Harry Potter and the Chamber of Spammers
Oh, this is good. This is goooood. Or bad, but really GOOD bad, if you know what I mean, and you will, instantly, once I tell you that this is a true story involving the now-standard Nigerian Email Scam turned around by a very, very smart man who, instead of paying the scammers, played on their greed and got them to write out BY HAND (for, they thought, $100 a page) all of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, then stiffed them.
Awesome.
…why isn’t there a Writer’s Helper? If there were, it would look something like this:
Tipsy the Novel Assistant, the Writer's Helper
Oh, if ONLY Microsoft made assistants that useful.
Tony Blair, crime fiction author?
There’s a new and amusing Facebook Group in town: Put One of Tony Blair’s Books in the Crime Section of Your Bookshop, and there’s some new evidence that they should at least be in Fiction generally.
The Torygraph (via Gawker) reports that contained within my Secret Boyfriend‘s autobiography is a passage cribbed, apparently, from the movie The Queen, and completely, utterly made up.
In A Journey, Blair claims that the Queen said to him: “You are my 10th prime minister. The first was Winston. That was before you were born.” In [screenwriter Peter] Morgan’s script to the 2006 film The Queen, Mirren, in the title role, tells Michael Sheen’s Blair: “You are my 10th prime minister, Mr Blair. My first was Winston Churchill.”
As a longtime reader of Majesty Magazine, I can tell you that there is very, very little likelihood that the first quotation is correct. The Queen just does not express herself this way in a formal and historically loaded context. She would surely have said “Churchill” or “Winston Churchill” if she said anything. And the screenwriter is adamant that he didn’t base it on any facts, just made it up entirely. So, when you do your substitution at the bookstore, you’d best put his book with Crime Fiction rather than True Crime!
Who doesn’t love Weird Al Yankovic? And who doesn’t love Bob Dylan videos? And who doesn’t love palindromes? Put them all together and you get something like this:
No, I’m serious: Get me Michael Lewis‘ phone number!
If you ask me (and I don’t believe you did, but you might and I’m servicey like that, so here’s your answer in advance) not enough writers are the object of gratuitous sexual objectification, and here I speak, of course, not only of myself but of others as well.
Harold Bloom, for instance.
But one man, it seems, has achieved this dream, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer sci-fi-er: Ray Bradbury is the subject of this lusty, Silvermanesque ditty, unambiguously entitled “Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury.”
And the lyrics of the tune every high school book club is going to want to perform at the Assembly:
Steve called me up and said: “Wanna hang out tonight?”
We could see an indie film or just grab a bite
I said: “Oh, Steve, YOU’RE cute, but a MOVIE’S not what I need. No offense, BUT I’d rather stay home and read.”
F-ck Me, Ray Bradbury
The greatest Sci-Fi writer in history
Oh F-ck Me, Ray Bradbury
Since I was twelve I’ve been your number one fan
“Kiss me, you ILLUSTRATED MAN.”
I’ll feed you grapes and Dandelion Wine
And we’ll read a little Fahrenheit 69
You’re a Prolific Author, Ray Bradbury
Come on baby, I’m down on one knee
I carved our names on a Halloween tree
You write about earthlings going to Mars
And I write about blowin you in my car
You won an Emmy AWARD for the screen play adaptation of Halloween Tree
F-ck Me, Ray Bradbury
The greatest Sci-Fi writer in history
Oh F-ck Me, F-ck Me Ray Bradbury
S is for space
L is for love
S is for space
L is for loveee
S is for space
L is for love
S is for space
L is for loveeeeeeeee
Houston we have a throb-blem
F-ck Me, Ray Bradbury
The greatest Sci-Fi writer in history
Oh F-ck Me, (F-ck Me) Ray Bradbury
Oh oh oh
F-ck Me, Ray Bradbury (f-ck me)
The greatest Sci-Fi writer in history
Cause when you f-ck me
Ray Bradbury
Something Wicked This Way Will Come
Something Wicked This Way Will Come
Something Wicked This Way Will Come
Something Wicked This Way Will Come
And by come, I mean ejaculate on a book.
The Shebeen Club 