NAKED DAVID SUZUKI

NAKED DAVID SUZUKI!

Just sayin'!

Scriptwriter, Know-It-All in Training

If there is reason I'm often grateful for choosing this difficult career path it is that it gives me a legitimate reason - not that "general interest" isn't one, but you know - to research pretty much everything in the known universe. One of two web series I'm working on for my new collaborator, the same fellow with him I am recording a second monologue tonight, is somewhat high concept and rooted in a twenty years ahead projection of the modern global scene. A "The World in 2008" issue of The Economist which my pal Rob gave me has been an invaluable leaping off point and another present, from Tom, looks to be quite useful as well. From that I'll leave it to you to guess at the nature of this series - for which I'm trying to get...

1) A treatment
2) A thirteen episode, episode guide
3) A scripted first episode
and
4) A character guide

...finished up. It's going well so far and given the novelty of the distribution medium (webisodes - a rare example of new jargon that I actually like) and how it shapes the message, I've been thinking a bit more about the business of storytelling and how it affects the story being told. For example, I've been making a list of neat background elements which I feel could help to snare those valuable OCD cases that turn a show from just "popular" into "cult". These nibbits are useful for the writer since they expand the world of the story and thus give you more room to tell more stories after - but let's face it, "stories" become "DVD's" and other salable products, which lead to money which I'm told a lot of people are fond of. This is an angle I haven't thought about much before now, I must admit.

I MUST

Meanwhile my favorite writer-director, and basically a huge inspiration behind my original decision to pursue this career, P.T. Anderson has finally come out with a new movie since the criminally underrated Punch-Drunk Love. There Will Be Blood looks very interesting and I will almost certainly review it in some depth after I see it. Until then, cheggout the trailer...

Each year, Scarygoround's creator takes a break by putting up the top 20 albums of the year as reviewed by his main character Shelley. Even if you aren't familiar with the music, the whimsical and inventive descriptions of the music make a great read. Today's reviews includes one of Radiohead's latest which carried a very different method of description than my own and made me grin. Maybe you will to?

Maybe!

A No Good, Uppity Collage Boy

Mostly she cheated on him for how every time he entered her, he insisted on referring to it as a "Slam Dunc".

When I got my first apartment all of my own, I knew I wanted something on the walls that nobody else had and which was all my own. Not having much faith in my drawing or painting skills, I decided to make use of a large store of magazine clippings I'd been hoarding for several years to no specific purpose. Using a standard Grade Six Presentation On Ancient Rome sized piece of bristol board, I did up a big collage and hung it up in a cheap frame that my parents had had laying around. To my surprise, a lot of people other than myself found it very enjoyable to look at.
A year later, upon moving into the bachelor box by the Ottawa canal which would hold me until I left for England, I decided to do up another. The first was just pure stream of consciousness while the latter was loosely gender-themed, with lads dominating one half and ladies the other. Of the same size as the first, I laminated it and then used the collage as a fun cover for my tiny table.

Knowing I'll be heading down to Toronto next month and, ideally, getting my own place by February...I decided it might be time to do some more - having given the two previous collages to my pal Joe when I left for England. This time around I am taking stiff pieces of standard printer paper sized card and doing up a series of smaller collages which I will then get laminated and use for place mats in whatever my new home turns out to be.

The lion's share of my clippings are coming from a tall stack of 1970's teen girl romance comics which contain, by and large, solid gold. The shiniest of the nuggets I have thus far mined would have to be the following "Alphabet of Differences Between Boys and Girls". Yeah, some of it is the predictable patronizing female programming...but honestly, I think that the guys take a much harsher lesson from this cursed alphabet!
Unfortunately the teen-aged girl who owned these several yonks ago must have had a go with her own pair of scissors, so we miss a couple of letters and two descriptions. Still, there's plenty to work with!I suppose you could say that I have my work cut out for me? "You could, but you probably shouldn't."Boys possess some of the same qualities, but to a much lesser degree""When a girl has a quarrel, all she has to do is shed a few tears, and everything becomes all right"I...I have to say that the "S...is for Sex" text confused the hell out of me until I realized it was referring to "Sex" as in "Gender" and not "MAKIN' BACON".For all the old fashioned crap in the other letters, at least X is being hell of progressive by putting forward the idea that women want to see porno films...?

Now I'm off to go make Christmas martinis - I hope you've all had as peaceful and satisfying a day as I have!

First World Problem #2487c

I've come home to find that all of my bookmarks have mysteriously disappeared! Got-damn, there where like 150 of the buggers!

Just thought I'd make this post to say that this space is likely to be quiet until Boxing Day or maybe the day after, for obvious reasons. I definitely want to take some pictures around Carp in that time, so perhaps I will finally deliver on my "Carp has some stuff too!" post(s). Merry Christmas and all that!

Addendum: Though this article is written with America in mind, I think it applies (to varying degrees) even in countries without abstinence education. An interesting read on the sexualized/puritanical conflict of interests in teaching young people how to see themselves and the bodies of the opposite sex.