Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

Best. Disclaimer. Ever

Posted on Written by

Neil Gaiman posted an exchange between Christopher Hitchens and an audience member at an English literary festival. It’s a funny little bit. Someone then wrote Gaiman to take him to task for “apparently sympathizing with Hitchens’s derisive and arrogant treatment of a fan.” Gaiman then rereads the entry, says he still thinks it’s pretty funny, and then adds:

(This post should not be seen as in any way condoning smoking, smoking on stage, appearing on panels, using the phrase “If anyone doesn’t like it they can kiss my ass,” Christopher Hitchens, behaving like Christopher Hitchens, literary festivals, the Guardian, or rudeness to people in the audience who are dying for a ciggie.)

I didn’t laugh out loud at the Hitchens anecdote, but this disclaimer did it.

How to cook up a “perfect” heroine

Posted on Written by

Carina Chocano has an article in today’s LA Times Calendar about the seven rules for movie heroines. Every one of her rules resonates with me. Resonates with me as to why I cannot stand most of the women in movies today, especially in romantic comedies:

How? After watching “Monster-in-Law,” I canvassed a few writers—who won’t be named, so that they may continue to write and happily incorporate notes—to share directives they’d received while creating their romantic heroines. There is no such thing, it appears, as a romantic comedy heroine who couldn’t benefit from being just a little more “likable” than she already is (Rule No. 1). “Likable” of course, can mean many things in the real world; but for a studio it tends to mean that she does some kind of work involving animals or the elderly. Perhaps she’s a veterinarian, or a zookeeper. If she works in business, she has a boss who doesn’t appreciate her, or steals her ideas. Whatever it is, she has it tough. Sometimes she’s a single mother, “trying to hold it all together in this tough, dog-eat-dog world,” one writer offers. “Also, likable often means clumsy,” she adds. “She falls down a lot, but in an adorable fashion. Likable also means pretty. As we all know, the fat are unlikable.”

The seven rules, in case you need the summary instead:

  1. There is no such thing, it appears, as a romantic comedy heroine who couldn’t benefit from being just a little more “likable” than she already is.
  2. Once she’s been established as almost unbelievably likable, a heroine must be “sympathetic” because, what if she got so likable people actually started to hate her? She must be punished for her smug likability—dumped, cheated on, left at the altar.
  3. While it’s OK to spend some time with Ben & Jerry, heartbreak does not call, under any circumstances, for excessive, depressive or erratic behavior of any kind.
  4. Essential story elements can and should be jettisoned if they risk making one of the female leads less attractive than she otherwise might be.
  5. Sexiness is good, but having sex is problematic.
  6. In the case of a male protagonist, one can’t go wrong inserting supermodels wherever humanly possible.
  7. If a character’s age is ever mentioned, best to make it 29—29 being the universal sell-by date after which point singleness, klutzy adorability, etc., cross the line from “sympathetic” to simply “pathetic.”

(Via Booksquare.)

How time flies

Posted on Written by

Today I went to get a manicure and pedicure with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law (light pink on my fingernails, sparkly blue on my toenails, thanks for asking) and I heard the woman across the aisle from me say she had just bought a house in Sherman Oaks. “Oh!” I said. “We just moved from there.” (Okay, it was two years ago. Whatever.) “Where is your house?”

She shrugged and said, “I’m not really too sure of how things are laid out there. It’s at Valley Vista and Crisp Canyon.”

Huh.

I had no clue where that was.

I asked her for a few things near there—she said she’d stayed at the Sportsmans Lodge, which is fairly near my old house—but she couldn’t really tell me specifically where it was.

Now, after I got home I looked it up on Mapquest, and indeed, Crisp Canyon Road is on the other side of Sherman Oaks from where I used to live. (I used to live near Valley Vista and Murietta, in case anyone cares.) So it’s not that surprising that I didn’t know it off-hand. But I got a shock from realizing, Wow, I really don’t know that area, and I’m going to lose whatever I did know about it.