Wednesday, November 22, 2006

A Big Brain: What a Burden!

The biggest drawback to having such big, clunky brains in all of our human skulls is that they simply will not stop thinking. Don't get me wrong: I'm glad we all can communicate and plan ahead, but usually, I think our massive brains act more like handicaps, contributing eccentrically and without solicitation like smoke alarms low on batteries.

Both a human and a squirrel can dream up a way to cross a narrow timber spanning a deep precipice. But while the squirrel plans a route out and darts ahead on it, the human, instead, gets these ideas in its big, old, workaholic brain that his palms should start sweating, his knees should start shaking, and his vision should become cloudy while takes his first steps on the rickety board. Now guess who doesn't make it across the timber?

When sleeping, our brains give us nightmares. When eating, our brains tell us the spaghetti looks like worms. When dexterity is needed, these brains will make our hands convulse like we're epileptics. So it is no surprise that during a job interview, our brains, CEO's of our bodies, will recall all of the ways in which our preparation is lacking.

There is no off switch for our mighty 3 lb. nerve center, either. Alcohol & drugs only distort the malevolent music of our brains like a fist in a sinister French horn.

So what do we do? We have to learn to function in spite of our brainpower. We must fight to ignore our brain - or at least, the images that our thought-center consciously presents. Only this way can a surgeon operate incisively, can a driver follow a straight line in reverse, or can a tightrope walker avoid a fall.

In short, it seems we all need to imitate squirrels to accomplish anything at all.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Whom Did We Elect?

A Democratic National Committee recruiter stopped me on the street today. She plunged headfirst into a ramble that was appearantly written on her eyelids, for she kept them closed. I easily could have walked away without her knowing, but I was interested to know what the party was up to recruiting on the street now that they had control of the house and senate. On perhaps her fourth or fifth sentence, just as she was breaking through a nebulous ensemble of banalities, she stumbled over her words and came bumbling into silence. I won't forget what she said next. It easily made me wonder just how faithful Democrats, now in office, would be to their campaign promises. What she said was this: "I'm sorry, they have just changed the rest of the pitch on me."

How to Write Like Kurt Vonnegut


Anyone who knows me well, must know that I am a huge fan of Kurt Vonnegut's work. Half in tribute to his style and half wishing to emulate it, I sketched out a recipe for Vonnegut-like composition:

1) Write out just one action sequence. Circumstances need not be viable - you will make them understandable in the preceeding text, which you will write later. Instead just write the draft of the action scene.

2) Find details that are intriguing, coincidences that are remarkeable, and parallels that are noteworthy. Resolve to discuss these throughout the course of the plot building up to the action sequence you have already composed.

3) Write out the necessary plot to arrive at your action sequence. Open windows into each of the lives of your characters. Make sure some have interesting beliefs that expose the puzzling nature of human morality. Make certain all have at least one aspiration, even if it is for "a glass of water." Most importantly, monkey around with their histories as you write. Let some of their paths cross serendipidously.

4) Give away the outcome of your action scene early and often. While you will, in effect, spoil the ending, it will sound as though the coming action sequence very urgently needs to be read.

5) Above all, concern yourself with humor. Understanding that even the most soft-brained, intuitive, poorly researched remarks will be well recieved if delivered conciscely with humble and comedic authority.

Blog-mania

Personally, I am concerned over the evanescence of quality in media as a whole. With the emergence of blogs, podcasts, and video-sharing sites we are all empowered to be the (1) creaters (2) fact-checkers (3) editors and (4) publishers of content. Millions of amateurs now flood the information space with (1) hastily created (2) often baseless (3) unedited material that, worst of all, is (4) professionally published!

Perhaps there never has been an absolute assurance of quality in media. The New York Times has likely never put an issue in print without a few typos. But out of concern for reputation, and for the cost of production too, there has been a rigorous filter determining what gets published and what gets pidgeon-holed. Now that everyone and their mothers can publish online with virtually the same visabilty as The New York Times, NPR, or Miramax, the online landscape is becoming less and less readable. Ladies and gentlemen, static has filled the airwaves.

Friday, November 10, 2006

Adsense

As a new blogger, and a new user of Google's AdSense, I have a few questions. The most pressing one is this: Should I be concerned that the advertisement most frequently selected for my blog is for oppium rehabilitation?

Monday, November 06, 2006

Writing for the Count

Check out this entry I found on a blog for writers the other day:

I'm at 10,548 right now... I should get my 3,000 words for the day easily and might push all the way up to 12,000. My boss at work asked me today, "What's the point of writing so fast if it's not going to be any good? If you're just going for word count, what difference does it make?"

The words are those of a science fiction novelist Jeff Kirvin, who is one of over 75,000 individuals participating in NaNoWriMo, a web-chic sobriquet for the “National Novel Writing Month.” It's an event, held annually, that asks would-be-novel-writers for a pledge to type 50,000 words (at minimum) for a manuscript, from scratch, within the month of November.

Should the endeavor seem less than daunting, consider that a participant would need to generate an average of 1,667 words (four single spaced pages) of original composition on each of thirty consecutive days through the span of the contest. Also bear in mind participants are, by and large*, amateurs with day jobs who have to pad their scripts in their free time. And finally, understand that there is no financial reward upon the completion of this Augean task (instead the author’s name finds will find its place on a list), and you will realize why less than 12% of those who register for the event actually submit the minimum word count by December 1st.

Masochistic undertaking that it is, enrolment figures for NaNoWriMo have swelled significantly over the years since it began in 1999 as a formal pledge between Bay Area friends. With the aide of a website and the munificence of individual donors, NaNoWriMo has become a registered non-profit organization that spurs thousands each year to make their literary splash.

Chain a monkey to a laptop, and glue at least one of his thumbs to the space bar; I'll guarentee you his name could grace the list of winners in December. That is - provided he didn't select all of the text by depressing the command and "A" keys simultaneously, and resume typing - effectually deleting his text. My point is that if he'll win your race, why run it in the first place? Or as Kirvin's boss asks "If you're just going for word count, what difference does it make?"

The answer: a successful novelist has to be a good writer, and to be a good writer - this is intuitive - one needs to practice writing! Amateurs need the pressure to write, perhaps more than accomplished writers do. What's worse, there is no one to apply it to them. A publisher is not calling up three times a day to check on the progress of a promised title. Fair chance is that novel will never materialize. A novice to the writing myself, I'll admit that without some big ugly deadline breathing down my neck, like a stranger checking out my iPod on the MUNI, I will find something 'better' to do with my time than to stare at my computer phrasing and rephrasing for hours on end. The editting is so excruciating! The pleasure I get from rewording a sentence is about the same as I would fetching honey from a beehive. So, NaNoWriMo helps. The pledge silences the editor within, puts a toy gun to the writers temple, and yells "who cares how it sounds, just write!"

I'd worry about the reader. I find this quote, from Pascal, germane: "I have made this [letter] longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter." So the idea in NaNoWriMo is to hammer out a draft. Subsequently, however, the author had better apply a red pen.

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* The expression “by and large” originated, interestingly enough, as a nautical parlance for the impossible feat of sailing “by the wind” (into the wind) and “large” (perpendicular to the wind). Thus “by and large” derives its meaning: to consider all perspectives simultaneously.