Further Thoughts of Chairman Sunday

I know, it's Monday morning. I had these thoughts yesterday, but I was busy find out who the 333 killer was.

Kicking off with Quantum of Solace...

Hoo, boy. Well, sure, a lot of things go 'boom'. And James Bond has at long last picked up some unarmed combat training which goes beyond putting his head down and running forwards at the bad guy. That seems appropriate, but yes, it does give a Bourne feel to the whole thing, as does the headlong dive into action. Not a thinker, this Bond. Not much of a lover, either, if we're honest.

Here's the thing: this is a movie about damage. Two damaged people team up to extract their .453592 kg of flesh. In doing so, they explode a lot of things and kill a startling number of people, and contribute to the deaths of a few more (their allies, alas).

At the end of this, they achieve a ragged, empty kind of closure, and quite incidentally, Bolivia is saved from a nefarious political/criminal organisation.

Oh, and a couple of weird things happen: Judy Dench appears to be Captain Scarlet, and there's what seems to be (but cannot possibly be because that would just be too weird) a gratuitous crotch shot.

I was never bored (but I have a really low interest/boredom threshold when it comes to things going "fwoomph!") but I wasn't elated either. This is a surprisingly bleak movie. Perhaps the bleakest moment for me was the seduction of Ms Fields. Chill, perfunctory, emotionless - yes, yes, I know: lots of people will tell you that Bond's romances are all like that. This one was sorrowful, at least to me. Also, the whole thing was over in a heartbeat. I realise that's the point, in a way - that this is a Bond who has almost lost his connection with fun - but I don't want to lose mine. I like fun.

And then later, I figured it out: this is Empire Strikes Back. The new Bond is a trilogy - Casino Royale introduced him, this shows us him overcoming the darkness, and the third movie...

Well, that would probably have some gadgets and fun. But please, not Ewoks.

Don't get me wrong. I love Ewoks. Just... there's a time and a place.

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What else? Well, the day is coming when this rather pedestrian website will be replaced with something a little more swish. Jeff Somers has Helper Monkeys. In an effort to demonstrate that we are not, in fact, the same person, I have acquired

1. evil superpowered robot weasels
   
2. naked interior designers
3. literary critics whose brains are so powerful they can actually change the world by thinking hard about it
4. a blaspheming nun of dark Nyarlathotep, and 
5. jumbo asparagus

and I have mushed them all together to form one overwhelmingly amazing web designer called Richard.

(Good name.)

Richard has the situation well in hand. Or should I say, in the grip of one vast and horribly suggestive claw?

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While I'm geeking out (and I'd like to apologise to those of you who came here looking for literary ponderings and so on - I do that, too, just not right now) can I just say:

Death Knights? Starting a level 50? 

It's all getting too damn easy. I mean, dude, I was in SFK the other day and there were like three of us and a healer-tank and we totalled the place and we were low-level and it was carnage and the only thing we couldn't handle was like Arugal himself, we should have been toast before we got to the first Deathstalker, man...

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Those of you who have no idea what that means: it means nothing. Pay no attention to the huge nerd behind the curtain.

In the interest of making it all up to you, here's one way of beating the non-existent syndrome commonly referred to (c.f. unicorns, Bertrand Russell) as "writer's block"...

Jeff Noon, author of Vurt, described in a talk I saw long ago at the ICA a method he likens to a mixing desk complete with effects. This is my rather diluted explanation of his Cobralingus Engine, as far as I can remember it all these years later.

Find a bit of text, up to a hundred words long.  It can be anything; this piece is from the registration document of the L.A. Times: 

checking your e-mail account for an e-mail from “registration@latimes.com” (be sure to also review your spam or bulk e-mail list just in case ours is inadvertently placed there by your e-mail provider such as AOL, Yahoo!, Hotmail or a workplace organization).  Account activation is also required to get customized news and weather or any of our newsletters. As always, Classifieds and Marketplace do NOT require registration

remove the punctuation and spaces,

checkingyouremailaccountforanemailfromregistrationlatimescombesuretoalsoreviewyourspa

morbulkemaillistjustincaseoursisinadvertentlyplacedtherebyyouremailprovidersuchasAOLYa

hooHotmailoraworkplaceorganizationAccountactivationisalsorequiredtogetcustomizednewsa

ndweatheroranyofournewslettersAsalwaysClassifiedsandMarketplacedoNOTrequireregistrat

ion

then randomly remove and add a few letters in each line

chpckingyourailaccouforanemailfromregistrlatilmescombesiuretoalsoreviewyourspamorbulk

emaillistjustincaoursisinadvprtentlyplacedthelrebyiyourailproviedersuchasYahooHotmailor

aworkplacporganizationAccountactivatilnisalsorequiredtotcustomizednewndweatherorany

ofournewslettersAsalwaassifiedsandrketplacedoNOTrequireregistration

and go through creating words from the junk without worrying about sense

chap clock king you rail court force animus ailing frond regicide till mess comb toads  review spasm or bulk list Justin coeur ursine pretend thy place ethanol reply in your grail prove sulk chase sailor at work placate pork galvanized action count active nasal sorcerer quire totem atomized weather organ four new salvation was and placebo note

which gets us to the first moment of overt creativity:  pick some words which suggest characters, places, and stories...

clock king

rail court

ailing

regicide

Justin

ursine

grail

atomized weather

I’m now thinking of a story about the Clock King, an old man ruling a kingdom of decaying railways and clockwork.  Clearly he’s under threat from someone, and Justin may be our hero.  There’s a bear in there somewhere, which makes me think the Clock Kingdom is snowy and cold, but perhaps not everywhere - the weather is atomized.  That could mean that the seasons themselves are out of alignment, not running to schedule.  That would be a classic Fisher King sort of story, where the only answer is the grail...  Oh, and maybe that bear has a role in what’s going to happen.

If that’s not the story I want, I can go again, or adapt it.  You can take it at face value, or recast it in another genre - a thriller, for example, in which an aging industrialist or railway magnate finds his life in danger and seeks help from a young man named Justin.  

The point is not that the method yields a complete story, but that it gets you thinking. It is, of course, only a mirror. You're not going to get anything out of it that you don't put in. I'm the kind of person who sees bears and atomized weather. 

You may pick out

organ

salvation

placebo

sulk

sailor

toads

and get a naval version of Greg House with a toad obsession.

Wait, that's me again, isn't it?

You could pick out

placate

note

quire

salvation

ethanol

grail

and get a story about an alcoholic searching for his own salvation. Is he deluded when he sees a vision of the Holy Grail? Or is he experiencing a genuine divine inspiration?

I'd never write that story. I hate those kinds of uncertainties (K-Pax, for example... brr...) and the alcoholism/God combo isn't for me. Which isn't to say it mightn't be a great story.