Name some song titles that would work as short story titles or as writing prompts.

I’ll start:

“I Will Posess Your Heart”

“The Lonliness of a Middle Distance Runner” (I think this song was actually based on a similiar short story title).

“Laid”

“So Long, Marriane”

“Adam Raised a Caine”

“A Man Needs a Maid”  (I used “The Needle and the Damage Done” for a college paper on the myth of empirical certainty and Enlightment ethics.)

That really long-titled Pearl Jam song about an elderly woman behind a counter in a small town.

“Waking Up To Us”

Most of these actually suck but I’m at a real loss for something better to write about at the moment.

Usual car-ride music with my son is the Beach Boys’ “Smiley Smile/Wild Honey” double-packaged albums and, when he’s really cranky, “Pet Sounds.”

This morning when we got to the car, Nirvana’s version of “The Man Who Sold The World” just started on the local alternative station.

I’ve always gotten a Christ vibe from that song and it’s latent in Nirvana’s unplugged track and in Bowie’s original.

I started thinking about setting it to various scenes from Jesus movies, specifically ones around the resurrection and doing the same with “Mad World” and the crucifixion. The uncertainty of both songs is so anxious and human.

Every culture recasts the central figures of its pantheon from age to age. For scientifically confident 20th century Western people the Formulaic Christ made sense - the legal codes and logical proofs and self-improvement sermons. The postmodern Christ strikes me as anxious…not tentative or provisional; faithful but not triumphantly certain. Fear and trembling in the Garden. OK-God-if-you-say-so-(and-I-think-you-say-so). That this faith is vindicated in the narratives by the resurrection is not a foregone conclusion in the Garden on Thursday where there’s tension and anxiety. We’re mostly Thursday people. And so this Thursday Christ is one I relate to in moments of piety. The Anxious Christ is also hopeful, and that’s often the best we can do. I think that’s probably okay.

Google’s Knol project is now live.  So far I’m not very impressed. The layout is clunky and counter-intuitive, and the whole thing looks very amateurish compared to Wikipedia.  One of Wikipedia’s greatest assets is its open source, emergent ethos and functionality.  ”Knols” on Knol are authored by individuals and don’t need to be editorially neutral.  There’s really no comparison with Wikipedia, even though some see Knol as a potential successor.  I can see calling a Knol a rival to Squidoo, but here again, Knol’s aesthetics fall short.  

Thoughts?  

Spoilers follow.

So, great movie.  Here’s the thing.  I was thinking this would be great in the way that “The Godfather Part II” is great.  It’s not that, but maybe that’s not a fair comparison.  

“The Dark Knight” is much more a character-driven crime drama than a superhero movie, so comparisons to “Iron Man” or “The Incredible Hulk” or whatever don’t make much sense.  It’s definitely in it’s own league when it comes to movies based on comic book characters; indeed, this isn’t a comic book movie.  It’s not something you eat popcorn to.   This is sophisticated and textured and has real depth. 

Quick thoughts for now:

was hoping for a little more noir, and I was expecting the Joker’s reign to be longer and more menacing to the general populace.  

Heat Ledger did a great job, but I don’t think it was an Oscar kind of performance.  I also thought he sounded a lot like Richard Dreyfuss.  But he was really, really good.

Aaron Eckhart was a perfect Harvey Dent.  I really sympathized with his plight and could understand why Bruce did too.  I was rooting for him and really bought into his character. 

Gary Oldman was perfect as well.   The showdown scene with Gordon, Batman and Harvey/Two-Face was dead on.  Great acting by all three but Gordon and Eckhart stood out here and in other places.

I knew Jim’s death was a set up and I love how and when he showed back up.  I hated that Harvey and Rachel got caught and I was bothered that after apprehending the Joker, no one made damn sure that the DA and the assistant DA weren’t safe.

Some great lines from Dent, Bruce, Alfred, and Jim.  

I think the scene with the Joker falling and Batman saving him was a conscious thing by Nolan to right the wrong of the Batman sort of letting the Joker bite it in Burton’s first Batman (an amazing and truly revolutionary movie). 

Interesting use of the “prisoner’s dilemma.”

Was surprised that Rachel didn’t make it.

Hospital scene with Dent and Joker was classic. 

The disappearing pencil set the tone for the whole movie;  I would have liked to see more examples of that kind of thing, although I’m also glad I didn’t have to. 

“The Dark Knight” definitely transcended genre and engaged us on a ton of levels.  Well done. 

time for bed for now.

oh, also, I got chills during the “Watchmen” preview. Yeah, there’s a Watchmen preview.  And it was set to a Billy Corgan remake of the SP song from “Batman and Robin” which was even cooler.

Will review upon my return. Expecting transcendence.

Because we don’t have time.  I don’t mean this literally.  I mean we don’t have patience.  At least I don’t.  I don’t have patience for very long things unless they’re very good.  I don’t have patience for dying metaphors and rough drafts.  As a reader, I don’t need to invest very much patience into someone’s micro-fiction.  If something I read is bad, at least I didn’t have to spend too much patience on it.  If it’s good, everybody wins.

As a writer I have even less patience.  I write micro-fiction because, like I said the other day, it’s how people actually live. This isn’t a conscious choice I make.  I haven’t plotted to mimic the disconnected lives we lead with terse prose that rudely (an adverb!) refuses segue or transition or explanation.  It just feels honest as a matter of form. Honesty in terms of content is something that comes after much struggle most of the time.  How to say what I mean as succinctly as I feel or know it?  is the issue.  Sometimes it’s quick. Mostly, though, the stuff that comes quick needs a good deal of work.

Micro-fiction punches in the way things really happen and it’s popular because it’s moment to moment, like we are, and because it exalts the moments we cling to, love, hate, or fear.  In the end there’s nothing small about it.  Most things we carry happened in a moment and evoked something in us outside of the context of our narrated-backstory lives.   It’s the mind-numbing, cliched details of that narration that are more rightly called “micro,” the tired conversations around the same sets of issues and people by which we keep ourselves small.  Micro-fiction subverts that with its impatience for those parts of your story that aren’t yours only.  

is a new story I have up at Smith Mag.  It’s part of the Next-Door Neighbor Contest.  Word limit is 400 and it’s for creative nonfiction. 

Please check it out and comment here.

Missy recently commented on a older post about saying what you have to say in ways that only you can. I came across this explanation of what George Orwell called “dying metaphors” and I think it’s worth sharing:

From wikipedia:

“A dying metaphor is a derogatory term coined by George Orwell in his essay Politics and the English Language. Orwell defines a dying metaphor as a metaphor that isn’t dead (dead metaphors are different, as they are treated like ordinary words), but has been worn out and is used because it saves people the trouble of inventing an original phrase for themselves. In short, a cliché. Example: Achilles’ heel. Orwell suggests that writers scan their work for such dying forms that they have ’seen regularly before in print’ and replace them with alternative language patterns.”

What are some of the worst?

what are your favorite metaphors and similes from literature/poetry/lyrics?

I’ll get it started with some favorite examples from songs I’ve talked a lot about recently:

“You held onto me like I was a crucifix” - Leonard Cohen (So Long, Marianne)

“Daniel drinks his weight, drinks like Richard Burton, dance like John Travolta, now” - Tim Booth/James (Getting Away With It All Messed Up)

“I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch, but love is not a victory march, it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah” - Leonard Cohen (Hallelujah).

This reminds me of Paul Simon and Bob Dylan if they were the same person.

I know I’m being a total fanboy lately, but for real. “I told you when I came I was a stranger…”