warrneke was surreal enough to remind readers that this meant 17,500,000 Australians <i>hadn’t</i> watched the episode. Mr Warrneke is missed by many, and there
was a good turn-out for his funeral. About 250 Australians attended, quite an
impressive number. Mind you, this means that 19,999,750 Australians <i>didn’t </i>attend. It’s all a matter of
perspective, you see.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US"> Amazingly, whole episodes of the some of those comedies I produced at the end of the eighties <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiGmR5-S0l0">are appearing on YouTube</a>. It looks a bit jaded after all these years, but I still find Kim Gyngell's performance terrifically funny. We made the show for next to nothing. Unfortunately, it</span> shows. I don't know how you managed to get these, Stig, but well done. Anyone who has the staying power to last till the end of the episode will see the first use of CGI ever in an Australian sitcom. It cost us a thousand bucks to make the penguin wink. It was a hell of a lot of money for such a little bit of CGI, but I was the producer - see, that's my name at the top of the show - and I decided that the show really needed a stronger tagline, hence the CGI bit. Hell, it was channel Ten's money and I didn't like them very much.</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">But enough about TV. Going back to the original title of the
book, <i>The Silence of Tigers</i>, it is
actually relevant to an incident in the book, but I had to tweak that incident
just enough to make the title work. And the title was born when I gave a talk
about comedy books at The Wheeler Centre. I mentioned the Vonnegut classic, <i>The
Sirens of Titan,</i> thought by many, myself included, to be a comedy science
fiction classic. Certainly, Douglas Adams was a fan and he seemed to have a
pretty good grasp of what was funny. After my speech, a lady came up to me and
asked me if she’d written down the title correctly, because it seemed a bit
odd. What she had written was <i>The Silence
of Tigers, </i>which is apparently what it sounded like when I said<i> The Sirens of Titan, </i>with my temporary speech impediment.. It struck me that
this was a very beautiful title, and I was surprised to find that it fitted my
current manuscript quite well. There are actually two tigers in it, but the
don’t feature centre stage like Richard Parker in <i>The Life of Pi.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdRRYFZ922Yw4tPAVUV741VOqY1T_EfNeC6bk4k2Zc2zY2XdgUDMvNXzJVAP6gsdPSfuhsegeN8hKC71rYcgoHQkzzSngtrKD8eAB88CbgQs_0v7iOrqCDYdAYSM2bCBdoS14moTc0huA/s1600/Tiger.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdRRYFZ922Yw4tPAVUV741VOqY1T_EfNeC6bk4k2Zc2zY2XdgUDMvNXzJVAP6gsdPSfuhsegeN8hKC71rYcgoHQkzzSngtrKD8eAB88CbgQs_0v7iOrqCDYdAYSM2bCBdoS14moTc0huA/s320/Tiger.png" width="235" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Another great rough cover idea, though, sadly, no longer relevant to the book.</span></div>
</div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">Amy Thomas,
my new editor, probably anticipated some puzzled rumblings from
Penguin’s marketing division, and politely gave me a suggestion list of
alternative titles. They were good, and some of them even retained the
reference to tigers, but none really grabbed me. So, for the moment we’re
calling the book <i>The Best Joke in the
World, </i>and keeping our fingers crossed that Mr Warrneke doesn’t rise from
the grave.<i> </i>Anyway, I quite like the
book now. It won’t make any shortlists, because it isn’t that sort of
book. It sets out to amuse, which is
hardly a very lofty ideal and pretty much guarantees being passed over by the
gatekeepers, but we don’t write to be featured on shortlists, although of
course it’s lovely when it happens. Having written and published about a novel
a year since I left full-time TV work in 2002, and having never featured on a
shortlist of any kind, it was my firm pronouncement when I handed Penguin the
manuscript of <i>The Life of a Teenage
Body-snatcher </i>that I had made a book that was quite incapable of being
included on any prize lists at all. I was utterly gobsmacked when it appeared
on two shortlists, and even got an ‘Honour’ in The Australian Children’s Book
Council awards. Suddenly the universe had changed. <i>The Shiny Guys</i>, my last book, also managed a decent showing in the
shortlist stakes; it’s a weird book, certainly not classic ‘shortlist’
material, but I think it was considered ‘worthy’; by some people, because it
was funny, but about clinical depression. (At least I knew my subject quite
well.) It seemed the best way to make the shortlists was not to try to write
something that you might consider to be suitable shortlist fodder. So, who
knows? Maybe a book called The Best Joke in the World might end up on
someoine’s shoretlist, even if it’s just <i>Books
I wish I could unread to give me the time to read something that’s actually
good.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">While we can pronounce shortlists as
‘unimportant’ that is, of course, hooey. We writers rely on this sort of attention for
sales. A nod from the ACBC immediately guarantees a reprint as every school
library in Australia does its darndest to obtain a copy. A shortlisting doesn’t
just bump up royalties, it means that PLR/ELR, the annual grant that all
Australian writers receive as compensation for books unsold owing to library
purchases, goes up. This is an immensely important stipend, and without it many
authors would find life much tougher. We also get money from the copyright
agency, as reimbursement for our works that are photocopied. Gradually,
provided you can remain in print, it becomes possible to make a living as an
author. It’s not a terribly glamorous living, but it’s not as if I am
performing a vital function in writing books about tigers and jokes. Although I
must say I’m glad that when I was a kid I could read Australian novels by Mavis
Thorpe Clark or Ivan Southall or Patricia Wrightson. Mavis Thorpe Clark even wrote a book about
where I grew up in Gippsland in <i>Blue Above the Trees</i>.
It was wonderful to be able to read about a landscape I knew, and I’ll never
forget the bit about the burning, where our principal characters stand at the
outskirts of a forest fire and are suddenly crawling with waves of huntsman
spiders, desperately escaping the inferno.<i>
</i>Images like that don’t die easily. I hope we can say the same for the
Aussie book industry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ1Yot5FD3idx7Z21i2zIjMepeZr6U1OeodfaS28_PkkLZFHEhNNeLkydaelmvVf-5DgdWUGHKTnw87o3WxgpWupD7x7rr8EOVZwP-wG0_2YK1TM-9OqzEM8uQJWAmrWQeJhC1QCGSMVU/s1600/COLN.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ1Yot5FD3idx7Z21i2zIjMepeZr6U1OeodfaS28_PkkLZFHEhNNeLkydaelmvVf-5DgdWUGHKTnw87o3WxgpWupD7x7rr8EOVZwP-wG0_2YK1TM-9OqzEM8uQJWAmrWQeJhC1QCGSMVU/s320/COLN.png" width="257" /></a></div>
<!--EndFragment-->DougMacLeodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05291444835875083084noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1475811780127704147.post-80443590314578262342013-06-13T00:06:00.003-07:002013-06-13T17:33:20.077-07:00Lunch with my editor and other tragedies.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">On this very cold
and wet Melbourne day I trammed into town to meet with my new editor, the
lovely Amy Thomas. We had a new book to discuss, one that I wrote ages ago. (I confess I have reservations but will do my
darnedest to make the book better).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">On the way to Penguin
headquarters near Southern Cross station, I passed some men who were cleaning
some seriously disgusting graffiti from a wall. The rain started pelting down and
a toxic slurry produced by their efforts ran over the footpath and into the
gutter, even though they seemed to be taking all necessary precautions. The big sponges and buckets were there to collect the toxin; it was the driving rain that caught us by surprise. Only a fool would be stupid
enough to tread in this slurry(especially as there were signs telling us not to do so), and I avoided it. What I didn’t know was that
I had merely avoided walking in the painty part, but there was apparently a corrosive
acidy part, invisible to the naked eye. And my eyes are particularly naked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">As I sat in the
classy Penguin foyer I looked down and realized there was a row of footprints
on the floor, leading directly to where I was sitting. What the hell was on my
shoes? Stupidly, I thought I would avoid detection by moving to a different
seat. All that happened was I made more footprints. Even a child of three would
be able to follow the path and link the footprints to me. I was the person who
had destroyed the trendy penguin foyer with my painty shoes. But this wasn’t
paint. A cursory examination of my shoe heel confirmed there were no paint
splotches, but that my rubber soles were in fact dissolving. The only way to deceive anyone about the source of the ugly black marks would be to crawl on my hands and knees to a different chair. I actually considered it. But my life is not pure slapstick. I was resigned to being identified as the foot vandal.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">(At this stage might I comment on the new 'pink penguins' which are specially retooled pink covers, as sale of these books generates income for breast cancer research? I think the titles that have been chosen for the pinkisation process are all intended to appeal specifically to women. The Pink Penguins are all proudly displayed in the foyer. There is a lot of Jane Austen and E.M. Forster. But one of the titles chosen was<i> Perfume</i> by Patrick Suskind. It certainly sounds like a 'feminine' book, but I suspect that the person who chose it hadn't actually read it. It's hard to imagine women being uttery delighted by the mass murderer Grenouille seeking the essence of woman in a particularly gruesome way.)</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Ben Whishaw looking far too pretty to be the mass murderer Genouille in the movie, </span><i style="font-size: small;">Perfume.</i></div>
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIQaGnd1ZT9Q4gL0tGh-d4vokdUywwiEjmyrQxNiDWlBsoyDOumT0QNkrdT5SubBbFfvPyn-h7YW4DVMy3K4Dddto-AbGuLxouLSJ06w8QPQjJzhKRHS3IBH3K3XbTVQYa45xvkbxb4Q8/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-06-14+at+9.44.06+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIQaGnd1ZT9Q4gL0tGh-d4vokdUywwiEjmyrQxNiDWlBsoyDOumT0QNkrdT5SubBbFfvPyn-h7YW4DVMy3K4Dddto-AbGuLxouLSJ06w8QPQjJzhKRHS3IBH3K3XbTVQYa45xvkbxb4Q8/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-06-14+at+9.44.06+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">Special pink penguin meeting. 'Should we include <i>Fight Club</i>?'</span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Amy Thomas arrived,
pretended not to notice the ghastliness I had committed in the foyer, and suggested
lunch in the café at The Age building, which seemed a good idea, except for the
problem with my shoes. I was hoping we might eat in; it was now teeming outside. We both walked across the
bridge to The Age building. The wind was bitter. The rain fell in sheets. And
my shoes chose this moment to disintegrate completely. I had to explain to Amy
why I was making faces like a man with his feet in ice water. The reason was
abundantly clear. I lifted one of my shoes, but didn’t want it to look like I
was checking for dogcrap so I tried a more casual approach, ruined by the fact
that the last bit of the heel on my left shoe fell off in a lump and revealed
my dark blue explorer socks. I had been doubtful about my choice of sock. (Blue
with my trademark St Kilda black?)</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">I thought it best
to take a cab home, even though the route 96 is just the best tramline in the
world that practically takes me to my door. But the tram had just left and the helpful
electronic sign advised me that there wouldn’t be another for fifteen minutes. Could
I wait that long? The acid might have reached my knees by then. And was it indeed acid or something else i had managed to step in? So I decided to
hang the expense and climb into a taxi. The driver thought I was being overly polite
when I removed my shoes and he told me I only had to do that when I was
entering a </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.0pt;">مسجد</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">. I tried to explain about the lunch
incident, and I’m pleased to say he didn’t laugh at all. Why should he? It
isn’t funny. Though I think that he may have had limited language skills. Every time I
mentioned a pub – that’s how we navigate in St Kilda – he seemed to think I was
talking about a person. 'Who is The Prince of Wales? He does not sound like a
productive man if he is forever standing on the corner of Fitzroy Street and
Acland Street.'<br />
I have just given my feet the Karen Silkwood scrub. All toes are intact, I’m
pleased to report.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">The book we were
supposed discussing at lunch is a romcom for teens where comedy is examined in
detail. It can both destroy relationships and build them. It also invites the
reader to note that some things that may later seem comic were tragic at the
time. For the moment, the book is called <i>The
Silence of Tigers, </i>which is far too poetic a title and will undoubtedly
be changed.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">My favouriste designer Karen Scott came up with some very early and rough cover ideas. I really like this one, though i'd be surprised if the cover ends up looking like this, especially if we change the title.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span>
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<!--EndFragment-->DougMacLeodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05291444835875083084noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1475811780127704147.post-71638317399080560552013-06-01T19:32:00.002-07:002013-12-28T13:08:36.515-08:00Vale Kevin<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
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<span lang="EN-US">It’s horrible when your publisher decides
to put one of your books out of print, especially if it’s one that you like. (I
really wasn’t terribly upset when <i>Con’s Bewdiful
Australia</i> was put out of print.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: red;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCkEx7onQMQWdBOobKxromidRWu4Lo_7pfMLp-r8tsWUoKBWny578TzbJS_pLe1NMHAeWJYyZhVNa1aEVrNIOTdmVQ2Anj2yzKAFLv4dR5o6GOzvrsTWy4mSEiNbFpjvjdmhYN8qRrLCk/s1600/Screen+Shot.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCkEx7onQMQWdBOobKxromidRWu4Lo_7pfMLp-r8tsWUoKBWny578TzbJS_pLe1NMHAeWJYyZhVNa1aEVrNIOTdmVQ2Anj2yzKAFLv4dR5o6GOzvrsTWy4mSEiNbFpjvjdmhYN8qRrLCk/s320/Screen+Shot.gif" width="204" /></a></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: red;"><br /></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US">Kevin
the Troll</span></i><span lang="EN-US"> is officially out of print, and has been for a year. There are
about two thousand copies in schools and libraries so I hope you are lucky
enough to find a copy. It was fun to write about a main character who wasn’t
terribly nice, even though he has his reasons for being nasty. I finished
writing this book on the day of the second-last Federal election. I always
vote. I like to think I can make a difference. And I don’t mind queueing at the
St Kilda school to do it. You meet interesting people in queues, especially in
StT Kilda queues. But on the day I was finishing off the manuscript for <i>Kevin the Troll</i>, I was so thrilled with
how easily the story seemed to come that I completely forgot about voting and I didn’t care! I happily
paid the fine (and writers on the whole are not happy to pay for anything.) I
did try to say in my defence that I was writing a very good book at the time
and couldn’t be disturbed. (Smarty-pants excuses like this don’t go down well with the electoral office. Not
that I’ve used smart-pants excuses before . I’ve always voted and happily paid
two dollars for a charred sausage on Home Pride bread with White Crow tomato
sauce.) The one hundred and sixty page manuscript was
delivered to Penguin on the following Monday. I was slightly nervous, because
what I wrote on my website is true. Penguin wanted me to write another book
like <i>I’m Being Stalked by a Moonshadow,</i>
a sort of romcom for boys. Trolls had never been mentioned in the deal. But I
got writer’s-blocked, as usual. Although I have now finished the romcom and am
editing it with Amy Thomas at Penguin. (New editor! How exciting! Though I
think I’ll miss my old editor, Dmetri Kakmi. Kevin the Troll is dedicated to
him. One of the trolls is named after him. He hangs around a lot with the troll
call Barberastreisand.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"> Writing <i>Kevin
the Troll</i> was my rest and relaxation from the romcom. It gave me an excuse to surf the Net for cool
sites about Scadinavian mythology. It also gave me the opportunity of doing the
talking book version. I’ve not actually listened to it, but I’m told that my
Swedish language skills are borderline at best, even though I did get a brief
language lesson from the kind people at the Swedish church in Toorak.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSRbS3jWggmkWzL7QbwXqz-Zd6zj5_cw9EjKnTuI8F_tzuDGRgiCJXWkdEbcDBR01vrPBPMKQrV0Dg61RCJmu3REkXZOODRakvZkjc62hc72ZMs2uZ2vLx9nRkMxxVYUTviH-oOXtVKWY/s1600/e69b2908-beba-4239-8a63-66b72ac6b1bc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSRbS3jWggmkWzL7QbwXqz-Zd6zj5_cw9EjKnTuI8F_tzuDGRgiCJXWkdEbcDBR01vrPBPMKQrV0Dg61RCJmu3REkXZOODRakvZkjc62hc72ZMs2uZ2vLx9nRkMxxVYUTviH-oOXtVKWY/s1600/e69b2908-beba-4239-8a63-66b72ac6b1bc.jpg" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Kevin the Troll also gave me the
opportunity of writing things that were funny but not particularly relevant to
the plot. The book sort of wanders along and takes to very occasional diversion
from the plot, which is what Nordic sagas are supposed to do.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">But now Kevin is off to Walhalla. Penguin has come up with the absurd excuse that the book isn't making a profit for them. Most unprofessional of them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<br />
There will be something visually amusing here as well, when I've fixed the glitch. Kevin fan Emma Hancox has written Kevin's Epitaph in the form of a poem. Thank you, Emma, I'm sure Kevin would have loved it. It's got that delicate balance of niceness and creepiness, which is difficult to achieve, bt you've puled it off nicely. There are no awkward lines that have been tucked in, just to make a rhyme. Thanks again, Emma, for your good work, and shame on your teacher for not believing you wrote it.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
The Ballad Of Kevin The Troll</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
By Emma Hancox - Aged 9 years</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
When bones go crunch,</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
and flesh is ripped, </div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
Kevin The Troll is near.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
When you can feel cool</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
mist about,</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
Kevin The Troll is near.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
If you can hear groans</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
and shouts, </div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
Kevin The Troll is near.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
When you can see black</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
mould and slime,</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
Kevin The Troll is near.</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
If you can taste him,</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
that would not be true,</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
For Kevin The Troll would</div>
<div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
be eating YOU!</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Helvetica; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT3vqiZrHaNzK1YEbppV4XA3M6q75Jib6aXLswZM2hnuKajO4ajs0CAMWtsEkX8BwBe3EXJI4eRUfvufrGSJf_oR367pYqYTdP-A3-fn8NGF8TmL0oLeN6Wk7VqWhkxSzMy478zvm0g5o/s1600/weekly116_main_web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT3vqiZrHaNzK1YEbppV4XA3M6q75Jib6aXLswZM2hnuKajO4ajs0CAMWtsEkX8BwBe3EXJI4eRUfvufrGSJf_oR367pYqYTdP-A3-fn8NGF8TmL0oLeN6Wk7VqWhkxSzMy478zvm0g5o/s400/weekly116_main_web.jpg" width="250" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This wonderful picture of a troll skulking under a bridge and no doubt contemplating his next meal, was done by Dogstar artist Scott Vanden Bosch. I am using it without his permission, but I think he'll be okay about it because it just shows how highly I rate his work.</span><br />
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<!--EndFragment-->DougMacLeodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05291444835875083084noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1475811780127704147.post-56919927648765299512013-05-25T17:24:00.000-07:002013-12-28T13:11:26.062-08:00Who murdered my brain?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhekkJpDC33M1-7893qpO0-ddo6KK7YK8aijgSC7TYFXxdw3hCyh_S4xq7Qoq1tdYKQoa9EEyK-Cw6D_XUmx4mFv6H3sW9-3fFKReb9ELjCfU66RkmfIiHcUJTezX5yIMbTdeCOFn8AsP8/s1600/fim+crew,+Gadsby.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhekkJpDC33M1-7893qpO0-ddo6KK7YK8aijgSC7TYFXxdw3hCyh_S4xq7Qoq1tdYKQoa9EEyK-Cw6D_XUmx4mFv6H3sW9-3fFKReb9ELjCfU66RkmfIiHcUJTezX5yIMbTdeCOFn8AsP8/s320/fim+crew,+Gadsby.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 14.0pt;">There
has been a fair whack of publicity regarding Baz Lhrmann’s ‘reimagining’ of <i>The Great Gatsby. </i>In light of this, I
feel I have to clear up a gaffe I made during a speech at last year’s
Australian Book Council conference in Adelaide. I was on a panel with Michael
Gerard Bauer and some other funny writers, where I espoused my habit of reading
all the ‘short classics’. There was a general discussion about books like <i>Heart
of Darkness</i> and <i>The Outsider</i> and <i>Northanger Abbey</i>, some of which made it to
Twitter. I was pretty happy with an answer to the question about whether my
books were preferred by girls or boys. I answered that both sexes seem to
dislike them about equally. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Then
it fell to pieces.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I
lost my mind for a few moments and mentioned how perfect are the letters that
Fitzgerald exchanged with his editor during the process of writing the great
American classic (which, of course, Fitzgerald didn’t realise he was doing). I
made the startlingly stupid remark that the reader is never sure of who drove
the car that killed Myrtle, one of the principal characters. (Spoiler, but you
all know it.) What I said was patently wrong and rates right up there with Sarah
Palin telling us all that Africa is a country and not, in fact, a continent. No
one corrected me so I shall do so now. Of course we knew who was driving the
car. In the letters to his editor, Fitzgerald was never happy with the plot
point that forced the departure to New York, thus setting up the Death of
Myrtle story. It didn't seem strongly motivated. (Fitzgerald's words.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW4zmrobOxeAqZI82ygglAJZbvU__AHUbEuteRgdV1XHgrzGxRDnBPUK-6r5P0H-_jF63hze39AripdjbWEyw_y2jzU6R-hvqW-tP-0XGb0QU23kQabC_NmgMj964eSuzH5zIYpbC_ar4/s1600/Gadsby+COver.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW4zmrobOxeAqZI82ygglAJZbvU__AHUbEuteRgdV1XHgrzGxRDnBPUK-6r5P0H-_jF63hze39AripdjbWEyw_y2jzU6R-hvqW-tP-0XGb0QU23kQabC_NmgMj964eSuzH5zIYpbC_ar4/s320/Gadsby+COver.png" width="256" /></a></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Fitzgerald
was never satisfied with this part of the book, and this somehow made my
stroke-addled brain activate my voice to inform a large, literate audience that Gatsby’s
car must have driven itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I
am profoundly, humbly sorry for saying such an idiotic thing. I think that the
only two movies to feature driverless cars are Stephen King’s <i>Christine</i> and
Disney’s <i>The Love Bug</i>, neither of
which appear in the movie of The Great Gadsby, unless Baz has taken some
startling liberties with the story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 14.0pt;">It
may seem all too convenient to blame the great stroke of 2011 for my gaffe, but
that damned thing has changed pretty much every aspect of my life. I find it
very difficult to write. And while I bear little in common with WH Auden,
unless I age particularly badly, I agree with him when he says that unless he
writes something every day, he goes to bed feeling unwell.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSLBw7oIvYLKz7ioszsIMVYtetBzU_-eEqKiNV9ZSjdHoIfvwkDYWZ0BlyF9qvbBvSxFw7lpZSSxxO9LfFJO_YUSRmdLZJvjQEDNl4OYquSBKlIruEh0gjPagAJ4JylaL-PphVbmufrnI/s1600/Auden.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSLBw7oIvYLKz7ioszsIMVYtetBzU_-eEqKiNV9ZSjdHoIfvwkDYWZ0BlyF9qvbBvSxFw7lpZSSxxO9LfFJO_YUSRmdLZJvjQEDNl4OYquSBKlIruEh0gjPagAJ4JylaL-PphVbmufrnI/s320/Auden.png" width="238" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New';">WH Auden, presumably at the end of a day where he hasn't written anything.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt;">It’s taken a lot
longer to recover from that stroke than I thought it would. I can walk, read, watch movies, yet
I’m still disabled on so many levels. The bit of my brain that died is at the
base of the Basel ganglia. It’s a part of the brain that we need especially for
memory, but also for logic, or ‘cause and effect’, which are rather important for
a writer. I nervously accepted a job on Shaun Micallef’s wonderful series, <i>Mr
and Mrs Murder</i>. I warned the producers that I’d had a stroke and that I wasn’t at the
height of my powers, but they still wanted me for the table meetings, where a
group of writers sit and go about the vital task of plotting
a series. We were making good progress. I pitched a storyline and started to
write it up myself, away from the table. My story was based on a book I’d read
about the extraordinary world of professional body-building, which touched on the subject of doping and strongly
indicated that the most effective growth hormone there is can be found in the
human pituitary gland, just behind the ear. My story would be about some mortuary
worker who was extracting the valuable fluid from cadavers. (It's what Hitchcock called The McGuffin, the terribly valuable or powerful thing that people want and that drives a story.) The subject matter
didn’t give me a readily apparent and interesting ‘corpse’, so that Charley and
Nicola Buchanan had a murder to investigate. I thought of what I considered a
brilliant idea of having the corpse provided by a sunbed, from which the
occupant was unable to escape, owing to whatever that drug it is that Agatha
Christie keeps putting in her books, the one that renders the victim completely
immobile, so that they are alive to feel the horrors and agonies of the demise
that the perpetrator has arranged for them. I believe it was given to the
murder victim in </span><i style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt;">Murder on the Orient
Express.</i><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt;"> Thus the victim remained alive to witness his death by (huge
spoiler) absolutely every single suspect.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSinhUl2nHJJrptUxHa8QigwKp0HzuyY9GEpmW9xqdsixas8wnCDAkhmQrpx4SO84bf2iHgMWL-xKdos0D9rz8kCIHU1jU-X08qfhRvFtZgj1xCo11me50pvYLyf08LnE9ieWU5gvbAUQ/s1600/Orient+EXpress.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSinhUl2nHJJrptUxHa8QigwKp0HzuyY9GEpmW9xqdsixas8wnCDAkhmQrpx4SO84bf2iHgMWL-xKdos0D9rz8kCIHU1jU-X08qfhRvFtZgj1xCo11me50pvYLyf08LnE9ieWU5gvbAUQ/s320/Orient+EXpress.png" width="225" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt;">My
body-building story seemed to be going quite well, until the migraines started.
What I had once been able to do fairly mechanically (that is, write TV scripts)
was now almost impossible. It was actually painful. I hated letting down the
side, but I was forced to hand over my scene breakdown and retire hurt to the
pavilion. I actually saw the episode based on my scene breakdown that went to
air. It was pretty well salvaged, I expect by script producer Kelly Lefevre,
but what I’d envisaged as a climactic and terrifying mortuary stalking scene had
been cut. And it was cut because my script was far too long. </span><i style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt;">Mr and Mrs Murder</i><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt;"> is probably the hardest
show on Australian television to write for.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyReKQaUAmPHpDKeDwYucMsz_HG3qMphUQyI5qvD4Q7-KOg-RqwhYtgVUvZOJfI_Gy0Lq3YFTSs8tG4YPRdrJgjI-55M4DWxDVf4cK4ydGFfrpfIujJmdZbJurT2KG_7gfGU9suN2Y41c/s1600/Mr+and+mrs+murder.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyReKQaUAmPHpDKeDwYucMsz_HG3qMphUQyI5qvD4Q7-KOg-RqwhYtgVUvZOJfI_Gy0Lq3YFTSs8tG4YPRdrJgjI-55M4DWxDVf4cK4ydGFfrpfIujJmdZbJurT2KG_7gfGU9suN2Y41c/s1600/Mr+and+mrs+murder.jpeg" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I'm guessing that this is a PR exercise and not an actual scene from <i>MrR and Mrs MUrder</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt;">Must crucially, it airs on a
commercial station, meaning that each episode that is supposedly an hour in
length is, in fact, a ‘commercial hour’. In other words, 43 minutes. And in
that time we had to have an interesting but not too graphic murder, a crowd of
suspects, an unusual location, sufficient red herrings to throw the viewer off
the scent, and a fair whack of comedy, a lot of which is fortunately provided by Shaun Micallef,
who does a ‘comedy pass’ over every script. I honestly don’t know if I was
getting the headaches because of the difficulty of the project itself, or
because the base of my basel ganglia was at that time a vacant lot.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 14.0pt;">It’s
good to see the show, even if defiled by commercials. I hope we’ll see many
more episodes and that one day I’ll be able to write an AWGIE-award winning
contribution to the series. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 14.0pt;">By
the way, I‘ve since found out that my ingenious ‘death by sunbed’ murder has been done by
<i>everyone.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">In the last post but one I referenced <i>The
Twilight Zone</i>, surely one of the best American TV series ever made. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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The series
was/is popular enough to warrant a movie version, where four different
directors tried their hands at remaking four of the iconic episodes. It was a
disappointment, with some good bits, most notably a new prologue where a hitchhiker
is picked up by a driver who tries to scare him by driving recklessly and turning
out the headlights from time to time. The hitchhiker begs the driver to be more
careful, he is getting scared. Talk turns to the original <i>Twilight Zone</i> TV series. Both driver and hitchhiker try to scare
each other with memories of the spookier episodes. At the end of the trip the hitchhiker
takes one parting shot. He asks the
driver if he wants to see something <i>really
</i>scary. The driver naturally says yes, and in an instant the hitchhiker
turns into a hideous blue monster that lunges at the driver. I’m not sure if we
saw blood or not. But I remember the reaction in the cinema at the time.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhraFQy1gUfB4IDJrgCeFAYJ1zGabZ8T2Uh-g0V_XIRnYUxQ57OS_izKh0QLA4B5c743tvS80_aEtQXxXx21GVjQMBOiYbeG-GhK-eMDNxm9eWEepqnM0MICcEnR5kplJPb4cJ-shwTK6Q/s1600/really+spooky.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhraFQy1gUfB4IDJrgCeFAYJ1zGabZ8T2Uh-g0V_XIRnYUxQ57OS_izKh0QLA4B5c743tvS80_aEtQXxXx21GVjQMBOiYbeG-GhK-eMDNxm9eWEepqnM0MICcEnR5kplJPb4cJ-shwTK6Q/s1600/really+spooky.jpeg" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Something really scary</span></div>
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There was
a momentary gasp then a delighted roar of laughter. Frankly, the movie doesn’t
have much going for it, although the fourth story, directed by George Miller is
a beauty. It’s based on an episode <i>Nightmare
at 20,000 feet</i> where a nervous passenger on an international flight can see a sort of imp creature,
tearing up the aluminum wings and feeding them into one of the engines. The
passenger (played by William Shatner) tries to alert the cabin crew, who of
course see nothing when they look at the ‘imp’ sabotaging the plane. I think
the story worked so well because a lot of people on flights have wondered what
it would be like if they saw something appear on the wing. (You can see a still from it at the top of this post) It’s truly a
nightmare scenario, though it’s played for laughs. In the original <i>Twilight
Zone</i> episode, the imp looks like a cross between a gorilla and one of the
Zygons from <i>Doctor Who</i>. </div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
One of the aforementioned Zygons, and my apologies if this constitutes a spoiler</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s a risible imp and
somewhat detracts from any element of horror. In the film remake, the imp is a
beauty. He’s spindly and blue., complete with a leering face and clawed
hands. The nervous passenger (played in the movie by John Lithgow) is
thoroughly believable. Here again, when the imp appeared, there were gasps then laughter from the audience. My
good friend Kimpton knew I had seen the movie. She wanted to know if it was too
scary for her daughter Tiffany (14) and friend (same age). I had no hesitation
in recommending it, not thinking for a moment that the monsters might give
nightmares to a young teen. And Kimpton took ages to forgive me. The girls had
nightmares for weeks. I really didn’t think there was anything in the movie to
give nightmares. After all, hadn’t we all <i>laughed?</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Anyway, Kimpton never asks me for movie
recommendations these days. Which is a shame because it means she will never see <i>Iron Sky</i>. And I’m genuinely sorry the girls were as upset as
they turned out to be. I honestly thought the movie was funny, even if the
dull stories (especially <i>Kick the Can</i>)
seemed to go on forever.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">We all find different things funny. And if
the scares are ingenious and completely over the top, I tend to laugh. I’m not
a ghoul and absolutely hate the current crop of torture porn movies. I would no
more recommend one of them to a teen than I would recommend a movie about a
deranged scientist who sews human bodies together in such a way that they
resemble an underendowed centipede (and I thank my editor, Dmetri Kakmi, for
drawing my attention to this movie). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">But I’ll be more careful when I recommend
movies to kids in future. Because some of them don’t see movies in the way I
do. And I should keep reminding myself that these things used to terrify <i>me</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />
<!--EndFragment-->DougMacLeodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05291444835875083084noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1475811780127704147.post-21529361945772842132013-04-08T22:23:00.002-07:002013-04-08T22:23:48.107-07:00So, we meet again, Mr MacLeod<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAbG207P90BdDHmgBqggZRxMtnoYXKtpRs_OjQLE1LrZzaQGkLTpS3plw3KOGP4PiNsuko9gSdQiSyEHHfukfnTDxGN3j87m4XJPGmNkqiyMvezW2SzDIbSvhkEdOjUTHu6yyR4xel6Qg/s1600/penguin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAbG207P90BdDHmgBqggZRxMtnoYXKtpRs_OjQLE1LrZzaQGkLTpS3plw3KOGP4PiNsuko9gSdQiSyEHHfukfnTDxGN3j87m4XJPGmNkqiyMvezW2SzDIbSvhkEdOjUTHu6yyR4xel6Qg/s320/penguin.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The gun-wielding Penguin is back with the extraordinary news that my book, <i>The Shiny Guy</i>s has been shortlisted in the older readers category of the CBCA awards.<br />
Here's the shortlist for the older readers category:<br />
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And here is the complete<a href="http://cbca.org.au/awards.htm"> shortlist.</a><br />
The armed Penguin congratulates you all.<br />
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<br />
<br />DougMacLeodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05291444835875083084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1475811780127704147.post-91878908118782062722013-04-08T01:50:00.000-07:002013-04-08T01:50:00.008-07:00No Foreknowledge Necessary<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In order to overcome
what I hope is only a temporary case of writer’s block, I went to the St Kilda
library to get out some kick-ass Young Adult fiction, that might present me
with the inspiration I so obviously need. The first book I chose was <i>Billy Mack’s War.</i></span></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxKhHuzfqm84BPyBZCbGVHw7xx1gce2YyiJ_NubP6GvSeP8mgCxRmcaALBuDAEbtvkQYhkQDLf8yPuWvu-zkUSRei_irEzckGUL0uy4ind_oiYE1f_aTDOR8SzWBoCB3wlov0o7YlGwJM/s1600/Roy.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxKhHuzfqm84BPyBZCbGVHw7xx1gce2YyiJ_NubP6GvSeP8mgCxRmcaALBuDAEbtvkQYhkQDLf8yPuWvu-zkUSRei_irEzckGUL0uy4ind_oiYE1f_aTDOR8SzWBoCB3wlov0o7YlGwJM/s320/Roy.png" width="206" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I selected it because
I’ve met James Roy and enjoyed speaking with him. I’ve also heard him talk to
teens and he seems to have a good idea of what goes on inside the head of a
teenage male. I would have borrowed anything by Scot Gardner too, for similar
reasons, but there was nothing there. I didn’t consult the catalogue. I’m sure
that the St Kilda Library has no shortage of Scot Gardner titles but that I
arrived on a bad day. I probably wouldn’t have borrowed a Nick Earls, because
I’ve read <i>48 Shades of Brown</i>. In the back of the book there
is a quote from Cleo magazine that if you read a Nick Earls book you will
‘never be unhappy again’. Perhaps they should stop using that quote, surely
penned by a well-meaning friend of Nick’s? It’s certainly enticing but incredibly hard to
live up to, and didn’t apply to me, though I certainly would never recommend
crucifying a book then setting it aflame, which some angry YouTuber did,
complete with visual directions. I wish they’d remove it. I see books burning
and I hear jackboots.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I had limited
time at the St Kilda Library. The next two books I grabbed were <i>Quintana of Charyn</i> by Merlina Marchetta,
because everyone keeps telling me how wonderful she is, and <i>The Sending </i>by Isobelle Carmody, for the
same reason. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtQXCiASnpMtlljAfzYumEAqqAs8mas4CElGwyt5aJTZo5GP47X4gluNgtk3Z-OdpN1IE6pEY6Jx2tNwzdsBn61Ex-ZHkhgQGGNFJudFy-csu4wS5Ru1l5gfPVYfGge3WX8UZVqbkpCuw/s1600/Marchetta.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtQXCiASnpMtlljAfzYumEAqqAs8mas4CElGwyt5aJTZo5GP47X4gluNgtk3Z-OdpN1IE6pEY6Jx2tNwzdsBn61Ex-ZHkhgQGGNFJudFy-csu4wS5Ru1l5gfPVYfGge3WX8UZVqbkpCuw/s320/Marchetta.png" width="213" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6dQNQKS7jYIb0P4MH-DIF0nereVY2f0Y1ccLQba5gdVdW7I9wYGdSj-yHwuRKC6L4xvp94qABwVf_5mrZ8b1eTWW98tt4p-UYJcwxUQVCpRmsrWNjx8VcaaL6i1V1DbM8q34akmZSZmQ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-04-08+at+4.49.01+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6dQNQKS7jYIb0P4MH-DIF0nereVY2f0Y1ccLQba5gdVdW7I9wYGdSj-yHwuRKC6L4xvp94qABwVf_5mrZ8b1eTWW98tt4p-UYJcwxUQVCpRmsrWNjx8VcaaL6i1V1DbM8q34akmZSZmQ/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-04-08+at+4.49.01+PM.png" width="210" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I started on Quintana of
Charyn. Somehow, when I gazed at the cover, I had missed the subtitle: </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Book Three of the Lumatere Chronicles. </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">However
it became very clear on closer inspection that I was reading a portion of a
much larger work, and was ill-equipped to do so. The volume is over five hundred
pages long. Presumably this means I have to read around one thousand words to
finish the first two volumes and get a decent idea of what is going on. I
figured that rather than read ten thousand words so I could pick up the
thread, that time that would perhaps be better spent on learning to use my
Dragon voice recognition software, so that I can speak my books as I compose
them, and not have to rely upon my stroke-addled fingers. The idea of writing a
novel by way of voice recognition software seems cumbersome, though I understand
that Rod Serling wrote most of his </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Twilight
Zone</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> episodes that way (although his Dragon was a stenographer) and there were some really wonderful <i>Twilight Zone</i> tales. An
Easter treat was watching DVD’s of the old fifties shows, and marvelling at how
well they still hold up. Does anyone know of novelists who </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">dictate </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">their novels? Is that how Dan Brown did it? Anyway, I put
down </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Book Three of the Lumatere
Chronicles </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">and picked up</span><i style="font-family: inherit;"> The Sending.
</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Reader, I had made the same mistake. While it doesn’t leap off the cover,
there is a line of copy alerting us to the fact that this is </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Book <b>Six</b>
in The Obernewtyn Chronicles. </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, once again I had a little reading to
do before I was ready for this book. Now, Book </span><b style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Three</i></b><span style="font-family: inherit;"> is overwhelming enough – but Book </span><i style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Six</b>!</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">The Sending </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">is 750
pages long. Why do these fantasy writers feel the need to go for such massive
Russian literature-style word counts? Assuming that the first five volumes of
this Obernewtyn Chronicle are of similar length, I would be committing myself
to reading a total of 3750 words before I could fully appreciate </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">The Sending</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">, knowing of all the elegant
twists and turns the narrative had taken before Dragon, a creature of quite
astonishing beauty, appears on a broken stone column on the night of a full
moon (my precis of the first paragraph of </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">The
Sending</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">). I put it aside.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Picking up
James Roy’s novel was a more promising exercise. Unlike the two, no doubt
splendid fantasy novels that I had put aside, this book didn’t </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">have shadowy
goth girls on the cover. It had a title that included no invented place names.
And it certainly wasn’t </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Book Three of the
Billy Mack Chronicles</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">. It was a stand-alone. A decent looking book without
a bloody map before the story starts.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> I c</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">ould read this one secure in the knowledge that I already knew
everything there was to know about Billy Mack (that is, nothing) before
entering the world of young adult fiction. It read well, but</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> I </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">had this niggling feeling that I wasn’t
getting the full picture. The writer seemed to presume some amount of
foreknowledge on my part. But this wasn’t a whacking great doorstep of a novel,
involving dragons on stone columns on moonlit nights. It was a down-to-earth
slice-of-life fiction, like </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Jasper Jones</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">,
which I had read recently and enjoyed.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNZyEeAOXiqOI0RUcx4EMaSzmiBs1q63mmvKsVtunBxhnTmACEeeXBo1cylZvSRmdHWIY-ERWGR2Bo0-HQ3dv4vPZMr8E5jUPpO7L1Xl0oRBsW8g5VDMnnR85YZcY56HKs4i15OPDVfaQ/s1600/JasperJones-e1338955142284.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNZyEeAOXiqOI0RUcx4EMaSzmiBs1q63mmvKsVtunBxhnTmACEeeXBo1cylZvSRmdHWIY-ERWGR2Bo0-HQ3dv4vPZMr8E5jUPpO7L1Xl0oRBsW8g5VDMnnR85YZcY56HKs4i15OPDVfaQ/s320/JasperJones-e1338955142284.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is when fate played a
particularly cruel trick. I learned from examining the back cover blurb that
what I was reading was </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">a prequel</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> to a
well-regarded book called </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Captain Mack. </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m
sure</span><i style="font-family: inherit;"> Captain Mack </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">is a fine work</span><i style="font-family: inherit;">, </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">and that most people have heard of it.
But I hadn’t. Perhaps more importantly, I hadn’t read it. And yet I felt I
really had to for </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Billy Mack’s War</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> to
be fully enjoyed. So, the books I had borrowed to coax me to invent new stories
for teens were a </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Part Three</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">, a </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Part Six</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> and a Prequel. And we authors
point accusing fingers at Hollywood when they </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">dare </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">to bring out a sequel to</span><i style="font-family: inherit;">
Shrek. </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">(‘Typical of Hollywood to exploit a successful movie.’ ‘They’ll be
doing a sequel to </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Blade Runner</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> next.’)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Please
understand that this is not a blog post that drips poison. It is more despair
than poison, though perhaps I was a bit poisonous to Nick Earls (who’s actually
<i>good</i>) to mention that horrible
YouTube movie about his book <i>48 Shades of
Brown</i> though I certainly don’t advocate that books should be crucified and
burned - despite what I might have recently muttered about Stephanie Meyer when I
was on a panel at The Wheeler Centre, and it was filmed.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m the fool.
First of all, I knew I was being filmed. And secondly, anyone who doesn’t take
the time to read book covers carefully or realise that paperback cinderblocks
about fictional places with names like Lumatere or Obernewtyn are unlikely to
appeal deserves what he gets. It’s just, I was hoping to get some reading done
today. In the end I blogged. Even last night’s <i>Doctor Who: ‘The Rings of Akaten’ </i>(silly place names again)<i> </i>was boring and forgot to tell a decent
story, just because all the aliens looked so cool. What a rotten long weekend.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And this is not
just a selfish whine because I couldn’t think of a sequel to my only book to
cause any kind of modest commotion, <i>The
Life of a Teenage Body-snatcher.</i> At least, I couldn’t <i>write</i> one. </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Oh, no. But one day I might<i> speak</i> one.</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And for those who might still be interested, plenitude is, of course, alive. John's father is John Lamb, the real character from history, and Thomas's resurrectionist name is (perhaps ironically) Modesty.</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->DougMacLeodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05291444835875083084noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1475811780127704147.post-55819853152442978042013-03-28T17:17:00.001-07:002013-03-28T18:54:55.607-07:00Leave it alone<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Qex0TeDt4cDuFACe06__1UJ0-jcgAUASfeCO9zBVAtMyivlV0XFWzU7NM6By4TWO-WeUcwHtHaXHbix_SC742NawUMKQVP2Y2ZMiFq5u4BK6twyKhrTVrFx2JMqiXimzGqHOrQwfn50/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-03-29+at+10.28.45+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Qex0TeDt4cDuFACe06__1UJ0-jcgAUASfeCO9zBVAtMyivlV0XFWzU7NM6By4TWO-WeUcwHtHaXHbix_SC742NawUMKQVP2Y2ZMiFq5u4BK6twyKhrTVrFx2JMqiXimzGqHOrQwfn50/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-03-29+at+10.28.45+AM.png" width="205" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">This post refers to a <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1475811780127704147#editor/target=post;postID=1224739233526551697">deleted post that was really much sharper than this one.</a> But it’s Friday and I had to write
something.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I got an email this week. It was from Sandy
Cull, an art designer who did one of my book covers for Penguin. Normally, the
art director who designs my covers is Karen Trump-Scott Here is the first cover that Karen did for the book:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7dfSTAcLsGozyF_tgVntFOOYgCP4aYjfgFvUeMdijldyVHQEaCN5TGEqBQEwbH95fST8GHQPX_GgM8iftSf5CzUtYjOusOR7Slnk8nShKQzdmBcoGPlprlS6zU_5cairRR6dLL4auJPI/s1600/PIC+MS01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7dfSTAcLsGozyF_tgVntFOOYgCP4aYjfgFvUeMdijldyVHQEaCN5TGEqBQEwbH95fST8GHQPX_GgM8iftSf5CzUtYjOusOR7Slnk8nShKQzdmBcoGPlprlS6zU_5cairRR6dLL4auJPI/s320/PIC+MS01.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">You see, back in those days the book was called <i>The Summer of Seth Parrot</i> and not <i>I'm Being Stalked by a Moonshadow</i>. People I respect convinced me that <i>The Summer of Seth Parrot</i> was far too poetic a title, given that the book is, basically, a funny rom-com for boys. Though I did like this cover because Karen had somehow found a photo of two kids who look exactly like the kids in the book, and the fireworks were a nice touch, because there are literal fireworks in the book. However, the powers that be weren't crazy about the cover. They thought it looked old-fashioned and unfunny, and<i> nobody</i> liked the title. So, the first thing was to find a new title. I liked the sound of <i>I'm Being Stalked by a Moonshadow, </i>because <i>I'm Being Followed by a Moonshadow</i> is such a sweet song, and 'stalking' is such a nasty concept. The collision of opposites like sweetness and nastiness often gives you a funny outcome.) So the book had a new title, and a new designer in Sandy Cull. And this is the first new cover I was given:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzL9sJne8HfGwldVFkny_xe5DLBaU-7qLR-1w80vty2CaH6jV5Ur8UehbaVvOVWutubmAqnWfMWR1GZ-nUu8r8Nmz54LUPAuF05bf7WoUXPlDHwYbVlN3jMseCcftgGvZwhihzNVAJXKU/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-03-29+at+10.59.37+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzL9sJne8HfGwldVFkny_xe5DLBaU-7qLR-1w80vty2CaH6jV5Ur8UehbaVvOVWutubmAqnWfMWR1GZ-nUu8r8Nmz54LUPAuF05bf7WoUXPlDHwYbVlN3jMseCcftgGvZwhihzNVAJXKU/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-03-29+at+10.59.37+AM.png" width="239" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">It was very different from what I was expecting, but it grew on me. The title character, Seth, had uncontrollable red hair. The artist decided to go overboard with this, and I decided I liked it. So it was full steam ahead. Which is why i was so surprised when I was presented with this as a fait accompli:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Where on earth had that girl come from? She wasn't part of the equation. Why did the she have spider eyeashes when MIranda, the girl in the story, never wore makeup? Perhaps more importantly, given that Seth makes such a big deal about how beautiful Miranda's arms are, wouldn't it be a good idea to actually <i>give</i> her a pair of arms?</span></div>
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The point is, I
thought the cover art was so unexpectedly bad (in that I’d been given no real
warning about what I might end up with, as it was nothing like the previous image of Seth with his tornado of red hair) and I didn’t seem to be getting very
far with Penguin in my polite but doubtless annoying requests to have it
changed to better suit the story, that I did something stupid. I changed the completed
cover art myself, using Photoshop. I added some arms, I got rid of the spider eyelashes. Now, there are a lot of artists in my life
and I know how much they hate this. Indeed, I would hate it if a designer took
one of my stories, re-edited it, then submitted it as an example of how it <i>should</i> be written. My good friend Jane
Tanner recently had this experience with an author who is really too famous to
name. He didn’t like the way some of Jane’s artwork for one of his titles was going
so he used Photoshop to ‘fix’ it himself.</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Jane
was cut to the quick. I don’t blame her, because I know how hard she worked.
Anyway, after I sent the email with Photoshop ‘improved cover art’ attachment to Sandy Cull, I realised that what I had done
was probably unfair. I felt bad about disrespecting the artist, and decided to
email Sandy to apologise for photoshopping the artist’s work. Sandy emailed
back immediately stating that it is every art director’s nightmare when a
writer gets hold of Photoshop and messes around with art in an
effort to show what they would prefer. Sandy went on to say that she hoped I
would find a self-help group in St Kilda for 46-year-old men with too much time
on their hands. Now, this really was a spectacularly rude email for Sandy to
send (even if only because it reminded me that I was 46), and I only rediscovered it long after I had received it, when I was
going through piles of emails in a spring clean-up. It occurred to me that I
should have responded to this email and not merely left it to fester on my hard
drive. As always, my timing was way out,
and I decided to respond to the email in a blog post – years later. I wrote to Sandy that it is
every <i>author’</i>s nightmare when they
are given a lackluster cover for a book on which they have likely spent years,
and that the art designer can’t grasp why this would conceivably be important
to said author. (I am paraphrasing, out
of necessity.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The post was written so long ago that I was
surprised to get an email from Sandy Cull recently. She titled it ‘very humbling’ and she
apologised very sincerely for her behaviour. I felt so bad for Sandy that I hacked
away at the original post on my blog so that the ‘nasty’ part where I alluded
to Sandy’s lack of empathy was removed. The result was a very boring post, but,
I consoled myself, it would make Sandy feel better. But it didn’t, and this is
where I really must take off my hat to Sandy. (And it isn’t a metaphorical hat, I’m actually
wearing one. It’s St Kilda, I can wear what I like.) Sandy opined that
bowdlerising the post made it boring . She was right, I just thought she would
be pleased to see how I had ‘fixed things’. Of course, in deleting the
potentially offensive bits of an email, I hadn’t fixed things at all. I had merely
beeen untrue to myself. My original post, which was far better than this one, really, it was, represented an accurate summation of the frustration and impotence I felt at
being given a book cover that I felt was no good – though people have since
professed a liking for it. It was an emotionally honest post. In editing it, I
made it dishonest, and Sandy had the guts to email me and say so. So, thanks to
Sandy Cull. The lesson of all this, I think, is to stand for what you stand for,
provided you’ve given it enough thought and consideration, and not to dilute
your message in an effort ‘not to offend’. Our blogs should be written from the
heart and left as written, unless you go back to do some necessary grammatical
editing or spelling correction, such as turning ‘alright’ into ‘all right’. Our
blog posts are our emotional and philosophical outpourings. And for whatever
reason we write them (for posterity, out of protest, in an attempt to sharpen
our writing skills or simply to be – gulp- understood and loved) they should be left alone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Courier;">I was almost
determined not to like it.<i> The Hunger Games</i>, by Suzanne Collins is a phenomenon:
a Young Adult bestseller. And for me those words conjure up images of effete teen vampires, anodyne heroines and shirtless muscleboys who can't act. Given that
Stephenie Meyer herself had said such wonderful things about <i>The Hunger Games</i>, surely it must be on a
par with the ghastly <i>Twilight </i>books?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Courier;">But I liked the
book from the start because I could identify so fully with the idea at the core
of <i>The Hunger Games,</i> that society will devolve so completely that one day we will actually be watching teenage kids fighting to the
death on a reality TV show.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Courier;">I used to work
for Granada Australia, a subsidiary of the huge Granada TV production company
in the UK, which wanted a nice, little production arm in Australia to service
some of its massively successful ‘format’ shows. When I left, they were making a
program that is shot in Australia, but which – to my knowledge - hasn’t made it
to Australian terrestrial TV yet. The show is called, <i>I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here</i>. It’s pretty much like <i>Big
Brother</i>, only the ‘house’ is an encampment in a hostile-looking
jungle somewhere in Queensland, and the various contestants have to tough it
out in a series of elimination rounds (‘challenges’) where they are forced to
do things that your average punter would rather not. Most of the challenges
I’ve seen have involved eating disgusting food or taking on a physical
challenge that is just quirky or potentially dangerous enough to entice an
undemanding and indulgent viewer. The ‘celebrity’ aspect
of the show's title is a bit of a misnomer. The last clip I saw was someone challenging
Colin Baker (only Whovians would know him from his thankfully brief tenure as
one of the Time Lord’s incarnations) and I don’t think he quite counts as a
celebrity, but I think the term covers any person whose name might have
appeared in the newspaper a few times and who isn’t averse to being belittled
on television in the hope of giving their ailing careers a bit of a shot in the
arm. Anyway, the Colin Baker bit that I saw made me recall why we all stopped
watching <i>Doctor Who</i> when he took over
the title role. I didn’t know the celebrity who had challenged him, but he
would have been known to UK viewers, perhaps as the man with the dictionary on <i>Countdown </i>or the one with the deep voice
who says ’Mind the Gap’ when you travel on the tube. Suffice it to say, his
celebrity probably wasn’t stellar. But, through a series of name
changes and takeovers, I was now working for a company that was well known for
its ‘reality TV’ formats. I’d enjoyed all the shows I’d worked on before the
English acquisition of Artist Services, which is the company I used to work
for, the one that made all those daggy Australian sketch shows like <i>Fast Forward</i> and <i>Full Frontal. </i>But it seemed fairly likely to me that I would end up
working on one of these reality shows. And I really couldn’t do it. I’d watched
<i>Big Brother </i>from time to time, not
least because handsome Alex, one of my fellow workers, ended up on series two.
I also kind of knew Johnny from series one, but then, it seems that everyone
kind of knew Johnny from series one. (<i>Big
Brother</i> was not a Granada production.) It was a crappy, mean-spirited
show that gave young viewers the idea that they didn’t actually have to learn
anything, achieve anything or have a particular skill to be famous. Hell, they could
just be ‘normal’ like the Big Brother roommates and that was enough to guarantee
stardom and public adulation. (Which of course it wasn’t.) Even after <i>Four Corners</i> did a particularly harsh critique
on how manipulative the show is, the <i>Four
Corners</i> forum after the show was flooded with requests from people about
how they might be able to get on <i>Big
Brother</i>. These people had just seen a documentary about how <i>Big Brother</i> was nothing but
self-abasement for the contestants, and that the show could be edited in any
number of ways to yield an infinite number of storylines. (Before I get too hot
and bothered about this I should add that David Attenborough nature
documentaries, which I happen to like, use exactly the same editing tricks to
kid you into believing you are watching a story. The brave mother penguin who
rescued a drowning baby penguin then reared it as her own, bravely fending off penguin
bullies, probably didn’t exist. She was probably six different penguins edited
together in such a way that we couldn’t help saying, Ahhhh!’ It helps, of
course, that humans are very bad at telling Penguins apart.) The people who’d
seen Four Corners give an absolute caning to <i>Big Brother</i> nevertheless wanted to be on it, so that they too could
abase themselves.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Courier; font-size: x-small;">Peter Andre, no stranger to the recent batch of 'celebrity' reality shows.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Courier;"><i>The Hunger
Games</i>’ author says she was inspired to write the book after watching one of the
reality shows. Of course she was! I would have done it too, if I’d had the
skill. Besides the <i>Big Brother</i> shows,
there were countless other global ‘reality’ shows which I got to preview, so
that we could edit together their worst excesses and make something called <i>Unreel TV</i>, a questionable clips show
whose<i> </i>only saving grace was having
Tim Ferguson as compere. He struck just the right level of enthusiasm and
disgust for clips of shows such as the one where contestants had enemas and
there was a prize for whoever could squirt out their colonic water the
farthest. (Seriously, it was on a Swedish show.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Courier;">So, I’m a big
fan of <i>The Hunger Games</i>, because I appreciate the desperation and despair that
caused Suzanne Collins to write it. I like the movie as well. Though one thing
that the movie didn’t seem to get is that Collins has a very dark sense of
humour. There are so many wry parts of the book that never quite made it to screen. (Though Stanley tucci and toby Jones as the commentators were suitably grotesque.) I
like the main character Katniss’s fear that her stylist might make her appear
completely nude on global television. The implication is that this had already
happened in a previous season. Apparently, one year there was a ‘nude Hunger Games’. There are regular references to Hunger Games of the past that have gone horribly wrong,
such as the one in a desert where all contestants merely had a slow death by
starvation. That one hadn’t rated so well. The nudism thing amused me,
because it was one of the more prurient aspects of <i>Big Brother</i>. If there was a jock in the house, the viewer could be
fairly confident that said jock would be parading his nudity before long. ‘But
that’s not fair!’ screech the producers. ‘We warn them that there are camera
everywhere, even in the shower room, and the contestants have the option of
showering in their underwear.’ – which of course no sane person ever does. And where exactly do you change out of yur wet underpants if there are cameras all over the place? There was a sauna in one series, though the girls didn't use it much. I used to wonder why the guys who used it
would look directly out at the TV viewers and not at each other while they were chatting, flexing their
muscles and readjusting their towels so that they were a little more low-rise
and titillating. Were they really doing a sort of
testosterone-fuelled strip-tease for the viewer? It occurred to me then that
the entire sauna wall opposite them and unseen by us would have been a one-way mirror behind
which the cameras were filming. So of course the two jocks were looking at it
constantly, flexing and preening appropriately at their reflections. They were
doing it for themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Courier;">The Hunger Games</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Courier;"> made me laugh and kept me reading. I’m glad that
such an inventive book did so well. (And yes, I know about <i>Season Seven</i> and <i>Man Bites
Dog, </i>two cult movies that cover very similar ground to the Collins novel. But
so what? Collins does a great job of keeping the reader intrigued, while I had
no trouble whatever in turning off the relentless and revolting <i>Man Bites Dog</i>.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Courier;">The Hunger Games</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Courier;"> makes almost every comment about the media’s
plummeting depths that prompted me to leave the industry for a bit. It was
clever and fresh in a way that <i>Twilight</i>
absolutely wasn’t. It’s interesting to read the reviews for the movie on IMDB.
People are very polarised. Many critics would have liked less of the morbid
violence, many others would have liked more. I think the movie got it about
right. Bot movie and book stand as clever bits of dystopian fiction, and give
us all plenty to think and talk about. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->DougMacLeodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05291444835875083084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1475811780127704147.post-32352869460182528152013-01-31T22:02:00.000-08:002013-02-02T13:25:09.870-08:00Am I Interesting enough?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">My toy cybermen about to eliminate my lunch.</span></div>
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I notice I’ve been more or less avoiding the subject of
writing when posting on this blog. I always feel guilty spending time writing
on the blog when I don’t have a current writing project to which I can devote
myself. And f course, I’m self-employed, so there should always be projects to
which I can devote myself. <o:p></o:p></div>
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That situation hasn’t changed. Yesterday I walked into the
big converted warehouse, now called home by my publisher with an identity
crisis, Random House Penguin Pearson. I dropped in my latest manuscript, with a
covering letter to head-of-publishing-for-young-adults, Laura Harris. The
letter explained that I’m unsure about the manuscript, even though Laura has
already read an earlier draft and claims to be a fan. When I started this blog
I was virtually unknown as a writer of YA books, though I had good TV creds.
Since then, my last two books (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Life
of a Teenage Body-snatcher</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Shiny
Guys) </i>have appeared on a few shortlists and books in my backlist are
getting some attention, which is very gratifying. People are writing nice
things on Goodreads about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I’m Being
Stalked by a Moonshadow, The Clockwork Forest</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Siggy and Amber</i>. So, yes, I’ve started self-googling, and I haven’t
found anything too toxic so far. People are more likely to be insulting and
damning about my TV work. For my book work I’ve been called Gaimanesque once or
twice, which is a sweet compliment. I saw Neil Gaiman when he last appeared at
The Atheneum Theatre in January, 2013. It was more like a rock concert than a
‘reading’. Though he did read very well. It was an excerpt from his latest
book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Ocean at the End of the Lane</i>.
Neil is the god of geek chic and I felt out of place, there in the Atheneum five rows from the front, dressed in my St Kilda
black and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> wearing a Doctor Who
teeshirt, which seems the latest must-have fashion statement in geekdom. I haven't even read <i>Sandman, </i>for Christ'ssake.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Me in my St Kilda black, probably not looking all that out of place at a Gaiman event.</span></div>
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I
actually did once own a Doctor Who teeshirt, way back when Tom Baker was the
timelord and the show was remarkably good. I’m not sure if I ever wore it. And
I must have something of the geek about me because my friend Robert went to
great effort when last in London to get me some toy cybermen from the famous science
fiction shop, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Forbidden Planet</i> ,
where the first signings of <i>The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy</i> took place. The
next cybermen story in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Doctor Who </i>is
to be written by Neil Gaiman. The fans hold out high hopes. Gaiman spoiled us
rotten with his story <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Doctor’s Wife, </i>which
is treated as reverently as the fantastic <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blink
</i>episode that Steven Moffat wrote, where we were all terrified by weeping stone
angels that could ‘get you’ <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>merely by
looking at you, if you blinked<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Neil Gaiman not blinking and also looking very St Kilda.</span></div>
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I <i>like </i>being favourably compared with Gaiman. He’s hugely successful, he writes the sort of books I’d like to write,
and he makes it all seem like such tremendous <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fun</i>. And his hair is like mine: not awfullly good. I’d be lying if I said
that I find writing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fun.</i> It’s a
love/hate relationship. If I’m writing well and on a roll, then I obviously <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">love </i>writing. If I’m bothered by
writer’s block, which Gaiman never is, then I hate my chosen career and wish
I’d stayed at university a bit longer. (Though I think I would have been
unhappier as a lawyer than a sporadic writer.) I should qualify my support for
Gaiman. I was very happy with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Neverwhere,</i>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Stardust</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Graveyard Book</i> but I really didn’t like the big one that I’m <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">supposed</i> to like – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American Gods</i>. I just didn’t think it was interesting enough. I did
like the story at the end, about the car on the ice and the terrible secret in
its trunk - but I had to read six hundred pages to get to this part. That’s a
hell of a long prologue. I ended up disliking the book because everyone had
been so complimentary and convinced I would like it. How dare it bore me! And
boring someone is about the worst thing you can do as an author. My recent
self-googling has revealed a criticism that quite a few people make about my
books. Apparently I don’t plot well, with the result that I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">can</i> get a bit boring, even if I’m funny.
(People seem generally to agree on that, which comes as some relief. If you
don’t get any laughs out if <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Life of a
Teenage Body-snatcher</i> then there is really no reason to read it. The prose
is only just okay and the historical stuff is not new or revealing. The support characters are
generally clowns, there to provide the comic relief you may require after
wading through a cold stew of human heads.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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TV producer
Tony Cavanaugh once had the good taste to plan a drama series built around
Shaun Micallef as an amateur sleuth. I like Shaun and it was a pleasure to
workshop some story ideas with Shaun, Tony and also, for some reason, Craig
McLachlan. I’m not sure if Craig was to be involved but he was his usual
larrikin self, and provided a nice foil for Shaun’s more cerebral sense of
humour. I was contracted to write the pilot episode, which was to be a
telemovie. It was to be called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Crime
Show</i>, a deliberately prosaic title that Shaun perversely liked for that
very reason. It was pleasant writing for Tony. He took me to nice restaurants
and showed me his boat and his amazing house on the river in Noosa. In an effort to get my head around
the whole crime genre, I read as much crime fiction as I could, and started
developing a real respect for the writer Robert Crais, who plotted his books so
well that I forgave him for overusing certain words, such as ‘perp’. Though
when I learned about this piece of police jargon, I also gave the word a bit of
a hammering in my telemovie script. I tried to include all the stuff we had
talked about in the writing workshops, but still the script seemed less than
the requisite two hours running time. So I added big physical comedy moments
for Shaun’s character and also for his offsider, who would be played, I was
told, by Rebecca Gibney.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The script took me a few weeks to finish. I was pretty happy
with it. We had a reading with Shaun, who laughed in the right places. Shaun has very definite ideas about
what is funny and what isn’t, and he's usually right. I trust Shaun’s judgment thoroughly. I was
once the creative producer of a TV sketch comedy series called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Full Frontal. </i>We used to show all our material – recorded and live
– to a studio audience on Friday night. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Often I didn’t have a full live night. THere would be some time to fill, or the show might run short. On Thursday afternoon I would
ring Shaun and ask him, basically, ‘What have you got? I’ll do it.’ I mention this
because Shaun has been telling a story lately about how I apparently rejected
all thirty of the sketches that he submitted to me on his first week as a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Full Frontal</i> writer. And he’s been saying
that the first series of his fantastic ABC show consisted mainly of sketches
that I’d rejected from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Full Frontal. </i>I
also produced the ABC series and I know for a fact that this is untrue. But I
was the gatekeeper on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Full Frontal</i>
and I had a terrible reputation for sending sketches back to writers if I
thought they needed more work or weren’t funny enough. I don’t recall much
about those thirty sketches that I had apparently rejected on submission from
Shaun, but I do recall a few of them were about the movie <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Greystoke,</i> which was old <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">then.
</i>I just couldn’t see the<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Full Frontal</i>
audience getting excited about a parody of a movie that had come out five years
ago, and that they quite likely didn’t see because it was arthouse and Adam
Sandler wasn’t in it. Anyway, the fact that Shaun laughed at a few of the lines
in my script was encouraging.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Coincidentally,
a TV series where Shaun plays an amateur sleuth is being masde for Channel Ten
this year. Pure coicidence, as I say. I was at some of the writers meetings for it. But I found that trying to
write crime fiction when you’ve had a stroke is about as sensible as
bungy-jumping when your retinas are slightly detached.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I bowed out as gracefully as possible (not very, when you've had a stroke) and I
hope no one was too pissed off. I think it will be a good show.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Meanwhile, my TV movie script for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Crime Show </i>was handed around to various readers for their
thoughts. Themost constructive feedback I got was from Mike Bullen,
the English writer who penned the funny and arresting TV drama series <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cold Feet. </i>Mike Bullen was pretty
damning about my work. He said that the story simply wasn’t interesting enough.
There were some good hero scenes and plenty of jokey dialogue – but that simply
wasn’t enough to keep a viewer committed. And Mike was right, of course. The
script I’d written was formulaic, based on other people’s stories and books I
had read. It wasn’t gripping like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Breaking
Bad</i>, a show with clever plotting that kept me rivetted for four series<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">. Breaking Bad</i> was always <i>interesting.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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But I had to concede, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Crime Show</i> really wasn’t the most interesting <o:p></o:p></div>
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two hours of telly ever penned. It didn’t go ahead, which
might have been a blessing, or we might have fixed up the ‘lack of interest’
problem as we produced the show, but that hardly ever happens.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Which brings me all the way back to the manuscript I
submitted to Penguin this week. We’ll call it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bondi Tigers</i>. There’s no fantasy in it, no clockwork forests that
eat people, or grave-robbers with impeccable manners. It’s my usual boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy
gets girl back plot. And I confess I’m worried that someone might notice I’ve
written this book twice already. It’s basically the plot of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I’m Being Stalked by a Moonshadow</i> and
also <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Siggy and Amber.</i> You just hope
that the comedy and new characters (although even some of those are left over from Siggy and Amber)will be enough to keep the reader beguiled – and there really
are an awful lot of jokes. That’s a criticism that I’m sure will be levelled at
the book, that it’s far too flippant. I’d argue that one of the themes of the
book is how comedy both unites and divides us. It’s the only subject about
which I feel I can write with any authority. But is that interesting enough?
With <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Shiny Guys</i> I got tired of
making gags and decided to take the world seriously for once. I was surprised
that people warmed to it as much as they did. Maybe it was<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> interesting</i>? I did a fair bit of research to write it, even having
a psychiatric nurse show me the ECT machine in his ward and how it worked. I
wasn’t going to use the Ken Kesey ‘Cuckoo’s nest’ rendition of the ECT machine
sequence, because I knew that was heavily biased and basically wrong. Besides,
it also belonged to someone else.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Robert McKee is something of a legend in filmwriting
circles. He wrote a book called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Story</i>,
which is a sort of bible for scriptwriters. Many consult it when they are
stuck with a story that isn’tr working. McKee is so famous he even appears as a
character in Charles Kaufmann’s quirky movie <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Adaptation. </i>McKee writes that one should never start writing a
script until the research has been done and an interesting story has been envisaged.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So far, most of the research I have done for my novels has
been a sort of strip-mining operation, where I recycle parts of my own teen life and
turn them into novels. But is this interesting enough? There are at least two
ourtrageous scenes in Bondi Tigers which occurred in my own life. One of them
involves an explosion. Reader, I’m not asbsolutely sure I’m going to get away
with it this time. I’ll keep you posted, and just hope that the good people at Penguin Random House
Pearson Insert Name don’t read my blog.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">It's hard not to like these guys, which are almost as cool as the anonymous commenter who thinks I might <i>just </i>be interesting enough.</span></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->DougMacLeodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05291444835875083084noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1475811780127704147.post-48972375260983343492013-01-20T17:45:00.001-08:002013-01-26T14:33:32.392-08:00While I was visiting the stinking corpse lily ...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;">
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">We were
burgled over Christmas. They got my computer, an old iMac. Of all the
things in the house this was the most valuable to me. I’d backed up
most of the important documents, such as a couple of manuscripts for novels
(both in first or second draft – a long way off my daring to submit to publishers). Friends
helped me out, producing some soft copies of my work that I had sent them for one reason or another. There were a
few photos I would have preferred not to lose. The burglary was committed so
quickly, while we were away looking at the giant stinking corpse lily (see above, and she really doesn't smell that bad)at the Botanical
Gardens. I was sure the burglar must have been close by, so I started
roaming the backstreets of St Kilda, looking for suspicious people. The trouble
is, <i>everyone</i></span><span style="font-family: Courier;"> in
St Kilda looks suspicious, so I decided to narrow it down to suspicious people
carrying or stashing my computer. As I walked through likely thief haunts (I didn’t even
discount the children’s adventure playground) I had my hand wrapped around a roll of twenties.
All I wanted to do was buy the computer back from the thief. The stuff on the
hard drive was priceless to me, but absolutely worthless to anyone else.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">It
seems the most miserable act of theft is stealing someone’s computer. When the extremely
funny comic author David Sedaris was in Melbourne last year, he spoke about a writer’s
feeling of despair after having a computer stolen, finishing his speech with a
casual, ‘I would <i>never</i></span><span style="font-family: Courier;"> steal anyone’s computer,’ as if he would be prepared to commit other
acts of theft but not <i>that</i></span><span style="font-family: Courier;"> one.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2g8-tXqLOxfcO5hDgeyDKDuBvxnJ_L-VMJwMqHRFJBRulyBzWRfXe3cfR1R-VOCpXuy3ZKblDZpwE1sTKSsMDCaBG8_ESVx44cMsiVqHQL5b-Pr81EzL73wD6Jtt3oIeLJ1K6e2eYSTk/s1600/David+Sedaris.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2g8-tXqLOxfcO5hDgeyDKDuBvxnJ_L-VMJwMqHRFJBRulyBzWRfXe3cfR1R-VOCpXuy3ZKblDZpwE1sTKSsMDCaBG8_ESVx44cMsiVqHQL5b-Pr81EzL73wD6Jtt3oIeLJ1K6e2eYSTk/s320/David+Sedaris.png" width="240" /></a></span> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The brilliant David Sedaris, who would apparently never steal a computer.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Courier;">We’re still a bit crim-shy. Every time we return
from shopping or visiting giant stinking Sumatran flowers or whatever, we park the car in the driveway and look at <i>that</i></span><span style="font-family: Courier;"> place; the supposedly
impenetrable door where the thief/ves managed to get in. It’s not a nice
feeling and I figure we’ll probably have it for some time to come. What amazes
me is how quickly I ran into the house when I realised we had been burgled, not
bothering to worry about if the burglar might still be there, or how he could
possibly be intimidated by a tall skinny guy with a speech impediment and a
limp, the legacy of the great stroke of 2011. What would I defend myself with? A logie? (They left that, so they obviously have some taste.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Yesterday
morning we did the rounds of all the pawnbrokers on a list provided by St Kilda
police. They’re very careful about this list. It is not intended to be
incriminating. No one is implying that cash Converters is little more than a
fence for stolen goods. Actually, I take that back. <i>I</i></span><span style="font-family: Courier;"> am implying that half the stuff
at Cash Converters seems nicked. I had a chat with a staffer at the Chapel
Street store, who told me what precautions were in place so that they would <i>never</i>
fence stolen goods. None of these precautions seemed terribly reassuring. The
staffer pointed to all the security cameras, which I suspect were more about
stopping shoplifters from nicking the booty from their shelves, than
identifying dodgy sellers. Apparently, the sellers always have to provide
photo ID, and we all know how difficult that is. When I was a student at the
Victorian College of Arts, and our student cards were issued, my friend Chrissy Best managed to organise a student card for her
dog as well. She also got an extra one for herself wearing clown makeup, just in case she happened to be a clown when she was required to produce photo identification. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Courier;">I have it
on good authority that the student security I.D. process is now a little
tighter at VCA, now part of the Univerity of Melbourne, which is why I now get
the Melbourne University magazine. They can keep sending it, it makes me feel
smarter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Pawnbroking
is a strange business. The big Cash Converters shops look like supermarkets,
only with less stuff you’d even consider buying. Then
there are the smaller places, like the pawn shop behind the big car rental place
across from the National Theatre in St Kilda. Large-scale car renting and pawn broking seems
a strange mix. The place was deserted when I dropped in on Sunday morning and
found myself in an office that really looked like the ABC set decoration department
had gone a little overboard in their efforts at authenticity. There was stuff
everywhere, including many sets of things, such as albums of swapcards, and Elvis
figurines – stuff that might have been of huge value to some people, but surely
worthless in the modern marketplace. I mean no disrespect to the ABC’s art
department, but I always thought that Diver Dan’s shed on Seachange had just a
bit too much stuff in it. (There was a very good reason for this. The
shed wasn’t actually a set. It was an old storage bay at the back of the ABC
building on Horne Street. This was a particularly ingenious idea, and I take my
hat off to the art department, for coming up
with such a cheap and accessible set.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Perhaps there's a huge market for Elvis figurines and I'm wrong to turn up my nose at them?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">We were
insured so I’m now working on a new computer that I don’t particularly like, which is why it has taken me so long to
post. Burgling must be a tough job nowadays. Tellies are the size of fridges and
dirt cheap at JB Hifi, which is probably a little more reputable than Cash
Converters. E</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Courier;">lectrical goods are dirt cheap, thanks to the globalisation that enables us to exploit countries like China and South Korea. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Courier;">Perhaps this lack of your average houserholder's stash of readily transportable and desirable items, has led to a poorer sort of burglar. There was an ad on afternoon TV recently. It was for a pawnbroker specialising in gold. The ad's presenter looked at us earnestly and said: 'Short of cash? There may be valuable items in your home that you can sell to us. Gold jewellery or ornaments can be very valuable and you'll probably be quite happy with the price we'll offer. I think when it's got to the stage that people need to be told that gold is actually a valuable commodity ('You'd be surprised!') then there is something seriously wrong with society. And can you really picture a person in great financial need being surrounded by gold objects? 'If only I'd known.'</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Courier;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Courier;">We were actually lucky. The burglars didn’t do any damage to the fortress in which we live. THere was a burglarey around the corner where the thieves thought it might be a good idea to start a fire. They starte it in the bedroom of one of the teen kids. This seems to me to make the crime more despiccable. When you're a teen, <i>stuff matters.</i> I don't know if the burglars were trying to make some point, or they were just complete bastards.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Courier;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Courier;">I’ll
never look at a giant stinking corpse lily again without a sense of being robbed.</span><br />
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</span>DougMacLeodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05291444835875083084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1475811780127704147.post-53836431990471290672012-12-20T19:41:00.002-08:002012-12-20T20:43:52.760-08:00The Night After ChristmasAs usual I have a festive rhyme for you. If no one is offended then I haven't done my job. And thanks as ever to Graeme Base for writing the more rhythmical bits.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7DGF9txP_IrHWLiY83p2cuUQJPrzVSk3Tw1P7rywrhjXnWpRYFnXXUClkpyVXRLY4KUZgLZWY0gLorfNnvggzGNWaKeLPIAytWgjAe2HrqeTKK4pmjV9qUBclg6UTQ0vrs_e0HRFVB3s/s1600/Christmas-Dinner-7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7DGF9txP_IrHWLiY83p2cuUQJPrzVSk3Tw1P7rywrhjXnWpRYFnXXUClkpyVXRLY4KUZgLZWY0gLorfNnvggzGNWaKeLPIAytWgjAe2HrqeTKK4pmjV9qUBclg6UTQ0vrs_e0HRFVB3s/s320/Christmas-Dinner-7.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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'Twas the night after Christmas</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">And sleepiness fell.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">They'd finished the turkey,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">The pudding as well</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">They'd opened their crackers,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">The riddles they'd told</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">(And none of them less</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Than a century old).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">They'd worn paper hats </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">For a moment or two</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Till even Gran found it</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">A lame thing to do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">The presents were opened,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">The mess cleared away,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Now everyone slumbered,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Recalling the day . . .</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Paul got a video game</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">He thought neat,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">(The one where you murder </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Each person you meet.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">But Mum said, 'It's awful!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">'I won't let you play.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">'I don't care if Dad</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;"><i>Has</i></span><span style="font-family: Courier;">
been playing all day.'<br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyjJvrfiXrhOGS2my-VxDUhqidA3kAHZgBDm581ShYlLAgpVWRz72UoArB3Wj1bh1gkC1ya9Qv5dnjR-bRnZK87tLfePzZHsPg5iMSBl6-TinOQ8eWMCE1oAPYUiSDJmDHZG6DUYzZREc/s1600/dvdsssss.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyjJvrfiXrhOGS2my-VxDUhqidA3kAHZgBDm581ShYlLAgpVWRz72UoArB3Wj1bh1gkC1ya9Qv5dnjR-bRnZK87tLfePzZHsPg5iMSBl6-TinOQ8eWMCE1oAPYUiSDJmDHZG6DUYzZREc/s1600/dvdsssss.jpg" /></a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">And David got DVD movies,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Although</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">He'd downloaded all of them</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Ages ago.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPRh1Ga5oIH7Z62P8vErDUid_4KnnCWfQWlmAvKi9zjP_TNLAK_yeC_kLD6aZfnx3QKQPQTYbHmiKAb49JvB1hRzDhj69WbgeT_78kU19omDi8gUZhHNBeWOKmvYpFbNnGSq-AAFZiux0/s1600/Pirate.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPRh1Ga5oIH7Z62P8vErDUid_4KnnCWfQWlmAvKi9zjP_TNLAK_yeC_kLD6aZfnx3QKQPQTYbHmiKAb49JvB1hRzDhj69WbgeT_78kU19omDi8gUZhHNBeWOKmvYpFbNnGSq-AAFZiux0/s320/Pirate.png" width="320" /></a> </span></div>
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</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Old Gran gave out books</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">And a chemistry set.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">(All going on eBay</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Next week, you can bet.)</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRKVqVjRS8sSvbjokdzVQnZgJnFfzw1FaxZDJWexD6WLwYVMRYPyTvUNP3Ie0uwy0C7oi2NGQ7TVtEqZ9dGfQWX59Wo9KG3U8lqAp1BahwUUfBKZo9aANjfxZUZBXjqtvANd1g3sOwkaM/s1600/chemistry_set-300x230.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRKVqVjRS8sSvbjokdzVQnZgJnFfzw1FaxZDJWexD6WLwYVMRYPyTvUNP3Ie0uwy0C7oi2NGQ7TVtEqZ9dGfQWX59Wo9KG3U8lqAp1BahwUUfBKZo9aANjfxZUZBXjqtvANd1g3sOwkaM/s1600/chemistry_set-300x230.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsGNqskQ8w_mTYRVIQ_pvGnxNbQpAXvLPZ-ayiwpQs5-KOTvKXKY36746STm9wPhwH-_7g2g5lSErN1KvJkO-DcxQ0n1DJMQo5CiNYk9D-m2A_P6-kQvP_xq9txHO39nmd-BqpNtbRy7k/s1600/ebay+shot.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsGNqskQ8w_mTYRVIQ_pvGnxNbQpAXvLPZ-ayiwpQs5-KOTvKXKY36746STm9wPhwH-_7g2g5lSErN1KvJkO-DcxQ0n1DJMQo5CiNYk9D-m2A_P6-kQvP_xq9txHO39nmd-BqpNtbRy7k/s1600/ebay+shot.png" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Courier;"><br />
<br />
And then there was Courtney</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Who cried, the poor soul - <br />
For Santa had brought her</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">The wrong kind of doll.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix-BkMECBOZUBCH4atM3FFT-Bf7p1pxAKi5R79vPJ6nnmDJavOXzHtWlnzJD8lNAcQ8zYcWDYMDIHrvoN59WuHzom5q1KPdWUzBcWKyCL8HtDA8mQtl5oPmoo_2asusKPczdKuWr4FyiE/s1600/Doll.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix-BkMECBOZUBCH4atM3FFT-Bf7p1pxAKi5R79vPJ6nnmDJavOXzHtWlnzJD8lNAcQ8zYcWDYMDIHrvoN59WuHzom5q1KPdWUzBcWKyCL8HtDA8mQtl5oPmoo_2asusKPczdKuWr4FyiE/s320/Doll.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">'I wanted a dolly</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">That wets when it's pressed</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Bit this one won't wee</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">And I'm deeply distressed.'</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeQq1H3YgT2UM3ypJs4z6n_lTo59_oafZ-xkRfFQ9m0o2MQQr19DcuWiFA8fZgX4vE4Bik5QCM0gnqAanR9oc6x9iHWKPLDYU19XDCEpUtPATAA5IxQ-kX-TSJLnyAZJ9p2fD6DkHfibA/s1600/Doll+that+wets.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeQq1H3YgT2UM3ypJs4z6n_lTo59_oafZ-xkRfFQ9m0o2MQQr19DcuWiFA8fZgX4vE4Bik5QCM0gnqAanR9oc6x9iHWKPLDYU19XDCEpUtPATAA5IxQ-kX-TSJLnyAZJ9p2fD6DkHfibA/s320/Doll+that+wets.JPG" width="318" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">'But <i>this </i></span><span style="font-family: Courier;">doll is lovely,'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Said Mummy to daughter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">'I think they've stopped making</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Those dolls that pass water.'</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">And Courtney kept squeezing</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">But nothing came out.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">The doll wouldn't pee.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">It was airtight. No doubt.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">She squeezed and squeezed harder,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">With all of her might<br />
Till dolly exploded -</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">A terrible sight!</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxr8meqhwlAhX9hInNg709XGHMbxQNRwv6-rrul4QrmCueZWbFEZdRRjUJiZ1VJdFN9Az1Vm-wH05X8IYczs9QIgtLjcI2zVuvmU9X_k7JYEQ3T-4a8SdIoWXgbxCJILhi9nTzfv85CEo/s1600/Explosion.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxr8meqhwlAhX9hInNg709XGHMbxQNRwv6-rrul4QrmCueZWbFEZdRRjUJiZ1VJdFN9Az1Vm-wH05X8IYczs9QIgtLjcI2zVuvmU9X_k7JYEQ3T-4a8SdIoWXgbxCJILhi9nTzfv85CEo/s320/Explosion.png" width="248" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">The head popped right off</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Looking spooky and scary.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">And bounced off the Christmas tree,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Killing a fairy.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3H0bWbOuIeHzISa-FQg3RzMZbN9_xkU2gBI6mW7VK7J4sRkRB6bFPFyljy7p_OA6pvBowvvPZKJxYOg1sf1xh2kXZebHo6Xl7HT1BqbwAxa_UjH5BiMnEIKw9lw6PH-MNqjnwyH190eM/s1600/dead+fairy.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3H0bWbOuIeHzISa-FQg3RzMZbN9_xkU2gBI6mW7VK7J4sRkRB6bFPFyljy7p_OA6pvBowvvPZKJxYOg1sf1xh2kXZebHo6Xl7HT1BqbwAxa_UjH5BiMnEIKw9lw6PH-MNqjnwyH190eM/s320/dead+fairy.png" width="161" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">It rocketed round</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">And finally fell<br />
Right into the fireplace</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">(It burned rather well).</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;"><br />
The plastic was melted,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">The room filled with smoke</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Mum said, 'Let's sing carols!'</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">And tried not to choke</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvHxyFLEEFZV0Eu6o9q4zX5jLI7PWFBmWp7tn-__kwoQZVdzdX9mqkT3JjMnJoAHZD6u40I2yk6tMPnCXL5S9oph5BlRoRhJW9cHo7Oe_UNyCfRhLE0SKFy69V9qSOXeL4CtNPVBIy_40/s1600/smoke.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvHxyFLEEFZV0Eu6o9q4zX5jLI7PWFBmWp7tn-__kwoQZVdzdX9mqkT3JjMnJoAHZD6u40I2yk6tMPnCXL5S9oph5BlRoRhJW9cHo7Oe_UNyCfRhLE0SKFy69V9qSOXeL4CtNPVBIy_40/s320/smoke.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">But Courtney kept crying</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">And cursing the elf</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">That brought the wrong dolly,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">She soon wet her<i>self</i></span><span style="font-family: Courier;">.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwvKZeIY3yn2Zz4oMrZyvduSHhnanICD7hvnBC9a3DuOnXbvSpuP5iT3gzBmFwcwfItUIyR8NpAigf4zzttgFTqSNc_WI0Ikc3jb5F00GYDoeaGoDLsqNKT3r7YUOUDHP1ii64v6atVr8/s1600/censored.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwvKZeIY3yn2Zz4oMrZyvduSHhnanICD7hvnBC9a3DuOnXbvSpuP5iT3gzBmFwcwfItUIyR8NpAigf4zzttgFTqSNc_WI0Ikc3jb5F00GYDoeaGoDLsqNKT3r7YUOUDHP1ii64v6atVr8/s1600/censored.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;"><br />
<br />
Her two darling brothers,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Young David and Paul,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Were laughing like mad</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">At the thrill of it all.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">But Courtney was livid</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">And growled at the pair,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">'I hope that next Christmas</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">You're killed by a bear!'</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">Her mother suggested</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">She might want to go</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">And put on new undies.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">But Courtney said, 'No!'</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">She glared at her dolly's head,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">Melted to goo,<br />
And into the fireplace</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">Her panties she threw!</span><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz0yM2HTJ0soaK8Le8VGwUSsGSLkUFsG2VBDRnShLUW6I8VTv6KhvUmOB-BdVkH9WR8Y8EfxMUBO7c65F_Wxl5iWJyzZlVCCFY2S7L80NoeeVXNWpWrqhf5yPIh3n5mZ3TJ4T1auabJwU/s1600/fireplace-01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz0yM2HTJ0soaK8Le8VGwUSsGSLkUFsG2VBDRnShLUW6I8VTv6KhvUmOB-BdVkH9WR8Y8EfxMUBO7c65F_Wxl5iWJyzZlVCCFY2S7L80NoeeVXNWpWrqhf5yPIh3n5mZ3TJ4T1auabJwU/s320/fireplace-01.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">And what happened next</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">Made the family flee - </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">A cloud of burnt plastic</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">And panties and pee.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvHxyFLEEFZV0Eu6o9q4zX5jLI7PWFBmWp7tn-__kwoQZVdzdX9mqkT3JjMnJoAHZD6u40I2yk6tMPnCXL5S9oph5BlRoRhJW9cHo7Oe_UNyCfRhLE0SKFy69V9qSOXeL4CtNPVBIy_40/s1600/smoke.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvHxyFLEEFZV0Eu6o9q4zX5jLI7PWFBmWp7tn-__kwoQZVdzdX9mqkT3JjMnJoAHZD6u40I2yk6tMPnCXL5S9oph5BlRoRhJW9cHo7Oe_UNyCfRhLE0SKFy69V9qSOXeL4CtNPVBIy_40/s320/smoke.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">And two hours later</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">The household returned</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">To witness where dolly</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">And undies were burned.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 120.5pt;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">The boys looked at Mother.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">'We don't understand.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">'Is this part of Christmas?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Is this what God planned?'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">'I'm sure that it isn't,'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Their mother intoned.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">'Now let's tidy up!'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">She looked round and groaned.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">The soot and the cinders,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">The stains and the wet -</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">The night after Christmas </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Was not over yet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">'Next Christmas,' she said,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">'We'll avoid all this stuff-</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">The presents ... the pudding ...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">The turkey... Enough!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">'From now on, each dollar</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Goes straight to the poor,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">We'll give it to charity -</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">They need it more.'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">'Hooray!' they all cried.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Not a soul disagreed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">A household united</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">In good over greed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">And so the day finished,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">With goodwill and cheer…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">And who knows? They might even</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;"><i>Do </i></span><span style="font-family: Courier;">it
next year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">But just for the moment,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">The presents seemed nice</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">And thoughts of the poor</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Disappeared in a trice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">And Courtney was just as</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Amazed as can be</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">To find in her bed</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">A doll that could pee.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvEd4Kg5HQLNnWCZw6UnTteBAqMfjt7jQLOlaxhI__36SgzIfNIU2hNlVR82GUu6gire5kJn9LO16xNMLgdyRW5CTgoIwnMaQB1XANs7Sur4YDLvAuI1fu4KERPdUChmIyC5mNtzA3vPk/s1600/Joy+to+the+World.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvEd4Kg5HQLNnWCZw6UnTteBAqMfjt7jQLOlaxhI__36SgzIfNIU2hNlVR82GUu6gire5kJn9LO16xNMLgdyRW5CTgoIwnMaQB1XANs7Sur4YDLvAuI1fu4KERPdUChmIyC5mNtzA3vPk/s320/Joy+to+the+World.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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fDougMacLeodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05291444835875083084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1475811780127704147.post-22215905618171371542012-11-24T14:00:00.001-08:002013-01-28T23:33:39.403-08:00Tonight's The Night It <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/light-sweet-and-tasty-as-befits-a-kitchen-queen/story-e6frg8n6-1226522247817">worked!</a><br />
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But unfortunately, Dad couldn't make it. He'd have got on well with Margaret.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidvjQ2SA37HtU0Oj5odp6b1EYqStxEfPzxrPmCU1BpLEpAgRV8zEyo9mt0tMa5PMowVrqD30828MFAlWkMDxmdeNRpxtzJdnzYodK2itlCycP3NYR3QFJr5rY7-G6VaoGBAT1arQS82SY/s1600/Margaret+and+Doug.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidvjQ2SA37HtU0Oj5odp6b1EYqStxEfPzxrPmCU1BpLEpAgRV8zEyo9mt0tMa5PMowVrqD30828MFAlWkMDxmdeNRpxtzJdnzYodK2itlCycP3NYR3QFJr5rY7-G6VaoGBAT1arQS82SY/s320/Margaret+and+Doug.png" width="308" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgmkiHByDsZepLoL5gWfM8iTTQUgR7PdvwYndV9CpfyXodNWIYE17fk5zuzJPhaUqd4Q8ElaVSRTNeq7o3ZlJcbrTdOX8eDBYsNRaxswcD_tPsBWwBQR9h574uEtJ3YywZaw90pEen7i0/s1600/Margaret+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgmkiHByDsZepLoL5gWfM8iTTQUgR7PdvwYndV9CpfyXodNWIYE17fk5zuzJPhaUqd4Q8ElaVSRTNeq7o3ZlJcbrTdOX8eDBYsNRaxswcD_tPsBWwBQR9h574uEtJ3YywZaw90pEen7i0/s320/Margaret+1.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />DougMacLeodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05291444835875083084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1475811780127704147.post-65727975274602423092012-11-06T15:17:00.004-08:002013-06-14T15:50:17.916-07:00The Margaret Fulton musical is nearly here.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMVbDz2Er6CJW_k-2nKFrOU5slIv61bVdgK_iU2e8ldwfoe7MPWJbo5_x_5VHXKHmxErXOUW4fIPeD0rGlXjxOFkzRw7uP-oCUQaiyOOJmB_fsayKlkk3QidznohZPJMipvye6lbL3bNo/s1600/293796_514623778549469_972669099_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMVbDz2Er6CJW_k-2nKFrOU5slIv61bVdgK_iU2e8ldwfoe7MPWJbo5_x_5VHXKHmxErXOUW4fIPeD0rGlXjxOFkzRw7uP-oCUQaiyOOJmB_fsayKlkk3QidznohZPJMipvye6lbL3bNo/s320/293796_514623778549469_972669099_n.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>
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With a bit of luck, my stroky Dad may be well enough to attend the
forthcoming production of <a href="http://www.watoday.com.au/entertainment/theatre/musical-soothes-the-dessert-storm-20121102-28omv.html"><i>Margaret Fulton, Queen of the Dessert,</i></a><span style="font-style: normal;"> the musical that I wrote with composer <span style="font-size: small;">and mate </span>Yuri
Worontschak. The cast members are young and ludicrously talented. Our beautiful
leading lady, Amy Lehpamer, can play the violin as well as sing and dance, so
we've written a violin solo into a scene set in The Rocks in Sydney, where the tenants (Margaret's
friends and neighbours) sing a song about their love of La Vie Boheme. I
started writing this so long ago, it's hard to believe it's about to happen.
Although we've just has one major setback: poor Amy, our <span style="font-size: small;">aforementioned </span>leading lady, has caught chicken pox, so
she can't rehearse for a week.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-UNYz-5rF96N1aSDMV8fau4rrKBi4aNslyylXMcXKe5a_TX7aWqiwBj9JrwM4DxH5fheWvdEJJdLH8N9zJvjv7MxTmU5QUYtnuX5Vr4HA0mKbnGTzI3Tw_tqYeuWP3EKLG7V0kE0ZnX4/s1600/ml-gf-cake-353-20121105112048514630-300x0-1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-UNYz-5rF96N1aSDMV8fau4rrKBi4aNslyylXMcXKe5a_TX7aWqiwBj9JrwM4DxH5fheWvdEJJdLH8N9zJvjv7MxTmU5QUYtnuX5Vr4HA0mKbnGTzI3Tw_tqYeuWP3EKLG7V0kE0ZnX4/s320/ml-gf-cake-353-20121105112048514630-300x0-1.png" width="212" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;"> </span><span style="font-style: normal;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">Amy Lehpamer not with chicken pox.</span></span></div>
<h4 class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">I haven't made a big deal about my stroke recovery in any of
the media interviews I've done, but the fact that you're reading this blog
suggests that you might already know about it. For the moment, I think that one
of the best things you can do to aid stroke recovery is keep busy, find a group
of energetic people to be busy with, and put on as musical. I realise this
remedy may not be readily available for all stroke survivors. I'm particularly
fortunate in that regard. It all started when I volunteered to work on the
musical <i>Call Girl</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> last year. </span><i>Call
Girl</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> is a musical written by my friend
Tracy Harvey. It's about love and laughter in a call centre. Tracy actually
worked in one of these places for a short while. YOu have to harden up. Most
people you 'cold-call' really don't want to talk with you, and you might have
dragged them away from something important, such as </span><i>Letters and
Numbers</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> or dinner. It was interesting for
me to go from an experience of dreading the call centre calls, to a position
where I couldn't wait for them to ring me, so that I could plug our show. I
think I must be the only person who ever managed to 'sell' anything to a call
centre caller. Tracy kept a notebook full of the adventures of working in the
call centre, and came up with a clever script where it was possible to
sympathise and even cheer for the 'phonies', after all, they were human beings
like you or me, who had, in many cases fallen on hard times. One of the best
experiences of working on </span><i>Call Girl</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
was getting the chance to work with director Bryce Ives.</span></span></h4>
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<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Director Bryce Ives with the fabulous Tracy Harvey </span></span></div>
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Bryce is<span style="font-style: normal;"> 28 and one of the
most dedicated people I have ever met, somehow making himself available to
<span style="font-size: small;">deal with </span>the concerns of cast and crew (and there were plenty) while somehow
keeping the whole vision of the show together. Our cast (with the exception of
Tracy) were all fairly new to the business, but Bryce brought out the best in them
all and the end production was slick and funny. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FwQNtPH0d0">I hope we get a chance to do it again. </a></span></div>
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After seeing how well Bryce brought together the various
components of <i>Call Girl</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> I decided to
show him the remnants of a script and some songs I had written for the Margaret Fulton musical. There have been a lot of
bio-musicals lately, as well as some that take inappropriate subject matter and
turn it into a musical, so the biggest joke is that someone has gone to the
effort of producing a whole musical about the life of Shane Warne, or a
dystopian world called </span><i>Urinetown</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
where water is scarce and lavatories may only be used if a substantial fee is
paid to the corrupt company (Urine Good Company) that runs the town. The trouble
is, unlikely subject matter that is often the </span><i>only </i><span style="font-style: normal;">joke, and what might have worked well as a two minute
joke on </span><i>The Simpsons (</i><span style="font-style: normal;">they've
already done parody-musicals based on </span><i>The Planet of The Apes and also
A Streetcar Named Desire, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">to name but two</span><i>)</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> flounders when it reaches the midway point. I
haven't seen Warne, so I don't know if this criticism applies, but I did see
Urinetown, and also the musical about Jerry Springer, and it was hard
for me to last the distance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Margaret being a 'celebrity chef'- a term she hates. She will not be taking part in future seasons of Masterchef</span></span></div>
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I'd met Margaret Fulton - the 'celebrity chef' - while doing
some research on a TV program proposal for Steve Vizard's production
company. Margaret and I spent a morning together. Margaret was, and is,
phenomenally entertaining. Conversations with Margaret often collapsed into
giggles as Margaret would suddenly go off on a tangent, recalling an anecdote
that might involve Germaine Greer or Jorn Utzon or any other artistic,
political and literary celebrities of the fifties and sixties. Margaret, you
see, had a knack of being in the right place to commune with the great and
near-great. It helped, of course, that she was strong-willed, intelligent and
courageous. Margaret was the first female business executive in Australia, with
her own line of credit. The musical recreates some funny but true moments where
male executives have underestimated Margaret, or even mistaken her for a 'lady
of the night', which once happened during a business trip to Canberra. After I
met Margaret I was determined (though not driven) to create a musical about her life, since the performing
arts had been such a major part of it. This was, I think, before Casey Benetto
did such a good job with his musical about the life of former Australian prime
minister, Paul Keating. I think one of the reasons <i>Keating</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> worked so well is that Casey put a lot of heart and
soul into the script. It wasn't just funny (fantasically so) it was also moving
and a fair representation of a full political life. I wanted to make the Margaret
Fulton musical a genuine biographical piece with music of the various periods of
history that Margaret's life spanned.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">A typical Margaret Fulton pic from the early sixties. You can tell she's a communist, can't you?</span></div>
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When Adam Cook, the artistic director of The State Theatre
in Adelaide asked me if I had any show ideas (we had just finished working
together on the <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/21/1098316775471.html?from=storyrhs"><i>Midnite</i></a><span style="font-style: normal;"> musical), I
mentioned the Fulton project and he burst out laughing. He thought I was
proposing yet another of those inappropriate subject matter joke-musicals. To
give people an idea of what I really wanted to do (and Margaret was yet to give
us her blessing - she has now) I thought the best thing would be to put together a collection
of songs to demonstrate the sweep of the project. I bought the rights to
Margaret's autobiography, and the first song I wrote was a huge thing called </span><i>The
Book</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. It's a song about Margaret's first
cookery book, which broke all records by having an initial print run of one
million. That's the story, anyway. I don't quite know how it
is possible to do such a massive first print run unless you are, say, doing the
latest volume in the </span><i>Harry Potter</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
series. But Margaret insists that <a href="http://www.phf.org.uk/">Paul Hamlyn,</a> the famous semi-teutonic
publisher and patron of the arts commissioned an initial print run of a million
- when there were only about eighteen million people in Australia. (This gives
you an idea of how popular Margaret Fulton was in the fifties and sixties, when
she was contributing to Woman's Day and New Idea, as well as appearing on the
exciting new medium of television. I suppose if anyone could do a primary print run of one million, then Paul
Hamlyn, with all his Asian printing connections, could. There's a song about
him in he show, and we've delighted in presenting him as the </span><i>King of
Colour, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">a sort of pop-art swinging guru</span><i>
</i><span style="font-style: normal;">that would be quite at home in The Beatles'
movie,</span><i> Yellow Submarine. </i><span style="font-style: normal;">And
we've placed him right at the heart of swinging London, where Margaret</span><i>
</i><span style="font-style: normal;">did dozens of highly successful book
signings (although people weren't queueing around the block as they did at the
Australian signings). So the first song I put down with Yuri was a massive rock
opera piece about this massive book that introduced bland Australian cooks to
such novelties as garlic and Indian spices.</span></div>
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Australia really was somewhat insular in her cookery tastes.
Never mind that we were in the middle of the pacific, but we based our menu on
English rather than Asian tastes. Exotic herbs like cumin or cardamom were
barely heard of. But Margaret Fulton's cookery book introduced Austrtalian men
and women (okay, mainly the women) to a myriad of new flavours and exotic
methods of food preparation. Readers of <i>The Women's Weekly </i><span style="font-style: normal;">lapped it up, and Margaret's book became the
cornerstone of modern Australian cuisine. All the while, Margaret was
presenting a fairly conservative image to the readers of the women's magazines.
Most photographs of her featured her presiding in a matronly way over wonderful
spreads of food; exotic, spicy food that the readers could make for themselves.
But Margaret's seemingly conservative image was at odds with her true self.
Fiercely independent, she set out to create a career for herself in Big Bad
Sydney (she was born in Scotland but spent her childhood in Glen Innes, in rural New
South Wales). Margaret had a young daughter from her first marriage, which broke
up fairly swiftly when both parties realised they didn't share a lot in common.
Thus, Margaret became a 'rebellious' single mum (there weren't so many of them
back then) who decided that the best, most convenient place to live would be
in the famous, sometimes derided 'Rocks' district of Sydney, right near the
south end of the bridge.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The Rocks. It used to be rough, now it's a repolished gem, a bit like my beloved St Kilda. </span></div>
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Margaret's friends were her fellow tenants; a lively mixture
of actors, artists, writers and musicians. The show features a big song called <i>La
Vie Boheme</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, or The Bohemian Life, which was
very much the life that Margaret lived when she wasn't working in the ACP
building on one of the magazines. Margaret's daughter Suzanne is on record as
saying that she thinks her mother had poor taste in men. They were always
good-looking and 'interesting', but they were sometimes dishonest, even
predatory. I wrote a song called </span><i>Decorative, Elegant and Useless,
</i>which strives to encapsulate <span style="font-style: normal;">Suzanne's
opinion of her mother's ability to hook up with disastrous men. I wrote two
more songs, one piece to encapsulate Margaret's energetic philosophy of life. It's
called </span><i>I Sang for My Supper. </i><span style="font-style: normal;">My
favourite song in the show is about a 'Bohemian' character called Mandrake the
Magician, a female legal eagle who attended one of Margaret's many custume
parties, dressed as the male cartoon superhero Mandrake, and promptly had an
affair with Margaret's husband at the time, Denis Doonan.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Leave her alone! Mandrake the magician bravely threatens an evil spaceman</span></div>
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With the bare bones of a script and a CD of six songs I
pitched the idea to Margaret. I wasn't quite sure how she would take it, but it
was a good pitch. Yuri Worontscak produced the songs so that they were
technically of a high standard, and we had good singers such as Mark Trevorrow
and Shaun Micallef performing the lyrics. I sat and listened to these songs
with Margaret, having to translate a few lines because Yuri, like many musical
producers, thought the music was more important than the lyrics and the balance
was wrong. Lyrics disappeared in lilting seas of music. I was most concerned
about the Mandrake song, since it dealt with such a personal part of Margaret's
life. But I was rapt when Margaret smiled at the end of it. 'She was exactly
like that,' Margaret said, especially in relation to 'Mandrake's' line that the
reason she always worked so hard on being a superhero was that she 'couldn't
find love'.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Imagine being cheated on by Mandrake. Spiderman you'd understand, but Mandrake?</span></div>
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So, Margaret apparently liked the songs and when she decided
she could trust me, she let me go ahead with writing the musical.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Our cast, gathered in Bryce Ives' kitchen, where many of the rehearsals took place. </span></div>
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It's punishingly hard to produce musicals anywhere in the
world, let alone in Australia, so I suspected we would have to give it to one
of the local theatre companies to present as part of their season. It wasn't a
vast production, just a sort of chamber piece with five performers and a small
band. Yuri and I shook hands on the production and we took it to Simon
Phillips, who was then the artistic director of The Melbourne Theatre Company.
At the time they were presenting the musical Urinetown, which both Yuri and I
had seen but not enjoyed terribly much. Sadly, Yuri mentioned this to Simon. I've
always found that to gain the support of a person of influence, it's often a
good idea not to tell them you think their work is crap. But Simon remained very
encouraging, and wondered whom I had in mind to play the title character. I'd
just been working with Gina Riley on the <i>Kath and Kim </i><span style="font-style: normal;">series, so I suggested her - good-looking, fantastic comic timing and a magnificent singing voice. Who could be better? This came as a bit of a
surprise to Yuri; we hadn't even discussed this, but Simon liked the idea very
much and told me to finish it. Some money even changed hands, though I don't recall how much. There was certainly no promise of the MTC
taking it on as one of the shows in their latest season, but Simon Phillips'
encouragement and money inspired me to write a whole first act, which I sent him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">Our cast again. it seems likely that our set will resemble a working kitchen. We have permission to cook stuff during the show. In the last rehearsal I attended, there was much chopping of vegetables and fiddling with pots. It was a little dist<span style="font-size: x-small;">ra</span>cting and it will be tidied up for the final production, but I did rather like the fact that at the<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span>end of the show, the cast sat and ate what they had made. No food wastage here. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;"> Simon was
still kind and supportive, but by this stage he had decided he no longer wanted
to perform the role of the MTC's artistic director. So, we had a show but
nowhere to present it. It gathered dust for a few years. I showed it to Bryce
Ives at some stage and gave him a copy of the CD. I remained in contact with
Margaret, and made sure that she got invitations to some of the other Sydney
shows in which I had played a part. I was glad Margaret came to </span><i>The Clockwork
Forest</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> at the Sydney Theatre Company,
because I think that show is the most faithful rendering of my writing. She
also saw the Belvoir Street production of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie which I
adapted with John Clarke. I remember a ludicrous, plump arts administrator
complaining about the script that John and I had written, stating that it was
'little more than a satire on Australian iconography'. This overwhelmed me. If you commission
Australia's best known satirist to write a show then complain that it's
satirical, it's a bit like buying a cherry ripe then complaining because there
appear to be cherries in it. It wasn't a good experience, because of Sydney
theatre politics, though I very much enjoyed working with John.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">The incomparable<i> Keating, The musical.</i> We were working on the <i>Margaret Fulton</i> show before this mini-masterpiece appeared, and it was an inspiration. </span></span></div>
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Simon Phillips was also in the opening night audience of <i>The
Clockwork Forest</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. I did passingly mention
to him that I still had this musical about Margaret Fulton which by an
extraordinary coincidence, was holding my hand. I don't know if Simon had lost
interest in the project, but he nodded and moved away to chat with a painting. Margaret
joined me at the bar. I should have bought Margaret a whiskey and water as I
know this is her preferred tipple, but we both downed some white wine while I
was eager to hear what Margaret thought of the show. She said that the design
was very good - and it was. But, of course, it's not what the writer wants to
hear. In the end, Margaret said something polite and kind about the script and
I farewelled her as she climbed into a cab and rode back to Balmain.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The elegant Brink/STC production of The Clockwork Forest<span style="font-size: x-small;">, directed by Chris Drummond</span>.</span></div>
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What happened next is I had a stroke. I woke up one morning
unable to feel any sensation in my hands, except for a sort of pins and needles
feeling in my fingertips. I couldn't talk properly because my mouth drooped
down on the left side and I seemed to have developed a slight limp. I
journeyed to the local medical centre and they were very adamant that I had to
get to a hospital as soon as possible. I really didn't believe I was having a
stroke. To me, my voice sounded fairly normal, though I've since been assured
that it didn't. I spent a few weeks in hospital, and when I was discharged I
looked around for something to do. There was a book I wanted to write, and I've
blogged about that elsewhere. I was at a bit of a loose end when Bryce Ives
rang, as enthusiastic as ever, saying that he definitely wanted to get the
<span style="font-size: small;">Margaret Fulton </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">musical</span> </span>happening and that there might even be some funding from
Port Philip Council and local company Theatreworks. All I had to do was finish
it.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> Director Bryce Ives, very much at home with a microphone. </span></div>
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Yuri Worontscak and I signed on, and <span style="font-size: small;">Yuri</span> patiently helped
me with all of the new songs we had to write. (I thought that a quick way of writing
songs would be to compose new words to fit already establish melodies, but <span style="font-size: small;">fortunately Yuri
didn't like that idea</span>. He was very good at doing 'soundalikes' and had gained a
reputation for doing the song parodies on shows like <i>Fast Forward</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> and </span><i>Full Frontal</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. His work sounded just different enough from the
original to keep him out of the law courts. But Yuri was keen to write some
brand new stuff, not the old soundalikes. We worked hard on eighteen more
songs. (When you've had a stroke, it's a good idea to work with a friend,
because the chances are you'll come up with some stupid ideas, and only a <span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">really</span> </span>good
friend would be brave enough to point out just how abysmally stupid those ideas
are.) Bryce kept on at me to finish the script, so he could cast. I decided that
whoever played the lead had to be a comic performer, not just a singer, because
there were quite a few jokes in the show. Eventually we had a table reading of
the script in the dungeons of the old National Theatre in St Kilda. I
recognised a few faces from the old </span><i>Call Girl prduction</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> - choreographer David Harford and singer comedianne
Laura Burzacott. Laura was a perfect fit for the show and did such a good job
reading a Rocks character called Bea that I immediately went off and wrote a
lot more scenes for her.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> The amazing Laura Burzacott who will be playing the role of Bea in the show. I don't see how someone so talented can seemingly appear out of nowhere. She hasn't taken a singing lesson in her life, but she has perfect pitch and can give the songs a lot of energy. Though I irritate her when I make the lyrics too wordy. </span></span></div>
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Gina Riley was unavailable to play Margaret Fulton, on the
grounds that she'd just made a movie that she was rather keen to promote (I'd
worked on the same movie, so I understood.) Wendy Harmer said she was
interested, and for a while it looked as though Wendy would be Margaret Fulton,
but there was a clash with another big TV gig she was doing. Neither Gina nor
Wendy had complained about the pathetically low remuneration we were offering.
Maybe they were just being polite? But I think they were genuinely interested
in playing such a wonderful cahracter as Margaret. There aren't that many
Australian musicals with such a strong female character. Eventually Bryce cast
Amy Lehpamer, as he'd just seen her in the retro musical <i>Rock of Ages</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> and she'd been very good.</span></div>
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The rest of the cast sort of fell into place. Both Laura and
Bryce could make a good living as talent scouts. They seem to know everyone
funny and musical and - gasp! - affordable, working on the fringes of Melbourne
Theatre. Producer Sean Bryan came on board to help Bryce and organise funding drives. He's young, but has an incredible list of credits from working on shows all over the world.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Sean Bryan seeking donations for Margaret Fulton Queen of the Dessert. H<span style="font-size: x-small;">o</span>w could you say no to this face?</span></div>
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The script and songs have been through countless rewrites.
We manage to cover three decades of Australian history from 1988 on. We sing
cautious love songs about pressure cookers and - recently removed - a song that
refers to Margaret Fulton's brief flirtation with the communist party in
Australia in the fifties. I thought it so surprising the Margaret, who to me
represented a fairly comfortable, domestic cosiness should be involved in
leftist politics, that I wanted to call the show <i>Margaret Fulton: Communist</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. But Margaret didn't like that idea at all. She
joined the party when she agreed with communism's more noble ideals of nobody
being forced into poverty,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>but
Margaret later told me that Stalin had let her down very badly, and that Russia
was the one country she was never likely to visit. Yuri came up with the<span style="font-size: small;"> eventual s</span>how
name Margaret Fulton - Queen of the Dessert. So that's what it's called, for
the moment. One of the best songs in the show is about jam, which was
Margaret's solution to a huge Australian sugar surplus, thanks to some overly
generous subsidies from the Menzies Government to cane farmers. This song was
also on the original presentation CD. I now want to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>call the show Margaret Fulton's </span><i>Jam, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">since that seems to trip off the tongue nicely. If we
do ever get the show to Sydney, I'd hope that the same cast and crew could be
involved, since we all worked together to make the idea of the Fulton show a
reality. But first we have to get through our premiere season at <a href="http://www.theatreworks.org.au/whatson/">Theatreworks in St Kilda.</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;">Heartfelt thanks to anyone who donated to the project via the <a href="http://www.pozible.com/">Pozible</a> site. See you there!</span></div>
DougMacLeodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05291444835875083084noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1475811780127704147.post-33464173693192629222012-10-20T14:02:00.002-07:002012-11-09T18:08:48.805-08:00Complications<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Dad eating chocolate with his twin sister Florence, about seventy years ago. Chocolate consumption was to become a lifelong hobby.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Courier; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">My dad's heart
operation went okay and he has been transported from Geelong to a hospital in Ballarat. But we now have another problem. Dad
managed to get a stroke (just like me), so now we can talk with each other
about the experience. I think that, generally, dads get strokes long before
their sons, so this is an interesting inversion. He felt very sick in the
middle of the week and when I learned the symptoms, I actually knew what was
wrong. (I know so few things about the world that I am delighted and staggered when I can offer some advice borne of experience.) Dad's on the same bloodpressure-lowering drug that am. It's called
Karvea, and I found that it made me feel sick and incredibly sleepy, because my
dosage was too high and my blood pressure had dropped below a hundred, where it had been just over two hundred, prior to treatment. Dad was
experiencing exactly the same thing as I did, and I suspected for the same
reason. I wonder what the correct protocol is, when you
are pretty sure you know what is wrong with a patient but have had no medical
training? Should you seek the attention of a nurse and tell them what you think is wrong with the patient and why? From experience, medical staff hate this sort of intervention, as much as a writer would hate someone telling him what's wrong with the words he has written, by someone who hasn't ever written a book in their life. But hang on, that's how my life works. And if the critic is wrong (they usually are) all that happens is I feel miserable for a few hours. I don't actually <b>die. So why be a coward?</b></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Courier; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">In the end, my little sister (who's had quite a lot of experience with medical staffwas brave enough to inform the ward sister that she had a fair idea of what was </span>wrong with Dad, since her stupid and neurotic big brother had just suffered a similar experience. Sniffily, they reduced the dosage of Karvea and Dad felt well again.<br />
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Dad can't drive or talk properly and he's always sleepy, but can't sleep. He also finds it hard to read and work. My father and I have more in common than ever. I already love him, but perhaps the<br />
shared stroke will bring us closer together?<br />
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Here is my dad fishing with <b>his</b> dad, a long time ago. Both are probably thinking they will never get cancer or strokes. Both, I regret, are wrong.<br />
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<br />DougMacLeodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05291444835875083084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1475811780127704147.post-24352355675334392902012-10-20T13:38:00.000-07:002012-10-26T13:48:22.476-07:00Musings on Sequels <style><!--
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It's been a year now since I had the stroke but I'm still finding
it very hard to work. If you want to hear how I'm talking at the moment, <a href="http://www.pozible.com/fulton">go here</a>. It might sound normal to you, but this is nothing like how I used to
speak. By the way, my two friends Amy and YUri did a lot of speaking, even
though they do not feature here. There are alternative edits of film, which
will be released on facebook.</div>
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Not quite sure where my career will be going next. Writing
is punishingly difficult and I'm still not as sturdy on my feet as I would like
to be. It was very hard to write the sequel to my Body-snatcher book, and it
looks as though Penguin are tentative about publishing it. So they should be,
the original received an honour in the CBCA awards and a shortlisting in The Victorian
Premier's Awards so obviously the book is a piece of crap that should never
have been exhumed. Now I'm in a quandary. It took at least four months to write
that sequel. It's about sixty thousand words long. What do I do with it? Is it appropriate to show it other
publishers? The manuscript is now in the hands of my personal friend and editor
extraordinaire, Dmetri Kakmi. I don't even know if the book is any good, since
I wrote it while I was still in rehab from the stroke. I know that dmetri won't hold back with constructive criticism.<br />
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Meanwhile here is a picture of the glorious Amy Lehpamer (the pretty one in that movie with me plugging the play, who not only has the best pair of legs in the business, but also possesses a stunning voice and will be playing the title character in the musical,<br />
<a href="http://www.theatreworks.org.au/whatson/event/?id=138">Margaret, Queen of the Dessert. </a><br />
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DougMacLeodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05291444835875083084noreply@blogger.com0