Some of you called for redheads, some of us (me) called for MORE HOT CANADIANS. I present to you, a hot Canadian redhead: Kim Pine! Kim Pine of the Scott Pilgrim series, played by Alison Pill in the film! What do you mean, it doesn’t count if they’re fictional?
Of course it counts. Kim Pine is basically the perfect woman.
Sometimes I feel like I don’t take advantage of the Tumblr “format” so here we go with a photograph of Béatrice Martin sans commentary. Do you feel what I feel, dear reader? Do you? Because I could do this for the rest of the night. I made a special tag and everything.
I saw this picture of Béatrice Martin (a.k.a. Coeur de Pirate) on Ned Hepburn’s blog and I had to post it, because I’ve been drinking and da-yumn, but I also felt obliged to add this song firstly because it’s quite a good album — like a Regina Spektor album with the annoying parts edited out — but secondly, because I feel like I have to justify the fact I find her all sorts of attractive.
No, I don’t know why I have to justify it either, I mean, if this tattooed Canadian singer-songwriter… sweet Olfather, those eyes… then I — what was I writing about again?
Actually, I’ve been informed I have an umbrella fetish for Canadians, so maybe that’s all there is to it. You can probably ignore this post, then.
I’ve set the day aside for reading, which means I’ve read the screenplays for Bridesmaids, Source Code and a couple of Seinfeld episodes since lunch. I’m not entirely sure why I feel like my love for Seinfeld is a guilty pleasure, since it’s one of the best-written studio sitcoms out there, especially for ‘bottle episodes’ like The Chinese Restaurant, which I just finished off.
What’s interesting is the length of the script for The Chinese Restaurant – 40 pages for a 20-minute episode – most of which is taken up by the dialogue, and how it’s weighted heavily towards the first act. What I want to do is compare this to a script from the first season, when I assume the characters’ voices weren’t quite down yet.
I applied for a job as a ‘script developer’ the other day, but they told me that I’d need some professional experience to collect the £180-a-consultancy, so that’s one more awesome job I’m not remotely qualified for in this universe.
I hate this stupid universe.
Lorene Scafaria’s Seeking a Friend for the End of the World appeals to that part of me – that very large part – that spends a lot of time thinking about what I’d do if an asteroid were heading for our planet, or if we were staring down the barrel of a grey goo situation. Usually it’s zombies, of course, but when you’re daydreaming it’s important to mix it up occasionally.
Since the snow began to fall a few days ago, I’ve been having these amazingly fucked-up dreams about the end of the world as we know it (a recurring theme in my subconscious), and in my dreams I manage to survive them. Patently ridiculous, sure, but all the best apocalyptic stories aren’t really about the end of humanity but the survival of the worst part of it in microcosm. What’s my brain trying to say to me?
Last night it was the rise of the snow golems, marking their first appearance in my dreams. I’d say they were analagous to the hrímþursar of Norse mythology, the frost giants of Niflheim, but you and I both know that they probably seeped in from Marvel’s Thor comics.
And I really want to tell you that I figured out the frost giants’ weakness – you know, fire – and tooled up with a flamethrower, but it wasn’t as good as all that. I probably just sat down and talked through my problems with the frost giants around a gigantic tea set. My dreams are like a pretentious indie film that fizzles out after I’ve exhausted the two or three scenes implied by the concept. You might recognise this phenomenon from my writing.
The worst part of that restaurant job was all the photography students that wandered down from the university and asked to take my picture while I propped the advert against the wall of a shopfront, headphones in my ears, a book open in my hands. There were about three of them per day, and all of them clearly thought I was homeless.
In case it wasn’t obvious,
all of that fake reference was a joke. Or, if you prefer, a great big lie. I’m good at lying, and that is why you should consider my short story for publication in your magazine.
You need to provide two (2) references in order to apply for this position, it says. One of them academic, the other professional. I haven’t been at university for, oh, seven months now, so my clinical tutor probably doesn’t remember me… but the professional reference shouldn’t be a problem.
“Hey,” I say to an old workmate over facebook, “I need to check the address of that restaurant we both used to work at, which I don’t actually want to name on the internet.”
“Do you mean the place where part of the job description was to take it in turns to stand outside in the freezing Northern rain to hold a sign directing people to the restaurant that had ostensibly hired us as waiters?”
“The very same.”
“Yeah, that place doesn’t exist any more.”
“Well, fuck.”
“Well, fuck, indeed.”
I don’t know if this counts as one of the four-things-a-week I have to do in order to qualify for Jobseeker’s Allowance, but I wrote down I need to find a new professional reference in any case. Job done.
And then it hits me — I’ve listed myself as ‘self-employed’ as a freelance writer, which is technically true, and since we’re being technical about it, surely I can just list myself as a professional reference.
So in case you need a reference for James Drew, here it is:
Jamie Drew? Wow, where do I even begin?
He set up this whole enterprise, you know. A professional man in a very loose sense of the word. Maybe progressive is a better one. He acknowledges his deadlines in a very zen kind of way, in that his assignments are never handed in late. Nor do they appear early. They arrive, and that’s enough for him. Since Jamie’s arrival, stress in the workplace is at an all-time low.
During his time with me, who is himself, Jamie has proven that he can work in a large team of multi-disciplinary professionals, including his brain, his ass (which is genereally ordered to stay in the chair until these 500 words are done), his leathered fingertips, and whatever organ processes all that terrible coffee.
By which I mean, the coffee itself is terrible, not Jamie’s skill at making it. He prepares it excellently, with a lover’s eye for detail: Jamie tries to find the endearing qualities in the terrible coffee, even if its only endearing quality is that it was expensive, and the company (Jamie) can’t afford any more right now. This is exactly the kind of attitude he brings to the workplace. Treat him however you like; he knows he’s got no choice in the matter.
Subservience, that’s what you want from an employee, and Jamie Drew has it in spades. In summary, you should give him money at regular intervals over the next however long his attention span lasts.
Follow-up questions on the matter should be directed to my assistant, who is – in the interests of full disclosure – also me. He will make sure I get the message. I run a tight ship.
