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Advice to Writers
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 1521
This is good, and just in time for the New Year. Myself, I've resolved to write more, that's a daily thing, and there are some gems of inspiration here - writerly advice from writers to writers.
"Though our publishers will tell you that they are ever seeking “original” writers, nothing could be farther from the truth. What they want is more of the same, only thinly disguised. They most certainly do not want another Faulkner, another Melville, another Thoreau, another Whitman. What the public wants, no one knows. Not even the publishers."
-HENRY MILLER
Link: Advice to Writers
Link: Tweets / Advice to Writers on Twitter (Careful - there are so many GOOD links to follow here you might never get back to writing...)
dropping off the painting
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2455
I haven't been back to the restaurant for a few weeks, 6 maybe, I've been haunted by the painting of the owner's daughter in my kitchen.
But it's time, and I'll be damned glad to be rid of it.
G is back, the G who walked out the few days before my final departure, he completes the team: Everyone is now back that has left (in the front at least), and there are some new faces as well. I catch up with the boys, the Boss's nephew and G, the girl I trained up as my replacement (looking much slimmer and quite attractive, exercise, it would seem, agrees with her), the kitchen and the suppliers are the same, we drink coffee, chat, gossip about who's come and gone (nobody important), laugh about G's departure, and like Franco his return.
The Owner returns, and there's the customary Christmas pleasantries, I give him his painting.
There's the puzzlement on his face and I explain that it's his daughter. "See" I say "2 Eyes....how many does your daughter have?..." And I go through my trademarked spiel until he's forced to concede there's a resemblance.
"Maybe" I suggest "Your daughter should have plastic surgery..." but he doesn't hear me.
"Wait" he says and whistles "Until my wife sees this....".
The boss's nephew, he likes my stuff, he wants me to do his portrait next...
The Owner's Inflatable Daughter
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 1584
(Woke up at 6:00, thought it was 8:00, the coffee was already on when I discovered my mistake. Drank the coffee, attempted to nap. To little avail.)
I've got the painting - the Christmas gift - the painting I did of the Owner's daughter and I've popped around the restaurant to give it to him. Only I've leaned it badly in the back of the car and now there's a big dent in the canvas.
And I'm pulling it out of the car to look at the dent and I see that there's a tear in the canvas, but the Owner's there and I'll just give it to him anyways.
Now the stretcher bars fall out, and I'm holding the canvas in my hands, rolling it up and he's reaching for it to unroll it, only now it's a sheaf of unrelated sketches and drawings, the painting's disappeared completely and I'm rifling through these sketches, looking for it, but it's vanished, gone, pfft....
(And today is the day I pop around the restaurant to drop off the painting, this means something, but what?...)
Facebooking to end Child Abuse
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2508
There's a rather amusing guide to facebook portraits here: http://www.fastcompany.com/1692957/facebook-profile-picture-flowchart
Amusing because it's not only funny, it's also somewhat true. Spot on, in fact. What it doesn't cover, however, is the use of avatars - pictures that aren't portraits.
That's OK - I can cover that in a few lines:
#1) He/She is wanted by the police or doesn't want to be recognized and identified, which would result in them being wanted by the police.
#2) I'm butt-ugly and would prefer a picture of a potted plant to my actual face. So would my friends.
Now recently on facebook there was a little "viral" campaign that saw a lot of users replace their photos with cartoon characters, ostensively to end child abuse.
I'm not making this up.
Purportedly you were drawing attention to the plight of children all around the world, and marked yourself as someone not only politically correct but as morally superior to all your friends who didn't have a cartoon avatar (obviously pedophiles, every one of them, probably a good time to drop them...).
It gets better.
Fox News (or some equivalent) picks up the story and suggests that the cartoon avatars is just what the pedophiles want, as now they can message their little friends with complete anominity.
Remember, I'm not making this up.
I have something to say about this. What can I say about this? How do otherwise perfectly intelligent people get on board with something like this? Where, exactly, is that leap of reasoning that goes "If I just replace my facebook photo with a picture of a cartoon character that I like it will help to end child abuse..."?
I mean, really?
Probably you have a few friends that did this. Sadly, me too.
Me, I'd just stop communicating with them for a few months, then drop them on the Facebook friend swap.
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