Oh Patty

I'll stop posting images from Mad Men but they're so damn good -- I love that sense of remove. In the wake of season four I've been re-reading The Cry of the Owl and visualising the period references in a different way, apart from the story. Which still works. PH nails it: she and Paul Bowles are the writers I would have liked to have hung out with. Them and Kurt Vonnegut, who sounds like everyone's cranky uncle.

Early morning, lotsa words; IHT crossword and strangers' faces at the French (yaysville); tonight The Social Network. Filmed from a first draft, folks, because movies aren't that hard. As Kurt said: don't take it too seriously. Big ups.

Tomorrow: Einstürzende Neubauten. Not so much musique concrete as, y'know, cement.

Never complain

Never explain. I prefer characters to say less. Sometimes they have to open up, though. And if I don't like the passage I can always delete it later. You put 'em in, we rip 'em out, as my local mechanic once said.

Soundtrack: The Naked and Famous, School of Seven Bells, Superhumanoids, The Ting Tings, Trent Reznor. (Are iPods encouraging us to remember music alphabetically?)

The moment you print out a manuscript it becomes redundant.

My whole damn day's parenthetical. However the exposition worked, I believe. You all have a nice day.

Stray thought

Favourite things

Daniel Knox, one of the greatest musicians out. Think Kurt Weill meets William Riker. Knox was the best thing at Jarvis Cocker's Christmas concert in 2008 (here he is gaslighting Judy Garland); did music for David Lynch... This is a live vid for 'Me and My Wife'.

The Amy Winehouse Comeback ™

2 ounces sweet Vermouth, 1/2 ounce Grenadine, 2 ounces dry Gin, 2 ounces Vodka, 2 ounces Tequila, 2 ounces Whiskey, 2 more ounces Vodka, 1 dash Grand Marnier, 1/4 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice, 1 lime cut into quarters, 1 orange cut into halves, 1 watermelon, 2 jiggers Midori, 1/4 ounce cream, 1/4- 1/2 bottle champagne, 1/2 ounce Galliano, 2 1/2 ounces Bourbon, 3 Mandrax, 2 Quaaludes, 4 Viagra, white wine spritzer, beer (to taste), 2 packets Marlboro Light, gunpowder, Semtex.

Build in a Collins glass 2/3 filled with ice, more Bourbon, Vodka. Garnish with orange twist.

A B Something

Good news, everyone! While I've been away my government has created a new country. It is called Auckland, and the first skirmish has already broken out. The new Auckland is a collection of reanimated parts powered by the elemental forces created by not being the seat of government. This is going to be fun to watch...

More good news: writing by hand stimulates neural activity and gets ideas out faster. The bad: good handwriting makes you seem smarter. Mine's enough of a scrawl to draw glances from whoever's sitting next to me in a cafe. But they can fuck off.

When I worked at Comprint in Wiri one of the managers wrote in perfect copperplate script which the printers and workers on the floor admired very much. He wrote everything out in the same perfect hand: memos, phone messages. Craft, basically. Don't have it. Have to get those ideas down etc.

Also I suspect I talk to myself when I'm writing dialogue. Not out loud, more mumbling. And I tend to lean closer to the page now if I don't have my specs. I Wear Light Reading Glasses For Comfort™ but not when I actually write. And I haven't shaved for a couple of weeks now so the beard's on. So, yeah: hunched, unshaven, muttering - not the sort of person you'd want to be sitting next to, I guess.

Less crazily, for once: Marilyn Monroe's diary writings discussed online at vanityfair.com. Some notes about Arthur Miller, and Lee Strasberg, who fascinates me. I couldn't get on stage but I'm interested in how acting works.

She came home with her hair all wet and her clothes all filled with sand

A Warren sort of day. Never a good sign. Bought the IHT and hojicha AKA the best tea. Scribbling notes - oh, you fill in the rest. Best wishes to Liu Xiaobo. Hunter S's job application. Possibly the best ever blog entry on fashion, ever. Meantime it's work, work, work, and after that, work. Also, work. You know how it is.