Yesterday, when I mentioned to a colleague in an email that I had recently published a book, he replied in a distinctly modern way: “Congratulations! Great news about the book publication. I can’t wait to listen to it.”
Because, of course, for a lot of people, books are something to hear – in the car, on the subway, at the gym – and not something to read. It was inevitable: people spend most of their time, it seems, wandering around with earphones wedged firmly into their skulls or clamped tightly around their ears, so at some point they’re going to want to listen to something with words and a story.
Most professional authors know this. I’m not a professional author – my profession, when I am forced to declare it, is “complaining lazybones” – so it was sort of a thrill when my publisher notified me that my book was about to become an audiobook.
Someone, in other words, was going to read it aloud into a machine, so that others wouldn’t have to bother. The question, though, is who is going to read the book?
“We’d prefer to have a professional reader,” came the reply from my publisher when I – cheekily, I now see – suggested myself.
Professional readers, I was informed, get the job done quickly and efficiently. They know how to deliver a joke, sell an emotional passage, keep the pace up, and “really embody the author’s voice”.
I countered by suggesting that since the author’s voice was already inside my body that seemed like a head start.
“We’ve found,” was the more direct reply, “that professional actors with voice training know how to keep the recording sprightly. A good vocal actor can really cover up a book’s weak spots.”
When someone tells you that they’re hiring a professional to “cover up” the inadequacies of your work product, I’ve learnt that it’s a perfect time to end the conversation. So I did the email equivalent of shrugging – “You guys know best” was my terse reply – and then thought a bit about what was really happening here. Once again, a writer was being replaced by an actor.
This happens all the time in Hollywood. Every movie or television show was once just a sheaf of pages – or a scrolling laptop screen – that came from a writer’s imagination.
I’ve spoken aloud almost every single word I’ve ever written for money, acted out every scene, impersonated all of the characters in every one of my scripts, and occasionally improvised huge portions of a screenplay with my writing partners.
I have even twisted my ankle while acting out a physical comedy bit. It’s an odd thing, trust me, to have to tell people who ask about your crutches: “I hurt myself writing.”
Lurking just below the surface of every writer is a frustrated actor waiting for his moment. Writers, mostly, are a pale and misshapen group. We don’t have the looks or the physical perfection of a movie star – though there’s not a professional screenwriter who can (honestly) deny looking at the recent crop of podgy, unattractive male leads – your Jonah Hills, your John C Reillys – without thinking: “That guy is a movie star? He looks like a writer!”
And what’s worse, often we’re convinced that the performance we put on in our writers’ dens and rewrite sessions is just as good – No! Better! – than the resulting screen performance of the same words by a much better-looking person.
A few years ago, I was helping a colleague on a television series that was based rather closely on his own life, except for the crucial detail that the actor playing him was taller, fitter, and a lot more handsome. Oh, and he still had a full head of hair.
After a scene, the writer approached the actor and told him that he wasn’t really delivering a line the “correct” way, to which the actor (understandably) bristled. “This is my way of saying the line,” he said.
“Yeah,” my writer friend said, “but you’re playing me. You should say it the way I’d say it. You’re supposed to be more like me.”
The handsome actor looked sadly at the writer in his dumpy blue jeans and rumpled shirt. In his hands the writer had, with unfortunate timing, a large half-eaten pastry. His skin was pale and mottled.
“Shouldn’t you be trying to be more like me?” the actor asked.
Which was a fair point. All the actor was doing, I now realise, was covering up the writer’s weak spots. That’s all they ever do.
Rob Long is a writer and producer in Hollywood. His two books, Conversations with My Agent and Set Up, Joke, Set Up, Joke were published in July as one volume by Bloomsbury
On Twitter: @rcbl
Company%20Profile
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EXPATS
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ETFs explained
Exhchange traded funds are bought and sold like shares, but operate as index-tracking funds, passively following their chosen indices, such as the S&P 500, FTSE 100 and the FTSE All World, plus a vast range of smaller exchanges and commodities, such as gold, silver, copper sugar, coffee and oil.
ETFs have zero upfront fees and annual charges as low as 0.07 per cent a year, which means you get to keep more of your returns, as actively managed funds can charge as much as 1.5 per cent a year.
There are thousands to choose from, with the five biggest providers BlackRock’s iShares range, Vanguard, State Street Global Advisors SPDR ETFs, Deutsche Bank AWM X-trackers and Invesco PowerShares.
The Perfect Couple
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Jack Reynor
Creator: Jenna Lamia
Rating: 3/5
How green is the expo nursery?
Some 400,000 shrubs and 13,000 trees in the on-site nursery
An additional 450,000 shrubs and 4,000 trees to be delivered in the months leading up to the expo
Ghaf, date palm, acacia arabica, acacia tortilis, vitex or sage, techoma and the salvadora are just some heat tolerant native plants in the nursery
Approximately 340 species of shrubs and trees selected for diverse landscape
The nursery team works exclusively with organic fertilisers and pesticides
All shrubs and trees supplied by Dubai Municipality
Most sourced from farms, nurseries across the country
Plants and trees are re-potted when they arrive at nursery to give them room to grow
Some mature trees are in open areas or planted within the expo site
Green waste is recycled as compost
Treated sewage effluent supplied by Dubai Municipality is used to meet the majority of the nursery’s irrigation needs
Construction workforce peaked at 40,000 workers
About 65,000 people have signed up to volunteer
Main themes of expo is ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’ and three subthemes of opportunity, mobility and sustainability.
Expo 2020 Dubai to open in October 2020 and run for six months
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Where to submit a sample
Volunteers of all ages can submit DNA samples at centres across Abu Dhabi, including: Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (Adnec), Biogenix Labs in Masdar City, NMC Royal Hospital in Khalifa City, NMC Royal Medical Centre, Abu Dhabi, NMC Royal Women's Hospital, Bareen International Hospital, Al Towayya in Al Ain, NMC Specialty Hospital, Al Ain
Country-size land deals
US interest in purchasing territory is not as outlandish as it sounds. Here's a look at some big land transactions between nations:
Louisiana Purchase
If Donald Trump is one who aims to broker "a deal of the century", then this was the "deal of the 19th Century". In 1803, the US nearly doubled in size when it bought 2,140,000 square kilometres from France for $15 million.
Florida Purchase Treaty
The US courted Spain for Florida for years. Spain eventually realised its burden in holding on to the territory and in 1819 effectively ceded it to America in a wider border treaty.
Alaska purchase
America's spending spree continued in 1867 when it acquired 1,518,800 km2 of Alaskan land from Russia for $7.2m. Critics panned the government for buying "useless land".
The Philippines
At the end of the Spanish-American War, a provision in the 1898 Treaty of Paris saw Spain surrender the Philippines for a payment of $20 million.
US Virgin Islands
It's not like a US president has never reached a deal with Denmark before. In 1917 the US purchased the Danish West Indies for $25m and renamed them the US Virgin Islands.
Gwadar
The most recent sovereign land purchase was in 1958 when Pakistan bought the southwestern port of Gwadar from Oman for 5.5bn Pakistan rupees.
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Lamsa
Founder: Badr Ward
Launched: 2014
Employees: 60
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: EdTech
Funding to date: $15 million
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BORDERLANDS
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis
Director: Eli Roth
Rating: 0/5
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