Broundy @126: I'd venture he made and drank many martinis in his time, so maybe they're all true?
Regardless, they're fun at parties.
The comments section has actually reminded me of Eddie Izzard-esque jokes, i.e., "I like my martinis like I like my women-- stirred, not shaken, with a twist of lime." (in best Sean Connery voice, of course)
"I like my screaming orgasms like I like my women," on the other hand, either probably doesn't require a punchline or is its own. I can't figure out which.
Lee @20: Man, I've no idea. A quick Google adds the variation "kangaroo kicker," so maybe it's something Australia? No clue.
And yeah, many drink names don't make sense (screaming orgasm springs to mind), but there are a couple I find both wonderful and perfectly descript. A slow comfortable screw, for instance, is sloe gin, southern comfort, vodka, and orange juice. I've heard this taken to extreme: a long, slow, comfortable screw up against a cold, hard wall, finished with a kiss. As nearly as I can figure, this includes a taller glass, some ice, some amaretto, and some galliano.
Todd @33: I've heard lots of stories about the amounts of vermouth "purists" like in their martinis. There's a story that Winston Churchill (?) used to pour the gin, then leave the room and jostle a bottle of vermouth in another. One of my favorite television moments ever was when Bill Murray appeared on Kilborn's Late Show. When Kilborn left The Daily Show, he brought his "5 questions" bit with him, and one of his questions to Murray was how to make a perfect martini.
Murray stood up and went to Kilborn's minibar, took out a bottle of gin, and poured some into a tumbler, then noted people argue about how much vermouth to put in a martini. Some, he said, like to put a drop of vermouth into the air conditioning system, allowing it to permeate their drink molecule by molecule via diffusion.
His solution was simple, he said, and with that he bent toward the tumbler and whispered, "Vermouth."
He got the question right. But that's probably because he's Bill Murray.
Pirate @104: Your "BAM! JUNIPER!" made my roommate ask me what was so funny. It's like onomatopoeia from the old Batman show, and wouldn't that be awesome?
On the beers: I've discovered I really like a brew called Samichlaus Bier. The bottles have this thing about how rare it is, and they only brew it once a year, or something, but really, it's just good. A little sweet, but certainly heady (though without much head at all). It's wonderful. That and Chimay. God, I love me a Chimay. I went to Father's Office in Santa Monica once, the burgers of which earn their reputation as solid best in the country, and that burger with a nice bottle of Terrible was one of the single greatest gustatory experiences I've ever had.
Now I'm hungry.
I've often seen the Sony Bravia adverts in the sidebars, so Making Light was the first site I thought of when I say Guinness beer's new "Tipping Point" spot, which was apparently directed by the guy who did the first Bravia spot, "Bouncing Balls."
"If she had said McGonnegal and Dumbledore had a fling way back, would anyone be pulling the "it's not official until it is in the books"?"
I wouldn't, but my current reaction would still be the same: "Stop talking. You're a writer. Put it in a book. Write a prequel, or farm out the license like Lucas did."
Not because I think it "needs to be part of an officially sanctioned canon," or anything, mind.
More just because I'm the sort of reader who'd rather read things.
PS- Up until I heard Izzard pronounce it, I had always thought "queue" was pronounced "qway-way." My only previous exposure to the word was via Corel Word Perfect, when it told me I had several jobs waiting in the printing qway-way.
I'm relatively certain it guaranteed I never sounded pretentious.
PS- Up until I heard Izzard pronounce it, I had always thought "queue" was pronounced "qway-way." My only previous exposure to the word was via Corel Word Perfect, when it told me I had several jobs waiting in the printing qway-way.
I picked up all my Britishisms from Eddie Izzard's "Dressed to Kill." I watched all his specials just after college. I ended up accidentally slipping into spontaneous British accents at times, which bugged the hell out of most of the people I worked with.
But then, there's a theory of linguistics both physical and verbal that we unconsciously adopt those of people to whom we speak or in whom we are interested. When on a date with a person in whom we are interested, i.e., most of us will not only subconsciously (all right: sometimes very consciously) angle our bodies toward theirs, emphasize punchlines with brushing fingertips, etc. I know I tend to do it; though I didn't all together drop my Jersey-based accent when I first moved to California, I did accidentally (and much to my chagrin) begin to end sentences with "so."
I very often say "No worries." I have never been to Australia, and can count off the top of my head the number of Aussies I know at one.
My favorite book on the subject of cross cultural language is Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way, by Bill Bryson, and, circularly, my favorite documentary on it was Mongrel Nation, hosted by Eddie Izzard and linked to, not so long ago (I remember, because I subsequently YouTubed the whole thing in my blog), by Teresa.
Considering the question of prolificity (is that the word?):
I've heard of that issue mainly with musical artists before. Like Tori Amos, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Prince (who are all blinking at each other confusedly at the realization of being in the same sentence together): all apparently produce dozens more tracks than their labels are ever ready to print a CD of. But now, iTunes, MySpace, and digital distribution are making it so they can release tracks on their own via the Internet. Sometimes new stuff, sometimes alternate versions of fan favorites.
Sometimes, admittedly, stuff that should never be heard?
(I like hearing them, and seeing "process")
I actually recently went with PoD. I went through Lulu for a short story collection. Mainly because, after careful consideration, I realized I wasn't sure I actually fit into the short marketplace.
It's only been a couple weeks, but I've already learned from the experience.
Interestingly, I wrote to PoD-dy Mouth last week, because I thought she would be interested in the way I'm distributing content (it's kinda like iTunes. Individual downloads, some of which are free, others of which are actually viewable on iPods, all of which are viewable on portable devices).
I'm sorry she left before I got to talk further with her.
But I understand her position.
My first thought, on reading it (just before Jim posted this, in fact), was: "Oh, darn. But good for her. She gets to write more, now."
I learned as much from Girl-on-Demand as I've learned from Miss Snark, the Grumpy Old Bookman, and here. I'm sad to see her go.
If I know anything about publishing and writing and books, it's only because I've learned from giants.
I'm so glad that Serge quoted Julie's comment about alien antennae, because, seriously, do you know how hard that is to read when it's disemvowelled? I never would've figured that out, being the boy of little brain that I am.
I also just want to comment, briefly, about... well, I've noticed some disparagement of MFAs. I'm a graduate student right now. I'm at USC. It's technically an MPW, or "Master's in Professional Writing," rather than an MFA, but a lot of my fellow classmates put "MFA in Professional Writing" on their resumes.
We're not all assholes. I've been a struggling, unpublished writer for a lot of years (and I probably will be for several more), but I needed this, and I've been lucky... well. I don't know if USC's program is remarkably different from others (it may well be. It was the only one I applied to. I didn't want to go to Iowa, or NYU, or Columbia), but it's been a godsend for me. I've learned a lot from Patrick and Teresa and Jim and Will over the years (Will, especially, and for that I thank him), but the progress I've made at USC in a few months has staggered me.
I registered my first screenplay with the Writers' Guild today, in fact. I hand it to an uber-producer tomorrow. And I'm only writing this right now because my class with Syd Field was cancelled. I have class with Sid Stebel on Mondays (who may not have written a whole lot, no, but check out what Bradbury said about him. And he's cool).
So far, I've studied fiction with Rachel Resnick, who doesn't write in the genre I prefer but managed to give me excellent feedback, anyway; Ted Post, who goes way back with Jim Harris (who produced Kubrick's "Lolita," and, yes, helped Kubrick write it [though it's credited to Nabokov]) and Richard Mattheson (and I probably don't need to tell you what he wrote); Coleman Hough, who worked with Soderbergh on "Full Frontal" and "Bubble"; and Irvin Kershner, who directed "The Empire Strikes Back."
It's been the sort of experience I never dreamed of because I simply didn't know it was possible.
I don't mean to act as wounded-feelings writer guy, here, or anything, but I've learned, over the years, how smart everyone here really is, and I just had to mention all that.
Owen King, son of Stephen and a friend of mine, has an MFA from Columbia.
He's not a douchebag. He's one of the funniest, wittiest, and genuine people I know.
I read the sidelight when posted, and enjoyed it as much then as refreshers now. I've recently enrolled in the USC MPW program, where I'm studying and workshopping with a bunch of writers I've admired greatly, and last year did the QWERTY thing with Will Shetterly. The thing I've found interesting is that, in some small way, I figure from participating over at the Well and here, I'd picked up Snyder's way of viewing things, and brought that to the workshops I've been participating in. At first I felt a little out of place; a lot of my classmates would be well at home in an MFA program (I don't think I would be), and I've found a wide cross-section of work we've been submitting, but I always end up with plot/character/story/structure comments. Making them has helped me critique not only their work better but also my own, and understand a little more deeply how I approach things when I write.
Re: novels and screenplays-- based on Will's advice, I rewrote from scratch my entire novel, and completed it just before I began a screenwriting class. I wanted some time away from the novel but not the story, and so I decided to adapt it. Which forced me to break it into beats and pauses, pacings and rhythms, really distilling it into an essence of the story. It was a revelation.
I have a feeling that, when I do the revision, the reverse will be true; I'll learn more about the subtext/etc. of the novel and the characters therein. Explore more details and more of the world in a way that doesn't go into a screenplay.
Next semester I'll be studying screenwriting with Syd Field and fiction with Sid Stebel, and I'm thinking, as an experiment, I might just do the same project in both classes to see how it turns out.
"jumping in to cold water after baking one's self in a sauna feels goooood"
Isn't that especially dangerous? I remember reading "The Book of Lists" many years ago and finding a story about a man who decided to take coold bath on an especially warm day, and the sudden change in temperature seemed to have killed him. I did some further research on the subject because I thought it was interesing (and because it scared me), but it was years ago.
This topic is the other reason I love Making Light so much; great information. Thank you, Jim. Me, as an Eagle Scout... I remember our Klondike. I was no fool; seven layers of clothing (although, I was foolish, I remember, for that was where I learned to wear a hat, always).
My lessons have served me well, like when I went to New Mexico expecting a desert and discovered it snowed on my first day there. Also, Berlin is a different cold than Chicago.
Of course, I'll admit, I have slightly more and less difficulty than most people staying warm; I have a ludicrously high metabolism and very little body fat (well under the average for men, by several percentage points). I'm always very, very mindful, because I know I'm gonna be the one to get cold *quick*.
My best friend just got married a month or so ago. He has a lot of close friends (he's in a band with four other guys), and so his groomsmen party was *huge* (10 guys. Plus his father, and father-in-law. Plus him. The little gazebo was *crowded*).
It was the groom's wish that we wear kilts (he's Irish). And we all happily obliged.
I have to admit, I was both slightly nervous but also slightly excited by the prospect, and I'm happy to report that it carried off *extremely* well. From the initial oohs-and-ahs of the unexpected bloke-in-a-skirt to the already-mentioned greater comfort with dancing (I'm always dancing. It's part of my nature. And some of the other guys, being in a band, are used to it, as well. But that day, we were *all* dancing. And I've always thought that half [though not all] of one's ability to dance comes with confidence; being both slightly inebriated and newly liberated from pants [that's a great band name], we all danced pretty well. And we had a lot of fun doing so). It took a while to get used to, but we did.
I think my favorite moment was the groomsmen shot. We had the sober-gentleman's shot, you know the one, all puffed chests and deliberate grins, and then the bride requested a candid, "slutty" shot of her and all her bridesmaids, in which they were pulling up their dresses to show some leg.
We groomsmen took one look at that shot and decided we needed a Braveheart-esque shot of both sides lined up, legging each other.
And then, of course, the guys mooned the camera-guy. I think that's what you do when you're a bloke in a dress.
(for the record, while we were all brave enough to put on a kilt, none of us were fully "Scotch gentleman." We all had full support for the undercarriage, so to speak)
I've never liked the utilikit thing, and my sister constantly remembers a young-man-in-a-kilt (and not in a positive way) she met when she and I went to a Neil Gaiman signing, but I think it's rather difficult to look bad wearing a kilt. Kind of like a tuxedo; as this past summer proved, even Vince Vaughn, in a tux, looked money and knew it, and even with what looked at best like a terrible haircut and at worst like a shoddy hairpiece.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2007 | 12 |
| 2006 | 1 |
| 2005 | 2 |
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