May 23, 2005

Pantagruel's Poo Poo

I forgot to mention the nice review Foop! got last week from Blogcritics.org. Here's the gist of it:

“Time travel, dystopias, robots, other planets, aliens. All these archetypes of science fiction--along with cigarette-smoking monkeys--make their appearance in one fashion or another in Foop!...a satiric social commentary on a wide range of issues, including, but far from limited to, religion, the "progress" of man, and individual existence in an increasingly impersonal world. Foop! is a comedic and at times scatological look at where the Earth may be headed and why.”

That's a pretty good way to descibe the book. The review also marks the first time the whole "scatological" business came up, and I'm actually surprised it took so long (In case you don't know exactly what scatological means, see here). Actually, that's a lie. The scatology came up before the book even came out. Matt Ruff, the author of Fool on the Hill, read the Foop! galleys and declined on a blurb, saying he preferred his sci-fi comedies with more Douglas Adams and less Rabelais. Fair enough. I, however, would prefer to read a book written by the bastard son of Douglas Adams and François Rabelais, because I've already read books by each of them separately and I'm bored with them. It's time for something new.

If you don't get the connection between François Rabelais and scatological then I guess you haven't read his 5 book series, Gargantua and Pantagruel. The epic journey of Pantagruel ends with him taking a HUGE dump, which is the ultimate commentary on politics and religion, two things which the books satirize. And while Foop! doesn't end with a HUGE dump (or any dump at all), it does satirize politics and religion and there are a few mentions of pee pee. But we're all adults here, right? We're all comfortable enough with our own humanity to acknowledge that we're not Barbie dolls and that we do indeed produce a few nasty substances on a daily basis, right? Right? Hello?

Whatever. Moving on...

The audioblog auditions page was down for a few days, so if you tried to submit something and couldn't get through I apologize. The audioblogger is working now so please feel free to head on over to Foopy Voices and let me hear your best Mr. Burk, Ba Hubba, May, Martini, Malone or whoever. And if you feel like taking a huge dump over the phone and making that your audition, be my guest.

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