flitting on fiction

Got an email from one of my profs today - he sent us a link to an article posted by Scientific American in which the author, Jessica Wapner, discusses research findings about blogging and health:

Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits. Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery. (Wapner, Scientific American, May 2008)

I’m sure he sent the article to us because next week’s class in Public Texts is all about digital publishing - but since I am the only blogger in the class (or, if there are any others, it is a secret) - and I get sneered at regularly for it by some of my classmates (and even one prof, although he was unaware that I blogged when he made his disparaging comments, and has backtracked somewhat since) - the fact that he sent it amused me.

Well, Wall-e is fiction, right? So I can show off the image I ~made~ for Stephanie’s birthday here.

I haven’t yet seen Wall-e - but I am looking forward to it. I figure if Steph likes it I probably will too - we do seem to have an awful lot in common…

well, aside from the group work thing!

and the fact that she’s a rocket scientist and I could not be one o’ those in my wildest dreams. Science includes math … ick!

Steph and I met on gather.com, which used to be a site for writers but has now turned itself into a social networking site, pretty much. It feels like we’ve known each other for years - but it really hasn’t been all that long.

Anyway… I’d write more but check out time is in 7 minutes and I’ve yet to pack up! My bad.

Happy birthday, steph-e

I am so frustrated with Entrecard tonight I could spit!

I don’t know if the problem I am having is them or me (as in the wireless here at the motel)…but whatever… it is annoying as all heck to be unable to drop when I want to. *sigh*

To those of you who drop on my blogs and don’t see me returning them, I am sorry! It is not for a lack of trying, honest

Was chatting with Steph: Rocket Scientist this evening about some of the politics and BS of school … will spare y’all the details - but there is, of course, more than enough politics and BS…. and even though I am quite capable of playing the games - mostly because I am really good at spotting it - I do not particularly enjoy it.

As I told Stephanie…. I would much rather put my time & energy towards my studies. Imagine that - going to school wanting to focus on learning, not game playing. What a concept!

If you happen to pop over to Steph’s blog to drop your card, don’t forget to wish her a happy birthday!

Well, I think it went okay - my fiction/nonfiction seminar, I mean.

I am very glad I did not try to stick to a script, as there were a whole lot of challenges from some of the other students in the class…. not sure if they were really having trouble with the reading, or if they were just making an attempt to get to me - but whatever.

The crux of my argument was that Rescher has a point when he says that possible worlds theory is not the be-all and end-all when it comes to critiquing fiction. It has some utility - but it also has limitations, and when you try to use ONLY possible worlds theory without awareness of those limitations, you miss the boat. Possible worlds are, Rescher says, a useful thought-object - but only work in abstract terms.

Rescher suggests that schemata/scenarios are a useful construct - which fits very nicely with some of the other reading I have been doing and thinking about.

When I first studied Aristotle’s Poetics, in my fourth year theory course, there were many elements that interested me because of how easily they could be interpreted in terms of computer logic/programming.

Rescher’s article, too, uses all sorts of computer/programming terms. He never actually draws a line from one to the other - but the language lends itself very well to the metaphor.

And then there is Oatley’s work - which DOES make the connection. He offers computer simulation as a construct with which to talk about how fiction works (reader response theory).

All of it appeals to the geek in me - and I’m going to play with it for the short paper I need to submit by next week, using the Rescher and Oatley articles.

Bet you can’t wait to read it, huh?

Just realized how close to midnight it has gotten and I still haven’t updated either of my Today.com blogs. My bad!

I have been working on the seminar I am to give in my fiction/nonfiction class tomorrow. Would post it for you, but it really is rather a mess.

Not that it IS actually a mess - but I find that I do better if I don’t write what I am going to say word for word. It is much easier to go with the flow, generate and incorporate discussion, etc, if I have a really strong sense of what I want to get at …

but not a script.

When I have a script, I get more nervous, and more easily thrown off.

So - no script - just notes and lots of making sure I have the facts that I need (and then some) stored in my brain.

I will leave early enough that I should, barring any problems as a result of snow, be able to sit and read through stuff right before class.

It will be fine. Even if I don’t have an actual script/paper to read

I DO have some really good quotes from the Nicholas Rescher paper I’m using. My favourite is:

“the fact is that fictional objects are no more objects than ceramic cats are cats”

I will use that one part way through - and then, it can also become my conclusion …blah blah blah blah … but after all is said and done, they’ll still be ceramic cats Brilliant, huh? Of course it is!

So … when authors use ‘real’ people as characters in works of fiction, how skeptical are you?

Do you believe everything you read? Of course not

But where do you draw the line?

Take Capote’s In Cold Blood for example. Based on events that actually happened, the names of most of the people in the book were drawn from those who were actually involved.

Some of those people commented about the ‘truth’ value of the book afterward… one man, for example, said that he’d got it “mostly right”.

So - if the work is factually accurate - what does that mean about the nature of the characters in the book? Are they fictional or not?

What about biographies - or even autobiographies? How much can you believe about the people you read about?

And what about the people you read about in the news every day?

How much of what we ‘know’ about Obama, for example, is based on what is essentially fiction?

At what point do you become skeptical?

And yes, yes, I am using you co-operative souls for my homework again Thanks for participating

I have been using The Official Ern Malley website as a source for information for the seminar I am presenting next week on My Life as a Fake by Peter Carey.

So so book - it’s an entertaining read, but not as good, I think, as many of the other works we have talked about in the Fiction/nonfiction course. But anyway… that’s not the point

The point I was going to mention - is how in the heck does someone who never existed - Ern Malley, for example - end up with an “official” website?

The same way as does Harry Potter, actually. Whoever owns the rights to the work can, I suppose, claim the title of “the official” site.

In the case of Ern Malley, the levels are a bit odd. The poems were written by Harold Stewart and James McAuley as Ern Malley. They were supposedly submitted to the Angry Penguins literary journal by the fictional Malley’s fictional sister after his fictional death.

Eventually, the issue of copyright came up - which is of interest as that was the topic of our pubic texts class this week and is the topic of the colloquium I’m heading out to attend shortly.

In this case, Stewart and McAuley gave the copyright for the Ern Malley poems to the publisher they had duped with them, Max Harris - and apparently, pretty much the whole Ern Malley story ended up a part of Harris’ estate - hence the “official” website.

The other topic we discussed this week in Public Texts is that of censorship - and there was an issue of that involved in this affair as well - Harris wound up being tried for obscenity re: the Ern Malley poems. You would almost think they’d planned it that way - but they didn’t

We’re on the way home from London ON where we went to my grandma Mary’s funeral. Fun times …. Not. But wasn’t so bad. Now Ross and I are working on lyrics for the play I’m doing for one of my classes.

Grrr. Wish I could find a way to put in a paragraph break but I’m on my blackberry. Haven’t found a way, though. Will have to edit when I get home I guess.

The song we’ve been playing with is You’ve Gotta Have Heart. Plan is to have the bad guys singing about hearts as in needing transplant and the hero, whose heart they are intending to use, will be singing about heart as in love. Could make for a good number if I can pull it off.

Now I am home again

Here is the first verse of the song. You can hear an audio clip here, if you’re interested.

And here is what we came up with … keeping in mind, these are only first drafts, done in the car without benefit of music. They will likely need some tweaking to fit with the music

The bad guys (doc and purser):

Hero/heroine

You’ve taken my heart
Giving you all my heart
When the odds were sayin’ I’d never win
That’s when you walked right in
Now I’ve got hope
Needn’t sit around and mope
Nothing’s as bad as it used to appear
Now that you and I are here
Then my luck was batting zero
Now my chin’s up off the floor
Now I can be a hero
We can open any door, there’s nothing to it but to do it
We’ve got to have heart
Miles and miles and miles of heart
We’ve got a long way to go
but baby you know
now we’ll never be apart
As long as we’ve got heart.

Keep in mind we’re shooting for campy cheesy musical horror - not great art

Have you heard about the pomegranate phone ?

It ~is~ a phone that can do so much more than make phone calls, take pictures and play music.

It ~is~ also a shaver, coffee brewer, global voice translator, projector and harmonica …or not.

Actually, what it is is an advertising campaign for the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. The phone, of course, is too good to be true - presumably the tie-in is supposed to be that the province of Nova Scotia is also too good to be true?

I am guessing - site was down … oh …got in that time… there we go

And that place, of course, would be Nova Scotia.

What do you think of this sort of thing? What they are doing, apparently, is just sending out info about this amazing phone. It is not until one actually goes to the web page and gets to the end of all the fancy flash advertising for the fictional phone that you find out that it really is a travel ad.

Would it make you inclined to go visit?

Me, I’m thinking … uh no. I think not. I rather resent people that waste my time.

But then again - here I am blogging about it (when I should be doing homework… hmmmm)

Thought I would post a link to the website I made for my Art of the Book ‘08 assignment. It is over on the website space that Steph the rocket scientist offered me, which is also the site of my newest blog, if you’re interested.

So … other than blogs…what are you reading right now?

I am waiting for my copy of the first Stephanie Meyer Twilight series - and another book as well - to show up… but in the meantime, I’m reading My Life As A Fake by Peter Carey. I’m about halfway through - need to finish it soon as I am to present about it next Monday in my fiction/nonfiction class.

Haven’t yet decided on an angle to focus on… the prof for that course has left a book for me to have a look at though, about the actual events the book uses, so will start with that. The book is based on the “real-life literary hoax perpetrated by the poets Harold Stewart and James McAuley in 1943″ (Hoaxes Down Under) in which Stewart & McAuley wrote (bad) poetry and invented an unlikely poet to attribute them to.

There is a whole website for Ern Malley, the nonexistant poet.