"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...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
no subject
"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
And lovely twisted logic from Zoe there.
no subject
Personally, the last thing I'd want would be Tomy inside me everywhere I went... But then, Zoe is bonkers.
no subject
no subject
no subject
Can't put anything past poor Hardy.
no subject
no subject
YES! Tommy gets what he deserves for living off others' misery.
no subject
Tommy gets what he deserves, all right. I hate talk show hosts ;-)
no subject
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
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
no subject
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
They did install the cemara. As Tommy is about to find out...