Here is the list of articles in the ZERO MOMENT blog tour which ran throughout May 2010, along with the kind blogs run by friends of mine who have kindly agreed to host a rant, ramble, book review or intelexshull think-piece.
Category: raves
& faves
Categories
Up In The Air (I’ve Been There)
Up In The Air (I’ve Been There)
Originally uploaded by mgharris
There’s a lovely Clooney movie out just now, "Up In The Air" which features a key scene in Detroit Airport (also the airport destination of the latest Al Qaeda nutso, the Underpants Bomber.) Now who’da thought that an airport that I had never visited in years of travelling, at least 5 times to the USA, would suddenly become so ubiquitous, months after I happen to spend several happy hours there?
The simple answer is probably that it’s the major hub for American Airlines, who feature prominently in the Clooney film.
Is "Up In The Air" good? For a movie that purports to be a romcom it’s being taken quite seriously. But that is only because it isn’t actually a romcom. There is one important convention to romcoms, you might even say it’s the defining characteristic and it isn’t followed in this movie. Then again, "Annie Hall" ends with the lovers apart too.
It’s a good comedy drama though. With a rather nice, poignant twist at the end.
I took this photo in Detroit Airport, next to the jumping fountain. In the movie Clooney and his young co-star stand in almost exactly the same place, also with a sunset.
Meanwhile, "Zero Moment" is effectively published early, with online promotions starting this week at Waterstone’s and swapitshop.com
I spent today writing my 2010 author talk. First school event on Wednesday. Krispy Kreme party for the Joshua Facebook group on Friday. Big launch party next Tuesday. Much excitement and cake, then down to editing Dark Parallel.
Wednesday 27th also sees Joshua’s first outing in Polish!
Emailed from my BlackBerry®
For fellow Curb Your Enthusiasm fans in the UK. Did your Skyplus fail to record the last few minutes? I happened to be watching it live and noticed that it wasn’t recording any longer.
Here’s what happened.
Larry walks off the set of the Seinfeld reunion show because he’s so appalled to see Cheryl flirting with Jason Alexander. Standing in the parking lot next to a car with tinted windows, he speaks to Jeff on his mobile and points out that since he only agreed to do the reunion as a ploy to get Cheryl back, why should he stay?
He storms off…while the camera lingers on the car. Could it be that a certain someone overheard LD’s admission?
Back in his apartment, Larry is watching the show premiere on TV. We see the final version of several scenes we saw rehearsed…scenes without Amanda, the character played by Cheryl. Larry watches, bemused. Then there’s a knock at the door. It’s Cheryl, carrying two coffees from Mocha Joe’s. Larry is delighted to see her and invites her in to watch the show, which he’s paused live.
As they both watch, Amanda appears on screen. But it’s not Cheryl playing her! Amazed, Larry listens as Cheryl admits that she resigned from the show when he left. It just wasn’t the same. Full of barely credulous hope, Larry watches the rest of the show with Cheryl. They’ve gone with the original ending in which George and Amanda get back together at the end.
Cheryl tells him it was the right ending. “They belong together,” she murmurs to Larry. He leans in and asks, “Do they?” Cheryl nods and they kiss.
But!
Yeah.
Larry!
He’s finally kissing Cheryl, but opens his eyes to peer at a new coffee ring on the wooden coffee table. He stops the smooching to point it out. Cheryl admits, sheepishly, that she can be careless with coffee cups. Larry mentions the coffee ring at Julia’s and Cheryl confesses that she might be responsible. She seems to want to get back to the kissing and touching reunion they’d just initiated.
Yet, Larry won’t let it lie. He agrees with Cheryl’s assertion that it ‘really doesn’t matter’ but then adds ominously, “Having said that…could you call Julia and tell her that it was you who damaged her table?”
Cheryl does that perfect expression of bemused, long-suffering irritation that ten years of marriage to Larry has helped her to perfect. “I’m not going to do that,” she says. Larry balks at her reaction.
And that’s that. They’re already back to squabbling, at least Larry is already back to his fussy, rude and intransigent self.
Because with or without Cheryl at his side, that’s who he is.
Yes indeed, Christmas begun in earnest for me last night with the annual Physics Department Carol service about which I have previously blogged. The music included one of my favourites, Victoria’s O Magnum Mysterium, and the Coventry Carol, which the sopranos sat out on, deferring the top part to the altos.
During the mince pie and wine party afterwards I managed to possibly find a new trumpet teacher for Little Daughter (whose previous teacher Rob Stevens of the local jazz outfit The Mad Hatters, sadly and unexpectedly died recently). And to discover why the writer and presenter of the brilliant BBC TV series The History Of Christianity looked so familiar…turns out that he too has sung in the choir for years! My pal Becs and I had a nice chat with Diarmaid McCulloch about the show, which if you haven’t watched it and you have an interest in history, watch it now on iplayer! Or wait for the BBC2 rerun.
Apparently Diarmaid’s book on Christianity has sold as many copies as ICE SHOCK! Wow! And that’s hardback at £35, thank-you-very-much, unlike my books’ bargain price entertainment of £6.99.
I emerged into snow, for the first time in 20 years. Like in Dickens! A quick change at home into suitably elegant attire and down to St Hilda’s College for our IT company’s Christmas party. A really lovely evening, and nice to see the boys in black tie. Especially our co-founder Mark who only owns one suit!
Charlie from Inlight and I chatted over the merits of various Disney rides. I mentioned to him that I wrote the first ever review of Space Mountain in Disneyland Paris.
I may have had some wine. I can’t exactly remember…
Categories
A Night in the British Museum
Those lucky Young Friends of the British Museum get the bonus treat of being allowed to attend up to 4 sleeppvers a year. Last weekend was a special Moctezuma-themed event, featuring storytelling about the Mexican Day of the Dead, warrior head-dress making, Mexican folklore from Mexicolore…and then some Mayan hieroglyph deciphering with me.
Meanwhile publicist Alex from Scholastic and I enjoyed being set free in the British Museum at night. We saw some strange stuff up in the Mesopotamian gallery, near the remains of the Temple of Ninhursag… but I won’t say any more.
What a great wheeze though! Picnic and sleep amongst one of the greatest (perhaps THE greatest) collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts outside of Cairo. All this an education too.
It did bring joy to my nerdly heart to see more than 150 youngsters faithfully copying glyphs from a 6th century Mayan inscription, deciphering them and then standing up to present their translations to their fellow code-crackers. Round midnight, too!
Thanks to Claire Johnstone from the British Museum for inviting me, to Sky and Alex for helping with all four events, and to the very kind Simon Martin of Penn Museum for giving us his translation of the inscription.