Thursday, July 28, 2011

It's All Connected

"In memory, the images are connected like events and characters in a story."

- Joseph Gold. Read For Your Life: Literature as a Life Support System. Fitzhenry and Whiteside: Markham, 1990. pg 81

This quote reminds me of the book The Modular Brain, in which examples are shown to illustrate how the brain is connected in ways that allow it to function differently according to the patient; perhaps like how stories function through characters.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Fiction is the Best Medium

"Fiction is the best medium for providing contexts for feelings by using language the reader may not be able to supply for herself."

- Joseph Gold. Read For Your Life: Literature as a Life Support System. Fitzhenry and Whiteside: Markham, 1990. pg 111

I agree. Fiction allows us to experience things we cannot even vocalize. We can identify with a character or situation and this can free us somehow. It is an amazing power that fiction has.

I can understand why Gold uses fiction to help his patients. This book is inspiring in so many ways. I always knew that there was a lot of truth in fiction. Gold shows us how this is indeed the case. It's a great book.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

A Funky Introdcution of How Nice I Am

"Now here's a funky introduction of how nice I am
Tell your mother, tell your father, send a telegram
I'm like an energizer 'cause, you see, I last long
My crew is never ever wack because we stand strong

Now if you say my style is wack that's where you're dead wrong
I slayed that body in El Segundo then 'Push it Along'
You'd be a fool to reply that Phife is not the man
'Cause you know and I know, that you know who I am

A special shout of peace goes out to all my pals, you see
And a middle finger goes for all you punk MC's
'Cause I love it when you wack MC's despise me
They get vexed, I roll next, can't none contest me

I'm just a fly MC who's five foot three and very brave
On job remaining, no I'm chaining 'cause I misbehave
I come correct in full effect, have all my hoes in check
And before I get the butt, the jim must be erect

You see, my aura's positive, I don't promote no junk
See, I'm far from a bully and I ain't a punk
Extremity in rhythm, yeah, that's what you heard
So just clean out your ears and just check the word."

- Phife Dawgs verse from "Check The Rhime" by A Tribe Called Quest

Monday, July 18, 2011

TV doesn't allow Deep Understanding

TV receiverImage via Wikipedia
"Television can’t sit still.  In fact, it can’t even slow down, which makes any sort of deep understanding or involvement in issues almost impossible because the average person requires time to contemplate issues like education or the economy or the environment or health care in order to fully understand them.  And that’s the problem.  Because what most people don’t realize is that contemplating or reflecting deeply gets you to insights that you can never get to if you’re just rushing through a question or an issue or from one topic to the next."

- Gordon J.H. Leenders. May Not Appear Exactly As Shown. pg 92
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Friday, July 15, 2011

Mystical Consequences of Karma

"Advocating for story architecture is like teaching your kids about the world—tell them to do as you say, not as you do, you tell them about the golden rule and the law of attraction and the mystical consequences of karma, and you do your best to explain that good things happen to good people who live by these creeds.

And when it doesn't . . . well, that's life, and it's not always fair. Doesn't mean it's not a valid principal."

- Larry Brooks. Story Engineering: Mastering the 6 Core Competencies of Successful Writing. Writers Digest Books, 2011. pg 216.
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Wednesday, July 13, 2011

It Was A Good Day



"Just waking up in the morning gotta thank God
I don't know but today seems kinda odd
No barking from the dog, no smog
And momma cooked a breakfast with no hog
I got my grub on, but didn't pig out
Finally got a call from a girl wanna dig out
Hooked it up for later as I hit the door
Thinking will i live, another twenty-four
I gotta go cause I got me a drop top
And if I hit the switch, I can make the ass drop
Had to stop at a red light
Looking in my mirror not a jacker in sight
And everything is alright
I got a beep from Kim and she can f*ck all night
Called up the homies and I'm askin y'all
Which park, are y'all playin basketball?
Get me on the court and I'm trouble
Last week f*ck around and got a triple double
Freaking niggaz every way like M.J.
I can't believe, today was a good day

Drove to the pad and hit the showers
Didn't even get no static from the cowards
Cause just yesterday them fools tried to blast me
Saw the police and they rolled right past me
No flexin, didn't even look in a niggaz direction
as I ran the intersection
Went to Short Dog's house, they was watchin Yo! MTV Raps
What's the haps on the craps
Shake em up, shake em up, shake em up, shake em
Roll em in a circle of niggaz and watch me break em
With the seven, seven-eleven, seven-eleven
Seven even backed on little Joe
I picked up the cash flow
Then we played bones, and I'm yellin domino
Plus nobody I know got killed in South Central L.A.
Today was a good day

Left my niggaz house paid
Picked up a girl been tryin to f*ck since the twelfth grade
It's ironic, I had the blunt she had the chronic
The Lakers beat the Supersonics
I felt on the big fat fanny
Pulled out the jammy, and killed the punanny
And my dick runs deep, so deep, so deep
put her ass to sleep
Woke her up around one
she didn't hesitate, to call Ice Cube the top gun
Drove her to the pad and I'm coasting
Took another sip of the potion hit the three-wheel motion
I was glad everything had worked out
Dropped her ass off, and then chirped out
Today was like one of those fly dreams
Didn't even see a berry flashing those high beams
No helicopter looking for a murder

Two in the morning got the Fatburger
Even saw the lights of the Goodyear Blimp
And it read Ice Cube's a pimp
Drunk as hell but no throwing up
Half way home and my pager still blowing up
Today I didn't even have to use my A.K.
I got to say it was a good day."

- Ice Cube "It Was A Good Day" from the album "The Predator"
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Monday, July 11, 2011

An Essential Relationship Between Play and Pleasure.

BridgeImage via Wikipedia
"There are four distinct phases of the playing experience: brooding, attachment, immersion, and satisfaction.

Play begins in brooding, in the brooding moment.  It can be a moment of absolute horror.  The uninitiated experience the terror of a formless moment . . . The brooding moment is not only the child who tugs at your sleeve saying, “I don’t know what to do,” but also the writer staring at a blank sheet of paper . . .

The second movement is attachment.  Out of brooding comes attachment, a spark of intensity.  Attachment requires the ability to recognize what has intensity, to feel the resonance.  In the midst of brooding, although it remains unseen and unconscious, and important process unfolds.  Pattern and form circulate until the structural resonance finds alignment.  Then the writer finds the sentence . . .

And then comes immersion, the moment of being lost in play.  This is the transitional state, a different state of consciousness . . . Immersion is the sense of fantasy activity becoming “real.” Then the writer feels the story writing itself and hours are lost . . .

Finally, there is satisfaction—a sense of resolution and release.  There is an essential relationship between play and pleasure.  Enactment releases the tension.  The satisfaction in play, I think, is a result of the sense of completion, not necessarily of achievement."

- D. Stephenson Bond, Living Myth: Personal Meaning as a Way of Life. Shambala, 1993 pg 113-114
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Friday, July 8, 2011

Books are Natural and Beautiful

BooksImage by henry… via Flickr
"A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild flower discovered on the prairies of the west, or in the jungles of the east."

Henry David Thoreau. Walking Part 2 paragraph 31
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Wednesday, July 6, 2011

What is Archplot?

"Classical design is not a Western view of life.  For thousands of years, from the Levant to Java to Japan, the storytellers of Asia have framed their works within the Archplot. . . . The Archplot is neither ancient nor modern, Western nor Eastern; it is human."

- Robert McKee Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principals of Screenwriting. ReganBooks: New York, 1997. pg 62