I'm waiting on the Good Twin

From In the Dark, the third episode of City of Dark Angel:

Camera pulls back to reveal Spike watching [Angel and Rachel] from a rooftop.

Spike (in high voice): “How can I thank you, you mysterious, black-clad hunk of a night thing? (low voice) No need, little lady, your tears of gratitude are enough for me. You see, I was once a badass vampire, but love -- and a pesky curse -- defanged me. Now I’m just a big, fluffy puppy with bad teeth. (Rachel steps closer to Angel, and Angel steps back warding her off with his hands) No, not the hair! Never the hair! (high voice) But there must be someway I can show my appreciation. (low voice) No, helping those in need’s my job, - and working up a load of sexual tension, and prancing away like a magnificent poof is truly thanks enough! (high voice) I understand. I have a nephew who is gay, so… (low voice) Say no more. Evil’s still afoot! And I’m almost out of that Nancy-boy hair-gel that I like so much. Quickly, to the Angel-mobile, away!”

Spike lights a cigarette while he watches Angel lead Rachel away.

Spike: “Go on with you. Play the big, strapping hero while you can. You have a few surprises coming your way. - The ring of Amarra – a visit from your old pal Spike, - and, oh yeah, - your gruesome, horrible death.” Smiles.

And, you know, you can listen to a wav of this, as the transcript fails to do James Marsters' reading justice.

Seems like all the cool kids are going to MT 2.5, most recently Team Murder. Many of them also mentioned the birthday/anniversary, and took the time to thank Ben and Mena. This is because, unlike me, the cool kids have mad skills and some modicum of social skills. Sad, really.

George, who has both, still hasn't upgraded yet, preventing me from looking like a total slack mickey fickey.

It's the broadcast television version of Uppity-Negro.com. Radio Raheem says unto the Korean grocer, "D, mickey fickey, D!"

Never mind.

Possible upgrade later today. Or something.

Won't help. I'll never join the exalted ranks of the real bloggers. I mean, look at O-Dub. He says nice things about Zadie Smith, without the snarkiness accompanying my praise of Jae-Ha Kim, ending with the bold, original statement, "Smart women writers. There is nothing better."

Do I say these things? No. Because I suck.

The Zadie Smith link goes to her piece at Eyeshot. And, um, the previous link goes to their constantly-changing homepage, rather than her. . . see, the real bloggers know how to link things properly, too. Anyway, the piece is titled ON THE ROAD: AMERICAN WRITERS AND THEIR HAIR.

In Philadelphia, when the question and answer section rolls round, the first question comes from the third row, second from right.

The question is: “Why did you leave Destiny’s Child?”

The answer is “Religious differences.”

But I am cheered to find the questioner is that greatest of all living American writers, Neal Pollack, who has made the fair city of Philadelphia his new home. With the understated renaissance-man gentility for which he is rightly famed, Pollack greets me afterwards with a hearty American handshake, and some simple advice on this meeting-and-greeting signing process I have such trouble with. “Use a pen,” he says, as I take my place behind the desk, “And remember the kids love you. And then when you’re done, come eat with me.” The smile he gives me, the toothy beam, is that smile which almost converted Gertrude Stein, which won Pollack the MacArthur Fellowship - the self-same smile that has brought us all here today in lieu of a fee. I smile back. He laughs at my overbite, hands me a restaurant address and disappears. I turn to my public.

I see that sixty percent of my audience are wearing t-shirts with cats on them, but, refreshingly, forty percent are clinically underweight and encased in distressed denim and/or shirts bearing the stitched names of people who worked in gas stations many years ago (none of my public have ever worked in gas stations.) There they all are, waiting. Their hair is shiny and impressive. Some of these kids have such great hair they might as well be writers themselves. In front of my desk they wait, reaching back to the horizon, like a long line of wandering souls waiting to cross the red sea, that is if you are willing for a moment to think of Philadelphia as Jerusalem, and autographs as manna and book-sellers as roman centurions and Neal as Jehovah and readers as wandering souls. I clutch my pen. Is Neal right? Do the kids really love me?

Which piece I might have linked before, but it bears repeating.

She also provides a brief autobiography, and an introduction to the text. This appears after the bit I just quoted above, another indication of my non-blogger-iness.

Hello. Some of you may know me as an English writer of third-person comic fiction, a scribbler of epic narratives populated by a colourful crowd of zany characters battling with a range of cultural issues, all speaking in the ponderous dialects of a world far removed from your own. Or, on the other hand, you may not.

I have just completed a book tour, which is somewhat like being on safari but without the attendant dangers of thick bush-land, extreme heat, guns, or wild animals. But book tours offer their own perils to the young writer. I have been on an American book tour before. Four things come out of an American book tour:

1. The writer gains 15 pounds.

2. The writer can find a minibar within five seconds of opening a door, irrespective of wood-paneling camouflage.

3. Any original thought the writer ever had – every pretty black mark she ever made on a piece of white paper – is replaced by the endlessly reoccurring phenomena of the writer’s own name rising up at them in embossed font on the front of a book they have come to despise.

4. The writer is reduced to embracing the only creative subject she has left: writing about writing and writers. And, if she is lucky, hair.

Lacking social skills, I could use this as an excuse to tease Hanne mercilessly. Especially the bit about the minibar.

But instead, I shall take my cue from Oliver Willis.

Smart women writers. There is nothing better.