Dinner Tales editing help!

[Copeland Assistant]

Hi, I'm Stewart's assistant, Melisa & I need your help. I am copyediting Stewart's book, Strange Things Happen, for the UK & US reprints. I would appreciate if readers could post any errors, inconsistencies, etc that they have found in either version of the book to compare w/my findings by the end of this week (Dec 31st)... thank you for your help & Happy New Year! (I will do my best using this thread, but please be patient, this is my first venture into the world of forums. )

[ltwoman]

Wow! I wish I could be of assistance, but I read the book back in October and I can't recall even finding a typo. I'm sure you've come to the right group of people, though. Good luck!

[Shangeris]

You lucky one!

There's one at page 260 and 261, I think: the photo's blocking is wrong; I think Jose or Horacio said that that isn't tha River Plate Stadium or that it isn't near Rio de Janeiro... I can't remember...

[ltwoman]

Melisa, see also "Stewart's OFFICIAL book thread: Spoiler" earlier in this forum. There might be some info there. And surely Dirty Martini (Kelly) will have some input (she's our resident literary expert-- and then some).

[policefan]

Hi Melisa,
on page 295 it should read "grumped out at Edmonton" instead of Calgary ; -)

[Mario]

Yeah, I sent that correction a couple of months ago. The credit for the picture on page 260 - 261 should read: "Maracana Stadium, Rio de Janeiro". As opposed to "River Plate Stadium" which is in Buenos Aires. I attended the Rio gig on Dec 08, 2007 and that's the picture displayed.

[Susan]

Hi Melisa,
You have my empathy regarding arguing with the boss about commas. All you can do is try to convince him to pick one rule and stick to it. Trouble can arise when one forgets which rule he wants to follow.

My copy of the book is on loan to an office buddy who is reading it as "lunchtime tales" but a few things stand out in my memory. These are not typos but more editorial concerns that may or may not be changeable given that the book has already been published.

1. Photo on page 106 captioned "I married up." First, I was not really sure who this is. Fiona? Sonja? I guessed Fiona because I knew Fiona is Stewart's current wife, but not all readers will have any idea and in this photo she looks a little different than she did when I saw her for about a minute at MSG last year. The caption--of course I get what the phrase means, but I thought, "wait, wasn't he married before?" It could be perceived as a bit of an indirect insult to Sonja; I know next to nothing about their relationship but I assume it's not an intentional insult.

2. There are several instances in which Stewart describes his post-gig shower. While the mental picture is certainly fun, it's repetitive. Reminds me of the scene in "Legally Blonde" when Reese Witherspoon is questioning the girl with the frizzy hair and they keep reiterating that she was in the shower at the time of the murder.

3. I strongly recommend using the serial comma as it was done so nicely in the book's title. When you decide to omit the serial comma, it is inevitable that there will be an absolute need for it somewhere and then it opens up a huge debate as i gather you have experienced as well.

Hope this is helpful! Good luck!

[Copeland Assistant]

Hi Melisa,
You have my empathy regarding arguing with the boss about commas. All you can do is try to convince him to pick one rule and stick to it. Trouble can arise when one forgets which rule he wants to follow.

My copy of the book is on loan to an office buddy who is reading it as "lunchtime tales" but a few things stand out in my memory. These are not typos but more editorial concerns that may or may not be changeable given that the book has already been published.

1. Photo on page 106 captioned "I married up." First, I was not really sure who this is. Fiona? Sonja? I guessed Fiona because I knew Fiona is Stewart's current wife, but not all readers will have any idea and in this photo she looks a little different than she did when I saw her for about a minute at MSG last year.THE FIONA PIC IS PLACED IN A CHAPTER ONLY REFERENCING FIONA (SO I THINK WE SHOULD GIVE READERS SOME CREDIT). The caption--of course I get what the phrase means, but I thought, "wait, wasn't he married before?" It could be perceived as a bit of an indirect insult to Sonja; I know next to nothing about their relationship but I assume it's not an intentional insult.
YOU ARE NOT THE FIRST TO THINK IT OR SAY IT, BUT I AM STAYING AWAY FROM THAT ONE.

2. There are several instances in which Stewart describes his post-gig shower. While the mental picture is certainly fun, it's repetitive. Reminds me of the scene in "Legally Blonde" when Reese Witherspoon is questioning the girl with the frizzy hair and they keep reiterating that she was in the shower at the time of the murder.
WHAT CAN I SAY? HE LIKES TO TALK ABOUT THE SHOWERS.

3. I strongly recommend using the serial comma as it was done so nicely in the book's title. When you decide to omit the serial comma, it is inevitable that there will be an absolute need for it somewhere and then it opens up a huge debate as i gather you have experienced as well.
UH-OH, HERE IS WHERE WE DIFFER (I AM NOT A FAN OF THE SERIAL COMMA.)

Hope this is helpful! Good luck!

THANK YOU

[njperry]

Alas, I am like Susan in that my book is on loan to a friend. (In fact the friend who gave my son the Police outfit in my avatar.)

Alas, I am unlike Susan and can't give you suggestions without it.

The only thing that comes to mind is that Stewart's assistant Melisa doesn't get enough credit in the book for her very hard and excellent work.

[Maud138]

Hi Melisa,
Good luck with that. I'm sorry I can't be of any help, since I'm no native english speaker and I don't have a literary background.

The one thing I did notice was that in the Congo-chapter the original text:
"Keep dancing And then fuck her"
"Pluck her?"
were changed in "ravish her".

But I guess the word "fuck" is not appropriate

[samburusunset]

Hi Melisa,

What a Herculean task you must have keeping SC straightened out!

Pages 106 and 172 of the US version have a random number just floating on the side of the page about halfway up.

I found a typo on my last read-through but I can't find it just now. I'll get back on that one.

I really like the little glossary of people in the back. But, I wondered if Dietmar shouldn't have been included. WE all know who Big D is, but 'people reading the disaster gig blog might be thinking, "Who's Dietmar and why is he going to string them up?"



(Oh and Susan, if Stewart wants to talk about showers, let him talk about showers!! )

[dufmanno]

I had to stifle the urge to laugh out loud when I read this because I remember thinking "he seems awfully fond of showers".

[copeland_girl5]

Hi Melisa,

This may have been mentioned in the "spoiler" thread previously referenced, but if not...

On the "Copyrighted Material" page at the beginning of the book, Andy Summer's name is spelled incorrectly for his photograph credit (one of the "m"s was left out of his name). It's about three-quarters of the way down the page..."pg 295, photograph courtesy of Andy Sumers".

Thanks for all your hard work on this project as well as keeping Stewart on track (perhaps YOU should write a book - LOL).

Happy New Year! - Laurie

[njperry]

I recall one thing. This is from memory, with my copy of the book loaned out, so it may be incorrect,.

In the listing of released music, I think that Curved Air, Live at the BBC (1996) was not included although the 2 Curved Air studio albums upon which Stewart played are listed. Since Stewart wasn't on all the tracks in Live at the BBC, it may have been a conscious decision to exclude it but he is on some of the tracks.

[luddite lady]

Okay. So maybe I am neurotic. I've got some more punctuation puffery for you. (Melisa, I posted some stuff
already in the official book thread, but I'll try to keep the rest of my droning in this editing thread.)
I was just randomly flipping through the book and found...Page 93, last paragraph..."The State Theatre...next five nights." Two principal (or are they called independent) clauses are held together without the benefit of a comma. Okay, fine. Maybe having a comma right after the number 3,100 would look a little jarring. However, in the very next sentence, the same grammatical situation gets treated to a glorious semi-colon. That's kind of overkill. I'd stick to the comma in each case.

I have all this time to be obsessive because I'm on holidays from my job as a teacher right now. It looks like I can't leave the work at work, huh?
But I'm now off for the day to see the Dead Sea Scroll exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum. Luckily for all concerned, I don't read ancient Hebrew. No fears of me trying to edit those revered texts.