Alda on overcoming writer's block

Recently I finished reading Alan Alda's autobiography Never Have Your Dog Stuffed

It had been on my brother's bookshelf and, since he's lightening his possessions before moving house, I offered to take it away.

Alda is a comedian, so I figured it would be an entertaining read, but I also learned he's a scriptwriter and found his advice on dealing with writer's block to be interesting enough to want to share it here: 

Norman Lear told me once about a way of working that had saved him from severe writer's block... 

I dictated the scenes into a tape recorder and disciplined myself never to go back to change or even listen to what I had said earlier. I was working from an outline; so it became a kind of controlled improvisation, but it poured out. 

[...]

Later, reading the transcript of what I had come up with. things that I couldn't even remember saying. I reworked the script many times before we shot it, but most of that draft... wound up in the picture. 

Socket to me

 

PHONies

One of the weirdest things is how many commentators make the observation that Pauline is Australia's version of Donald, yet fall into the same dismissive position when criticising her 

It's like they somehow expect an increasingly illiterate group of people to read their thoughts in media that most of the population have abandoned. 

(Yes, it's kinda ironic that I'm writing this thought here.) 

I'm beginning to think the only people who consume the Fourth Estate are working in the major political parties, because I doubt there is a readership outside of those vested interests that cares. 

 

Fairy guitar

We had fairy wrens in our garden earlier this year while the zucchini plants were growing

So, of course, I decided to record the scene on a guitar. 

Keep calm and carry on driving

Over decades I've seen my partner go from giving a finger, to keeping it under the dash, to now arriving at the boss move of dishing out a thumbs up

Raising an opposable digit is satisfying for the ambiguity.

It looks like "yeah" but actually would sound like a sarcastic note that ends in "good one, Richard Cranium."

It's also an excellent way to stay calm in the face of Ranger danger.

 

Pickled cabbage

No need to fight -- they're both good

I love my kimchi and have developed a deep respect for sauerkraut, which ought to have a standing in Australian culture like that shown by Koreans for their "pickle" (but that might be a subject for another post).

One of the things that surprised me about Sandor Katz's book The Art of Fermentation is how he listed kimchi in the sauerkraut section.

Of course, it makes sense after he linked the process of cultivation of lactobacillus.

It also has me pondering what other cultural traditions might be brought into flavouring brassicas. 

Faraway faraday cage

Does this involve electrocuting a colleague?

Maybe engaging in some archaic hazing practice?

You might be entitled to compensation, but all I can offer is compassion.

Bogong guitar

Started another guitar

My partner says I should paint a ciggie hanging from its mouth and call it a bogan bogong!

Ode to Troy

Thinking of Nolan's Odyssey, I thought this meme was funny