January 30, 2004
Tolkien-Jackson Deviance 101
If you haven't seen Return of the King yet, don't read the last third or so of the amazingly comprehensive list at the Nitpickers Guide to deviations between books and screenplay.*
Beware of spoilers. Beware of judgmentalism. (Beware of root directories.)
There. I've said my bewares. This is not the time nor place for me to rant on more dire issues such as when adaptation crosses the line from the necessary evils of economical logistics into blatant and seemingly-arbitrary manipulation of actual characters.
Having had to submit before to the disciplines of adapting and writing for screen productions, it is fascinating to me to view the choices the script-writers and directors and producers make. Typically, I enjoy the "Deleted Scenes" section of a DVD just as much as I enjoy the movie itself.
* Thanks to Josiah.
January 29, 2004
theme thursday: "repeating patterns"
"Repeating patterns" is a tough theme to shoot for. I chose this image because it's got repeating elements -- channel-surfing radio and the peace sign in double vision. OK, so maybe not. (If I think of a better, I'll post it.)
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:: for more about Theme Thursday ::
January 27, 2004
so what if you didn't ask me
publishing this today:
WHY I like STEPH'S VILLANELLE
Read it first, if you're curious, and then read the extended entry to see my reasons.
One of my favorite elements of literary art is a form that reinforces its content. Ideally, when you're full of content ("with book as a woman is with child," for example), you should deliberately choose a form that will emphasize rather than distract from your subject. Steph came in the back door in a sense, because she knew first that her poem had to be a villanelle in order to meet the specs (she's taking a Poetry Writing class). That being the case, I think she was wise to choose this particular subject matter to fill the demands of the form.
She's dealing with inexplicable behavior, inconsistencies, circular reasoning, transformations, veritable labyrinths of recurring doubts and questions. Like grief does, these keyword phrases come back to haunt. The villanelle form is very much suited to this content.
Secondly, I like the inversion aspect of the eulogies. Typical obits would have the name, age of the deceased listed. There is a progression of thought evoked by the deliberate placement of the names and perspectives. At first, the reader is completely confused about who died, but that is remedied as the reader realizes that only one person truly died in the physical sense -- the one person each stanza has in common. One major point of the poem, however, is that each of these people experienced this one man's death. There are "obituaries" for them all, and the memories (however skewed by their presuppositions and emotions and maturity level) are appropriate, because a part of every one of them died that night.
Finally, I think that Steph drives her point home effectively. It doesn't matter what everyone's perception of you is. And it does. It doesn't matter to you if you are unhappy but they all think you are happy. And yet it matters that they have a perception of you at all -- you cannot help but leave a mark on the lives you touch. In this case, a bittersweet, never-healing scar. And then -- really -- who's happy?
January 23, 2004
January 18, 2004
touch vs. tackle
Holy Sonnet 14
BATTER MY HEART, THREE-PERSON'D GOD
Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for You
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labor to admit You, but Oh, to no end;
Reason, Your viceroy in me, me should defend
But is captivated, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love You, and would be loved fain,
But I am betrothed unto Your enemy.
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;
Take me to You, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
~ John Donne (1633)
January 17, 2004
scrabbling
     What is your Scrabbleİ score? Get it here, at Pholph's Scrabble Generator. |
January 16, 2004
January 15, 2004
January 09, 2004
insomniac
By an infinite decomposition we should know nothing more of what a thing really is, for, the moment we decompose it, it ceases to be, and all its meaning is vanished. Infinitely more than astronomy even, which destroys nothing, can do for us, is done by the mere aspect and changes of the vault over our heads. Think for a moment what would be our idea of greatness, of God, of infinitude, of aspiration, if, instead of a blue, far withdrawn, light-spangled firmament, we were born and reared under a flat white ceiling! I would not be supposed to depreciate the labors of science, but I say its discoveries are unspeakably less precious than the merest gifts of Nature, those which, from morning to night, we take unthinking from her hands. One day, I trust, we shall be able to enter into their secrets from within them -- by natural contact.
~ George MacDonald
(more here)
January 08, 2004
January 07, 2004
chapel in the attic
there's a chapel in my attic
there's a chantry in my head
there's a high and holy hardwood hall
lit with candles for the dead
there's a suicidal monk there
working fingers to the bone
he has learned his music and his lines
and convinced himself he's home
there's a few bats in his belfry
so he cannot do the math
cannot see beyond his slanted walls
pointing to a day of wrath
he can quote his teachers' wisdom
he can read and weep and pray
he can burn himself and all the wicks
but the bricks and stucco stay
what's it like to cut the tightrope
and go swinging into sky?
what's it like to tread on cobblestones
with the other passers-by?
will he ever leave his sweeping
or his brazen wine-stained wealth?
will he ever trade the firelight
and embrace the sun itself?
God give mercy in the vestry
help my monk to find his way
nail Shekinah through the polished floors
bring the real dawn and the day