Has Anyone Seen the Movie Starstruck?

If you haven’t, I highly recommend it. It is, without exaggeration, the best Australian new-wave musical of 1982.

If you have seen it, you know what I mean when I say I’m about one rejection away from performing a tightrope act above the financial district at lunchtime, if that’s what it takes to get critical attention.

But it hasn’t come to that yet. I have a new ploy. Sort of an obsession, actually. The San Francisco Chronicle has a new feature in the Sunday travel section called “Just Back From.” In it, readers are urged to send in photos of themselves taken on a recent vacation, along with a few very short blurbs about various aspects of the trip, like why you went, what the best things are to do there, and what’s worth splurging on.

I’ve spent a lot of this past week spamming them with photos of myself taken all over Asia. (I hope they don’t notice I’m wearing the same sweatshirt in all of them. They might think I faked all the shots on the same day, although it would have been hard to simulate the visible wear and tear as the trip progressed.)

Anyway, I’ve submitted several, with photos of varying quality. One of the Japanese photos I like a lot. The Russian one, though….it was taken on a boat while I was on deck looking for seals in Lake Baikal. Which is ironic because I’m wearing everything I brought with me and I look a little pinniped-ish myself. I almost hope they don’t pick it but one of them has to be the weakest.

I’ll keep you posted if any of them make the cut. If this doesn’t get the Chronicle editor’s attention, well then I’ll have to start working on my balancing skills.