I did quite well on The Blue Peter Elephant today, which is finally starting to develop a life of its own (thank you, Picowrimo! Thank you!), but not so well on Music II, which was mostly tinkering with stuff I'd already written and wondering which scene I could most easily get a handle on next.
I probably should explain, as I did in the comments yesterday, that the title The Blue Peter Elephant comes from a famous episode of an educational British children's TV show, in which a baby elephant, being shown off in the studio, gets out of control, craps on the floor and then proceeds to drag her keeper through it. You can watch it on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_Cj2TtFd_E). It's fame, of a kind, hence its use as a title for a play about people obsessed with getting on TV.
TOMMY: And get Dildo on the show. Take her out to dinner, soften her up a bit, then ask her to do it as a favour to you. Works every time.
JIM: Soften her up a bit… Are you asking me to seduce her?!
TOMMY: It's funny, you don't normally strike me as a vestal virgin. In fact, if anyone asked me, I'd have said you'd had extensive sexual experience.
JIM: Quite extensive, yeah, but…
TOMMY: In fact, I'd have said you were the kind of slutty little skirt chaser no woman was safe from. If I had a daughter, I wouldn't let you anywhere near her.
JIM: You do have a daughter, boss.
Music II (it's a scene from Mr Rosen's early life, when he was a young man in Vienna, just before the second world war - his first encounter with Georg von Hardenstein, a playright, who soon becomes his best friend).
"It's not what I really want to write, you know," said Hardenstein. "My genius is all for High Tragedy, but that doesn't bring in the dosh. I have a crumbling castle and eight crumbling aunts to maintain, so it's comedies, comedies, comedies, at the mo."
"A castle?" said Arthur, who wasn't especially interested in aunts.
"Castle Hardenstein," said the Count. "You won't have heard of it. The Hardensteins distinguished themselves by never doing anything of note historically, and never building anything of any architectural worth. They simply squatted in their fortress for hundreds of years, living off the backs of the local peasants, and indulging in the occasional bout of looting and pillaging, until the nineteenth century, when my late lamented grandfather, the fifteenth Count Hardenstein, suffered fearful loss through putting money on a horse, which he believed, if it were pressed, would run far faster than the rest. Only it didn't. They never do. The family has never recovered, and since I'm the last of the male line, they all look to me to restore their fortunes to the dizzying pinnacles they once occupied. Or at least to raise enough cash to have the roof fixed. You wouldn't believe how the West Wing leaks. Going in there during a downpour is like walking through an Amazon rain forest. Only colder. And with mould hanging off the walls in lieu of lianas. So, you're Rosenthal. Jewish?"
"No," said Arthur, "Catholic. My parents converted before I was born."
"That was jolly prescient of them," said Hardenstein. "I wish my ancestors had shown half as much foresight, then I wouldn't have to sweat ink to earn my bread. But if you'll take a word of advice from Uncle Hardy, you might want to do something about the name. It's quite misleading, given that you are, in fact, not."
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ninetydegrees
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on 2009-11-03 11:14 am (UTC)I did quite well on The Blue Peter Elephant today, which is finally starting to develop a life of its own (thank you, Picowrimo! Thank you!), but not so well on Music II, which was mostly tinkering with stuff I'd already written and wondering which scene I could most easily get a handle on next.
I probably should explain, as I did in the comments yesterday, that the title The Blue Peter Elephant comes from a famous episode of an educational British children's TV show, in which a baby elephant, being shown off in the studio, gets out of control, craps on the floor and then proceeds to drag her keeper through it. You can watch it on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_Cj2TtFd_E). It's fame, of a kind, hence its use as a title for a play about people obsessed with getting on TV.
TOMMY: And get Dildo on the show. Take her out to dinner, soften her up a bit, then ask her to do it as a favour to you. Works every time.
JIM: Soften her up a bit… Are you asking me to seduce her?!
TOMMY: It's funny, you don't normally strike me as a vestal virgin. In fact, if anyone asked me, I'd have said you'd had extensive sexual experience.
JIM: Quite extensive, yeah, but…
TOMMY: In fact, I'd have said you were the kind of slutty little skirt chaser no woman was safe from. If I had a daughter, I wouldn't let you anywhere near her.
JIM: You do have a daughter, boss.
Music II (it's a scene from Mr Rosen's early life, when he was a young man in Vienna, just before the second world war - his first encounter with Georg von Hardenstein, a playright, who soon becomes his best friend).
"It's not what I really want to write, you know," said Hardenstein. "My genius is all for High Tragedy, but that doesn't bring in the dosh. I have a crumbling castle and eight crumbling aunts to maintain, so it's comedies, comedies, comedies, at the mo."
"A castle?" said Arthur, who wasn't especially interested in aunts.
"Castle Hardenstein," said the Count. "You won't have heard of it. The Hardensteins distinguished themselves by never doing anything of note historically, and never building anything of any architectural worth. They simply squatted in their fortress for hundreds of years, living off the backs of the local peasants, and indulging in the occasional bout of looting and pillaging, until the nineteenth century, when my late lamented grandfather, the fifteenth Count Hardenstein, suffered fearful loss through putting money on a horse, which he believed, if it were pressed, would run far faster than the rest. Only it didn't. They never do. The family has never recovered, and since I'm the last of the male line, they all look to me to restore their fortunes to the dizzying pinnacles they once occupied. Or at least to raise enough cash to have the roof fixed. You wouldn't believe how the West Wing leaks. Going in there during a downpour is like walking through an Amazon rain forest. Only colder. And with mould hanging off the walls in lieu of lianas. So, you're Rosenthal. Jewish?"
"No," said Arthur, "Catholic. My parents converted before I was born."
"That was jolly prescient of them," said Hardenstein. "I wish my ancestors had shown half as much foresight, then I wouldn't have to sweat ink to earn my bread. But if you'll take a word of advice from Uncle Hardy, you might want to do something about the name. It's quite misleading, given that you are, in fact, not."