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an author's note

Dec 31, 2010 12:08

This year, under the pseud I've used for ages for the Yuletide rare fandoms fic exchange, I wrote the following Monty Python RPF stories:

READ THIS ONE FIRST

and

We would skip this one, if we were you -- it’s more of a supporting document, really

Here follows some very extensive author notes.

How This Happened, or, Why Monty Python RPF, omg, wtf, idek
I was not going to participate in Yuletide this year. I have plenty of other projects on my plate, and this didn't need to be another one.

One day, though, someone posted up the poor wee fandoms that had someone requesting them and no one offering for them. And one of the fandoms was Monty Python.

There was no clue to whether it was the show or the troupe. But I had recently watched the documentary Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyer's Cut), and in it Terry Jones described their 1973 album The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief, which had two concentric grooves on one side "so that different material would be played depending on where the stylus was put down on the record's surface" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monty_Python_Matching_Tie_and_Handkerchief#Double_Grooves). When I saw that Monty Python was a requested fandom, I immediately thought to myself, That's the way to write a MP fic. Always changing. So I signed up for Yuletide and listed Monty Python as one of the fandoms offered.

And then, miraculously, I was totally assigned it. Yuletide goat fairy, for the win! Now all I had to do was write RPF (which I had never done) and Monty Python (which I had also never done). EASY-PEASY.

A few different ideas really influenced the creation of this project. First, of course, was Terry Jones's idea of the concentric grooves. Second: Terry Gilliam, at one point in the documentary, said that if the group every got back together, it would be hilarious if the first three shows were absolutely awful, complete rubbish, and when they'd driven away all but the most ardent of fans, they'd then show the fourth episode, and it would be brilliant, but no one would believe it. Third: The Special Edition DVD of Monty Python and the Holy Grail was filled with pleasant little Easter eggs, including (I think) starting the film with an entirely different film for about two minutes. Finally: ix_tab gave me a lot of leeway with her request, while at the same time giving me really solid starting points. It was pretty much a perfect request, and without it none of this would've been possible. :D

What Is Really Going On (In the Actual Story, Like, the Actual Sequence of Events)
I don't think I'll tell. People are coming up with perfectly good explanations all by themselves. Post-structuralism, man, all the way -- "The author's intended meaning, such as it is, is secondary to the meaning that the reader perceives."

If you're really, really want to know, though, I will answer in comments. It'll probably be disappointing, though, fair warning.

A Short List of Hints for What You Might Have Missed, If You Still Want to Find Things on Your Own

  • Did you try clicking on the scene-break lines?
  • Have you looked at the source code for all those external scenes?
  • Have you tried refreshing all those external scenes?
  • Did you ever stay on one of the pages for around a minute, just waiting?
  • Did you find the Google login and password? Did you sign into Google with it, and look at the emails and documents?
  • Have you actually read all of the "plain text" version?


A Much Longer List of the Digressions, Hidden Links, and Easter Eggs, Provided I Can Remember Them All
Do you really want to read this? Are you sure? Because it looks very boring to me like this, but on the other hand, I completely understand the wish for cheat codes and walk-throughs. If you're certain, then...

Let's start at the top of READ THIS ONE FIRST:

  • The summary reads "Anne Durham: What it is to be married to Clive." This is a reference to E.M. Forster's Maurice. In the source code of frutescent.html, there's a 200-word drabble that matches that summary.
  • The notes link to a "plain text" version of the story, called FIRST READ THIS ONE. It is not actually a faithful copy of the story; it starts changing around the time they arrive in the hotel room. This was my attempt to reconcile the alcoholism narrative of both the "base" version (READ THIS ONE FIRST) and the "unstuck" version (We would skip this one, if we were you). It's part of the way time/space is changing around Terry; this is one of the ways it could have gone, had it happened at all.
  • "But there was a sketch that needed to be written,*": The asterisk leads to waxingcats.html, which contains a video of Pong. The source code says something ominous. The "back" link takes you to the story translated into Basque.
  • "Sorry, dear, sorry!*": The asterisk leads to bellicose.html, which contains a pop quiz about Carol Cleveland's breasts. The duck is a female mallard. The "back" link goes to the "unstuck" version, which provides the answer. (Carol Cleveland has staunchly said she has, at most, appeared onscreen with pasties, so in all likelihood none of them have ever seen her nipples.) The source code discusses my inability to find a nude picture of Graham Chapman anywhere. If you stay for too long on the quiz, the page redirects to frutescent.html (frutescent, adj., having or approaching the habit or appearance of a shrub).
  • "I'm-- I'm going to Biarritz.": The link leads to the fifth scene of the "unstuck" version, the phone call as seen from the unstuck-in-time Terry.
  • I have in fact been to Biarritz. The whole thing really is painted salmon-pink, and the sunsets try valiantly to apologize for it. The beach is rocky, but long. There is a man who sells caramel ice cream in cones the length of my forearm, and I once walked the streets at midnight carrying only that ice cream cone and a piss-poor sense of self-preservation, trying to find my way back to the hotel without getting either accosted or arrested. There was also a woman in a pub with black-rimmed eyes, and she was gorgeous, and I was a moron (and underage, but that is neither here nor there).
  • "Oh, I've been doing all sorts* of things,": The asterisk leads to drollic.html, which contains a Terry Gilliam animation from Monty Python (drollic, adj., pertaining to puppet shows). The source code is snarky about the British monarchy, because I couldn't manage to get classism into the story proper. The video gets interrupted halfway through by redirecting to senticous.html (senticous, adj., prickly, thorny), which contains a vid with clips of Terry Jones and Graham Chapman. The source code for that is relevant to the "unstuck" story. The "back" link goes to the first scene of the "unstuck" version.
  • "magnanimously explaining the world to a sad Oxfordian.*": The asterisk leads to a notepad.cc page containing the userid and password for a Google account. This Google account ostensibly belongs to Terry Jones. If you sign into it, you will find three draft emails and a document, all of which pertain to the "unstuck" story.
  • "it brought the scent of watery things, and pipe smoke.": The link goes to the eleventh scene of the "unstuck" version, carrying on the discussion of Terry/Michael Palin.
  • The scene-break line between "What do you want to talk about?" and "They received a phone call at half-past three" is actually a link to glond.html (glond, n., a Awlwort. b Cowherb.). The source code recites a filthy Catullus poem. Glond is one of the sites that will change if you refresh the page -- there are three additional scenes. If you wait for too long without doing anything, the page redirects to frutescent.html. The "back" button leads to mingent.html (mingent, adj., discharging urine), which contains an animation with the lyrics of Knocking Nellie, a song I find funny. If you were to go to xtranormal's main site, where the vid exists, you'd find a tiny dialogue between Graham and Terry. Mingent's "back" link goes to scene 18 of the "unstuck" version, where Graham tells Terry that he needs to go home.
  • "why post-structuralism* wasn't actually annoying": The asterisk leads to a "Let Me Google That For You" page, perhaps cluing the reader into the idea that a post-structural reading is totally the way to go with this story.
  • "'It would be hilarious to call John up, wouldn't it?' Graham said.†": The dagger leads to the randomizer for the comic A Softer World. I can easily imagine Graham uttering the dialogue of any of those comics into the phone at two in the morning, waking up John and making everyone uneasy in the morning.
  • The scene-break line between calling up John and Terry waking again at eight A.M. is a link to frutescent.html. The source code is that Maurice drabble. Frutescent is another one of the sites that will change if you refresh the page -- again, there are three additional scenes. The "back" link goes to scene 11 of the "base" version, where Terry finds the words "Terry Jones has come unstuck in time," thereby making you miss four scenes and a video link if you're not paying attention.
  • "Terry swore he would never argue Milton* with Graham ever again": The asterisk leads to a comic from the tumblr of John Campbell, who writes Pictures for Sad Children. Like many of the outgoing links to comics or videos, this strikes me as a work that has been influenced, one way or another, by the surrealist humor of the Python gang. Love them or hate them, their work has touched a lot of stuff. On an unrelated note, Graham's comment about Milton's Paradise Lost is cribbed from one of my own papers.
  • The scene-break line between Terry getting drunk and watching stupid television and the video that pretends to be that television is yet again another link. This one leads to tortiloquy.html (tortiloquy, n., dishonest or immoral speech), wherein everyone is oxnardly drunk and Terry shows his hand a bit much. The source code mutters about carrots. The "back" link goes to scene 15 of the "unstuck" version, connecting the drunk scene to the Graham-talking-about-sex-scenes scene (before Terry clues him in).
  • The Look Around You clip is, of course, modern, and not at all television from 1974, but it strikes me as the sort of thing the Pythons would've entirely loved to do.
  • The Fowles reference is to John Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman, a book that has three endings offered to the reader by the author; the link goes to a flickr photo of the beach at Lyme Regis, an important location in the book. The Pynchon reference is to Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, a war-era book that is famous for messing around in time and space both narratively and stylistically (and I have not, in fact, finished it); the link goes to a Google Books link to one of the pages of the book, the bottom paragraph of which says something mysterious regarding homosexuality. The "unstuck in time" bit is a reference to Theodore Sturgeon's Slaughterhouse-Five, wherein the main character travels through three realities and the author steps in frequently. Finally, the Sterne reference is to Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, a nine-volume "autobiography" during which the main character never actually gets around to being born; the link goes to sparsile.html (sparsile, adj., of a star, not included in any constellation). Sparsile contains a black page, a reference to Sterne's page of mourning for the parson Yorick. The source code does something unseemly to Shakespeare. Clicking the black page leads you to 1989.html, when Terry and Alison see Graham and David in hospital before he dies. The source code says something daft about death, and if you stay too long on the page, you are brought to a "Write or Die" box, where you have 1 minute to write 10,000 words (and maybe, if you are Terry, show the dying Graham how it might have gone in Biarritz).
  • "an inventive idea of female anatomy.*": The asterisk leads to another notepad.cc page, this one giving the contents of Terry G.'s telegram. The joke therein is both juvenile and not nearly clever enough, but there you go.
  • The scene-break line between Terry describing Graham looking heroic and the voice-over narration is, once more, a link, this one going to supellectile.html (supellectile, adj., of the nature of furniture), where Graham and Terry wander the streets at night. The source code is a dialogue of frustration. The "back" link takes you to glond.html.
  • "terrible thoughts,* and gin": The asterisk leads to a Pentasmal comic that I find incredibly funny, and almost no one else does.
  • "absolute shit.": This link leads directly to mingent.html, which does not speak well for Terry's state of mind.
  • "an indeterminate meat pie": This link leads to an artful picture of cuts of beef, in French. It is therefore a cow meat pie.
  • "or slept in it all.♣": The club leads to another Pictures for Sad Children comic. Take or add your meaning as you see fit.
  • "And an ending.": This link leads to a Toothpaste for Dinner comic, which, for my purposes, is referencing back again to Pynchon. It's also another one of those surreal bits of humor that I couldn't imagine existing today without the influence of Python.
  • "END": This link leads to unstuck.html. The page has a blink tag on it, which only by a narrow margin beat out the use of the marquee tag. The source code says something snotty about liberal educations. The link goes to the beginning of the "unstuck" version.


And now, We would skip this one, if we were you -- it’s more of a supporting document, really. I'm going to skip over the majority of the "back" links, because generally they do just lead to various scenes in the "base" version. That being said:

  • The notes make reference to that Maurice story again.
  • The first "back" link takes you to unstuck.html -- very circular, man.
  • The video is the third portion of the actual Mr. Neutron sketch as aired (though presumably without the subtitles).
  • Following the scene where they eat calamari and shout down for ice cream, the "back" link takes you to thedream.html. All but one of the paragraphs switch randomly between two options, creating slightly different scenes each time you refresh. The source code somehow involves Hugh Laurie. The "back" link goes to the Google document referenced previously, that contains a snippet of text and a photo of the Pythons, where Graham and Terry are looking at one another.
  • Following the scene where Michael calls Terry J., the "back" link takes you once again to drollic.html.
  • Finally, the last line is in fact the last line of John Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman.


Acknowledgments and Credit Lines
skyfyre read all three versions of the story (what I call the base, the plain, and the unstuck) and provided excellent commentary; MP read the base version, even though she despises all things Monty Python-related, and pronounced it not terrible for persons such as herself. Lex Neva, of Second Life, was kind enough to provide web space to preserve my anonymity.

In no particular order, credit belongs to the following people (none of whom I asked permission from, and who I sincerely hope don't mind what I've done with their work):

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