David Thayer

Wellington Leg: In a traditional opening to the Literary Faire the Forty Third Earl will be shot from a cannon organizers say. The eighteen inch guns aboard the HMS Oscar Wilde will be loaded with a special explosive designed to speed the earl some forty miles from the launch site. Last year’s salvo sank two French frigates and ignited a war with the European Union. “That was embarrassing,” acknowledged Prudentia Chalfont-Smythe Chaire of the Faire. “It resulted in this blog’s dreadful rendering of the Battle of Agincourt.”

Herself Displeased: With her Tigers scuffling the Dowager Princess is considering expelling diplomats from the State of Michigan and possibly Ohio. Her Ford Preferred Debenture with a 2030 expiry has been a major disappointment. Local broker Taft Laffer faces beheading as the yield curve steepens. “She can’t behead a discount broker,” Taft said. “Can she?”

In other news Wellington Leg may change its name to Ellington Leg in the hopes of saving money. The Pennies from Heaven stimulus package has yet to jumpstart the local economy. For example Mrs. Antonia Fraser of Boddice Ripper Lane took her penny and placed it inside a cookie jar. She called police after reporting a gang of fed governors “lurking in her garden.”

The Tower is warning residents that Swiss Guards will be collecting unspent pennies after the 15th Ultimo.  Since no one knows when that is some are rushing to spend their penny with local retailers. Eddie Parker of Eddie’s Book Nook is selling the earl’s COLLECTED WORKS for a half-penny. “Pound for pound this is literature at its finest,” Eddie said.

T. Rex Love-Handles reporting for Stimulus Now.

Great Wellington Bowling Green: Geraldo here. I’m whispering as I approach the statue of Bill Faulkner on the crest of a small hill above the bowling green. Like Robert Redford I’m tired of commercial interference with news reporting. That’s why I’m in the field to get a first hand look at Wellington Leg’s film industry at work. My cameraman is in the parking lot talking Indians baseball with my producer. I am alone out here.

From my vantage point I see the Forty Third Earl speaking with a witch. He’s leaning against the Eiffel Tower. I crawl closer through the spartina grass. Discarded industrial gears, lizard guts, the bloated husk of a rusting Chevy, closer and closer, all in the name of journalistic integrity, which, God knows, no one cares about anymore until her single yellow eye turns toward me…

Croak…croak…croak. What can it mean?

“Okay, cut. Someone get that frog off the set.”

“It’s not a frog. It’s wearing a Channel Five baseball cap.”

Croak.

“Look, it’s trying to use the computer!”

“The Eiffel Tower fell over! What next?”

“Let’s take ten. Bob, you fix the Eiffel Tower. Frederika, grab all the baseball hats. Don’t kiss that frog….”

I hear a ripping sound, smell a noxious blend of smoke and cheap perfume, my fingers are swollen, I’m at a Bread concert…

“Geraldo? Better get off the set. The Zombies are coming.”

This is what journalistic integrity feels like! I run for my life, the lede is writing itself: Production problems plague Paris set! Zombie strike is over! Witches are real! But I think she cured my writer’s block!

Geraldo reporting from On Location in Wellington Leg.

Collywood Hills: Producer Gus Triandos has greenlighted ARTIST CZARINA BLOOD FURY from local screenwriter Antonin Borzoi. “We read a treatment,” Gus said. “Then we read the first page.” By page three Gus reported being mesmerized: “Page three has a big coffee stain in the middle. And some Cossacks. Page four is blank. I’m like, of course it is.”

Author, author: As reported in the Druidical & Literary screenwriter Borzoi is a graduate of Boris’ Obedience School in Middle Wallop, an adjunct of his Famous Writers School. In exchange for good paragraphs writers are given rewards like chewy treats. “The screen writing class is limited to the first seven hundred applicants,” Boris explained. “This helps insure individual attention.”

Problems with script? Rumors are flying that the script is in trouble. “The czarina menace is not one that viewers identify with,” said script doctor Canseco. Rewrite specialist Bogarding Thatjoint is on hand just in case. “I’m writing the zombies back in,” he said. “Here comes one now.”

Zombies Walk Out: Labor problems and ongoing contract negotiations have left Zombies and management far apart. “That’s why they’re using czarinas,” said union officials. “We don’t believe it was a typo.”

Borzoi is working on Page Six of the script.  “He doesn’t really understand math so we’re calling it Page Six” The setting is St. Petersburg but the question remains whether that’s Florida or Russia. “We have a Greek Chorus of old guys with wet rags on their heads storming the Winter Palace,” said Gus. “That’s flexibility,” he added.

Borzoi was running through the park at press time and could not be interviewed. Geraldo reporting for the W! Network.

Ext. Night Wellington Leg: Voiceover: Two men approach the heavily guarded Museum where the impressionist masterpiece FAT GUYS WITH WINGS is being restored by the beautiful and mysterious Borzoi loving Hermione. Unaware of the danger outside Hermione unlocks all the doors and sends the security guards to Dunkin’ Donuts.

Ext. Night Dunkin Donuts Parking Lot: Unaware of the danger outside the guards debate their favorite breed of dog. They both like Akitas so the debate is brief.

Int. Night. Hall of Justice: the only person on duty is the Forty Third Earl. He’s typing reports but his full suit of armor makes the going tough. Hungry, and unaware of the danger outside, he clanks off in the direction of Dunkin’ Donuts.

Int. Night Hall of Justice: A sleek dog, a Borzoi, makes a few corrections to the earl’s report. He’s not sure how to spell Zombie. Maybe it’s Zomby or Tshombi. He changes the word to Czarina.

Int. Night. Museum. Hermione hears noises. A fanfare of trumpets. She turns to face a pair of armed Czarinas. she vows to defend FAT GUYS WITH WINGS with her life.

Ext. Night Patrol Car: The earl hears the distress call on his radio. He can throw his coffee away or finish it since it cost eighty nine cents. He remembers a Starbucks not far from the museum. Are they still open?

Int. Night Museum: Hermione is saved by a courageous dog, a Borzoi named Gogol. The czarinas flee as the security guards return from Dunkin Donuts. “We used to like Akitas,” one says to the camera. “Now we like Borzois.”

Ext. Night Starbucks: The drive through is closed. The Earl dons his helmet but now can’t see to drive. Gogol bounds across the parking lot, takes the wheel, leaves a lot of rubber…

Int. Day. Hall of Justice: Gogol is Dog of the Year. FAT GUYS WITH WINGS opens nationwide tour.

Thirty. Fade Out.

Wellington Leg: When I was in school I shared a locker with a kid who shall remain nameless. After gym he’d rotate his sweat socks from one foot to the other in homage to personal hygiene; two months into the school year Joey ( we’ll call him Joey) smelled like a boy rotating the same pair of socks well into the Holiday Season. Joey took criticism poorly but as his locker mate I had to break the news to him. I told him he smelled bad. He punched me. I punched him back. We were dispatched to the penal colony of detention where off duty Drivers Ed commandos read aloud from the New York Post.

Via Ed Peschel I came to Tess Gerritsen’s blog wherein Tess confesses a secret: she wants to throw in the blogging towel after admitting an honest dislike for negative reviews and the reviewers they rode in on.  Tess is a successful writer who has raised hackles before with her blunt talk about her frustrations with reviews, best seller lists, what some see as complaints from the penthouse.

Because of her blog I’m a Tess Gerritsen fan. I don’t review her books for the same reason I don’t review Lee Child, Barry Eisler, Harlan Coben or Michael Palmer. Those ships have sailed. And commercial success tends to drain risk taking, leaving the elements that guarantee sales dull and familiar.

I admire her quest for more than just sales and wish her luck with that. Many of the writers I find interesting and challenging are struggling to stay in print, get in print, or find some footing in publishing’s modern quagmire. They are the reason I review books even as common sense tells me not to.

Wellington Leg: Eddie’s Book Nook has a list of mini-reviews posted today. Eddie has his thoughts on the latest from Alex Carr ( Jenny Siler) Steven Sidor, Jose Latour, Joseph Wambaugh, Brent Ghelfi, Kjell Eriksson and Cervantes.

THE MIRROR’S EDGE by Steven Sidor: Okay, you don’t like the horror genre. You don’t like scary books. This is one of the most well written novels you’ll read this year, so get over your genre angst and go get the book.

THE PRINCE OF BAGRAM PRISON by Alex Carr. This is Jenny Siler’s second Alex Carr novel published by Mortalis a Random House imprint. Your reporter is writing a full scale review for January, but I can tell you that Eddie liked it. He spilled coffee on his shirt and still liked it.

HIDDEN IN HAVANA by Jose Latour. Reviewed in January. Great story, wonderful setting, subtle sense of fun in the prose.

VOLK’S GAME by Brent Ghelfi. Picador has a wonderful list often overlooked by Big Box Candy Mountain. Let’s find a hero in Mother Russia.

THE DEMON OF DAKAR by Kjell Eriksson. We take terrible liberties with Eriksson’s work swiping blog post titles hijacking entire Swedish cities into Wellington Leg. I use the word “we” to spread the blame around. Sometimes I wish this were a group blog.

Miguel Cervantes: this is the guy who started it all. Well, he’s back in the form of spam. There’s a Dylan song with a reference to Cervantes but I can’t think of which one it is.

Editors Note: Almost forgot HOLLYWOOD CROWS by Joseph Wambaugh. If you’re a fan this is like coming home again. I’m not crazy about the acronymic title, but this has all the elements of his best work updated in the service of youth.

Mile marker 83: Business, sports, and book writing are suspended in Wellington Leg after a team of experts determined the Towne is too busy. The ban on these activities is expected to last until August calling into question the traditional start of the Literary Faire. Swimming and bicycle riding are also proscribed in a ten page memo called “Too Busy.”

Drawn and quartered from all walks of life the panel of experts spent eleven weeks in Wellington Leg although ten of those weeks were devoted to Chinese takeout menu analysis ( CTMA). Residents grumble that the experts never formally met to discuss their findings due to scheduling conflicts. One expert, a Mr. Mango, spent his days assembling a thirty foot apple fritter that he hoped might distract the naval forces arrayed in Gastropod Alley.

Petition to the Earl: Entitled, “We’re Not that Busy” the petition was delivered to his garconniere on Pouncing Adverbs Close. Unfortunately the earl had retired to his hammock after an exhausting breakfast meeting with his advisers.

However, the Duchess, resplendent in retro flannel and an Orioles cap, noted that “she was too busy to read the busy memo, but not too busy to refer the matter to her own panel of experts puttering about in a jalopy of her own design.”

Roman forces stationed in and around Costco in Goth are exempt from the activity ban. Four legions have departed winter quarters in preparation for an invasion of western Pennsylvania. The troops have mastered the English phrase “can you dig it?” in an effort to placate restive populations.

The sacking and burning of condo complexes is also banned, experts note.

Natasha, the Consort Royal, reporting.

Wellington Leg: Instead of watching the debate last night Legians were treated to a fifteen round battle between Smoking Joe Frazier and Mohammed Ali. This time Frazier Koed the champ in the fourth round courtesy of the W! Network’s Time Warped TV. Animator Nelson Trafalgar of Brooms Akimbo Lane in Henley Hornbrook utilized a number two pencil and a box of Crayolas to recreate the fight for a select audience of aldermen, nabobs, undersheriffs, Black Watch, and cucumber heiress Lady Jane. A Howard Cosell handpuppet was stolen during the second round but a Kathie Lee Gifford handpuppet saved the day.

Invented in 1954 by a team from Wellington Poly Time Warp TV aired the Kefauver hearings into organized crime during the 2008 Super Bowl. “The show was a huge success,” noted executive producer Wilder Capshaw. “Few people knew that Murder Incorporated opened a branch in Wellington Leg.”

Next week the W! Network plans to run the Nixon-Kennedy debate. “This time Dick is going to win,” Mr. Trafalgar vowed. “I’m going to erase the sweat from his upper lip.”

Skeptics point out that dwelling in the past is not healthy for Wellington Leg or its floundering economy. Such an economy, based entirely on Flounder Futures, is bound to wobble. With the Spanish Armada blockading Gastropod Alley and the secret aid of the Dauphin things look grim for GDP growth.

Geraldo reporting for the W! Network.

Crime Beat Update: Someone has drawn a mustache on the Dauphin’s fabled visage: The Flying Squad has seized a number two pencil and cordoned off four square blocks and one triangular shaped intersection. WLPD is issuing a traffic advisory.

Wellington Leg: After a whirlwind visit from shelving consultant Sarbanes Ochsley Eddie Parker of Eddie’s Book Nook has hired sports editor Mandy Rice-Davies to restore order. “I think Sarbanes meant well,” Eddie said. “But a whole section of ‘boring books’ seems self-defeating to me.”

Mandy agrees. “I’m putting the new Wambaugh under the letter I which stands for “I like it.” She has the latest release by Daniel Judson under I for “I haven’t read it yet,” and Danielle Steele under I for “I didn’t like it.”

The Is have it: Eddie’s Book Nook now has a Bulge near the midsection of the alphabet: “Mandy has everything under “I” so I’m moving the espresso machine and the fax machine, which is really one machine, over toward the Clintonia section of the store.”

Sending Coffee Over the Airwaves: the espresso fax machine was invented in 1897 by the Ninth Earl of Watership Down. The device fell out of favor until 1964 when someone reading LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN fell sideways at a sidewalk cafe in Wellington Leg’s arty warehouse district. “An arc of coffee, much like a rainbow, flew southwest without delay or distraction into the offices of Herself, a Magistrate.”

Eddie faxes coffee along with his New Release tearsheets to subscribers in 44 countries. He recently jolted the Chinese Politburo with a Sumatra blend and the latest Richard North Patterson.

Not everyone appreciates faxed coffee. Boris Norris is a traditionalist. He faxes chocolate bars from his office on Rittenhouse Square. “I sent a Snickers to John McCain. He sent it back Fedex. It was forty three feet long,” he said.

Concetta Comedia del’Arta reporting.

Wellington Leg: There was a reference in a New York Times dispatch today describing American and Iraqi troops entering eastern Baghdad; the Mahdi Army uses carrier pigeons to communicate and the Iraqi commander asked if it was okay to shoot them. The American guy thought it was okay as long the Iraqis were pretty sure the pigeons were up to no good. As if on cue a flock or platoon of pigeons rose from the rooftops carrying their handlers’ urgent communiques.

Anyone who lives in an urban setting has mixed feelings about pigeons. They coo and rustle and flutter in buildings alcoves, on window ledges, above dark alleys and Fifth Avenue salons. Pigeons have little evident regard for humans and in return we aren’t excited by the majestic arrival of a pigeon on our red carpet; like the GIs in Baghdad we’re not sure if it’s okay to go ahead and shoot them.

There are pigeon people in every major city who keep rooftop aviaries and train the messengers who, being pigeons, are often shot at the earliest opportunity, if not literally then metaphorically. This is happening on a grand scale during the US presidential campaign as the pigeons are picked off one by one until two remain to confront one another in November. The final pigeon will fall and the survivor will become President. This person, this victor, will not be viewed as a pigeon or a lame duck until time and distance transform them into a swan or a Golden Goose. This person can give an executive order to shoot the pigeons of their choice or, with noblesse oblige, spare the pigeon whose wings flutter too close for comfort.

So, by all means, shoot the pigeons. Remember to gauge their intentions first, and once the threat assessment is complete, open fire. If the pigeon takes evasive action, then rest assured you made the right decision in the first place. If the pigeon shoots back call headquarters. Call collect. This is big news.