Guy Noir Wrecks My Plans
The idea is to come up with 15- or 30-minute radio-of-the-air pieces that we can produce here with a local theater company, peddle them to Sirius or via the iStore, but we need scripts. Which I've been trying to write in my head as I drive to and from work.
All I can think of is cases handled by a kind of uber-me, a lawyer/fixer who carries a gun, does more than way more than contracts, takes on beautiful women and dangerous men, but how to I get around the cliches? It all sounds like Guy Noir, Garrison Keillor's detective from St. Paul.
She walked in and at first all I saw was legs, down to 4-inch heels, down to toenails painted chocolate brown. I'm thinking, "Not too early for dessert" but all that came out was "May I help you?"
Stuff like that.
I need to get from funny to cool...
Friday, April 29, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
The Threshold Theory
Here's as far as I go on this whole life-after-death thing.
Your whole life you've been telling yourself stories about yourself, often deceptive or at least non-factual. The best example being dreams, where you show yourself in a narrative and you wander through, as though awake, taking in the world you've created. At some level you - the deep you - must know that the dream world you've created isn't "real". But the dreamer in you believes the whole story, until you wake up.
And as you grow older and wiser you learn that telling these stories to yourself doesn't only happen while you are asleep.
OK so far. Basic stuff, I guess, but I was no psych major so this wasn't taught to me, and neither was what's next.
The threshold theory is that at the moment of death - at the threshold - a final narrative unfolds. Deep-you shows dreamer-you what's next. Who knows what it will show you, any more than you know any night what dreams you will dream.
So, you're at the moment of death, at the threshold. Maybe you will look out at the afterlife you believe in. If you believe you're going to hell (a proposition I find utterly ridiculous, by the way - take that, Satan!), well then maybe you're looking at brimstone and pitchforks. If you believe you're going to heaven, maybe you're at a really well-appointed hotel, and all the dogs who preceded you to the hereafter are running towards you, tails wagging.
If you're a lights-out guy, maybe you're looking into black.
Or maybe what dreamer-you believes has no bearing on what deep-you serves up at the last moment.
In any case I'm pretty sure that deep-you knows what is going down. All the circuit breakers are being tripped, the fire curtain is coming down, and it's time to trot out the last big dream.
Whatever it is, whatever the final story you tell yourself, at the threshold, that's it, that's eternity. The frame freezes at one last blink, the lids stay closed, you don't wake up.
Here's as far as I go on this whole life-after-death thing.
Your whole life you've been telling yourself stories about yourself, often deceptive or at least non-factual. The best example being dreams, where you show yourself in a narrative and you wander through, as though awake, taking in the world you've created. At some level you - the deep you - must know that the dream world you've created isn't "real". But the dreamer in you believes the whole story, until you wake up.
And as you grow older and wiser you learn that telling these stories to yourself doesn't only happen while you are asleep.
OK so far. Basic stuff, I guess, but I was no psych major so this wasn't taught to me, and neither was what's next.
The threshold theory is that at the moment of death - at the threshold - a final narrative unfolds. Deep-you shows dreamer-you what's next. Who knows what it will show you, any more than you know any night what dreams you will dream.
So, you're at the moment of death, at the threshold. Maybe you will look out at the afterlife you believe in. If you believe you're going to hell (a proposition I find utterly ridiculous, by the way - take that, Satan!), well then maybe you're looking at brimstone and pitchforks. If you believe you're going to heaven, maybe you're at a really well-appointed hotel, and all the dogs who preceded you to the hereafter are running towards you, tails wagging.
If you're a lights-out guy, maybe you're looking into black.
Or maybe what dreamer-you believes has no bearing on what deep-you serves up at the last moment.
In any case I'm pretty sure that deep-you knows what is going down. All the circuit breakers are being tripped, the fire curtain is coming down, and it's time to trot out the last big dream.
Whatever it is, whatever the final story you tell yourself, at the threshold, that's it, that's eternity. The frame freezes at one last blink, the lids stay closed, you don't wake up.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Rabbit Rabbit
OK that was a mixed thing.
Giving up the Internet for 40 days was a great conversation piece but otherwise, for the most part, irritating. It was like giving up the phone book, the dictionary, the atlas. You can do it, and you can find the paper alternatives, but the process takes longer and the results are less complete.
You miss a lot of the pushed popular cultural references, the bad behavior of movie stars and politicians. But you don't lose track of weather killing people in Japan, or dictators killing people in Libya, or the mass US civics lesson that is playing out over federal budgeting and debt. As to these, maybe you've missed (how to know, since you've missed it) some of the nuance, and certainly you're missed a lot of punditry and chatter.
You do waste less time. Every second is precious and gone forever, so that is a good thing. The avoidance of lost time was most apparent when I strayed from the vow, because ten minutes into an Internet hunt for something (usually music) I would realize where I was and go back to where I belonged. So, better time management.
But, generally: kind of a yawn. Next year maybe I will give up something even more fundamental, like walking... ooh there's a thought. Conduct life at a run, a trot, or a crawl.
Which brings me, at this 40-day pace, mostly walking, to Easter. I find I'm becoming a practicing Christian - emphasizing "practicing" - but this holiday is still where I come up short. My father used to say that religion is about what happens when you die. Not for me. For me it's about what happens before you die. I do not believe that we maintain any kind of separate personality after we die, or will arise again as we were or want to be, whether we follow Jesus or not. I think, subject to the Threshold Theory, that when we die it's lights out. And I'm OK with that. How we get there, that's the hard part.
The Threshold Theory - next post.
OK that was a mixed thing.
Giving up the Internet for 40 days was a great conversation piece but otherwise, for the most part, irritating. It was like giving up the phone book, the dictionary, the atlas. You can do it, and you can find the paper alternatives, but the process takes longer and the results are less complete.
You miss a lot of the pushed popular cultural references, the bad behavior of movie stars and politicians. But you don't lose track of weather killing people in Japan, or dictators killing people in Libya, or the mass US civics lesson that is playing out over federal budgeting and debt. As to these, maybe you've missed (how to know, since you've missed it) some of the nuance, and certainly you're missed a lot of punditry and chatter.
You do waste less time. Every second is precious and gone forever, so that is a good thing. The avoidance of lost time was most apparent when I strayed from the vow, because ten minutes into an Internet hunt for something (usually music) I would realize where I was and go back to where I belonged. So, better time management.
But, generally: kind of a yawn. Next year maybe I will give up something even more fundamental, like walking... ooh there's a thought. Conduct life at a run, a trot, or a crawl.
Which brings me, at this 40-day pace, mostly walking, to Easter. I find I'm becoming a practicing Christian - emphasizing "practicing" - but this holiday is still where I come up short. My father used to say that religion is about what happens when you die. Not for me. For me it's about what happens before you die. I do not believe that we maintain any kind of separate personality after we die, or will arise again as we were or want to be, whether we follow Jesus or not. I think, subject to the Threshold Theory, that when we die it's lights out. And I'm OK with that. How we get there, that's the hard part.
The Threshold Theory - next post.
Monday, April 11, 2011
For Tom, I Suspend
An old friend, a classmate, a bandmate from many years ago, is dead. We only find out now, a year later. Just a death notice, no details.
I sent this to the class, and he deserves much more. At the suggestion of another classmate, I'll risk perdition and post at least this:
**********************************************************
Chambers was a front man. Had he been in the Rascals he would have been way better than Gene, and Eddie and Felix couldn't have stood the competition.
He introduced me to Winwood, Clapton, Hendrix. He loved hooking up his very impressive stereo at the beginning of a term and taking it down at the end. In the meantime he slept as much as possible because, he told me, it made time go by more quickly. He could not wait to get on with life.
He bedded great looking girls.
There was a tape of us playing the 25th. We all kind of showed our age, but Tom did at least one break that wiped me out. I found myself shouting.
Awful to find out this way, but he was hiding from us. I think - based on very little evidence - that he was ashamed that he did not live up to his potential. And he did not. Because if he had, he would have been a star.
An old friend, a classmate, a bandmate from many years ago, is dead. We only find out now, a year later. Just a death notice, no details.
I sent this to the class, and he deserves much more. At the suggestion of another classmate, I'll risk perdition and post at least this:
**********************************************************
Chambers was a front man. Had he been in the Rascals he would have been way better than Gene, and Eddie and Felix couldn't have stood the competition.
He introduced me to Winwood, Clapton, Hendrix. He loved hooking up his very impressive stereo at the beginning of a term and taking it down at the end. In the meantime he slept as much as possible because, he told me, it made time go by more quickly. He could not wait to get on with life.
He bedded great looking girls.
There was a tape of us playing the 25th. We all kind of showed our age, but Tom did at least one break that wiped me out. I found myself shouting.
Awful to find out this way, but he was hiding from us. I think - based on very little evidence - that he was ashamed that he did not live up to his potential. And he did not. Because if he had, he would have been a star.
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Shrove Tuesday
For a lot of reasons I'm going all in on the 40 days.
Used to be, giving things up for Lent meant I'd suspend consumption of some things that were bad for me. Say, desserts. And I'd backslide a lot.
My Mom had a wonderfully tailored approach. She'd give up smoking in the car.
But I've had friends point out that there is supposed to be an element of sacrifice here, not just an excuse to diet or self-improve. And I agree with that, especially today, right now. The events, the changes, the risks, the choices keep flying at me from all directions and I need to focus, hunker down, and figure out how to balance out the reality of 60 years under my belt. And use the mechanic of giving up something that matters.
So I'm going to give up the Internet.
Like Mom, tailored: still there for emails, legal research, reservations, and driving directions. But not news, blogs, Wikipedia, or the links people send along. And not Strays.
Back on Easter Sunday, hunting eggs.
For a lot of reasons I'm going all in on the 40 days.
Used to be, giving things up for Lent meant I'd suspend consumption of some things that were bad for me. Say, desserts. And I'd backslide a lot.
My Mom had a wonderfully tailored approach. She'd give up smoking in the car.
But I've had friends point out that there is supposed to be an element of sacrifice here, not just an excuse to diet or self-improve. And I agree with that, especially today, right now. The events, the changes, the risks, the choices keep flying at me from all directions and I need to focus, hunker down, and figure out how to balance out the reality of 60 years under my belt. And use the mechanic of giving up something that matters.
So I'm going to give up the Internet.
Like Mom, tailored: still there for emails, legal research, reservations, and driving directions. But not news, blogs, Wikipedia, or the links people send along. And not Strays.
Back on Easter Sunday, hunting eggs.
Monday, March 07, 2011
Remarkable
I attended an Evensong service last night, and it was just brilliant. Mostly sung, by the choir, even the Apostle's Creed. We - the handful that of congregants was there, in a Church near where I live - spoke only a few prayers, but they were the way up on the top of my list. The Lord's Prayer, at first said by the congregation, later choir-sung (without the doxology at the end, which I often omit - it's how we spoke it in boarding school.) And a general confession that I really love, from my childhood, with this:
****************************************************
We have left undone those things which we ought to have done;
And we have done those things which we ought not to have done;
And there is no health in us.
But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders.
***************************************
Just knocks me out. Is it some kind of masochism? I don't think so. Incredibly honest, say I.
I attended an Evensong service last night, and it was just brilliant. Mostly sung, by the choir, even the Apostle's Creed. We - the handful that of congregants was there, in a Church near where I live - spoke only a few prayers, but they were the way up on the top of my list. The Lord's Prayer, at first said by the congregation, later choir-sung (without the doxology at the end, which I often omit - it's how we spoke it in boarding school.) And a general confession that I really love, from my childhood, with this:
****************************************************
We have left undone those things which we ought to have done;
And we have done those things which we ought not to have done;
And there is no health in us.
But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders.
***************************************
Just knocks me out. Is it some kind of masochism? I don't think so. Incredibly honest, say I.
Saturday, March 05, 2011
Tyrants
I guess at this point we are waiting around to see if Ghaddafi can be brutal enough to survive. Let's not forgot that Detestable 20th Century Dictators Nos. 2 and 3 - Mao and Stalin - died in their beds. (I will always give No. 1 status to the half-eunuch who sought the Final Solution.)
But Ghaddifi has a pompous, unbending ridiculousness to him that has in the past proved fatal - I'm thinking, Mussolini, with whom G has some historical links. And Ceausescu - and, coming out of his hidey hole - Saddam. Those three, all dead at the hands of their people.
The liberalizing dictators, on the other hand, don't seem to be able to hand onto power but do hang on their scalps. Marcos and the Shah. Mubarak and the dude in Tunisia.
The elephant in the room - the blue whale in the room - is the royal family in Saudi Arabia. They won't shut down the Internet, or use tear gas, or shoot rubber bullets, in order to stop protestors. The Saudis will hang them. It'll put this Administration in a really tough position, but BHO won't be dumb enough to side with the opposition there. He won't. He won't?
I guess at this point we are waiting around to see if Ghaddafi can be brutal enough to survive. Let's not forgot that Detestable 20th Century Dictators Nos. 2 and 3 - Mao and Stalin - died in their beds. (I will always give No. 1 status to the half-eunuch who sought the Final Solution.)
But Ghaddifi has a pompous, unbending ridiculousness to him that has in the past proved fatal - I'm thinking, Mussolini, with whom G has some historical links. And Ceausescu - and, coming out of his hidey hole - Saddam. Those three, all dead at the hands of their people.
The liberalizing dictators, on the other hand, don't seem to be able to hand onto power but do hang on their scalps. Marcos and the Shah. Mubarak and the dude in Tunisia.
The elephant in the room - the blue whale in the room - is the royal family in Saudi Arabia. They won't shut down the Internet, or use tear gas, or shoot rubber bullets, in order to stop protestors. The Saudis will hang them. It'll put this Administration in a really tough position, but BHO won't be dumb enough to side with the opposition there. He won't. He won't?
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