Remember that defining moment thingy? The one about thinking “I could do that!”? Well I had that again today. Today I came across this which is a new book of movie parodies written as very abbreviated summaries like this.
My reactions were mixed. Firstly I simply enjoyed the humour. Secondly I thought “good on her”. Thirdly, I admit, there was a twinge of jealousy – based on the feeling of “I could do that!”
And I’m not just saying that. I did do that. On a much smaller scale perhaps, but a very similar thing. When I first became a fan (as opposed to merely a regular watcher) of Buffy but before I (re-)discovered usenet I used to go to the BBC Cult website message-boards (they don’t exist in the same form now but the site is here). By the time the BBC were half-way through season 4 someone, a new viewer, asked about what they’d missed. So I gave a summary of 3 1/2 seasons of the show. Oh, but did I mention that the old message-boards had a limit of 100 words?
Still don’t believe me? Here’s a mini-mini version of the same kind of thing.
Of course that’s very short and Ms Cleolinda does a full movie script each time. But it seems to me that it’s not that hard (actually I think there’s something inherently funny about over-compressing that gives you a headstart) and so, as usual, I think the big difference between us, between someone who’s made a success of something I’ve done as a passing fancy and myself, is that she’s worked harder at it.
Funny that eh?