On the off-chance you didn’t catch this on my author’s page, you should check out the video Webmonkees created for Marvellous Hairy:
If the embedded link doesn’t work, you can find it at YouTube, or even better, check it out in the large format at Webmonkees!
Tuesdays is cheap movie night again. (I’m not sure how long it has been so, but I was surprised this summer to discover this quaint tradition has returned.)
Now, in case you plan on wading through the crowds to see some fine cinematic entertainment. (Your odds are low, actually, to see something fine, though if you lower your expectations enough, you may leave entertained. Recently, some movies have dropped below even the lowest of thresholds, leading some to posit the Fallacy of Lowered Expectations.)
Lowered expectations or not, there are certain polite behaviours that are expected of you, even in this Age of Incivility. And now, for the musical explanation:
Click here if the embedded video started to bleed from the ears.
I sincerely hope that ImprovEverywhere isn’t hitting Dr. Tundra’s mini-mart any time soon. This is the kind of thing that could seriously unhinge him for the entire day, and depending on what kind of breakfast he’s had, result in bloodshed.
That said, I think I might really like musical numbers while I shop for fruit, fill up the car, and wait in the line for coffee at school.
BTW, is that Serpico at the end, explaining what just happened?
Try this if the embeddy thing doesn’t work.
I have to say, it does occasionally strike me as deeply wrong that Kurt Vonnegut is no longer in this world, even if he still has a palpable presence. Vonnegut is one of the reasons why I became a writer, and some of his novels had an early and lasting influence on the way that I see the world. Thankfully, a new collection of unpublished shorts is now available, and Vanity Fair is previewing one of them on their website.
Here is an excerpt from a short story by Vonnegut, about a storm-window salesman, and a couple having problems dealing with their sudden infamy:
“Elsie—listen to me,” he said. “This man is one of the few living creatures who knows nothing about you, me, or the book. He is one of the few people who can still look upon us as ordinary human beings rather than objects of hate, ridicule, envy, obscene speculation—”
Elsie Strang Morgan thought that over. The more she thought about it, the harder it hit her. She changed from a wild woman to a gentle, quiet housewife, with eyes as innocent as any cow’s.
“How do you do?” she said.
“Fine, thank you, ma’am,” I said.
“You must think we’re kind of crazy here,” she said.
“Oh, no ma’am,” I said. The lie made me fidget some, and I picked up the sugar bowl in the middle of the table, and there underneath it was a check for one hundred and sixty thousand dollars. I am not fooling. That is where they had the check she’d gotten for the movie rights to her book, under a cracked five-and-ten-cent-store sugar bowl.
I knocked my coffee over, spilled it on the check.
And do you know how many people tried to save that check?
One.
Me.
Happy Thanksgiving All!
Win a walk on role in my next novel, one of ten free copies of my new book Marvellous Hairy or take home a mystery item from my desk.
All you have to do is either:
I promise not to spam you relentlessly, and in exchange, I’m going to give away ten copies of Marvellous Hairy, a THING from the contents of my desk, and a chance to appear in my next novel.
That’s the Tuck(erize) part. Worried about what Tuckerization is all about? Simply put, Tuckerization is taking a person’s name, and making them a part of the story. I’m describing it as a walk-on roll, but you might like to think of it as a cameo. I’ll chat with you about what how you’d like your name to be presented, and what characteristics you’d like this person to have in my book. You can even decide which book you’d like to be in! (I’m working on two separate manuscripts right now.)
You can read more about Tuckerization at Wikipedia.
Join my Facebook page here.
Join my mailing list, the MonkeySphere, here.
Contest ends on October 16, 2009.
Here are the prizes again:
*Note: if you’ve already purchased a copy of Marvellous Hairy, first of all thanks. Secondly, I can send you either a copy of my first novel, The Amadeus Net or if you’ve got that, we’ll figure something out.
Join my Facebook page here. Join my mailing list, the MonkeySphere, here.
It was probably his imagination, but it seemed to the Don of Prancy Fairy College, Dennis Travesty, that admittance standards had been slipping of late. Just last term he’d had several complaints of werewolves, and then there was the vampire debacle at Convocation. (They were still cleaning up Poncy Hall.) No, he thought, it was just a bad run of luck. Could happen to anyone.
Maknor the Face Collector was just wondering what he was dancing with, and how it would taste later.