John August

Archives for 2009

Greeks

Follow Up, Projects

Many thanks to the 43 readers who [added reviews](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0029ZAPRW) at Amazon. Here’s the scene I [promised yesterday](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2009/40-reviews-in-24-hours).

This comes from Greeks, a comedy I never finished — and barely started, honestly. It’s set in ancient times, and would have retold several of the great myths in significantly less epic ways. I set it aside to write The Nines and never went back to it.

Most writers will have a few dozen folders with these kinds of half-conceived projects. Both The Nines and [The Variant](http://johnaugust.com/variant) lived in those folders for years. In fact, the working title for The Variant was The Nines. Vincent Lewis kept seeing the number nine everywhere, which was one reason he started wondering if something was off with this world.

But back to Greeks.

EXT. CYPRESS GROVE – DAY

Lunch. Sacriticides’ class has broken into distinct cliques: wrestlers, poets, the drama club. Being his first day, Perseus isn’t sure where he belongs, so he keeps on the periphery.

He finds a suitable sitting rock and unwraps his bread, grapes and olives. He notices Abbas is not seated with any particular group as he rips into lunch -- a single pomegranate, its bloody juices dripping everywhere.

Perseus decides to risk conversation...

PERSEUS

Pomegranate, huh?

ABBAS

Yeah.

PERSEUS

Grapes.

(shows fingers)

Less evidence.

ABBAS

Yeah.

And that’s that, apparently. Perseus goes back to his lunch.

But then Abbas suddenly restarts the conversation.

ABBAS

(introducing himself)

I’m Abbas.

PERSEUS

Perseus.

ABBAS

Anyone call you Percy?

PERSEUS

No. So how long have you been studying with Sacriticides?

ABBAS

Since my dad died.

PERSEUS

Oh. Sorry.

ABBAS

Yeah, well. Philosophy is sort of the family business. My dad invented logic.

PERSEUS

That’s pretty major.

ABBAS

He got eaten by a lion. He was trying to teach it ethics.

(beat)

So, after class, a bunch of us are going down to the beach. New school of mermaids are coming through.

PERSEUS

Oh.

ABBAS

If you wanna...

PERSEUS

I’ll pass.

ABBAS

There’ll be mer-dudes too, if you’re...

PERSEUS

No, I like girls. But with legs.

ABBAS

That’s cool.

PERSEUS

I’ve got a strange thing about the sea. My step-father’s a fisherman and I can’t even eat fish.

ABBAS

Wow. What do think that’s from?

Perseus shrugs it off. Then reconsiders...

PERSEUS

When I was little, my grandfather locked me and my mother in a chest and threw us in the ocean, because he was convinced I was going to kill him. Prophecy and stuff. So we were in this box, and we floated around for three weeks and sort of went mad from dehydration. We washed up on this island, and I’ve never gone back in the water since.

A beat.

ABBAS

Man, I love the ocean. Fish and chicks, it’s all good.

PERSEUS

Definitely. Except for, it’s not. Because of the trauma of my childhood.

ABBAS

(not listening; re: pomegranate)

Perspehone? She ate just one of these seeds. Now she has to spend winter in Hades.

PERSEUS

Actually, she’s my half-sister. We don’t see her much. Big family.

A CHEER in the background. Two of the WRESTLERS are throwing down, Greco-Roman style. Abbas joins in the excitement, running over to them.

PERSEUS

Good talking with...okay.

Terminated

News, Television

Josh Friedman recounts the [cancellation of his excellent show](http://hucksblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/boy-in-bubble.html) Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles:

> Everyone says having your show cancelled is like a death but I’ve been dead before and at least when you’re dead you don’t get thrown off the Warner Bros. lot for haunting your old parking space. They probably mean it’s like the death of a friend or a family member but that shit only hurts when it’s YOUR friend or family member and even then it’s mitigated by age, lifestyle and whether that person was a Hollywood friend or a real one and whether that family member left you money.

> Losing your show is more like a surprise divorce where you get served papers in the morning and your (ex)wife is fucking Human Target by three in the afternoon using the same time slot your child was conceived in and also where she did that one thing that one time on your birthday.

Josh’s post are so long and so infrequent he’s more an essayist than a blogger. Still, we should cherish what we get. [Read the whole thing.](http://hucksblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/boy-in-bubble.html)

40 reviews in 24 hours

Projects, The Variant

As of this writing, [The Variant](http://johnaugust.com/variant) has [11 reviews on Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/The-Variant/dp/B0029ZAPRW/) — and nice ones, too. My thanks to everyone who’s left one. Eleven is not bad for something that’s been out for a little over a week.

But several of the books nearby it on the [bestseller list](http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/digital-text/ref=pd_ts_pg_4?ie=UTF8&pg=4) have more. A lot more.

Norah Roberts’s Vision in White has 96. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea has 187. Bill O’Reilly’s A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity: A Memoir has 193.

I’d love a few more reviews. I think they make the book feel more real in a wisdom-of-crowds way. So if you’ve already read The Variant, but haven’t yet posted a review, let me offer you some enticement:

If we can get to 40 reviews by noon (LA time) on Thursday, I’ll post a scene from my never-finished comedy Greeks, a collegiate buddy comedy set in mythological times.

Make no mistake: it’s not The Greatest Thing Ever Typed. But it is fairly amusing, and you’ll only see it if you and enough of your fellow readers spend a minute or two [placing a review](http://www.amazon.com/The-Variant/dp/B0029ZAPRW/).

Twenty-four hours, starting now.