My brother has a tumblr blog.
***
Tuesday morning I saw a guy running for the bus stop. He had a double-breasted overcoat, a tophat, and a pair of goggles. He was very steampunk.
But he also had a little beige Totes umbrella.
Totes umbrellas aren't steampunk, right? I mean, just because they have a little button on them that extends them, that doesn't make them steampunk. They're just functional. Steampunk isn't supposed to be functional, right?
The question is: if you aren't going to commit 100% to a look, should you leave the house in the look? I realize it was early in the morning, and it was raining, and it was a Tuesday and the guy was probably on his way to his job—at a comic book shop? at a call center? at Home Depot?—and not on his way to a local steampunk drinkery or danceclub, but he had the tophat. He had the goggles. He had the large, brass-buttoned, double-breased overcoat. Has he just not yet found the right umbrella?
Where in Seattle is the steampunk umbrella store? Does the guy need to borrow a few dollars so he can buy a proper umbrella for his outfit? Should I start a collection here on the blog to buy the steampunk guy a proper umbrella for his outfit? I'll do it, if that's the problem.
Are you out there, steampunk guy with the wrong umbrella? If you are, and you would like me to start some sort of fundraiser for you so you can buy a proper umbrella—one that matches the rest of your look—please feel free to get in touch and I will do it. I'm sure the loyal Man Who Couldn't Blog readers would be willing to help out with a few dollars, and would be willing to spread the word that your look is incomplete, and because it is incomplete, it was jarring for me to have to see you in it, and because it was jarring, it made it impossible for me to blog about anything important, and instead I blogged about your incomplete look, and we'll all gather some money for you to complete your look so that I won't be jarred and I can maybe blog.
This also happens to me—the jarred reaction to clothing—when I see a man in a basketball jersey, athletic shoes, and blue jeans.
***
I wrote a writing prompt that asks the writer to rot one of her or his stories.
***
Ginny Parker Woods interviewed Justin Sirois.
***
Leni Zumas has a blog.
***
Showing posts with label justin sirois. Show all posts
Showing posts with label justin sirois. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Boom
I went to this movie and I noticed in this movie that throughout this movie the boom mic kept slipping down into the shot. You know what that looks like? Like this:
This is considered a mistake, this sudden appearance of a boom mic in a shot. But it happened so often in the movie, I thought maybe it wasn't a mistake.
So I decided to call Hollywood. (It was, you see, a Hollywood movie.) I called Hollywood and I talked to a very nice person, and told her I had seen this movie and in this movie the boom mic kept slipping down into the shot and I asked if maybe I could speak to the person who was responsible. She said sure and she transferred my call to the boom mic operator.
Here is a transcript of our conversation.
Hi. I saw your Hollywood movie, and I noticed that the boom mic kept slipping into the shot. Were you the boom mic operator for this movie?
Yes, I was.
What's your name?
I would rather not reveal that. Call me Boom Mic X, please.
Oh. Kay. Hi, Boom Mic X.
Hi.
Was the boom mic slipping into the shot some sort of accident?
No. Absolutely not.
Don't movie directors generally NOT want the boom mic to show up in a shot?
Yes. They generally object to the sudden appearance of a boom mic. I would say that that is an accurate statement.
So, doesn't this make the appearance of the boom mic in your Hollywood film an accident?
In this case, no. The director of the movie most likely thinks it was an accident. But, for the record, I did it intentionally.
You did?
Yes. You see, I am an activist.
An activist?
Yes. I am a reality activist. I work with an organization that objects to the willing suspension of disbelief. We believe that all fictional projects should be morally bound to reveal to their audiences that they are fictional projects. They must never be ambiguous about it. So we infiltrate the creation of works of fiction and we make certain to show in the consumers of fictional media to the fictional nature of the thing being consumed. We call it "cueing."
By lowering the boom mic into a movie?
That's one technique, yes. It's one of our most common ways of cueing in film or television. We also show up as extras in films sometimes, and break the fourth wall. We look into the camera. It's subtle, but people notice and it reminds them that they are not watching reality unfold. They are watching a movie.
You said "fictional media." So you do this for more than simply film and television?
Oh, yes. Music, for example. Now, you may not think of music as a "fictional medium," but it is. Any form of storytelling creates fiction. Music was always very tricky, but a few years ago, we managed to solve music in the hip-hop genre, at least. One of our operatives managed to popularize the use of the word "real" in hip-hop. He did it virally, of course. Language is viral. He started it, and then, soon, hip-hop artists were talking about "keeping" things "real."
The brilliance of this cueing technique is that while the artists use the term in order to mask the fiction they are creating, because it is antinomous to fiction to call it "real," they undercut their own project. They produce fiction and try to insist on how "real" it is, but because the term "real" is a primary category, it is more powerful than their attempt to appropriate it to qualify their fiction. They explode their own project from within.
Wow.
Yeah. Stunningly simple, isn't it? The guy who came up with that one was rewarded with his very own private island.
Novels can be tough. You know, a bookstore has this place where it shelves its fiction, so at point-of-sale, one is already made aware of the un-reality of the work. This, of course is true of film and television, but a good novel is one that immerses the reader in its fictional world. The problem for us is never point-of-sale. It's that moment when one gets "lost" in one's fiction. When the brain is suddenly transported. When one forgets the nature of the work one is consuming.
There are multiple people involved in film and television. We can sneak our cues into that.
So what are you doing to cue readers?
Well, first, we are a very powerful group of people. I'm not bragging. I'm just saying it. We have a lot of money. So we have put that money behind popularizing really lousy novels. Novels that NEVER immerse the reader. If you think the quality of popular fiction is deplorable, now you know why.
Second, we have editors filling books with subliminal messages. Acrostics. THIS IS FICTION. THIS IS NOT REAL. Spend some time with a book and a highlighter. You'll find messages all over.
Third, in that stronghold of readers who refuse to allow themselves to read inferior works of fiction that by virtue of their lack of virtue are constantly ejecting readers from story and making it impossible for them to forget that what they are reading IS fiction, we have popularized post-modern, meta-fictional techniques and frames by taking over academia.
Should I be happy that you have done this?
Thank us for your grasp on reality, yes.
***
Justin Sirois reads from MLKNG SCKLS here.
This is considered a mistake, this sudden appearance of a boom mic in a shot. But it happened so often in the movie, I thought maybe it wasn't a mistake.
So I decided to call Hollywood. (It was, you see, a Hollywood movie.) I called Hollywood and I talked to a very nice person, and told her I had seen this movie and in this movie the boom mic kept slipping down into the shot and I asked if maybe I could speak to the person who was responsible. She said sure and she transferred my call to the boom mic operator.
Here is a transcript of our conversation.
Hi. I saw your Hollywood movie, and I noticed that the boom mic kept slipping into the shot. Were you the boom mic operator for this movie?
Yes, I was.
What's your name?
I would rather not reveal that. Call me Boom Mic X, please.
Oh. Kay. Hi, Boom Mic X.
Hi.
Was the boom mic slipping into the shot some sort of accident?
No. Absolutely not.
Don't movie directors generally NOT want the boom mic to show up in a shot?
Yes. They generally object to the sudden appearance of a boom mic. I would say that that is an accurate statement.
So, doesn't this make the appearance of the boom mic in your Hollywood film an accident?
In this case, no. The director of the movie most likely thinks it was an accident. But, for the record, I did it intentionally.
You did?
Yes. You see, I am an activist.
An activist?
Yes. I am a reality activist. I work with an organization that objects to the willing suspension of disbelief. We believe that all fictional projects should be morally bound to reveal to their audiences that they are fictional projects. They must never be ambiguous about it. So we infiltrate the creation of works of fiction and we make certain to show in the consumers of fictional media to the fictional nature of the thing being consumed. We call it "cueing."
By lowering the boom mic into a movie?
That's one technique, yes. It's one of our most common ways of cueing in film or television. We also show up as extras in films sometimes, and break the fourth wall. We look into the camera. It's subtle, but people notice and it reminds them that they are not watching reality unfold. They are watching a movie.
You said "fictional media." So you do this for more than simply film and television?
Oh, yes. Music, for example. Now, you may not think of music as a "fictional medium," but it is. Any form of storytelling creates fiction. Music was always very tricky, but a few years ago, we managed to solve music in the hip-hop genre, at least. One of our operatives managed to popularize the use of the word "real" in hip-hop. He did it virally, of course. Language is viral. He started it, and then, soon, hip-hop artists were talking about "keeping" things "real."
The brilliance of this cueing technique is that while the artists use the term in order to mask the fiction they are creating, because it is antinomous to fiction to call it "real," they undercut their own project. They produce fiction and try to insist on how "real" it is, but because the term "real" is a primary category, it is more powerful than their attempt to appropriate it to qualify their fiction. They explode their own project from within.
Wow.
Yeah. Stunningly simple, isn't it? The guy who came up with that one was rewarded with his very own private island.
Novels can be tough. You know, a bookstore has this place where it shelves its fiction, so at point-of-sale, one is already made aware of the un-reality of the work. This, of course is true of film and television, but a good novel is one that immerses the reader in its fictional world. The problem for us is never point-of-sale. It's that moment when one gets "lost" in one's fiction. When the brain is suddenly transported. When one forgets the nature of the work one is consuming.
There are multiple people involved in film and television. We can sneak our cues into that.
So what are you doing to cue readers?
Well, first, we are a very powerful group of people. I'm not bragging. I'm just saying it. We have a lot of money. So we have put that money behind popularizing really lousy novels. Novels that NEVER immerse the reader. If you think the quality of popular fiction is deplorable, now you know why.
Second, we have editors filling books with subliminal messages. Acrostics. THIS IS FICTION. THIS IS NOT REAL. Spend some time with a book and a highlighter. You'll find messages all over.
Third, in that stronghold of readers who refuse to allow themselves to read inferior works of fiction that by virtue of their lack of virtue are constantly ejecting readers from story and making it impossible for them to forget that what they are reading IS fiction, we have popularized post-modern, meta-fictional techniques and frames by taking over academia.
Should I be happy that you have done this?
Thank us for your grasp on reality, yes.
***
Justin Sirois reads from MLKNG SCKLS here.
Monday, August 03, 2009
Rider
This week, I would like to direct you to check out an essay I wrote on Diff'rent Strokes and Knight Rider on HTML Giant.
Here's an excerpt:
"Fictional KITT (DS) is, like fictional KITT (KR), is a super-intelligent, wise-cracking computerized car. But fictional David Hasselhoff (DS) is the actor who plays a character named Michael Knight in Knight Rider."
For the rest of the week, I will post something small here every day.
***
Tomorrow night, you can go to Neptune Coffee and see Amelia Gray, Evelyn Hampton, and Lotte Kestner. I will be hosting. It will be great.
***
A couple of days ago, I read Justin Sirois's book MLKNG SCKLS. It's a remarkable little book—a series of excerpts, in fact—from a novel he's working on about an Iraqi escaping Fallujah.
The language is not dense, but it has a deep and impressive lyricism. Sirois has a gift for lyrical writing that in no way seems forced. The alliteration and internal rhymes that occur in the well-constructed sentences work in ways they don't in a lot of prose lyricism. He is restrained, picking the right spots to deploy a rhetorical figure to advantage.
The books two main characters are walking through the Iraqi desert, journeying from Fallujah to Ramadi, one recording it all on a laptop with a slowly draining battery. It has its Beckett precedents, but instead of Beckett's surreal, placeless place settings, MLKNG SCKLS is played out on the great contemporary American misadventure of our war in Iraq. Absurdity and tragedy collide every day in that Middle Eastern country, and Sirios recognizes and reveals it all well.
A favorite scene of mine features a man uncooking a meal, a task as seemingly impossible as, say, unringing a bell; or uninvading a country because of faulty, cooked intelligence. The characters manages his task. America, though, won't.
Looking forward to the novel, Justin. It's a great honor to share a publisher.
Here's an excerpt:
"Fictional KITT (DS) is, like fictional KITT (KR), is a super-intelligent, wise-cracking computerized car. But fictional David Hasselhoff (DS) is the actor who plays a character named Michael Knight in Knight Rider."
For the rest of the week, I will post something small here every day.
***
Tomorrow night, you can go to Neptune Coffee and see Amelia Gray, Evelyn Hampton, and Lotte Kestner. I will be hosting. It will be great.
***
A couple of days ago, I read Justin Sirois's book MLKNG SCKLS. It's a remarkable little book—a series of excerpts, in fact—from a novel he's working on about an Iraqi escaping Fallujah.
The language is not dense, but it has a deep and impressive lyricism. Sirois has a gift for lyrical writing that in no way seems forced. The alliteration and internal rhymes that occur in the well-constructed sentences work in ways they don't in a lot of prose lyricism. He is restrained, picking the right spots to deploy a rhetorical figure to advantage.
The books two main characters are walking through the Iraqi desert, journeying from Fallujah to Ramadi, one recording it all on a laptop with a slowly draining battery. It has its Beckett precedents, but instead of Beckett's surreal, placeless place settings, MLKNG SCKLS is played out on the great contemporary American misadventure of our war in Iraq. Absurdity and tragedy collide every day in that Middle Eastern country, and Sirios recognizes and reveals it all well.
A favorite scene of mine features a man uncooking a meal, a task as seemingly impossible as, say, unringing a bell; or uninvading a country because of faulty, cooked intelligence. The characters manages his task. America, though, won't.
Looking forward to the novel, Justin. It's a great honor to share a publisher.
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