#BlogIntroChallenge #4: My Favourite Post

Janie Mac, my vanity issues are not quite over and done with yet. Because today I have the opportunity heavy burden of extolling my favourite post. More self-adulation? Well, at least it is a bit more entertaining than sitting through 1350 words on “writing”. Because in order for a post to be my favourite, it has to have one main ingredient: humour. Honestly – humour is very important to me in terms of blogging. Hard to believe when coming from a German, eh 😉 ??? And so I had absolutely no difficulty settling on my favourite post. At this point in time – bearing in mind that the future holds the potential for maaaaaaany more fireworks of humourous satire (…) – it is my entirely faked and spoofed review of a non-existent avantgarde play in London: New Experimental Drama Takes West-End by Storm – “The Stage Door”

I shouldn’t say this about my own work, but it really is quite funny. And that was intended, because I was conflicted and unsure about the experience itself and therefore needed to pull the wool of satire over my readers’ eyes. Never mind that I eventually *did* write my honest appraisal of the whole SD circus. Apart from the humour I also like the slight ambiguity of the piece. Was I seriously extolling the experience? Or was I criticizing something? And if so, then who or what did I criticize? Did I dare to bRAspheme? The truth is written between the lines.

Another reason I love this post is the graphic. Illustrating posts is always half the fun for me – that’s the photographer/visual person speaking. This one was an impro, as so often. I wanted a picture of the SD on my spoof poster, but the only image of mine that contained the iconic Old Vic stage door lamp was taken from too far away across the square in front of the Old Vic. So I had to make my failing a virtue and turn the image into an artsy-fartsy design with a deliberate, artistically fuzzy look.

I really enjoy spoof-writing, probably because irony and satire allow me to distance myself from what I am doing while immersing myself up to my neck in it. It’s my antidote to the always underlying temptation of exuberantly praising RA; a tool for me to prove I am still sane. I need the critical distance. Maybe it is also my backdoor. You know, the one that I might slip out through in case someone ever cops on to me and charges me “You are overdoing it, your interest in RA is way over the top…” I’ll then turn around and be the last one who laughs “nanananananaaaanaaaaa – it was all satire, none of this is true”. But if you know me, you will read between these lines, too…