As yet another themed improv show approaches my thoughts once more return to the charming world of Jane Austen. We have performed Austen Found: The Undiscovered Musicals of Jane Austen numerous times in the past 3 years in climes as varied as Adelaide, Wellington and Whakatane. And on Friday we shall be daintily treading the boards again but this time in a far more hostile environment.

This time there will be Zombies.

As they said on True Blood last night “Zombies are the new Vampires” and it’s true as they seem to have slimed up everywhere. Whether is be in Zomburlesque last week in Wellington, to taking over America in the Walking Dead to enmeshed in the pages of Pride and Prejudice by Seth Grahame-Smith.

If you weren’t aware the latter is a booked penned by Mr Smith which is 85% Jane Austen’s original P&P words and 15% Zombies. This idea of his has spawned a book option and the movie is in the pre-production stages with actresses from Emma Stone to Scarlett Johansson to Natalie Portman supposedly vying to wear Elizabeth Bennett’s bonnet complete with hidden samurai sword.

Many Janeites (as Ms Austen’s rabid fanbase are called) are up in arms at this prospect BUT we thought it was freakin hilarious and decided to adapt it to the stage dahhhhlink.

And our rehearsal yesterday was hilarious but it did get me thinking.

As a Regency woman of good breeding your life was totally fucking boring. You couldn’t say things like totally fucking boring, you had to align yourself to a man in order to survive due to entailment laws based on patriarchy, you were expected to cross-stitch and accomplish yourself with other accomplishments like learning French (which is curious as they were constantly at war with them), you have to play the pianoforte even if you had no musical aptitude, you had to learn musical aptitude, blah blah blah blah blah.

You could at least show a little cleavage unlike the Victorians to come BUT if you flashed an ankle you were the world’s biggest slut, to be overly educated was frowned upon as you might show up how dumb the boys were, Balls were the only thing to really look forward to, you had to marry people you didn’t like because class meant everything and the most galling to me, you had to have a chaperone.

I mean what the fuck. A chaperone!!! As a single girl I wanted a male chaperone quite a lot, especially after a few sauvignon blancs, I would have liked to be chaperoned quite hard, but to not be able to go out alone as the independent girl I am, well that would have earned a few “totally fucking boring”s at my beleaguered Pappa as I flashed my ankles and wore Capri pants to boot.

I like to think I would have been a trail blazer for women’s rights if I had been alive 200 years ago, and yes this was ONLY 200 years ago, but who knows what stifling constraints would have suffocated me. BUT I fancy the addition of Zombies to a Regency Lady’s life complete with Oriental Training, stiletto daggers and decapitation training would have meant things were a little less boring for a while.

And I know it will be very non-boring onstage.

Austen Found: Zombie Time. 9pm, Q Loft, October 21^st. Book at www.qtheatre.co.nz

A little something from 2003.

Occupy Sesame St



Brought to you by the Letters, W T and F.

Today I discovered a magical place. A place of luxurious lace stockings, slippery Saturdays, peek a boo panties and pink-sugary candy cotton bods.

No I didn’t disappear into the Playboy Mansion high on LSD and food colouring, I discovered the Twitter feed of one little Ms Courtney Stodden.

For those in the don’t know, Stodden makes up half of a newly wedded couple in domestic bliss. The other half is Doug Hutchison. An actor who has been around a while and has starred in Lost, The X Files, The Green Mile, 24, China Beach, Diagnosis Murder... blah blah blah.

Interestingly whilst he was playing Eugene Victor Tooms in the X-Files in 1994 his now wife was doing something else entirely. She was being born. Yup Doug is 51 years old and Courtney just turned 17.

Personally I too like a younger partner. My boyfriend is younger than me and it makes for virile times. SO he's only two years younger but hey so what. Two years, thirty-five years what's the difference?

Uh the difference is that if my boyfriend proposes he doesn't have to get a letter signed from his Mummy to say he can get married (Which they happily provided, WTF). If my boyfriend wants a legal drink he doesn't have to wait 4 years. And more importantly my boyfriend is mature enough not to tweet the pure and utter dribbling rainbows of concentrated crap that this chick tweets. OK so he doesn't always hang up the bathmat BUT his Facebook feed is intelligent and doesn't use the words "joyously join me in sweet conjunction." Thankfully, or I would be joyously taking my ass in the opposite direction faster than you can say negative IQ.

It is so tempting to blame the girl for being a total bimbo when the ADULT in this equation is the man..... but it's just so easy when she writes shit like this:

"Lubricating my limber legs with a creamy lotion that electrifies my luminescent captivation, lustrously. It's Slippery Saturday! XOs! ;-)"

That's SO what I do on Saturdays too. That and look up words that start with L.

or

"Saturated within a superb Sunday as Gods love beams brightly! "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear ... " 1 John 4:18"

Yup I see her vulva bulging through her bikini pics and I immediately think of John 4:18 too.

or

"Having a mysterious Monday morning by motioning myself to magnetic sensual melodies as I prepare for a brand new beautiful day! Mmmeow! ;-)"

Arrghhh she's alliterating to the point of justified homicide and ummmm is "motioning myself" code for taking a crap?

And just one more before you go to bed...

"As the day concludes... I salaciously caress the key that seductively unlocks nothing else... but the powerful pleasure... of the night. ;-)"

Adverbs must shake and tremble when Courtney starts to write, they get a bigger workout than her abs. And I presume she means she's masturbating here? What would John 4:18 make of that!

I tell you what though, boy is it catching. I can feel her starting to take over as I am tremulously typing my titillating truisms and tenderly tweaking this treatise on the towering tidal wave of totally turgid trash this tramp turns out.

BUT as I say she is 17, she has some growing up to do if cocaine and Charlie Sheen don't get her first. The dude is the deplorably despicable dickwad who indulges his delusions in her peek a boo panties and is a dinosaur doofus who deserves derision most definitely.

OK there I have said my piece, I am off to wash my mind out so those tweets don't settle and make me any more stupider and my Alliteration Levels can return to normal.

Canadian Politician Criticized For Showing Too Much Cleavage

This from the Jezebel Blog. Best I not go into Politics then, My cleavage is likely to swallow Prince Edward Island all together.