How Stripy Is My Jumpsuit
My daughter has a thing for buttons. She’s fascinated by them.
Especially buttons that light up or make a beep when you press
them—those can keep her occupied for ages—but keyboards
are fun, too. She seems to have a particular talent for finding
obscure functions or keypress combinations; she’s sent text
messages, made phone calls, and locked up my computer.
Now Fin has made a movie. She was playing with the mobile phone, and it has a camera function, and somehow she recorded a short video clip. I have no idea how.
I don’t want to hype it up too much, because she is only 12 months old. But I don’t think I’m exaggerating to say that it’s probably the most insightful, spiritual, brilliant, and meaningful piece of cinema ever made. The ending… well, I won’t spoil it. Judge for yourself.
If you’re not seeing the vid above, you can view it here or here.
Retrospective #8: Nothing Happens, Film at 11
It’s probably time for a big update on what the hell is going on
with some of projects I’ve mentioned in the past. On the one hand,
the reason I haven’t posted any news is because I have nothing
to report. But on the other, it’s probably annoying of me
to post some big announcement then go quiet for months about it.
So here’s the latest.
The Syrup Movie
There has been some good stuff happening, but I’m on strict instructions not to talk about it. Essentially, the producers at Fortress are trying to match the script I wrote with some appropriately cool film-makers. At this stage I’m reasonably hopeful that this is going to happen. Which means there is a non-zero chance of seeing a good Syrup movie some time this decade. I know! I’m excited too.
The Jennifer Government Movie
Section 8, the production company owned by George Clooney and Stephen Soderbergh, recently broke up, and I got the film rights back. Clooney and Grant Heslov have formed a new production company called Smoke House, and it’s possible the project might re-form there. Or it might not. If it doesn’t, there are some other good potential homes for it. So while this film is about as far away from production as ever, it has lots of potential.
The Company Movie
Nothing to report here yet; it’s very early in development.
My next novel
I’m working on a book. I would love to tell you how it’s going, but I know if I do it will be the last coherent sentence I ever write. I’m superstitious like that. But I am making plenty of progress. I feel like this time I might end up doing much less re-writing than usual. Of course, I always think that.
This is my top priority by far, and what I’m spending most of my time on.
The Maximum Words strategy has proved difficult to stick to. I keep cheating, like deliberately not checking the word count when I know I’m over. Still, I think it’s helping.
The sci-fi TV series
I wrote up a proposal, which I’m actually quite fond of. It probably needs another polish or two and then my agent will see if anyone but me likes it. This is a very long shot, since it’s insanely hard to get a TV series up. I am not packing my bags for LA just yet.
The Australian TV show with Wil Anderson
Hasn’t progress due to the enormous trouble Wil and I have locating ourselves in the same city simultaneously. We have a good concept, though, so I hope we can get something on paper this year.
Foreign editions of Company
I wish I had something to tell you. This bugs me like nothing else.
Project S
There’s something else I’m brewing up, but I’m not allowed to talk about it. It would be one of the coolest things I’ve ever done, though, so I’m seriously hoping it comes off. Yes, you heard it here first!
And I think that’s it. Huh. That was kind of underwhelming. But now you’re up to date! That’s got to be worth something, doesn’t it?
The Joy of Text
(Language warning: Today’s blog contains profanity. And how! There’s
tons of it. Not from me; I’m quoting someone else. But if you prefer
your computer screens unsullied, you probably don’t want to scroll
any further down. Or, as another tactic, you could squint a
little and tilt your head to the left. Quotes are italicized, you see;
so you might not be able to quite make out the words. Of course,
you won’t make any sense of the blog, either. And you’ll look kind of
stupid. But it’s up to you. I’m just providing you with sufficient
information to make an informed choice.)
Today I stumbled upon some guy’s list of his favorite blogs. All right, when I say “stumbled upon,” I mean I heard about Google Blog Search, and immediately typed in the subject I care about most, i.e. me. Anyway, my site is on this list—which is not a ringing endorsement so much as the anthropic principle in action. But here’s what he said:
Max Barry. Author of several really good books. Seems to be one of the few authors who really maintains a blog just for the joy of occasional communication instead of promoting an agenda.
This pleased me very much. I do love that communication, and while I can’t claim to be agenda-free—not with this many arch-enemies—I’m very happy that, to one guy at least, that’s not what I’m here for.
A lot of my e-mail is indeed a joy. A lot is spam for Viagra and hot stock picks, too, but I get more warm, funny, and fawning e-mail than anyone really has a right to. As an example, here’s one I received a couple of weeks ago. I wasn’t going to post it, because whenever I do that quite a few people e-mail me in a similar vein, presumably hoping I’ll post theirs, too. And in this case, that would be scary. But in many ways it represents everything that’s great fun about what I get to do here.
From Kale:
(FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK… say something witty…. FUUUUCK…. DID I SPELL THAT WRITE? HE THINK IMSTOPID IF I DONT SPELL WRITE!!!!!!!)
Hey Maxeroooooney, ever read Everyone in Silico? Or Torture the Artist?
P.S. I want to marry Six…Is there anyway I can OFFICIALLY marry a fictious character? Because if so…Im marrying that woman.
I don’t usually reply to my email (which is terrible, I know), but I banged out a quick response to this one:
Yes, no, and if you try that, I’m calling the cops.
Max.
Then Kale responded:
OMG YOU REPLIIIEDDDD!!! Ahaha…ahahah…
Your books, Mr.Barry, are incredible. I weep everytime I think on them. When bystanders at the arcade I work at ask me whats wrong, I just cry harder…FUCKING BEAUTIFUL…BRILLAINT…NO MORE WORDS. …FUCK, I would love to meet and help ANY of your characters in WHATEVER way they needed. Do me a favor…and im completely serious… PLEASE… PLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASE… name a character Kale. NAME A CHARACTER KALE. KALE…It’s a rare name! It’s the name of a vegetable. It’s hawain…it mean’s strong man. WADDAYASAY??? Just…ANY character at all!!!!! I know the use of “!!!” and “…” can be annoying, but that;s just where im at in this point of my life. Lots’a passion. Im a 21 year old man. I love your books. I love the show Home Movies. I get depressed thinking about life. I have so many questions. I enjoy Jerri Blank and The UCB. I love Lobo. They should make him read Syrup when they UNCANCELL the series. Front cover. I like OINK. Ever read that? JTHM was, at one point, the only thing i ever cared about.
I’ve spilled my gut’s and I still have’nt said anything I wanted to you…the man who’se stories make me happy. THANK YOU. THANK YOU, THANK YOU THANK YOU, THANK YOU…
How awesome is that? I read something like that, I feel like a superhero. Thanks, Kale. And to all of you who write to me or post on this site. I mean, I don’t want to get too mushy here, but—aw, hell. Come here. Yeah, that’s it. Thanks, guys.
| MaxBarry.com ›
Max ›
The Joy of Text
Daddy’s Girl
As of last Monday,
Jen is back at work two days a week. One of those days, my mother
looks after Fin. The other day, I do.
Of course, since I have the kind of job that permits me to loll around the house unshaven and wearing nothing but boxer shorts (although not now, it’s winter; I’m not crazy), I already get to spend more time with my daughter than most Dads. (Heh. “Dad.” Still cool.) But I have discovered that when it’s just me and Fin, it’s different; special in a way that’s almost magical.
This is how it works: I get up at 6:30am, make myself a coffee, and start work. I have about 90 minutes to pound out some words before Fin wakes. (Which isn’t that long. So I am writing Sunday mornings, too, to make up for it.) Then that’s it: the rest of the day is just the two of us. So far we have caught the train into the city to look at comic books, walked along the river, visited a mall, and stopped off at an aquarium to inspect some fish. But where we go isn’t the point; the amazing part is just having this incredible little girl all to myself. I know I am probably about the ten billionth person in history to feel like this, but it really is beautiful. It feels like an honor.
| MaxBarry.com ›
Max ›
Daddy’s Girl
Farewell, my Bedford
As you know, I’ve spent most of the last two months in Bedford, England.
No, you do. I mentioned it, like, just a few weeks ago. See, right
here. Well I don’t care if you
do get a lot of e-mail; I thought you’d care enough to remember. Well
I guess not. Well maybe you should. Fine. No, I said, fine! Don’t
take that; that was a present!
Anyway, I am now back home, but before I left, I decided to take a few snaps of Bedford for you. Now, these aren’t of Bedford’s tourist attractions. That’s because Bedford doesn’t have any. Instead I just walked around the block. That was all I needed to capture the real essence of Bedford, I think you’ll agree.
First, this car was parked outside the house. I took this photo because it’s what every car in Bedford looks like. Actually, that’s not true; some have more flags.
(Click for larger versions.)
The flags are because of the World Cup, by the way. Just in case you were thinking there must be some really rabid nationalism going on in Bedford. I mean, there could be, but the flags don’t prove it.
A few doors down was a youth social center with high walls and barred windows. I’m not totally sure, but I think this is the kind of center where the youths aren’t actually permitted to leave. This was on the walls:
I spent some time trying to work out what “Coo-Var Anti-Climb Paint” actually is. My first guess was that it’s really sticky, so when people try to climb the fence they get stuck halfway up, and dangle there until the police come and hose them off. But I touched the wall and it didn’t seem sticky. It didn’t seem smooth, either, or smelly, or anything else that might discourage climbing. But if I jumped really high I could see a kind of black smear on the top of the wall, so I guessed that was it. And when I touched it, it was sticky. But not that sticky. So I’m still confused about what this product is meant to do.
Around the back of the block, I passed these helpfully labeled bins:
This raised a lot of questions for me. I was tempted to knock on the door and ask the owner a few questions about exactly how he thought this anti-theft protection scheme might work. He seemed to have some insights into the criminal mind that were escaping me. But that probably would have gotten me stabbed, so I didn’t.
Note: After my previous Bedford blog, a friend wrote to tell me that Christopher Reeve used to live in Bedford. This left me confused and bewildered. I kept asking myself: Why? God, why? Then I discovered he lived in Bedford, New York, and the world made sense again.
There are no stupid questions
Norman writes:
Dear Max:
I just happened to browse the site as I am with MY Space .Com. Some how I came across your website. One eye catcher is a segment titled: “Women in High Heels Smashing Things” What is that all about? It turns me on. Tell me more of this story and more information on it.
Right! I’m going to assume you’re being funny, Norman, because the alternative is too disturbing. So this is the thing where I look up what people are searching for when they visit this site. It’s been a while since I last checked that, but once again the list is a mix of the bizarre, the terrifying, the unintentionally hilarious, and the unexpectedly profound. Here’s a sample from the last two months:
- ashley olsen worried and afraid of mary kate
- hippos go berserk
- how to make my cable modem lights stop blinking
- what can i do to make myself more attractive to women?
- defense against water balloons
- how to write in elven symbol code
- benefits of drinking pepsi max
- sexiest pants in world of warcraft
- what did teenager like back in the days
- how tall are victoria s supermodels
- what makes plaster casts start to smell?
- fish talks crap splish splash
- what happens to the hearing of whales when they get older
- who does jennifer government look like
- my sneakers are too small
- i just want to talk not about anything someone
- when was 479 days ago?
- unshaven giant poodle pictures
- is um a word
- location of hookers in rochester ny
- goosebumps anything to do with your heart
- giant rabbit news england
- the smurfs karl max
- is it true that when you sneeze people are thinking about you
Some of these are hard to stop thinking about. I’m a little tempted to search for footage of berserk hippos myself now. Is “um” a word? And seriously, I’m in England at the moment: should I be worried about a giant rabbit?