Interview Meme: Spider-Man 3

After a gentle reminder, Becca sent me these questions...but first, a reminder for you...

Do YOU want to be interviewed?
Interview rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with a post containing your the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interviewsomeone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Here's Becca's queries:

1. Okay let’s get the Dr. Who question out of the way. I can’t remember if you’ve said or not but who is your favorite Doctor and why? Who is your favorite companion?

Who is my favorite Doctor? Peter Davison, the fifth. Why? Because I think he was the best damn actor ever to play the part, with some of my best-loved scripts, especially the two by Chris Bidmead.

David Tennant, I'm sorry to say, I started out really admiring-"Christmas Invasion" was my favorite "new Doctor" story in years-but I've begun to feel that he's letting the side down a bit. Of course, he also hasn't been half as well-served by more recent scripts...

Favorite companions include Bernice, from the books (sometimes called "Benny" but that makes me self-conscious). Not just because of the way she is but the way she was created.

I've said this before but something her creator, Paul Cornell, said in an interview has been coming back to me in recent years...asked why he thought Bernice had been so succesful, he replied that most men wrote the kinds of women they wanted to date (or maybe at least sleep with), and...

"I don't want to date Bernice. I want to be her."

I liked Nyssa from the television series.



Partly because Sarah Sutton was just to die for, but also because I thought she was temperamentally the best suited for the Davison Doctor, with Tegan not far behind.

I also kind of liked Chris, from the books. Peri is a guilty pleasure-and I thought Martha Jones started out very well but ultimately failed because they drove her into a dead end.

2. If you crash landed on a tropical island in a plane filled with survivalist supplies (what luck!) what 5 things would you want to have with you on the tropical island?

Is all I need to protect me from the sun included in the survivalist supplies?

Are there any dinosaurs on the island?

If so/not:

A solar-powered computer with the best damn wireless connection you've ever seen.
A solar powered radio that only plays music and no news from the outside world.

A copy of either The Hobbit or The Essential Ellison.
A friendly dolphin.
And either Emma Watson or Jennifer Wayman, from Jr. Hish.

3. Where did the name of your blog “Dictionopolis in Digitopolis” come from and why did you choose it?






The name of my blog derives from the classic book and movie The Phantom Tollboth, both of which were favorites of my youth.

I'd be surprised if you haven't read and/or seen it, but just in case: In both, you see, Dictionopolis is the kingdom of words and Digitopolis the kingdom of numbers.

A blog, being comprised of words on the internet, which is comprised of numbers, is therefore...

You see how it all balances out.

4. What in your opinion are the 5 most underrated musical acts of the last 40 years?

1. Bobby Darrin. He's probably less underrated than he used to be, but I'm honestly not sure whether the Kevin Spacey movie helped or hurt. I still haven't seen the movie. I just can't bring myself to.

2. Kirsty MacColl (bless her). My pro-Kirsty bias should be obvious to anyone who reads this blog for even a month or two. I think she was a goddess, a supremely talented singer and songwriter whose exquisitely sung, sometimes multi-tracked vocal arrangements will be remembered by people who really know music when soulless American Idol runner-ups have been forgotten.

But in the spirit of "show don't tell," this is Kirsty performing "Days," originally written by Ray Davies, on TOTP.



She is glorious.

3. Thomas Dolby. I think most people see him as a one-novelty-hit-wonder, even bubblegum. Sure, some of his records were novelties-he did write songs for the Howard the Duck movie, y'know. And lord knows he's got the keyboard hooks. But a novelty artist he was not.

Watch this video for his record of the Dan Hicks song "I Scare Myself." This is just good. I don't know quite how else to say it.



BTW, there's no signifigance to the fact that the two songs I chose are both ones the performers didn't write, MacColl and Dolby are both very fine songwriters. It's just a question of which records I can find videos for on YouTube that I feel show them to best advantage...

4. Dan Hartman. The I Can Dream About You album is so awesome. People know it because of the title song and "We Are The Young," but the whole thing is packed with solid songwriting by Hartman and his collaborator, Charlie Midnight.

That album had more of a dance/club feel, but he also co-wrote and sang lead on "Free Ride" for the Edgar Winter group, and co-wrote and produced James Brown's last top five hit, "Living In America."

5. Chaz (or Chas) Jankel. Best known as a member of Ian Dury's Blockheads, and the cowriter of discs like "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" and "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick," in the early to-mid eighties he released two or three solo albums that became instant favorites of mine.



My first play was ultimately titled after one of his solo songs (also cowritten with Dury, as it happens).

5. If I recall correctly you are a writer!

If I recall correctly, I am too.

As a writer who are your biggest influences and whom do you think are the most interesting writers working today?

Mark Evanier's an influence, but probably more on my nonfiction (including this blog) than my drama and fiction.

When it comes to writing in the dramatic form, James L. Brooks is a big influence, especially his script for Broadcast News. And the sense I get from interviews with Simpsons writers, DVD commentaries and such is that a lot of the "heart" of that series comes from him.

Also he created and worked on Taxi, which has to be on any short list of the greatest sitcoms of all time.

I can't forget my hero, Larry Gelbart. He's best known as the man who developed M*A*S*H from the movie and book into the TV series, and wrote and/or directed much of its first four years. He also cowrote the screenplay for Tootsie, cowrote the stage musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, wrote the movie Oh, God!...

He's done so much for so long that I once formed a theory: You can connect Larry Gelbart to anything funny done on stage or screen in the past 45 years or more, in six moves or less.

Try me.

I suppose John Hughes is an influence. I'd be perfectly happy if one of my stories stayed in people's minds the way one or two of his have in mine.

From the world of comics writing, Neil Gaiman and Peter Milligan are aspirations and influences...Milligan not so much since he took Shade from dark to totally black, but that's another post...

And though I'm not a cartoonist or any kind of a visual artist, Charles Schulz, Ted "Dr. Seuss" Geisel and Howard Cruse are influences at least as much for the way they lived their lives as the quality of their work, including writing.

Some people are influences even if (so far, anyway) I don't write in their genre, like the aforementioned Cornell. I haven't written a mystery, but I love the personal stamp that writers like Robert Crais and Gregory McDonald put on theirs. I would hope that my own stories have mine.

I've also yet to write a horror story (well, not the kind with razor-fanged clowns anyway). But I like having the keen grip on my reader's throat that Stephen King can get. I've had one or two people tell me that after starting one of my pieces they could not do any other work or put it down till they finished it. I take that as one of my favorite compliments.

Oh yes, and that Aaron Sorkin fellow. Anybody here need me to re-state what I think of his work? I didn't think so.

Sometimes I don't really think I write the way they do, but they're still an influence, like Harlan Ellison. Ellison was also an influence on my criticism back when I was writing more of it, as were Roger Ebert and the late Kenneth Tynan.

Some of the most interesting writers working in recent years would include Nick Hornby, John Irving (both influences),

Crais and King.

Oh, and I've lately been trying to write a young adult book, for which my models are my memories of authors like Robert Cormier, Chris Crutcher, and Judy Blume.

Sorry you asked?