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Calgary Launch « September 2004 | Main | November 2004 » Friday, October 29, 2004 Calgary Launch Hosted by the superb independent western-Canadian bookstore McNally Robinson, the Calgary launch wins for the most authorly-like-atmosphere for any event thusfar on the tour.
Ash's Least suave.Intro.Ever. Turner takes the stage Watching the clips - the place is packed! Quote Of The Night: Dana gets Turner to pretend to sign her book again, this time for the paparazzi Posted by Ashley at 11:20 PM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (259) | Comments (0) Calgary Launch: TONIGHT!! A camerawoman behind the A Channel scenes yesterday could do a superbo Ralph Wiggum impression: This photo was taken in the aftermath of her version of Ralph's infamous "I'm Idaho!"
Alright, alright. Now take a look at the info on that tv screen: that's tonight's Calgary Launch for Planet Simpson. where? McNally Robinson, 120 - 8th Ave. SW, on Stephen Avenue Mall downtown
Posted by Ashley at 04:31 PM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (140) | Comments (0) [stage whisper] I Think They're Talking About Yoooooou People are actually talking about the book online. Landsakes alive! This review/profile is a fun read (translated from the original Russian courtesy of BabelFish)
Kris Turner: "This is the satire of its time. Praise to its realism is inherent in my consciousness. In a little exaggerated form, this is the document of its time." But Turner could not obtain access to the creators of Simpsonov in order to investigate its theme. "Me they politely stopped on each turning". Turner believes that Simpsony can open slightly their curtain in the interest of peace of net broadcasting. Last Exit To Springfield is the dear episode of Turner, because in it the problems which he studied when He learned the American history of 20 centuries, are touched upon. "There are the episodes, which absolutely they made without the inspiration. But there are also such which are devilishly good, and they can be higher than any standards, except those which they themselves for themselves determined". The whole text is here: The Satire Of Simpsonov Characterizes The Generation
And there's a buzz afoot at the No Homers Club. Posted by Ashley at 08:08 AM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (171) | Comments (0) Thursday, October 28, 2004 Calgary: Day Two If pressed to say where he's from, Turner'll tell you his family's from Nova Scotia. But he himself grew up all over Canada and the US, a military brat. With the publication of this book, he's being embraced as a hometown boy here in Cowtown, and described as a "writer from Calgary" in the national media. This has been a big adjustment for T, to say the least. I mean, I'm from Calgary, yes: absolutely. And it's true, for sure, that we do live here. We own a house and Brother John lives three doors down and we have Sunday dinners every week with Dad in Douglasdale, and we have no plans to move anywhere else. But it needs to be said that Alberta enjoys a rather redneck reputation in other parts of Canada, particularly in Ontario, where we lived for years and where many of our friends and peers remain. In being touted as a "writer from Calgary", it's often presumed Turner is Calgarian. Being a Calgarian is something with its own cache and marvellous sensibilities of course, which perhaps go unappreciated by the outsider. Calgary's an oil city, a money city, a city full of people from somewhere else. Spit an you'll hit an ex-Montrealer or -Winnipegger, if not a Punjabi or Somali. Nearly nobody is actually from here, had their parents or grandparents grow up here. So the initiation into the fold isn't a lengthy process. You're a Calgarian as soon as you step off the plane, if you like; it's an identity you're allowed to own as soon as you decide it's for you, unlike in many places and cultures where, if your family hasn't been in town for four or more generations, you'll never be "in". No. Calgary's pretty open - c'mon in, y'all. Having said all this however, being mislabelled "a Calgarian" is certainly something people from anywhere other than Calgary vociferously protest. We're thought of as glib, shallow, new-money-trashy-flashy; borne of jealousy in some circles and well-founded resentment in others, the reputation of Calgarians outside the city limits isn't exactly flattering. Most of the time Turner probably feels more like a Torontonian or an Antigonisher. But he's a roll-with-it kind of guy, despite his eastern-Canadian prejudices. And on this tour, across the country and now at home, he's been having to face the fact that he is becoming a Calgarian - in reputation at least, at this stage, but the edges are seeping in, the lines are blurring. And that it's not so bad. And I have to say, Calgary looks pretty good on him, too. First stop today was an interview with Dave Kelly on The Big Breakfast over at A Channel Then a taped interview at Calgary's easy listening station, The Breeze, 103.1fm In the afternoon Turner put in an hour on CBC Alberta's Wild Rose Forum, a call-in show usually dominated by mad cow discussions and debates about education spending. Don Hill was uncharacteristically generous and didn't interrupt too much (an anomaly even directly noted by one caller), and overall the show gave Turner the opportunity to flex a few Simpsons analysis muscles he hadn't used to this point in the tour. You can hear the interview/show, here. Derek McEwan, Music Director at CJSW, puts Turner through the paces. Cheers to Mr. McE, who had not only read the book cover to cover, but also flew without a parachute, conducting the 30-minute taped interview with no notes! Posted by Ashley at 09:48 PM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (352) | Comments (0) Wednesday, October 27, 2004 Breaking News: Area Man Writes Book The CBC crew set up their giant satellite truck up the hill from our house, reportedly much to the consternation of our non-English speaking Polish neighbours (in front of whose house they parked) This just in... I feel a bit like Chekhov in "Wrath of Khan" Inside the truck during Turner's live feed to CBC Newsworld Turner tells the nation a thing or two about this cartoon he rilly likes Posted by Ashley at 06:30 PM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (321) | Comments (0) Kickin' Out The Early-Morn Jams In Cowtown The beautiful view of downtown Calgary from Global's station, 7am this morning, after the interview Turner slays local Global host Gord Gillies with his never-fail "typewriter" gag Posted by Ashley at 12:38 PM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (363) | Comments (0) Tuesday, October 26, 2004 Home Again Riggy Jig Jig Beware, mean people! Hanging in our front hallway, fair warning to all ye who enter: Turner and Ash relax at home by reviewing the Central Canada publicity online Tomorrow marks the beginning of the Western Canada publicity, and we're told that Turner is booked with basically everything media-wise Calgary has to offer; from live CBC Newsworld coverage all the way to campus newspapers, he's on the grill. But tonight, we're chillin' at home with Brother John and the Ponester:
Posted by Ashley at 09:22 PM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (310) | Comments (0) Monday, October 25, 2004 Paragraphe Event at Else's - Montreal The evening was fine and the venue was marvellous - Montreal family, friends, and fans packed into Else's on Roy E. earlier tonight for the Paragraphe Books author readings featuring Turner, Ibi Kaslik, and Greg Hollingshead.
Our Beloved Mark Raheja, SVP, gets a little possessive of his signed copy of PS Uncle Leo serendipitously saw Turner on the CFCF noon news and roared down from the Laurentians to catch the reading
Ibi Kaslik, Skinny Greg Hollingshead, Bedlam
Posted by Ashley at 11:54 PM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (557) | Comments (0) Montreal Media Maze Turner blasted off wayyy too early for me this morning, sometime before 6am. I joined him a few hours later for only a small portion of today's media rounds, which for him included seven radio pieces, two television shoots, a mulberry bush chase through the bowels of the CBC building in search of his 2:30pm appointment (arm in arm with Greg Hollingshead, headed for the same un-findable show), and a Thai-ish kind of 'oriental' lunch break. Turner always likes to get a little neck dusting before going on camera Closed captioning follies - the translation of "rabid fan" becomes "rabbit find"... presumably to the bafflement of Montreal's deaf Simpsons fans Turner goes to the mat with Mr. Intimidation, the sports reporter from 690 News Turner's interview at the posh CFCF plant The last interview of the day was half an hour on a sports talk radio network (?). T said it was the best of today's bunch (I'd jumped ship at about 1pm to work on the website today), and you can hear it, here: Team 990 Montreal. Posted by Ashley at 03:22 PM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (277) | Comments (0) Fast & Furious Now The reviews are pouring in - Turner padded across the room a few minutes ago, headed away from the computer, mumbling, "This is getting... embarrassing or something... I dunno how to take all this..." Macleans Magazine mini-review [to come: scanned image] Philadelphia City Paper (see bottom of link page for review) And this email, that was bounced around through friends and family before it landed in our mailbox earlier today: > From: Anne [Turner's babysitter in Chatham NB from 1977-78] Posted by Ashley at 12:49 PM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (418) | Comments (0) Mr. Thang Hits The Big Time ...By which we mean the Globe and Mail. Canadians, get out there and storm those grey newspaper boxes at the end of every city block - Turner's on the cover (top banner - Christopher Reeve + Turner), on the front page of the Review section (top R corner - giant photo of T's mug), and garners a big full feature by Rebecca Caldwell on page R9, including a semi-silly photo of authorman himself, peeking over the top of a pile of Simpsons paraphenalia. Good gracious:
Excerpts from the profile: From today's Globe and Mail: Excellent. An Animated Sitcom Guy. (warning: this link may expire after October 25th) [to come: scanned version of the profile, here] A mere six months ago we'd be at parties in Calgary and people would ask Turner what he did and he'd respond, of course, "I'm a writer." Now, Calgary doesn't have a lot of full-time writers, and Turner was new to the city. The place itself is an overgrown oil town bordering the prairie on one side and mountains on the other. It's got a superb, close-knit arts scene, but the number of writers able to make their living from Cowtown is not so large. Sure, there are people who write, and some very talented ones among them, but most have other jobs that pay the bills. So when Turner would offer himself up as Mr. Writer Guy - full stop - with no "...but I'm working at X corporation just for now" kind of codicil, it was not uncommon for folks to... well, to doubt him. The more polite among them would say, "Oh yes, and what do you write about?" (the tone, however, usually said: "What exactly do you think you write about, hmmm...?", i.e. you fancy yourself a writer, do you.) To which Turner'd reply, "I'm writing a book about The Simpsons." This is where most people jumped ship; their eyes would glaze over as they decided that this random scruffy-bearded newbie was yet another hopeful hipster working in the Epcor mailroom and dreaming about being an artist - in this case, one who got to watch cartoons all day. But to be fair, a few would plow on, either too bored with life to walk away or sincere enough to be pursuing a real conversation. And of course, the next question was always: "So... do you have a publisher?" (still skeptical, this one was delivered with a distinct - "Do you have a publisher for this 'book' you think you're writing, sport?", the subtext firmly in the 'this'll decide things' category) But here's where the tables turned, because T would say, why yes, Random House. But let's be serious - only about 5% of all so-what-do-you-do? situations Turner landed in last year actually got to this last stage of questioning (which is, of course, where a real conversation would begin). Most of the time he'd be left with vapid well-dressed scenesters flipping the conversation toward the directionless rattle of what they themselves were up to these days. After living in Toronto where his professional reputation and peer group were pretty solid, I think it was a bit jarring for T to be dismissed outright, more often than not, before he'd really been given a chance. On the way home from a few of these kinds of nights, Turner even asked me, "Do you think people here will eventually believe I'm writing a book?" Like, would he forever be the guy-married-to-Ashley-that-government-arts-grant-person, with no identity of his own outside TO. We'll see - the Calgary launch is this Friday, and lots of invites have gone out to local folks... many of whom I'm sure read the Globe. Which isn't to say that Turner's Western-Canada rep will be made by a mere three-page facesplash in the Monday Globe and Mail. But it sure is a convincing argument on the side of "Heeeeyyyy... remember that dude from The Old Trouts' party in January? I guess that guy actually was writing a book about The Simpsons after all..." Posted by Ashley at 08:57 AM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (169) | Comments (0) Sunday, October 24, 2004 Sneaking In Some Socializing Having old, good friends in a place you're just visiting can be soooo great. We managed to sneak in some dinner plans tonight, a low-key break from all the rushing-around-with-lovely-strangers this book tour has been thusfar. Shannon, our hostess, avec le gateau des carrotes Sean & Keitha, international persons of internet mystery Notres amis et nous, apres le diner
Posted by Ashley at 11:08 PM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (150) | Comments (1) Turner on The Simpsons Archive, Ooh-Aah
The ever-awesome Jouni Paakkinen, webmaster of The Simpsons Archive, recently interviewed Turner for the site. His article is now online: Planet Simpson on SNPP. Turner thanks The Simpsons Archive extensively in Chapter 7 of the book, noting that much of the best online research he conducted during the writing of the book was made possible by the Archive being such a spectacular and exhaustive resource. Three cheers for Jouni & SNPP!! And in the Toronto Star today, Ben Rayner's review: Fine Tooning - Trying To Explain The Simpsons Posted by Ashley at 04:37 PM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (381) | Comments (0) Bienvenue a Montreal
Bonjour mesdames et messieurs, nous avons arrives a Montreal. Ce soir nous joignons nos grands amis Shannon & Eric, et Sean & Keitha pour le diner, bien que nous projetions faire une nuit tot de lui - juste de Turner entendu de son contact de Random House de Montreal qui a casse les mauvaises nouvelles : un debut de 6am demain matin, avec fondamentalement aucunes coupures toute la journee. Le sejour a accorde pour plus de mises a jour, en anglais. Basically, tomorrow is going to be ridiculous. It's Turner's only full day in Montreal and I think the publicists might be trying to kill him. With a 6am start, he has six radio interviews (two live, four taped), two television interviews (both live), he gets to eat a few times in there somewhere, and then there's the 7:30pm Else's event/reading/signing (address: 156 Roy, @ deBullion). To see first-hand what a gruelling day of anglo-Quebec publicity can do to a man, I'll recommend the evening event - Turner's on the bill with Greg Hollingshead and Ibi Kaslik - as the opportunity to see an exercise in pure stamina. (Go Turner go!) Posted by Ashley at 04:20 PM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (153) | Comments (0) He's History's Greatest Monster! >From: "Jessica Bristowe" (cousin Jess) [Note To All Americans Everywhere: Turner will likely be headed to New York & perhaps Boston during the week of November 1st.] Posted by Ashley at 09:25 AM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (304) | Comments (0) Saturday, October 23, 2004 Saturday Night With The Fam Today was our Day Off. We slept in, got breakfast down the road, and leisurely-ily tended to some backlogged work & errands. It was glorious. Mid-afternoon we caught up with the family for the ritual of Melody Ranch, now being hosted upstairs at the Hard Rock Cafe on Yonge. Then it was on to The Cameron House on Queen West for their 23rd birthday bash (oh, lemme tell you a few things about the twin blessings of bluegrass music and birthday cake). Later, we sauntered up Spadina to the ever-awesome Swatow Restaurant, where Sharron & Mary are local heroes and always get great dishes not listed on the English menu. And once we were stuffed to the teeth, we repaired back to the Annex abode for a private signing of the three dozen books everyone had bought. In the end, the BoSox won the first game of the series and much 10-year-old scotch was enjoyed. What more could you ask from a day? Turner works his way through signing a few boxes' worth of books for family members (guess what All McConnells Everywhere are getting for Christmas...?) A family gots to props its artists: stalwart supporters of the Toronto tour, (L to R) Aunts Sharron & Mary, Margo (T's mom), Aunt Connie, Cousin Sarah, John (T's dad), Ash, and seated - Mr. Chris Turner himself Posted by Ashley at 09:30 PM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (216) | Comments (0) Canada's Saturday Papers: A Comparison-Contrast In Three Acts A bit of a long post, full o' reviews: The painfully provincial,Calgary Herald The bitchily overblown:Ottawa Citizen LENGTH: 927 words HEADLINE: Mmmm ... all-you-can read buffet: Planet Simpson explains how a cartoon family from Springfield changed the world BYLINE: Liza Herz, Citizen Special Random House; 451 pages; $35 - - - 1. You're pathetically obsessed with the show but realize it's morally lax to watch that much TV during the day -- especially now that the long-running series can be seen 24/7 in reruns. 2. You want to learn more about a program that so deftly skewers the Establishment without crossing into dreary pedantry. 3. The best reason: To find out if the author is a true Simpsons believer or a pretentious, pseudo-scholastic ponce with alarmingly nerdish tendencies. Of course, in this terrain one runs the risk of discovering the author is both, as befits anyone who believes there is meaningful subtext to be gleaned from the maunderings of Chief Wiggum and Barney. Chris Turner's 451-page opus, Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Documented an Era and Defined a Generation has all the elements to make a Simpsons fan groan happily, like Homer tucking into an all-you-can-eat buffet. The vested reader can swim the warm waters of 'aren't I clever to get these inside jokes?' while seeing whether or not the author cites the funniest-ever Homerism ("Oooo. Floor pie!") or whether or not he'll give props (he'd better!) to that unbelievably poignant episode where Bart and Lisa reunite Krusty the Clown with his estranged father. Preaching to an audience of like-minded souls (who else buys these books?), Turner can go straight to the devoted-fan minutiae. Best episode ever? That would be the nuclear power plant strike/Lisa gets braces episode, No. 9F15. Turner refers to each episode not by its lengthy, descriptive title but by its production code-number. Nerd. And he wants you to know he chose this "best episode ever" before Entertainment Weekly. See? Uber-nerd. The show's best season? Conventional Simpsons wisdom and Turner agree it's Season Four, which had Marge Vs. The Monorail, Streetcar!, and Kamp Krusty. The show's genesis from Tracy Ullman Show interstitial to its own series? It's all there in Turner's book. Even without The Simpsons at its centre, the text would furnish a comprehensive tour of the '90s, weaving together social, political and economic trends, examining how The Simpsons both drove and reflected the culture. Turner presents the rise of the punkish D.I.Y. 'zine ethos as the phenomenon that inspired Simpsons creator Matt Groening to create comics while working in a record store. He also gives us a nice riff on the rise of alterna-rock, beginning with its roots in punk, and methodically illustrates how The Simpsons exists, as punk rock did, to mock and dismantle the very machine that made its existence possible. (Amusingly, he gets all tied in knots explaining the irony that the most subversive program on TV is on the otherwise conservative Fox network.) More than a few times, he veers toward the prolix, as when he suggests the show's high-haired matriarch, Marge, "can help explain what happens to a society whose traditional authorities have lost their credibility and whose religious institutions have lost much of their resonance." Uh, OK. Still, it's hard to cavil with his approach. Turner traces a decade when North American culture was largely co-opted by megacorps and sold back to guileless youth like a clip-on nose ring. The author, a thirtysomething Calgarian, never misses an opportunity to tweak the status quo, quoting such lines as this one, spoken by Ned Flanders: "I haven't felt this good since we stole the 2000 election!" This is where Planet Simpson gets interesting. Lurking beneath all those endless "best episode ever" discussions is a persuasive and rollicking anti-corporate, anti-American rant. For example, he refers to George W. Bush as a "smirking frat boy, failed oilman, bumbling baseball-team owner and resolutely anti-introspective non-thinker." Turner delights, too, in dissing the Fox network by recounting a mock Fox newscast (in episode EABF09) which the Simpsons family is watching in their living room. A news crawl at the bottom of the screen reads, "Brad Pitt + Albert Einstein = Dick Cheney" and "Oil Slicks Found to Keep Seals Young, Supple." I enjoyed Planet Simpson because Turner, in his meanderingly postmodern way, offers a compendium of the trends and ideas that became gospel for a generation. The Simpsons. Quentin Tarantino. REM. The Coen Brothers. Thomas Frank. The satirical newspaper The Onion. Still, I wish he knew when to back off a little, to put a leash on his hipster declarations, which become tedious and take him away from his main thesis. Under the banner "The Rebirth of Sincerity," he recounts, over two and a half pages, the transformative experience of seeing Wilco for the first time in early 1997 (well before they were cool, you understand), describing at length how lead singer Jeff Tweedy intoned the word "nothing" from the song Misunderstood over and over again with the greatest power and sincerity. These long tangential asides reminded me of my own university pub days, when goateed guys in thrift-shop bowling shirts would spend an hour bumming cigarettes and earnestly explaining why Blood Simple/Confederacy Of Dunces/Uncle Tupelo was the greatest movie/book/band ever. It wasn't that they were wrong, exactly. It's just you wanted to smack them for the smug way they believed they were enlightening you. Guess it goes with being an uber-nerd, the kind who would write an entire book -- albeit a really interesting and engaging one -- about his love of The Simpsons. Toronto writer Liza Herz does a really mediocre Mr. Burns impression.
And a few from out-of-town... Gold Coast Bulletin (Australia) SECTION: WEEKENDER; Pg. 9 Planet Simpson, by Chris Turner (Ebury Press, $29.95) is a clever and accessible analysis of all things Simpson and the world the program reflects. Like BTL, author Turner is an unabashed fan and says a planet without The Simpsons would be a drab world indeed. It is a program that is irreverent and important, hilarious and humble, subtle and subversive. "The Simpsons has found the last word on seemingly every facet of our culture and every event of our time," says Turner. "Bart, Homer and Marge have entered the lexicon of iconic, global characters. Bart has the highest recognition factor with kids in the UK and US, way above that of Harry Potter. "The British voted it their favourite TV show ever. The Archbishop of Canterbury called it one of the most subtle pieces of propaganda around in the cause of sense, humility and virtue." While Homer Simpson might regard Turner's comprehensive dissection of his family and its influence as decidedly geeky, Planet Simpson is a worthy tribute and a must for fans. "If there was a single cultural signpost announcing the emergence of a generation, era, movement or whatever, a monument to a widespread yearning for progress, truth, honesty, integrity, joy, a final rejoinder to every vacuous corporate press release and cloying commercial script and prevaricating political soundbite, it was The Simpsons," says Turner. Turner reveals how, more than any other, this particular TV show has documented and defined an era. His two favourite moments from The Simpsons come from the episodes when Homer becomes an astronaut - a sentiment shared with BTL - and when the staff of Springfield Elementary School go on strike. The latter contains an example of the blend of irreverence, wit and message that makes The Simpsons great. When Lisa Simpson arrives home to announce her support for the striking teachers, Homer replies: "Lisa, if you don't like your job you don't strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American way." The most astounding point about The Simpsons is that such a program could come from America, particularly the ultra-conservative and largely humourless America that exists today. Then again, maybe America can't see the joke, which is pretty funny when you think about it. Planet Simpson is an astute, witty and nerdishly wonderful tribute.
The Spectator: BYLINE: Zoe Williams BODY: Chris Turner propounds three related theories about the Simpsons: first, that cartoon is an unusual medium for satire; second, and consequently, the show gets away with a lot that mainstream drama couldn't get away with, and has in its time been unusually radical for prime time television; third, that it has raised the bar for what cartoon is capable of, and spawned a decade of American animation so good that, once we all get over our whimsical fascination with cats chasing mice and mice talking to dogs, we will recognise this as its golden age. On all three counts, any serious observer of the show would agree with him. And yet his argumentative arc is at best so breathily over-enthusiastic, and at worst so self-aggrandising and contradictory, that he makes you like the programme less and less, the more he praises it. This is rather an extraordinary feat, actually it makes you stand back and wonder how on earth he managed it. He starts by telling you how funny all the jokes are. This might come in the form of a memory ('All at once, the pub shook with a single great roaring laugh. It was like a force of nature, this laugh, spontaneous and open-mouthed and enormous') or it might come as a homely assertion ('Well, the way The Simpsons goes about subverting is just about as funny as all hell'). It's like reading a critique of King Lear that tells you repeatedly how moving it is ('At this point, folks, my buddies and I all burst into tears!' 'That bit, you know, with the crazy talk? About the cheese? That's just about as sad as anything I ever heard!') This is patronising. It assumes we agree with him already, and yet at the same time assumes that we need to be told to. There seems to be a more general confusion, furthermore, about Turner's constituency the book is too dense for the casual Simpsons viewer, yet too basic for the diehard fan ('So let's meet this Lisa Simpson. She's the slightly geeky academic star of Springfield Elementary School, destined to become its only graduate ever to read at an adult level ' All this could be fathomed from a single viewing of the opening credits). He's not even preaching to the choir, he's preaching to the people who would have been in the choir if they hadn't been on the hockey team. The quasi-academic style jars irritatingly with the rather slack logical progression: So, state hypothesis; support it with internet poll; point out absurdity of placing credence in internet poll; place credence in it anyway; prove hypothesis. This is the way poor journalism is written. I always thought it was because it was done in a rush. The argument is muddied by an ongoing and confused tension between high and low culture. At one stage, Turner anoints The Simpsons as the biggest pop cultural phenomenon of the Nineties; not because of the ratings (the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles scored higher) but because of 'resonance', a quality that is eventually, circuitously defined as the ability to stand the test of time. So far, so reasonable. Later, however, explaining why the show is better than any symphony orchestra or novel by John Updike, he first writes off orchestral endeavour as 'a finely honed imitative craft'. (What does that mean? That classical music is rubbish unless the first violin wrote the symphony? That a new John Adams is de facto more creative than anything by Mahler? ) With his 'killer' punch, he comes back to sheer numbers: In reference to one seminal Simpsons moment, Turner writes:[not included in the feed] If only he'd done us the same favour. Posted by Ashley at 03:06 PM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (266) | Comments (0) A Note to Readers Hiya. Wanted to mention that we realize the site is getting photo-heavy. For dial-up users, it probably takes a whole lot of time to load the front blog page. We have a rebuild planned for next week once we get back to Calgary - most photos will be relegated to seperate click-through pages within specific date entries (a very straightforward idea currently being snafued by a glitch in Movable Type - Brother John will fix) and that'll smooth out the presentation and make it easier to bring up the page. For now, however, the tour must go on and the photos will pile up. Bear with us! Also: we've checked the numbers and we know there's a whole lot of you looking at the site. Do you have comments or suggestions about the layout and usability, or about content you'd like to see? You can vent your spleen to ash_planetsimpson at-symbol yahoo.ca, or planetsimpsonbook at-symbol yahoo.ca. Your feedback is welcome and encouraged. Posted by Ashley at 02:43 PM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (278) | Comments (0) Friday, October 22, 2004 We're Off To Waterloo... The University of Waterloo's campus newspaper did a story on Turner to advance-hype tonight's talk at the school: Waterloo Imprint We were driven to Waterloo by Danny, the charming Random House driver, in his amazing silver Mercedes. We were all very impressed by the GPS voiced-directions-giving computer on board, which guided us all the way from downtown Toronto to the exact hall we needed at the University of Waterloo. Spooooky! The talk itself was really well attended, thanks in large part to the super promotions campaign organized by the campus bookstore - the photo below shows only a small part of the bookstore window display. There were also handbills, ads in the school paper, and huge posters all over the place advertising the talk (my favourite is the "Chris Turner Event" bit). For the evening, Turner played the part of the prof you'd always wished you'd find at university Cousin Kohl and his lovely wife Nora came to Waterloo for the lecture (dig my cousin! he's so tall! I remember when he was just little!) We sold a good whack of Hail Ants tshirts - it seems the campus crowd is definitely our target market. A word about the tshirts: they're a fundraiser, if that wasn't already clear. Turner won't make any royalties on the book for a good long while, until sales have made back the entire advance (what he'd been living on while writing the thing). We're thinking we'll see some royalties in, oh... 2008. I used to work for the government, and had a salary. But when I shifted over to working on the book and the website and the promotions and logistics and such, well, let's just say there was a pay cut involved. The Hail Ants tshirts have their own story and were expensive to produce, and we sell them at a profit. The intention is to make some extra cash in the immediate short term to throw on our credit card bill. It's a pretty simple idea. But neither of us are product salespeople, and this is really our first kick at the tshirt entrepreneurial can. We calculated that at $25 a shirt, we could pay back the cost of production plus make a good profit for ourselves. They're nice tshirts, mind - we're not shilling scratchy cheap clothing, here. We went to a great deal of effort to get shirts that we ourselves would wear: organic cotton, very soft. But we were students once, and we totally remember how incredibly strapped for cash we were then, too. So it seemed the "nice" thing to do would be to offer some kind of "deal" at the university. We figured... Lessee... how about $25 for the tshirt, but $20 if you also buy the book? Yeah, that sounds good. So we went with that. But it turns out that lots of people had already bought the book before the talk. Those people got charged $25 for the tshirt for lack of a better explanation than "Um, it's just for tonight that the book + tshirt sale is on". There was one girl who chose her shirt (the last long-sleeved blue one with the "I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords" on the back) and then realized she didn't have cash, and so she ran to the bank. (During her absence several folks tried to buy her set-aside shirt but I wouldn't sell it.) When she returned for the shirt she proceeded to get weird about the price. She said she'd bought the book, but not tonight. Okey-dokey, $25. But she bought it at the campus bookstore, she said. Yep, that's $25, I say - the combo is just for tonight. Then she stopped. And looked at me, ticked off. "That is weird," she said. And tried to stare me down. I'm pretty good with people most of the time, but as I've explained, this is our first time at the whole sell-stuff-to-other-people thing since I was schlepping girl guide cookies door to door as a ten year old. I was facing a girl who could have been me a decade ago: long knitted scarf, baggy jacket, backpack. A student, who clearly thought she was entitled to the discount. I feebly pointed over at Turner, who was signing books. "Um, it's really not for me to say... um, the $20 thing is for tonight only..." She said again, pointedly, "That is weird. It's all the same thing, isn't it? I bought it at the bookstore." Me, at this point, I'm thinking about profit margin and how this girl is trying to guilt trip me and that we really hadn't thought through the details of the "deal" (which isn't a deal for us at all, since we don't make anything on the books anyway) we were offering on the shirts if this girl could blow a hole in our logic so easily. In the end, I stood my ground, she bought the shirt for $25 but wasn't happy about it, and I went away feeling half guilty for wanting to make a profit on the shirts we'd made as a fundraiser, and half attacked by a girl who had had a good point but was kind of aggressive and mean about it, especially since I hadn't sold her shirt to someone else (not that she knew about that part). Is this how everyone in sales ends their day? How do salespeople sleep at night? (...Especially if they are selling something that isn't worth the money! I have no doubt our tshirts are awesome - it would have been 10x harder to face that situation if I'd felt I was actually selling her a crappy product.) Anyway, the crisis passed and the glamour tour continued. Before leaving town we swung by one of Waterloo's Chapters stores for a stock signing in the back room. Ever-awesome Random House publicist Adrienne prepares the books and Turner scrawls in his increasingly-flourished signature Posted by Ashley at 11:34 PM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (1241) | Comments (0) The Toronto Launch It started out as a near disaster. In a misguided attempt to help Turner not stress about the launch, I decided that we shouldn't arrive early, at 6:30pm, like he wanted. His idea was that we would get there way ahead of time to troubleshoot and make sure everything was arranged like we wanted. I was sure, after the week's many phone calls to this effect, that everything was totally squared away and would be fine, and that we had nothing to worry about. My idea was to arrive right into the fray of the event so Turner would get all jostled and congratulated right off the top and not have to worry about a thing. So we dithered in the hotel room until 6:35pm and finally, with T jumping up and down and worrying like mad, we finally got in a cab bound for the Drake. (Note to self: next time let Turner get to his own launch anytime he damn well pleases.) Turner walked into his book launch and was greeted by applause from family and friends... who were surrounded by a room full of about a zillion people we didn't know. Very suddenly, things were a little jumbled in comparison to what we'd expected. Another dj was drowning out Global Pop Conspiracy because the lounge hadn't been told Kevin was coming. The A/V staff said they couldn't show the Simpsons clips for Turner's reading because they were going to broadcast the baseball game. There was no table for our Hail Ants tshirts. They hadn't made much of an effort to hold the venue for the launch and many invited guests were standing outside in line, while the room heaved with braying hipsters. And the $300 worth of food (funds generously provided by Random House of Canada) turned out to be two trays of vegetables and pita with some dips. (Another note to self: the Drake may well have the best steak Turner's dad has ever eaten, and their waiters may be the most beautiful, big-eyed employed people on Queen @ Dufferin, but two trays of vegetables and pita cost $300 because there is a mandatory 15% gratuity on carrying out a tray, and chopping up two heads of celery is a fine science, I guess.) Suffice it to say, Turner was somewhat stressed. Okay, let's put it plainly: he was freaking out. People, my husband is a calm and gentle man. When he freaks out he starts to sweat. You don't want to see him sweat. We had about fifteen minutes of strain, where Adrienne (ever-awesome publicist) and I ran up and down the block scoping alternate venues (note to self: next time, book The Gladstone), there were scrambled conversations with the uninformed Drake people who reported that everything we wanted was totally new news to them, and guests reluctantly picked at the dip trays. Our friends started to notice that something had gone wrong. We weren't sure what to do. It wasn't fun. Turner wasn't getting to have his big launch with his friends in Toronto at all the way we thought. Then... something changed, and I'm not sure what, or why. The universe did a quick 360 and alligned for us. The staff suddenly became really great. Brian our A/V man presented a number of excellent compromises and good ideas that basically saved the whole A/V day. (Props to Brian, our man in the booth.) Anne Yourt grabbed a copy of the book and went around the room telling all the strangers about the book launch to sell them on the whole please-pipe-down-when-the-speeches-start angle. The sound was switched over to GPC's tracks. People bought Turner a few drinks and slapped him on the shoulder and I think the fact of the event started hitting him. We were engulfed, in our smooshed corner of the lounge, by about 100 people who were all there for the book: his beautiful 471-page Canadian edition with the sidebars in the right place and the index all awesome in the back and the layout so great and only two typesetting errors - Turner got to look at the 2 years he'd put into the book and the ten years he'd put into getting to this point and hear his best friends tell him it was the real deal, and I think it started to hit him that he'd actually written a book. And that that book was very, very good. His parents were there. His aunts and uncle and cousin were there. Old friends. Colleagues. There were posters of him on the windows and the marquis lettering spelled out his name. The Nicholas Hoare bookstore people were cheery and on-the-job about everything, schlepping the book in the lobby. People were taking photos, laughing, and generally having a good time. Taking a breath and looking around, it gradually became evident that everything was going to be okay, that this could work. The alcohol did its thing and a good calm descended. Turner and Neil Morton, editor of Shift 2001 - 2003 Anne Collins, lead editor, made a great toast to Turner and the book Then Turner took the stage to tell of the FedEx Saga (free tequila shots!) and read a bit from Planet Simpson. Turner reveals the evilness of all corporations and their lawyers: the waybill covers neither negligence nor gross negligence on the part of FedEx Set-up clip from "Last Exit to Springfield" (the Strike Episode) Oh, the hometown crowd does love The Simpsons Proud parents John and Margo Turner listen intently over the din "As I say in my book..." And when the readings adjourned, the party started in earnest. Proud Fam-Dambily - cousin Sarah, aunt Sharron and uncle Frank Aunts Mary and Connie Brothers-In-Literary-Arms: can you guess which of these men is the cultural critic? The absurdist fiction novelist? The poet? (Hint: L to R) Kevin Siu of Global Pop Conspiracy spins the tunes Tara Vinodrai and Anne Yourt confer on the sitch And no party is complete without Tao Joey deVilla My favourite photo of the night: Sam Hiyate, Shaun Bishop-Stall, Turner, Doug Bell, and Mr. A.G. Pasquella himself Tired teddy bears, closing things up Posted by Ashley at 07:10 AM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (581) | Comments (0) Thursday, October 21, 2004 Toronto Launch of Planet Simpson: TONIGHT!! [wrestling announcer voice]: Thursday, Thursday-Thursday! ONE. NIGHT. ONLY!! Chris Turner launches his book, Planet Simpson! Where: The Drake Hotel, 1150 Queen Street West, Toronto
Posted by Ashley at 06:13 PM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (207) | Comments (0) Hail Ants! This just in! Have you got your HAIL ANTS tshirt yet? Hoo-hoo-hoo! Snatch one up while supplies last!
Back: Oh, Kent Brockman - what a guy. Now you can have all the fun and hysteria of Hail Ants on your very own tshirt! (Text font changed at least 20% to ensure we aren't enfringing on copywright.) Available tonight at the launch for $25. We have a wide selection of colours, sizes and sayings-on-the-back (2 choices). Organic cotton, long sleeved, super comfy. Even though you might think that authors made bags and bags of cash, well... you'd be wrong - so buy a tshirt, and support Turner and Ash! (Available at the launches and various campus Happenings near you. If your cheques are good and want one sent to you via post, we can discuss it over email.) Posted by Ashley at 05:53 PM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (549) | Comments (0) Thursday's Rounds of the Sleep Deprived We started at the wonderfully sane hour of 10am today, headed first for Rogers' Daytime Toronto studios on York Mills. Turner gets the ol' trowel treatment before going on camera
T also had a phoner with the LA Times, and a print interview with the Toronto Star (blessedly conducted at the John St. Friar and Firkin, thereby allowing the imbibation of a beer or two at day's end). Today also included a rather superbo feat of errand-juggling in order to get our laundry done at our hotel, the Courtyard Marriot on Yonge (at College). While they'll dry clean anything you like (including teddy bears), there's no regular laundry service available. But they do have a sort of coin laundromat in the hotel, which is very difficult to find and completely unmanned by hotel staff. In the end, there was much going up-and-down in the elevator this morning to get our undies and unmentionables laundered and dry in time to present ourselves for the day. It's bizarre that a "business" hotel, which gives us free high-speed internet with the room and a million channels on the tv, couldn't possibly handle a request to do our regular laundry. And another thing, Courtyard Marriot: how come we only get shampoo? Where's the conditioner? How about the tiny bottle of cream? And how come there's no bar fridge, although we've requested one a couple of times? And howcome we had to request a bar fridge in the first place? Isn't that kind of standard? Hmm? (Bust out the difficult diva soundtrack: Turner and Ashley find time in the busy schedule to get whiney. It was only a matter of time...) Tonight's the Toronto launch, which'll likely be it's own whole entry, so that's it for now. Posted by Ashley at 05:05 PM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (310) | Comments (0) Wednesday, October 20, 2004 Western... Isn't That An Omelette? This morning we rented a car and zoomed off down the QEW towards London. Turner was booked in to do a talk at UWO, aka the University of Western Ontario, aka "Western". Both of us being Queen's grads, we didn't know what to expect from the kiddies at Western. It's a new generation in the halls of academe now, so our old Queen's vs. Western assumptions probably weren't relevant. At least we hoped so - back in our day Western was known for its fashion-parade snobbery and the aerobics classes held in full view of the cafeteria. (Queen's circa 1991 - 1996 meanwhile was full into flannel shirts and if you wore makeup you were definitely uncool. We hoped things had calmed down a bit at Western, but were prepared for the old stereotypes.) Luckily, Turner had a great non-partisan anecdote to start everything off: "I have this impression that Western students have a great sense of humour. This is because I came for Homecoming - I'm probably dating myself here, but that was in 1992 - and it was here that I saw what stands to date as the best piece of graffiti I've ever seen, bar none. Back then there were these houses just off campus that were condemned. They were about a week from falling down and there were plans to bulldoze them and build an apartment building or something. The big kegger we went to that weekend was being held in one of these abandoned, condemned houses. People had graffitied all over the walls and ceilings of the place, everywhere. Eventually of course I ended up in the bathroom. Above the toilet someone had scrawled, 'I fucked your mother'. Okay, pretty crude, standard, whatever. But underneath, in a different hand, someone had written, 'Go home, Dad. You're drunk.' ...Genius." That got the crowd in the right frame of mind and things went swimmingly from there. The event had been ridiculously well-promoted; we're told that they handed out 2000 rave bills, made 200 posters, promoted it in the campus paper and on the radio, and there was even a huge promo sign that wouldn't have been out of place at the side of a highway:
(They must not have mentioned that Turner went to Queen's in the Random House press kit.) Turner showed a few clips, read two bits from the book, answered some questions, and repaired to the book table. He was interviewed by the campus paper, the local radio station, and the London newspaper.
The UWO Gazette has a regular feature entitled "The World According To The Simpsons", making Turner's talk extra-relevant to the gaggle of campus-journalist-types stacking the front row: Posted by Ashley at 08:09 PM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (229) | Comments (0) More! Keep Going! Don't Stop! Last night we pulled ourselves from naptime and ran up to Yonge & St. Clair to the CFRB studios, for Turner's interview with Jim Richards.
I always find it fascinating to see photos of people I've heard on the radio - the voice never matches the face at first. Why, I'm not sure. Scott Stevenson of CKUA in Calgary is another good example. (It should be said that when Bauer first saw this photo, he thought it was a picture of Turner with a wig and re-worked moustache.) Everyone was absolutely magnificent at CFRB - three cheers to the Jim Richards Show team, Jamie the producer and Dean the tech. The interview was great, they gave Turner an hour and had callers call in to win copies of the book by trying to stump Turner.
The five winning stumper questions: Turner did get a few right (ex. Who played Malibu Stacy's voice, A: Kathleen Turner), of course! You can hear the interview here: Turner on the Jim Richards Show (Toronto). And to my wistful delight, the crew use my old friend Cool Edit (below, R) as their audio editing software:
Oh Cool Edit, how I miss thee! (Damn you, Adobe Audition!) And with that, we're off to London. Turner appears at The Spoke on UWO campus today at 1pm! Come on down! Posted by Ashley at 07:49 AM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (209) | Comments (0) Tuesday, October 19, 2004 Ruby Eyeball Tuesday We were up bright and surly to make it to the John Oakley Show on 640AM/Mojo Radio in Toronto: They encouraged people to call in with their opinions of the Simpsons, with the intention of giving away copies of the book. The first caller was this older Scottish dude who was appalled that Turner could possibly suggest that "just a cartoon" like the Simpsons had an influence and reach comparable to that of the Beatles. Really mad, this guy. It was absolutely perfect - almost too perfect. Like a plant, almost, though the host and the tech seemed as surprised as us at how great a first caller this guy was. The next two callers were younger folks, right in the target demographic, and proceeded to shred the old guy and proclaim the Simpsons to be, like, the greatest cultural phenomenon, like, ever. Raight-onnn. Next it was a prin |
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