Wednesday, November 24, 2010

To Choose The Future To Doubt What is Going On

To choose the future, go to page 55
To doubt what is going on, go to page 31

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

You neglect your journal, leaving it untouched for weeks.

Erin comes into your room. You heard her coming and she can see that you are at your desk. You're pretty sure this is going to be one of those times where you think it is bullshit she makes such a big deal of being Erin the human instead of Ms Botz, the science teacher. Hell, Ms Botz was already a nickname off of her full-name. It's Ms Botsukowski - but you aren't sure of the spelling. For a second you think maybe Erin is a made-up name.

But that tumbles out of your mind as Ms Botz is wearing her authority glasses. You wonder when you noticed about those purple glasses and how she always wears them when she is telling someone what to do. She is talking to you about your journal and what you have written in it lately. She knows you haven't been writing. You mention that you have been living the future and it slows you down to much to stop in the middle of things. You reject a couple nasty phrases you could say -hoping she'll go away.

You can't figure out what is making you the most upset about this whole thing. She didn't knock. You're increasingly positive that she does the thing with the authority glasses on purpose. And how the fuck does she know you haven't been writing anyways and you realize she has no special purchase on this new world. You decide that she has been leaning heavily on her teacher-student position with everyone from the class.

You still believe everything you all decided in there. And you are grateful that you made it to that science class and for all the support that came out of that. But Ms Botz is obviously having trouble finding spots in the new changing ways. So you know why she hovers, needles, and bosses her way through human contact.

But she is seriously starting to piss you off.


To make a snide comment about her glasses and follow that path towards a confrontation where you belittle her worth ... go to page 45.

To engage in frank, constructive dialog about your journal, whether Ms Botz -Erin -is going to be an equal, and why she has no special rights over your things or your actions because of her status from Before ... go to page 62

To have the discipline and focus of a fart keep writing as much as you have been

To actually be what you are, write the fucking thing. Write any part of any thing. Just get the word down. Let it be true. Keep coming back.

To have the discipline and focus of a fart keep writing as much as you have been.

To read the English translation of the song Bombay by El Guincho keep reading.

English translation of “Bombay” (the song with the coolest music video ever) :

I look at you from above in case everything ends
I want you to remember me as in the beginning
There is something that stops me from seeing where I am going
I don't know what it is that is in front of me

We are no longer children
We learned from the things that happened to us and we are never different
Don’t go to China, there are no curtains there like the ones that kept us hidden from everyone

You walk without a parasol at the edge of the island
That frowns up on me because I didn’t come back
Not everything is my fault
Everything is different and if you don't see it’s because you
Don’t want to see it or you don't want to see me

There was something that could be repeated
You want to make me believe it
But it’s a fairy tale
I haven’t been able to write a line for 200 days
And it doesn't look like it will change now
Listen, I ask you to stay where you can find what you need
But you ask me to stay where you can see me
Or until you tire of looking for me.



El Guincho - Bombay from CANADA on Vimeo.


video Not Safe For American Prudishness. Yes, there are brief clips of topless women, but they're in the artistic context established in the Carl Sagan inspired opening.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

give yer gob a go with yer gulliver, yobbo





I just created a google documents spreadsheet where you can get the layout all done and have links to each page of the blog in cells and move them around or just see and shit another way to foster community contribution. you mean this shit is fun to do. You keep leaving things vague with my moronic misunderstanding of some wave writing theory You want to invite people to this blog as co-authors. You think about what it would be like in the we person. if instead of second person it were the we person. what is that, fourth, me plus she is we 1st plus 34d is four?



but that was cheating on this blog with words about this typed else-where - so this is what is in that link above now below

gasp maybe each cell - certainly not each post (see here you are writing with a meta or editorial tag but not a narrative pro

Create Your Own Museum of Adventure.
You are still getting everything organized here
so each row could be a new choice branch or then when ones finished its a column. whatever you'll figure it out as you go
second person, present tense
or I think maybe each numbered row is a narrative thread. And you can hop up and down them.
okay so what does a story need.
characters
story
aims
conflict
setting
adventure


You will be written ocassionally as pages (or blog posts) from 50 to 150 words

You will be written ocassionally as pages (or blog posts) from 50 to 150 words. I am going to invite a small random bunch out of the corpus, "people I think are way cool and think might do this.

This is a choose your own adventure.

No, this is a create your own adventure.

50-150 words - if you go over 150, just pick a number after what you would then go back and number your first page. or give yourself two choices, you can then right to another choice page, an end page, a rejoin the story page, a you're dead and this adventure is seriously over page (I might want to look at that but if you want that cool.

and there are beginnings under the tag beginnings and choice pages with tag choice.

So, I'm using a version of the wave method of writing for NaNoWriMo here. The specific version is molded by my hazy memory of something that was not properly explained to me and I didn't really get at the time beyond incorporating some of the talk or what it seemed like she did with it.

And it is a metaphorical wave method. There are these bits - some even of other things - but part of what the soul memory and community feelings that are represented by the various stories of other times and places you in various guises - and so these make up part of the museum of adventures - It is an attempt at creating in non-Gonzo format a more-Gonzo than I've ever seen printed account from the account of you. A you written by an author (a community can be an author) me and three people thinking of helping.

So. you can

but it is a choose your own adventure so there is adventure and it is you doing the adventuring. Second person, present tense.

oh and we need character pages. You can email me or call me or come see me or I'll stop by. It may take till the end of the month for me to organize this shit and explain what I want you to do:
write 50 to 150 words of an adventure starting with the main on which is that you woke up one morning and everyone was gone - just gone - you didn't even notice right away.

And then it turned out that it was only most people who had disappeared without warning, notice, or explanation. And you are about 16 when this starts and you walk to your high school and you end up after many realizations and choices (or few) you end up going to your 3rd period science class. You are Tracey Fletcher and for no good reason that is ever explained -likewise there is no explanation given for what happened to everyone. For me that isn't meant to really be a focus. Like Lost kept pretending that it was all going to end up making sense. fuck shit. never mind.

"Now, Nick, you don't swear like that when you talk ... why do you swear so much in your writing" "I don't know and I swear less when I am around you than when I am in other situations."


So you just

get bits of plot down. Even sentences even phrases. Those are legit posts here.

Or you can do choices as comments as regular comments

ok so

Friday, November 5, 2010

Songs about Birds


Songs about birds

from Bitch tapes



Then there is my
13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird playlist based on Wallace Stevens's poem
13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. where each of the 13 songs corresponds to the 13 stanzas which evoke 13 Ways of looking at a blackbird in an amazing way.



I've changed this mix more than any I've ever made and all the songs are meant 10 be 2009 releases (the album Sea Sew by Lisa Hannigan came out in 09 in the US but the single I Don't Know came out in 08 in the UK but it fit so perfect. Same reason for Wilco's Bull Black Nova which has no video except shitty fan at concert vids or the album track with album cover.

There wasn't a video for Bill Callahan aka smog's Too Many Birds In One Tree.

I can add other mixes about birds and please send yours to me.

Gilgamesh

Please Father, do something quickly before the people overwhelm heaven with their heart-rending cries.