noun: a tangible missive or notice, detailing events or situations of a speculative or nonreal nature.
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Sunday, October 28, 2012
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Sunday, October 7, 2012
The Post-Novel:
While living in Portland Oregon, I purchased a book from Powell’s stacks, that shook me to my very core. It is the only book that I have thrown away from myself while reading, because I felt threatened by it - threatened by its implications, and menaced by the physical book itself. This book is House of Leaves, and was written by Mark Z. Danielewski.
We’ve talked about the tangible nature of epistolary story-telling: how a collection of found artifacts, or a transcribed correspondence gives more weight and credence to material, whether fictitious or not. When I look at the signature of John Hancock on the Declaration of Independence, I know that that man literally rested his hand on that same piece of paper, some 236 years ago - thereby giving that document more concrete grounding in the fabric of reality.
We’ve also been dancing around the idea of the Suspension of Disbelief - that when approaching inherently fictitious material, so long as said material is infused with some grain of truth, the reader can set aside their suspicions and simply believe that the tale is true. In so many words: if we can believe part of a story, it usually follows that we can believe it all.
From motion pictures, Jimmy Stewart in Hitchcock's Rear Window is a case in point: as the film unfolds, the little compartmental lives of the protagonist's neighbors are treated with a fascinating amount of screen time. The viewer, like Jimmy Stewart, has become a voyeur whether they intended to, or not - and as we observe their ordinary day-to-day activities, we come to believe that we are right there as Mr. Stewart slowly discovers one neighbor's sinister plot, and we, as he, become accessory in that design.
There is also the vicarious meta angle of seeing something that isn't yours. In print, the dedication page of House of Leaves reads simply,
"This is not for you."
Ominous. Threatening. Concise. How could the reader's curiosity not be piqued? And since the book is already open ... well, why would reading just one chapter hurt, after all?
In conjunction with this proximate curiosity of the material, there is something direct and bracing about such works. Since the reader is necessarily and constantly held at the same moment as the characters within the artifact's story (present tense), there is a proclivity to verisimilitude within this genre, rarely seen in other sorts. The proximate interest then becomes the proximate relationship, further reinforced (often) by the tangible nature of the collection. (Opening the letter, hearing the telephone call, etc.)
Stories by their nature are fascinating relics - they have passed, the events have elapsed, and the reader is assured that the events described therein cannot directly harm them in any way. There is no danger, save for the contrived danger recounted (past tense! I cannot emphasize this enough!) in the story.
I would argue, therefore, that some stories are necessarily more fascinating than others by the sheer virtue of their invasive medium - and House of Leaves is the poster child.
What made House so dangerous, was the degree to which it rooted itself in reality - citing articles from Redbook, and Reader’s Digest; referring to actual locations in Virginia; providing the reader with transcripts and verified reports of evidence taken from the locations described; immersing itself in layer upon layer upon layer of corroborated, approved, fact-checked literary analysis- it is practically impossible to not believe that it is real!
And there I was, breathing heavily in my chair, heart pounding, as the book gently settled against the wall opposite me - like a cannonball, sent from the world of lies and fear, to surge quietly by my wooden shelf of books.
We’ve talked about the tangible nature of epistolary story-telling: how a collection of found artifacts, or a transcribed correspondence gives more weight and credence to material, whether fictitious or not. When I look at the signature of John Hancock on the Declaration of Independence, I know that that man literally rested his hand on that same piece of paper, some 236 years ago - thereby giving that document more concrete grounding in the fabric of reality.
We’ve also been dancing around the idea of the Suspension of Disbelief - that when approaching inherently fictitious material, so long as said material is infused with some grain of truth, the reader can set aside their suspicions and simply believe that the tale is true. In so many words: if we can believe part of a story, it usually follows that we can believe it all.
From motion pictures, Jimmy Stewart in Hitchcock's Rear Window is a case in point: as the film unfolds, the little compartmental lives of the protagonist's neighbors are treated with a fascinating amount of screen time. The viewer, like Jimmy Stewart, has become a voyeur whether they intended to, or not - and as we observe their ordinary day-to-day activities, we come to believe that we are right there as Mr. Stewart slowly discovers one neighbor's sinister plot, and we, as he, become accessory in that design.
There is also the vicarious meta angle of seeing something that isn't yours. In print, the dedication page of House of Leaves reads simply,
"This is not for you."
Ominous. Threatening. Concise. How could the reader's curiosity not be piqued? And since the book is already open ... well, why would reading just one chapter hurt, after all?
In conjunction with this proximate curiosity of the material, there is something direct and bracing about such works. Since the reader is necessarily and constantly held at the same moment as the characters within the artifact's story (present tense), there is a proclivity to verisimilitude within this genre, rarely seen in other sorts. The proximate interest then becomes the proximate relationship, further reinforced (often) by the tangible nature of the collection. (Opening the letter, hearing the telephone call, etc.)
Stories by their nature are fascinating relics - they have passed, the events have elapsed, and the reader is assured that the events described therein cannot directly harm them in any way. There is no danger, save for the contrived danger recounted (past tense! I cannot emphasize this enough!) in the story.
I would argue, therefore, that some stories are necessarily more fascinating than others by the sheer virtue of their invasive medium - and House of Leaves is the poster child.
What made House so dangerous, was the degree to which it rooted itself in reality - citing articles from Redbook, and Reader’s Digest; referring to actual locations in Virginia; providing the reader with transcripts and verified reports of evidence taken from the locations described; immersing itself in layer upon layer upon layer of corroborated, approved, fact-checked literary analysis- it is practically impossible to not believe that it is real!
And there I was, breathing heavily in my chair, heart pounding, as the book gently settled against the wall opposite me - like a cannonball, sent from the world of lies and fear, to surge quietly by my wooden shelf of books.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Friday, September 7, 2012
Monday, June 18, 2012
Monday, April 23, 2012
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Old Bean
Accomplice, colleague, and friend of mine, Ben Hartzell, has crafted a ridiculously excellent reading of 'Bad Gentleman Fic', and has given me permission to throw it up here, for you all to hear. Sara Pace fabricated the album art, and altogether, it is an gustatory treat of superlative greatness (in that your abdomen may hurt, from over-laughing, once your listen is over.) Click yon gentleman, to access said noises.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Monday, April 9, 2012
Friday, April 6, 2012
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
On Mania:
In ‘The Wind and the Willows’, the eccentric Mr. Toad was prone to flights of rabid and obsessive interest in very specific things: motorcars being the chief example. In the story, these “manias” are usually portrayed as being reviled by Mr. Toad’s friends and neighbors, typically because Toad’s peculiar hobbies tend to cause strife in the quiet Thames river valley - though by the end, Toad’s eccentricities are reconciled, and his anthropomorphic animal friends accept his peculiarities on the condition that he try to keep them somewhat in check.
As a child, I can distinctly remember going through various “manias” or “phases” of my own:
3rd grade: ‘I am a Gypsy’
4th grade: ‘I am a Jedi’
5th grade: ‘I am a Butler’
6th grade: ‘I am a Royal Vizier’
7th grade: ‘I am a Space-faring Super Soldier Artificial Intelligence Artifact Robot’
And so on. Somewhere around 8th or 9th grade, my “phases” planed out a little more evenly, generally encompassing things slightly less goofy - but by college, I was pretty sure that I was a well-rounded individual with varied and malleable INTERESTS.
During my stint at Beloit, I had the fantastic opportunity to explore radio, and worked as a text-book Reader. I played Bioshock and Modern Warfare 2 for the first time, and watched Carnivàle and Glee. I could listen to MGMT and Katy Perry, or Old Crow Medicine Show and Chopin. When I graduated, I moved out West to Portland, flipped burgers, wrote stories, listened to the pub regulars talk about their lives - and I figured that I had things pretty well worked-out, life-wise.
But then, one fateful Spring, my friends started to investigate a recurrent phrase, whispered in IRCs, or mentioned in foot-notes of Comic-Con cos-play albums across the internet:
Homestuck.
We were curious, and after a cursory Google, chalked it up to being a strange meme, that had probably happened eight or nine years ago.
But it kept cropping up.
So we looked again.
And that, was when everything changed.
Homestuck is, for all intents, and normal parlance’s purposes, a web-comic.
It is, however, unlike all other web-comics that exist.
If Homestuck is to be considered on these terms, however, it is in a tier (a God-Tier, if you will) of its own.
As a webcomic, it is literally the longest running webcomic, ever. In terms of pages, (currently ringing in at well over 4,400 [not including any of the multitudinous sub-comics that lay nestled inside of Homestuck’s bodice]), the incomparable author, Andrew Hussie, usually churns-out over 20 pages of new content daily (not including the [yes] hours of flash animations, games, soundboards, and cinematics that dot HS’ epic girth).
If HS is a webcomic, it is also one of the youngest, ringing-in at only almost 3 years old, (it was begun on April 13th, 2009) and was actually preceded by three other comics on Hussie’s MSPaintAdventures website (which are constantly and consistently referenced throughout HS).
If HS is a webcomic, it is one of the most significant ever, because of the indescribably vast network of artists and musicians and writers and psychology-enthusists and everything else besides, that have bought into the HS universe. While it may not obvious at first, how thoroughly HS has permeated the internet - I can only say, that standing on *this* side of the “Current Page”, I feel like I’ve taken off the tinted glasses in the Emerald City, and can see everything. And my God, is it beautiful.
Perhaps most significantly, is that if HS is a webcomic, it is the best webcomic there is - and I don’t dish that distinction out, lightly. After all (as mentioned), Homestuck isn’t really a web-comic, at all. :P
Sure, movie-marketing, and alternate-reality gaming have spanned multiple multimedia platforms. Yes, spin-off games and movies and shows and novelizations and graphic novels exist for many fantastically diverse and well-suited universes. Verily, yea, fandoms will appear so long as there are geeks to hold vigil. But for a story, from the the very start, to wholly embrace the complex mechanisms of the entire internet; to routinely feature scores of animate panels of content; to weave a narrative of this complexity (more on that in a moment) in the modern era, for a modern audience - I am either supremely ignorant, or know of no other such thing.
Frankly, the only thing, that I can even think to compare Homestuck to, is Homer’s The Odyssey. To be sure, there is an incredible volume of work in Hussie’s 4400 page epic (which is, I might add, only now, as of this writing, half-complete) - for it is frought with tumult and anguish, calm and contemplation, Good vs. Evil, Light vs. Dark, circumstance and morality, ethics and philosophy, and all the (hemo)spectrum of human experience in between -- but there is more to it than the weight of a dusty, singular, epic.
It is a story about four very real friends, and their desire to play a game together.
And it is in that, that I now stake my “mania.”
As a child, I can distinctly remember going through various “manias” or “phases” of my own:
3rd grade: ‘I am a Gypsy’
4th grade: ‘I am a Jedi’
5th grade: ‘I am a Butler’
6th grade: ‘I am a Royal Vizier’
7th grade: ‘I am a Space-faring Super Soldier Artificial Intelligence Artifact Robot’
And so on. Somewhere around 8th or 9th grade, my “phases” planed out a little more evenly, generally encompassing things slightly less goofy - but by college, I was pretty sure that I was a well-rounded individual with varied and malleable INTERESTS.
During my stint at Beloit, I had the fantastic opportunity to explore radio, and worked as a text-book Reader. I played Bioshock and Modern Warfare 2 for the first time, and watched Carnivàle and Glee. I could listen to MGMT and Katy Perry, or Old Crow Medicine Show and Chopin. When I graduated, I moved out West to Portland, flipped burgers, wrote stories, listened to the pub regulars talk about their lives - and I figured that I had things pretty well worked-out, life-wise.
But then, one fateful Spring, my friends started to investigate a recurrent phrase, whispered in IRCs, or mentioned in foot-notes of Comic-Con cos-play albums across the internet:
Homestuck.
We were curious, and after a cursory Google, chalked it up to being a strange meme, that had probably happened eight or nine years ago.
But it kept cropping up.
So we looked again.
And that, was when everything changed.
Homestuck is, for all intents, and normal parlance’s purposes, a web-comic.
It is, however, unlike all other web-comics that exist.
If Homestuck is to be considered on these terms, however, it is in a tier (a God-Tier, if you will) of its own.
As a webcomic, it is literally the longest running webcomic, ever. In terms of pages, (currently ringing in at well over 4,400 [not including any of the multitudinous sub-comics that lay nestled inside of Homestuck’s bodice]), the incomparable author, Andrew Hussie, usually churns-out over 20 pages of new content daily (not including the [yes] hours of flash animations, games, soundboards, and cinematics that dot HS’ epic girth).
If HS is a webcomic, it is also one of the youngest, ringing-in at only almost 3 years old, (it was begun on April 13th, 2009) and was actually preceded by three other comics on Hussie’s MSPaintAdventures website (which are constantly and consistently referenced throughout HS).
If HS is a webcomic, it is one of the most significant ever, because of the indescribably vast network of artists and musicians and writers and psychology-enthusists and everything else besides, that have bought into the HS universe. While it may not obvious at first, how thoroughly HS has permeated the internet - I can only say, that standing on *this* side of the “Current Page”, I feel like I’ve taken off the tinted glasses in the Emerald City, and can see everything. And my God, is it beautiful.
Perhaps most significantly, is that if HS is a webcomic, it is the best webcomic there is - and I don’t dish that distinction out, lightly. After all (as mentioned), Homestuck isn’t really a web-comic, at all. :P
Sure, movie-marketing, and alternate-reality gaming have spanned multiple multimedia platforms. Yes, spin-off games and movies and shows and novelizations and graphic novels exist for many fantastically diverse and well-suited universes. Verily, yea, fandoms will appear so long as there are geeks to hold vigil. But for a story, from the the very start, to wholly embrace the complex mechanisms of the entire internet; to routinely feature scores of animate panels of content; to weave a narrative of this complexity (more on that in a moment) in the modern era, for a modern audience - I am either supremely ignorant, or know of no other such thing.
Frankly, the only thing, that I can even think to compare Homestuck to, is Homer’s The Odyssey. To be sure, there is an incredible volume of work in Hussie’s 4400 page epic (which is, I might add, only now, as of this writing, half-complete) - for it is frought with tumult and anguish, calm and contemplation, Good vs. Evil, Light vs. Dark, circumstance and morality, ethics and philosophy, and all the (hemo)spectrum of human experience in between -- but there is more to it than the weight of a dusty, singular, epic.
It is a story about four very real friends, and their desire to play a game together.
And it is in that, that I now stake my “mania.”
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