tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29232498673229859742024-03-13T20:24:44.602-07:00Alien Play WrightAn occasional set of postings about Warhammer, Oldhammer, miniature painting and playwrighting. With occasional digressions into other stuff.Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.comBlogger65125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-57408347252208293082013-09-12T05:33:00.000-07:002013-09-12T05:33:37.095-07:00The Eternal SlumberSo, whilst in the midst of trying to reawaken my Alien Playwright blog and morph it into a gaming blog, I had a realisation. What the hell am I doing? Why am I trying to force a change? I should let sleeping blogs lie, rather than try and change the purpose.<br /><br />And there it goes, Alien Playwright is dormant until such a time as I am, you know, writing a play.<br /><br />There will be a new blog for my current obsession, which you can see traces of on this blog: painting fantasy wargaming miniatures.<br /><br />I'll still be around, simply not exactly here.Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-53467698006265935442012-04-30T16:44:00.002-07:002012-05-08T20:06:16.721-07:00One Page DungeonI have created an entry for the one page dungeon contest (<a href="http://campaignwiki.org/wiki/DungeonMaps/One_Page_Dungeon_Contest_2012">http://campaignwiki.org/wiki/DungeonMaps/One_Page_Dungeon_Contest_2012</a>) called Beloved of Set. It is a jumbled mishmash of Egyptian oddness. I hope that it is interesting at least. It was very difficult to keep to the one page limit simply because I wanted to add more art.<br />
<br />
The egyptian hieroglyphs are a substitution. I've probably insulted some long dead pharaoh's mum.<br />
<br />
I did not use proper names. The original idea was a convoluted homage to Alan Moore and his magical workings theatre group. The scribe was going to be Alnmur and the priestess Melgeb. In the end I decided It might make it easier to slot the various bits into existing games if there were no names.<br />
<br />
Well, the die is cast.Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-10273072986765441332012-04-06T14:27:00.000-07:002012-04-06T14:27:48.839-07:00Alan MooreI came late to the works of Alan Moore. I knew of him for a long time, from the pages of the horror magazine Skeleton Crew which did many a long essay on his work. There I saw scattered panels from his comics: V for Vendetta, From Hell, Big Numbers and Swamp Thing. There was a certain reverence in the words about him that made him appear as if a god among mortals. Though this is probably a response to the reality that monthly comics scriptwriting was fairly dire. Following leads, I went to 2000AD, the flagship comic of the UK to find the illusive Moore. Instead of Alan Moore, who had finished writing for the magazine years earlier, I found Peter Milligan, Grant Morrison and John Smith, writers I noticed attached to strips I enjoyed. I followed these writers to DC and Vertigo comics and discovered Neil Gaiman and others. Still I had not read any Alan Moore. It was a strange lacuna. I knew a lot about Alan Moore and about the comics he had written from reading the reactions and perceptions of others. Still I had not actually read any of the landmark work that he had created.<br />
<br />
When I finally read V for Vendetta and Watchmen, I was in my mid 20s and I had read so many other comics that had used techniques and surface gloss from them that it all seemed old hat. Watchmen (and Frank Miller's the Dark Knight Returns) helped create the comics style that we have suffered through since the late 80s: grim, gritty, pretentious and hyper violent without actually taking note of what Moore was actually doing: taking superheroes to their logical, illogical end (something that the recent film decided to 'correct' slightly*).<br />
<br />
My first realisation that Alan Moore was an amazing writer was when I read From Hell, illustrated in pen and ink by Eddie Campbell (one of the guys who worked at Graphix**, Andy, had bought a page of From Hell, and it amazed me to see that Campbell had used ballpoint to create some of the scratchiness in the art). From Hell is an exhaustive exploration of the Jack the Ripper mythology using the Stephen Knight theory (Freemasons perpetrated the Ripper murders at Queen Victoria's behest to cover up a Catholic marriage and an illegitimate heir to the throne) to hang an amazing stew of ideas and imagery off of. It is incredibly rich, in it's detail and Moore provided extensive appendices where he discusses the references that he used.<br />
<br />
There is an entire 30 odd page chapter dedicated to a mystical tour of London, a carriage trip where Doctor Gull, the murderer, lays out a cosmology and philosophy that ties architecture to magic and imagination. Later there is a similar amount of pages dedicated (dedicated? an oddly appropriate word) to the dismemberment of the ripper's final victim. It is silent, and relies on Campbell's art to depict the clinical horror of the destruction of a human being.<br />
<br />
The final stroke is an afterword where Moore injects himself into the history of Ripperology and talks about the imploding nature of closed theories. It is my favourite part of the book, it is funny and tragic and it lays bear the obsessive desire of people to take ownership of a story, a mythology by uncovering the inner mystery. In From Hell, this is the identity of the killer, the reason for the murders. It is brilliant.<br />
<br />
*More about the tragic Alan Moore adaptions later.<br />
** Graphix is the premier comics store in Wellington, NZ. It would be perfect if only it displayed books in the window instead of toys. I judge other stores against this one. It does not have the stink of a geek's basement about it.Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-63936018089961193412012-03-29T12:56:00.001-07:002012-03-29T18:59:29.664-07:00Sermon from the 25th MarchI was invited to speak at my church, First Congregational Church, Battle Creek, which was a great privilege. It was huge because I am an atheist. This was an opportunity I felt I should take, and a trust that I should honour.<br />
<br />
In the writing of this I must have followed more than a handful of impulses, and then gone back and killed my darlings. Some trails started but abandoned: family history discrimination, growing up, Lovecraft, Alan Moore, my belief in the human imagination, more Kurt Vonnegut, explorations of socialism, negative church experiences, the most recent time I prayef and the idea that for someone to dominate someone else must submit.<br />
<br />
It was well received, and there was some nice feedback.<br />
<br />
The given sermon differed slightly from the text that follows. I ad libbed a little, mainly some explanations of some stuff. I will update this text when I have had a chance to watch the video. Updates will be in [[<i>bracketed italics</i>]]. I also realised that I mispelt atheist through out (cursed 'i' before 'e')<br />
<br />
Thanks, Simon<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Kia ora koutou. Welcome.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In New Zealand we often start a speaking engagement with a little bit of maori.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Writing this sermon has been difficult. I realised yesterday that I have not exposed myself in quite this way since I first started talking to Carmen four years ago. I feel vulnerable, that by talking about this I am truly laying myself on the line to the extent that I know that things won't be the same, regardless of the reception of what I say. I will be the one who has changed.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">What I'm going to reveal is not strictly a secret. Some of you, maybe most of you, already know it. I am an athiest.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">When Tom asked me to preach here, he said it would be a challenge. I immediately thought that he meant a challenge in terms of writing a sermon and speaking in front of people. No, Tom was referring to the idea that me, an athiest, talking here, might be a challenge for the Open and Affirming-ness of FCC. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">At it's simplest definition an athiest is a person who does not believe in a god or gods. From there, it accumulates meanings like a blue whale accumulates barnacles. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I don't like the word.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I don't like it because, while accurate, it only describes what I do not believe. It tells you nothing else about me.It tells you one spare detail about how I view the world. It does not explain why I am here, now, with you all in this sanctuary. It is a non-label, a word used to define 'the other' in relation to the 'us'. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">What I believe unites us is that we are capable of sharing headspace. Of creating in the space between us all, something that is more that the sum of it's parts. We all have a unique perspective, informed by the many factors that make up our lives. So unique, that although we may be on the same page, we're probably all reading different paragraphs.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I will get to our verses, I promise. First, some of my beliefs. I want to talk about space.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Carmen has seen me in the thrall of outer space. I have drifted off mid sentence, eyes glowing and mouth split in a beatific grin as some physicist or astronomer sketches some detail of the universe. Science for me is a set of beautiful ideas, ripe for use. We are all involved in delving into the mystery. But the mystery is a mandelbrot set: the further in you go, the more mystery you find. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">[[<i>The mandelbrot set: a fractal image which when you enlarge a section of it, the edge repeats the pattern into infinity. </i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="zxx"><i><u>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set</u></i></span></span></span></span></a> ]]</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">When we look at the night sky, I suspect we're all looking at the same thing. Only we each bring our own perspective to it. I see a vast, almost infinitely empty void. It is beautiful. It is scary. And we are alone. The universe does not care about us. It is not capable of caring. The earth could vanish tomorrow and the universe will carry on. Life here is fragile. Change any one thing about this planet and things get bad. For example, move Earth closer or further away from the sun and all our surface water freezes or burns off into space (Scientists call it the goldilocks zone: the planet is juuust the right distance away)</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Who knows how many other planets have come close to being as lucky as ours.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And that makes life here precious, makes this planet precious. We are stewards, or we should be stewards of this planet. We don't have a spare out there, no galactic cousins willing to let us sleep on their couch.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I certainly believe that there is life out there. Not necessarily sentient, though how cool would that be? Right now, I'd settle for simple bacteria. The paradigm would change. We would not be the sole life in the universe. We would be sharing this place with another.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Of course it could be that we have simply missed signs of other life in the vast emptiness. Their civilisations could have collapsed and their broadcasts passed us by before we gained the technology to detect them. Conversely, they may be out there looking at the night sky, sitting in their tribal groups and telling tales of strange life on other stars, simply not having got to where we got to a hundred years ago. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">We have been sending signals into space for nearly a hundred years. Who knows where and when and who will see them. I hope they don't judge us too harshly.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">***</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Theme: The Temptation to Dominate: Doing Enough</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Text: Luke 4: 1-2, 5-8, 13</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness,</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">2where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">5Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">6And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">7If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">8Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">13When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">When reading these verses I found myself thinking of the devil as an internal voice. It suggests to me that Jesus spends 40 days in the wilderness working through how to carry out his ministry. Working through the ways in which he could use his power, dragging the voice inside his head into the open and refuting it. William Burroughs called this kind of voice the Policeman inside. That insidious voice that tells you that you are wrong, that this is what you should be doing. It's the voice installed by your parents, by society, by institutions. A voice made out of all the rules, expectations, guilt trips and other nasty little tricks society uses to keep you in line.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Temptation for me is the voice telling me not to do something. "Don't swim. Don't drive. Don't talk to people. Don't go to that function" Usually, this voice is connected with fear ("Do you really think you can do this? Do <i>this</i>?" It's taken me a long time to recognise it and realise that if I hear it, it's a good sign that I should try and overcome it.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Jesus's temptation is to become king, and his overcoming of this temptation leads us from the wilderness to the sermon of the mount, where he gifts the kingdom to everyone.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">For myself, when I read the verses, I find myself reflecting on my inexperience as a parent. I can see all the mistakes, all the pitfalls coming down the road for our kids. Some from personal experience, some from observation. We also have this grand vision of how we want life to be like for our children.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">If only they would damned well listen.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">We know what's best, and still it is not enough. You want to shake the sense into them. It always feels like there is one more thing you could do, one more thing you could say. And isn't that the hard part? To gain the experience to know that you have done all you can, have done enough. That ultimately you can't force your child to submit. That you've placed yourself in the devil's role.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">***</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The unanswered question from earlier: Why am I here? I came initially to support and encourage Carmen in her faith. I stayed because of the open and affirming belief of this faith and this church in particular. This is the only church where the welcome-ness I received on my first visit has been backed up by the rhetoric of the church leadership. All too often my visits to churches start like this (an open embrace) and then progress, quickly, to this (talk to the hand). Here I feel that my perspective is one of many, and not discounted because of what I do or do not believe.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I am here because this is my community. I have never had one quite like this one. Like you all. Here I feel that I can be myself: a heathen, a father, a foreigner, a human without any of the judgment that I have experienced elsewhere. Here in this shared space something is created when we come together.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I want to end with a koha. In New Zealand, traditionally a koha is presented at a special occasion. Loosely it's a gift of appreciation and thanks.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I want to koha you all with the following words that have special place in my life.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The first is Kurt Vonnegut's evocation of enoughness. Something that he acquired from his uncle Alex and passed to us through. among other works, his book 'A Man Without a Country'.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>"I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'"</b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The second is a karakia, a prayer, that I said for four years in my bi-lingual class. It is the Lord's Prayer in Maori. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Let us pray.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">E to matou Matua i te rangi<br />
Kia tapu tou Ingoa<br />
Kia tae mai tou rangatira-tanga.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Kia meatia tau e pai ai<br />
ki runga ki te whenua,<br />
kia rite ano ki to te rangi.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Homai ki a matou aianei<br />
he taro ma matou mo tenei ra.<br />
<br />
Murua o matou hara</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Me matou hoki e muru nei<br />
i o te hunga e hara ana ki a matou.<br />
<br />
Aua hoki matou e kawea kia whaka-waia;</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Me matou hoki e muru nei<br />
i o te hunga e hara ana ki a matou.<br />
<br />
Aua hoki matou e kawea kia whaka-waia;</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">[[<i>Oops, accidentally repeated the previous 3 lines</i>]]</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Engari whaka-orangia matou, i te kino:<br />
<br />
Nou hoki te rangatira-tanga,<br />
te kaha,<br />
me te kororia,</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Ake, ake, ake.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Amine.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Thank you for letting be ramble. Peace be with you all.</div></blockquote>Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-9229133455066112502012-01-13T12:30:00.000-08:002012-01-13T12:30:15.258-08:00A brief deviation: comics. Cultural DNA.Oh, gee this post has been so long waiting to be posted that I've lost the point. I may have to revisit this.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
One of my loves is comics. They are another form of media that has been around my life since I was born, whether my dad's Peanuts books, or my mum's Superman and Batman omnibuses, or Noggin the Nod, or Asterix or Tintin or Footrot Flats round at Grandma and Grandad's. Comics have been around me, provided to me by family, as essential as books and music. Creative oxygen.<br />
<br />
For a long time in my late teens and very early twenties I read nothing but comics. I would say <br />
<blockquote>"A comic takes 20 to 30 minutes to read, and usually I'll get at least one good idea. If not, I've only lost 20 minutes. A book can take a lot longer, and the ratio isn't usually as good."</blockquote>This idea isn't originally mine (I suspect I mangled Alan Moore), but I adopted it wholeheartedly as a motto when talking to people about comics.<br />
<br />
I think about this attitude now and I cringe. Critically thinking things like that through was a couple of years away, probably the 3rd year of university. I must have been reading some utter garbage back then. Sure, I was reading some good comics, but there are ways to find good books.<br />
<br />
I'd started this post with the intention of talking about continuity and a comic called the Doom Patrol (a magic name that captivated me when I first read it in a short writer interview in 2000AD). The Doom Patrol had the distinction of being one of the few comics I bought regardless of the writer. I liked it because it was such a marginal comic in the DC comics universe that it didn't suffer a reboot until the 5th incarnation of the comic. This meant that the story of the characters in the comic had remained unbroken since the 60s, that the characters had aged in near real time. Which was incredibly important to me- somehow I sensed that this comic embraced the ridiculousness of a medium where Batman was eternally 30, Superman had his history restarted, and many character's war experiences shifted from WW2 to Korea to Vietnam to the Gulf. There was something attractive about a comic where changes happened and, more importantly, stuck.<br />
<br />
The original comic that began in 1963 ended in 1968 with the Doom Patrol sacrificing themselves to protect strangers.Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-40212142457713060602012-01-13T11:54:00.000-08:002012-01-13T11:54:57.520-08:00Here endeth the first draft work.I'm drawing a line under the work I've done so far. I'm finding that I have increasingly been generating material that, while it follows the research, does not make for a clear story. I've hamstrung myself by not deciding what the focus of this play will be.<br />
<br />
This first draft is nowhere near a finished work.<br />
<br />
I will collate a PDF of the draft and post it in the next few days. This will form the raw material for the 2nd draft.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Distractions are the biggest barriers to writing. If I'm doing the crossword, or reading the funnies, or playing on facebook; I am not writing. I have an abysmal writing practice. Which, for something I have been doing for the best parts of almost 18 years, is a source of personal irritation. Have I hit my 10 000 hours to be considered whatever it is that I would be considered after 10 000 hours of writing? I hope not, if only because I'd feel like the worst writer if I had surpassed that 10 000 hour mark.<br />
<br />
[The 10000 hours comes from the book Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell.]<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Next draft will be about story and the characters. It will be interesting to see if I can walk the tightrope to create scenes that remain true to the reality of the people involved.<br />
<br />
I sometimes consider giving up this writing lark. There is sometimes too much fear involved in sharing my words with others. The fear is sometimes overwhelming and it makes it easy to see the flaws in my writing instead of enjoying the good stuff.<br />
<br />
Before I even consider the next draft there will come some palate cleansers. I need to exercise other writing muscles.Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-59559777982626211862011-12-19T15:41:00.000-08:002011-12-19T15:41:57.480-08:00Vox Pop from the IoM, notebook pages from 12/01A little more from the IoMannite, then the Dalbyist chimes in.<br />
<div><br />
</div><div>This first draft is going to look like a house made from strange materials found in building recyclers. Sure, there are five kitchen sinks and that roof is held up by something, good intentions perhaps, but the second draft is where the architect comes in, shakes his head and sits down and begins turning a shack into a respectable bungalow with an en suite and an open shared living space. Some of those kitchen sinks will have to go, of course.</div><div><br />
</div><blockquote class="tr_bq">IoMANNITE: When the Irvings sold up and left all of it stopped. I assumed that Gef went with them.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">REPORTER: Why assume that?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">IoMANNITE: All of it ended. The whispering, the spooked animals, the tiny footprints in the flower beds.</blockquote>[I actually wanted to say "the tiny footprints in the butter" but I didn't think outright Pythonesque humour would have fit in]<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">***</div><blockquote class="tr_bq">DALBYIST: When Jim and the family left I was glad. That mental kid of theirs. Of course <i>he </i>vanished.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">REPORTER: oh? Gef, right?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">DALBYIST: You can't have a puppet without the puppeteer, can you? For my money it'll be the daughter. She was a bit wild. I'd heard that Jim had to move her bed into his and Marge's bedroom to keep an eye on her. She seemed to like to roam all over the show killing rabbits, which ain't healthy. Jim is a stand up bloke. Always ready with a good word,. He was a traveler, to be sure. I'm certain that he has seen things that beggar belief. I might add she weren't right in the head. My boys didn't like her. She was always making funny voices in school. Pretending to be something that she weren't.</blockquote><br />
Forgive me the sliding in tense. This is all supposed to be discussing the past.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">REPORTER: You seem certain that Voirrey made Gef.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">DALBYIST: Oh yes, I'm certain of that.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">REPORTER: How so?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">DALBYIST: She could throw her voice and she had plenty of time on her hands to come up with a little bugger like Gef.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">REPORTER: But why not Mr or Mrs Irving?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">DALBYIST: They're too sensible for that. It's not in their character.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">REPORTER: But not Voirrey. Did you meet Price?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">DALBYIST: He's a slick one. I'm not sure why he came. Perhaps there was a whiff of something. He acted like a man on holiday. Swanned about, not a care in the world. He saw the sights and climbed to Cashen's gap. Did he believe? Do you know if he ever said?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">REPORTER: Not to my knowledge. Price was usually pretty forthright and adamant in his debunking.</blockquote>***<br />
Price seems to have seen something to exploit in he situation. I don't have a clear idea of what Price's beliefs are in regard to the supernatural. I don't know if he believed or not. He certainly<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"> </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"> </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"> </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"> </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"> </blockquote>Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-24986697015236703982011-12-15T06:15:00.000-08:002011-12-15T06:22:01.140-08:0012/4/2011- further notes.<blockquote class="tr_bq">I need to find the C.S. Lewis quote about putting away childish things when you grow up.</blockquote><b>"When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." </b><br />
<br />
Appears to be from "On Three Ways for Writing for Children" 1953<br />
<a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis">http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis</a><br />
I don't know quite why I needed to find the quote.<br />
<br />
Now for some repetition from earlier: I've written this scene already from a different tack here <a href="http://alienplaywright.blogspot.com/2011/04/z-challenge-love.html">http://alienplaywright.blogspot.com/2011/04/z-challenge-love.html</a><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">FIANCE: You grew up on Man, right?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">VOIRREY: ...sure.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">FIANCE: Did you know the story of the mongoose?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">VOIRREY: Yes, I know it.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">FIANCE: Did you know the family?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">VOIRREY: No. We lived on the other side of the island. A world apart.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">FIANCE: I think that she was nuts. Mental.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: center;"><i>Silence</i></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">VOIRREY: Maybe she wanted to be left alone</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">FIANCE: With her ghost?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">VOIRREY: Why is that so bad?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">FIANCE: Hey, what's wrong? Is it because I called that poor girl disturbed?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">VOIRREY: You'd have found out right enough.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">FIANCE: What? Found out what?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">VOIRREY: That it was me, you daft bastard. I was that mental girl. It happened to me. To my family. All of these things that you've been guffawing over, those were my things. When you pity that girl, you are pitying me. So now you know. This is a weight I rebury. I am the girl with the ghost. The 'superb' ventriloquist creating sound at the drop of a hat. The nutter. The mentaller. The fake. The phony. How can you marry me knowing that I am insane?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">FIANCE: I-</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: center;"><i>Black</i> </blockquote>Vanish.Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-43006780161682365822011-11-28T17:36:00.000-08:002011-11-28T17:36:18.142-08:0011/28/11 Written today! Lead up the garden path.Shock, horror. I managed to post the day I wrote.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">IoMANNITE: We considered trying them as witches, the lot of them, dog included. A little bit of dunking in the river* and a couple of tribulations before tying them to a stake each on the green and burning them as a true and just punishment.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><em>Pause</em></div>But wiser heads prevailed and we decided against it. We are attempting to be modern and past that kind of small town, olde type thinking behind us.<br />
</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">REPORTER: Are you being serious?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">IoMANNITE: Of course not, you daft bugger. This is the 1940s not the 1640s. This thing was simply a monumental pain in the arse and that isn;t a capital crime, last I heard,</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">REPORTER: What did he do?<br />
</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">IoMANNITE: Ah, now. I can only talk a little hearsay about what he did to others, but to me, well for starters he put the frighteners on my sheep. Simply by being in the same field. He would throw gravel at the house. He'd laugh during the night, you'd think it was a fox screaming, but it wasn't.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><em>Beat</em></div>The more I say the less I find him a nuisance<br />
</blockquote>"And the more I find him a terror" would be the following statement.<br />
Also the asterix above is to remind me to check if there are actually any rivers on the Isle of Man.<br />
IoMANNITE is really Isle-of-Mannite.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">The worst was the whispering. You'd not be able to make out words, but it was definitely someone. Not the wind. He could keep it up for hours, it'd follow you around. You'd try and find it, and it would never be where you'd expect it to be. He can move fast. One night, I was standing at the front door and the susurrus of whispering began. Tired of this nonsense, I went and found my shotgun. I didn't know why I did. It's not like I had a target to hit. I placed the butt to my shoulder and aimed into the dark. As I was about to squeeze the trigger a small hand touched the back of my knee. I just about died.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><em>Pause.</em></div>There was no one there. Anyway, I put a load of shot into the front door. The little bastard couldn't stop laughing.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><em>Pause</em></div></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">REPORTER: Susurrus?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">IoMANNITE: I do the crossword.<br />
</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">REPORTER: I think I did the same one.<br />
</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">IoMANNITE: Did you know he used to steal golf balls at the club?<br />
</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">REPORTER: Really?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">IoMANNITE: Sure. I don't know where they all went. There's probably a burrow somewhere.<br />
</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">REPORTER: So, Gef played golf.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">IoMANNITE: As much as any wee beastie might. He probably chases reflected light too.<br />
</blockquote> That was a lot of fun to write. There will be more to follow. There are things to be said about the family too. My beloved, Carmen, suggested that Gef probably stole the golf balls and didn't really play. I reckon he actually had a set of perfectly scaled clubs. Your mileage may vary.Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-85115201048948447072011-11-28T15:52:00.000-08:002011-11-28T15:52:28.720-08:0011/25/11- War and bloodGef and Jim talk.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">JIM: I've read that we may be at war again.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">GEF: The gods of war live on the blood of young men. They're not fussy are they? Just give it to them raw. I used to live on blood for a while.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">JIM: What made you stop? I imagine that it can't have been easy?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">GEF: I loved it! Looooved it. Could not get enough. Chicken blood. Pig blood. Cow blood.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">JIM: Human blood?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="text-align: center;"><em>Silence</em></div></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">GEF: Oh no, not human blood. Cannibalism. I am no cyclops! Lambs blood is tastiest. Rabbits blood is easiest.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="text-align: center;"><em>Beat</em> </div></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">I bring you the rabbits.</blockquote>Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-9720154984083750872011-11-28T14:17:00.000-08:002011-11-28T14:17:55.916-08:00From notebook 11/25/2011This set of notes was written after reading a friend's play and really thinking about the practicalities of the actual theatre space.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">How to depict Gef?<br />
Show him? Hear him?<br />
Have characters interact with Gef in one-sided conversations?<br />
</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Should Gef's voice be pre-recorded?<br />
If so, should Gef be voiced by Voirrey's actress?<br />
</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">What should we see on stage?<br />
[Idea: a claustrophobic box set] - [literally a box with a roof enclosing the characters. Light becomes an issue.]<br />
</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">The box set is made up of gapped slats - the gaps large enough to show light and movement behind them. [Stage hands then become performers as well] -[mongoose mask + tails!]</blockquote><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><div>Light in set perhaps comes from diegetic sources: lamps, lanterns, candles, etc etc</div></blockquote>Diegetic being the fancy word for "occurring within the same world as the characters." <br />
i.e. The light in the scene won't come from the spots in the rafters of the theatre, it will come from the character's turning on the lamps or lighting candles.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">Voirrey is always in the set box until she dies, then she leaves into Gef's area.<br />
Gef is outside the box.<br />
</blockquote>The last sentence is totally appropriate on a few levels.<br />
<br />
Then a list of possible set furniture, with an eye to flexibility.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">Table<br />
Bed - chaise lounge<br />
Chairs.<br />
</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Pictures on walls<br />
[sets start out crowded and then get more and more spare]<br />
</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Who acts where?<br />
How do they meaningfully interact?<br />
</blockquote>I thinking I was talking out my backside on the last one. They meningfully interact because I write it so. I actually mean "How do they physically interact", which is more a directing and performance issue than a writing one. My job is to provide the motivation for however the cast/crew decide to do their jobs.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">Make a moment out of Margaret touching Gef's claws. [Touch is important, touch causes problems]<br />
Gef wishes contact, but contact is painful.<br />
</blockquote>Vanish.Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-49408719315290987422011-11-23T18:16:00.000-08:002011-11-23T18:16:58.224-08:00Sat 11/19, Sun 11/20 and Tues 11/22: Margaret and Voirrey talk some.Each of these kind of follow each other, with some overlap. Each is just a little isolated from each other, and there is a little looping back between the 19th and the 20th: I remember thnking I'd restart the conversation. I have no clue where or when they are talking. Initially it falls out of the stuff between Jim, Voirrey and Margaret earlier.<br />
<br />
(Also, I've just realised that Gef has gone from that earlier conversation between Jim and Voirrey. Hmm. Is that something I want?)<br />
<br />
11/19<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">MARGARET: Did you fake him? Make him up out of thin air?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">VOIRREY: I -</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">MARGARET: I'm not interested in lies.<br />
</blockquote><br />
11/20<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">MARGARET: Did you make Gef?</blockquote><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">VOIRREY: Why are you asking me?</blockquote><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">MARGARET: I need to know.</blockquote><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><div>VOIRREY: Why does it matter? It happened to us all. Who cares how or why? I don't know how Gef came to us. He told so many stories, versions of himself. Who knows what is true.</div></blockquote><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">MARGARET: You didn't answer.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="text-align: center;"><em>Pause</em></div></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">VOIRREY: Mum, what has changed to make you doubt what happened to us?</blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><em>Pause</em></div><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">MARGARET: Your father is dead.<br />
</blockquote> 11/22<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">MARGARET: Without your father, the fancy has worn off.<br />
</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">VOIRREY: It happened. You can't deny it<br />
</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">MARGARET: Yes it did, I grant. So how did it happen?<br />
</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">VOIRREY: How do I know?<br />
</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="text-align: center;"><em>Silence</em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">VOIRREY: I don't have the faintest.<br />
</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="text-align: center;"><em> Pause</em></div></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"> MARGARET: Then, how about why?<br />
</blockquote> ***<br />
<br />
As an aside, making the formatting work in blogger is a pig.Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-46363199503043834282011-11-23T13:47:00.000-08:002011-11-23T13:47:56.330-08:00Synchronous thoughts.Just finished reading Grant Morrison's personal biographic history of superhero comics "Supergods" (Speigel & Grau 2011) and it talks a lot about magic and connection or synchronicity. The same thing occurring independantly at the same time and in it he talks about and gives the best definition of the tulpa. A nice coincidence, given that I'd been thinking about tulpas recently with Gef.<br />
<br />
From page 408 of the hardcover: <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><em>Tulpa</em> is a Tibetan description for a solid object, or person, created from thought alone; i.e., literally and deliberately willed into tangible form from nothing. </blockquote>Grant Morrison is a chaos magician who has used the comics he has written to explore his philosophy and journey into magic. Chaos magic is a do-it-yourself way of ordering the world using rituals and belief systems from all over. So a chaos magician could potentially use kabbalah, bits of Dee, the Lord's Prayer and a heaping of Crowley to contact the fictional entities from Lovecraft's tales. The idea that magic is fiction is a feature and not a flaw (for example Alan Moore, writer of Watchmen, From Hell and League of Extraordinairy Gentleman among others, worships Glycon, a snake puppet used to commit fraud in 1st century AD Rome) because in magic fiction is another layer of reality.<br />
<br />
Morrison describes superheroes beautifully as the ultimate ficitonal reality. We created them as the ultimate answer. There is no physical, mental, spiritual problem designed that we cannot have our superheroes overcome. They are designed to overcome and to inspire. He uses as an example the idea of The Bomb. From page <em>xv</em> of the introduction:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">Before it was a Bomb, the Bomb was an idea.<br />
Superman, however, was a Faster, Stronger, Better Idea.<br />
It's not that I needed Superman to be "real," I just needed him to be more real than the Idea of the Bomb that ravaged my dreams.</blockquote><br />
Grant Morrison then spends the rest of the book making the case that superheroes are humanity's aspirations toward perfection.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"></blockquote>Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-85520495325596584682011-11-22T18:03:00.000-08:002011-11-22T18:14:52.468-08:00From note book. 11/18 James DiesLooks like it was written on the 18th.<br />
I've started writing in my notebook during my 15 minute breaks at work. It turns out a bit disjointed, but it's getting the job done.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">JAMES: You've been a weight on us, crushing the breath from us. So you've come to beg forgiveness, eh?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">MARGARET: Jim, must you?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">VOIRREY: Forgive me for what?<br />
<br />
JAMES: For deserting us, for all of the heartache you've subjected us to. For bringing the outside world crashing down on us. For tricking me.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">VOIRREY: I never.<br />
<br />
JAMES: I believed in Gef.<br />
<br />
VOIRREY: Gef was real.<br />
<br />
JAMES: Was he? I used to think that. For the longest time I was sure and then I got to thinking. He only ever talked to the three of us. I talked for hours to him and now... and now I am unsure. Voirrey, did you make him up? It's my one unanswered question.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">VOIRREY: and assuming that's what I did, then what? I mean, which would you rather? Gef be a fabrication? Or Gef be real? </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="text-align: center;"> <em>Pause</em></div><div style="text-align: left;">I didn't make him up.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">JAMES: Oh God, Voirrey, I wish you'd stop. Just stop lying and tell the truth. You were a ventriloquist for God's sake. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">MARGARET: I thought you made him up, Jim. You were his favourite.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">VOIRREY: I'm not lying. I heard what I heard and saw what I saw and I'm still paying this exhorbitant price that everyone has levied on me. You were the one who wrote the diary and sent it to Price. You were the one who told tales at the local. You were the one who drove [brother] away and turned our lives into a circus. You ruined our lives, not me.</blockquote><br />
***<br />
<br />
The line that sticks out to me is Margaret's "You were his favourite." It opens up whole other worlds of jealousies.<br />
<br />
Edit: oddly enough, I realise that James doesn't actually die.Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-70440320238547932962011-11-22T14:24:00.000-08:002011-11-22T14:24:35.712-08:00Notebook dump from 11/18: 'GEF' DIES!<blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="text-align: center;"><em>Black</em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em>A rifle shot</em></div><br />
FARMER: Got 'im<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><em>Lights up on FARMER with a sack.</em></div></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="text-align: center;"><em>Reporters?</em> </div></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">FARMER: I got the bugger. He was always playing tricks on me. He stole my morning's milk. He killed my hens. The little bastard would whisper to me at night.<br />
</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">REPORTER: Can you be sure it was really him?<br />
</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">FARMER: How can I be sure? Can I be bloody sure?<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="text-align: center;"><em>FARMER reaches into sack and pulls out a bundle of fur. </em></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><em>He tosses it at the reporters' feet.</em></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">FARMER: I'm pretty bloody sure,</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">REPORTER [toeing fur]: It looks like a mongoose.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">FARMER: What are you? An idiot? It looks like it because it is! You can tell.</div></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">REPORTER 2: Yes, it looks like a mongoose, but is it Gef?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">FARMER: It weren't singing a rude limerick but this is Gef.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><em>Pause</em></div></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">REPORTER: You murdered Gef? </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">FARMER: It's a mongoose!</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">REPORTER: A talking mongoose. Literally a miracle. And you shot him.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">FARMER: You can get off my farm and all, you can. Go on, sod off. I removed a pest and that's all I'm going to say. You bastards of the fifth estate can go whistle for more more from me. You don't have to put up with the singing and the dancing,. all of the sightseers leaving the gates open and trampling the crops all in the hope of seeing some sodding pest. And according to you, you little oik, I've killed one talking bastard already. So, there he is. Satisfied? I'll stuff the bugger and use him as a door stop. Now clear off the lot of you.<br />
</blockquote> ***<br />
<br />
The Farmer is fairly foulmouthed in a very british '3 Bs' way. I imagine that the Gef tourism industry was still in play a decade after the initial uproar. I've really wonder about this guy (I have his name in my research docs) that he felt the need to alert the media to his kill, also the idea that he killed a creature as unique as Gef. He's cashing in to an extent. Spurred by damage to his property, the loss of privacy and, possibly, the realisation that the farm is hard work, located as it was high up among the rocks.<br />
<br />
I doubt that Gef was even there to torment the guy, let alone there to be shot. He'd moved on to parts unknown.Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-84043535161401700522011-11-18T16:01:00.000-08:002011-11-18T16:01:59.195-08:00Voirrey monologue fragments.This from my notebook, written 11/5, 11/6 and 11/7 during breaks at work.<br />
<br />
It's incredibly static, but it does something I like a lot. I can't recall if this was intended to be part of Voirrey's interviews or retirement. I am keenly aware that I have not been concentrating on sharpening the conflict. Otherwise it is just pretty prose.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
VOIRREY: I never returned home. Not in any real sense. I tried to keep in touch with my sister and her children.<br />
<br />
I walked a lot. Read a lot.<br />
<br />
I look back and I see a simultaneous retreat from the world and a stripping of identity. All so no-one would connect me with him.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
VOIRREY: My mother, who had such wonderful talent for reading other people, missed what was happening under her own roof. She missed the festering resentment and yearning.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><em>Pause</em></div><br />
I don't know if she loved my father<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><em>Silence.</em></div><br />
I don't know. Was she relieved when she died? A little, I think. He'd been ill a long while before he passed. I'd like to think that brother made his peace with him before the end. They were stubborn bastards. Too proud the pair of them.<br />
<br />
I miss them, I do. I miss them all. They were the only family I had. The closest I had to friends, outside of my dogs.<br />
<br />
Inside of a dog, it's black as pitch.<br />
<br />
My friendships only went so far. People get too close, get curious. Ask questions and put two and two together and get the right answer.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
They ask me about him and I become his, his creator, his ward, his master, his victim. Whichever.<br />
<br />
Am I the girl dreaming of the mongoose? Or the mongoose dreaming of the girl?<br />
<br />
I can't seem to wake up. When I sleep, I dream of the farm.<br />
<br />
***Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-6532165942787785462011-11-17T09:50:00.000-08:002011-11-17T09:50:41.847-08:00Another idea in the mix<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulpa">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulpa</a><br />
<br />
Hmm, this fits gloriously well as an idea of what Gef is and this is probably the neatest-ties-everything-up-in-a-bow theories out. But who's the creator of the Tulpa that is Gef? <br />
<br />
In the grand scheme it doesn't really matter for me, Gef simply is.<br />
<br />
More notes later.Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-63398098646737833352011-10-02T16:27:00.000-07:002011-10-02T16:27:01.471-07:00Last page of catchup: a letterThis is based on something a flm director mentioned when talking about writing to Voirrey about an interview. She wrote a polite refusal. I like the idea of this being a way to shoehorn a monologue into the thing.<br />
<br />
<blockquote> <div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">18 August 2011</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">VOIRREY voice over as CREATIVE TYPE reads a letter.</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">VOIRREY: Dear Hamilton.</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"> I write this letter with some trepidation, as I write most of these letters and all too frequently. One </span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"> of the curses of being a voter with a name like mine is that I can be located with a little trouble </span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"> and a lot of leg work. I presume that the rolls are searchable online now?</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"> As for your very polite request for an interview, I must decline. No, thank you. I cannot help you much with your production. I am old and the memory of those events nearly sixty (or is it seventy?) years ago grows ossified with the passing years. Questions beyond the barest facts I fear will be useless. I fail to remember much of the events. My father was the diaryist and I find travelling to the past painful and frustrating. Was I ever that young? Ever that innocent? I shudder at the very thought. </span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">[[new thought 10/30/2011: "I fail to remember much of the times to begin with let alone those particular events]]</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"> I am not and have never been insane despite the constant implication and outright accusations of many over the years. The events of those years have left a persistant taint throughout my life and have closed many options to me.</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"> Also, I refute claims thagt my father abused me. He was strict but I have no doubts that he love me, my Ma and my older brother and sister. Regarding the insinuation of both Mr Price and Mr Nandor, how can I refute a negation except to say they read too much into a stressful time of our life.</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"> I will not stop you in what you propose to do. Suffice to say I am not interested in knowing how your endeavour goes and have no wise to find out.</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"> Before I sign off I will simply say this: most all of the events are true and to the record I can add nothing. Please understand I will not reply further.</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"> Yours sincerely, Voirry Irving.</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"> P.S. Please do not give my address to others</span></div></blockquote>Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-43049131431733338222011-10-02T16:22:00.000-07:002011-10-02T16:22:58.381-07:00Voirrey dies. Notebook catchupAnother scene, written at my job during breaks. Rereading it, I think I need to make Voirrey a little more strident, the dialogue even more oblique. Some of it is too expository when more information can be revealed later in the play. I really need to work on the Priest and giving him a definite platform. As I'm re-learning, there are many flavours of Christianity. In the early scenes the characters outside the main mongoose story are our entry into it. <br />
<br />
<blockquote> <div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"><u>9 August 2011</u></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"><u>Voirrey Dies</u></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"><i>In darkness.</i></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">GEF (Repeats): Pop goes the Weasel.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"><i>An old (80+ years) Voirrey in bed.</i></span></div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"><i>Anglican Priest sits beside bed.</i></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">VOIRREY: A monkey chased a weasel.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"><i>Voirrey chuckles.</i></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">PRIEST: Voirrey, are you afraid?</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">VOIRREY: Afraid?</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"> <i>Beat</i></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"> I'm terrified. I look back over my life and it is a load of regrets with one shining moment of </span> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"> importance.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">* * *</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">OLD VOIRREY: The entire world was watching us and I, we, were witnesses to something huge.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"><i>Pause</i></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">PRIEST: What did you witness?</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">VOIRREY: A diabolic miracle. A malignant blessing. A weasel in hen's clothing.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"><i>Pause</i></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">VOIRREY: A stream appeared which both quenched and drowned. I have no other way to describe what happened to us. To our family.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">PRIEST: You told me once you grew up on Isle of Man. I have heard tales of the fair folk and their giftss that are as much curse as boon.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">VOIRREY: Aye, the walls are thin there on the island. </span> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"> <i>Beat</i></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"> I think you know more about my past than you let on.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">PRIEST: I thought it impolite to say.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"><i>Pause</i></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">PRIEST: Have you made your peace with it?</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">VOIRREY: Hell no.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"><i>Silence</i></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">PRIEST: Well, that's that, then. Do you wish you had?</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">VOIRREY: Only every day. I wish I could put it behind me. I've had many opportunities.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">VOIRREY: I should have put it all behind me. I could have at any time.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">PRIEST: It can be hard to move on, but you did.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">VOIRREY: No, I didn't. I ran. I ran from it all. The teasing, the media, the family and him.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">PRIEST: Who? Your dad?</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"><i>Voirrey laughs.</i></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">VOIRREY: Oh no, not him. Not him at all.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"> <i>Beat</i></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"> Well, maybe him a little. I meant Gef. Gef, it was, I ran from.</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">PRIEST: Why him?</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">VOIRREY (<i>mimics</i>): Why him? Why him?</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">PRIEST: You're avoiding the question.</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">VOIRREY: I am? Yes, I am. Why him? He cracked the world wide open. Everything hurt after that.</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"><i>Pause.</i></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">VOIRREY: Everything.</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">PRIEST: Voirrey? Do you love him still?</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"><i>Voirrey nods.</i></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">PRIEST: Shall we pray together? Shall we pray for him too?</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"><i>Voirrey nods.</i></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">VOIRREY: Yes.</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"><i>The Priest gently takes her hand.</i></span></div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"><i>As the Priest talks, Voirry gets stiller and stiller until she is no longer moves.</i></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">PRIEST: Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"><i>Snip goes the prayer.</i></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">PRIEST: Amen.</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"><i>He holds Voirrey's hand a little longer </i></span> </div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"><i>then he gently fold her hands across her chest</i></span></div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"><i>and closes her eyes.</i></span></div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"><i>There s a large thump overhead and a high pitched keening wail.</i></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">PRIEST: What on earth is that?</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"><i>Silence.</i></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">PRIEST: Bloody dogs.</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;"><i>Black.</i></span></div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">*** </span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">VOIRREY: Do we ever really die, father?</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">PRIEST: I don't know what happens when we die. I put my hands of Jesus on that score.</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">VOIRREY: Will I be saved? I don't think I will.</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">PRIEST: Have you lived a good Christian life?</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">VOIRREY: And what would that be?</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">PRIEST: </span> </div></blockquote>Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-46212403014120303292011-10-02T16:14:00.000-07:002011-10-02T16:14:48.947-07:00Catchup, from notebooksSo this is a dump from my notebook. I wrote most of these while at work.<br />
<br />
This post is a long list of title ideas. I think I settled on "So said the Mongoose" as the most likely option. Some of them betray their influences to me. Some are close to Lovecraft stories ('The Mongoose in the Wall') while others have escaped from roleplaying game modules ("Death Memory Mongoose"). <br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><blockquote> <div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">8th May 2011</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">The Mongoose Play</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Playing Mongoose</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">The 5th Dimension</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">A Girl and Her Ghost</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Mongoose Fidelis</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Isle of Mongeese</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Ghost Island</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Voirrey's Ghost</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Echoes of Angels</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">The Scratch</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Scratches</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Keeping Score</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Echoes in the Wall</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Behind the Walls</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Beyond the Wall</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Behind Locked Walls</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Ghost Rat</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Echo Rat</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Voirrey's Echo</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Echo Miracle</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Miraculous</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Ghost of Time</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Echoes of Time</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">The Shadow of the Mongoose</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">The Shadow of the Rat</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">The Ghost's Shadow</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Planet Mongoose</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">The Shadow on the Wall</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">The Shadow in the Wall</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Voirrey has two Shadows</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">The Shade at Cashen</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">8th Wonder</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Voirrey at Cashen's Gap</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">The Life of a Haunted Girl</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Walled In</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Echoes in the Walls</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Mongoose Sub-Protector</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Ghost Farm</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Spook Farm</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Voirrey's Spooked</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Voices Beyond the Wall</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Spoken Wall</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Bound House</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">The Black Urn</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Crop</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Shadows on the Wall</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Death Comes to Cashen</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Death and the Mongoose</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Death and the Rodent</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Death Memory Mongoose</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Voirrey, said the Mongoose</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Love Death said the Mongoose</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">I protect, said the Mongoose</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">We All Died, said the Mongoose</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">I Live in Memory said the Mongoose</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">I am Memory, said the Mongoose</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">I am the 5th Dimension, said the Mongoose</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">Said the Mongoose</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">So Says the Mongoose</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">So Said the Mongoose</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">In the Walls, the Mongoose</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Traditional Arabic, serif;">The Mongoose Speaks</span></div></blockquote></div>Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-62358213556342880812011-05-27T04:20:00.000-07:002011-05-27T04:20:56.182-07:00After the April frenzy......posting has gone distinctly light. New thinking for me is in order. I have been writing a little as I travel to the job, so I'll get that up. I do need to make changes. <br />
<br />
So a little readjustment is called for.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Part of my writing is going to be bitching about not writing. <br />
<br />
Next : decisions that people made.Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-46255802197018541322011-05-20T08:39:00.000-07:002011-05-20T08:39:42.895-07:00Gef as noir<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CSByW0aE5ms/TdaBkROvJpI/AAAAAAAAACM/J2EErmMVV68/s1600/DSC00297.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CSByW0aE5ms/TdaBkROvJpI/AAAAAAAAACM/J2EErmMVV68/s320/DSC00297.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">Spewed from the maw of Leviathan on 5/12/2011</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">These pages are a mangled mess of ideas and metaphors/similies with a little recursion. Retyped here with minor corrections.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">***</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">His name is Gef.</div><div style="text-align: left;">He is a mongoose. He appeared on a small farm called Doarlish Cashen. How he got there, I do not know. Somehow he found his way from India to the Isle of Man by way of Europe, Britain and then there.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Gef is a little furry timebomb that detonated in the life of the daughter, Voirrey, a slow motion explosion that spread out from the time of his arrival until she evenetually died in 2005. The shrapnel of his existence permeated her life, residing within her and making her existence intolerable. It did not matter that she ran and hid, she was still caught in the blast.</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Things may have been alright had the father, James Irving, not decided to notify the world of the existence of Gef. For whatever reason, Jim Irving felt compelled to draw attention to the remote farm and the isolated family. He wrote to Harry Price, a pre-eminent ghost/medium buster about Gef, as if to dare him to come with fabulous tales of the miraculous. Captain X was given just enough of a taste of Gef to be able to entice Price to the Isle and to the farm.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Where do I come in? I am a point of view applied by force to the story as I have read it, I am an ever shifting view, I am not yet fixed on the one path through the many ideas that cluster around the farm, the family, the girl and her mongoose. The idea that Gef is Voirrey's mongoose is possibly a fiction. The link between them has become established over the 80 years since reports of the miraculous mongoose first came out of the IoM (an abbreviation that reminds me of a magical order like the golden dawn (the actual abrev. has fled my head )).</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">As a writer I need to focus on the decisions that have been made by the characters in this story. Like James' decision mentioned above. Voirrey's decision to stay out of the house. Should Gef make decisions?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I read a list of 10 writer's "rules" for writing Noir. (from <a href="http://www.deadendfollies.com/2011/05/christa-fausts-ten-rules-to-write-noir.html">http://www.deadendfollies.com/2011/05/christa-fausts-ten-rules-to-write-noir.html</a>) where Christa Faust writes for number 10 (in part):</div><blockquote><strong>10)</strong> No happy endings. Everyone goes down and winds up either dead or wishing they were dead. If your cool, witty, handsome, fedora-clad, jazz-enthusiast Detective Mary Sue walks away unchanged and unscathed at the end of the book, then it ain’t Noir. </blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"> This made me think of Gef, Voirrey and the rest. Voirrey wishes she had never met Gef, Gef is dead, James loses contact with his children. perhaps the story is nir, or more likely my perversion of noir. Perhaps. Perhaps?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I don't believe in characters remaining unchanged at the end of a story. That's a little a strong. I don't find the idea compelling and I try to move characters on from where they began. it's possibly why I really like the structure of Pinter's play BETRAYAL. It plays with how characters change over time, and the peeling away of time is the reveleation of the character's actions.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">GEF needs me to apply the same processes. That each step backwards in time reveals character's actions. That this revelation shows them making and executing a decision. Casts a light backward onto scenes that the audience has just witnessed and forwards onto future ones.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">It can never be as simple, i would not want it as simple as "This character did this because of this other event." I want mystery to be part of these things. How characters act throughout will provide the motivation for their decisions, will hint at these motivations.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">The concept of making GEF a noir-ish story is attractive. I love the idea of noir: a person finds themselves, due to their actions, in dire, danmgerous and destructive situations.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I am unsure if this could or shoul dbe taken literally with GEF. Though, it could be constructed around Voirrey's inability or reluctance to confirm or deny the reality of Gef. Perhaps that is the set of decisions that have to be explored? Voirrey is given many opportunities to say hat it was fake and then go about her life, to place Gef firmly behind her.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Why does she no do this? Why does she not cash in on her relationship with Gef? Noir is tragedy, and perhaps this is where my love of King Lear comes in. The tragedy is that the decision that could save themselves is not taken until too late. Voirrey could have said at any time "he was made up," but she refuses to. In the face of many opportunities to deny, perhaps that is Voirrey's tragic decision: to deny Gef is to betray whatever prompted her connection to him, real or not. By denying Gef, she denies herself.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Perhaps the idea is similar to Peter denying Christ. Peter's fateful decison could have ended in him dead with no contact with his redeemer. Perhaps this is true for Voirrey. In some way gef saved her, and to deny him is to undermine that redemption.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">***</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Okay, all kinds of confused in there. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Next post: a list of decisions/actions taken by the characters.</div>Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-10175444457580825792011-05-05T18:33:00.000-07:002011-05-05T19:05:25.191-07:00A prologue, of sortsThe example lawyer from the Beckett directing on paper post <br />
<a href="http://alienplaywright.blogspot.com/2011/04/becketts-directing-on-paper.html">http://alienplaywright.blogspot.com/2011/04/becketts-directing-on-paper.html</a><br />
has stuck with me.<br />
<br />
After I had written the throwaway examples I suddenly realised that the lawyer could address a concern that had been bugging me: being truthful to the real life living persons. What I realised I needed was a disclaimer.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
ACTOR LAWYER: Welcome to our show. This show is a tragic tale of a girl and her mongoose. Or maybe the story of a girl and a boy who happens to be a mongoose. Or a poltergeist. Or something. It is based on a reported series of events, with most of the characters based on real people. The intent of the playwright is not to smear anybody or paint unflattering pictures. But fiction being what it is, sometimes liberties must be taken. So without further ado, please bear the following in mind: <br />
<br />
<em>Actor produces a slip of paper and reads:</em><br />
<br />
<blockquote>'All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.'</blockquote><br />
ACTOR LAWYER: Which is a statement the playwright grabbed from the "All persons fictitious disclaimer" wikipedia page. It would be, to paraphrase an unseen Three Stooges film, a bloody miracle if in fact the playwright managed to have any of the characters resemble real persons, alive or dead.<br />
<em> Pause.</em><br />
<br />
Admittedly, all of the above must be taken with a fine grain of salt. I am not a lawyer, though I play one on the stage.<br />
<br />
<em> Black.</em><br />
<br />
<em> Lights up on Actor, now the Lawyer. Standing behind a desk.</em><br />
<br />
<em>***</em><br />
<br />
And as before. The stage transition from Actor to Lawyer is one of those areas where I may give the direction "the Actor becomes the Lawyer" for directors to interpret as they see fit. Were I to direct it myself, I'd probably have the actor appearing informally at the front of the space with the houselights up, and then use the lighting (houselights come down, spot comes up, say) to transition the actor back into the set to take their place as the Lawyer. Perhaps with an onstage costume addition (doing up a tie, slicking back hair).<br />
<br />
Directions are the one place where I can pass some of the fun of creation to the director and actors.<br />
<br />
Edit: link!<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_persons_fictitious_disclaimer">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_persons_fictitious_disclaimer</a>Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-4415754019208443292011-04-30T17:04:00.000-07:002011-04-30T17:04:25.133-07:00Leviathan<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TemTTuVAkLA/Tbtw81PVREI/AAAAAAAAACI/UAcQu0Soabo/s1600/DSC00287.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TemTTuVAkLA/Tbtw81PVREI/AAAAAAAAACI/UAcQu0Soabo/s320/DSC00287.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
I had been thinking about buying a typewriter since coming to the US, but without much income to play with didn't really want to pay the exhorbitant prices on e-bay. I had left my beloved, flawed Olevetti behind in NZ. Don't let me fool you, I am not a typist. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There is something gloriously physical and solid about a typewriter that you lose with laptops and PCs. With a typewriter you can trace a direct physical connectionfrom your finger through the key, the lever, the arm, to the hammered letter directly imprinting itself onto the paper. The computer is far more opaque in operation: a naive alien from another star could open a typewriter and quickly discover how it operates. That same alien would probably vapourise the planet when confronted by a PC case.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I found Leviathan in the Good Will and instantly fell under it's dreadful spell when I opened it's ugly tan-orange case. It is a beast of a typewriter, weighing close to 15 pounds in it's case. I almost wrenched my shoulder out when I picked it up for the first time. I could of sworn it were made from the bodies of dead stars and the tears of kittens.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I want a Leviathan for quite a few reasons. The biggie: it is solely a writing machine. No internet to parasitically suck time out of me, no distractions, no email, no fascinating Neverwinter Nights or Baldurs Gate or Diablo to play. Simply me, the blank page and my intermediary, Leviathan.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The second is a little symbolic. The typewriter is a twentieth century writers tool, one that birthed any number of beautiful worlds out of words. I am pretty much a 20th century boy, and while there are many advantages to the 21st century's digital age, the pervasive speed and conectivity leaves me a little cold.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A more practical third: it's black-out proof. Like a pen or pencil too, a typewriter can keep going even when the power generators falter. I guess it's possible I could run out of coffee.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And a selfish 4th: I like the sound.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div>Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2923249867322985974.post-43467761732796785202011-04-30T13:40:00.000-07:002011-04-30T13:40:22.810-07:00A-Z blogger: Zoological OddityGENERIC RESEARCHER(GR): Gef is a ghost.<br />
<br />
GR: Or maye he is a normal animal.<br />
<br />
GR: Or a monster from beyond space and time?<br />
<br />
GR: We simply do not know what he really is.<br />
<br />
GR: Gef could be a magic mirror, hold him up and you'll see what you want to see. What you need to see.<br />
<br />
GR: Price needed to see a fake. Captain X needed a little something to send back to Price. Jim could be said to want the centre of attention. People see ghosts, mongeese, rats, cats, poltergeists, aliens, ventriloquists, fakes, frauds and phonies.<br />
<br />
GR: Gef said many things about what he was. "I am the fifth dimension. I am the eighth wonder of the world"<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Gef really is becoming a position that people view. <br />
<br />
Well, this is the end of the A-Z. Posting will continue.Simon D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17788037479958489349noreply@blogger.com1