Flicker Shows continued...

Earlier I discussed the differences between books and films, comparing the mediums by the time  we dedicate to their contemplation and the source of their inventive splendor. I finished off with the question, ‘What is the purpose behind a short story, and how is a short story applicable to film?’
Short stories, as readers will know, have more forms than a gloamgloazer. There are long short stories, short short stories, short long short stories and long short short stories. Typically we can catogorise them as different from novels by their size... in most cases.

When we examine adapted short stories in comparison to adapted books (adapted for the film industry, for this ramble) we will most often find the outcome is more successful. When books are adapted, they contain too much information and are thinned out to fit the appropriate time slot. When stories are adapted, often the opposite is true. They require more substance - not less - and are viewed more as concepts than as rigid frameworks for a storyline. Thus 'I, Robot' becomes an amalgamation of various ideas discussed in the course of Asimov's work, 'I am Legend', long enough to be a novel itself, incorporates only the idea of vampirism as a bacterial disease capable of wiping out the human race. Minority Report becomes a discourse on the concept of prosecuting potential criminals, while Dick's noir outcome is scrapped entirely, as is his 20th century idea of the future maximising the use of recording tape.

The attitudes between adaptations of books and short stories are immediately recognisable. Fatally, when a book is approached the screenwriter attempts to capture every aspect of the work - and fails. A book is not a film. A book cannot be condensed into two and a half hours. Back in the days of youth and folly when I still felt excited about seeing a movie based on a book I had read, I always left feeling somewhat cheated. They'd make bum moves like summing up a chapter with a line ("Norbert's Gone", for Lorkhan's sake) or wipe out characters (Cyclops and his followers from 'The Postman'). Then they go one step further and make unnecessary changes. I've wiped my brain clean of the numerous lines I heard come out wrong during the adaptation of the Harry Potter series. Don't screenwriters realise writers sit down and weigh each word as carefully as though they were handling gold? They push the boundaries further by changing characters' personalities. The Twilight movie (I could only suffer to watch the butchery of the very first) had Bella strip naked for the entertainment value of a scene rather than the true bearing of her character. The unmentionable disaster I must mention (gotta love a paradox) is at last 'The Golden Compass', flashing in cheap, whorish neon that not even the original title would make it through to the final cut.

(I am aware of the title's varied use as the trilogy's original name [The Golden Compasses] and the US release title. Goodness knows what goes through the minds of publishers.)

My point? In doesn't work, damnit. Darwin would cringe at the sight of Hollywood jungle and the natural selection that is catalysed there between conflicting film producers. When money becomes an object, art suffers. Sad, but true.

Speaking of dear Darwin, it's funny how the word they use for the metamorphosis from literature to film is 'adaptation'. Theodosius Dobzhansky defined adaptation as "an evolutionary process whereby an organism becomes better able to live in its habitat or habitats."
Well, in the sense of this commentary, one may say it is "an evolutionary process whereby an artwork becomes better able to live in its habitat."
By the very nature of the word and its underlying semantic and linguistic values, an assumption is being made that the film is an evolved state of the written word.

It is a strange thing to consider. The intention of written words has always been to attempt to deliver a message to another person in a form logical and comprehendable to a receptive human mind, even after the singularity or 'perfection' of that intention was denied.

The intention of recording, from the beginning, was to give an accurate moving picture of reality. Afterwards people experimented with special effects, doing this and that to the image where they could, sharpening, obscuring, perfecting - always scientific, rather than artistic. These became a matter of interest to theatricals, who despite their strutting about the stage could not capture a moment perfectly if its specifics held any surreal components. Thus after the success of a production of Gulliver's Travels in 1902, films grew to a standard in the exhibition of high budget or impossible dramatic productions.
So if recording was seen as an evolutionary medium for theatre, why are we forced to sit through the demolition of the written word? There's a HUGE difference between books and plays, so why have the two combined in recent years into the woeful morass of 'adaptation'?

Sometimes, I like to leave things at a question. If there is an answer, I've already made it clear that it isn't one that could justify what film has done to the literary world. I'll just keep pretending adaptations don't exist, and hope people come to see things my way.

Linear and Alinear Time Travel

Of all the great mysteries of the universe -- the nature of god, the variations of the human mind, where keys disappear to and, of course, women -- one in particular draws my attention and hardly a day goes by without my thinking of it.

Time.

I don't know why. Passion drives our activities, but what drives passion? A need to know the past? A desire to change it? To know the future and gain a greater sense of decisiveness in the present moment?
I never think there is one answer to a single question, nor is anything ever driven by a single reason. So my love of time is probably attributed to a multitude of thoughts and desires and have condensed into a single interest.

Time.

There's another one. Repetition. Time links things together. It connects us, and yet at the same time separates us. Sometimes I feel hopelessly alone and unconnected. Huh. Humans are funny creatures. My solution to that feeling of aloneness would be to say that everyone feels alone because there is no-one exactly like them and no-one who can be exactly certain of their thought patterns or emotions, and in that we are linked to one another -- united by our sense of loneliness. Somehow, that doesn't satisfy me. My sense of reason dictates that the only person who knows me completely is myself, and so to end my feeling of loneliness I would need to encounter myself. The only versions of myself I can separate from my current state of consciousness are those who exist in another time, past or present.
So that gets me thinking of time travel, the only perceivable way in which I might meet myself. It is an enticing thought. A scientific interest, combined with an emotional revelation. Ever the cynic, I doubt I will live long enough to walk into a time machine and meet myself in the past. Much like 'serious' scientists who refuse to acknowledge the impossible and call it a 'pseudo-science' I do not entertain the possibility, merely the fantasy.
However, the fantasy will not remain a fantasy for everyone. At some point in time, science will allow time travel to happen and the fantasies of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries will become the theories upon which primary investigations into practical time travel revolve.
So now, I sit here in the past, and I vainly call myself a temporal theorist, perhaps hoping even as I type this for a visit from the future by some time traveller other than myself. I debate the various works of fiction I have read and seen and I try to piece together a working system based on the many possibilities in existence. There are many sources to be analysed. Herbert Wells' "The Time Machine". Michael Crichton's "Timeline". The highly confusing television series, "Heroes". Various romantic takes, such as "Kate and Leopold", and "The Time Traveller's Wife". Harry Potter.
To someone who wishes to create theories about something that does not exist in this dimension, shouldn't one rely on something that does not exist? Why not? Have a look and see just one of the principles I'm investigating.
The basic principles have their foundations in scientific theory. After all, we aren't complete Neanderthals. We are, in fact, Homo Homo Sapiens, which in future times will probably be an equivalent insult.

Time is called the Fourth Dimension; sitting beside its brethren, length, width and height, the essential agents of a single state of being. Everything in existence is said to have these four properties -- even vacuums. Of course, a sensible person might point out that everything in existence also has a temperature (including vacuums) and a degree of luminescence (vacuums debatable on this one) and many other things which would split our dimensional requirements into a list too long to teach to high school students.
So for the present, reality/existence has four dimensions which define a single instant. To confuse things further the linear transformation from one instant to the next is also considered a single 'dimension'. In this sense science fiction often refers to 'parallel dimensions', which have the same temporal value as our own but bear differing aspects of length, depth and height.
These parallel dimensions hold value in the messier examples of time travel. Take for example the fictional work (some might even call it the parallel dimension) of the "Red Alert" series. It discusses the possibility of a time machine being used to kill Adolf Hitler before the holocaust in order to prevent the second world war and the subsequent tragedies involved. When the time traveller returns to the future, they find that though they have progressed along their original timeline, the three spacial values of dimension have altered to fit the adjusted ones caused by the time traveller. Without Germany as a military superpower, the Soviet Union becomes much more powerful than it would have been otherwise and is a key player in a vicious power struggle with the Allied Forces.
This is the first kind of what I term "Alinear Time Travel", because it involves crossing between two or more parallel universes. It can become extraordinarily confusing, but personally I find it as a viable theory, because it explains why our own timeline isn't poked through with wormholes leading to a future where time travel is possible.

Predictably the other theory is "Linear Time Travel", which would be a consistent timeline with an internally viable temporal discrepancy. This type of time travel is more rare, as writers need to concentrate to make sure they work out effectively. A great example would be J.K Rowling's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Askaban, wherein the character Hermione has to muster all her wit into travelling through time without altering the preexisting reality in a visible way. It deals remarkably well with the quantum theories concerning "probability" and "possibility", and even the concept of "certainty".
First, Miss Rowling establishes the "certain" dimensions of the timeline through the use of various observations and hints about what is to come.

• Harry feels as if he is being watched.
• (cinematic) There is a rustling at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
• Hagrid howls as an axe fall is heard.
• Harry sees someone who looks like himself cast a Patronus to banish a hoard of dementors.

From this we gain a probability -- less politely called an assumption -- of what has happened.

• Harry is breaking the rules, so he is likely to be paranoid.
• (Cinematic) The Forbidden Forest is filled with a variety of lifeforms, any of which could cause leaves to rustle.
• Buckbeak has just been executed, and Hagrid is overcome with anguish.
• By the shape of the Patronus, we are led to the hopeful assumption that James Potter has survived and has returned to save his son from having his soul eaten.

However we must admit at this point that probability is pure conjecture. It 'could' be happening. Sometimes it is even what we believe we are being led to 'know' is happening. A chapter or two later, Miss Rowling rubs our noses in the fact that we are wrong, because instead of the "probable" being confirmed to be "certain", it turns out that the "probable" is, after all, only "possible", and the "improbable" is indeed "certain".
For the improbable reveals itself as:

• Harry's paranoia was justified, as he was watching himself from the forest.
• (Cinematic) The future  Harry and Hermione caused the leaves to rustle.
• The executioner has swung his axe into a barren stump out of frustration, as Buckbeak has escaped, and Hagrid's howl is of uncontrollable happiness.
• Harry saw himself cast the Patronus.

Thus the nature of Alinear time travel is divined: the "possible" can be changed, despite the "probable", so long as the "certain" remains unaltered. This principle relies heavily upon the age old paradigm: 'if a tree falls in a forest, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?', more directly phrased as "does something exist until we sense it?"

Another example of a Linear Temporal Loop is detailed below.
One day while walking through the park I witness a neatly wrapped parcel appear out of thin air and land directly in front of me. Curious and excited, I unwrap the parcel with trembling fingers to reveal a crumpled schematic. Upon investigating the schematic, I realise it is a blueprint for the construction of a simple time machine, which could easily be created by linking my microwave to a lava lamp and adjusting the speed of the turn table.
Naturally I rush home to see if it works, and swiftly build my slightly-retro time machine. For a moment I am at a loss at to what I should use it for. Then it dawns on me that I need to send the schematics back through time to the park so I will find them that morning. I wrap them up exactly as they were and send them back in the time machine to the precise time I saw them appear.
With this done, I sigh to myself and realise I need a bigger microwave.

This example shows that in Linear time travel, certain events can only occur if the future events remain constant. If, for example, I decided I was hungry while walking through the park and I would be better served by sending back a burrito I would change the past that allowed me to build the time machine, preventing me from sending anything back at all and indeed destroying the dimensional values of the instant my consciousness resided in. This would have two possible results:

• The death of my consciousness and the space time continuum as I know it.
• The manifestation of an Alinear temporal loop.

In the second and far more preferable case, three parallel dimensions exist at the same time: one in which I send back a schematic for a time machine, another in which I send back a burrito, and a third in which I am very confused but pleased by the instantaneous manifestation of a delicious Mexican snack food.
The second option also suggests a far more complicated relationship between parallel dimensions wherein by deliberately reshaping "certain" events we can construct sequences that don't rely on a single timeline of instants, but on several crossing timelines' instants.
The general rule is:

• Time travel affecting possible events in order to bring about a different one than is generally considered probable (without time travel) creates a Linear temporal loop.
• Time travel which directly alters certain spacial dimensions will result in an Alinear temporal loop.

Which is really what Miss Rowling illustrated in her book. Yet, for some reason, people think that the possibility of colliding several parallel dimensions in an Alinear temporal loop is dangerous... More on that later.

Art & Reason

One of my greatest fears as an artist is that I do not serve an essential function to society. In the field of Science, the quality of human life can be improved through the understanding and manipulation of precise natural laws. In the field of Industry, a man is judged worthy by the sweat on his brow, his labour and efforts, which lead to the creation of all the consumer goods we see as essential to survival. But Art... Art at its basis has no clear purpose. It is considered as a discipline devoted to entertainment, and detracts from progress by inspiring human indulgence. Time spent contemplating films and fiction is considered wasted, and because it is seen as such, that time is restricted in favour of industry and science.

This is how I feel I have been brought up by society to view the working world. It is not enough for me. It is not enough to serve a function as a mere entertainer. Certainly entertainment serves a purpose - it caters to the fragility of our emotional beings, providing catharsis, allowing us to empathise and through empathy experience the uncommon, primal feelings not associated with ordinary life. In this way it keeps our biological mainframe running smoothly, avoiding hormonal build-ups of aggression, lust, and depression. Bear in mind I am not a biologist. This is just how I understand human beings from their behaviorisms.

To reiterate, this is not enough. It is unfair to think of science and industry as the forerunners of the human race, while art is not so much in the race as it is the nutrition schedule for the athletes, in existence only to correct the errors and indiscretions of the mind. It is not enough to support. I want to know Art is driving progress, and shaping what we call our 'advanced' civilisation in a positive way.
So what is Art, if not pure folly?

What an Artist does, I term creation. Perhaps that is not the best way to distinguish them. An Industrialist creates. They mass produce according to a given design, or build according to the studied laws of architecture. A Scientist creates, putting forth their accumulated knowledge into the invention of a chemical or a machine. When an Artist creates, they twist their chosen material into an experience, a moment, or a sequence, with the intention of making it capable of evoking thoughts and feelings.
That is better. Humans create. What they create and how they create it determines their field.

My question is, "What is the use?". If not for entertainment, what function can fictional experience serve?
The immediate answer is that they inspire. Without Michael Crichton's 'Terminal Man', Kevin Warrick may never have stepped out of his field and achieved the first direct nerve-to-nerve communication. Without Jules Verne's 'From The Earth to The Moon', pioneer rocket scientists may never have dreamed it possible to reach outer space. Industrialists who had grown bored with routine may have found inspiration in Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead' and questioned the validity of their projects, and the course of their very careers. This in turn brings to light another function of Art; to catalyse ideas.
In general, Art can be said to be formed around a single concept or idea. Isaac Asimov's books concerning robots were centred on (duh) robotics, and have lead to frontier investigations concerning robotic rights and the ways one might develop an artificial intelligence. Numerous painters have used their talents to attempt a portrayal of gods and other celestial beings, which in turn evoke ideas in those who wonder at how ancient human beings saw the world. Liova Tolstoy's work 'War and Peace' centred on the idea of defining the truest realities of historical investigation and held his theories concerning the effect of freewill on a greater social movement, and his illustrations concerning that core idea.
Ideas keep our minds active. They not only help us build up an idea of reality, but force us to adapt that idea to suite discoveries, and nurture keeping the habit of an open mind when dealing with other fields of investigation.

To invent art is to twist a material into an experience; and that itself tells us about its function. More often than not, the human race is run against other human beings who stand the risk of destabilising progress by ignorance and arrogance, or alternately attempting to progress in a self-destructive direction. Art allows us to form a sense of empathy with them by 'sharing' their experiences and feelings, learning how they came about and how to work them into a more useful form. Much like psychology, it allows us to learn how other human beings work (almost like method acting) and optimise our ability to work with them through our understanding of them.
To empathise, to inspire, to generate thought. These things are what make a successful artwork, or at the very least a meaningful artwork. These things give art a use. They give it purpose.
So long as I keep these things in mind, it isn't shameful to be an artist. It is, in fact, a fairly benevolent pursuit, if I do say so myself.

Synapse Theory

Recently I've been pondering over the effects of human relationships, from both negative and positive viewpoints. I've melded a smidgeon of Jedi philosophy with classic metaphysical interrogation in order to sew together a flashy and intricate weave of theoretical fancy.

First off I revert to the Cartesian "Cognito, Ergo, Sum" principle, "I think, therefore I am". This method classically came about when Descartes managed to deny the possibility of existence in everything apart from the fact that he was thinking. Those who have experimented with psychedelic drugs probably have a firmer grasp on this principle than I do.

This belief would pronounce that all human beings and other forms of life are actually only reflections of our own consciousness given physical form so that the more centralised local of our thought processes may interact with it.

Now, I am by no means a Metaphysician in the Cartesian sense of the word. Personally whether reality is generated internally or externally has no bearing on my life so long as the effect produced remains constant. If the world is produced externally, only my physical actions can cause any difference to the world. If it is generated internally, I am equally incapable of controlling my subconscious superstructure, and must live through my illusions to alter my own reality.

The benefit of viewing the world in a semi-Cartesian way (here I'm using the word Cartesian completely uncertain if it relates directly to Descartes or only to certain mathematical principles) is that the whole world is no longer split into individual locales, but is rather seen as a living and breathing whole. If something out in the world is not suited to my own ideas of morality or fairness, you can damn well bet that changing it affects my overall mental state, almost as if I'm removing a tumor from my neurological byways. The human mind in this way is inseparable from the minds of other human beings, because in effect they are each accessible centres of consciousness which once unified with my own will adapt the world to my own personal idea of moral rectitude.

Take for example a single average person, with a single body and a unique idea of how the world should be run. Alone, and relatively powerless, this person has two methods of gaining control over the world.
First, they may utilise some weapon, a gun or a missile or a sword, and begin to obliterate every other idea in the world by destroying their physical counterparts (living human bodies). They may convince others to do the same with powerful, immediate ties; hate, anger, fear and suchlike. So long as they hold the power to protect their own idea while simultaneously eradicating other ideas they are achieving their goal. Of course, soon those temporary ties of fear and hate break down and the destroyers turn upon themselves, each trying to assert their own idea as dominant, because so long as there is hate and fear two ideas may never co-exist.

The second method is what has come to be known as 'good', or 'the light side'.
It starts when our singular individual shares information about their idea, taking the time to teach another how exactly that idea works, building up a powerful connection between the two individuals by sharing, understanding, kindness and patience. Our individual allows a certain degree of co-existence and may even find its idea adapting to incorporate aspects of the other individual. There is growth, and there is aid. At the end two individuals (in physical terms) with identical ideas exist. They then both work on building relationships with other individuals of the same type, and slowly the world changes so that a single idea of co-existence is held by every being.

Naturally if reality is seen as an external and self-perpetuating institution regardless of personal consciousness then the efforts made to uphold a single idea will quickly fall back to a different state of being. A cycle is created. But if you view reality as a direct result of your own consciousness then all your efforts to unify the world are a measure of your personal control and influence over your own mind.

The way I picture it is identical to my concept of the human brain. There is one part I control directly, my conscious or logical thought, and several parts I have no control over, my sub-conscious or psychological thoughts. As I learn to have a greater control of my memory, initiative, emotions and reasoning through force of habit - how I treat my mind and how much effort I put into teaching myself constructive mental habits - my conscious 'will' spreads and grows in both power and control. It is as if I am developing additional synapses within my brain to program my nervous reactions.

This is how I have chosen to see human relationships. I engage each individual as a resource with potential which given adequate time may become an instrument to further my idea of a moral universe. I do not think of them as any less human than they are, any less special or any more disposable. I do not wish to destroy them, but rather to know them, shape them, and be shaped by them. I view myself as as the centre of a great synaptic matrix which acts as a measurement of my influence over the world.
This is Synapse Theory: A study of the human collective and human relationships in relation to an individual. There is much more to be written on it and a vast amount more to discover, and I look forward to doing so.

Dialogue

Dialogues, trialogues and septalogues – basically any situation where one living entity is speaking to another – are quite simply the most difficult part of writing a story. If you think about films, the primary mode of displaying human relationships is through words. It is in fact the only time in a dramatic production that words are actually used over props, special effects and camera footage. Dialogue is therefore identifiable as the most important and awkward type of interaction any human being can perform.

This prompts the immediate reaction to set out dialogue as clear and segregated from the rest of one’s writing as possible.

Kim and Jono bumped into one another at the park.

“Hello.”

“Hello. How are you?”

“I am well thanks. How are you?”

“I am well too, thank you.”

The human brain tries its hardest to see the world as simply as this, even in real-life situations. But the fact is that nothing is ever so straightforward. Humans speak with their bodies as much as their words. Consider the difference made even to my trite dialogue above when I do the following:

“Hello!” Kim puffed, ending her spirited jog as she landed flat on her heels in front of Jono.

“Hello. How are you?” Jono replied, quite unprepared for Kim’s sudden arrival. He slipped his mobile into his pocket, self-conscious about the message that glared across the screen.

“I am well thanks,” Kim panted out, gaining her breath. Her eyes met his for a moment and she quickly looked away. “How are you?”

Jono shrugged and looked at Kim’s feet. Her sneakers were muddy, choked with long spaghetti threads of grass. “I am well too.” He tried to look at her eyes again, but she was obviously just as nervous as he was. A weak smile lifted his lips at the thought. “Thank you,” he murmured.

This is how even the most basic dialogue should look. Time doesn’t stand still when two people talk. Thousands of things are happening all at once. Even if the person who the protagonist is speaking to isn’t that interesting, it says a lot if a character is busy describing the background while someone is talking to them. Similarly, if two people with real chemistry are talking, the background fades and the speaker’s tiniest gestures become significant.

Short Stories

Has anyone every wondered why there is a natural expectation that books will eventually become screenplays? Worse, I think, is that nobody seems to have any qualms about it when it happens.

The way I see books is like this:

If you take enough time out of your week to sit down and read a book, you are making a serious dedication. You are encouraged by this use of your time to connect with the characters, learn more about their lives and their personalities. You are encouraged to think things through, test what you would do in similar situations to what the protagonist is going through, psychologically probe their actions and the cause behind their actions, and in turn find a cause for your own actions.
Books, by my most accurate description, are longstanding relationships between the Artist and the subject. They are strong, lasting connections formed by ample time and understanding.

Films, or 'flicker shows', as I prefer to call them (I've never actually called them that in public, but it still sounds cooler to say 'Would you like to see a flicker show?' than 'let's go see a movie'), are vastly different. Most of the focus behind a flicker show is to bombard the human senses with immediate sensations, relying on an external source rather than an internal one (as with writing). During a flicker show you sit down for at the very most (except back in yonder days of 'War & Peace' and 'Gone with the Wind') three hours, usually without being able to pause and digest all the information that's coming at you.
In this way, movies are hardly more than first impressions to the human mind. They provide an oversight; the casual glance at an idea before brushing it away without giving it the chance to grow. I don't mean to say that flicker shows are necessarily wrong or evil - just that they are different to books.

It takes a very certain type of attitude to walk away with a lasting effect from a flicker show. The viewer has to be ready to sit down and contemplate the idea, form their own mental connections based solely on those 2 to 3 hours of sensation. In many ways this can be seen as a more intellectually fulfilling means; because the viewer cannot rely on anything but those brief sensations they are forced to think things through without any guidance (as a reader would have if they read a book), and through thinking alone, they are seen as 'stronger' individuals. The fault in this is that they are only elaborating ideas from one point of view; they are close-minded if they do not consider that there may be more to the story that what they witnessed during the brief flicker show.

There is much more than this, of course, but as with any story this one must include separate chapters so that the reader can pause, think, and return after reflection.

Reading Aloud

Resonance. Sound is in this day the sensation that rules the world. It amazes me. Human beings constantly draw breath, and hardly every think about doing so.  It is a simple thing. Crude and unimportant. Air is, after all, a simple nitrogen and oxygen cocktail with the capability of supporting life. Science makes it sound cold and uninteresting. I'm telling you that it isn't. I'm telling you that breath sustains more than life.

It struck me earlier this week that unflattering air is responsible for words. Hum to yourself quickly, deep in your throat. You hear that? That's air. That's the same air Miley Cyrus and Bono breathe. It's commonplace; worthless. That humming in the back of your throat? That is beautiful. That is something special even if you don't have your face plastered on a billboard.

I don't really know how to use my voice. Heck, I'm an accomplished public speaker, but that's nothing. What I want to be able to do is read aloud. It is more difficult that it sounds. To read something for the very first time and get all the right tones an inclinations is a godly Art, and one I'm practicing daily now. It requires an intuitive knowledge into the writer's mind; in truth, it requires love. To read aloud is to love the world.

It is something I want to understand, desperately. It is one of the Ultimate Truths. It may just be impossible to achieve, but I have to try. Perhaps for others reading aloud is easy. I would not know. For me, it is a quest. It is a journey to find out how to love unconditionally.

Keeping up the daily post ratio

I spent the whole day reading and finished the Spud series, now it's back to the livid despair of Lovecraft after taking a short break to get my head out of horror for a while. I meant to spend the time that The House is empty to read some of the Necronomicon aloud, but my subjectively linear mind demanded I finish Spud first. More about reading aloud in a later post, I suppose.

Remember that reading is a journey, and some journeys must be carried through to the end without turning back. Remember that journeys often stir up memories that you would prefer to let lie. Most of all, remember that a journey can be both of these things, and can send you screaming into a free fall down the barbed corridors of your darkest days with no hope of reprieve.

Regrettably Unregrettable

I spent this morning in bed reading Spud, a book about a kid who encounters havoc while living at a boarding school. To get the book part out of the way, it's brilliant.

The point of mentioning the book is that it drew my line of thought to way back when I was scouting high schools and had the option to board at an out-of-the-city semi-private school, to be technical only if I received a scholarship, which I didn't, but looking back if I pressed the matter and made certain concessions I could have actually gone.

When I think back to my tragic time at the local high school one short bus ride up the hill (but one very long wait for the bus) my immediate thought is that if I could do it all over I would have rather gone to the boarding school.
Firstly because although it sounds snotty I really hated taking the bus; not because I felt like a proletarian but because it was a devastating drain on the amount of time I had at home, and occupied much of my thoughts. I was involved in several extra-curricular activities which all ended at different times. Debating on mondays meant that I finished school at 15:30, which would make me miss the 15:45 bus unless I ran the two kilometres to the bus stop. The next bus usually showed up at 16:30, but occasionally a bus came at 16:05 or slightly later so I kept a constant look out in case I could catch an earlier ride home. This complicated reading, because I needed to look up every few seconds unless someone else was waiting at the bus stop. Tuesdays & Thursdays I did First Aid and finished at 16:30, the next bus was at 17:00. Wednesdays and Fridays school came out an hour earlier than any of the buses so I stayed in the library (in the early years, as a junior I dropped first aid and worked as a student librarian most afternoons) until I could walk down for the 15:15 bus, which was the earliest one with any predictable time pattern.
Needless to say most of my school career was spent waiting for the right time to get to the bus, my constant deadline. I DO NOT work well with deadlines. I get nervous thinking about the ever decreasing amount of time I have left. Rather than motivate me I tend to freak out under the pressure.


The second reason I would have gone to the boarding school is because I am a hopeless PC game addict. I can't really explain it that well... maybe it's because in computer games you actually feel like you're actions have some impact on the world you're living in. Maybe I just like to feel powerful, or brave and heroic and all those things that the real world beats the crap out of.
Yeah, that's probably it. Anyway, I spent almost every moment I could in front of my computer playing games with my brain on 'fuzz' mode. The problem with Virtual Reality, I've since found, is that it takes a vampiric hold over the real world, sucking up time and ensuring that nothing ever gets done, I never developed my social skills or really any other skills because I only really cared about the world past the flickering screen. Trouble is, I realised I didn't want to be that kind of person.
I wanted to care about this world too, and be bold and brave and powerful. Unfortunately, as I said, the real world kicks people like that in the face.


I know that I require a certain degree of forced discipline, and boarding school may have been what I needed. I would have had more time to think of my schoolwork without concentrating on the bus schedule (sounds lame, but it's true) and I would be cut off from my precious virtual reality, forced into the real world, where I might have adapted quicker. If it were that clear cut, it would have been perfect.
I would have spent my days in the library reading books, studying, perhaps even have plucked up the courage to get into a relationship. I can almost feel a happy me in a parallel universe looking back and being thankful for never chasing his emotions to a public school.


Of course, when I look back at who I was when I was thirteen I know I was an arrogant snot rag who learned some important things in high school.
What strikes me with the deepest dread is the books: what if I had never read all the books I read in public school. I'm sitting here thinking that my life would have been a ghastlier horror than Lovecraft could produce if I had never read Herbert, Hardinge, Wooding, or Scott... I would forgo the human beings I met in high school in an instant for a chance to have turned out as a more capable human being, but my books... that would be inconceivable. They shaped me. They are, as only a librarian could say, my true friends.
Anything else that occurred; such as the bus and my PC game addiction, are regrettable, yet my life as is stands as a whole is regrettably unregrettable, because I cannot regret the books I've read.

Protocol

Right now I'm wondering how this is going to work. By suggestion of the web layout, I should have categories and (I've just seen the automatic draft updater and am very impressed. If this were Microsoft Word I would transfer all my writing immediately to be online.) find something clever to put under the post heading. THAT, says me, would be the way a highly organised mind would work. As you may have noticed by the interruption halfway through the first line, I'm a bit moggy in the head and my thoughts are cantankerously erratic. I don't mind, most of the time. I reason that I will think a certain number of things every day and as long as I'm not disarming a bomb it doesn't really matter what order I think them in.

Given the above explanation, I have decided that this blog will grow in the same way as a jumping castle. Have you ever seen a jumping castle getting the air blown into it? It's comparable to a number of perverse things I would rather not name on this site. For now, just sit in front of the luminous screen and let my soothing words take you back to your distant childhood before perverse analogies infested your mind.

Can you see yourself? A shrimpy kid with stringy hair lying flat against your forehead? Good.
You are probably holding a slice of Birthday cake (Birthday always seems to need capital letters, like Christmas or Judgement Day), unless like me you do not like Birthday cake and have opted to fill your pockets with jelly beans. You feel... sticky. And itchy, too.

You are outside on a garden lawn of a house you have never been to before now. The birthday girl, a kid too young to have a solid clique, has opted to invite the whole class to come over for a Birthday party . There are multiple glass bowls filled with sweets set up on a table with a plastic sheet protecting it. If you're lucky, there are individual squares of Top Deck chocolate lying in a dish half-melted, which the kids run back and forth to as if it were heroine . There may be a pool, and you might be wearing a swimming costume. Regardless, your legs itch like psychosis because you've been sitting on the grass, chasing other kids, laughing, falling over countless times.

On the sideline is the proverbial Big Top - not a clown, those freaks went out of fashion years ago - a Jumping Castle. Dads and uncles (the 90's didn't leave adequate room for feminism) are laying it out flat. Someone plugs it in and the turbines kick up a cacophony that is mellow compared to the screaming of kids. You decide to watch as the air kicks the castle into motion. At first it sort of hovers close to the ground... then a turret pops up like a balloon and the patchwork giant is given a semblance of structure. It wobbles, unstable, if someone turned off the generator it would crash in a heap and that would be the end of it. But, for as long as the parents feed those essential kilowatts into the generator, the party continues. The kids will bounce around, get sticky, belly flop, and make memories which they'll half dredge up on a blog site a decade later simply to illustrate the essential notion behind a jumping castle.

I think a blog must be a little like a holocaust survivor. The mind, as the natural centre for concentration, is the concentration camp (or death camp to get technical). I've been constantly gunning down my own ideas under the belief that they are weak and will never succeed in moving anyone further than out of the room to get away from my god-awful writing. It's only by fighting constantly against one's inner gauntlet that any idea can ever see daylight. Which reminds me of one of my favourite sayings, which I read back in the day off a Mirrodin(TM) Magic: The Gathering(TM) card:

"Murder of the living is tragic;  murder of the idea? Unforgivable." -Janus, speaker of the synod.

Paraphrased, of course.

Why did I name the previous post 'Protocol'?

Firstly, because I really like the word. I like several unusual words - and unfortunately many very long ones - like, 'inchoate', 'indigestible', 'demographic' and 'visceral'. This is officially termed a 'lexicon' (another favourite) which means a series of words a specific writer commonly uses. Now I know what you're thinking; inchoate is a easy enough word to slip into a conversation, (ha ha, you so weren't thinking that) but generally people would have trouble with 'visceral' outside of an insult or a romantic confession (I really dare you to tell your boyfriend he invokes a visceral reaction in you). Somehow, I manage it. People don't tend to talk to me for more than a few seconds after I explete the first pernicious conglomerate of striking syllables, probably because it's an intimidating habit. I also suffer the opposite; when I'm not so loose-lipped I transform into a grunting troglodyte who oozes vibes that could make Bambi cry.

Plegh. Enough of my self pity for now.

I'm pretty sure that when I named the post 'Protocol' I was thinking "the standard thing to do right now is to say who I am and give an idea of what this blogs about and (water) just be honest really thats what this is all about so make people feel at home and make them like you stop caring if no one will read this is you make just one person happy it will be worth a million words"
You will have noticed two things from the above:

• I do not punctuate my thoughts. There is just a long rambling line of stuff that crashes around the infinity between my eyebrows and my scalp. If there could be any punctuation mark I could inject it would be the ellipsis (...) because the ellipsis never signifies an end, simply a... continuation of thought with a random pause. Hmm... I wonder what really fills the space above those three dots in my mind?
• I think in very small words. Most of the time, anyway, and only in passive thought. Active thoughts demand I slow down, extrapolate my verbosity, enunciate and punctuate every neuron. I guess that I should find some way to think at a comfortable median, and if any Buddhas are reading this blog, I invite you to tell me how.

I guess that in this instance 'Protocol' simply meant I was doing what I believed I should do to make a blog that seems blog-like. Critics will say, "No true art follows protocol", to which I will reply either, "GRUNT," or "I understand. You mean to proclaim that all artistic endeavor springs from an individual mind that cannot be inhibited by external viewpoints. I disagree, as art relies on perception, and perception will always hold an infinite number of diverse external viewpoints. Individual thought, under consideration, does not exist in a boundless universe. There is only Idea, and art is a manifestation of Idea."

(Slipping into a readable debate format)

Critic: Yes, naturally all art is centred around Idea, but it is the individual take on an Idea that makes the art art. Two men see a cow differently, but the Idea is still a cow. Picasso and Dali could both paint a cow, but their work would not be considered identical.

Avatar (You're really going to love this): I concede, description is the root of all individuality, but you must also consider the nature of the subject. A cow, by common description, is a four-stomached, mammalian, herbivorous quadruped. This is the Idea; the rule on which all variations of the cow spread. Picasso then says that the cow's dimensions are flat, desecrating one of the fundamental attributes of the Idea. Dali paints the cow with a curly moustache, annihilating another sacred tenet of Cow. Individuality demands the alteration of the original Idea.

Now I'm going to revert to my old friend philosophy to ask a personally variant question. What says that Cow as a four-stomached, mammalian, herbivorous quadruped was the original Idea?

Critic: A bloody wellspring of religious warfare lay claim to the answer. By common terms, the thing that names the Idea of cow as a four-stomached, mammalian, herbivorous quadruped is none other than God.

Avatar: Pass the man a banana! The answer is indeed the shimmering protector of Earth, or if it pleases you, giant lizards, machines, The Force, and the heroes of other argumentative religious factions. Or science, for the god damned atheists.

So this Creator invented the basis for all interpretations of his Idea, but we have to admit that his Idea of a cow as a four-stomached, mammalian, herbivorous quadruped is immutably his interpretation of his own thoughts. The only thing that makes people insist that he did not colour the cow with his own fancy is that he created the Idea of Cow rather than corrupting it.

Next I have to point out that God did not make a cow with a moustache. Dali is the creator of the mustachioed cow, just as Picasso is the creator of the flat cow. Their Idea of cow is di

Sweet bleating platypus, I've forgotten the point I was trying to make.

(Sometime later)

Their Idea of cow is based on what God said a cow was, in a fancier term, God's PROTOCOL is the SCIENTIFIC cow. To draw any variation of original cow is to adapt from protocol. My point is that protocol is required. Rules, laws and regulations are required. In the words of the rattiest whiskey-swilling scoundrel known to man, "Rules are made to be broken." In art, this is true.

Every human being has the Creator's Ideas thrust in his face from the moment of her/his birth. We can't help but look. What we can do is adapt. We can break the laws through artwork. Perhaps Art, as a defiance of God's law, should be seen as sin.

(Dialogue over)

To the creator of this Blog site, you have formed a method of creating further Art. That is an art in itself. Your protocol is a suggestion of a certain beginning to one's blog which I think I've kind of stuck to. It is orderly, it makes sense, and it promotes the welfare of the Idea you created. In order to use the instrument you have wrought I followed the given protocol. Beyond that protocol and past the Idea of what a blog should be - that is up to me. Thank you. You are a liberal creator.

I think that's enough fatooting for now. I understand my discourse was circular, and that there was no true victor, but it is through such investigations that I learn. Personally, I see all Ideas as original so long as there is any kind of variation. A cow is not a cow with a hernia is not a cow with a moustache, so to speak.

There was more fatooting after the fatoot comment, so I'll put another fatoot comment at the very end so that it actually makes sense.

I think that's enough fatooting for now.