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Legendary director and provocateur Werner Herzog has some thoughts on the future of entertainment.

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English comedian Stephen Fry served as the narrator for the United Kingdom edition of the You Have to F***ing Eat audiobook. The animated video embedded above features Fry’s recitation.

Breaking Bad actor Bryan Cranston read the story for the American edition of this audiobook. According to an announcement on Canongate TV website, “Fyy and Cranston follow in the footsteps of celebrities including Samuel L. Jackson, Noel Fielding, Thandie Newton, and Werner Herzog, all of whom saw their recordings of Mansbach’s earlier bestseller, Go the F*ck to Sleep, rack up millions of hits.”

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Here's a 4-minute piece from the upcoming "Penguins of Madagascar" that DreamWorks Animation teased last weekend at New York Comic Con.

I met my friend Lori tonight to see the new Duran Duran concert film directed by David Lynch (one night, one showing only!). She told me that she kept getting confused this week and telling people that it was directed by Werner Herzog, which is, it turns out, really easy to construct. “Here is master vocalist Simon LeBon” and “Duranies come from near and far” and “like a volf, we are hungry.” Also, at one point, Werner’d maybe track down bitter Andy Taylor at his village pub and make him listen to anecdotes about Klaus Kinski.

It was a lot of fun. There were only 20 or so people in the theater besides us, and Lori pointed out how like junior high it felt—to be slouched in a seat eating Junior Mints with one of your friends, watching Duran Duran videos, while the rest of the world’s off doing something else.

In brief . . .

Yeah. I thought it was an Onion headline too:  Werner Herzog reads potty-mouthed bedtime audiobook.  I think that’s overseas, though.  Here in the U.S. we got someone else.

That’s a good headline.  This one’s not bad either: Children’s author ejected from plane for bad language.  Strange thing is, it says the fellow in question (a New Yorker) has a book for kids due out this August.  Can’t find any evidence of this on Amazon, though.  Hmmmmm.  Thanks to Jennifer Schultz for the link.

• Author Lisa Yee recently came to town for BEA.  While here, she met with a veritable TON of folks, including myself.  For an image of me balancing a Peep on my once massive belly, her blog is the place to be.

• I love the Twin Cities, particularly when their schools offer fun free courses for kids on making their own books.  Thanks to Monica Edinger for the link!

• She’s not particularly well-known here in the States (she’s best associated with her book, The Gruffalo, and it’s recent Best Animated Short nomination at the last Oscars) but Julia Donaldson is now the official Waterstone’s Children’s Laureate in the U.K.

• Twitter rumor: Due to a recent exchange between Neil Gaiman and Adam Rex, it sure as heck sounds like Rex has illustrated a book by Gaiman with a target audience of 2-year-olds.  I am now officially a gossip columnist, am I not?

• Love the idea.  Bad Ideas for Self Promotion.  Particularly the one concerning celebrity endorsement.  Well played, Charise Harper.  Well played, indeed.

• I love me those Boogie Woogie kids.  Best blog of kids reviewing children’s books out there.  Now they’ve done review #100 and they want to accept nominations for their next review.  More info here.

• Eliot Schrefer is a member of my children’s writing group.  Right now he’s penning a really impressive YA novel about bonobos in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  So how does one research such a book?  Go there!  Eliot has a great blog up right now that is currently following him on his trip.

• I was intending to go this awesome event fo
  9 Comments on Fusenews: Now with more Sprog, last added: 6/19/2011
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  tanita said, on 6/16/2011 1:40:00 AM
  

  I love that table! It would be such a …disturbing little conversation starter.

  I looked all over to hear Herzog reading that silly book – no luck finding it yet. I really want to hear the angst in his cultured tones; somehow Jackson just sounds like he’s going to start announcing there are snakes…

  Wee Oiseau might be more impressed with the patterns in the book if she hadn’t already deciphered the patterns in her bouncy chair, and checked out the stripes on Mama Bird’s blouse…

  mhg said, on 6/16/2011 4:35:00 AM
  

  Those widdle teenie feet and head, too cute! Love the Toss and Snap on the bad promo blog!

  Jennifer Schultz said, on 6/16/2011 6:11:00 AM
  

  “I am now officially a gossip columnist, am I not?”

  Uh oh. Does this mean we’ll start seeing Blind Items?

  Your daughter’s name is lovely-saw it mentioned in the commnents on a previous post.

  Jennifer W. said, on 6/16/2011 6:19:00 AM
  

  We love Julia Donaldson at my library! I don’t think I’ve ever read the Gruffalo, bad me, but we really like What the Ladybug Heard and Fish who cried Wolf.

  Marie Rutkoski said, on 6/16/2011 7:08:00 AM
  

  That table doesn’t look child-friendly…at first I thought the polls of those axes were, in fact, bump guards to protect little heads from corners, but no!

  Sondy said, on 6/16/2011 8:47:00 AM
  

  Ohhh! She’s so sweet and tiny! Pictures! More pictures!

  Though the coffee table picture is slightly incongruous after the Sprog picture. NOT a piece of furniture you’d probably want in a home with a baby. I’m just saying.

  Meg said, on 6/16/2011 10:19:00 AM
  

  What did mothers do before the internet was around to validate their life choices?

  Elizabeth Bird said, on 6/16/2011 1:54:00 PM
  

  Played canasta.

  Rams said, on 6/17/2011 1:02:00 PM
  

  What did people do before the Internet allowed them to be rude from a safe, anonymous distance?

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Samuel L. Jackson recorded a six-minute audiobook version of Adam Mansbach‘s profane children’s book for adults, Go the F*** to Sleep.

Currently Audible is offering the funny audiobook for free–follow this link to download. Apparently filmmaker and brilliant narrator Werner Herzog will also record an audiobook version.

Jackson explained in the narration: “I was anxious to do the audio read of this book because my agent has twins and he gave me the book and I read it and I fell out laughing. I remember all those times when I did read to my daughter when she was that age. Everybody tells you reading stories will put kids to sleep, but it never works. It didn’t in my house.”

continued…

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Earlier this week, I found myself wandering the rainwashed streets of New Orleans with U2′s “All I Want is You” playing on the soundtrack in my head. Cut to sitting at the French Quarter’s hippest bar, sipping cocktails mixed by a beautiful actress bartender. Chatting beside me was a local gallerist* and, along from him, a couple of artists he represented. In front of me was the notebook open at the final chapter of Johnny Mackintosh: Battle for Earth and a copy of Mark Kermode’s autobiography, It’s Only a Movie.

The gallerist wanted to talk science fiction, notably Iain (M.) Banks and Dr Who. We had similar views on both and I could recount the time where I accidentally got the Scottish novelist a little drunk in a bar before a book reading, buying him whisky and telling him he’d inspired my own novels. It took a little while for the bartender to fess up to being an actress (it turned out a show of hers was even on HBO when I returned to the hotel), but once the fact was divulged she was reciting Shakespearean sonnets and having me recreate a scene from Austin Powers with her. After which I could even tell her how I once worked with Mike Myers!

I know I’m incredibly lucky, but it often feels as though I’m living inside a wonderfully entertaining movie in which I’m director, screenwriter, cinematographer, location manager, head of casting and leading actor. And that’s exactly the conceit of Dr Kermode’s autobiography. It’s already the third book I’ve read this year so I figured it’s time to get busy reviewing or get busy dying. Choose life.

A damn fine bfi book I published with Jonathan Ross

Ever since I noticed there were film critics, Kermode has been my favourite. He’s risen through the ranks to be the nation’s favourite too, with regular slots on The Culture Show and a weekly movie roundup with “clearly the best broadcaster in the country (and having the awards to prove it)” Simon Mayo that’s so entertaining it’s been extended to two whole hours on a Friday afternoon. Possibly the highlight of my time as publisher at the bfi (British Film Institute) was receiving a very lovely email from Dr K. It goes without saying he wrote the bfi Modern Classic on The Exorcist, but this is also the man who made On the Edge of Blade Runner.

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By: Andrew Strong, on 11/2/2010
Blog: An Awfully Big Blog Adventure (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  Werner Herzog, Films, Add a tag

Werner Herzog's ‘Heart of Glass’ is a film that still haunts me, long after I first saw it. The actors, famously hypnotised into stilted and glazed performances, play characters struggling to rediscover the recipe for blood red glass, a secret lost when an old glassmaker dies. Without this knowledge the village economy begins to collapse. It is apocalyptic, visionary, idiosyncratic and very, very weird.

There aren't a lot of jokes in ‘Heart of Glass', but like all Herzog’s films, it is extremely funny.

One of Herzog's more recent productions is a documentary about a man who wants to commune with bears. It's a true and tragic story. The bears eat him in the end. They do, really. And then there’s the film in which Herzog eats his shoe, inspirationally titled ‘Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe’.

Herzog's films teeter between the mystical and the insane; between high art and farce.

Whenever I set out to write a book, I watch a little of ‘Heart of Glass’. I want something of that weirdness in everything I do. Ideas for books usually begin with a subtle image: a dilapidated shop, a boy on sunlit steps. I want to create half-worlds in which realities are questioned and undermined.

If my books turn out a little weird (or ‘bonkers’ as one editor put it) then all the better. I realise it gets harder and harder for publishers to accept eccentric books, but I’m not going to write something that I hate, just to please someone who probably doesn’t really want what they are asking for in the first place.

Herzog never worries about what anyone wants. He does what he likes. He has been an outsider all his life, but has produced works of incomparable beauty and strangeness.

In these difficult times it may be that many children’s writers will take stock and decide to write something mainstream; something that will sell. Instead of doing what instinct has us do, we might try and determine a gap in the market, or attempt to have a guess at what will the next big thing. We’ve had wizards and vampires, what next, wombats?

I'm lucky, I have a day job, it affords me the luxury of being able to write what I like, and if I don't get published, I don't starve. But I still want to encourage everyone to Think Like Werner Herzog, do something extreme, and do it with all the energy you can muster. Be yourself. Be weird. You already are anyway. Just admit it.

6 Comments on Think Herzog - Andrew Strong, last added: 11/4/2010

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Sue Purkiss said, on 11/3/2010 1:08:00 AM

Interesting post, Andrew. I think you're right. Who knows what the market wants, anyway? The market is full of individuals who have different likes and interests: it's not a homogenous mass. (Though that of course doesn't explain the wall-to-wall success of vampire books or any other publishing phenomenon.) Anyway - am intrigued enough to want to read one of your books!

Elaine AM Smith said, on 11/3/2010 1:53:00 AM

I think Werner Herzog whenever I see the information about The Girl with Glass Feet by Ali Shaw. I haven't read it yet, in some respects the title is enough for me ;)

Joan Lennon said, on 11/3/2010 2:21:00 AM

Permission to be weird. I just might print that out and put it on my wall!
Thanks for the post.

Sarah Taylor-Fergusson said, on 11/3/2010 7:19:00 AM

It was good to read this post this morning.

I might now open a box containing a dusty manuscript which was deemed too off the wall when it was first submitted. A few years down the line and I have a few more skills; it may be time to revisit it.

I'll try and leave the worrying about markets and sensible decisions to the politicians. If they can't predict what's coming up, or get anything right, then I know I can't.

I need to see the film, though, don't I? Thanks, Andrew, for the tip.

frances thomas said, on 11/3/2010 9:46:00 AM

Oh goodness, Heart of Glass! When I went to see this film I was two days into jet-lag that just wouldn't right itself. I'd taken a sleeping pill the night before to try to re-set my mental clock - it hadn't worked, so I decided to go to the cinema. Guess what I went to see. I was feeling about as zonked -out and disorientated as it was possible for anyone other than Keith Richards to be. Then I sat through that film.
It was beautiful - but oh dear, not the right film to see that day. I must catch it again sometime.
But, yes, Andrew, that strangeness of Herzog's is something worth thinking about and aiming for.

Andrew Strong said, on 11/4/2010 2:12:00 PM

Herzog's films can be watched again and again; the narrative isn't so chiselled as to reveal everything (some might say anything!) first time. Frances - I think you saw Heart of Glass in the most apt frame of mind: slightly dazed, half awake. And Sue, I wish my books were weirder.

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By: Jerry Beck, on 9/15/2010
Blog: Cartoon Brew (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  Animators, Werner Herzog, Sascha Ciezata, Add a tag

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By: Jerry Beck, on 9/15/2010
Blog: Cartoon Brew (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  Shorts, Werner Herzog, Sascha Ciezata, Add a tag

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By: Cat Bauer, on 9/5/2009
Blog: Venetian Cat - Venice Blog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  willem dafoe, udo kier, chloe sevigny, werner herzog, michael shannon, my son my son what have ye done, Add a tag

(Venice, Italy) It is a bit difficult to work when 99.9% of one's earthly possessions -- including one's computer -- have been locked inside one's apartment since June 10th by unknown entities who keep changing the locks, but let's give it a go, starting with the world premiere of Werner Herzog's film MY SON MY SON WHAT HAVE YE DONE, inspired by a true story. That was the Surprise Movie yesterday -- we had no idea what we were seeing until the film started, and as soon as "David Lynch Presents a Werner Herzog Film" rolled up on the screen, the industry audience burst into applause. This is the second film by Werner Herzog at the festival, the other being Bad Lieutenant, Port of Call New Orleans (which I really wanted to see but missed with all these apartment shenanigans) so Herzog is competing against himself.

At the press conference Herzog said that when Marco Mueller, the Artistic Director of the Venice Film Festival, insisted he had to have My Son My Son at the film festival as well as Bad Lieutenant, Herzog said, "If you are going to go so wild, then go ahead and take them both." Herzog said that film festivals get to be so bureaucratic after time, and then here, in Venice, you realize "all of a sudden there is this wild life out there."

So, if you are wondering why I, personally, stay and suffer through all this absolute insanity it is because despite the many and repeated efforts to impose a rigid structure upon Venice, it is not possible. They can use force, manipulation, intimidation, violence and obstruction, but Venice will never fit into a mold -- nor will she reveal her core to the undeserving. With like-minded people like Marco Mueller and Werner Herzog wandering around Venice on a regular basis, as well as the enlightened phantoms of the past, to me, it really feels like home.

From the production notes:

Inspired by true events, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is a story of ancient myth and modern madness. An aspiring actor performing in a Greek tragedy, Brad Macallam commits in reality the crime he is to enact in the play: he kills his mother.

I won't get into details about the film except to say that I thought it was wacky, wonderful and weird. I don't know Werner Herzog's work, so it reminded me a lot of David Lynch, whom I adore. According to Herzog, Lynch did not have much to do with the film except that he read the script and loved it, saying it was "really tight," and that if he were executive producer "you can probably sell the film more easily to France."

To read what is up on Wikipedia, please click here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Son,_My_Son,_What_Have_Ye_Done

FROM THE PRESS CONFERENCE

When asked if he were afraid of being typecast for playing characters with mental disorders, Michael Shannon, who stars in the film, said he was talking about the notion of sanity at dinner last night. He said you cannot prove what is sane or insane, but that we need to make a construction that allows us to share the world together. He likes to play characters that exist outside of normalcy because "normalcy is a prison." (I can relate to that:) Werner Herzog paid Shannon a huge compliment and said he has a phenomenal gift.

Herzog made a surprise announcement that he was starting his own film school starting today called, "Rogue Film School," and that he loved the name so much he was in the process of patenting it; I love it, too, being a great fan of rogues myself:)

When a journalist said that Herzog was the only one who had been able to work with Klaus Kinski, Herzog said that he did not consider Kinski a madman. Then Herzog said: "I am the only one in Venice right now who is clinically sane."

After the press conference I went up to Herzog and said, "I have lived in Venice for eleven years, and I have a medical document that states that I am clinically sane. That makes two of us:)"

More about that in the future.

Ciao from the 66th International Venice Film Festival,
Cat

Venetian Cat - Venice Blog
http://venetiancat.blogspot.com

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