Peeve Farm

g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.

On My Blog Menu:

InstaPundit
USS Clueless
James Lileks
Little Green Footballs
As the Apple Turns
Entropicana
Cold Fury
Capitalist Lion
Red Letter Day
Eric S. Raymond
Tal G in Jerusalem
Secular Islam
Aziz Poonawalla
Corsair the Rational Pirate
.clue

« ? Blogging Brians # »

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BSD Mall

10/6/2003 -  10/8/2003
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11/18/2002 - 11/24/2002
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11/4/2002 - 11/10/2002
10/28/2002 -  11/3/2002
10/21/2002 - 10/27/2002
10/14/2002 - 10/20/2002
10/7/2002 - 10/13/2002
9/30/2002 -  10/6/2002
9/23/2002 -  9/29/2002
9/16/2002 -  9/22/2002
  9/9/2002 -  9/15/2002
  9/2/2002 -   9/8/2002
8/26/2002 -   9/1/2002
8/19/2002 -  8/25/2002
8/12/2002 -  8/18/2002
  8/5/2002 -  8/11/2002
7/29/2002 -   8/4/2002
7/22/2002 -  7/28/2002
7/15/2002 -  7/21/2002
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4/29/2002 -   5/5/2002
4/22/2002 -  4/28/2002
4/15/2002 -  4/21/2002
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  4/1/2002 -   4/7/2002
3/25/2002 -  3/31/2002
3/18/2002 -  3/24/2002
3/11/2002 -  3/17/2002
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2/18/2002 -  2/24/2002
2/11/2002 -  2/17/2002
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1/28/2002 -   2/3/2002
1/21/2002 -  1/27/2002
1/14/2002 -  1/20/2002
  1/7/2002 -  1/13/2002
12/31/2001 -   1/6/2002
12/24/2001 - 12/30/2001
12/17/2001 - 12/23/2001

Tuesday, February 5, 2002
02:21 - Lord of the Rings -- if written by... http://www.flin.demon.co.uk/althist/auth.htm	(top)
Tolkien fans new and old, follow the link and chortle: "Alternative authors' versions of Lord of the Rings". Ian Fleming, P.G. Wodehouse, Rudyard Kipling, Meatloaf... yep, it's all here. Lots of it is quite funny, too. However, it touches on something that's vaguely bugged me ever since Whose Line Is It Anyway? came to America. In the British version of the show, they could have an entire recurring improv game of "Writing Styles"-- you know, like "Film & Theater Styles", but about authors instead. The comedians would narrate a scene in the voices of Shakespeare, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Agatha Christie, Tom Clancy, James Joyce... and the audience would get it! They would know these styles! To the British wit, or even to the casual TV-watching Nielson family, knowing what Joseph Conrad or John Grisham wrote like was just as central a pillar to cultural awareness as knowing what Charlie's Angels or Beavis and Butt-head sound like is to Americans. This is one of the improv games that was dropped rather unceremoniously as soon as Drew Carey got his greasy mitts on the show and started turning it into the current RyanColinWayne&Guest that it is today; gone are the days of a stream of unpredictably diverse comedians who can whip up an extemporaneous song in the style of Gilbert & Sullivan. Is this because Brits are as a rule more cultured and well-read than Americans? Or is their idea of pop culture just different? It certainly seems at first blush (at the very least) that it involves a whole lot more effort and literacy to appreciate the British version of the show than the American one. To say nothing of the fact that the dry rapier wit of Clive Anderson was what drove the whole show onward in the old days, and now Drew is a dead weight that forces Wayne and Ryan to be even more zany than usual just so as to keep the camera off him. But then, by all accounts the show is much more popular and successful now than ever, so who am I to judge what parts of it were effective or not...?