It’s the last working day before Christmas. Half an hour left, with a long weekend stretched out ahead. While not working I’ve been grocery shopping, put two loads of clothes through the washing machine, emptied a sink filled with dirty cups, and picked up plates and cups from all over the house.
In the supermarket I walked around, quietly smiling while waiting for hordes of numpties to get out of my way. It seemed all of the slowest, most indecisive people in the world had descended on the supermarket. How much thought does it take to buy the contents of a shopping list (which the shop won’t have anyway, because some people seem to have mixed up their Christmas grocery list with their nuclear winter shopping list).
Maybe’s it me. Maybe I’m just getting worse at dealing with people.
Maybe I just can’t be bothered with acting at being Mr “happy go lucky” any more. How does the phrase go… “run out of f*cks to give” ?
I’m painting a very dark picture, aren’t I. In reality I’m well, healthy, and have a roof over my head – which is more than many. I have very little to complain about (but that isn’t going to stop me complaining about it).
Anyway.
Changing the subject entirely, a good friend gave me an early draft of a script she is writing to read. I loved it. I’m not going to say anything about the script’s content, but I am going to say it’s all sorts of lovely when you discover somebody you know has a talent that not many know about.
Her writing is wonderful. She has a way of drawing you in – of painting a picture – of capturing characters. It’s easy, relaxed, and seemingly effortless. I have no illusions about the amount of effort required to make the words seem so effortless.
We debated for some time after reading about the direction of the story – and if it should perhaps be embellished by stereotypical tropes – to fit with people’s expectations.
My other half watches a lot of US TV series. They all seem to follow a formula – with a sex scene in the first few minutes of the first episode. A simple way of grabbing the audience’s attention. A sex scene is invariably followed by a grizzly death in most of the detective shows.
It’s funny – when you take a step back and pick stories to pieces – how they take a common form. Are we really so predictable that we can be played so easily? That presenting us with what we want sates our thirst for entertainment, drama, horror, intrigue, or erotica?
I remember a viral email doing the rounds years ago, where the plot of Harry Potter and Star Wars were cleverly re-written, with characters and locations swapped out such that the same text accurately described both movies.
Right. Anyway.
I better go and figure out how to shut everything down for Christmas.
jonbeckett.blog 