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One of the more amusing constraints I’m writing under on the current revenue-generating project is that I am not allowed to mention a single thing about a place that might dissuade a customer from pulling out that American Express black card and immediately booking a 10 day vacation in the destination I’ve so cunningly described.
Thus when I wrote about Montserrat yesterday, I was absolutely forbidden from mentioning the fact that there isn’t any Montserrat anymore. Well. There is. But most of it’s been buried under lava and ash since the Big Volcano blew there 20 years ago.
Do you like to dive? Then Montserrat is the place for you! I wrote and proceeded to spend 500 words or so describing underwater funicles and parrotfish.
I wish I’d had the guts to write, Take a tour through the devastated capital of this modern day Pompei! The famous lifelike poses of many of the victims are not expressions of despair, but rather cadaveritic spasm, a result of the intense searing heat – But strictly speaking, this would not be true since I don’t think anybody actually died there, they were all air lifted out.
I really have fun describing those destinations that are currently on the State Department’s Advisory List!
In other news, I just watched the Joan Rivers episode of the latest season of Project Runway.
I’m kind of agnostic on the issue of Joan Rivers. On the one hand, yes, she’s physically hideous. When she was younger, she looked a bit like Debbie Reynolds. Now, she looks like Liberace. I’m pretty sure her plastic surgery addiction is just a coverup for the fact that she’s a vampire and surgery is the only way she can ensure a supply of fresh blood whenever she wants it.
On the other hand, she’s pretty fucking funny and I suspect she might write a lot of her own material – I’ve seen the gears grinding in her head before she burps out a quip. Yes, yes, I’m always biased on behalf of writers. It’s kind of like PETA and Hitler – so what if he had it in for the Yids? He was kind to animals and dammit, he was a vegetarian!
For this episode, the design-ahs crafted looks for participants in a senior Zumba class. What a coincidence that the winning design-ah paired with the senior who had tall, thin silouette and the design-ah paired with the shortest, most obviously osteoporitic senior lost.
Really, the Manhattan stylocracy is so out of touch with the way most bodies look. I'd like to see a Project Runway season where all the models were 5'4" and weighed 145 lbs. I believe those are the proportions of the average American woman.
And in other news of other news, I got an enormous if backhanded compliment yesterday from the most professionally successful of all my writerly pals. He reads this LJ. I think he's looking for someone to play Jack Abbott to his Norman Mailer. "Your style is terrific," he told me. "You've got everything it takes to be a successful commercial fiction writer. But you've got
to figure out something to write about that showcases your style. That Steinbeck book?" (He's skimmed a bit of it.) "Not it."
"B-b-but -- it's got a built-in audience!" I said. "All those Boomers following their bliss!"
"And God knows J-Beck as he's known on the street is a hot commodity in the under 30 set!" said the King of the NYT midlist. "Honey, no. Just no."
Sigh...
