Thursday, January 16, 2003

posted 9:12 AM
DO WHAT THY, LIKE, WILT

Else I be any further mistaken for the Pyschotropic Temperance League, let me stress that I’m not telling anyone not to do drugs. I’ve only said that I don't believe that drugs actually make you more creative. I believe that if drugs seem to you to make you more creative, you’re already creative, and might want to look at why you believe you need to pay someone in order to access it. (In that light, you might also want to consider the agenda of whoever is telling you that you need to buy a ticket first.)

Those pygmy Grays, though, the ones who keep trying to lasso you with piano-wire whenever you do ketamine? Those little guys are bad mojo.

THAT NEUROMANCER SCRIPT

I did not write that. (I’m assuming there is still only the one, which as far as I know is by Chuck Russell.) I had absolutely nothing to do with that. The problem is that shabby Dickensian script-floggers throw away the original title-page, forge one with my name on it, then charge more. This is an item I refuse to sign. (Though I have signed a few, bleeding heart that I am, when some poor sucker has stood in line for an hour or more; I sign them “I didn’t write a word of this – WG.”)

The only other screenplay of mine you are likely to run across is JOHNNY MNEMONIC, which has been published in its entirety in both hard and soft covers. And which differs substantially, I still like to point out, from the film as released.

CHOCOLATE DOG REPORT

She’s fine now. (Someone asked.)

SOON, COPENHAGEN

On Monday I’m off to launch the Danish translation of PATTERN RECOGNITION, which is in effect a world first. (I make it a point to publish each of my books in a Scandinavian translation first. The language chosen for each one, prior to composition, is the single most crucial factor in my creative process. Had I chosen to first publish PATTERN RECOGNITION in Norwegian, for instance, it would have become a very different book indeed.)

Not really. It just worked out that way, this time.

Civilian mission in Copenhagen: a new pair of G-Star shrink-to-fit jeans. It furthers morale to have one non-book-related goal, for these flying visits. Designed in Holland, made in Tunisia from Japanese denim, a pair of classic five-pocket G-Star’s is the Buzz Rickman’s of 21st-century blue jeans. Stiff as Formica, reeking of raw indigo, dark as a moonless night, they are the two-legged equivalent of Proust’s madelaine. Their other great draw is that, apparently because every fifth Dutchman is now at least as tall as I am, they make them in my size.

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