Dorian's New Writeups

January 12, 2007 (idea)

2007-01-12T06:35:22Z

If anyone knew that I obsess about Casino Royale (the movie) in the way I do, they'd say I was bananas. I've seen it three times so far (which is nothing, really); I read about it in film magazines, look through Greg Williams' book Bond on Set: Filming Casino Royale, read cast and crew interviews on the internet, and listen to the soundtrack CD. And I keep thinking about it, not like a fan or a stalker, but like a writer, a colleague in the creative business--only an amateur, but somebody who wants to think about the inside of the movie's story, the elliptical transitions, the nuances, the technicalities in conveying an effect, the work on-set, the missing scenes and dialogue. Because there are missing scenes and dialogue, anyone knows that. And there's what goes on outside the frame. It's not everyday life, it's another life. Okay, maybe I'm not explaining it clearly. And even if I did, you might say I was bananas anyway. …

A tramp did it (idea)

2007-01-12T06:28:57Z

A variation on "The butler did it".

To read English detective fiction (mainly from between the wars) is to encounter novel after novel in which middle- or upper-class characters, questioned about a murder in their midst, answer vaguely that it must've been committed by a passing tramp.

Passing tramps were the Golden Age's version 2.0 equivalent of today's "terrorists": an amorphous mass of faceless evil-doers out there, somewhere, ready to commit uncivilized atrocities on a whim. (Version 1.0 were the bomb-throwing Russian "anarchists" of Victorian popular fiction.) The reader soon forms a mental image of English lanes and highways thronged with suspicious hobos, lurking around country houses and villages, bent on breaking and entering, killing at random, then slipping away unnoticed, leaving the police famously "baffled".

Why a vagabond would want to knock off…

Gone in Sixty Seconds 2006 - Theatre Quest Entries (idea)

2006-04-02T14:10:41Z

Several Years On--a play in one act

Scene: An office in MI6 headquarters in London. On one wall is a window. On another, a map of Europe. A man, the Director of Operations (Europe), is seated behind a desk. A younger man, Agent K, blonde, in his late 30s or early 40s, sits on the other side. DOO(E): The intelligence is conclusive: we've been infiltrated. We think it's Moscow. AK: Moscow. But how? DOO(E): Dr Vanderbilt suggested we take a Motive Adjustment/Brain Penetration test, to determine whether we've been brainwashed. AK: Vanderbilt! He's a hardliner. But he might be right, MA/BP could be the only way to battle Moscow. They don't yet have our parapsychological capabilities. DOO(E): We don't know how deep the damage goes; the Director-General himself may have been compromised. AK: I once saw a defector being interrogated using MA/BP. [ …

This can't happen (thing)

2004-12-17T14:33:48Z

A few days ago, I bought the CD compilation Music to Watch Girls By (Sony Music, 2000), prompted by saturation-point viewings of the recent Mastercard commercial--set to the instrumental version of the popular hit Music to Watch Girls By--that promised the credit card user "three summers in one year" as a prize. It didn't intensify my interest in spending a year-long summer in the company of nubile young women whose breasts bounce mesmerizingly as they frolick in the waves or jog in slow motion. Instead, I was captivated by that song. It was the sound of my 1960s childhood as I imagined it, being too young to remember.

I think the music you hear as an impressionable babe-in-arms becomes an unconscious part of you, but you don't know it until you hear it later in life--like Raymond Shaw programmed to respond to the Queen of Diamonds. That's The Girl From Ipanema for me, and Up, Up & Away, and …

May 6, 2004 (idea)

2004-05-06T08:58:39Z

Dear Day Log,

Yesterday I happened to visit E2, and found a msg from someone whose name I can't remember, re my Sweet* write up. In a humourless tone the msg stated (I'm paraphrasing here) that it would be deleted (as it garnered a -5 rep), and that by now I should know better than to post stuff of such poor quality.

Now I didn't realize that E2 is policed by censorious killjoys reminiscent of Soviet-era Political Officers who used to go around ruining people's fun and throwing them into prison because they weren't serious enough and didn't toe the official line--but what do I know, eh? What I should make clear here is that I post write ups on topics I think are interesting or amusing and deserve a wider audience. I sure don't hang around or return later to study the rep stats, or cry myself to sleep if my write up gets a negative reaction. But hey, that's me! However, I should thank those people who cooled or commented on my recent Dead Air write up. Many…

Bobby Fischer Goes to War (thing)

2004-05-06T08:43:40Z

Bobby Fischer Goes to War: The True Story of How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time
David Edmonds and John Eidinow
Faber and Faber, 2004

To those people who know anything about chess, two names and a city are irrevocably linked. The names are "Fischer" and "Spassky", and the city is "Reykjavik". During July-August 1972, Boris Spassky, the 35-year-old Soviet world chess champion, played a 21-game match against 29-year-old Bobby Fischer, the American contender who was considered a genius, an enigma, a demon. The match took place in Reykjavik, Iceland. Fischer won the match by 12½ points to 8½. That's seven games to Spassky's three; eleven were drawn.

Although the match was hardly a classic in terms of sparkling moves and innovation, it captured the global imagination. Hardly had Fischer had time to bask in his victory--Spassky phoned in his Game 21 resignation--before several books on it flooded the planet.…