Last year I read a book called This is Not a Game by Walter Jon Williams. In the opening scenes, a puppetmaster who has been running a hugely successful ARG finds herself trapped in Indonesia after the country’s currency collapses and political instability prevents her from leaving. She mobilizes the battalion of clever players who solved the puzzles in her ARG, asking them to find a solution to her current predicament. The solution involves a fishing boat that shows up in the dark of night, along with some mercenaries. This came to mind yesterday when Neil Gaiman twittered that his fiancee was stranded in Iceland because of the volcanic activity: “Er…. Is there anyone in Reykjavik with a boat who can get @amandapalmer to Glasgow for her Saturday night gig?” he wrote. Not sure if his legion of fans came to her rescue or not.
This morning I did yet another editing pass through the new short story. Editing is a fascinating process. Just when I think I’ve gotten to the point where I’m honing word choice, I see places where entire paragraphs need to be uprooted to create a better flow through the story. Maybe I need to remove the stumbling blocks of poor word choice to see where more macroscopic issues arise.
I had a phone call from the publicist for the Edgar Awards earlier today. Apparently I’m going to be interviewed on the radio station KLVT on April 26th. That station is out of Levelland, Texas, a place that is apparently famous for some UFO sightings in the late 1950s. James McMurtry wrote a song about the town, which was covered by Robert Earl Keen.
I’m about 75% of the way through Split Image by Robert B. Parker. In addition to featuring Jesse Stone, the book has a number of appearances by characters from other Parker series. Sunny Randall is Stone’s current love interest, and her sidekick, Spike, is also present. Sunny and Spike are 1-to-1 analogs of Spenser and Hawk, except Sunny is female and Spike is gay. Also appearing are Susan Silverman, who is Sunny’s psychiatrist, and Rita Fiore, the district attorney from many Spenser novels.
So, JT gambled away his immunity idol last night on Survivor. It reminds me of a poker hand where a player thinks the other player has nothing when in fact he’s holding four queens. The heroes have completely misjudged the situation in the opposing camp, although they can be forgiven for this interpretation of a serious of bad choices by the villains in getting rid of strong male players one after another. It looks like the merge is on the horizon, so it will be interesting to see whether Sandra reveals the truth to the heroes as a way of saving her skin. I really thought Parvati had swung the votes away from Courtney, but that was really the only surprise in tribal council. I like Courtney–sorry to see her go. She’s smart and witty, has an upbeat demeanor, and I think she’d make a good sidekick in a buddy movie. Russell was amused by JT’s ploy. “I don’t even have to find idols–people are actually giving them to me.” One thing to keep in mind: This series was filmed before last season aired, so the players don’t know about Russell’s penchant for finding idols without clues, unless he’s bragged about that since getting to the island.
Peter Weller was great on Fringe this week. He brought gravitas to a role that could have just been a throw-away with someone less capable. The scene between him and Walter was especially good, and his solution to Walter’s warning was one I didn’t see coming. If you don’t want to carry a lifetime of guilt for something you’ve done, arrange it so your lifetime isn’t all that long. And he was right, too, that all the people he killed weren’t permanently dead. When he said that when first apprehended, I thought he meant there was a way to recharge their batteries, which would have been bad news for the six or seven people who’d already been autopsied!
CSI was lighter this week, if you can consider a dead woman found in the aftermath of an apartment building fire “light.” The obligatory “lab rat” episode.” A couple of young wannabe crime scene investigators are shown the ropes by Hodges, who projects himself and Wendy into the roles of field operatives. Some of it was funny, though I thought the early parody of Brass went on about 2 minutes too long. They also really beat the polarity metaphor into the ground as a symbol of Hodges’ and Wendy’s obvious attraction.
