Lots of stories have been filtering in this week from people around town who have had run-ins with representatives from Drew Barrymore’s production company, Flower Films. Word is they’ve secured a house near Ypsi’s water tower, and they’re working feverishly to get it ready for the start of filming on July 28. According to the “Ann Arbor News,” they’ll be needing hundreds of extras for the film about roller derby, so, if you’re the kind of person who likes to stand around for hours and hours for very little money, just to pretend in a film that you’re doing something mundane, like eating a sandwich, this could be the chance you’ve been waiting for. Here’s a clip from the article:

… Kathy Remski, a partner with Real Style in Birmingham, said her company is looking for “thousands” of local people to fill in various roles. Real Style received a contract from Flower Films to seek out extras.

“We are looking for individuals from 18 to 50, all walks of life, from the most eccentric to punk rockers to roller derby fans to rock ‘n’ roll people,” Remski said. “We want expressive individuals. If somebody has pink hair, bring it on.”

Anyone interested should e-mail info@realstyleonline.com. Include the subject line: “Whip It Extras.”

The body of the e-mail should include the person’s picture, a contact number and a date of birth. Remski said the picture is “essential” in determining who gets a call….

Remski said the extras will be used from July 30 to Aug. 13. Casting calls will be set up in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti as early as next week.

“There are long days, but you are part of filming history,” Remski said….

Tell you what, if you’re chosen, and if you appear in the film wearing either an “Iggy Pop was from Ypsi” t-shirtor a pair of “Ypsipanties”, I’ll give you ten bucks. And, I’ll double it if you seductively mouth my name while standing in the background of a shot.

Our friend Doug Skinner, on his Ullage Group site, just posted a translation that he’s done of a French short story entitled “Houses of Flesh and Bone.” The story, written in the 1890’s by Paul Vibert, is about living inside of large animals. Here’s a clip:

…It could be relocated at will; and man would thus solve the problem of the portable house, and make himself the equal of the snail and the turtle.

Attend for a moment, and you will soon see that my plan could easily be realized. Be it understood that if I wished to travel overground, I would establish my little residence in an elephant’s stomach, where there is room, and not its belly — which would be absurd, as it is filled with interminable corridors and intestines. And I would move into the stomach of a whale, if I planned to undertake a voyage by sea.

In the latter case, I would then have a little submarine of flesh and bone, just like good old Jonah — see the Bible, page etc. — nothing could be simpler. But here the benevolent reader stops me with a triumphant and peremptory gesture, saying:

– Excuse me, but I don’t see how you would have room to live in those creatures, even snugly, particularly if you had a family, with a wife and mother-in-law, not to mention the kids.

— Don’t be impatient; for I have solved that problem, and this is precisely my point of pride. To begin with, I place my young elephant in a greenhouse-stable, or my young whale into a basin-aquarium, and submit them to the well-known effects of violet rays; and after six months, I have a pachyderm, or whale, five or six times larger than its ordinary congeners; and I therefore have in its stomach a comfortable little apartment for the entire family….

Knowing Doug, and some of what interests him, my guess is that no one prior to this had ever bothered to translate this piece, or, for that matter, any of Vibert’s work into English. I, of course, (as a closeted furry) love the idea of living inside of animals, and I also very much like the scientific theory on the properties of violet light, but what I like most is just the very fact that it exists at all, and that, thanks to the hard work of one friend in New York, millions and millions of people can read it… It’s kind of nice to think that maybe, in a hundred and twenty years, someone from another culture might stumble across one of my massive, wandering posts and take the time to translate it. (Hopefully it won’t be my post on being strangled by feet.)