TITLEOFMAGAZINE

Posts Tagged ‘crichton’

From the Archives: Crichton Latitudes

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

Crichton wasn’t as steeped in maritime history as, say, Patrick O’Brian, author of “Master and Commander” and the other Aubrey-Maturin novels, but he acquits himself well enough in describing how slower-burning fuses can be made from opossum guts, how to survive a hurricane at sea and how to sabotage Danish cannons. The precision of the historical detail helps conceal the thinness of the characterizations, as everyone in the book, from Hunter on down, is a type, not a three-dimensional individual.

-Michael Berry’s review of Pirate Latitudes

As you may know, this website’s content was originally intended to be fairly Michael Crichton-centric. In honor of the posthumous publication of the Crichton pirate novel Pirate Latitudes, I thought I’d dredge up some chum from the lies cellar of the good ship TITLE’s alternate reality Wikipedia:

Cryptic Crichton Statements:

• Immediately subsequent to the Sept. 11 attacks and for three months afterward, Crichton faxed daily press releases to the conservative periodical The National Review detailing how he would win in a “faire fieght” with Tom Wolfe. The pages included multiple clipped pictures of Taliban leader Mullah Omar from the CNN website with hand drawn glasses and the caption “T. Wolfe!” Each day included more penned-in fixes either expanding on his rationale or fixing imagined typos, eventually yielding a document of near cryptographic unreadability.

• In a Q&A at George Washington University in 2003, when asked who his favorite author was, Crichton replied “Smoke On the Water.”

• The next question was answered by silent air guitar, accompanied by a smile equal parts surprised and proud. The question was “Are you married?”

• In an interview where he details the plot of his upcoming novel about a clannish group termed the “Nickel Suns” living communally in Oklahoma, Crichton paused, staring at the slightly parted venetian blinds for an awkward three minutes before dreamily saying “You’re gonna be seeing a lot more six-fingered people after this book comes out. It won’t be… y’know. It won’t be safe to drink the water and if you have a problem with your ex-wife: forget it.”

And ohhhhhhhh it’s a double shot of Crichton-laced gibberish!

Premises/Personal Superstitions Michael Crichton Allegedly Tried to Exploit for Novels:

• The ancestors of today’s American Indians were not responsible for the massive die-off of American megafauna. No, that was scabies.
• Skin cancer is caused by charm bracelets and Corona Extra.
• Blonde-haired, blue-eyed mummies have been found in western China; Chinese mummies have been found in David Schwimmer’s yard.
• The first diesel engine was designed to run on peanut oil, threatening the interests of the robber barons (and their sinister Masonic cronies) while potentially making Southern peanut farmers indecently rich. While torching the peanut car prototype, Andrew Carnegie was alleged to have said “They’d just spend it on mudflaps and banjo-related amusements.”
• White chocolate is for pedophiles.
• Sammy Hagar is actually a genius. And invented making out.
• Michael Crichton wrote all of Spoon’s songs up through Gimme Fiction, losing them to clever hacking of Crichton’s floppy disk by “that tricky ginger frontman.”

Tags: crichton, David Schwimmer, gibberish, lies
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Origin Story: Lies about Michael Crichton

Friday, June 5th, 2009

Way back in the dark ages of 2008–a year sure to be called, henceforth, “The Fuckening”–my original designs for titleofmagazine were largely fermented cubicle thoughts merging pop science blurbs with lies about authors whose names appear in raised type on their books’ dust jackets.  I had fantasies of gently ribbing airport bookstore gods such as Dean “Groping Golden Hand” Koontz and Michael “Gigantor” Crichton into turning my life into a treeless version of The Most Dangerous Game.

But alas, Crichton’s heart gave out.  The man was 6′20″ and given to flogging the writing muscles until they squeezed out the purest extracts of commuter-ready techno-thriller and such a strain finally took its toll.  He died the undisputed king of jamming the Clif’s Notes version of modern science up a tyrannosaurus’s ass and then rolling in its cash scented excretions.  A wild ride indeed.

So instead of a running joke, I offer the following as an homage.  No one gave the ol’ literary hip check to his detractors like Michael Crichton.  Wikipedia tells a tale of political columnist, Yale graduate and Crichton critic Michael Crowley:

In his 2006 novel Next (released November 28 of that year), Crichton introduces a character named “Mick Crowley” who is a Yale graduate and a Washington D.C.-based political columnist. “Crowley” is portrayed by Crichton as a child molester with a small penis. The character is a minor one who does not appear elsewhere in the book.

Ouch.  At least he didn’t make him a Nazi needle-dicked child molester.

If I ran Wikipedia…

In Blaze, Crichton’s unpublished novel about a stripper who has a supernatural ability to predict events in fantasy baseball, Crichton introduces a character named Al Gower, a vice president from Tennessee.  “Gower” is described as a child molester with “penile botulism” who hates science fiction novels and maintains a superstitious fear of “spooks n’ hot weather ha’ints.”

- – -
Michael Crichton has a reoccuring dream where he meets Mark Twain.  In it, Twain produces a gold medal from inside his cream-colored suit coat and says “Here, this really belongs to you.”  The raised print on the medal reads, simply: “The Greatest.”

“After that, we went on to have Adventures,” Crichton said.  He added: “Make sure you capitalize ‘Adventures’ when you type that up.”  He repeated this request at the end of the interview, holding out the handshake with an insistent grip until I verbally agreed.

- – -

Michael Crichton doesn’t believe in global warming because of something Michael Jackson once told him at a secret dinner for Famous Michaels.

He has a tattoo on his ankle that says “FM”

- – -

Michael Crichton rewrote that song and that movie as “I Shot the
Sheriff, the Deputy, the Cook and His Wife (And I Winged Jeff Goldblum Too)”  There are no curse words but graphic descriptions of grave-robbing, cannibalism and organ theft.  There is also a reference to Yu-Gi-Oh cards.

The song is reported to be play over the closing credits on the
unreleased Definitive Exclusive Ultimate Edition Director’s Cut of The Great Train Robbery, pushing the film to a likely NC-17 rating.

- – -
Michael Crichton stays quiet during sex to keep higher ranking females from punishing him for having sex with the best males.

Tags: celebrity detrius, crichton, hack job, lies, origin story
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »