Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
And just think -- you can play it on your Playstation!
  

    
Poll:

Teaching seniors in a poor inner city school:
a. Brave New World
b. Animal Farm
c. 1984
d. Neverwhere

(Brave New World is the underdog, since I've never been able to read
the blasted thing--*excruciating*)

Mary, toying with lesson planning
  

    
I take it you have to pick only one?
  

    
I'd have to go with Brave New World... there's a lot of rage in there,
and a lot about the dangers of self-medicating through entertainment
and how entertainment can be used to pacify the masses into accepting
the status quo.
Also, some of the stuff about how society keeps its underclass is
truly chilling.
I think that the kids will really be able to identify.
  

    
A coworker just recommended 1984, said that Animal Farm is more for
9th graders. Also that he considered Brave New World more appropriate
(in terms of writing level) for a slightly younger group.
He also said that "Cry the Beloved Country" is good.
  

    
Brave New World would be good. But then, they're all good. 

John-Mike- MCL! Haha. I'm there a lot. it's right across the street. 
I always write on the napkins. Matinees are $2 now. I haven't been
because they're playing, well, lame mall movies. But I'm sure I'll go
eventually. Bloomington is a wonderful town, for exactly the reasons
you mentioned. I don't think I'd rather live anywhere else right now,
except of course deep in the mountains with goats. But I can't afford
that at the moment, so I'll have to settle for Bloomy.

Mary- Congratulations! That's awesome. 

Pam- Good luck with everything. I hope everything's going well.

Neil- yeah. I figured. Lucky for me, I own all of the Sandmans. It's
the early stuff.....
 And I want to see you movie. Waah. Of all the times *not* to be in
London. 

Okay, I wasn't really here either. I have a HUGE stack of napkins on
my desk that I need to go through. You would *think* that I would carry
my notebook around with me. 
  

    
I'd go with 1984. It's the most timely, and I'd suggest that it makes
a clearer ethical argument than Brave New World. Fahrenheit 451 might
be an option as well.
  

    
F451 crossed my mind as well.  Of the four books you mentioned, Mary,
I must say I've only read the Orwell ones.
  

    
re: The "disarming" journal entry* -- HAHAHAHA!  I'll say it again,
Neil, I <i>love</i> the way your mind works.


*For anyone who doesn't know, Neil's journal is at
http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/journal.asp
  

    
Um, these kids are working in a *7th grade* vocabulary book, and
failing multiple choice tests on words like "monotonous".  I'm
rereading 1984 right now, and they might like it, but I kind of doubt
it.  Animal Farm I need to reread as well, but I'm thinking Neverwhere
would be a devil of a lot more interesting, and lead off into writing
about homelessness, adventures, identity, magic, and lots of other
stuff I'm too tired to think about right now.  The genesis of the book
(TV show to novel) might be an avenue to explore as well, since we're
going to have written TV commercials by then.  And they're not reading
any fantasy--there's another section on Science Fiction and Mystery. 
I'm not sure which short stories I'll be teaching there, but the
textbook that we have is called "Science Fiction, Science Fact & You".

On top of all this, since administrators are constantly looking for
video tie-ins, I have the Neverwhere vid, and I shudder to think what
the film versions of any of the others might look like.

Dunno, it's an idea I'm having.  I suspect that significant numbers
(read: 9 out of 10) of them simply *will not* read Orwell or Huxley.  I
can't bear the thought of forcing them to read Huxley when I can't,
and I'm honestly afraid that 1984 is beyond them.  I *think* I could
hook them into Neverwhere enough to get them to read it, if only to
find out what happens. And it's a racially mixed group of characters. 
And stuff.

In other news, laughed myself asthmatic over Neil's journal.  For some
reason, I hear it with a Southern accent (he's just disahmin").

And there's a great copy editor's forum called Got Copy Editors? here
that I've been reading for the last 2 hours instead of writing lesson
plans.  It sort of fits in with the journal article.

And completely off-topic, I have to recommend the Big Soccer boards as
well.  My roommate is getting me hooked, and I'm not even a soccer
fan.  The political forum is particularly entertaining.

Am so tired my rambling is rambling.  Off to eat & crash.

Mary (reading 1984, Science Fiction, Science Fact & You, Better Homes
& Gardens, Two Years Before the Mast, Emily Dickinson, Richard Wright,
Langston Hughes, and probably 2 or  more things that I'm leaving out,
*all at the same time*)   
  

    
But Mary, wouldn't making them read Huxley teach them the meaning of
"monotonous"?  <ig>

You make a good case for <i>Neverwhere</i>, though.  And it might
bode well that, after years of my being "too busy," it was Neil who got
me voraciously reading again.  A good sign, that.
  

    
Maure: Congrats on the radio show!  It sounds like a hoot.  And now
you're goin' all Hollywood on us, with your very own stalker 'n all. 
Pretty soon you'll have your own large, tanned bodyguard with Gucci
shades, too. ;-)

Mary: I remember 1984 making a large impression.  But, to echo
Christy, you make your own good argument for Neverwhere.

     *
And here I go with another complete non-sequitur...

I've just encountered a person who honestly values absolutely nothing
I have to offer as a human being.  

He's not a bad person.  And neither am I.  He just honestly doesn't
seem to see anything worthwhile in me at all.  

It was... a learning experience.  I mean, has anyone ever truly
encountered that?  We might as well have been aliens from two different
planets.  We couldn't seem to find anything in each other that made
any sense, nothing that fit any of our understanding or experience of
what people *are*.

There are people who rub you the wrong way, people who just aren't
really sympatico, or people who are uninteresting...

But this was something else.  I honestly don't think I've ever felt so
completely and profoundly dismissed in my entire life.

Can't say I care to repeat the experience.

Anybody have thoughts or experiences to share?
  

    

I'm telling you that Maddy G. is a riot.  Poor Trevor!  Hehe..

And Mary?  I'd like to make the case for Neverwhere too!  Messers.
Coup and Vandemar will definitely *grip* their imaginations...by the
throat if necessary.  <EG>  Wonder if they'll hear RenFair music in the
background like I did while reading the book?  And what do you mean it
only happened to me?  ;p

Re 1984:  Timely indeed. Get our those "War is Peace" signs. :(

Neil - That's the first time I've found anything about Dubya even
remotely funny. 

Oh, Pam slipped!  But in answer to your question, I've had a few
encounters with people like that, it's like they're standing in front
of you with a sign screaming, "NEXT!"  

Buy hey, it only serves to remind me how precious my relationships are
with others. Hell, I haven't met you in person and I find you
interesting!  So it's not you, it's him.  
  

    
I second Rocky.  It's definitely him.  People who dismiss other human
beings like that sort of scare me.  I've been dismissed like that a few
times.  It's icky.  I try to always remember the bit Neil has
somewhere in Sandman about how everyone has a whole world locked up
inside them.

And think good thoughts about my roomie Jeff, 'cause he just
auditioned for the permanent chorus at Lyric Opera (can you say $35,000
a year, benefits, etc.?)  he blew the G at the end, but otherwise sold
the Bellini aria he sang.  Fingers crossed for a callback.  He's
already called back for Light Opera Works.     
  

    
Yay for Jeff!! That rocks! I'm crossing lots of fingers for him. 

Mary, I'd second (third?) F451 (is that even something you'd
consider?). It's shortish, and reads quickly, and is just so good.

Pam,  yeah, our stalker was pretty ineffective and sort of
uninteresting as far as stalkers go, but it gave us something to talk
about on the air. It was very fun. I had a great time.
As for your being dismissed out of hand, I wouldn't think on it too
much. His assessment (or mis-assessment (is that a word?)) of you
doesn't change who you are, so you haven't lost anything. He has. Does
that make any sense?

I love Maddy stories.
  

    
One day Mike Ford will collect his Occasional Verse. Or I hope he
will.

Jinxie -- welcome back.

Maure -- the radio show sounds really cool.

Christy -- I flew. There wasn't much choice. And I'm now convalescing
at hom. (First time sick in ages, though, and I got through the whole
directing gig without a cold.)

Mary -- hmm... well, given my own experience with Inner City Chicago
kids -- really nice, and bright, and with no cultural landmarks of any
kind to hold onto, they'll probably read Animal Farm as a story of a
bunch of animals on a farm and consider it kid's stuff, rather than a
chilling parable, BNW and 1984 will be "difficult" -- even medicinal --
and Neverwhere will be pretty alien but probably fun. Even Neverwhere
may have its problems, though.

I'll never forget the slow feeling of horror as I talked to a room of
15-16 year old young art students about the 'Midsummer Night's Dream'
episode of SANDMAN, and gradually realised that what went on in the
word balloons could have been so many Woodstock chicken-scratchings for
all the real content they'd taken from it. (I suspected a few of the
girls understood, but they kept quiet.)

pamela -- there are aliens out there. (& yes, I know I owe you an
e-mail.)

Maure -- I could fill the journal with Maddy stories, but don't --
she's started reading it now, just to see if I'm writing about her. I
picked her up from rock-climbing this evening, and was driving home
when she said, out of the blue, as if she'd been pondering it for quite
a while now, "Daddy... why *is* perpetual anticipation good for the
soul but bad for the heart?" in that sort of tone of voice that doesn't
permit you to say "No idea". So I found myself trying to explain a
Sondheim waltz.
  

    
For what it's worth, both film versions of 1984 are quite well done
(there's also a BBC production with Peter Cushing, which is well spoken
of, but I've only seen clips of that).

The animated ANIMAL FARM from the Fifties looks good (it was made by
John Halas and Joy Batchelro, it ought to) but the ending is a travesty
-- the "good" animals hold a counter-revolution and restore the status
quo pro ante.  Now, the following is not a joke:  it has recently been
revealed that the film (made in Britain) was actually financed by the
CIA -- E. Howard Hunt was the principal spook involved -- as a bit of
Cold War propadingbat.

BRAVE NEW WORLD was made as a TV miniseries about twenty years ago; it
wasn't very good, but I don't recall it as awful  I noticed a more
recent version in the TV listings a few days ago, but haven't seen it
(and am not that interested).

It is an unfortuante fact that, while many of the attempts at sf by
non-genrefied authors are either social satires (which may or may not
be good) or just crap (Herman Wouk being a particularly bad example),
an awful lot of the genre classics of the Fifties and Sixties are not
that good either; pulpish, badly characterized, unintelligible if you
aren't already in that particular groove.

In a feeble attempt to be constructive, the people I know in the book
trade generally agree that Schmitz's WITCHES OF KARRES is The Book
Nobody Dislikes; it has some dated character stuff (a lot of cigarette
puffing), but, well, this is not a totally alien phenomenon.  MORE THAN
HUMAN comes to mind, but then, I am old and getting older.  And then
there's LUD-IN-THE-MIST.
  

    
Neil: Just caught up with the journal.  And I thought your political
commentary was perfectly relevant.  I'd feel a whole lot better about
the future if I thought that man was actually capable of blushing about
anything.  (It was also hysterical.)

Mary: Melodic *beams* for Jeff!

Rocky, Mary, Maure, Neil... thank you for your responses about my
"close encounter."  I loved them all, and I loved just as much that
they were all so unique, like seashells of completely different species
each as lovely as the next.

I love the minds and hearts on this group.  What a fabulous troupe's
gathered here.

A friend of mine, when I told her that I regretted even trying to
connect with this person, said essentially: "No you don't.  You
quested.  That's what we do with life and people.  And sometimes you
get gold, sometimes crap, and most times something in between.  But you
don't stop questing."  She's quite a chick.

My own shameless plea for moral support and prayers to your chosen
power(s)...  I'm leading the ritual for Imbolc (festival of Brigid)
this weekend--my first time.  I'm excited, but nervous.  Beams would be
sincerely appreciated.

Best wishes for the weekend to all.
  

    
Separate post for this one...  and just to be clear, nothing in this
pertains to anyone here.

I seem to be on something of a philosophical bender, lately.

I have something I'd love to get people's feedback on.  It's about a
conversation a friend and I had recently about writing and writers. 
Well, it started about that and then moved into the larger arena of
artists and art in general.  It's about the process and something about
the feedback loop between creator and creation.

Here's her premise:

> I learned awhile back - there are LOTS of people put on this 
> earth to bring something to the masses without ever even 
> remotely getting it themselves, much less believing it.

I'm of two minds about this.  (As a Gemini, I'm usually of at least
two minds about nearly everything.)

I think that many good artists are like ambidextrous sword-fighters:
they can fight with either or both the left hand of personal or
intuitive insight or/and the right hand of empirical observation.  As
an artist, I tend to be handicapped toward the left.  And I know a few
actors who work mostly from the right.

On the other hand (ahem ;-))... I have a hard time understanding how
someone might perceive something about people or life so accurately
that they can write about it with deep credibility but never really
assimilate it into themselves.  For instance, say, a male author who
writes female characters that women *recognize*, but who doesn't seem
to recognize women in real life.  I don't quite get how
anyone--particularly an artist--could comprehend something at that
level but never really process it in a personal way.

Thoughts, experiences, anyone?
  

    
As it happens, I had a confab with my head of department today, and
she says get book orders to her Monday.  Just that easy.  So I've got
to find a vendor who'll handle 30 copies of Neverwhere.  I'm planning
on surprising them with the video after they've read it.  When it is
released on DVD, I'll order 2 copies and donate one to the department,
so they'll have the book & DVD for anyone else who wants to teach it
next year.

Mike--thank you for the recommendations!  I've never read any of
those, so they're going on my list.  And I completely agree with you
that many of those "classics" wouldn't work either, for just the
reasons you said.  I've been reading some short stories in that sci-fi
textbook I mentioned, and couldn't imagine my kids caring about many of
them.  The older ones are really pulpy, and character development gets
ignored in favor of whiz-bang! science or technology.

Neil--thanks.  That makes me feel much better.  Neverwhere might be a
little over their heads, but the characters are so wonderful, and the
story moves at such a pace, that I think I can get them hooked, and
once they start I think they'll finish.  I'm going surfing after this
to buy a Tube map to put up in my classroom (OK, it's an excuse to get
one for myself--I admit it ;-)  ), so maybe that will help.  

Some of my kids have been/are homeless, or wards of the state, and I
think they might connect on that level as well.  Certainly they are
invisible to a lot of people.  I have a student who just won a
city-wide sports competition, and when I congratulated him, and
mentioned his being recruited by colleges (he's a senior) he said,
"Colleges don't come down here to recruit".  I hope and pray that he's
wrong. I'd like to see him get a chance to become whatever he wants.

I always wondered how that class you visited went. We talked about it
briefly at the time, but we weren't in a location where we could
discuss it in depth. One of the reasons I'm not going to teach Sandman
as part of the comics section is because I don't think I could bring
myself to cut up 30 copies of that book.  I'm sorry the students didn't
get more out of the story. I've got to remember to check our library
to see what, if any, graphic novels they have.

Do you happen to remember which sections of Neverwhere you read on the
signing tour?  I have a wonderful memory of you reading Croup &
Vandemar, and I could *not* wait to read the book & find out what was
going on after you read.  But exactly which passage escapes me.  I
thought I'd read an exerpt or two in class to get them started. 
Perhaps, "There are four simple ways for the observant to tell Mr.
Croup and Mr. Vandemar apart..."

And what is it with Wandsworth?  Richard's report, Death's
goldfish.....

OK, I'm too tired to be posting.  (You can always tell--I don't know
when to shut up.)  So, off to shop for Tube maps (perhaps I should get
an umbrella? ;-)  )

Mary (who gets to teach Shirley Jackson to sophomores next
week--hurrah!) 

Ah, Pamela--excellent question.  I'll have to think about it.
  

    
As long as you're stopping by...

Can you tell me if the CD plays OK/is in decent condition?  I'm
waiting to give feedback to the seller.  ('Course, they haven't left me
feedback yet, either.)
  

    
Pamela: I don't know any writers that do that but I have known people
who were like that. 
A man who professed to wanting to be a minister could never understand
why the Baptist seminary wouldn't let him finish his classes and
graduate. At parties and with groups of people, everyone would spill
their guts to him and he'd advise them. On relationships. Love.
Religion. He knew it all. Was good at empathising. No one who spoke to
him could understand why the board couldn't see him as a good leader of
a church. He'd also been married 5 times that I knew of last I saw him
and been accused of beating one of his stepchildren with some hints of
same for a previous stepchild. His wives claim mental and physical
abuse and adultery. The fact is, He knows all the answers. Knows all
the rules. Knows intellectually the difference between right and wrong.
But none of these things apply to himself. A very charming,
charismatic man with a total lack of accountability. 

Now you've got me thinking though. Something that came up the other
day. About the difference between the person you know at work and the
way they are at home. For instance. A crusty curmudgeon that nobody
likes. Nobody wants to work with. Abusive to subordinates. Difficult.
Bad vibes all around him at work. He dies and you go to his funeral and
find yourself surrounded by his friends and family who loved and
adored him and they speak of how wonderful he was. How giving. His acts
of philanthropy. You feel like you've wandered into the wrong funeral.

Or just the opposite. The person everyone gets along with. Easy going.
Great boss. Treats everyone with respect. And you find out they have
never had a friend for more than a few months and can't stay married
and everyone who has ever dealt with them personally can't stand him.
It's as if these people have a limited amount of good character and
they spend it all in one place, either work or home. Like Jekyl and
Hyde. Only the "potion" is where they are not something they drank.
Like their location turns them into monsters. They have but to step out
of their car in the parking garage at work, or conversely in the
garage at home, to trasform into Hyde. 

Well. I'm at work. I'm trying not to think about the disaster this
morning. I only found out when I got here to make up a couple of hours
from a doctor appointment. It's a beautiful, sunshiny 70 degrees clear
blue skies day here in Houston. I didn't listen to the radio on the way
to work. Didn't read a paper. Only found out when I signed on to the
web upon turning on my computer here. So sad now. 
  

    
Yeah, I found out about the disaster this morning when I woke up only
because my sister can't sleep without the TV on. I feel so bad for the
families. 

Pamela- I think it's easier to advise people or to have good ideals ,
then it is to live by them or follow your own life rules. So many
people try to fix themselves by fixing other people. I know so many
people in general who rarely practice what they preach, although they
usually have good intentions. Mostly psychologists I know. I'm guilty
of it sometimes as well. I try though. I don't know about
writers...maybe some shape their characters based on how they
themselves wish they could act of resolve things. It's a good thing to
think about.

Mary- That's awesome! I wish I would have had you for a teacher. 

Christy- Check your email, girlfriend.
  

    
Had a bunch of responses all ready last night, just one more to add
and then I'd post (and it wasn't really that long a post), and my
laptop does that
I-think-I'll-totally-freeze-and-not-allow-myself-to-be-turned-off
thing.  !@#$^!#%!  So from now on, when I'm posting from here, you may
see a series of several one- or two-paragraph-long posts.  I'm not
trying to fill this topic up prematurely.  Honest.

Slipped by Ze Erynn.  Yep, I got your e-mail, but haven't had time to
look.
  

    
Maure -- BUT did you play any Thea Gilmore?

And I love Maddy stories too.  (I'm kind of sorry I missed all the
Mike and Holly stories, at that.)  Neil, feel free to fill THIS site
with them!

Mary -- Jeff must be really talented.  Keep us posted; fingers crossed
for him!

And, safety post.