To The Memory of Trim

An ode to a cat, by Matthew Flinders.

To the memory of Trim, the best and most illustrious of his Race,—the most affectionate of friends,—faithful of servants, and best of creatures.

He made the Tour of the Globe, and a voyage to Australia, which he circumnavigated; and was ever the delight and pleasure of his fellow voyagers. Returning to Europe in 1803, he was shipwrecked in the Great Equinoxial Ocean; This danger escaped, he sought refuge and assistance at the Isle of France, where he was made prisoner, contrary to the laws of Justice, of Humanity, and of French National Faith; and where, alas! he terminated his useful career by an untimely death, being devoured by the Catophagi of that island. Many a time have I beheld his little merriments with delight, and his superior intelligence with surprise: Never will his like be seen again!

Trim was born in the Southern Indian Ocean, in the year 1799, and perished as above at the Isle of France in 1804.

Peace be to his shade, and Honour to his memory.

 How lovely. RIP Trim.

 

 

 

 

Move Towards Pain

Another little ditty from Mastery.

When John Keats (1795-1821) was eight years old, his father died in a riding accident. His mother never quite got over the loss and died seven years later—essentially leaving John, his two brothers, and one sister orphaned and homeless in London. John, the eldest of the children, was taken out of school by the appointed trustee and guardian of the estate, and enrolled as an apprentice to a surgeon and apothecary—he would have to earn a living as quickly as possible, and this seemed the best career for that.

In his last few terms at school, Keats had developed a love for literature and reading. To continue his education, he would return to his school in his off hours and read as many books as he could in the library. Some time later, he had the desire to try his hand at writing poetry, but lacking any kind of instructor or literary circle he could frequent, the only way he know to teach himself to write was the read the works of all of the greatest poets of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He then wrote his own poems using the poetic form and style of the particular writer he was trying to model himself after. He had a knack for imitation, and soon he was creating verses in dozens of different styles, always tweaking them a little with his own voice.

Several years into this process, Keats came to a fateful decision—he would devote his life to writing poetry. That was his calling in life and he would find a away to make a living at it. To complete the rigorous apprenticeship he had already put himself through, he decided that what he needed was to write a very long poem, precisely 4000 lines. The poem would revolve around the ancient Greek myth of Endymion. “Endymion,” he wrote a friend, “will be a test, a trial of my Powers of Imagination and chiefly of my invention …—by which I must make 4000 lines of some circumstances and fill them with Poetry.” He gave himself a rather impossible deadline—seven months—and a task of writing fifty lines a day, until he had a rough draft.

Three quarters of the way through, he came to thoroughly hate the poem he was writing. He would not quit, however, willing his way to the end, meeting the deadline he had set. What he did not like about Endymion was the flowery language, the over-writing. But it was only by means of this exercise that he could discover what worked for him. “In Endymion,” he later wrote, “I leaped headlong into the Sea and thereby became better acquainted with the Soundings, the quicksands and the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore and … took tea and comfortable advice.”

In the aftermath of writing what he considered to be a mediocre poem, Keats took stock of all of the invaluable lessons he had learned. Never again would he suffer from writer’s block—he had trained himself to write past any obstacle. He had acquired now the habit of writing quickly, with intensity and focus—concentrating his work in a few hours. He could revise with equal speed. He had learned how to criticize himself and his overly romantic tendencies. He could look at his own work with a cold eye. He had learned that it was in the actual writing of the poem that the best ideas would often come to him, and that he had to boldly keep writing or he would miss such discoveries. Most important of all, as a counterexample of Endymion, he had hit upon a style that suited him—language as compact and dense with imagery as possible, with not a single wasted line.

With these lessons in hand, in the years 1818 to 1819, before he became gravely ill, Keats would produce some of the most memorable poems in the English language, including all of his greatest odes. This added up to perhaps the most productive two years of writing in the history of Western literature—all of it set up by the rigorous self-apprenticeship he had put himself through.

***

By nature, we humans shirk from anything that seems possibly painful or overtly difficult. We bring this natural tendency to our practice of any skill. Once we grow adept at some aspect of this skill, generally one that comes more easily to us, we prefer to practice this element over and over. Our skill becomes lopsided as we avoid our weaknesses. Knowing that in our practice we can let down our guard, since we are not being watched or under pressure to perform, we bring to this a kind of dispersed attention. We tend to also be quite conventional in our practice routines. We generally follow what others have done, performing the accepted exercises for those skills.

This is the path of amateurs. To attain mastery, you must adopt what we shall call Resistance of Practice. The principle is simple—you go in the opposite direction of all of your natural tendencies when it comes to practice. First you resist the temptation to be nice to yourself. You become your own worst critic; you see your work as if through the eyes of others. You recognize your weaknesses, precisely the elements you are not good at. Those are the aspects you give precedence to in your practice. You find a kind of perverse pleasure in moving past the pain this might bring. Second, you resist the lure of easing up on your focus. You train yourself to concentrate in practice with double the intensity, as if it were the real thing times two. In devising your own routines, you become as creative as possible. You invent exercises that work upon your weaknesses. You give yourself arbitrary deadlines to meet certain standards, constantly pushing yourself past perceived limits. In this way, you develop your own standards for excellence, generally higher than those of others.

In the end, your five hours of intense, focused work are the equivalent of ten for most people. Soon enough you will see the results of such practice, and others will marvel at the apparent ease in which you accomplish your deeds.

Double Toil and Trouble

We walked out of the meeting to hold one of our own, those impromptu get-together for those who want to continue talking because they felt they didn’t get enough of it during the meeting itself or to gossip about the people from the meeting.

As usual, it was “held” in the hallway as the other meeting attendees filed past us while shooting various looks ranging from barbed, squinty ones to tired, “I can’t believe these jerks still want to talk more”.

I don’t know why I wanted to take part, but one of the guys I knew and sort of liked had decided to stop and talk so I did, too. Stupid, I should have said my see-you-laters and been on my way.

After some preliminaries, which went as well as can be expected among friends, the we bit through the hard shell and got to the soft, chewy nougat center: when was friend and co going to be able to migrate their agency into the consolidated environment?

“Our environment is so complex, it’ll take us three years,” Friend Guy said.

“Three years?!” I cried incredulously.

“Oh yes. We’ve got all sorts of applications and we’re going to have the vendors come back in to reconfigure them. In addition, there are Solaris servers that cannot be migrated …” he droned on.

Given what I knew about Friend Guy, he was a batty combination of technician who knew just enough to understand the generalities of the technology we used but not enough to prevent a drowning death. In other words, he was a Windows systems administrator.

I had usually just shrugged the old shoulders and moved the subject on to other, safer topics. You see, Friend Guy is a loud son-of-a-bitch with a God-granted baritone that could stop a charging rhino. He epitomized the adage about the man with the microphone always wins, only he needed no microphone.

Today however, I decided to dust off my SCUBA equipment and go for a deep dive. Like an alligator who latches on to the leg of the wildebeest and drags it down in the water, log-rolling all the way, I’d gotten tired of the bluster and wanted to hear that dying gurgle.

“I doubt it would take 3 years, Friend Guy. I mean, we aren’t talking about the Wizarding World of Harry Potter here. This is tried-and-true stuff. The protocols we use for authentication are all well-known; and besides …” I started.

“No, no, man. You have no idea, it’s very complex.” He bellowed.

“No, it’s not,” I asserted. “This is the same thing Tax said when they were initially migrating. As it turned out, it took us less than two months to get them on board. They, too, had originally thought it would take years.”

No way was I going to let go of my grip on that yummy wildebeest leg. Doubling down, I dove deeper.

“Here’s the thing, it’s all standardized protocols that we know about and unless you guys are doing something completely untoward, we can handle. And by untoward, I mean Banyan Vines, or some shit like that.”

“No, but we’re using SAMBA” he said, still bellowing although the strong wind had died down to a stiff breeze.

“SAMBA is still a protocol we understand how use, Friend Guy. It’s not that complex.” I plod on, determined to persevere.

“Yeah, but on Solaris?”

A glint had appeared in his eye, the kind of glint a man who was about to put the sword to the neck of a vanquished enemy in the arena would have in his eye. A smile began to break the edges of his lips as they prepared to form a smirk.

“Solaris? Please. You forget I was a UNIX administrator before I started working here, right? In fact, by using SAMBA on Solaris, you’re actually reducing the security of your Active Directory.” I said as I trained my alligator eyes on his panicked wildebeest eyes.

I continued.

“By the way, who told you it would take three years? The vendors? Because you know that vendors would love nothing more than to drag out the so-called reconfiguration so they can charge you heaven and earth for shit that’s easy to do.”

“No, it wasn’t the vendors. It was my boss,” he said, with a little less enthusiasm.

“Your boss?”

“Yeah.”

“Is your boss a programmer?”

“No, he’s been in IT for a long time and has done a lot of these kinds of migrations and he knows how they …”

Oh now, this was too much. What an  utterly ridiculous thing to say and, being in the no-nonsense river of death, I decided to apply the coup de grâce.

“Oh come on, that’s a fallacy, Friend Guy. Just because someone’s been in IT a long time doesn’t mean he knows anything about this particular migra—” I began.

“OH, AND  YOU THINK YOU KNOW EVERYTHING! PLEASE. I’M OUTTA HERE.”

Caught flat-footed for a second, it dawned on me he was attempting the old Ninja vanishing trick, only it wasn’t with smoke bombs, but the blistering hot air of bluster.

“Oh no,” I thought, “you’re not getting away that easy.”

“Are you running away?” I said to his retreating back, raising and holding a plastered smile on my face.

He turned back for a split second and shot me a look that told me he was no longer Friend Guy, just Guy and continued shuffling away in a cloud of more bluster.

Oh well, you win some, you win some.

Do They Care It’s Christmas?

The black and white television started glowing after the click of its on knob was turned. Shadowy figures of white people started filling in the screen as the generator 15 feet away filled the air with a fetid cocktail of noxious gases and a steady ‘k-k-k-k-k-k-k’ sound.

My stomach was empty and had been for the last three days, but these few minutes of watching TV was the highlight of my day and took my mind off the gnawing hunger in my distended Kwashiorkor ravaged belly.  The flies buzzing about looked quite succulent, feeding as they were on the generalized human misery and waste in our refugee camp. We were too weak to chase these insect fighter jets though so we allowed them free access to the numerous sores on our faces, arms, and legs, a privilege they undertook with not a little gusto.

My mother had died a few days ago and I didn’t care. I didn’t know who my father was, although I remembered a man with a very large gun who would stop into the hut where my seven brothers and sisters eked out an existence in the place I’d been told was Ethiopia. He would always bring food and other gifts for my mother, but he would leave again after one night. I think he was my father. Nine months after every night, my mother gave birth to another one of my brothers and sisters.

But she was dead and along with her, two of my sisters and one of my brothers. Never mind that now, tonight I was going to watch the UN-provided TV that brought shows from far away places for us to watch as long as there was fuel in the generator. Children from all over the camp would be allowed to sit near the TV in a rare show of courtesy by the emaciated Big People. Normally they treated the children like slower flies, swatting at us as we wandered the camp and throwing stones and evil words at us. I think the White People whose TV it was made the adults behave a bit better, but I can’t be sure.

The White People smelled of sweat, cigarette smoke, and patchouli. They were very nice, always trying to help us. There were even some White People doctors who would arrive once in a while and treat the worst wounds on the women and children, but they would leave again just as suddenly as they showed up, like Angels returning home to heaven. The wounds would get pretty bad again within a day or two so people soon stopped going to see the White People doctors when they showed up. They either lived with the pus, odor and the ever-present flies or would pack the sores over with mud if the flies got unbearable. Every so often, the legs would have to be cut off and more often lately, the people just died and their bodies were taken away. That seemed to clear the air for a bit afterwards.

The White People’s TV could only run once a week, because of the scarcity of gasoline for the generator but tonight was the designated TV-watching night! I looked around me and saw a mass of coal black children, men and women. Slack-jawed and listless, the only sign of life was the light in their eyes reflected back from the TV in the inky night. As long as there’s life, there’s hope is what I’ve heard people in our camp say again and again, but now that people were dying at an ever faster rate, I had started to doubt whether this saying was totally true.

I was interrupted by the sound from the television set. On the flickering screen, a thin white man with wild, bushy hair led other strange-looking white people—although if I squinted, I could make out one or two other people who were black like me—in a song about Christmas. The White People later told me this was a very, very, special thing we had seen on the TV. The thin white man with wild hair was a good and wise man named Bob Geldof. The other strange white people singing to the accompaniment of bells and drums were singing to make our lives better because of Christmas. I didn’t know what Christmas was and I didn’t understand how a song about it could make our lives better, but I had long ago stopped thinking too hard about what White People did, so we all just nodded and hoped they had some grain for us coming soon, a thought which kick-started the hunger pangs afresh.

With tears in their eyes, the camp’s White People wanted to make sure we understood that Bob Geldof and the others were really going to change our situation for the better now that the whole world knew about us and what was happening to us. The listed all the people who were singing, saying these were very important singers; I kept hearing them talk about a man named Sting, but as I knew no one was stupid enough to be named for the dangerous end of a TseTse fly, I decided I had heard wrong. It seemed these White People had called their group Band Aid, and the camp’s White People looked at us with a knowing smile dancing on their faces, as if they expected us to understand what Band Aid meant. After some adults said they did not understand what the Band Aid was, the White People explained that it was something white people put on cuts and scrapes. I looked down at the two-inch wide, half-inch deep sore on my right foot and, swatting away feeding flies, tried to imagine how big a band aid would need to be to cover it.

I wondered if, now that Band Aid had sung about Christmas, we would receive a bowl of millet once a day instead of once a week. I wondered if they would send in fresh water so that I did not have to drink water from the well in the camp. I tried not to drink that water because, as if on a timer, within five minutes of taking one sip, I would have to drop the cloth around my waist and start pissing out of my anus. I tried very hard not to drink that water.

For five months we waited for Band Aid to come out of the white aeroplanes that landed on the hardened red earth two miles from the camp. I wanted to see if Bob Geldof looked anything like the wild haired, goat-looking man on the TV. I thought maybe I could ask if Sting was his real name. But after two months, I began to get a feeling they would not arrive and by month four, turned by attention elsewhere. By this time, the only food I ate were bits of raw wheat on the floor of my shanty. The wound on my foot was now covering almost my entire foot so I couldn’t run to get the millet the White People brought in and I couldn’t go see the white doctor when she came to the camp a few weeks after that.

The night I died was cold, I remembered. The hunger had settled in now and was like an ever-present companion, the puppy dog I had always wanted. That’s what I called it—my puppy dog—because it growled and growled. The wound on my foot had stopped throbbing and all at once, I got nice and warm—which was weird, I thought because it was so cold. Out in the center of the camp, the old TV must have been turned on because I heard the now-familiar “bong, bong” of the opening bars, Band Aid was about to Feed The World. Ah, what a nice song. It was the only White People’s song I had ever heard in my life and it had grown on me. Now that I could understand some of the words, they were comforting:

It's Christmas time
There's no need to be afraid
At Christmas time
We let in light and we banish shade
And in our world of plenty
We can spread a smile of joy
Throw your arms around the world
At Christmas time

Ah, such nice words from such nice people. I pushed my mother’s sleeping cloth back down, I was so warm. Then I went to sleep.

Feed the world
Feed the world
Feed the world
Let them know it's Christmas time again
Feed the world
Let them know it's Christmas time again

Men’s Plagiarist

Men’s Health magazine is one to which I used to subscribe until they started down the liberal road when, out of the blue, articles criticizing George Bush (not that there wasn’t a ton of things to criticize! I don’t like George Bush myself either) and slobbering all over The Annointed One in 2008.

Anyway, I stopped reading them for the most part, preferring to pilfer a free read at the bookstore instead because I believed them unscrupulous. Well, it turns out the managing editor David Zinczenko likes to steal his writers’ articles and pass them off as his own.

Pfft.

Adverts

Or commercials are you provincials know them. As in: almost all US adverts suck rotten eggs. Luckily, the Brits are incredibly marvelous at producing imaginative and above all, ironic commercials.

So if there are any of you ‘Ad Men’ or women reading this (fat chance, I know), allow me to point you in the direction of the Top Gear ‘Best Car Ads’. Notice the almost effortless, simple, sometimes bizarre way these commercials transfer the need and want to buy via the TV.

Also: notice with what aplomb the accompanying descriptions simply introduce then with that light touch of Englishness, for lack of a better description, snarkily tosses it your way. Now go and do likewise.

Enough jibber jabber, go forth.

Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy

The beads of sweat are forming faster than I can dispatch them. My soon-to-be one-year-old son lies limp in my arms, finally asleep as I achingly pull myself up off the couch balancing all 290 lardy pounds augmented by his 22 (and 1 ounce!) on the edge of a razor.

Any abruptness will bring the pain as red eyes force their way past closed eyelids, sending the necessary commands to the mouth via the brain: “Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.” No sir, this has got to be smoother than silk which means slow, slow, slow. And up I rise as he thankfully continues his unconscious ride and, standing, I survey the territory ahead.

A panic briefly tickles the nerves, where is that cat? The one thing that could derail this operation was nowhere to be seen. I know this because Cessna, the last of the Mohicans as I like to call her, has indeed been the cause of much discomfort in our household in re my little monkey: a well-placed swat, a belching meow, the old Dead Cat Draw where she suddenly falls in your path forcing a decision either to step on her or last-minute, find a way to change the rhythm of your footfall appropriately. These weren’t her most effective tactics however. No, that was the Thread The Needle tactic. With each step, she would, slinky-like, attempt to weave in and out of your advancing feet, all the while employing that infernal meow.

Thankfully, she was occupied somewhere else so the only other thing that could derail moving Freddie from the couch to his crib was the terrain itself: a cataclysm of strewn toys, bottles, clothes, cups, and “binkies”. A quick calculation, a wet finger extended into the air stream and I was off. Empty bottle approaching at Flight Level 350, Mach 2, sidestepped. A posse of binkies rendezvousing at 3 O’ clock, dodged no problem. Around the couch, past the Christmas Tree, enter the hallway, scan ahead, no bogeys and here comes his door.

“Uhoh,” I thought, realizing I didn’t have the use of my hands employed as they were in ye olde cradle manoeuver so if that door ahead was locked I’d be in doodoo, the deep kind. Luckily, I saw the sliver of daylight that indicated the door wasn’t locked or shut. Extending a foot, I pushed past it and entered the lair where I could just make out in the humid gloom (“this humidifier works a treat!”) the hulking mass of crib and goal.

The last and oh so finally sweet step now lay ahead: working the transfer from arm cradle to crib cradle. I heard the voice of the Wise One (AKA Mom) who had done this a million, trillion times: “it never goes the same way twice, my old Paduwan. Never!” I gulp down the fear and start forward, the yawning mouth the crib waiting to take its load, but that mattress down below seemed like it was on the other side of the Universe.

I decide speed was of the essence: if I was quick enough, I could drop him on to the mattress without arousing him but if something went wrong, I could make my escape like the Millennium Falcon did in Star Wars. I was pretty sure that tired as he was, he wouldn’t cry for long. I steeled myself, extending either foot out in the ‘Straddle the horse’ Kung Fu stance I’d learned almost two decades ago.

My upper arms flexed to take the extra gravitational pull of 22 (and 1 ounce!) in motion while my hands nimbly shifted the supine body into position. The lower back muscle infrastructure fired off to take the load as I lowered him gingerly downwards, speed just right to offset any jarring effects of the manoeuver. Monitoring his eyelids as they descended provided the feedback I needed: the little monkey was still fast asleep.

Load deposited, light blanket draped over, the slow egress operation proceeds first by taking two steps backwards while continuing the observation then a quick snap-roll to the right then big, padded steps in less than three steps through the open door.

As I turn around to grab the handle, one look tells me all is well and as I pull the door shut, I spy the black tail of The Mohican disappear into the gloom.

“Damn!”

Tie It To The Earth

This, from Jonah Goldberg’s elegy at his father’s memorial service:

Indeed, it’s one of the things which bothered him so much about overly theoretical writing in general. Often, when I would show him something wonkish I had written, he would say, “tie it to the earth more. It needs ballast. It’s floating away.”

His dad sounds like such a great guy. I hope to be such to my own little boy one day.

A Soliloquy

The feelings jumped about in a boiling mess, like Spaghetti strands in a pot and she knew she had to try—she had to try because she wanted to keep her sanity and this ugly confusion currently turning her heart into a muddy body-strewn battlefield wasn't helping.

She knew she needed to reach into that broiling confusion and try to isolate each squirming emotion to follow it to its end.  Then, she'd have to try again with the next one.  And the next one, and the next one, until she'd wrested control back from the petulant child in her chest.  The only problem was, as she stood staring in front of the bathroom mirror, she felt neither brave enough nor strong enough.  Or was it something else? 

As she looked into those brown-flecked irises she'd known from childhood, focusing first on one and then the other, she hesitated to guess at an answer, but she just knew that, cutting the bullshit, at its core, she was afraid.  Afraid of what she'd find at the end of any one of those emotional threads, afraid of the consequences.  But she had to try, she had to try because the alternative was too horrible to contemplate.

Now to be sure, she could understand the reasons she felt this way, and in fact had witnessed the very same thing in others, at times with pity but more times with a guilty mirth, like watching an old lady wearing high heels falls down off the curb.  Oh yes, she knew why she felt like this, she just didn't understand the intensity, the shoddy roughness with which her own body threw her about, the cacophony of biochemistry that her very brain mixed up and threw over her like boiling oil.

The combination of what she fervently hoped for tinged with the nagging thought that it was forbidden, corrupt or somehow unclean; these would one moment have her flying through the clouds and breaking through to the brilliant sunshine above only to have some inconsequential occurrence send her into what World War I pilots called a Graveyard Spiral.

Sometimes, when she wasn't studying the situation too closely, she enjoyed it in a perverse manner; it meant, after all, that she was alive.  "No dead thing could feel like this," she'd tell herself, a simple act that would once again bring on the soaring, the wind blowing past her ear as she once again made her way up, up through the clouds while in her mind's periphery, only too painfully aware that around the corner, in as little as a few seconds, that sinking feeling would brutally bring her reverie to a painful halt.

The good times were exquisitely good: her heart would fill and expand, doing an impressive imitation of the lungs taking a deep breath.  Nothing could go wrong now! But oh, the bad times--the crash, the pain, the intense longing.  Oh how those  were just as exquisite and just as inversely deflating as well.

"Well," she thought, steeling herself, might as well start with ...

Snow Blindness

Awoke to a one-inch dusting and yet again I think, What the hell?

To quote from one of my favorite movies (Kill Bill: Volume 2), weather forecasters are about as useful as an asshole right here [pointing to the elbow].

So out into the wild I go, shovel in hand—Got. To. Keep. The. Way. Clear! Like it was some pass high in the Urals through which General Patton's Armored Division would need to go, or something.

Obama's James

I visited Joshua James's daily dojo blog to read his take on Drama. I especially like his WHAT plus WHY equals WHO analysis of character. I even empathized with him on his love of Charles Schulz; I also am not afraid to admit I cried right along with my birthday mate (Schulz was born 11/26) on that PBS program as he realized, after all, that Charlie Brown would never kick that ball.

That pleasant bit of business over, his politics, while strenuously vocalized as Independent, are … how shall I put this? Leftist? Socialist? Progressive? Soft-pinko liberal? How about 180-degree antithetic to mine, and leave it at that?

For, you see, Joshua James is a playwright/screenwriter who lives in New York. Right, say no more, abi? It's only natural, the man's a left-wing nut. New York playwright. Left-wing nut. Bread and butter. Peanut Butter and Jelly. Barnum and Bailey. Yoko and John.

In the same proportion as I am a right-wing nut. Half-Black-Nigerian, Half-White-American, computer systems administrator, writer, chess player, fat boy. Living in Idaho. Sounds natural too, abi? Well, probably not.

To these folks I'm out of left fucking field. To wit: James comes on here, deposits a nice comment about my racism and bigotry, probably assuming I'm some whitebread Idahoan. I guess the joke's on him.

However, what gets me about James is his adamant bluster about being an “Independent.” Let's tick off just how politically “Independent” our man James actually is, let's look (using his musings) at his breezy fence-sitting:

My emotional response? Fuck the Republicans. Seriously, fuck those guys.

Don’t vote for Republicans, don’t give money to their party, don’t give money to companies who donate to the Republican Party, don’t buy products from companies who advertise on Fox News and give money to the Republican Party. If you truly believe that the Republican administration which has run this country for the past eight years has done a great job, you’re delusional and you need medical attention.

Oh boy, check out that “Independence,” flying all over the place! Duck now!

He says it's an emotional response, which I can understand. Emotionally for me, liberal Democrats are fucking mental lepers, fit only to live in cloistered colonies where they won't infect the healthy. Like New York city.

But:

Got a little emotional there again. But it’s true.

Okay, so much for that.

All this, mind, from a recalcitrant, dye-in-the-wool “Independent.” The chalk talk continues for miles in the same vein, smoothed over by silly self-recriminations about being overly emotional, excuse silly old him. After a curiously studied effort at analyzing each Democratic presidential candidate, he crawls up the rectum of one John Edwards and gets comfortable.

Reminds me of a friend from Florida, Keith—nicest gay man you'll ever meet. Who thinks he's a Republican that now hates what the Party is doing, can't find anyone to vote for, thinks the ideals of the party are no longer his. Still vehemently claims a Republican identity. But votes every time for Democratic candidates.

You know who votes for Democrats every time? Ding! That's right, they're called Democrats.

Choose whatever you want to call yourself, James, that's your right. However, when you stray into the desert of the Real (read: anywhere more than 100 miles from that cess pit, NY), be prepared to be called a batty liberal Socialist—which is what you are— self-conferred appellations aside.

That said, this right-wing nut Republican asshole still appreciates James's worms of dramatic knowledge which I will gulp, baby bird like, from his proffered Drama Mother's beak. After all, how bad can someone who loves Charles Schulz really be?

Joseph’s Coup

Writing for the screen is a weird little beast of a thing as I've come to discover. It's part technical direction, part storytelling. Above all, it's anything but easy.

As a take off on the scene I wrote about earlier, here's what several scenes from a movie idea I'm calling Mendel's Coup would look like. It probably sucks, but I expect it (and me) to.

               

              FADE IN:

              ACT ONE

                 Joe is caught then escapes.

              EXT. COURTYARD - MORNING

              If mornings could be melancholy, this one would be the poster
              child.  It is cold and a light snow falls in the slow dawn.

              The ORANGE GLOW of a cigarette brightens then dances as a
              drag is taken off it.

              The SMOKER'S LOWER FACE hasn't seen a razor in several days. 

              Another drag followed by a slow EXHALE and the cigarette
              goes back to glowing, an undulating smoke line tracing a
              tenuous, dancing path upwards.

              The face of our smoker is seen, with a shock, to have a rough-
              hewn black blindfold splayed across his eyes. 

              The man, 30s, is bound to a wooden stake, his white rag of a
              shirt and tattered black pants billow out between each turn
              of the hemp rope.

              A whitewashed brick wall fills out the space behind the stake. 
              It is pock-marked with chunks missing and crimson stains,
              like Tiger stripes, irregularly marks it.

              The smoker jerks his head sideways and spits out the
              cigarette.

              The CIGARETTE

              Hits the brown earth, throwing up a shower of sparks.

                                    SMOKER
                        I am ready.

              A man CLEARS his throat.

                                    VOICE (O.S.)
                        Ready!

              At the command, sharp metallic SOUNDS of cartridges being
              chambered and locked.  Silence.

                                    VOICE (O.S.)
                        Aim!

              Slight SHUFFLING.  The snow continues falling.

              The smoker stiffens, raises his head, his rapid breath forming
              great clouds of condensation.

                                    VOICE (O.S.)
                        Fire!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                        2.


              A fusillade of gunfire EXPLODES. 

              Bullets zip through the air and THUD into the man, tearing
              at his ropes and through those, to the flesh underneath.

              Blood ruptures from each wound.  The man's body violently
              slumps sideways against the ropes which give way.

              His dead body is bent over forwards, only the ropes around
              his legs holding the lifeless man up.

              INT. PRISON INTERROGATION ROOM - MORNING

                                    VOICE (O.S.)
                        Fire!

              Muffled GUNFIRE.

              A man sits at a wide, wooden desk and jerks at the sound. 
              This is JOSEPH MENDEL, 30s, scared and trying real hard not
              to shit himself.

              He is dressed similarly to our now-dead smoker.  His wide
              eyes skip around the room as perspiration starts falling
              again, retracing long-dried paths.

              A battered steel door behind him opens, creaking on its
              hinges.

              Joseph stiffens upright and faces straight ahead.

              FOOTSTEPS...

              A WOMAN, 20s, smartly dressed, walks around and sits across
              the table in one of two wooden chairs.

              Joseph stares, still sweating.

                                    JOSEPH
                        I...

              More FOOTSTEPS cut him off.

              The woman places a writing pad on the desk and starts undoing
              a fountain pen.

              The new arrival, a uniformed MAN, late 30s, pulls off gloves
              and a peaked cap, places them on the table.

              He sits.

                                    MAN
                        My name is Major Emmanuel Lavitz.  I
                        have to ask you some questions.
                                    (MORE)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                        3.


                                    MAN (CONT'D)
                        Answer them immediately and without
                        lying.

              He fishes out a gold cigarette case, takes one out and makes
              a show of lighting it, also with a gold lighter.

              He studies the lighter then lays it down, a cloud of blue
              smoke envelopes him.  He starts to speak, the cigarette
              dancing on his lips.

                                    LAVITZ
                             (muffled)
                        You will not live, I'm sorry.  You
                        may save your family's lives if you
                        answer truthfully.  Do you understand?

                                    JOSEPH
                             (nodding to please)
                        Yes, yes I do.
                             (beat)
                        You... you have my family?

                                    LAVITZ
                        Yes.  How many were involved?

              The woman is poised to begin writing.  Joseph blanks, looks
              at her.

                                    LAVITZ
                        Major Mendel!

              Joseph blinks.

                                    LAVITZ
                        How many?

                                    JOSEPH
                        I don't know.  I was not made aware
                        of the scale of operations.  Colonel
                        Stringer... He only...

                                    LAVITZ
                        What do you know?

                                    JOSEPH
                        My job was to take the Landers
                        regimental HQ.  I had about 70 men,
                        2 officers.  Major Strausser, Captain
                        Wiltz.  Then...

                                    LAVITZ
                        What were you supposed to do after?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                        4.


                                    JOSEPH
                        I... We were supposed to hold the HQ
                        until we received word from Colonel
                        Stringer.  It never came. ...

              The woman's SCRIBBLING sounds overtakes Joseph who is suddenly
              quiet and blank.

                                    LAVITZ
                        Yes, Major.  It never came because
                        the Colonel was dead.  Is that all
                        you know?

                                    JOSEPH
                        Yes. 
                             (sits up)
                        How come I've never met you, Major? 
                        Did you go to the Richfin Academy?

                                    LAVITZ
                             (to the woman)
                        Did you get all that?

                                    WOMAN
                        Yes, Major.

              Lavitz gets up, pushing the chair back which falls over from
              the force.  Lavitz looks behind him, leaves the chair, picks
              up his things, affixes the cap.

                                    LAVITZ
                        Thank you, Mendel.  Our time is up,
                        unless you have anything else to
                        tell me?

                                    JOSEPH
                        Yes!  I want to tell you how it
                        started.  I was approached during
                        the Azure Exercises by ...

                                    LAVITZ
                             (donning gloves;
                             extinguishes cigarette)
                        Lieutenant Grint, yes, I know. 
                        Anything else, Major?

              Joseph's face sinks.  THEY KNOW EVERYTHING!

                                    JOSEPH
                        How did you ...?

                                    LAVITZ
                        Thank you, Major.  You have been
                        cooperative.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                        5.


              Lavitz walks up to Joseph's side.  Stops, looks down.

                                    LAVITZ
                        Major Mendel, it is my duty to inform
                        you that the Supreme Armed Forces
                        Council has found you guilty of
                        treason.  You are to be executed
                        tomorrow morning.

                                    JOSEPH
                             (jumps)
                        Major, my family.

                                    LAVITZ
                        I will try ...

              Joseph sidles up to Lavitz, who stands still.  The woman
              stops writing, stands as well.  She eases a hand into her
              jacket and produces a 9mm Makarov which she lets fall by her
              side.

                                    JOSEPH
                        You said, Major ...

                                    LAVITZ
                        I will try to see they don't get
                        hurt.  Now sit down.

              He nods at the woman who puts away her pistol.  They both
              leave and BANG the steel door shut.

                                    LAVITZ (O.S.)
                        Take him back to Lagos.

              Joseph's head droops, unseeing eyes blink at the floor.

              EXT. PRISON - DAY

              A shackled Joseph is pushed into the back of a black Mercedes,
              tinted windows.  GUARDS sporting Belgian FN FAL rifles climb
              in on either side and in front.  The driver inches the car
              forward and through the manned gates.

              INT. CELL - LAGOS PRISON - DAY

              Joseph sits in a bare cell, head in hands and sweats.  There's
              nothing else to do, unless the sex lives of rats and
              cockroaches hold any interest for the condemned.  It doesn't.

              A cylinder of sunlight streams in, baking the excrement in
              the corner into a steaming pungency.  Joseph no longer
              notices.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                        6.


                                    JOSEPH
                             (eyes closed)
                        Linda...  Mary... George...  I am
                        ... sorr...

              A soul wrenching SCREAM rends the air, hotly piercing Joseph's
              catalepsy.  Terror-piss spreads in Joseph's crotch.

                                    JOSEPH
                             (bounces up)
                        Fuck!  Goddamnit, fuck!!  I'm pissing
                        myself, fuck!!

              He stands, looking down at his wet pants, disbelieving.  He
              starts to sob, then catches himself, nostrils flared.

              He sits back down, wiping his eyes.

              HIS EYES HARDEN as muscles in his jaw clench and unclench.

              INT. BAR - AFTERNOON

              A typical seedy bar, run down even on opening day.  A small
              color TV high up on a wall is turned too loud to compete
              with the shitty, deafening 60s rock music.

              At this time of day, only...

              Two MEN sit at the bar, refuse from lives lived too fast. 
              One, 60s, a lard-encrusted heartbeat away from purple-faced
              death looks up and demands:

                                    LARDASS
                        Steve-O!  What's that shit on the
                        TV?

              STEVE, 30s, the epitome of a disillusioned bar tender looks
              up at the set.

              A MAN, 50s, resplendent in his military uniform, complete
              with scrambled eyes on his epaulets, shiny brass and medals
              galore, reads from a script.

                                    STEVE
                        H'm. Dunno.

                                    LARDASS
                        Turn it up, dude.  That's the
                        president.

                                    STEVE
                        What the fuck do you care?

                                    LARDASS
                        Fuck you.  Turn it up, man!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                        7.


              Steve rolls his eyes.  What can you do about drunk assholes? 
              He turns the sound system down, the TV can finally be heard:

                                    GENERAL KILAGAN (ON TV)
                        ... I am happy to report that the
                        insurgents did not succeed.  The
                        leaders have been arrested and are
                        in the process of being tried for
                        crimes against the state.  Here is a
                        preliminary list of those arrested
                        or under investigation.

              The General ruffles through some unseen papers and begins
              reading, emotionless.

                                    GENERAL KILAGAN
                        Colonel Michael Stringer, Colonel
                        Richard Limpart, Colonel Jackson
                        Bude, Lt. Colonel Erwin Stintz, Lt.
                        Colonel Leslie Pert, Major Joseph
                        Mendel...

              At "Mendel":

              The OTHER MAN

              60s and just as grimy as Lardass, flicks his eyes up to the
              screen.  The General continues but is drowned out by:

                                    LARDASS
                        Can you believe this shit?  A coup?
                             (paroxysm of coughing)
                        Fuck me.  Hey, Tim, d'you see this
                        shit?

              Lardass pokes the other man who rotates his eyes off the
              screen and on to Lardass, head still hung over his glass,
              unmoving.

                                    TIM
                        Yeah, fucked up.
                             (downs his whiskey)
                        Gotta go.  See you around.

              Tim stumbles off the stool, steadies himself as he pulls up
              his ratty pants.  The first unsteady step takes him towards
              the door.

              EXT. BAR - AFTERNOON

              Tim is bent over double, puking every ounce of whiskey he's
              had for the last two hours.

              He stands, wipes his mouth on his sleeve which looks like it
              was made for wiping vomit.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                        8.


              He begins walking away from the bar.

              INT. CELL - LAGOS PRISON - AFTERNOON

              Joseph stands suddenly, begins punching the wall.  A few
              hits and he's massaging his fists.  Bad idea.  Begins pacing.

              EXT. MENDEL HOUSE - AFTERNOON

              Tim steadies himself against a door jamb.  An unsteady hand
              reaches for the bell.

              Pause.  Pushes.

              Nothing.  Another push.  Nothing.

              He starts repeatedly jabbing at the bell when the door is
              thrown open and a woman, late 20s, pretty in a "mom" sort of
              way, stands in the entryway.  She sees who it is and
              quizzically shakes her head, irritation evident in voice and
              expression.

                                    WOMAN
                        What do you want, Tim, damnit!

                                    TIM
                        Linda!  Are you all right?

                                    LINDA
                        Yes, I'm all right.  What's going
                        on?  You don't look so good.
                             (beat; suspicious)
                        Why wouldn't I be all right?

                                    TIM
                        Oh God, you don't know.  I need a
                        drink.

              He takes a step towards the door, Linda steps up.

                                    LINDA
                        Uh, no you don't.  Gotta go, Tim.

              She makes to close the door when Tim reaches and slams the
              door back open.

                                    LINDA
                        Tim!  What the ...

                                    TIM
                        He's been arrested, Linda.  I just
                        heard his name.  TV.  Major Mendel.

              Linda staggers back, looks wildly, crumples.  Tim lunges in,
              pushes the door shut.

               

What do you think?

Ready, Aim…

The weather forecasters have been wrong about Boise's weather for the past two days. On Sunday evening, around 10.30pm, the Weather Watcher utility I have on my laptop beeped with an ominous “Severe Weather Alert!”

Uh-oh.

The warning concerned an impending inch of snow on the ground. Yes, an inch. Ordinarily, an inch of snow is nothing to be concerned about, unless you live in Boise and have to share the road with some of the worst ‘bad weather drivers’ outside of Florida.

Floridians have a peculiar reaction to driving in the rain: they freak out. People pull over underneath flyovers and sit there, I picture them, shivering like wet cats. The ‘brave’ ones slow to a snail's pace of 10mph and flip off (or better yet, shoot at) anyone stupid enough to honk.

Boise area drivers also freak out, but for different reasons, none of them fear. I can understand being afraid of bad things happening on icy roads; that makes sense. No, Boise area drivers are anxious more than afraid. They want to get to work or wherever. Now! So they speed up when they should be slowing down. The inevitable occurs with numerous pile-ups and rollovers. The Monday before, 28 semi-retards had crashed into each other along with something like 10 rollovers. The chaos of the mad.

So, an inch of snow was expected, I read. Brace yourselves, wake up at 4am, get to work by 8. The missus and I made the requisite plans. The next morning, at 5.30am, I stumbled forward to the window expecting to see the promised inch.

Nothing.

Bone dry. Not a spit of moisture!

Fuckers! Thanks, fellas.

A graphic of a TV weatherman, bad suit and loc-tite sprayed hair, tied to the stake in front of a firing squad flashed. Many of my friends don't know this, but I have witnessed first-hand, executions by firing squad. I was eight or so.

As soon as that image flashed, I thought of inserting that as the hook scene of a potential movie:

The red glow of a cigarette fills the screen. It glows brighter as a drag is taken and a slow exhalation is heard. The shot widens and the lips and mouth of the smoker comes into view.

Another drag.

More of the face appears and it's that of a black man with a few days’ worth of facial hair. The most interesting thing is this man is blindfolded

As more of him comes into view, not only is the man blindfolded, he is also bound tightly to a stake. The stake is in the middle of a stark courtyard and it is morning.

The man now stands, his arms are bound close to the body. He is wearing a white shirt with ripped buttons, frayed edges and black, tattered pants. He takes one more slow drag then exhales. Now, moving his head sideways with a jerk, he spits out the cigarette. He says, “All right, that's it. Kill me.” This is said with a slowness that belies the horror to come.

Off to the side, a voice of some authority strains in immediate response, “Ready… !” Following, also off in the background, the sound of rifles being chambered.

Silence.

The same voice, now screaming into the morning: “Aim!” This is met by a shuffling sound, ominous in its innocence. A butterfly flies erratically into frame, fighting a morning breeze. In the background, the sun climbs higher.

“Fire!”

Right And Wrong

I've been busy teaching myself how to write a screenplay. For my birthday, my lovely wife got me a copy of the unfortunately-named Movie Magic Screenwriter (MMSC). I had tried the other screenwriting software package (Final Draft) but found MMSC to be better. So, if you write screenplays and are attempting to decide on which one of the two to buy, you have my paltry recommendation.

Anyway, learning about drama has led me to understand some facts about human nature. For example, in Robert McKee's excellent book Story, he discusses the nature of choice:

Human nature dictates that each of us will always choose the “good” or the “right” as we perceive the “good” or the “right.” It is impossible to do otherwise. Therefore, if a character is put into a situation where he must choose between a clear good versus a clear evil, or right versus wrong, the audience, understanding the character's point of view will know in advance how the character will choose.

The choice between good and evil or between right and wrong is no choice at all.

Imagine Attila, King of the Huns poised on the borders of fifth-century Europe, surveying his hordes and asking himself: "Should I invade, murder, rape, plunder, burn, and lay waste … or should I go home?" For Attila this is no choice at all. He must invade, slay, plunder, and lay waste. He didn't lead tens of thousands of warriors across two continents to turn around when he finally came within sight of the prize. In the eyes of his victims, however, his is an evil decision. But that's their point of view. For Attila, his choice is not only the right thing to do, but probably the moral thing to do. No doubt, like many of history's great tyrants, he felt he was on a holy mission.

On an intellectual level, why of course that all makes sense. Nevertheless, I have made the mistake too many times in my professional and personal life in thinking that of course(!) this or that person would “do the right thing.” Pshaw!

Not that I'm saying, of course, that this is no such thing as a fundamental or absolute “good” or “bad,” “right” or “wrong.” Nor do I think that's McKee's point either. It's all a matter of the all-important point-of-view. People redefine good and bad, right and wrong to further their own ends, however immoral or outrageous those may be.

That being the case, us idealists should continue to insist—at least in our own lives and actions—on doing the right thing. That “harder right” thing. That “right-er” thing. Once done, and maybe in parallel, perhaps we can start insisting on others doing that as well, or at least calling South Park's shenanigans when we see them.

Kingdom Lambs

Matthew Michael Carnahan is a screenwriter and a gigantic butthole.

He wrote the movies The Kingdom and Lions for Lambs, both of which are shaping up to be bombs. Let me tell you why: I read an interview of his in Screenwriting magazine and later listened to the same interview on the Screenwriting magazine podcast. He comes across as a fine fellow all right, his in(s)ane politics notwithstanding. But really, in an interview, what else would one come across as?

What is telling about Carnahan is the predilection for preaching his (need I say liberal) politics when he should be telling a story and allowing his audience to draw its own conclusions? It seems that as a starting writer—with all of six screenplays under his belt, by any standard, he's a starting writer—he doesn't feel confident enough to put his work out there without shoving it down throats.

Here's the reason he's writing scripts that star Tom Cruise et al: his brother is Joe Carnahan, the pretty good director of Narc. Nepotism run wild.

The Kingdom is a political conclusion and a pretty anti-US one at that. In fact, he had to rewrite the end because the director and the studio knew it'd bomb worse than it came to do.

And now comes yet another political pill, Lions for Lambs, another bomb if you read the reviews. Hehe … well, old boy, instead of trying to force-feed us your political bullshit, why don't you concentrate on telling a good story?

A writer who imposes a theme on his idea, rather than finding the theme by understanding why he wants to write a particular story, may become preachy or didactic. Didactic screenplays sacrifice character and story to prove the theme correct. This results in propaganda, a story in which the characters are only mouthpieces for the author's message. Whether it's a complex motif or a simple idea, the theme should be deeply embedded in the action, woven into the subtext, not stated openly, unless you can do this naturally within the context of a scene. The best way to avoid didactic screenplays is to shun themes that sound like political slogans, personal mottoes, or life lectures. A writer attempts to persuade the audience, not indoctrinate it. Allow your audience a chance to think and consider—mostly, to feel. You're not trying to teach, you're trying to entertain, and when you preach to people, the only feeling you're likely to elicit is annoyance.

This passage from Screenplay: Writing the Picture by Russin and Downs should serve as a warning for all those liberal assholes who expect us to pay good money to go watch leftist political propaganda: fuck off with that.

Character

In screenwriting, there are a few things one must grasp in order to tell a good story: plot, pace, mood, emotion (closely tied to mood), dialog, description, structure and character, among others.

By character, one means those people or things in your story. Notice “things.” In storytelling, even non-living things can play a part. In Volcano, Tommy Lee Jones as a protagonist is fighting the antagonist, a … well, volcano. In The Edge, Anthony Hopkins’s main enemy was a bear. Then environment played a pivotal role in Cast Away with Tom Hanks.

With the human variety (although an argument can be made for the other varieties as well), there are two further sub-concepts, if you will: characterization and character. Characterization are the surface attributes. How the character dresses, the manner of speech, their point of view, etc. Character however is the more important, what's beneath. In other words, character is what they do which might be and usually is different from what you see (characterization).

With complex, interesting people, characterization is seldom ever their character. James Bond's flashy getups and general foppishness belies a steely (and dangerously skilled) resolve to rid the world of Bad Guy du jour. Suddenly, the dandy is gone and Bond's deadly inner character shows up, definitely the opposite of his characterization.

Boring, uninteresting people are their characterizations. As shallow as inches of water, what you see is what you get. In real life, provided those characteristics are generally positive, this is a good thing. In a story, it's dead ass boring, except maybe in a minor character. Maybe.

In politics, would that were the case! It'd certainly help to see Democrats for the assholes they really are. ;-)

Why I Write

Over the time I've been writing this blog, I've gotten into ‘comment wars’ with troglodytes and, never failing, said troglodytes call attention to the lack of comments on my blog, as if that in itself makes their point. A point of what exactly, I'm not sure hence the appellation.

Anyway, I thought to write this post to put such idiocy to rest once and for all: I write, like the tag below my blog's title says, to learn. I don't care about the traffic and I don't care about comments. I like weaving words and communicating whatever I have in my head in the best, most economical way. I usually fail, but ever onwards.

Thanks to my early education and environment, I'm not an accomplished speaker. I am much more comfortable writing because it helps me order my thoughts beforehand. In effect, this blog is more for me than anyone else.

So comment or don't, visit or don't—I don't much care; I'm comfortable being the lone voice crying in the wilderness.

Write What You Know

I got this from someplace, no idea where now, but it's interesting enough that I think it's worth reproducing in toto. I have long abhorred the idea, oft-parroted, of writing what you know, literally. So it is that many African authors (and Nigerians in particular) write on endlessly about some silly boy or girl growing up in a (always a) far-flung village with no indoor plumbing, rising through the crucible of poverty to some station in life only to be struck down again by an overbearing military hood.

Yawn.

Here now, without further ado:

The Myth of Write What You Know

A question of misunderstood writing rules came up in a newsgroup, and I decided that one of the biggest is “Write What You Know.” No you don't have to write about being a middle-age (insert one: accountant, housewife, secretary, x-rated movie star). It's taking lot of the little gritty details of life and working with it.

Grew up in Pennsylvania? Well, then you know what its like to have very little flat land, summer days that are muggy, and the woods are filled with oaks, maples, and pine.

Grew up on the Outer Banks? Well, then you know what its like to live year round on the edge of the ocean.

And this isn't boring. 95% of the world finds your hometown interesting when seen through your eyes.

Were you an only kid and always wanted a little brother? Were you a younger sister whose older brother picked on you? Did your father die when you were young? Did your best friend steal your boyfriend in high school?

These life experiences will resonant strongest in your writing because you know them of well.

Don't want to set everything in your hometown and don't want your hero to be a (insert one) well then it’s time to research. Read about living in the desert, visit one, get books on the ecology/animals of deserts, rent travel videos and watch them, get the National Geographic for articles on desert countries -- THEN write your desert world. Do the same with jobs.

Notice however, that the time investment to learn the new world deep enough to match your native knowledge is great.

There were these sisters. They lived a very staid, boring, middle-class life, which was made even more boring because they were living in the Victorian era when things were pretty quiet all the time anyway. They almost never left the tiny village where they lived; never married; never had jobs, save perhaps the genteel profession of governess.

Their names were Anne, Charlotte, and Emily Bronte, and they wrote some of the most breathtaking works of fiction ever - books that are still grabbing readers and not letting go more than a century later.

And the thing is - they did write what they knew. They knew people. Their characters went places they'd never been and did things they'd never done, but they knew them, and because of that they could make us believe in them.

It's not about knowing, really. It's about observing - about really seeing what's going on around you, and using it. Shamelessly.

Aristotle's Poetics

I've just reviewed (for Amazon.com) the new book by Michael Tierno titled Aristotle's Poetics for Screenwriters: Storytelling Secrets from the Greatest Mind in Western Civilization:

[4.5 stars]
The oft-stated maxim of dramatic storytelling, everyone who is anyone in screenwriting recites, is to read Aristotle's Poetics. The problem? The original work in Greek is not what one would call bedside reading; the English translations of the original are almost as bad.

So what is a budding screenwriter to do if, as suggested, he wanted to understand the underpinnings of drama without having to learn and understand ancient Greek and all the arcane references in the Poetics? Well, that budding screenwriter buys and reads the new book by Michael Tierno. It's small enough that it could be light reading; each of its 33 chapters are easily digestible, but be not fooled! It's filled with tremendous information that, if properly understood, will help a writer, any writer, tell a gripping story.

Some of the reasons I gave it a four-and-a-half star rating instead of the full five are the same as I would give the original Poetics: the language is staid and a little difficult to assimilate for the modern understanding. Tierno does a good job of interpretation, but even then, there are some hard bumps that will give the reader pause. Tierno also tries hard to tie all the chapters into a smooth narrative, but again, there are some bumps: I don't, for example, see why chapter 29 (The Non-Linear Soul of Quentin Tarantino) was added as it seems incongruous without useful information not already covered earlier.

The other star-reducing problem is the seeming out-of-context quotations from the Poetics that require close reading to see their appropriateness, although for the most part the author does a fine job of showing precisely that. It's just a slight impediment to the flow. Very slight.

That said, here's my recommendation to obtain the maximum benefit out of this book: read the Poetics first. After which, rely on Tierno to provide the necessary interpretation; a job, as I stated earlier that he does quite well.

In summary, this is a good book. With close reading, perhaps even re-reading, it is capable of energizing your stories in the way the original work by (as the tagline of the book says) The Greatest Mind in Western Civilization does. This book is definitely barely-hidden gold that is easy to pass over. That fact it's not too expensive or overly ponderous in tone only adds to the value. High recommendations.

Postscript: The book has the author's website on the back. As of the date of writing this review, it's just a placeholder. Perhaps if the author eventually gets around to putting something useful up, he'll receive the full five stars!

Yes, pretty good book.

Samuel Faison's Morning

This is the beginning of a short story I was thinking of writing. It's terrible, but I've been told to write everyday! if I want to become a better writer so here, what do you think:

The wind was blowing out of the east on the morning he died, and had he known of his fate beforehand, I daresay he would have still roused himself at 5am as he always did. That wind, some would call it an ill wind, brought snow flurries with it and by the time of his death seven hours later, had facilitated the dumping of four inches of snow on the roads of his midwestern city.

Samuel Faison was a man of habit and, had he lived, would have continued to get up at 5am for the rest of his life. He had picked up the habit from his father, a farmer. At first, roused to work on the farm as a boy, he had deeply resented this interruption of highly enjoyable sleep, but with advancing years and responsibility, he came to understand that getting up that early was not only necessary, but invigorating. He got a jump on life, as it were.
As usual, he swung his feet over the side of the bed, careful not to disturb his snoring wife of twenty years asleep under the covers next to him. He did not sleep under the covers as she did precisely because he didn't want to awaken her when he got up. She had intoned the opinion a few years into the marriage that for its continued success, she required an undisturbed, unbroken stretch of at least nine hours' sleep.

He smiled to himself  at that particular scene as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. The T-shirt he slept in had rolled up his gently expanding stomach and he rolled it down. He had become a fat little man, a condition he had come to reluctantly accept, but hoped one day very soon to get back in what he called "fighting shape." One day soon, yes, he thought as he did every morning. He sat on the bed for a few more seconds as the gloom of the bedroom and what little light it afforded gradually receded as his irises adjusted. He looked over at the red glowing figures on the alarm clock which, when he put on his glasses, morphed to read 4:59 and he quickly and silently pushed the alarm button off. He had never needed the alarm clock, but had it set every night, just in case.

Looking down at his feet, he wriggled the toes and shivered slightly. Even with the house's thermostat set to 70-degrees, the air was about 20-degrees colder near the floor and that cold was now surely seeping up his legs so he stood up and scratched his buttocks through the pajama pants while attempting to stifle one of his great big yawns. Those yawns, which annoyed almost everyone, started out silently, as most yawns do, but finished with a loud, sustained yelp. He was quite comfortable with his yawning technique and saw no reason to change it, except in the mornings. Then, and only then, to keep the peace, he cut off the most agreeable section of the yawn.

The arthritis in his knees, ever present since the day he stopped playing football, was beginning to act up, sending up a protesting response to the cold from the floor which had just reached them. He bent and rubbed his knees now, as a sort of placating gesture, but he knew that until he took those pain killers, this was just the start of the show: an unending, aggravating throb that made his life unbearable at times. Football had been hard on his body and stopping playing was in fact the reason the fat has slowly built up around his midsection. It was a vicious circle because in order to get in shape, he had to use his knees and his knees refused to work well because of the athritis.

He straightened and started the limping walk to the bathroom door in the low light, trying to remember where he had thrown off his pants the night before. The last thing he needed now was to trip on them so he tentatively put one pain-racked leg in front of the other, each time feeling daintily with his feet before letting it fall. The walk to the bathroom took him three minutes because of this until he came to the bathroom door. Opening that door was always an adventure. The door handle creaked, the hinges creaked, everything about the door was creaky and it had woken his wife too many times in the past, but he had never fixed those creaks. Samuel Faison wasn't lazy in general, only about a very few things and unfortunately, oiling the bathroom door was one of those things he was lazy about.

He had though, worked out a careful ballet of actions to open the door noiselessly. He proceeded to perform the first step in that sequence now: he held on to the handle and ever so slowly pulled it down, a millimeter at a time until it was fully depressed. Next, he shuffled to the left in the direction of the opening and, while holding the handle down, pushed up on the entire door while simultaneously pulling handle to open it. Again, ever so slowly, he inched the door open, keeping the upwards tension on the the door that would safeguard against the squeal of the hinges.

At this point, his wife's Chihuahua would invariably walk up and attempt to nose his way into the bathroom so it could drink from the toilet bowl and invariably, Samuel Faison would curse at the dog under his breath. He had attempted once to kick the dog, but he hadn't figured on the fact that the leg left holding him up as a fulcrum for the kicking operation would buckle under the pain and effort. The leg had simply given out under him and he had fallen, dragging the door with the noise of several firecrackers and coupled with the irritated yelping of the dog, had roused her. That hadn't been a good morning.
He let the dog be now, satisfying himself with just cursing at it and once again making a mental note to fix the door once and for all, even as he knew that wasn't going to happen. What he didn't know and what he couldn't have known that frosty morning was that, intentionally or not, that door would never be fixed. Certainly never by him.