Author Archives: Steve

mirrormask synopsis

The written synopsis of the film Mirrormask, which looks like a nice bit of eyechocolate, reads like this

MirrorMask centers on Helena, a 15 year old girl in a family of circus entertainers, who often wishes she could run off and join real life. After a fight with her parents about her future plans, her mother falls quite ill and Helena is convinced that it is all her fault. On the eve of her mother’s major surgery, she dreams that she is in a strange world with two opposing queens, bizarre creatures, and masked inhabitants. All is not well in this new world – the white queen has fallen ill and can only be restored by the MirrorMask, and it’s up to Helena to find it. But as her adventures continue, she begins to wonder whether she’s in a dream, or something far more sinister.

I don’t see how this synopsis is compelling–do we need another white queen?–but the question of the diegetic world is brought into the mix here. The border of the story becomes confused with the space of reality. I liked Nightmare on Elm Street for its play with the real and dreamed. By the way, why is it up to Helena to find the mask? In addition, I just read the synopsis to Constantine. I don’t want to see the movie after reading the synopsis. I want to yawn . . . or weep.

movies and children

So, we took our son to his first movie today. Pooh’s Heffalump Movie. I thought it was pretty good. Had a good time.

As we left the theater, all of us a little too full of popcorn, my son said, somewhat critically, “We have a TV at home.”

Then, at bed time, Susan asked if he’d enjoyed the day at the show. He said, “Yes, but I want to see zero more movies.”

looking outward

Christopher Coonce-Ewing answers a question here

Japan did go from dynastic (the Tokugawa Shogunate) to Imperial, though the “empire” at the time of the Meiji restoration was only Japan. Japan, under Meiji was concerned with western powers encroaching upon them, as the British had done at the end of the Opium war with China. As such, Japan wanted to not only control their own territory but to establish their own imperial territories outside of Japan (Korea, parts of China) that would serve as a buffer zone to deter the west. After fighting the Russo-Japanese war in 1905, and winning, they were able to show the west that Japan was a force to be reckoned with.

So… yes. The Tokugawa rule was focused on Japan with an isolationist view. Meiji looked to the west to gain what they could from them and then strove to build their own empire.

Of course, there’s a lot more to this story of modern Japan. And I’m looking forward to probing for more especially given the “encroachment hypothesis” Chrstopher puts forth. But how did the daimyo’s lose their power and how did the consequences of this loss resurface before the Axis? Why was there a grasp for western social structures then a counter movement back to more conservative traditions? Cool stuff this.

nukes and North Korea

I took this from the Washington Post

. . . on Thursday, a statement by the government of the reclusive North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, contained the most explicit wording yet. “In response to the Bush administration’s increasingly hostile policy toward North Korea, we . . . have manufactured nuclear weapons for self-defense,” said the statement, issued through the official Korean Central News Agency.

This sounds fishy to me. In ’02, KJI rushes to his chemistry set and whips up a batch of weapons, as if it were that easy. I read “the threat” and I’m no position to confirm, but it sounds all wrong.

I could be that North Korea has no weapons; it could be that they indeed have them. If yes, these are not recent manufactures. If no, then we “should know” this and to continue the “story” of the no/yes is a misrepresentation in the news much as the yes/no back and forth about Iraq proved most likely a con.

If we’re good we should know the resource capabilities of North Korea, as we know that the city streets and peoples’ stomachs are typically empty.

story, simulation, and disease

Barrett, Eubank, and Smith write in the current SciAm on the subject of EpiSims

To understand what a social network is and how it can be used for epidemiology, imagine the daily activities and contacts of a single hypothetical adult, Ann. She has short brushes with family members during breakfast ad then with other commuters or carpoolers on her way to work . . . We can visually represent Ann’s contacts as a network with Ann in the center and a line connecting Ann to each of them. All Ann’s contacts engage in various activities and meet other people as well. We can represent these “contacts of contacts” by drawing lines from each–for example, Ann’s colleague named Bob–to all his contacts. Unless they are also contacts of Ann, Bob’s contacts are two “hops” away from Ann. The number of hops on the shortest path between people is sometimes called the graph distance or degree of separation between those people.

Here’s A: what does A do when confronted with A.1 or A.2? Hense, hypertext, simulation, and the choices in writing. Mind.

being true

A commercial for the pill says “Be true to yourself.” This could mean when you feel like having sex go for it as long as you’re taking the correct medication. Or it may mean, don’t worry about the typical stuff and go with your gut, your intuition.

And as Microsoft and Mozilla rush to fix the cracks in the pipes, and we continue our struggle with perverse spam in these places, life goes on.

“Be true to yourself.” It’s an odd and philosophical appeal. Langston Hughes had all kinds of fun with it. But what happens to a thing if its critical to scene, atmosphere, or the push of a story, such as a pencil or hair or the dash of a car or the look of the lights across the horizon as one begins the descent home?

I can remember that, since it’s come back. The long drive home at night, watching the glow beneath the clouds, then reaching the top of the rise, losing the road just for a moment, and the drive becomes not a drive but a flight, not a dip down, but a sudden ascent, and the city isn’t a city

then what?

meaning and story 2

Susan Gibb in her journal writes of Visitation

Each event or complication, usually involving something that the invaders have either damaged or destroyed, is met by passive reaction both on the part of the protagonist (narrator) or the other characters who are his neighbors. They allow themselves to be taken over, simply because they can’t agree to come to some sort of major confrontation with the aliens who claim to be gods–and this may be the real meaning of the story, if you care to search for one, because other than “eyes with a golden tint,” the description offers little to mark them as very different than humans.

I included Visitation in the line up because the story is short, clearly arc’d, big in scope, and pleasantly ambiguous. It has one of those endings that just rings true–i.e., “it feels like the right ending given what’s been told.” That doesn’t mean it “tells” a truth, a human truth, even though it may.

How do we respond to and rationalize the strange? How do we respond in the face of the ambiguous? How do we respond in the face of change and aggression? Are we sheep? Are we tigers? Why, at the end of the story, do the people rip at each other?

Ah ha!

meaning and story

A recent Fiction Writing session dealt with the idea of meaning in story, that is literary meaning in the context of craft discussion. The subject was “Deportation at Breakfast,” a story by Larry Fondation. I don’t think I discourage discussions of meaning in story but I do make a distinction between the analysis of craft, especially in a course’s early stages, and literary analysis.

The “literary meaning” of a story is a big time issue but the “meaning” of “meaning” changes with context. Is Fondation’s story about the triumph of the individual; is it about the inevitability of change; is it about the roles we assume; is it about exile (deportation); is it about being the good guy; is it about sacrifice? Does the story situate itself in a modernist tradition of objectivism? What is the model of analysis? I know that the story works within its “frame of time” until it ends and normalcy resumes. A man is left at the counter, wondering about tomorrow.

Is that enough? I’m going to let the students fight this one out.

The question for me will be: what makes the story work and how does figuring an answer free up the fingertips as we walk our characters onto that tentative white and move them into the window frame.