MetaFilter Clickbait?

September 11, 2014 10:31 AM

Could season 2 of True Detective be based on The Crying of Lot 49? Elisabeth Moss or Rachel McAdams as Oedipa Maas?
posted by rtimmel (46 comments total)

We Await Silent Pizzolatto's Empire.
posted by Hey Dean Yeager! at 10:39 AM on September 11, 2014 [7 favorites]

Answer A: As long as it's not based on anything by DFW!

Answer B: Why can't they build it around something by DFW!
posted by Mister_A at 10:41 AM on September 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Oh... Oh... Oh... (Indecent noises: grunts and then some squishy squishy sounds followed by more grunts...)
posted by From Bklyn at 10:41 AM on September 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

Transportation conspiracies in California make me think Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, not TCOL49.

There had been a rumor that William Friedkin would direct this season. Alas!
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:42 AM on September 11, 2014

Can there just be a straight-up adaptation of tCoL49 as a miniseries?

We'd start seeing W.A.S.T.E. everywhere and those little muted trumpets I've been doodling and leaving around for the last ten-odd years could be kind of spooky for anyone who watched the show and didn't know it was a book.
posted by Tevin at 10:42 AM on September 11, 2014 [15 favorites]

Yeah, this is really hardcore speculation and seems more like wish fulfillment than anything else.

If Inherent Vice gets any real traction at the box office or with cultural cred this December, maybe we will see more TP on the screens, big and small.
posted by hippybear at 10:46 AM on September 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Honestly all I can remember from that book is that it was funny, and talked about Thurn and Taxis a lot. Guess it's time for a reread.
posted by Mister_A at 10:47 AM on September 11, 2014

This is pretty thin speculation.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:56 AM on September 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

Wasn't Crying of Lot 49 about communication (not transportation) conspiracies? Am I missing something?
posted by Eyebeams at 10:57 AM on September 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

I might watch it, if this turns out to be true.
posted by SansPoint at 10:58 AM on September 11, 2014

Shouldn't this be a FanFare Talk post?
posted by Thorzdad at 10:58 AM on September 11, 2014

This is pretty thin speculation.

Which makes it perfect for True Detective fans. And MetaFilter. We can conclude literally anything!
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:59 AM on September 11, 2014 [10 favorites]

Tevin: "Can there just be a straight-up adaptation of tCoL49 as a miniseries? "

Yes please. Then I can bore people to death with why I think the book is soooo much better than the adaptation. I mean, just because.
posted by chavenet at 11:00 AM on September 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

To be fair, it's a pretty thin book.
posted by 2bucksplus at 11:01 AM on September 11, 2014 [7 favorites]

Oh man and then if we could destroy all the copies of the book but leave traces of it scattered around and then the next generation could wonder whether or no the book actually existed and if it didn't why did someone go through such an elaborate ruse to make them think it did?
posted by Tevin at 11:02 AM on September 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Inherent Vice is going to be a movie this fall? Can't wait to bask in that 70s LA sunshine.

That's the best news all day. Splendid.
posted by notyou at 11:05 AM on September 11, 2014

hippybear: “If Inherent Vice gets any real traction at the box office or with cultural cred this December, maybe we will see more TP on the screens, big and small.”

I have spent the last twenty minutes trying to make a joke here about the discussions of coprophilia in Gravity's Rainbow but I can't quite do it
posted by koeselitz at 11:08 AM on September 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

I bet it's going to borrow from Tim Powers and his ideas of kingship and ownership of land/zeitgeist from Last Call and Drawing of the Dark. Then we can have long internet screeds about plagiarism, but Powers would just shrug from on top of his pile of On Stranger Tides money.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:10 AM on September 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Oh man and then if we could destroy all the copies of the book but leave traces of it scattered around and then the next generation could wonder whether or no the book actually existed and if it didn't why did someone go through such an elaborate ruse to make them think it did?

What, you mean like what we did with Uqbar?
posted by phooky at 11:10 AM on September 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

Uqbar? More like SUQBAR AMIRITE!?!?

TLÖN FOREVER!!
posted by Mister_A at 11:11 AM on September 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

which is set in California and is said to revolve around the investigation of a corrupt city manager who gets murdered amidst a potential groundbreaking transportation deal.

This actually sounds a lot more like Who Framed Roger Rabbit to me.
posted by Iridic at 11:11 AM on September 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY
posted by the painkiller at 11:11 AM on September 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Related:
Simpsons writer Matt Selman recently tweeted a photo of a page from a script containing some joke suggestions and line revisions handwritten by Pynchon, who was guest starring on the episode. The best part is where he crossed out the line "No wonder Homer is such a fat ass", explaining in a footnote "Sorry, guys. Homer is my role model and I can't speak ill of him."
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:14 AM on September 11, 2014 [17 favorites]

Join us for Season 9 of True Detective, in which unlikely literary sleuths Macaulay Culkin (as James Franco) and Raven-Symoné (as bell hooks) slowly, unwittingly stumble onto a creeping cheapening of great literature being conducted under the auspices of a giant television network secretly taken over by an occult demonic agency known as "Nic Pizzolatto"...
posted by RogerB at 11:57 AM on September 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

I heard Season 3 is going to be based on House of Leaves.
posted by Mister_A at 12:00 PM on September 11, 2014 [12 favorites]

Yeah, this is really hardcore speculation and seems more like wish fulfillment than anything else.

Not to mention that Lot 49 is still in copyright, so borrowing distinct elements is a little trickier than raiding Chambers and Bierce.

On the other hand, Pynchon loves TV...
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 12:12 PM on September 11, 2014

I do, genuinely, look forward to the mid-season Pizzolatto "if you think this is shallow and nonsensical, then you're really calling Pynchon shallow" meltdown. It should be Mucho Maas entertaining this time around.
posted by RogerB at 12:23 PM on September 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

He that we last as Thurn and Taxis knew,
Now recks no lord but the stiletto's Thorn,
And Tacit lies the gold once-knotted horn.
No hallowed skein of stars can ward, I trow
Who's once been set his tryst with HBO.
posted by Nerd of the North at 12:24 PM on September 11, 2014 [14 favorites]

My hope would be that it's all centered around Yoyodyne Industries and then spins off a new Buckaroo Banzai series.
posted by ursus_comiter at 12:27 PM on September 11, 2014 [7 favorites]

Hey maybe we can bring back Better Off Ted by subbing in Yoyodyne for Veridian Dynamics. All the characters are the same except we only see them communicate with each other off the clock when they've gone home and re-live the days events through their memories except we never know from whose point of view these scenes are experienced and also Phil is actually Lem.
posted by Tevin at 12:33 PM on September 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Maybe Cyberdyne, and the ascension of Skynet is basically happening in the background but no one notices. Maybe even the murder takes place on Cyberdyne's corporate campus. Maybe the victim is played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Maybe the detectives determine a machine done it.
posted by 2bucksplus at 12:39 PM on September 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Came in to admire the "wildlyspeculative" tag.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 12:46 PM on September 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

I also feel like a fanfare page for this totally non-existent tCoL49 True Detective season would be totally appropriate, even if - no especially if - it isn't real.
posted by Tevin at 12:55 PM on September 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

NERDGASM LEVEL 11 SET WARP DRIVES FOR MAXIMUM CIRCLEJERK
posted by lalochezia at 12:57 PM on September 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

RP -> NK ?
posted by lalochezia at 12:58 PM on September 11, 2014

NERDGASM LEVEL 11 SET WARP DRIVES FOR MAXIMUM CIRCLEJERK

Time to point out again that it is Star Trek canon that Yoyodyne builds starship drive systems.
posted by COBRA! at 12:59 PM on September 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

I have spent the last twenty minutes trying to make a joke here about the discussions of coprophilia in Gravity's Rainbow but I can't quite do it
posted by koeselitz at 11:08 AM on September 11 [+] [!]

It's not coprophilia, it's coprophagia, it's not a discussion, it happens, and it's no joke!

Bread that would only have floated in porcelain waters somewhere, unseen, untasted . . . [NSFW]
posted by chavenet at 1:03 PM on September 11, 2014

notyou: "Inherent Vice is going to be a movie this fall? Can't wait to bask in that 70s LA sunshine.

That's the best news all day. Splendid."

You didn't know that? Maybe you'll be glad, maybe not; it's directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.

Personally, I've been all aflutter. It is HIGHLY ANTICIPATED.
posted by Red Loop at 1:22 PM on September 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Huh. Did they run out of good books to work from?
posted by shmegegge at 1:33 PM on September 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I'm not sure where that article is getting Lot 49 from- Tristero (possibly) was a mail system, not a transportation system.

As somebody who's used a Tristero horn as his avatar on any board that allows one for like ten years, though, that would be cool...
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:28 PM on September 11, 2014

I heard that Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are going to be the leads, as newbies on the California Detective Force, and it's going to be based on The House On The Borderland, and the house is going to be a place by the beach full of surfers and hippies and everyone gets totally high all the time?
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:36 PM on September 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Maybe it will turn out to be Against the Day and run for the next 50 years.
posted by lagomorphius at 4:48 PM on September 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

...starring Maxine Tarnow, Doc Sportello, and Lew Basnight
posted by Zerowensboring at 9:09 PM on September 11, 2014

I also feel like a fanfare page for this totally non-existent tCoL49 True Detective season would be totally appropriate, even if - no especially if - it isn't real.

As seen on MetaMetaFilter.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:54 AM on September 12, 2014 [3 favorites]

my only question here is how the hell Pynchon pulled that early stuff off, from the WTF of tCoL49 to oh for example the poop-eating in Gravity's Rainbow, already mentioned

dude's is my hero, disturbing poop-eating and more disturbing Shirley Temple-inspired orgies and lovely talking dog dude.
posted by angrycat at 5:28 AM on September 12, 2014

Pynchon’s Cameo, and Other Surrealities: Paul Thomas Anderson Films ‘Inherent Vice’
posted by homunculus at 3:38 PM on September 27, 2014