This is a local otter, in the Tacoma, and I HAVE SEEN IT.
It may even be the same otter I shot (with the Nikon of Infinite Beauty). That photo got picked up by the world’s greatest collection of otter photos, maybe because it’s the only place on the web that obsesses about cute photographs of otters.
Here’s my photo.
Yes, this is perhaps the same genius otter who stacks cups, or possibly his cousin, Harry, who’ll never stack cups and will stick to busting oysters and breaking hearts. Photo by Guy Bergstrom.
And here’s the blog of otters, otters and, for variety, more otters.
Why a blog devoted entirely to photos of otters? Three reasons: (1) why not? (2) no animal is cuter than an otter and (3) you can’t spell awesomesauce without “aw.”
Ever look at an overstuffed movie poster and wonder, “Is that tiny figure over on the left a man, a woman or a smudge that didn’t get properly PhotoShopped out of existence?”
THE EXPENDABLES 2 is the latest movie to stuff 40 pounds of characters into a 5-pound bag.
Here’s the movie poster.
Who’s that one guy way in the back, wearing a hat? NOBODY KNOWS, but he made $15.3 million for this movie. Remember that tomorrow at work.
I counted 11 action heroes on that poster, which is 10 more action heroes than you typically need for an action film, even if eight of these guys just got broken out of the Beverly Hills Nursing Home.
Bet you anything the team of screenwriters — if I put a 9 mm to their head and started counting down — couldn’t tell you all 11 character names, and the average movie-goer wouldn’t notice if you chopped five of them from the film entirely.
This is a common problem, not just for Hollywood but for novels, especially anything involving fantasy and sci-fi, because no self-respecting Jedi or Hobbit goes off on an adventure without at least 23 other people tromping around with them, squabbling with each other when they’re not getting captured by Darth Vader and such.
IT IS A MESS.
Now, this problem also happens in comic book movies, partly because of the Comic Book Movie Laws.
Movie No. 1: The origin story of the hero along with the hero’s nemesis, the best villain. So: one hero, one villain.
Movie No. 2: The hero gets two sidekicks as he battles TWO villains.
Movie No. 3: The hero juggles an entourage that won’t fit in a Greyhound bus while he battles THREE villains.
Movie No. 4: Doesn’t happen, unless your name is Joel Schumacher and you’re making the mistake known as BATMAN FOREVER. Otherwise, the series dies and reboots.
I just watched THOR again, using the powers of Netflix over the Series of Tubes and such, and it is a fun little popcorn movie.
However, the cast of characters will make your head hurt: Thor, Hannibal Lecter, Loki, Princess Leia‘s mom, the Guardian, the Frost Giants, that arrow-shooting guy from THE AVENGERS and BOURNE LEGACY, Agent Coulson, the Frost Giant King, Yoda, the shark from JAWS and other people I’m probably forgetting.
In all seriousness: There’s a scene where Thor’s buddies are walking down the street and one of the SHIELD agents calls it in, saying he just spotted Xena, Robin Hood and Jackie Chan.
This agent is not only sarcastic, but wrong, because he’s completely forgetting Thor’s fourth sidekick, the fat bearded guy who — and this is shocking — likes to eat a lot.
In this movie, Princess Leia’s mom is Thor’s love interest, which is like a sidekick, but different, in that Thor makes goo-goo eyes at her. With his other sidekicks, he simply claps them on the shoulder in a manly way, or maybe hugs them — though he hugs her, too. IT IS CONFUSING.
Anyway, the point is, she has two of her own sidekicks: an old Norwegian scientist guy or whatever and some kind of sarcastic girl scientist who is apparently there for contrast, to make Princess Leia’s mom look even more smart and beautiful.
You heard me right: The sidekick has sidekicks of her own.
This is all too common and all too wrong.
Every movie and book could be improved by killing off every possible character.
In fact, thinking of “Who could we erase from the page?” is the wrong question. Start by saying, “Who is the ONE essential character?” and work up to the number two, the number three, pi (3.14-whatever) and some imaginary numbers.
Then break the Four Barrier and stop to reflect upon WHAT YOU HAVE WROUGHT, which is a far, far better story than what you started with.
THOR can’t exist without Thor (1) and if we need a second character, it’s obviously Loki (2). Odin (3) and the Frost King (4) would round out a top four. That story could work. Everybody else could go take a nice long vacation on a desert planet with two suns.
Going the other direction, just for fun: Say goodbye, Xena / Robin Hood / Jackie Chan / Fat Guy sidekicks (minus 4). Not essential to the story at all. See ya to Princess Leia’s mom and her two sidekicks (minus 3). Goodbye to Agent Coulson and the arrow man (minus 2). No more Guardian and Odin’s wife (minus 2). That’s 11 characters out the door, and those actors need not be unemployed: we will send them to star in THE EXPENDABLES 3: STALLONE NEEDS ANOTHER FACELIFT.
IRON MAN 2 had it much worse than THOR, with the villain played by Mickey Rourke getting buried by layers upon layers of sidekicks. I mean, look at this movie poster. All sidekicks, all the time. Villains are so boooring.
Peoples of Hollywood and writers of books, please kill off sidekicks.
Do it with a sharp pen, a 12-gauge shotgun or a red lightsaber — I don’t care.
Whether you write novellas about fierce mermaids, magazine stories for Cosmo (insert your own joke here) or speeches about the Austrian school of economics for the IMF — whatever sort of writer you are, two things matter most.
Not correct grammar and spelling. Those things are assumed.
Not pretty paragraphs and sentences that sing. That’s word gravy, while we’re talking about the main course.
What matters most: making your readers curious, then surprising them.
Surprise Kitteh is surprised.
This is why the inverted pyramid is a terrible structure for any writer. (Click with your mousity mouse to read Why the Inverted Pyramid must DIE.)
The inverted pyramid grabs a heavy rock and smashes the skull of curiosity. Then it takes that same bloody rock and crushes all hope for any surprises.
How does it achieve this epic level of failure? By giving you the answers before you even know the questions. The payoffs have no setups.
Ways to make your audience curious
Create setups by raising interesting questions (a) about real people where there are (b) high public stakes or (c) high private stakes and (d) serious conflict.
WHAT happened? (mystery)
Debates about the past are about facts, and assigning blame.
This is often more interesting than the question of who did it.THE BUTLER ALWAYS DOES IT, so tell us why instead.
How do you CHOOSE between two goods or two evils?
Debates about the present are value choices.
Choosing between good and evil is simple and cartoonish. That’s why its for kids. Truly tough choices are between two good or two evils. Does believing in true justice mean setting a killer free? That sort of stuff. These things are deep. They’ll exercise your head.
What WILL happen? (thriller)
Can we stop these evil cats from taking over the earth BEFORE a giant comet destroys it?
What might happen if you brought dinosaurs back to life?
Will 5.93 gazillion pounds of TNT make a dead whale disappear from a beach — or will something else happen instead?
WHO will get together — or split up? (romance)
Will Matthew McConaughy get together with Kate Hudson already or do we have to suffer through all 120 minutes of this stinker?
What specific drugs were involved when Hollywood executives decided that Sarah Jessica Parker was some kind of sex symbol? (I’m cheating here and inserting a mystery question about the past into a romance setup, and I should be punished by the Storytelling Gods but, to be completely honest, and to use more commas, which is usually against my religion, I JUST DON’T CARE)
What should you do about the FUTURE?
Debates about the future involve costs versus benefits.
As a promising high school athlete, should you let your studies suffer to chase the dream of playing in Major League Baseball, when there’s a greater chance of being hit by a logging truck than being drafted?
Should we try to go back to the gold standard, to make Ron Paul all happy as he shuffles off into retirement, or does destroying the global economy kinda put a damper on that whole idea?
Next year, should you sell all your possessions to build a zombie-proof bunker in Montana for a zombpocalypse that will never come but is fun to think about — or should you focus on that whole “driving to work and paying the bills” thing?
Ways to surprise your audience
It’s unfair to have things happen for no reason, like Anne Hathaway getting smooshed by a truck in ONE DAY.
Also cheating: letting people off the hook via deus ex machina, which is fancy Latin for “the sidekick shows up at the last minute to shoot the bad guy, right before the hero dies” (every action movie known to man) or “it was all a dream!” (an entire season of DALLAS) or “let’s bring in something we never told you about, then run away” (every sci-fi movie you’ve ever seen on cable).
Surprises shatter expectations and stereotypes. Did you expect the scientist handling the landing of Curiosity on Mars to be a young man rocking a mohawk? No. You expected a stereotypical nerdy McNerd, and bam, that little surprise turned Mohawk NASA man into a national phenom.
A good surprise must reveal something:
a secret you hinted at before
how a person has changed after suffering and sacrificing
a subtle setup that they may have noticed, but will remember (PRESUMED INNOCENT does this better than Anything in the History of Stories)
how society has changed after suffering and sacrificing
a shocking decision (the hero gets what he wants but rejects it, an unhappy ending to a Hollywood movie OR a happy ending to a French existentialist movie, a romantic comedy that doesn’t feature an put-together and ambitious heroine with a loser man she fixes up)
You’ve been there: sitting in a dark theater for two hours, with sticky unknown substances on the soles of your shoes and your wallet $23 lighter, and you’re thinking, “If the director and the seven different screenwriters given credit for this movie had spent FIVE MINUTES on the major plot holes in this stinker, it would’ve been a fine movie.”
All true.
This is why the folks at How It Should Have Ended have jobs.
Here are my favorites, and these are movies that I actually love (except for SPIDERMAN 3).
Big honking bonus: A recurring thing is cutting to Batman and Superman, sitting in a cafe while sipping coffee and talking smack about these movies and each other. I like it, I love it, I want some more of it.
This is a simple little song with a simple little video that still manages to ROCK THE HOUSE.
Also, I don’t really hear much of a difference between the Ho! and the Hey! parts, but hey, that’s artistic license and such.
Also-also: There’s something of a trend of Mumford and Son types, musicians wearing suspenders while playing folksy rock that involves (a) a banjo, (b) a bass and (c) harmonicas or whatever.
This is a good thing, though it will certainly snowball into some kind of trend where record executives start signing up folks bands with accordians instead of amplifiers faster than an aspiring writer can tell you about their YA series that is NOT inspired — they swear — by Harry Potter or The Hunger Games, because they have a school of witches, not wizards, and the zombies show up on page 392.
Also-cubed: As for the controversy over whether The Lumineers (original band name: The Night Lights) are singing “You’re my sweetheart” or “You’re my sweet home” — the answer is, “sweet heart.”
Here’s the video. Watch it. DO IT NOW, because YouTube / the Google needs your clicks and money or whatever before their stock starts doing the Facebook nosedive.
For word nerds around the world, the lyrics:
(Ho!) I’ve been trying to do it right
(Hey!) I’ve been living a lonely life
(Ho!) I’ve been sleeping here instead
(Hey!)I’ve been sleeping in my bed,
(Ho!) sleeping in my bed (Hey!)
(Ho!)
(Ho!) So show me family
(Hey!) Or the blood that I would bleed
(Ho!) I don’t know where I belong
(Hey!) I don’t know where I went wrong
(Ho!) But I can write a song
(Hey!)
I belong with you, you belong with me
You’re my sweetheart
I belong with you, you belong with me
You’re my sweet
(Ho!)
(Hey!)
(Ho!)
(Hey!)
(Ho!) I don’t think you’re right for him
(Hey!) Leave the world it might have been
(Ho!) Took a bus to china town
(Hey!) I’ll be standing on canal
(Ho!) And bowery (hey!)
(Ho!) She’d be standing next to me (hey!)
I belong with you, you belong with me
You’re my sweetheart
I belong with you, you belong with me
You’re my sweetheart
And love, we need it now
Let’s hope for some
Cause oh, we’re bleeding out
I belong with you, you belong with me
You’re my sweetheart
I belong with you, you belong with me
You’re my sweetheart
As a reformed journalist, I can tell you secret things.
Number One: Coffee.
If you want to make a reporter smile, or an editor not growl at you, feed them industrial amounts of coffee.
Number Two: Stress requires unstressing.
Journalists do a stressful job for tiny amounts of monies, and they’re under the Most Insane Deadline Pressure Known to Man, which makes them look for ways to unwind.
Here are my favorite journalists finding ways to unstress.
Bob’s a TV reporter from Local 12 in Cincinatti who took the thankless job of “Traffic Reporter, A Job We Sometimes Have Interns Do” and turned it onto a “Dancing King of the Glowing Tube.”
Then we’ve got WGN anchors Robert Jordan and Jackie Bange, who look quite Serious and Somber while delivering the news.
Once they hit the commercial break, they transform into silly nutballs and do a special shebang, which they’ve honed over the years to take up exactly two minutes.
Reformed journalist. Scribbler of speeches and whatnot. Wrote a thriller that won some award (PNWA 2013). Represented by Jill Marr of the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency.
Women are about 65 percent of college students now and the men who decided this new policy wanted to drop women below 50 percent. How? By making those degrees — including dangerous stuff like English literature — “single gender.”
Now that going to the movies more than once a year involves taking out a second mortgage to buy $9 popcorn and $7 Diet Coke and $11 tickets, you must pick your flicks wisely.
Wussy little bad guys are thrown through the air by explosions.
Explosions only make macho action heroes slow down and stroll.
5) Romantic comedies where the man is a bumbling, lovable loser while the woman is a hot neurotic mess
The man is a 40-year-old virgin (Steve Carrell), a chauvinist pig (Russell Crowe) or a nerdy writer type (Woody Allen).
The woman is a beautiful mess (Jennifer Aniston, Kate Hudson or, God help us, Sarah Jessica Parker) who is far more educated, cultured and successful than the man.
So, she naturally hates this loser at first, then she slowly molds this wreck of a man into a real human being worthy of dating and / or marrying.
Please.
4) False alarms in Every Horror Movie Known to Man
Enough with the cat / boyfriend / little brother nonsense, and the scary music is just cheating.
3) Romantic comedies starring Kate Hudson
Though I have to say this: it’s better than Sarah Jessica Parker.
2) Movie villains who carefully explain their plot instead of KILLING THE HERO ALREADY
Why does every movie villain feel the need to talk to the hero?
Look, the villain always has hordes of minions who are completely motivated to listen to his stupid monologues. He can give speeches that make Fidel Castro look like the king of brevity.
A villain’s minions are the best listeners ever. They must not only nod and smile, but be entranced by his every syllable. The villain is their employer and visionary leader, and there’s a good chance that not listening with your entire body and soul will get you thrown into the tank full of sharks with lasers.
Chatting with the hero makes no sense.
Here’s one villain who gets it right.
1) Romantic comedies starring Matthew McConaughey AND Kate Hudson
A band I’ve never heard of with an interesting song and great camera work.
Not too shabby, Passion Pit — not to shabby at all.
For all you word nerds, here are the lyrics:
All these kind of places
Make it seems like it’s been ages
Tomorrow some new building will scrape the sky
I love this country dearly
I can feel the ladder clearly
But I never thought I’d be alone to try
Once I was outside Penn station
Selling red and white carnations
We were still alone
My wife and I
Before we marry, save my money
Brought my dear wife over
Now I work to bring family state side
But off the boat they stayed a while and
Scattered across the coast
Once a year I’ll see them for a week or so at most
I took a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, oh-oh-oh
Take a walk, oh-oh-oh
I took a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Practice isn’t perfect
But the market cuts the loss
I remind myself that times could be much worse
My wife won’t ask me questions
There’s not so much to ask
And she’ll never flaunt around an empty purse
Once my mother-in-law came
Just to stay a couple nights
And decided she would stay the rest of her life
I watch my little children
Play some board game in the kitchen
And I sit and pray they never feel my strife
But then my partner called to say the pension funds were gone
He made some bad investments
Now the accounts are overdrawn
I took a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, oh-oh-oh
Take a walk, 0h-oh-oh
I took a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Honey it’s your son I think I borrowed just too much
We had taxes we had bills
We had a lifestyle to front
And tonight I swear I’ll come home
And we’ll make love like we’re young
And tomorrow you’ll cook dinner
For the neighbors and their kids
We could rip apart those socialists
and all their damn taxes
You’ll see I am no criminal
I’m down on both bad knees
I’m just too much a coward
to admit when I’m in need
I took a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, oh-oh-oh
Take a walk, 0h-oh-oh
I take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
I took a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
I took a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk
Maybe, just maybe, somebody saw FROM YESTERDAY by 30 Seconds to Mars and said hey, we can’t afford to fly a crew to China and hire 500 extras to make a mini-movie masterpiece. But we do know two dudes who just started taking kendo.
Lyrics for TOO CLOSE:
You know I’m not one to break promises
I don’t want to hurt you but I need to breathe
At the end of it all you’re still my best friend
But there’s something inside that I need to release
Which way is right, which way is wrong
How do I say that I need to move on?
You know we have is separate way
And it feels like I am just too close to love you
There’s nothing I can really say
I can’t lie no more, I can’t hide no more
Got to be true to myself
And it feels like I am just too close to love you so I’ll be on my way
You gave me more that I can return
Yet there’s so much that you deserve
Nothing to say, nothing to do
I’ve nothing to give
I must leave without you
You know we have to separate
And it feels like I am just too close to love you
There’s nothing I can really say
I can’t lie no more, I can’t hide no more
Got to be true to myself
And it feels like I am just too close to love you so I’ll be on my way
So I’ll be on my way
And it feels like I am just too close to love you
There’s nothing that I can really say
I can’t lie no more, I can’t hide no more
Got to be true to myself
And it feels like I am just too close to love you so I’ll be on my way
So I’ll be on my way, so I’ll be on my way
The Red Pen of Doom 