How to be a Writer

 Hhahahahahahahahahahhaa. Also, feel free to substitute the word ‘drink’ with other words. Like ‘eat’ or ‘smoke’. Or both.

https://theoatmeal.com/comics/writer

Elton John’s Photography Collection

It’s always fascinating to learn what interests people. It turns out that Elton John has an extensive photography collection that features some of the world’s most iconic photos, including photos by Dorothea Lange, and Irving Penn. (On a side note, one of my favorite photography books is Irving Penn’s Small Trades.)

Nerves of Steel...

 I can’t imagine anything more scary as a creative than having to pitch ideas in front of a panel of judges from Vogue in less than 15-minutes. This video shows a few of the finalists for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund making their case for winning... Braver than I could ever be, no matter how much I needed the money!

Oscar Wilde

In this video, Patti Smith reads from Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis. De Profundis was written while Wilde was incarcerated in Reading Gaol (HM Prison Reading).

The terrible story of Oscar Wilde’s eventual imprisonment for the ‘crime’ of homosexuality has fascinated me for years. Mainly because at the core of this story is the classic tale of a person (Lord Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas) who desires fame, hooking his claws into a person who already is famous. Bosie seems to have been the classic spoiled rich kid and a particularly loathsome one at that. The relationship between the two men seems to have been a toxic psychological brew of a controlling groupie from hell domineering an overly accommodating rich man. Added to this volatile mix was the feud with Bosie’s father (The Marquess of Queensberry). Queensberry loathed his son and despised Wilde.

However, Oscar Wilde seemed strangely oblivious to the nature of the relationship. You have to wonder why Wilde didn’t realize he’d wandered into the middle of a war zone. A war zone where the only casualty would be Wilde himself.

You also have to wonder if things would have turned out differently if Wilde hadn’t succumbed to Bosie’s demands to bring a libel charge against Queensberry. Queensberry had accused Wilde of being gay (which is a much nicer way of paraphrasing of what Queensberry really wrote). Oscar’s friends advised him not to take this course of action, clearly seeing that Wilde was being used as nothing more than ammunition by Bosie. In court, Queensberry had to defend the charge by proving his allegations were true. Which he successfully did. This lead to the arrest of Wilde, two trials, and Wilde’s later imprisonment.

Bosie (of course) fled to Europe thus avoiding any direct fall out. Unsurprisingly, he became even worse in later life. He was anti-gay and anti-Jew, with a side hobby that involved accusing everyone of libel. Winston Churchill returned the favor and Bosie wound up in prison himself in 1924.

It was while in prison that Bosie views about Oscar Wilde softened a little.

As Oscar had died penniless in Paris in 1900, I don’t think this was Bosie finally realizing what he’d done. It was just more narcissistic whining from a man who didn’t understand that he couldn’t behave however he wanted and get away with it. And perhaps a last bid to claim some type of fame by saying he’d been friends with Oscar Wilde.

Art and Money, Also Known as ‘Stick a Shark in Formaldehyde’

I’ve always been curious about the fame and attention the Turner prize attracts (or used to attract) and how some of the winners are catapulted into the money making stratosphere. Which to me, no lover of contemporary art, seems strange. Exactly why would anyone want to pay vast sums of money for an artwork that consists of a dead shark? Especially when the poor shark decayed so much, it had to be replaced. Yes, they had to catch another shark to go into the tank.

Anyway, this video explains how some of the artists who won the prize got to swim laps in pools filled with money. I wish I had thought of something like, “My Bed”.

Harry Potter and the translator’s nightmare

Many years ago I wrote a help guide for a development company. They’d written an online game for a globally recognized company as part of a promotion. The game went online for about a month. Anyone who played the game could earn points and use them to purchase items from the company. The secondary objective of the guide was to help the players understand the dynamics of the game, and how to cash in their points. The actual objective was to reduce the number of calls to the support desk. Support call costs are higher than most companies would like. If you factor in the cost of the person answering the call, the charge by the telco, the length of time to answer a call, and the software licenses, companies are spending anywhere from $3 to $7 a call. (On average.)

Once I’d completed the English version, the guide would be translated into French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

I knew the translator’s job could be tough so I kept my sentences short (fifteen words or less), and to the point. Two weeks later I was relieved when the translators let me know they’d been able to translate the copy without any stress. Even better, the total number of support calls were 310 out of an audience of 30,000. So around 1%.

Which leads me to this interesting video about translating the Harry Potter series and how the translators had to apply some magic of their own.

A Writer and Three Script Editors Walk Into a Bar

 Writing a novel is hard work. It can also be lonely and frustrating work.

Then again, an author has total control over his, or her, characters and plot. Unlike this guy...