via youtube.com
It’s your story, your voice, your choices, and I don’t want to question them, but…
COMMENTS WRITTEN BY ACTUAL STUDENTS EXTRACTED FROM WORKSHOPPED MANUSCRIPTS AT A MAJOR UNIVERSITY.
COLLECTED BY TANYA REY
“This character seems more like a retired librarian than a former terrorist.”
“Is this a typo or are you being experimental?”
“Maybe a little less time should be spent describing the Cheetos in this scene.”
“The jungle images and alien abduction seem to clash a bit here.”
“When this character says things like ‘my sweaty balls,’ he needs to say them more awkwardly.”
“I wonder if the sentence about killing pregnant women is too much, or if it should just be explained more.”
“There’s a lot of astral projection in this story.”
“You talk about pregnant raindrops and chaos and auditory canals and ‘the passing of time’ as ‘an orifice,’ when you could really just be talking about humidity and ears.”
“This character seems like a huge jerk for an otherwise savvy lady to bring home.”
“The one small area where I questioned the narrator’s voice was in the section about the bathtub when he explicitly mentioned his shriveled penis and his use of prostitutes.”
“Weren’t these characters hurting each other in the last version of this story? Bring back the violence!”
“Apes, aliens, then dead vampire family = too much Sci-Fi.”
“You should really think about what it’s like to find your daughter in bed with a butcher knife before you do the rewrite of this.”
“The rules of the game, the rules by which you’re breaking the rules, should be perfectly clear to the reader. In this story, they are not.”
“I love that everybody in this story has the same name, but it was a bit confusing.”
“There should be a moment of deep consciousness when this character is hit with the taser gun. Maybe he can recall having sex a few hours ago while being tased?”
“Normally I would assume that there was some kind of printing error, but since you’re messing around with other elements like that in this story I tried to figure out if it meant something, and if I was supposed to guess what was missing, and I couldn’t really come to any conclusions about it.”
“It’s your story, your voice, your choices, and I don’t want to question them, but why these words?”
“The problem is I have all these questions I don’t necessarily want you to answer for me. I raise these questions to let you know that there were questions, and if you had intended me to perceive the answers to any of them, I didn’t.”
“You probably don’t need about half of what’s written here.”
via mcsweeneys.net
SWs to you
I hate Steve Wright.
Not Steve Wright, the American comedian with the doleful voice. He’s great. Not even the mass murderer Steve Wright who killed a number of women in Ipswich a few years back, though I think we can all agree that that is highly inappropriate behaviour. I’m talking about the zany, wacky and completely HILARIOUS Radio 2 “dee jay”, Steve Wright. The man who thought it was funny and acceptable to record and release homophobic records in the mid-80s. What do you mean you don’t remember The Gay Caballeros?[I]t’s incredible that as recently as 1984 one of the BBC’s highest-profile presenters was able to release The Gay Caballeros, which suggested that Wright being pursued by stalking Mexican male rapists was a light comic motif, and nobody batted an eyelid.
The record was chockfull of homophobic innuendo, not remotely offensive – poofters have a great sense of humour, you know – and totally HILARIOUS.
The man who thought it appropriate to fill radio airtime with “characters” such as Gervais The Hairdresser: wildly camp, chockfull of homophobic innuendo, not remotely offensive and utterly HILARIOUS. His catchphrase was: “Keep your tongue out.” HILARIOUS! The man who still won’t include listener content on his show unless the listener informs the world just how much they “LOVE THE SHOW”. Pure and simple, Steve Wright is a cunt. (And it seems I’m not the only one who thinks so.) Driving to hospital yesterday afternoon the 2pm news bulletin ended with the news that Lucy Vodden, the inspiration for the Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, had died at the age of 46 from lupus. Beginning his “Big Show” (the only thing big about it is the size of the presenter’s ego and annual salary), Wright then played – with neither irony nor, apparently, an ounce of awareness – the wretched Judy In Disguise (With Glasses) by John Fred And His Playboy Band, complete with some trade mark singing along and talking over the music. HILARIOUS! Song ends. Steve opines, “It’s a creepy song!” Steve chuckles. No context, no explanation, just on with the whooping and clapping and today featuring our old friend the philosopher Alain de Botton (“He’s a philosopher!”) and the legendary David Hasselhoff!!! I switched the radio off. I never switch the radio off when I’m driving. And the best bit is that if you look at the show’s track listing to confirm that you did indeed hear what you think you heard, you’ll find the BBC claiming that the show’s opening track was Build Me Up Buttercup by The Foundations. It’s almost as though the BBC also thinks Judy In Disguise (With Glasses) was an inappropriate way to open the show in the circumstances. Incidentally, according to the recently revamped Radio 2 website, this is what Steve Wright looks like:
According to 2009 editions of the Daily Mirror and Daily Mail, this is what Steve Wright looks like:
Anyone notice anything different?
Steve Wright is a cunt.
Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here
Pulling in to the car park of my semi-rural office at 7.55 this morning I saw two rabbits gamboling in the grass verge.
As I got out of the Ministerial Limousine, I saw two robins. That is all.You Raise Me Up
After that last video, I owe you something more rewarding.
Jules: this one’s for you
This is where I barfed hard.
It was in my buddy Greg’s back yard.
He hit me and my head’s still scarred.
And my hair is full of fucking lard.
The video was directed by Nigel Dick
I loathe Nickelback.
If I was feeling well enough I would at this point rattle off a couple of hundred words of invective about just how pisspoor the band is and what should happen to them for inflicting their very special brand of double-tracked, steaming horse crap on the world. Unfortunately, we'll have to skip that bit.
I have Absolute Radio on in the background a lot of the time and, for some unfathomable reason, Nickelback get at least a couple of spins of Absolute every day. I've become quite good at blocking them out for these three- or four- minute periods but for some reason when Absolute played Photograph today while I was driving I couldn't manage that feat and for the first time ever I listened to a Nickelback lyric.
Hoe.
Lee.
Shit.
Look at this photograph:
Every time I do it makes me laugh.
How did our eyes get so red?
And what the Hell is on Joey’s head?
This is where I grew up.
I think the present owner fixed it up.
I never knew we ever went without.
The second floor is hard for sneaking out.
This is where I went to school.
Most of the time had better things to do.
Criminal record says I broke in twice -
I must have done it half a dozen times.
I wonder if it’s too late.
Should I go back and try to graduate?
Life’s better now than it was back then.
If I was them, I wouldn’t let me in.
Kim’s the first girl I kissed.
I was so nervous that I nearly missed.
She’s had a couple of kids since then.
I haven’t seen her since God knows when.
I was weeping with laughter by the end of the "song".
This stuff makes Simon "Don't say you're easy on me/ You're about as easy as a nuclear war" Le Bon look like a fucking lyrical genius.
It's hard to believe that one country can produce lyricists such as, on the one hand, Leonard Cohen and, on the other hand, Nickelback's Chad Kroeger.
In fact, it's hard to believe that Leonard Cohen and Chad Kroeger write in the same language.
In the same week I've discovered Dan Brown and Nickelback lyrics. They say things come in threes, so what does tomorrow hold?
Behind The Scenes At The Spurs Show
The beauty of the show is that it sounds very much like you and your mates talking about Spurs whilst down the pub, only much funnier and without the use of the word ‘c*nt’ in every other sentence.
It’s a very fair point, though using a ridiculous quantities of profanity comes with the territory of being a Spurs fan.
Certainly, Phil Cornwell’s podcast is the only enjoyable part of football at the moment.
Well, that and laughing at the “deep-thinking” Sol Campbell.
