3 to go...

Just three more days and four more shows and the googlewhack adventure will finally come to rest. How strange to have been saying those words over and over again for so long and to so many people. Odd. The Seattle run is proving to be a fine send off for the show. While the size of the audience can vary greatly they always seem to be up for it and the show is really rattling along which is great because I'd hate for it to end on a damp squib.

There's a very nice review in The Stranger today. It'll make you proud to be British. If indeed you are British. If you're not, it'll make you wish you were. It's here.

Seattle is nice

I'm really enjoying Seattle. The second show was probably one of the best so far on this tour and really seemed to rattle along. There's a good review of the first show in the Seattle Times this morning too so it feels like we've hit the ground running.

I always like it when reviewers understand that it isn't really a show about computers and this reviewer definitely gets that. I know that the poster-quote they'll use will be, "a brilliant, humanistic tale of procrastinating, enabling, and side-splitting storytelling", but the most exciting part for me was the news that "Gorman is not inherently geeky". You see; I'm not a geek. It's official; it's in the Seattle Times. So there.

The whole review is on the reviews page.

Comparisons

There's a good review in the Chicago Tribune today which makes the theatre's unhelpful attitude all the more frustrating.

He says, "If there's a funnier, smarter piece of comedy about the Internet - then I haven't seen it" which is very nice of him, although to be fair I'm not sure that "Comedy About The Internet" is really a big genre. Then again, I don't really think the show is about the internet. However, he does add other kind words and the show is, apparently, "uproariously funny" which seems to me to be one of the best ways one's funny can be described.

I'm constantly amused, amazed and flattered by the people reviewers compare me to with this show. I know it's an attempt to explain things to an audience that doesn't know of me... but one day I'll have to compile a list because I think it makes for odd reading. This time I get "a cross of Michael Palin, Eddie Izzard, Dave Eggers and Steve Jobs", yesterday I was compared to Bill Cosby and the New York Times review way back when namechecked David Sedaris, Steve Martin, Salvador Dali and Mussolini! As usual, I've added this latest review to the reviews page.

Guardian column

I'm going to be writing a short weekly article about touring the States for the Guardian. Initially I refused to do this until they agreed to change the size and design of their paper but I'm told they have finally complied with my demands and so I've written my first piece. I think the articles will run on Saturdays and I think the first one will be in this week.

There's another good review - this time from the Akron Beacon Journal. I've added it to the reviews page. While it's a positive review it ends with something a little odd:

My only concern is this: Once the press started writing about Gorman and friends' googlewhacks, references to those particular word combinations started showing up on numerous Web sites, making their unique googlewhack status null and void. So as Gorman tells his story in his current show, how does he show the googlewhacks as single Google results on his laptop?

He may be taking creative license with his PowerPoint graphics. Or, maybe he captured the Web pages of single Google results years ago, after he and his pals found the unique word combinations and before the rest of the world knew about them.

What an odd concern to have. Surely it's obvious that the last sentence explains the situation perfectly ... in fact it's the only rational way it could have happened. The rest of the world (well, not all of them) only knew about the googlewhacks because of the show... so obviously the show existed first and that included the images. Her concern only seems to make sense if there is a way in which my story could be known by the world without me being the one who's telling it. How odd? It's hardly a chicken-and-egg style mystery is it?