New Today:
Conversations at a Wartime Café
and
Open Letters to People
or Entities Who Are
Unlikely to Respond.
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Winners of the Style Your Wild Thing contest are in. Click here to see them.
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A San Francisco Panorama exclusive: Stephen King covers the World Series. One of the most popular authors in American history takes on America's pastime in the Panorama's collectible special section devoted to the World Series. King, a die-hard Boston Red Sox fan and a long-time student of the game, dissects the Series—its pivotal events, and its important players—in prose that's both hilarious and poignant. Click here to read excerpts from the column. Order your copy today to read the rest!
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San Franciscans: On December 7th at the Electric Works Gallery from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., the Believer will throw a party in celebration of the 2009 Art Issue. Readers include Michelle Tea, Jeff Chang and others, plus appearances by special (and secret!) guests.
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Fever Chart's Bill Cotter was featured in the New York Times' blog Papercuts. Click here to read it.
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McSweeney's is matching donations to the Public Press's investigation of Northern California's Bay Bridge retrofit, which is now $4.5 billion over budget. Their full report will appear in our newspaper issue; to support it, please click here.
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McSweeney's friend and contributor Stephen Elliott will be leading talks at 826 Centers about the generation of the memoir. He'll use his book The Adderall Diaries as a jumping off point for discussing the process of figuring out your own story. On December 2nd he'll be in Seattle, on December 6th in Chicago, and on December 11th in Los Angeles.
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CATHERINE AND
HEATHCLIFF AUDITION
FOR TWILIGHT.
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SECOND ASSISTANT CAMERAMAN: Twilight auditions, forest scene, take one.
DIRECTOR CATHERINE HARDWICKE: Roll camera ... and ... action!
CATHERINE: Your cold blood cannot be worked into a fever. Your veins are full of ice water, but mine are boiling, and the sight of such chilliness makes them ....
HARDWICKE: Cut! Bella, the line is "Your skin is pale white and ice cold." Let's try it again.
2ND A.C.: Twilight auditions, forest scene, take two.
HARDWICKE: Rolling ... and ... action!
CATHERINE: Wilderness of furze and whinstone—your bliss lies, like Satan's, in inflicting misery!
HEATHCLIFF: (to HARDWICKE) This lamb of yours threatens like a bull! It is in danger of splitting its skull against my knuckles.
HARDWICKE: Cut. Okay, that was, you know. Messed up. Catherine, Edward's the one whose speech is supposed to sound like it's from a different time. Heathcliff, the lamb stuff was good, and you've got the whole I'm-fighting-the-bloodlust thing going. But can you give me a little more tenderness?
CATHERINE: He's not a rough diamond, a pearl-containing oyster of a rustic. He's a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man. An unreclaimed creature, without refinement, without cultivation ....
HARDWICKE: Wait—have you even read Twilight? Because the wolf thing is way more important in New Moon. Plus it's Jacob who ....
CATHERINE: (to Heathcliff) Your presence is a moral poison that would contaminate the most virtuous!
HEATHCLIFF: (stepping toward Catherine) Nay, you'll not drive me off again, Cathy.
HARDWICKE: Okay. Wow. That was kind of erotic in a weird way. I like the direction this is going in. Let's try some more lines. Edward, you know that Bella's figured out you're a vampire. You want to make her say it. From behind, you lean in close to her ear and deliver the line, "Say it. Out loud." Bella, your line is "Vampire." Are we ready people?
2ND A.C.: Twilight auditions, forest scene, take three.
HARDWICKE: And ... action!
HEATHCLIFF: Say it. Out loud. I'm in hell till you do.
CATHERINE: Villain, black, most foul!
HARDWICKE: Cut. Um, Cathy? The line is "Vampire?" That's it, just the one word. Cliff, am not loving the ad-lib so much.
2ND A.C.: Forest scene, take four.
HARDWICKE: And ... action.
HEATHCLIFF: I've fought through a bitter life since I last heard you say it. Out loud.
CATHERINE: Vulgar ruffian! Vile fiend!
HARDWICKE: Cut. Cath. Just say "Vampire," okay.
2ND A.C.: Forest scene, take five.
HARDWICKE: Action.
CATHERINE: Vindictive blackguard! A half-civilized ferocity lurks yet in your depressed brows, your eyes full of black fire.
HEATHCLIFF: Say it. Out loud.
HARDWICKE: Cut! Okay. Maybe we should talk about the emotions we're experiencing here. Only I'm not going to mention an emotion. I'm not going to say, "are we feeling angry or frustrated" or "who are these people killing my buzz." You're going to have to tell me what emotions we're dealing with here.
CATHERINE: Vicious fiend! They may bury me twelve feet deep, and throw the church down over me, but I won't rest till you are with me. I never will!
HEATHCLIFF: (stepping closer to her) Say it out loud.
CATHERINE: Venomous monster! If I cannot keep you for my friend—if Edgar will be mean and jealous—I'll try to break your hearts by breaking my own. That will be a prompt way of finishing all, when I am pushed to extremity!
HEATHCLIFF: (grabs Catherine by upper arms, shakes her) I'll crush Edgar's ribs in like a rotten hazelnut! The slavering, shivering thing you preferred to me....
CATHERINE: Vitriolic brute, thou wilt yet force me to bare my soul! You shall never know how I love thee; and that, not because you are handsome, but because you are more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, yours and mine are the same. (Pauses, panting.)
HEATHCLIFF: Say it out loud!
CATHERINE: Nelly, I am Heathcliff!
[Catherine rips open her bodice, throws herself at Heathcliff. They fall to floor, making out.]
HARDWICKE: Who the fuck is Nelly?
[Second Assistant Cameraman fumbles with clipboard.]
HARDWICKE: Get Bobby and Kristen on the phone. They're in. And tell Summit if they plan to do a sequel, no way in hell am I directing.
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RELATED MATERIAL:
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By Marty Sems, Nathan Chandler, Cal Clinchard, and Amy Cassner-Sems (11/10/04)
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By Ned Morgan (06/05/01)
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OTHER McSWEENEY'S FEATURES:
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Catherine and Heathcliff Audition for Twilight By Jamie Quatro
Has Bell Invented the "Telegraph Killer"? By Hudson Hongo
Don't Hassle Me When I'm Looking At My Fire By Ryan Shearing
Godzilla's Food, Exercise, and Dream Diary By Kate Hahn
Campaign E-mails from the Donahue Family Pet Debate By Johnny McNulty
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