Anatomy of an Author Photo: Die Hard Trivia Book

I do try to put careful consideration into which author photo goes on which book.

My author photo for The Canadian Mounted: A Trivia Guide to Planes, Trains and Automobiles for example, was relatively easy. All I had to do was take a shot of me reading the book with a backdrop from the scene at LGA where Del Griffith (John Candy) and Neal Page (Steve Martin) first meet (at least officially).

So when I was creating my author photo for Yippee Ki-Yay Motherfucker: A Trivia Guide to Die Hard I wanted to come up with something that would "speak" to the look and feel of the original Die Hard film, if not the franchise in general.

 Here's what I did for that shot.

1) I used fake blood/paint and splotches of grime onto an undershirt

2) I purchased a Baretta brand BB gun so that I could take the same stance that John McClane (Bruce Willis) takes on several of the more popular versions of the movie poster.

3) I splashed some water onto my face to denote sweat (and even added a few post-photo beads of sweat onto my face)

4) I purchased a Toronto city-scape piece of stock art as well as stock art of explosions and had explosions at the top of the CN Tower. (I figured why not make it a more local/Canadian backdrop since the author is Canadian). I also went with an orange colorized sky like in several of the movie posters. My attempts at creating a multi-colored sky ended up distracting too much from the buildings in the background, so I opted for a single shade of orange.

5) John McClane's skull in a top-hat tattoo isn't visible in the movie posters, and is only seen in fleeting glimpses throughout the movie. But it does appear in a few of the Die Hard 2 promo images. So I added that in.

6) John McClane isn't bald until the later films in the franchise, and he never had facial hair. But I wasn't about to shave or grow back my receding hairline for the photo. And besides, I'm a huge fan of Weird Al, and he's done plenty of parodies over the years without losing that trademark Weird Al mustache.

7) I thought the photo should be framed by something and so went with bits of broken glass, to call out that "Welcome to the Party, Pal!" scene from the film.

8) And though I didn't end up in the same pose as John McClane for the more popular movie posters, I felt that this shot of me (from the out-takes seen below) at least had enough of the trepidation in my eyes to convey something similar to the look Bruce Willis was conveying.

Here are a few of the out-takes from the photo shoot I did in my home office. (I used an Android S21 propped up on my standing desk with a 5 second time delay for the shots, and a small USB ring-light and of course, a green screen tacked in to the ceiling in front of my book cases). I took perhaps a dozen shots.

Putting together an author photo for a specific book can be a lot of fun.

Are you interested in venturing any guesses as to what I'll be doing for the author photo for my 2024 release of Merry Christmas! Shitter was Full! A Trivia Guide to National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation?

The 12 Hour Walk

 

"I've been looking at The 12 Hour Walk," Liz said at the end of dinner one night. This was about a month or so ago.

She had that look in her eyes that I know so well.

I suppose I would describe it as a medley of intrigue, inquisitiveness, and wonder sprinkled with a layer of playfulness and an underlying sense of adventure.

It's one of the things I love the most about Liz. Her sense of adventure. Her openness to new experiences. The joy she takes in going with the flow and relishing in the tangential paths that can enlighten a journey.

Since we first met, I could always count on those fantastic, often unexpected moments. Those opportunities to, as the Roman poet Horace put it, allowed us to carpe diem - "pluck the day" or, as it has been translated to "seize the day."

This was one such moment.

Liz went on to describe The 12 Hour Walk. And my initial instinct was: Sounds intriguing. But why can't I just do it while listening to an audio book, or a podcast?

She explained that it was about disconnecting from the digital world. Being alone with your thoughts. Attending to the world around you. Attending to your body and what it's telling you.

"But," I insisted. "That's 12 hours that could be put to good use while I'm out exercising and getting fresh air. I could listen to an entire audio book in that time. Or perhaps two different shorter books. Get caught up on multiple podcasts I'm behind in listening to."

She slowly shook her head. I didn't get it. But she knew I would eventually come around.

I can be that way sometimes. Initially resistant to a new idea. But once I allow it to sink in, it slowly starts to dawn on me, to mix metaphors.

 

 

Graffiti from the Overview Bridge :  "Life isn't a race. Don't grow up too fast."

The idea of doing a long walk was something I loved doing. In fact, last summer I participated in something like that of my own doing. I had an unscheduled weekend afternoon on a beautiful day, where I set off from my house in mid morning, with a loose plan of just exploring some of the nature trails and walking paths in the Waterloo and Kitchener area.

On this solo journey, I was listening to an audiobook - it might have been The Nature Principle by Richard Louv, as well as a few podcasts. My walk took me Northwest through our neighborhood and along the Forwell Trail system that follows the Forwell creek and goes through a beautifully densely wooded area that, despite the sounds of traffic from the nearby parkway and other streets, might lead you to believe you were walking through a forest, then further south along the Laurel Trail, that brought me, through mostly tree-lined, natural areas, to uptown Waterloo. I then spent some time browsing and purchasing a few books at Words Worth Books, a long-time indie bookstore. Then working my way further south, along the Iron Horse Trail to Arabella Beer Park in Kitchener where I sat at the bar for about an hour, had a burger, a couple of beers, and read through one of the books I'd bought at Words Worth about a local haunted location for a book I've been researching.

Then I got back on the Iron Horse Trail and followed it further south until I took a branch of it off to Victoria Park, where there was a cultural festival going on, which I enjoyed exploring.

From there, I went into downtown Kitchener, stopped in at KW Bookstore, where I purchased a magazine and a few old Spider-Man comics.

I then made my way down Victoria Street where I walked by a pizza place (Papa Joe's) that Alexander and I had ordered pizza from a few years back, and felt hungry again. As I considered getting myself a pizza, I noticed a large homeless encampment across the street in an abandoned lot that had been in the news a lot lately.

I thought about my friend Peter who'd been living homeless in the UK on and off for years, trapped in a system that never gave him a break. So I went into Papa Joe's and ordered four different styles of large pizzas to bring over to the people there.

As I waited for the pizzas I watched from across the street as the folks living there went about their business not all that different than neighbors in any community who were socializing. I knew that bringing a little bit of food wasn't going to solve anything for them. But I felt that, at the very least, showing them a little bit of thoughtfulness was at least a step in the right direction. There's so much more for us to do. But victory is won in small steps. And one small step is showing compassion for our fellow humans.     

I then moved along Victoria to Descendants Brewery, where I had a bit of a snack and a couple more beers. Then I turned left on Lancaster and headed back in the direction of home, which was about another 30 to 40 minute walk.

This day last summer was perhaps less than six hours in total, but it was one of the most fulfilling and enlightening solo days that has continued to stick with me.

Imagining how much more powerful extending that time, and not having any auditory/digital distractions - spending the entire time in my head, appealed to me more and more the further I thought about it.

Like I said, I don't always come around to a new idea, but this one appealed to me and grew on me. Liz read the book and talked about it, and we planned on trying to make it happen sooner rather than later.

Ideally, given it was 12 hours, we wanted to do it when the sun was out so we didn't have to deal with lighting/darkness issues, and we figured doing this before the days got too hot would work well.

So, we ended up planning it for Sunday May 28th.