Writers on TV Survey: A.G. Pasquella

Our next survey respondent is the writer, publisher and super-funny human A.G. Pasquella.

Name: A.G. Pasquella

Recent work: The This & The That

How much time do you spend watching TV in a week?
Between 7-10 hours… oh God! I’m wasting my life!


How much time do you spend watching TV in a week when the new Downton Abbey/Game of Thrones/etc comes out?
Probably about the same… on average, one hour-long show per night.


How much time do you spend reading in a week?
Now that I have kids it’s down to probably about 14 hours a week or maybe even less. (Yikes!)


Do you identify as a TV binge watcher?
I’m much more of a Binge Reader than a Binge Watcher. The few times I’ve binged-watched (Sopranos Season 5, Final Season of Breaking Bad) I’ve felt so crappy afterwards that I wished I had a new head.

Do you stream shows online (legally or illegally)?
Put it this way: if Netflix had existed before I had kids, I probably never would’ve had kids.

Do you post about TV on social media (be honest)?
Heck Yes! I love gathering around the Digital Water Cooler & shooting the shit about the latest episode of whatever. There’s definitely an etiquette to talking TV online and it basically boils down to one rule: NO SPOILERS!

Favourite TV show: The Simpsons (up to about Season 10 or so)

Favourite Canadian book/short story TV adaptation:
Was Crad Kilodney’s ‘Sex Slaves of The Astro-Mutants’ ever turned into TV?

Canadian book/short story you would like to see on TV: Wrong BarNaked Lunch meets Brick.

Graphic novel that you would like to see made into a TV series: Black Hole by Charles Burns. The only person who could direct it would be David Lynch, or possibly David Cronenberg. PRODUCER: “Get me one of the Weird Daves! Doesn’t matter which one!”

TV series that could be based on a book: Don Cherry & Ron Maclean. Based on a seven hundred page Dostoevsky-style novel about a drunken loudmouth and his cowardly nephew who chooses to put up with his uncle’s shit because even though his uncle acts like an asshole, he’s still one of the most powerful men in the village so even while writhing under his uncle’s thumb the nephew still gets to meet famous people, travel to exotic lands and wear his uncle’s hand-me-down clothes.

Favourite book trailer that could work as a TV commercial:
I don’t watch a lot of book trailers. I watched one a few years back for Jessica Westhead’s ‘And Also Sharks’ that used vintage footage of hot dogs and it kind of made me hungry for hot dogs… so maybe that one could also be a commercial for hot dogs.

Are TV series the new novels?
Nope. Sopranos could’ve been a novel but it’s very, very hard for TV to approach the kind of depth a novel can achieve.

Do you ever watch TV the old-fashioned way, y'know, on the television?
Very rarely: less than once a month.

How does that feel?
Like stepping back into a bygone era. Commercials are so jarring and terrible. And why are there so many commercials for cars?



The views expressed in the Writer-in-Residence blogs are those held by the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Open Book: Toronto.