I recently agreed to be interviewed by a college undergrad for one of her classes. Their assignment was to interview someone working in a career that interested them. Since that interview won’t see the light of day outside of the student’s class, I thought I would post it at Storytellers Unplugged this month in lieu of my usual blatherings: Answering questions from an aspiring writer.
I received the executed contract and on-signing payment for my current work in progress on the weekend. It only took four months. I also received my contributor copy of The Mothman Files, along with contract and payment. On my way to my best year to date for writing income.
However, I spent some of my ill-gotten gains on a second kangaroo. One can never have too many kangaroos, you realize. A kangaroo is an ergonomic attachment for your desktop that lets you convert it into a sit/stand desk. I got one for my desk at work almost exactly a year ago and it’s great. I spend at least half of my working day on my feet and my back thanks me for it. My home desk, however, was another matter. Especially on weekends when I spend a lot of time at my writing desk, I found my back was killing me and I had to take frequent breaks to alleviate the pain. My productivity was suffering. My home office desk is a rolltop and I worried that it wasn’t big enough for a kangaroo, though. I sent a query in this weekend to the company that makes them and found that I might have to add a sheet of plywood to the surface for the stabilization leg. However, a rep from the company called me this morning with a workaround. He tried putting the stabilization leg right on the base instead of in front of the base and it worked just as well. I’m a happy camper, and I really like customer support like that. Placed my order straight away.
We started watching Prime Suspect this weekend–the original British series starring Helen Mirren from 1991, not the current American reboot. In 1991, male chauvinism was rampant in the English police force. Remember Annie from Life on Mars, the WPC who was a glorified meter maid? That was set less than a decade earlier. Mirren’s character, a DCI, fights for the lead on a homicide case after the previous lead dies from a heart attack. The men in the squad don’t take this lightly and give her a hard time, but the case gets interesting and they are forced to put their resentments aside for the most part because they’re good coppers, too, and they want to get the guy responsible.
I’m about 650 pages into 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. Fascinating book. Explores the nature of reality and self. Also started reading Vinyl Cafe Unplugged by Stuart MacLean to my wife. This is a collection of funny anecdotes by a Canadian humourist. I first heard of him when I was visiting my parents a number of years ago at Christmastime. The story he related that day on CBC radio involved an well-intended cul-de-sac gift exchange that went badly wrong, and a turkey. I think that story is in this book, too. Looking forward to revisiting it.
We watched the finales of Breaking Bad and Doctor Who last week, too. The Breaking Bad finale was nothing short of astonishing. As Damon Lindelof tweeted, the episode title should have been a spoiler, but it wasn’t, except in retrospect. When that event transpired I think I shouted at the screen: What?! Then we had to rewind it and watch it again, that’s how stunning it was. Up to that moment, I was keeping up with Walt and his plan. We had it all figured out. But that? Holy cow. I thought Mark Margolis’s performance as Tio Salamanca was brilliant, too. He’s been seething but given the chance for retribution at a terrible cost, there was a hint of a tear in his eye. The one element of the episode that I haven’t heard discussed very much is the final shot of the Lily of the Valley plant. When Walt was playing his version of spin-the-revolver, it stopped pointing at that plant, although we didn’t know it at the time. It just looked like it was pointing away from Walt. It’s pretty clear now that Walt arranged to have Brock poisoned, a diabolical plan to win Jesse back to his side again. Did anyone survive the bomb blast? My money is on Tyrus, and he’ll be a deadly adversary if he did survive. It’s going to be a long, long wait until next summer for the final season.
As for the Doctor Who finale, it was good but not great and, as Nick Kaufman suggested, a bit of a cheat. If it was the simulacrum that got killed on the beach, that shouldn’t have satisfied the requirements of the fixed point in time. I liked Amy’s reaction when she realized she was the Doctor’s father-in-law, albeit briefly and only in a timeline that no longer exists. I thought the previous episode was better, the one about the decrepit cybermen who were in the basement of what appeared to be a Marks & Spencer. The interaction between the Doctor and his old buddy, the guy with the baby, and all the mileage they got out of the apparent nature of that relationship was great fun.
It’s also cool to see Peter Davison (the fifth doctor) on Law & Order: UK. I watched the first two episodes of American Horror Story. Not 100% sold on it yet, but sticking around to see how it plays out. It’s sexy and scary and has some fun performances from Jessica (“Don’t make me kill you again”) Lange. It’s a bit of a mash-up of every horror trope from the last 30 years and seems to be still looking for its unique identity. I bailed on Person of Interest, though. I thought it might be cool to see a different version of Benjamin Linus, and the first episode was intriguing, but then it just got tedious. I had absolutely no sympathy for Jim Caviezel’s character. He turned out to be pretty ruthless and mercenary. I’m almost caught up on other shows, including Sons of Anarchy. This seems to be Clay’s season to be under the microscope. All the sins of his past are ganging up on him and his normally stalwart and reliable seconds are doubting him, justifiably.
