Once there was a little red pony. It died. The little boy who owned and loved the little red pony cried. There was a great funeral, with the President of France in attendance. He said, "Ze pony is dead, but I posthumously award him the Legion of Honor." There were girls there too, bimbos from the nearby ranches. There was some gratuitous flashing of breast. Steinbeck, who is said to have written The Red Pony while shacked up in a whorehouse in New Mexico, famously ends the book with the lines, "And so the pony was dead, and yet there's nothing to hinder a heartbroken lad from doing some consolatory shagging."
I was just seeing a TED video in which Alain de Botton recounted an experiment where he explained the plots of several great western tragedies to a British tabloid editor and had him write headlines for them. For Madame Bovary he wrote, "Shoppaholic Adultress Swallows Arsenic After Credit Fraud." To think I suffered through 350 pages to learn the same thing. Thank God I'll never have to read The Red Pony!
Posted by: Dave | June 29, 2011 at 12:49 AM
That's interesting. Beckett: Man Falls in Ditch, Stays There.
Posted by: UF MIKE | June 29, 2011 at 08:02 AM
Who done it?
Posted by: Martijn | June 29, 2011 at 08:06 AM
This newspaper I been doing stories for is starting to get on my nerves. They keep changing my titles. Its been my contention that a good title should serve to mystify the reader, and even after reading the article they are compelled to read again to see if there is any rational connection between the article and the title.
That just seems to be good journalism to me, though i have had no training at all.
They changed my title from "I got Sasquatch Fever" to "Bigfoot prank has positive outcome".
http://srevestories.blogspot.com/2007/05/i-got-sasquatch-fever.html
They changed one from simply "The Gullywampus" to "Shopping for fishing lures leads to good times".
They changed "A Hair in my Eggs" to "Scouts find solace in pancakes"
I mean, in addition to boring the fuck out of the reader they are practically giving the story away with the title!
Am i being too sensitive?
Posted by: Bullets | June 29, 2011 at 12:51 PM
No. They are fucking up your artistic process. But having worked in journalism, that's what it's all about.
Martijn: The birds!
Posted by: UF MIKE | June 29, 2011 at 01:55 PM
Birds are funny... except when you're a pony. Hey Mike.
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