I wonder what the poor folks are doing tonight.
You know what, DavidSimonCreatorOfTheWire? I just read the five-thousandth interview with you and enough. And you know what
I'm going to do? I'm going to create a TV series myself and my show is going to last five MILLION seasons and it is going
to BLOW YOUR MIND. It's going to be set in even worse parts of Baltimore, maybe in the sewers, and it will show HBO viewers
not just the “Other America” but the Other Other OTHER America. The America that's so other that the Other America will watch
one episode and say, what the fuck? How amazing is it that he is paid well to show us this despair? Get us our laurel wreath because it's crownin'
time. I'm talking about a Baltimore where befanged mutants communicate using chemical pheromones through their antenna-like tails
and the police, who are hybridized genetic half-leopards, half-humans, but all po-lice, actually chop up and smoke the criminals like drugs before they go on killing sprees, where Rawls AND Daniels are gay and
everyone travels by blimp and Omar can FLY. I'm talking about Towson.
No—wait, even better, my series won't just go back to Aeschylus and Sophocles for inspiration. That's weak-kneed amateur bullshit
when it comes to historic dramatic influences. I'll use cave paintings as the model for my series. Omar will chase mammoths through the streets and Carcetti will wear a robe made from a wolf and
Beadie will chew bear meat for her children before passing it from her mouth. And everyone will speak proto-Indoeuropean without
subtitles and the hidden cultural theme that no one sees will be land-bridge migration and phenotype variation. I'll have a character who is the world's first cave painter except all of his paintings will be lies and any character who says, hey wait, that's just an image of elk, so what? gets demoted back to tending the fire. And then I won't let anybody watch the show because they don't deserve it, and when
journalists interview me, first (1) I'll add them to my shit list which is actually at this point longer than the Old Testament
and requires seven assistants to maintain and even moreso it is MADE ENTIRELY FROM MY SHIT and then second (2) I'll cut them
with a special journalist-cutting knife that I invented and which they CAN NEVER EVEN HOPE TO TRULY UNDERSTAND.
. . . . .
See also.
PEEK
Ftrain.com is the website of Paul Ford and his pseudonyms. It is showing its age. I'm rewriting the code but it's taking some
time.
FACEBOOK
There is a Facebook group.
TWITTER
You will regret following me on Twitter here.
EMAIL
About the author: I've been running this website from 1997. For a living I write stories and essays, program computers, edit
things, and help people launch online publications. (LinkedIn). I wrote a novel. I was an editor at Harper's Magazine for five years; then I was a Contributing Editor; now I am a free agent. I was also on NPR's All Things Considered for a while. I still write for The Morning News, and some other places.
If you have any questions for me, I am very accessible by email. You can email me at ford@ftrain.com and ask me things and I will try to answer. Especially if you want to clarify something or write something critical. I am
glad to clarify things so that you can disagree more effectively.
POKE
Syndicate: RSS1.0, RSS2.0
Links: RSS1.0, RSS2.0
Contact
© 1974-2011 Paul Ford
Recent
@20, by Paul Ford.
Not any kind of eulogy, thanks. And no header image, either.
(October 15)
Recent Offsite Work: Code and Prose.
As a hobby I write.
(January 14)
Rotary Dial.
(August 21)
10 Timeframes.
(June 20)
Facebook and Instagram: When Your Favorite App Sells Out.
(April 10)
Why I Am Leaving the People of the Red Valley.
(April 7)
Welcome to the Company.
(September 21)
“Facebook and the Epiphanator: An End to Endings?”.
Forgot to tell you about this.
(July 20)
“The Age of Mechanical Reproduction”.
An essay for TheMorningNews.org.
(July 11)
Woods+.
People call me a lot and say: What is this new thing? You're a nerd. Explain it immediately.
(July 10)
Reading Tonight.
Reading!
(May 25)
Recorded Entertainment #2, by Paul Ford.
(May 18)
Recorded Entertainment #1, by Paul Ford.
(May 17)
Nanolaw with Daughter.
Why privacy mattered.
(May 16)
0h30m w/Photoshop, by Paul Ford.
It's immediately clear to me now that I'm writing again that I need to come up with some new forms in order to have fun here—so
that I can get a rhythm and know what I'm doing. One thing that works for me are time limits; pencils up, pencils down. So:
Fridays, write for 30 minutes; edit for 20 minutes max; and go whip up some images if necessary, like the big crappy hand
below that's all meaningful and evocative because it's retro and zoomed-in. Post it, and leave it alone. Can I do that every
Friday? Yes! Will I? Maybe! But I crave that simple continuity. For today, for absolutely no reason other than that it came
unbidden into my brain, the subject will be Photoshop. (Do we have a process? We have a process. It is 11:39 and...)
(May 13)
That Shaggy Feeling.
Soon, orphans.
(May 12)
Antilunchism, by Paul Ford.
Snack trams.
(May 11)
Tickler File Forever, by Paul Ford.
I'll have no one to blame but future me.
(May 10)
Time's Inverted Index, by Paul Ford.
(1) When robots write history we can get in trouble with our past selves. (2) Search-generated, "false" chrestomathies and
the historical fallacy.
(May 9)
Bantha Tracks.
(May 5)
![[Top]](art/EndFleur_40x21.gif "Top"){kind=small}
