Show Up on Time
The indefatigable dreadedcandiru2 managed to find quotes for me from the old interview with Lynn Johnston by Jan Wong, a columnist for The Globe and Mail. This is easily the least flattering interview I have seen for Lynn Johnston, and yet, I think the overall theme of this week with Mike in the book store is that, after showing Mike suffering through a book-signing, he is going to be told something which will show the benefit of Lynn Johnston’s work ethic. I quote from the interview:
"I can't believe how easy it is to be successful," says Johnston...."There are millions of people who can draw like me. They just don't show up on time!" She said as much last month to graduates at the University of Western Ontario. "My parting words were: 'Show up on time; be good at what you do; charge a fair price; be honest and be a pleasant person to work with.'"
We have seen Mike in the last week do these things for the most part, and so by the Lynn Johnston standard of success, then my guess is that Mike is going to be told that Lilliput’s is sold out of his book, or something like that; and he will be told this is the result of his effort and hard work during the book-signing.
As for the strip itself, it is a classic case of Patterson overreaction. No one says anything particularly ego-shattering to Mike, or asks him to do things which are unreasonable. At real book signings, you might have some guy show up and buy a huge pile of books, which he will then want to have all autographed, and you can tell the only reason is so that he can turn around and sell them to other people for a profit. Or you have the guy who won’t stop talking and let the next person put in their request. Mike is not facing any of that. He is facing rudeness along the lines of the rudeness Elly faced which caused her to take a bite of a phone book and yet he refers to the experience as ego-deflating.
I expect the Johnston / Patterson work ethic to rear its ugly head by the end of the week.
"I can't believe how easy it is to be successful," says Johnston...."There are millions of people who can draw like me. They just don't show up on time!" She said as much last month to graduates at the University of Western Ontario. "My parting words were: 'Show up on time; be good at what you do; charge a fair price; be honest and be a pleasant person to work with.'"
We have seen Mike in the last week do these things for the most part, and so by the Lynn Johnston standard of success, then my guess is that Mike is going to be told that Lilliput’s is sold out of his book, or something like that; and he will be told this is the result of his effort and hard work during the book-signing.
As for the strip itself, it is a classic case of Patterson overreaction. No one says anything particularly ego-shattering to Mike, or asks him to do things which are unreasonable. At real book signings, you might have some guy show up and buy a huge pile of books, which he will then want to have all autographed, and you can tell the only reason is so that he can turn around and sell them to other people for a profit. Or you have the guy who won’t stop talking and let the next person put in their request. Mike is not facing any of that. He is facing rudeness along the lines of the rudeness Elly faced which caused her to take a bite of a phone book and yet he refers to the experience as ego-deflating.
I expect the Johnston / Patterson work ethic to rear its ugly head by the end of the week.
posted by howard at 10:45 PM
12 Comments:
They don't react well at all to minor inconveniences, do they? Just like Lynn got into a roaring snit because the salad had dressing on it and the waitress didn't offer to commit suicide on the spot to make up for it, her creations scream and moan at indignities the rest of us shrug off. That being said, he's about to endure another horrid ordeal: trying to mollify the crowd because he ran out of books to sign.
Wow. I mean just--wow. I would say that interview is more than unflattering; Lynn appears to be the sterotypical "rich witch" who likes to wield power over "the little people".
Guess that explains why her characters are so unlikeable lately. The more I find out about Lynn, the harder it is to dislike Rod. Two sides to every story, but Lynn has the bully pulpit to publicize her side.
DJ
DJ
There may be another factor that fueled Lynn's animosity besides her will to lord it over the lowly; she had to compete for obeisance with the interviewer. Her arrogant comments make a lot more sense if you take them to mean 'Favoring Jan over me'.
DreadedCandiru2,
I think it is definitely to Lynn’s advantage that none of the other interviews I have seen with her involved going to a restaurant. I have known people before who are perfectly nice, but they are so picky about their food and restaurant service, they are nightmares to be around in a restaurant.
DJ,
One of the anonymous persons who have posted here from time-to-time lives in Corbeil and has said that Dr. Rod Johnston was extremely well-liked among the people in Corbeil. How he is considered now that his affair is public knowledge, I do not know.
There's something about food that brings out the worst in some people, there's no denying it. I'd say that since people's preferences are set in stone at a young age, anything out of the expected is an unwelcome and nasty surprise.
dreadedcandiru2,
Restaurant behaviour is up there with road rage, airplane behaviour, parents at youth athletics, etc. If I were Lynn Johnston, I would never agree to another meal-time interview, and as near as I can tell, she hasn't.
Having a lunch interview with Jan Wong is a requisite part of being a Canadian celebrity (which is an oxymoron - most Canadian celebrities should wear nametags). Anyone who has such an interview winds up saying or doing something they regret, but that's OK because they are Canadian celebrities so nobody ever heard of them anyway.
A real quote about the Lunch with Jan Wong interview series (from Robert Fulford, a National Post columnist) "A Jan Wong interview has all the charm of a train wreck, complete with the moaning survivors."
anonymous,
Thanks for the interesting information about Jan Wong, and it makes more sense now that Lynn Johnston came off as poorly as she did in the interview, if that’s what Jan Wong does for her interviews. Now if Lynn Johnston wanted Michael Patterson to experience a true ego-deflating experience, maybe she should arrange for him to have an interview with Jan Wong.
Given how gutless Michael is, he'd probably try to stab himself with a bread knife a few minutes in. After all, seeing how he wanted to curl up in a ball because of a series of non-events, actual hostility would doubtless make him despair of this life.
dreadedcandiru2,
Possible. However, I do remember how Mike reacted to Melville Kelpfroth’s opinion of his thinly-disguised criticism of them in print.
Howard:
I should have mentioned Ms. Wong's reputation for hostility in my post yesterday. She comes by her distrust of mythologizing honestly, having studied in China during the Cultural Revolution. Watching (and participating in) the carnage resulting from sacrificing people on the altar of an ideology tends to make people bitter and cyncial.
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