Frog flees literary gathering – Honey Morenzo blogspot
My name is Honey Morenzo and I’ve been asked to occasionally contribute to this website. I’m not getting paid for my contributions but I hope that it will give me some practice in writing stuff. If you want to read more of my blogs you’ll need to look in the Categories thingy at the bottom of this page. I’m still not sure about this regularly writing stuff lark, but then I work in publishing so that’s sort of understandable.
Roderick Organza Treadmull, my boss (I’m his Editorial Assistant) has become obsessed by Twitter recently. He keeps asking me to talk up books using the hash tag thingy (still don’t really understand it). And what does it mean when someone uses loads of @ s? He has also become extraordinarily finicky about his cappuccinos. I have to get them from an Italian deli three streets away and tell them he only wants one shot and extra foam. He demands nutmeg with his chocolate topping. He sometimes actually sits on my desk (it is fairly large) and tells me about the time when publishing was oh so much more civilised and not mainly run by conglomerates. He adored the first place he worked in. Apparently there was a wooden prosthetic leg in the corner of the office…no-one knew why it was there and didn’t bother to ask. He was an editorial assistant back then himself, but he still regularly gallivanted off to wine bars for lunch…he had to sober up pretty fast if he had to proof read indexes afterwards. Proof reading indexes is not much fun. I have to do it without the benefit to Cabernet Sauvignon.
Roderick hopes that any day now we’ll hit the big time with some hot new author…we’ve recently churned out memoirs from retired generals (long complicated indexes, fussy photo captions and long discussions re. sepia tones on jacket), some stuff about dog obedience training etc and a nice perky book about the importance of preserving frog habitats. The author was going to bring a frog to the launch only it escaped from its container in the swanky hotel foyer and was found afterwards by some amazed Americans. It had been sulking behind a Kentia Palm. “So frogs sometimes come indoors over here do they?” one of the women asked. “Like sort of geckos in hotter climes?” We didn’t have time to explain the situation because Hubert (that’s what I called him) was already hopping towards a table laden with dry Martinis. I took a picture of Hubert. ‘Frog flees literary gathering’ caused a bit of interest on Twitter especially since the accompanying link to Hubert’s photo was incorrect and featured one of the retired Generals I’d been publicising. Thank goodness the guy shuns social media.
Have been in sporadic email contact with Scott, that American poet guy I mentioned a while back…the author of an as yet unpublished book of poems called ‘The Quiet Fig’. I naturally haven’t asked him why the figs are quiet, though I’d like to. In fact I try to avoid any mention of poetic matters in our correspondence (he still has a slight hope that Roderick may take an interest in the stuff since their brief chat about a shared interest in motorbikes in Manhattan). When I told Scott about the frog fiasco he thought it was hilarious. ‘Geez Honey’ he wrote ‘What if the frog’s a pacifist?’ We’ve had long email discussions about what sort of creatures I should sneak into book launches…. ‘Snake scoffs canapes at military history luncheon’…’Wolf teaches dog obedience author manners at book launch’. He’s currently working as a PA on some American talk show.and really understands my cappuccino situation with Roderick. One of his bosses is so fussy about sushi that the list of requirements runs to an A4 page.
Tanbo, my occasional boyfriend, has just phoned. He wanted to know if I’ve done anything about getting a ‘decent’ job and have told Roderick to get his own cappuccinos. He also wanted to know if I’ve signed the petition he forwarded. It is, apparently, very worthy and important. I get so many petitions to sign I sort of lose track of them. It started off in a small virtuous way but now I sometimes feel like a member of the U.N. Tanbo has a fabulous social conscience. We marched out of a very nicely decorated cafe the other day because it didn’t stock Fairtrade coffee. We are going to a talk tonight about how to avoid wheat.
Roderick has just come in with some photocopying machine issue. He says that it says it’s out of paper when it isn’t. He seems to take it personally. I’d better go and turn the thing off and on again.
Toodlepip!
Honey
