"Listen, Hardy, you're the storyteller, and you know what it's like to be strapped for cash. Suppose you were an impoverished aristocrat, down to your last Breughel, and you needed the money but you couldn't bear to part with the thing – say it was a gift from Breughel himself to your great-great-grandfather for saving his life while on a bear hunt – how would you go about pretending the picture had been stolen, so you could claim the insurance, while actually keeping it safe somewhere?"
"If it was my great-great-grandfather Breughel gave it to, I must come from a mightily long-lived family," objected Hardy.
"Spare me the relentless literalism," said Arthur. "Just add however many greats you need. Would you hire a professional thief to do the job?"
"Only if I wanted to open myself up to blackmail. Why do you want to know? Are you planning to write a best-selling novel about art thieves? Do I have a literary rival?"
"No, it's more in the way of a thought experiment."
"I see. You mean a friend of a friend wants to keep a picture to themselves that would otherwise make a nice little present for Our Leader?"
BPE, and Tommy finally gets his come-uppance:
ZOE: Don't go, Tommy.
TOMMY: I'll be right back.
ZOE: Please?
TOMMY: I'm bursting.
He gets to his feet. ZOE flings herself on him and slams his arm down against the table. With her other hand she drives the knife several inches through his palm and into the table. TOMMY screams.
ZOE: You mustn't go, Tommy. I've never been able to tell anyone what it's like to be me before. I feel so much better about myself now. Eating people's brains is a valid lifestyle choice and I shouldn't be ashamed of it.
TOMMY: Zoe! You are not a fucking zombie! You're a live human being and if you eat me you'll be sent to prison for the rest of your life.
ZOE: Unlife.
TOMMY: Oh, Jesus! Look, Zoe, if you kill me, you won't get to go on Tell It Like It Is. You won't get to be famous. Don't you want to be famous?
ZOE: Don't make me laugh. How could I be famous? It's not like I'm pretty. No one would want to see me on their TV screen. I'm nobody. I haven't got any talents. I'm not special at anything. When I was a little girl I used to dream of being famous. Everywhere I went photographers would follow me. When I took the rubbish out to the bin they'd be hiding behind the garden wall, when I went to Sainsbury's with my mum they'd catch me at the checkout. Smile for the camera, sweetheart! But I've grown out of that. Now I know no-one could ever be interested in me. I don't want to be famous, Tommy. I want to be you!
TOMMY: But you can't be me! I'm me!
ZOE: If I eat you, I'll be you. I'll have you inside me everywhere I go.
It wasn't that easy to cross the border, even if you were far-sighted enough to recognise the danger. One playwright, Jura Soyfer, was arrested trying to cross into Switzerland the day after the German troops arrived (he died in Buchenwald).
Tommy gets what he deserves, all right. I hate talk show hosts ;-)
That's awful. The borders were closed even though they weren't at war?
Me too. I won't even watch them. Or any so-called reality TV. I remember reading an SF story when I was a kid about the televising of terminally ill patients' deaths for entertainment, and being horrified. It has now happened.
The borders were closed even though they weren't at war?
Oh, yes. You needed an exit visa to get out. It wasn't even the Germans that arrested him, it was the Austrians (a friend who was with him and had a visa was also arrested because his sandwiches were wrapped in an old copy of a banned left-wing newspaper. The Austrian state was already well on the road to fascism before the Germans arrived).
I remember reading an SF story when I was a kid about the televising of terminally ill patients' deaths for entertainment, and being horrified. It has now happened.
I started writing this play a year and a half ago, and one of the things that kept me from finishing it was that real life kept trumping anything I could dream up. Like that Brazilian TV presenter of a True Crime show who paid hitmen to kill people so the TV cameras could get to the scene really fast. Or Natasha Kampusch hosting her own talk show. If Fritzl weren't so old he's bound to die in prison, I bet he'd be offered his own talk show when he came out.
Hee :-) No, if I was asked to describe Arthur I might use words like "impulsive" and "chaotic", but "discreet" is not the first one that would come to mind!
They did install the cemara. As Tommy is about to find out...
Bryce was enjoying his new role as Adrian's PA. He was finding out all kinds of privileges he had now, ones he'd only imagined in his dreams. The Admiral's PA had set him right about a few things. Garvin Anders was a tall, blond man with a penchant for the ladies and a good ale. They'd got on well.
A choice word got him to the front of any meal dispenser lines, the ones the senior officers used. And if he got an extra helping for himself, no one seemed to mind. He'd already had blueberry pancakes with real blueberries this morning. He licked his lips, still remembering the sweet taste. This was going to be a great assignment. So far, Adrian hadn't given him much to do.
There was a spring to his step but that didn't last long as he entered Science Lab 4. The stony-faced Adrian was facing Fleet Admiral Verel. The hulking First Officer was standing behind him like a wall ready to fall on him. The Tech Commander, staring at Adrian with very unfriendly eyes, seemed to have swallowed something very pleasant and was chewing it with enjoyment. The beautiful woman, Professor Boudreaux someone had told him, or the 'ice princess', was watching Adrian carefully, like a cat toying with a mouse.
The air was so tense, it felt like it was going to snap.
So of course Bryce is going to say something very witty or silly. :-)
The hulking First Officer was standing behind him like a wall ready to fall on him.
I Love this! I know you don't like doing physcial descriptions, but that is great!
That of Garvin needs to be less obvious though. How about something like: Garvin Anders, a tall, blond man, had a penchant for the ladies and a good ale, so they got on well. That puts the emphasis on his likes, rather than his looks. Otherwise it seems as if Bryce likes him for his appearance.
Ooh, a job that gets you breakfast pancakes is a good job! And the Admiral has arrived! Hooray! Although it doesn't look as if things are going too well for Adrian.
Started making disjointed notes toward possible Yuletide plotlines, so my output for the day (fandom-identifying info redacted) looks like this: - A's servant (lover?), the girl also [spoilered] by X - Y's [spoiler], keeping it a secret - Z's death?? - there must be a lot of scarred people walking around [place] - research names (check author's blog?)
It's starting to be too much trouble to keep track of actual new words since I'm also taking out chunks and revising. I can't work in sequence for the life of me, so I was working on the ending, and I worked on one of the middle sections which still needs descriptive passages. All a bit uneven and not ready for the light of day, but now that I've gotten used to reporting in every day, I feel like it's bad form not to do so!
You could still post a few lines, though, even if you're fiddling with odd sentences all over the place. I like reading what you've written. (I don't write in sequence, either, so I feel a great sense of solidarity with you!)
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2009-11-18 10:17 am (UTC)"Listen, Hardy, you're the storyteller, and you know what it's like to be strapped for cash. Suppose you were an impoverished aristocrat, down to your last Breughel, and you needed the money but you couldn't bear to part with the thing – say it was a gift from Breughel himself to your great-great-grandfather for saving his life while on a bear hunt – how would you go about pretending the picture had been stolen, so you could claim the insurance, while actually keeping it safe somewhere?"
"If it was my great-great-grandfather Breughel gave it to, I must come from a mightily long-lived family," objected Hardy.
"Spare me the relentless literalism," said Arthur. "Just add however many greats you need. Would you hire a professional thief to do the job?"
"Only if I wanted to open myself up to blackmail. Why do you want to know? Are you planning to write a best-selling novel about art thieves? Do I have a literary rival?"
"No, it's more in the way of a thought experiment."
"I see. You mean a friend of a friend wants to keep a picture to themselves that would otherwise make a nice little present for Our Leader?"
BPE, and Tommy finally gets his come-uppance:
ZOE: Don't go, Tommy.
TOMMY: I'll be right back.
ZOE: Please?
TOMMY: I'm bursting.
He gets to his feet. ZOE flings herself on him and slams his arm down against the table. With her other hand she drives the knife several inches through his palm and into the table. TOMMY screams.
ZOE: You mustn't go, Tommy. I've never been able to tell anyone what it's like to be me before. I feel so much better about myself now. Eating people's brains is a valid lifestyle choice and I shouldn't be ashamed of it.
TOMMY: Zoe! You are not a fucking zombie! You're a live human being and if you eat me you'll be sent to prison for the rest of your life.
ZOE: Unlife.
TOMMY: Oh, Jesus! Look, Zoe, if you kill me, you won't get to go on Tell It Like It Is. You won't get to be famous. Don't you want to be famous?
ZOE: Don't make me laugh. How could I be famous? It's not like I'm pretty. No one would want to see me on their TV screen. I'm nobody. I haven't got any talents. I'm not special at anything. When I was a little girl I used to dream of being famous. Everywhere I went photographers would follow me. When I took the rubbish out to the bin they'd be hiding behind the garden wall, when I went to Sainsbury's with my mum they'd catch me at the checkout. Smile for the camera, sweetheart! But I've grown out of that. Now I know no-one could ever be interested in me. I don't want to be famous, Tommy. I want to be you!
TOMMY: But you can't be me! I'm me!
ZOE: If I eat you, I'll be you. I'll have you inside me everywhere I go.
no subject
on 2009-11-18 12:44 pm (UTC)And lovely twisted logic from Zoe there.
no subject
on 2009-11-18 08:05 pm (UTC)Personally, the last thing I'd want would be Tomy inside me everywhere I went... But then, Zoe is bonkers.
no subject
on 2009-11-18 01:19 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-11-18 08:05 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-11-18 02:02 pm (UTC)Can't put anything past poor Hardy.
no subject
on 2009-11-18 08:05 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-11-18 08:14 pm (UTC)YES! Tommy gets what he deserves for living off others' misery.
no subject
on 2009-11-19 04:37 am (UTC)Tommy gets what he deserves, all right. I hate talk show hosts ;-)
no subject
on 2009-11-19 04:53 am (UTC)Me too. I won't even watch them. Or any so-called reality TV. I remember reading an SF story when I was a kid about the televising of terminally ill patients' deaths for entertainment, and being horrified. It has now happened.
no subject
on 2009-11-19 06:08 am (UTC)Oh, yes. You needed an exit visa to get out. It wasn't even the Germans that arrested him, it was the Austrians (a friend who was with him and had a visa was also arrested because his sandwiches were wrapped in an old copy of a banned left-wing newspaper. The Austrian state was already well on the road to fascism before the Germans arrived).
I remember reading an SF story when I was a kid about the televising of terminally ill patients' deaths for entertainment, and being horrified. It has now happened.
I started writing this play a year and a half ago, and one of the things that kept me from finishing it was that real life kept trumping anything I could dream up. Like that Brazilian TV presenter of a True Crime show who paid hitmen to kill people so the TV cameras could get to the scene really fast. Or Natasha Kampusch hosting her own talk show. If Fritzl weren't so old he's bound to die in prison, I bet he'd be offered his own talk show when he came out.
no subject
on 2009-11-19 06:12 am (UTC)no subject
on 2009-11-19 03:51 am (UTC)Did Dildo and Jim ever install the camera or shouldn't I ask? Huh. Tommy's offer you can't refuse to Zoe isn't working, he's in trouble.
no subject
on 2009-11-19 04:38 am (UTC)They did install the cemara. As Tommy is about to find out...
no subject
on 2009-11-18 01:59 pm (UTC)Bryce was enjoying his new role as Adrian's PA. He was finding out all kinds of privileges he had now, ones he'd only imagined in his dreams. The Admiral's PA had set him right about a few things. Garvin Anders was a tall, blond man with a penchant for the ladies and a good ale. They'd got on well.
A choice word got him to the front of any meal dispenser lines, the ones the senior officers used. And if he got an extra helping for himself, no one seemed to mind. He'd already had blueberry pancakes with real blueberries this morning. He licked his lips, still remembering the sweet taste. This was going to be a great assignment. So far, Adrian hadn't given him much to do.
There was a spring to his step but that didn't last long as he entered Science Lab 4. The stony-faced Adrian was facing Fleet Admiral Verel. The hulking First Officer was standing behind him like a wall ready to fall on him. The Tech Commander, staring at Adrian with very unfriendly eyes, seemed to have swallowed something very pleasant and was chewing it with enjoyment. The beautiful woman, Professor Boudreaux someone had told him, or the 'ice princess', was watching Adrian carefully, like a cat toying with a mouse.
The air was so tense, it felt like it was going to snap.
no subject
on 2009-11-18 08:00 pm (UTC)The hulking First Officer was standing behind him like a wall ready to fall on him.
I Love this! I know you don't like doing physcial descriptions, but that is great!
That of Garvin needs to be less obvious though. How about something like:
Garvin Anders, a tall, blond man, had a penchant for the ladies and a good ale, so they got on well.
That puts the emphasis on his likes, rather than his looks. Otherwise it seems as if Bryce likes him for his appearance.
no subject
on 2009-11-18 08:06 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-11-18 08:07 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-11-18 08:09 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-11-19 03:44 am (UTC)no subject
on 2009-11-19 03:46 am (UTC)no subject
on 2009-11-19 01:15 am (UTC)- A's servant (lover?), the girl also [spoilered] by X
- Y's [spoiler], keeping it a secret
- Z's death??
- there must be a lot of scarred people walking around [place]
- research names (check author's blog?)
no subject
on 2009-11-19 03:40 am (UTC)I meant to mention earlier that the typing dog is fabulous.
no subject
on 2009-11-20 04:11 am (UTC)no subject
on 2009-11-19 04:39 am (UTC)no subject
on 2009-11-19 03:38 am (UTC)no subject
on 2009-11-19 03:45 am (UTC)no subject
on 2009-11-19 04:41 am (UTC)no subject
on 2009-11-20 04:12 am (UTC)