How Have TV Show Plots Affected Novel Writing Over the Last Sixty Years? (English Graduate Program Thesis II)

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A second (and final) graduate thesis, which I again give to someone else to execute, would explore the evolution of novel plots since the development of television. We’ve had to be influenced by television and its time constraints.  By 8:28 PM it’s apparent that the bizarre medical problems aboard the Enterprise are the result of an alien virus planted by the same sleazy folks who’ve sabotaged the anti-matter drive. After the 8:30 commercial break Kirk tells Bones to develop an antidote. Bones feverishly works in his lab until about 8:50, at the same time that Scotty is sticking some gadget into the anti-matter drive with three seconds left before the Enterprise explodes. At 8:55 Bones tests the antidote on himself, going into a brief seizure which freaks everyone and signals that all is lost. But by 8:57 he’s up and about inoculating 400 crewmembers, and at 8:59 Kirk is signing off on Yeoman Rand’s clipboard and cracking jokes with Spock and the doctor … as the theme music rises …

This could be a pretty open-ended thesis, and I imagine it’s been done in some form before. It might seem that I’m implying that TV show plots have caused a deterioration in novel writing. But I’m basically wondering how television has affected novelists, for both good and ill. A couple (several?) generations of writers have arisen with television.  How has it affected them?

Has TV generally made novels better? Has it made them worse? Has it had some effect, but not enough to seriously affect the quality of novels?

Why did we start writing? What influenced us? What do people want in a story? What storytelling rules are universal?  hat about movies or plays as an influence?  r the Internet for that matter?

TV plots are not necessarily bad–but they do need to fit into time constraints. There have always been rules or guidelines, from Aristotle’s Poetics to Save the Cat.  Time constraints are nothing new. Plays ran a certain length of time or had a certain number of acts.  Films have had time and structure rules from the beginning.

It’s possible that films, lending themselves to longer development of plot and character, have had more of an effect on novels. My first fifth grade science fiction stories were more influenced by Grade B science fiction movies than TV shows. I think I was more influenced by a combination of movies and boys books, like the Hardy Boys and Tom Swift, Jr.

My brother lent me The Tower Treasure to read at night, after visitors’ hours, under a circle of light in my hospital bed where I spent two months recuperating from a fractured skull. I was seven years old and this first Hardy Boys book was the first chapter book I ever undertook. And it was a difficult task that nevertheless pulled me on and on.  It was like The Brothers Karamazov to me–what could such a long sustained narrative mean? What was it pointing to?

For me personally, then, television wasn’t much.  But perhaps it was much more for a few generations and sub-generations of novelists.  A wide-ranging study of novel structures before film, after film but before television, and after television, might be illuminating.

N-CAT warned that I’m no expert on television, not having watched it in thirty-five years, according to her. Actually, I watched Star Trek: Enterprise and the Invasion mini-series, so I do have at least a little twenty-first century experience.

copyright 2010 by Michael D. Smith

The Blog Evolving into the Entire Journey

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Fourth Floor Space Science copyright 2010 Michael D. SmithOld Things

My first blog entries have been oddly coalescing around past writing. I’ve wondered at the look backwards: “A Mule for Billy” and “Five Query Letters” from the 90’s, Total Annihilation: Camouflage! from my Rice days, “Case 9 of the New Fritening Experiences,” written recently in homage to 5th grade science fiction stories, and “Roadblock Zarreich,” rewritten from an 80’s story.

Is this an attempt to reclaim old energy? Finding jewels in the mud? Or am I just plundering my cache of old work, lazily donating to charity used shirts and pants no one really wants?

I’m getting the blog off the ground at a time when I’ve finally gotten clear about what I’m doing with my writing. And the thought has struck me that maybe the blog had to begin with an address to lost energies or the old path. That I’ve been putting up some old energies I should have published–somewhere–at the time. That I’ve needed to consider my path as a writer and what I’ve tried to accomplish with my work.

I’ve had various phases of seeking publication, then getting discouraged and going underground, all the while composing new works “not for publication,” then emerging to try again. Each of the below Waves of Publishing Attempts (except Wave 4) has been marked by scores of submissions and rejections.

Wave 1, after my graduation from Rice University, concentrated on stories and continued until “Space, Time, and Tania” was published in PigIron Magazine in 1977.

Wave 2 began with the early version of my second novel, The University of Mars, finalized in a decent (not great) 320 page typescript. But Wave 2 was marked by a Career Art stance, as I tried to get all sorts of mediocre little stories published in an attempt to gain credentials for the novel. The whole effort sickened me, and after twenty plus rejections on The University of Mars came my 1986 ambition crash, which lasted in various forms through 2008.

Wave 3 saw a flood of new and better novels, including Sortmind and Property. But after these two utterly brilliant works garnered their scores of rejections slips, I got mad at “the game” and declared that publishing was just like buying a lottery ticket. Did I really I consider my novels as just … cheap lottery tickets, no longer the glorious psychological exploration? At any rate, okay. I take my toys and go home.

Interlude: By the late nineties, I could professionally write the long, complex, necessary but flawed The Soul Institute, create a final manuscript along with a languid draft query letter, and … stick everything in my desk drawer for an entire decade.

Wave 4: I assemble, in both truth and delusion, a vulgar and messy Nonprofit Ladies, self-judged as perfect, from 2000-2003. The 15% token effort to send queries on the 2003 NPL hardly counts as a Wave, though.

Wave 5: During the last few years of reexamination, I’ve confirmed what I must have privately suspected all along: that despite some great initial ideas, my previous manuscripts were wordy, tangled, and confused, and of not much value to anyone else. I recall how shocked I was in late 2006, taking what I thought would be a leisurely tour through the “final” Nonprofit Ladies, and seeing just how sordidly off it was. But that was an awakening, and drove me to revise my major novels (including Sortmind, The Soul Institute, and Nonprofit Ladies) to accord with my new clarity. After starting to interact with the world of e-publishing, I feel I’m writing and submitting professionally, coming to the table with real contributions, not just lottery tickets.

Repository Blog

The best thing so far about the sortmind blog is its mixture of essays and stories and art: creative work juxtaposed with ruminations on it. I want the blog to be a good overview of my writing and visual art, as well as the processes I use. An accessible repository of sample writing, drawing, and painting.

In no way do I conceive of this blog as anything like “social networking.” I can appreciate how blogs have developed as structured personal web sites with comment and networking capability, but I just want to master the game as self-expression, and see where it leads.

Don’t Dump Old Essays Here

I have a tremendous cache of personal essays written over the past couple decades, recently assembled into their own digital folder in preparation for the blog. I just counted ninety-six of them, with over 950 pages! But as I began the blog I quickly established that most of them–almost all of them–won’t work here. This seriously cuts down the data dump I’d somehow assumed would be easily available to fuel the blog. Not only were many of the essays written simply to get perspective on current novel projects of their time, but their personal nature isn’t the voice I’m looking for here.

And most of my essays are uncooked as far as publishing goes. In fact I’m beginning to realize that writing something is NOT the same thing as publishing it! And a blog IS publishing. I’ve found my journal and essay voices, and they’re not the same as the publishing/blog voice.

The Schedule

I’ve also found–as I’m sure many bloggers have–that I can’t start trying to produce blog entries according to a schedule, or think that someone out there is waiting for a post. The blog’s calendar structure seems to demand a consistent output. It seems that even if I want it to be a repository of a hundred pieces of writing and art, the only ones people are supposed to find worthwhile are the last couple weeks at most–everything else to be considered outdated.

But realize: 1) People who’ve read it so far are NOT breathlessly awaiting the next post; they’re too busy for such worries. And 2) This sort of scheduling is nothing that periodical editors and writers haven’t been dealing with for hundreds of years. In fact, I dealt with it as editor of the Wiess Crack at Rice. The deadline … what to say? What to put out there?

I foresee the blog gradually becoming a specialized body of work, and it should all be current, despite the past dates. Let it evolve on its own. Dare to make a few mistakes along the way.

And although the number of items I’ve rejected may seem daunting to my original plans, this is actually a beneficial purge of unwritable stuff, and means I must fall back on new and honest energies. I can’t just string together old stuff and fake it.

Universal Concerns / Voice

In cutting down much about myself, I focus more on universal concerns.

It’s not that I’m trying to hide my viewpoints, but that my personal history doesn’t need to be involved here–or at least not thrust forward as the primary thing. It seems silly to inflict my personal history on others, just blasting out older essays that were musings about my next writing, my past writing, my publication efforts, etc. That would be like the editor of Ladies Home Journal writing an intro piece for the magazine that veers off into all sorts of crazed worries and fantasies instead of trying to focus this month’s issue in the reader’s mind.

The blog is less personal than an essay. I think this is appropriate. However, my own character will still be in the blog. There is something proud about a blog post, like wearing Sunday clothes. It’s the same person, and the person isn’t lying or presenting a distorted self, but all the same there’s a fresh new level of formality and dignity.

It’s an interesting challenge, to both advance personal views while trying to be universal. I’m rather surprised that almost all my essays don’t have that universal quality. Trust and Is Abstract Art More Difficult? did, but even then they both required some adjusting of personal items for their blog versions.

The voice itself lives at the strange intersection of journal, essay, blog, and novel idea musing. It will be important to keep these functions separate, and not to get hung up on synchronizing them.

How can a blog post be heartfelt, true, interesting, and important–at least to some degree‑‑but not overly personal, confessional, or self-serving?

Super Colossal Mess Jungle / Actual Practice

I’m beginning to see how much I need to reevaluate this blog business. I think the main thing should be to have fun with it, perfect it aesthetically, and keep in mind getting involved with the Super Colossal Mess Jungle–any way I can. It’s quirky, humorous, and there is a focus to it all, however undefined. The structural limitations of the blog format somehow add to the quirkiness.

As long as the SCMJ is operational, all is OK, even some mistakes are OK, because I’m adhering to the foundation I first declared I wanted. I want to get some new essays written now. I do see a place for some of my older stories that never saw an audience when they should have, but I want to intersperse the old and new, and I feel I’m building up a self-portrait of myself as a writer.

I want exploration, homage to the entire writing journey, and a sense of ease to the process, not necessarily meaning “easy writing” of the posts themselves.

The blog now strikes me more as an art gallery, and the posts up now are things on the walls. I can interact with “the public” as I do at a gallery reception. It is public.

Although I sense a new resistance to doing the blog, at the same time I’m beginning to see that this is one of those times when I need to push through the reluctance in search of real energies, in the same way that there were certain English papers I’m glad I was “forced to write,” as they did clarify my thoughts. The blog is pushing me to develop more of a public writer persona, which I think I need.

Above all I don’t want to develop any pollution voice, writing for some imaginary audience. I’ve already been through that over the years, and I don’t think I do it anymore, but–there’s no guarantee I’ll never develop that mental skin rash again. I do write for an ideal reader, but that’s different. For I am also the ideal reader.

copyright 2010 Michael D. Smith

How Did “They” Get Started? (English Graduate Program Thesis I)

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They’re building a new Starbucks down the street. They’re about to raise interest rates. They’re planning a new freeway through my back yard. They’re thinking of putting in a new sewer line. They’re coming out with more efficient electric cars. They’re bringing the prices of laptops down. They’re raising the cost of gasoline.

But who exactly are they? The use of they to mean any person, business, or governmental body proposing a direction, making a decision, or acting, is so commonplace that I’d be surprised to find one person who claimed he or she never indulged in it.

When did it start? How would you track when we began to use they in this sense? Except perhaps for letters to the editor, archived newspapers wouldn’t provide reliable answers, as even today newspapers or news sites clearly state that “Starbucks is opening a new store at …”, or “The Department of Sanitation proposes new sewer lines for …” No news source uses they in this sense of “those in control”–at least, that I know of. It seems editors expect reporters to find out exactly who is doing what.

So … this topic would make a fine English graduate program thesis, one which I would never undertake myself and therefore hand off to the first interested English graduate student. I’m even having trouble finding out if anyone has already done this project–because they is so commonplace!

The only research I’ve made is to note how The Oxford English Dictionary (compact edition, 1971) describes one use of they: “As indefinite pronoun : People in general; any persons, not including the speaker … Much used colloquially and dialectally instead of the passive voice.” The OED cites uses in this sense in years 1415 and 1565.

But this doesn’t explain our use of they to mean “omniscient powers in control.” They is oral shorthand for some frequently nameless authority, often but not always feared or scorned. I’m struck by the OED’s wording, “any persons, not including the speaker,” which can sound somewhat paranoid in this context.

There may be a possibility of tracing early use of the authority they through novels, songs, poems, films, letters to the editor, and other places where vernacular or colloquial expressions are recorded. Possibly start with 1800. Search microfilmed newspapers to find such a use. Search Google Books. Visit libraries holding books from the 1800’s. Go back or forward fifty years at a time until you find your first hit, then narrow the timeframe.

Unfortunately, they also has quite a few other uses! Making up search strings, or just wading through old microfilm, will be quite a task.

What does it mean? Why do we continually fall back on They’re offering specials at Target when we mean “Target is offering specials”? Is it psychic laziness? An aversion to precision, to the responsibility to know something about what’s going on around us? I was also struck by the OED’s phrase: “Much used colloquially and dialectally instead of the passive voice.”

Is it the fear that they control everything? That they are the unknown and thus the enemy? And not only is there nothing we can do about it, we’re too afraid even to use the passive voice?

Is there an active voice for this sort of thing? That is, precisely describing the events of daily life around us?

copyright 2010 by Michael D. Smith

Flashpoint’s Daughter

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Hand Bones, copyright 1997 Michael D. SmithWhat’s up with bones, daughters, and duplicate titles?

Several years ago I began to wonder why so many novels had the word bone in the title, and I went through the library catalog to make an extremely long and astonishing (but by no means exhaustive) list. I recently updated the list of “bone” titles, trying to include only novels, though I may have inadvertently picked up a few biographies or nonfiction, which can be equally enamored of bone. Here are a few of the titles:

A Bone From a Dry Sea, Bad to the Bone, Blind to the Bones, Blood and Bone, Bone by Bone by Bone, Bone Crossed, Bone Dance, Bone Deep, Bone Factory, Bone Harvest, Bone Mountain, Bone of My Bones, Bone to the Bone, Bones of Empire, Empire of Bones, Dead Man’s Bones, Dragon Bones, Dragonfly Bones, Feast of Bones, Harvest of Bones, House of Bones, Lovely in Her Bones, The Lovely Bones, The Bone Garden, The Bone Orchard, The Bones in the Attic, The Bones in the Cliff, Trail of Bones, and Zero at the Bone.

You can only marvel that the use of bone in novel titles has not yet been universally derided as a cliché. What is an author or publisher trying to convey with such a title?  Are we really supposed to be so thrilled, scared, or impressed? I’m not commenting on the content of books themselves; as an example, I recently read Deborah Crombie’s Dreaming of the Bones, ostensibly a “police procedural” but in reality an excellent literary work.

The fact is that bone is a strong word. Its use as a marketing concept doesn’t change its connotations of death, rot, fear, vulnerability, horror, or the obverse of all those qualities: underlying structure, strength, permanence or at least relative permanence, the truth, the end of denial, the beautiful deep architecture transcending the day-to-day.

Bone has a great sound, and that may be why it gets overused. It also instantly signals mystery or thriller; only in rare cases do we get a philosophical overtone of Hamlet in the graveyard. But using bone so much may be like playing “Stairway to Heaven” over and over and over and over …

After bone, I began to consider the overuse of daughter. So I made another list of novels with “daughter” in the title. Again, biographies make use of the word and I may have snagged one or two of those. While the word can be used a variety of ways, the most common seems to be: The X’s Daughter, where X stands for a profession, as in:

The Colonel’s Daughter, The Courtesan’s Daughter, The Dreamthief’s Daughter, The Executioner’s Daughter, The Fortune Teller’s Daughter, The Gold Miner’s Daughter, The Gravedigger’s Daughter, The Hummingbird’s Daughter, The Mapmaker’s Daughter, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, The Minister’s Daughter, The Mortician’s Daughter, The Narcissist’s Daughter , The Optimist’s Daughter, The Piano Man’s Daughter, The Preacher’s Daughter, The Prodigal Daughter, The Red Queen’s Daughter, The Serpent’s Daughter, The Spinner’s Daughter, The Storyteller’s Daughter, The Tailor’s Daughter, The Thief Queen’s Daughter, The Virgin Queen’s Daughter, and The Witch’s Daughter.

Amy Tan (The Bonesetter’s Daughter) and Ted Dekker (BoneMan’s Daughters) manage to incorporate both our words.

Daughter also has a great sound, though not as striking as bone.  But daughter too is rich in associations and these titles are striving for more honesty than bone used as a thrill word. Daughter connotes vulnerability, innocence, hope, possibility, inheritance, continuation, entitlement, empowerment, pride–as well as their opposites when the parent-child relation is poisoned and those positive qualities are thwarted–which often seems to be the theme in these daughter novels.

But, though I know that many of these daughter titles are high quality fiction, what is the point of going to the same well over and over again and pulling out the same tired title form? There must be some marketing angle to it, but it just doesn’t make sense to me why an author would want to have a title that looks like everyone else’s.

Or IS everyone else’s.  Welcome to Flashpoint, where the third list, which I started compiling years ago along with the Bones list, shows just a small sampling of identical novel titles. Try Flashpoint (or Flash Point) with at least thirty-four titles by authors including:

Bernard Ashley, 2007
Linda Barnes, 1999
Sneed B. Collard, 2006
Frank Creed, 2009
Suzanne Brockmann, 2004
Jane Donnelly, 1981
Katherine V. Forrest, 1995
Connie Hall, 2008
James W. Huston, 2000
Nancy Baker Jacobs, 2002
Stephanie Newton, 2010
D. A. Richardson, 2006
Jill Shalvis, 2008

Or Second Chance (or The Second Chance, 2nd chance) by

Judy Baer, 1991
Jackie Calhoun, 1991
Jerry B Jenkins, 1998
Almet Jenks, 1959
Claire Lorrimer, 2000
Dan Montague, 1999
James Patterson, 2002
Hildegarde Schneider, 1987
Vian Smith, 1966
Alan Sillitoe, 1981
Danielle Steel, 2004
Kate William, 1989
Chet Williamson, 1994

Other duplicate titles with numerous authors include: Against All Enemies, All That Glitters, Brothers in Arms, Dead Ringer, Dead Wrong, Deception, Deceptions, Desert Heat, Exile or The Exile, Fire and Ice, Fire and Rain, Firestorm, Flesh and Blood, Gates of Hell, Pendragon, Ransom, Riptide, Running Scared, Sacrifice or The Sacrifice, The Sandman, Scarecrow, Secret Admirer, Sleeping Beauty (excluding fairy tales), Sound of Thunder, Split Second, and White Lies.

There are also several novels titled The President’s Daughter.

I’m sure I could make the duplicates list much longer, but I started it with random searches through the library catalog and by testing certain “cool-sounding” titles for matches–which I almost invariably found. But this task was tremendously time-consuming, as opposed to doing keyword searches for bone and daughter.

It can’t simply be that publishers are unaware of these duplications. It’s a simple matter to consult a library catalog, amazon.com or another source to see what’s out there. Something about these titles must strike either the author or publisher as catchy, marketable, safely familiar, or impressive to the masses. Yet many of these titles are pretentious and bathetic, and I wonder at how anyone can be taken in by them. And I still can’t fathom how anyone can issue a new Flashpoint knowing that a fairly famous author published a Flashpoint just a few years ago. There will undoubtedly be more Flashpoints in the future. And I suppose we are expected to be tingled anew by each new appearance of that title.

And while I don’t think much of the other extreme, finding some outlandish and wacky title to make absolutely sure your novel is unique, I certainly don’t want any of mine to be on that duplicates list. I do check before settling on a final title. In fact, it was the discovery of other novels called Property that led me to rename my novel of that name to CommWealth. My first student novel, Nova Scotia, probably does share its title with a travel guide.

Of course, sooner or later one of my novel titles may be duplicated, or has been already and I just don’t know it yet. But that’s life. In any case, it’s a good thing we can’t copyright titles.

copyright 2010 by Michael D. Smith

Exhibit A: “Slime in the Mind,” by Edward Duce (The Politically Correct Theology Student Song)

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Deleted from an early version of my novel Sortmind, the chapter “Twenty Years Ago at Darkforce” (its 9,600 words omitted here), recounts theology student Edward Duce’s interrogation before the Feminist Trial Board of Darkforce Theological Seminary. Duce, the future founder of Sortmind’s paramilitary For the Triangles Foundation, struggled to employ all-inclusive language, but it still took him forty pages of transcript to demonstrate that his song, brazenly and disrespectfully performed during “Celebrate the Feminine Week,” was in fact entirely satisfactory to his inquisitors and in full accordance with Carnationist religious doctrine.

hold my stinking hand
it’s the best our crippled atrocities will permit
as I betray the LORD with my gland
collapsing into a gore-overflowing cesspool where Mind must numbly split

imprisoned in these crotches that shall never rise
we notice that somehow the LORD always seems to thwart all our sallow dreams
as we nurse our miserable pus, sing and weep for piteous victims we also despise
we stand ready to be sliced to atoms by GOD’s avenging beams

yes, think of all the grime that’s in the air
you sit on a solid porch but it turns to liquid despair
sit in here, and then we’ll sit out there
and feel the scary moonlight on the chair …

He or She will blow us apart with His or Her Song
as we struggle towards our hopelessly insane just desserts of grace
we’ll accept our civilization’s death throes as being certainly not wrong
when our angry LORD uses kingdoms lacerated with pain to attack the human race

oooh, in the slime of our minds
our worthless slimy minds
in the slime of the Mind …

copyright 2010 by Michael D. Smith

Total Annihilation: Camouflage!

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Orange Rhinoceros copyright 1994 Michael D. SmithWhy should I post a play I wrote at the end of my freshman year at Rice? Because it does seem timeless to me. It seems like one of those wise childhood things we sometimes write and then forget for decades how to do. It’s also has fun and zany archetypes, it was performed three times in 1972 and once in 1973, I DID play the War Correspondent, AND I now have an opportunity to format the play according to standard guidelines, just to get a feel for how it’s done. It was educational to format my Word document to include the proper tab stops for stage, scene, and character stage directions, but for the purposes of the blog I’ve just centered or indented them as looks best.

This post is another homage to past influences: believe it or not, the revelation of how Dostoyevsky used dialog in The Brothers Karamazov, which I first read in Spring 1971. Several people have remarked, and I agree with them, that one of my strengths as a writer is dialog. Especially the kind where people are saying absolutely crazy, emotionally off-the-wall things to each other, like Fyodor to Father Zossima.

So it often seems natural for me to go one step further in a novel and have a chapter be a recording, often secretly made by one villain or another, in which I can just have the characters function as actors. No descriptions of long regal noses or who brought whose coffee cup to whose lips, just raw dialog. That’s not a real play; in fact, I once attempted to rewrite a novel as a play and it failed horribly. So I’ve been content with occasional dialog scenes. To effect a suitably dramatic ending to the secret recording, often where I can cut a character off in mid-sentence, I often resort to technological disasters such as: “Hey! Don’t step on the tape re–” or “Watch out, idiot, you spilled your drink right on the tape re–”

TOTAL ANNIHILATION: CAMOUFLAGE!

CHARACTERS

ISAAC: high school philosopher
JERRY: high school jock
BRENDA: high school cheerleader
MARY: high school poetess
WAR CORRESPONDENT

PROLOGUE

(A stretch of devastated dirt. Smashed pasture fence. A few bullet-riddled German army helmets, strewn randomly. A skull. Dead and rotting blackbirds. Some gray stones. Fog, smoke, the smell of gunpowder. Ominous yellow light in the background. Somber silence.)

(Enter WAR CORRESPONDENT, a typical World War II U.S. battlefront war correspondent, helmeted, dirty khaki uniform, bearded, exhausted. Carries pencil and notebook.)

WAR CORRESPONDENT
(voice taut with anguish and exhaustion)

This … this is all that’s left … you people on the sidelines, safe back on the mainland, you people didn’t get involved in it. In this terrible war. You didn’t understand … you didn’t …

(gropes for words)

You–you sat at home on soft couches, you read magazines, went to parties … but … while over here, this happened …

(pause)

I’ve covered this war since it began. I’ve seen the hell and misery, the glory, the heroism, and the senseless death of it all. I’ve touched this war with my own hands … I’ve …

(chokes)

And now you’ll see it as it really happened …

(looks through his tattered little notebook; philosophical)

Let me tell you that war doesn’t begin with the first killing–it’s born in the hearts of men from the day their Maker endows them with the breath of life, from the day of their birth which the Devil corrupts mightily and here ever after fire and brimstone almighty. September first, August fourteenth, Berlin, Paris, Washington, Tokyo–dates and places do not matter. It’s the evil born into men that starts wars! And so this little history I’m about to give you shows the senseless, hateful, Devil-inspired evil … the evil of … man …

(pause)

It all began on April 15, six years ago, in a little smoke-filled nightclub in Paris …

(Voice trails off, lights dim, curtain falls slowly.)

ACT ONE

(A Jumbo Burger joint at night. A counter and four tables. At table second from left two teen-aged American guys, ISAAC and JERRY. At table on far right, two teen-aged American girls, BRENDA and MARY. All four well-dressed and beautiful. WAR CORRESPONDENT behind counter silently taking notes.)

GUYS’ TABLE

(Munching hamburgers; JERRY wearing high school letter sweater; ISAAC wearing black Hamlet costume)

Yeah … yeah–do you see–yeah–yeah yeah! Ha! Ha! So I said to–fine with me–good stuff–yeah yeah yeah–yeah–yeah–O.K. Fine. Yeah yeah! Ha! Ha! Pretty cool!

GIRLS’ TABLE

(BRENDA in cheerleader costume, MARY in a dress somewhat influenced by latest hippie fashions)

Yes! Giggle, giggle–so I told him–yeah yeah–giggle!–what did–yeah–no! But if–yeah yeah yeah–O.K. Yeah yeah–I see now–but what if–hey look at–where? Yeah yeah–oh yes! Fine with me.

ISAAC

(Clutching a copy of Kierkegaard’s complete works, and The Freedom of Reason by Konstantin Kolenda)

In the end, man must face his utter loneliness and choose his freedom in a reasonable manner.

(Sits on Jumbo Burger counter and reads menu aloud)

To be or not to be, that is the question … Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!

MARY

(Stands up, goes to audience, pleading)

In this world of unmitigated sorrow and despair, how can we survive … to be or not to be … we’re alone, all of us … it’s original sin that’s done this to us. We’ve got to wake up.

(MARY and ISAAC return to their seats without noticing each other.)

JERRY

Getting double-edged super roundabout twelve-inch dual side glasspacks for my Cuda.

ISAAC

Fine.

BRENDA

Imagine the principal throwing me out of the school for my dress being too short! I’m so mad I could just burn up!

MARY

Serves him right.

(ISAAC and JERRY notice BRENDA and MARY at the other table. Magical silence.)

JERRY

Say, look at da knockers on dat cheerleader babe!

ISAAC

What a noble expression of deep suffering, of tragic commitment to life, lies on the other one’s sweet face–like a soft veil, ready to be plucked off by–me …

(Lights dim. WAR CORRESPONDENT comes from behind counter and steps around the frozen figures of the four.)

WAR CORRESPONDENT

And so it began. On a small scale at first, but the evil grew. Isaac and Mary signed a mutual defense pact just three days later. Jerry and Brenda signed a treaty of non-aggression the next day, and later became allies. And so the sides squared off and waited … eighteen short months … before the killing began …

(Exit WAR CORRESPONDENT. Curtain.)

ACT TWO

(High school basketball game at halftime. Usual paraphernalia of high school gym, also decorated for The Big Dance. The WAR CORRESPONDENT kneels in the center of the deserted court wiping up a pool of blood. In the crowd milling around the edge of the court, ISAAC appears in Hamlet garb with upraised sword.)

ISAAC

(lofty)

Now might I do it pat, now he is praying.
And now I’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven.
And so am I revenged.

(normal)

Yes, man is alone. He must take the burdensome responsibility of his own freedom, destroying all Establishments and those who would interfere with his emotional urges, the urges to negate life in all forms and paradoxically exploit life at the same time. Thus …

(WAR CORRESPONDENT disappears into the crowd. Cheerleaders, led by BRENDA, appear and dance. ISAAC stares in lustful admiration.)

LOUDSPEAKER

And so Jerry North, star basketball player, is reported in critical condition after his serious injury on the court tonight …

CROWD

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

MARY

(Appears beside ISAAC)

What happened to poor Jerry?

ISAAC

So ’tis thee, thou bitch! My best friend Jerry, if thou must know, was smashed on the head with the pom-pom of one of thy fellow bitches, that cheerleader Brenda!

MARY

Thou meanest not my best friend Brenda!

ISAAC

Yes, your best friend Brenda killed Jerry ruthlessly and forever, just as you killed me ruthlessly and forever when you threw my abundant love into the toilet and flushed it, me, and all my dreams down into that dank morass of excrement and despair! All you ruinous bitches are the same. Get thee to a nunnery!

MARY

I will, thank you. Oh poor Jerry! Such a hero in the face of life’s tragedies! Such a manly hero!

(Runs offstage.)

JERRY

(Offstage, screaming)

Told da bitch I loved her! What the hell more does she want! Just a cock-teaser, da bitch!

(Twenty feet apart, ISAAC and BRENDA begin to exchange a long meaningful stare. As BRENDA drops her pom-pom and ISAAC drops his sword, both moving slowly towards each other with wide eyes and open mouths, the WAR CORRESPONDENT appears from the crowd with a director’s chair. He places it between ISAAC and BRENDA. A weary helplessness on his face. Slowly he takes out pencil and notebook and begins taking notes.)

ISAAC

(blushing and stammering)

Fair, thou … tender beauty and … miraculous sweet-scented night … the rose-bud May … ne’er so abundant in … joy and … fresh growth …

BRENDA

Why is it you’re so quiet? Don’t you like me?

ISAAC

Well–er–I–ah, well sure, but well … I … ah–well you see, I’m a–a philosopher of sorts–I–ha ha …

BRENDA

You can’t philosophize all the time, can you?

(sweet laugh)

ISAAC

Well …

BRENDA

Come …

(ISAAC and BRENDA fade into the crowd, which is lowly murmuring. JERRY and MARY, arm in arm–bandages on JERRY’S head–walk past and also fade into the crowd. WAR CORRESPONDENT stands up.)

WAR CORRESPONDENT

Well, I’m sorry about shocking you with all that gore and violence, but–it was necessary, to show how horrible the destruction was …

(pause)

But it wasn’t quite as simple as what you just saw.

(pause)

Though originally staunch allies, Isaac and Jerry fought bitterly over the rights to the borders and the natural resources of Mary and Brenda. Mary and Brenda, on the other hand, sought trade and the military protection of the supergiants Isaac and Jerry. None of the four powers could decide which alliance was most favorable to the changing circumstances, and so shifting alliances and terrible imbalances of power were the order of the day for the next four years. And that’s a lot of days …

(pause)

At any rate, the four powers, realizing the unbearable casualty rate and supply losses of their conflict, finally agreed to the Big Four talks which took place in Geneva, Switzerland …

(Exit WAR CORRESPONDENT. In the background, crowd’s murmuring voices. Curtain.)

ACT THREE

(Harris High school classroom. Thirty desk-chairs arranged in a circle. Blackboard, on it two calculus problems and the complete “To be or not to be” speech. Also “Freedom of Reason reports and Kolenda biographies due Monday.” The Big Four sitting at chairs. No one else in room, except silent WAR CORRESPONDENT at teacher’s desk.)

ISAAC

(simply, quietly)

Man is alone in the midst of an absurd game. Man must break free of all role-playing, all absurdity, all camouflage of his true multi-faceted self. Man must be free. Thus …

JERRY

Shaddup, for Chrissake … now let’s get down to business.

BRENDA

(To ISAAC)

Thou owest me an apology, thou rotten bastard.

ISAAC

O that this too too solid flesh …

MARY

What about my letter?

JERRY

What letter?

MARY

The letter I wrote my whole life into and which I must have back in order to regain my reputation–

JERRY

Oh that one. I lost it.

MARY

Oh no no no no no no no!

JERRY

Whoever finds it will mimeograph it and send it to all the top leaders of the world.

MARY

(in hysterical convulsions)

Oh no no no no no no no!

BRENDA

What did the letter say?

JERRY

It said “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from your darling Mary.”

MARY

Aohyieeeeeee!

(She rushes to the window. ISAAC grabs her arm.)

ISAAC

Wait, beloved Mary. I love you, divine Mary. Stay with me, beautiful Mary. I’ve always loved only you, darling darling–

(MARY jumps out the window.)

Hmm. We’re six floors up.

BRENDA

It’s me he loved.

JERRY

No! You loved me!

ISAAC

Well …

BRENDA

No, he loved me!

JERRY

No, he never loved you, nor did you he!

ISAAC

Well …

BRENDA

No, he loved me, but I never did love you, and he loves me still, and I do not love you now!

JERRY

No, not he, but me you loved. Not you he, but you me, not he you ever, but pretends you, though I love you now as always–

ISAAC

Well …

BRENDA

What the hell!

(To ISAAC)

Why are you so quiet?

ISAAC

I–er–ah–well, I’m a–philosopher of sorts …

BRENDA

Come …

JERRY

Not if I can help it!

(Slaps BRENDA, who cries.)

Now cut the crap and let’s get down to business. Tell Mary to get back in here and we’ll review the complaints. If we can get Mary and Isaac to agree to agree, then Brenda and I–

ISAAC

But Mary jumped out the–

JERRY

So? Tell her to get back in here.

ISAAC

But you don’t understand …

BRENDA

(bitterly)

All either of you ever wanted was my body! Well I’m leaving!

JERRY AND ISAAC

Stay, I love you dearly, my darling, if you only knew how dearly, my darling–

BRENDA

The hell with you!

(Gets up to leave. JERRY embraces her with mad passion.)

JERRY

Oh how dearly, my darling–

ISAAC

(fiery rage)

Thou shalt pay! Out sword! Make hamburger out of this knavish chap!

(Stabs JERRY repeatedly.)

JERRY

I regret …

(Dies)

ISAAC

Dead, dead for a ducat, Polonius! Dead, dead for a banana, King Claudius! Thou knavish hamburger!

(Throws JERRY’S body out the window.)

BRENDA

Oh how horrible! In the end how regrettable!

ISAAC

(comes to his senses)

What?

BRENDA

And now I suppose you’ll want to rape me for your victorious plunder!

ISAAC

(still dazed)

Why, not at all, fair maid.

BRENDA

(disappointed)

That’s all I am to you, a lowly scrubwoman! You never loved me!

ISAAC

Why, that’s untrue.

BRENDA

Then you would rape me for your victorious plunder.

ISAAC

Victorious plunder? Where did Jerry and Mary go?

BRENDA

(angry)

Out for a walk, the rotten bastards.

ISAAC

“Jerry and Mary.” That’s cute, like a little poem. Rhymes.

BRENDA

“Brenda and Isaac.” Trash!

ISAAC

I guess so. We should finish our meeting. Call in Jerry and Mary, that poetic twosome.

BRENDA

They went for a walk.

ISAAC

Call them here.

BRENDA

Don’t you understand?

ISAAC

Just call them–

BRENDA

Don’t you understand?

ISAAC

(thinking)

Let’s go for a walk.

BRENDA

All right …

(They walk to the window.)

ISAAC

You first.

(Curtain)

 

EPILOGUE

(Exactly the same as in prologue. WAR CORRESPONDENT enters, moves more tiredly than before, stares at the ground for a minute, looks at his watch, looks at notebook, throws notebook away. Looks directly at audience. Broken voice.)

WAR CORRESPONDENT

This … is all that’s left …

(Slow foot-dragging exit. Curtain.)

 copyright 2010 by Michael D. Smith

Is Abstract Art More Difficult?

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Why does abstract art seem more difficult to me than does representational art?  Abstract would seem to be play, and sometimes in fact it’s easy play.  But the easy gifts are just that, gifts.  The gifts are welcome to an artist, and often the clearest channel to the Source, but they come … when they feel like it.

Most of my abstract art has been necessary and difficult.  So difficult that I often wonder, especially after the exhaustion of a painting, why I bother to do it.  But it’s the necessity that pushes the painting out.  Although my need for writing is greater than my painting need, writing is such a different process that I can’t compare it to painting at all.

“Difficult” can signal “on the wrong track,” of course.  A poor tuning to the Source, poor channeling, distraction, tiredness, can frequently lead to the place where the initial free play eventually morphs into the inevitable “problem.”  “Getting into trouble” is a phrase I often find myself using as I slide towards this state.

Why is abstract more difficult, then?  Is it just a matter of too many variables to control?

  • colors
  • shapes
  • transparency/opaqueness
  • textures
  • amounts of paint required
  • forms of meaning
  • forms of listlessness
  • composition, aesthetics
  • passion
  • energy
  • chemical nature of paint
  • expected reactions/results
  • unexpected reactions/results

There’s an obvious comparison to music, especially instrumental music, in that the paint, and the musical notes, don’t refer to anything in the outer world, and the endless variables must be combined to open a channel of meaning and passion without reference to that outer world.  If this effort fails, the result is dull singsong, clever little patterns, no divine energy.

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Case 9 of the New Fritening Experiences: Attack of the Taoists!

Sortmind Blog - Michael D. Smith Posted on by

The following is offered in homage to my literary beginnings as a fifth grade science fiction author of such works as “February 11, 1971, DOOMSDAY,” “Blast-Off to Eternity,” “MONSTERVILLE, U.S.A.,” and “Journey to the Center of the Sun.”  “Fritening Experiences” was one of several series I worked on, its last being Case 8, “Slave Boy of Venus.”  Case 9 which follows is true to my fifth grade format, spelling, and comprehensive understanding of Grade B 1950’s science fiction movies.

Guacoazezama copyright 2010 Michael D. Smith

Chapter I.  The Aleins Big Mistake

In the year 1952 aleins from Gaucoazezama (Gwa-Ko-a-ZEZ-a-ma) plotted the destruction of the Earth.  Soon they found that Taoist Masters (MAAH-stirs) didn’t want them on Earth and vowed war against the aleins.  Soon a big war began, and soon the aleins were losing because their death rays were slower than Taoist Mind Rays and the Taoist Masters could fry many aleins at once from the mountain of the KLONG-TAR province of China.

One day an alein was trying to flee the scene of a big battle the aleins were losing with his arm blown off.  The Alein, known as GARTHAX-5, was driving a stolen car he had stolen to get away when it ran out of gas.  He was afraid of being killed by the Taoists so he hid in a house.  He was a coward and knew he would be killed by the Gaucoazezama warlords if they knew he ran away.

But in the house he found a MULTIPORT SHAMAN (MULL-tee-Port SHAH-man) and soon he was radioing a space message how the aleins could beat the Taoists.  If he knew what was about to happen he would be even more afraid than he was.

See Chapter 2, “Wrong Plug of Consousness” Continue reading →

A Mule for Billy

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My one and only foray into anything even resembling Texana.  Don’t panic.  There is no Chapter 2.

Chapter 1.  Growin’ Up ‘n Plantville

When I wuz growin’ up ever day Ma ‘ud yell “Billy, come inta dinner, yuh hear NOW!” and I’d yell back, “Cain’t, Ma!  I’m whittlin’!  Cain’t yuh see I’m whittlin’!”  So I’d go on whittlin’ like as the devil’ud take me, out behind the barn by the stump where Granpa had his stroke ‘n turned all blue durin’ the big drought everbody still talks bout till they’s just bout as blue in the face as he wuz.  There warn’t much ter do in Plantville back when I wuz growin’ up and I’d whittle, Lord, did I whittle.

“Billy, if yore pore dad wuz still kickin’ he’d whale the tar outa you now c’mon ta dinner, yuh hear boy?”

Guess I shud mebbee mention my ole man done gone like crazy bad back fore I really knew ‘im and mebbee that’s why I’m such a “prollum case,” whatever that means, I wuz too young ter know ennythin’ then but Lordy do they still go on here in Plantville bout when Larry Crucker done shot up the Dairy Queen and kilt fourteen people and then the cops had ter come and blow ‘im clean away right in the parkin’ lot a Lordy!  Shore as ennythin’ I still drive his ole red pickup with the bullet holes innit and people do talk specially the preacher but peoples round here do have long memries makes you wonder and all, specially when they see that truck aroarin’ inta the DQ parkin’ lot at two in the mornin’, straight pipes a’burstin’ with a rumblin’ and a groanin’ you ain’t never like ter hear in yore life.

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