Snakes on a Blog

I’m going to be honest. I really can’t hear much of a difference between the old and new recording equipment. Thank God no one is actually listening to this stuff. It would be much worse if not only were it futile but also publicly embarrassing. Being a solo operation as it is now keeps it between me and, at best, Pip, whose voice is the only other I’ve attempted to record so far, although I do vaguely remember chasing Tik pronounced teek across the desktop while the program was running and the young demented one was attempting to unattach every wire that he found inedible. There was some recorded screaming and gnashing of teeth there, if I'm not mistaken. Ah, those were golden minutes! Now I just lock him out of HQ and that’s the end of it.

I posted another Nostrum episode last night. I do have the Nostrumite sending me occasional updates of the Rocky and Bullwinkle bits at the end, some of which are hopelessly outdated and, as a result, unintelligible. He obliges, but refuses to go so far as to correct any errors in the actual texts, no matter how blatant they may be. He’s too busy singlehandedly raising the Nostrumette (Odelie is on a proselytizing trip to Paris at the moment, which hardly sounds like a hardship tour but then again let’s see how well you do turning those randy French Catholics into randy French Episcopalians), which is too bad, because there indeed are errors. If anyone reads it, they’ll see not exactly typos but more like extra words or wrong words. I attempt to fix them in the narration but if the Mite is too lazy to update the written canon, far be it from me to do it for him, the ingrate! Go ahead and change diapers. See if I care.

Yale is fairly well finalized, and I sent out all the arrangements yesterday to the Sailors at large. We have enough parents to bypass the expense of a bus; I’ve put everyone in rooms and cars and I’m ready to sign them up when the moment arises. It seems amazing to be this organized this early, but given the hotel situation, there wasn’t much choice.

And I do just love the whole Snakes on a Plane thing. (Apparently it’s opening soon, without, surprise, critics’ screenings.) I mean, I can just imagine the creators saying that this is the hook, the highest concept ever, or at least as high as you can get, and selling it to some studio on that. And then they just never ever came up with a title for it. I mean, what were they going to call it? Flying Fangs? So they just stuck with the concept and it became the title. Sheer genius. Or sheer creative bankruptcy, although I prefer the former. In the age of everyone’s a Hollywood player, where the weekend grosses are above-the-fold news for the teeming millions, we don’t need titles anymore. Just tell us the concept, and we’ll show up. The creative act, already rendered inconsequential by the quality of the films, becomes reduced to its germ. We could even go back in time and redo some of my old personal favorites. Kid on a Raft. Psycho on a Whaler. Girl in a Hole. The possibilities are endless.

Speaking of snakes on a blog, OC wants me to write something for WTF. I can’t imagine what I would say there that I don’t already say here. He also thinks I should be re-interviewed; I guess he thinks I’ve changed my mind about everything I said last time. That may be true, but I don’t want to go public with it. I contradict myself? That’s okay. I contradict Whitman too. (Wha???) Anyhow, I think they pay about $5000 an entry, so maybe I’ll reconsider. I could use the money to pay for the upcoming feline procedure (the one where he goes in like a lion and comes out like a lamb). From that perspective, it’s worth considering. And it does explain why OC publishes so much there himself. 5K a pop? So, how are you spending the rest of your summer vacation, anyhow?

I wonder how much they pay for comments?