Joe Velikovsky's Blog, page 17
August 20, 2019
First lines of 10 of my fave nonfiction books
First lines of 10 of my fave Nonfiction books
by JTV
So I guess, we all know about stuff, like:
100 Best First Lines from Novels
and
53 Of The Best Opening Sentences In Literature
and
The Best 100 Opening Lines from Books
and, suchlike...
(If not, then maybe ask Uncle Google about "Best opening lines novels".)
Anyway; so I'm trying to write a nonfiction book right now, and so - for the sake of studying success, here are the opening paras of 10 nonfiction books I like. (That also happen to be: bestsellers.)
This is all meant to inspire (and: educate) me.
(Maybe it will you, too...)
--------------------
#1
`Chapter 1. Why are people?
Intelligent life on a planet comes of age when it first works out the reason for its own existence.'
The Selfish Gene (Dawkins 01976, p. 1)
#2
`Chapter 1 - Welcome to the most important conversation of our age
Thirteen point eight billion years after its birth, our universe has awoken and become aware of itself.'
Life 3.0 (Tegmark 02018)
#3
`1. An Animal of No Significance
About 13.5 billion years ago, matter, energy, time and space came into being in what is known as The Big Bang. The story of these fundamental features of our universe is called Physics.'
Sapiens (Harari 02015, p. 1)
#4
`1. The New Human Agenda
At the dawn of the third millennium, humanity wakes up, stretching its limbs and rubbing its eyes.'
Homo Deus (Harari 02017, p. 1)
#5
`Chapter 1: Tell Me Why
1. Is Nothing Sacred?
We used to sing a lot when I was a child, around the campfire at summer camp, at school and Sunday school, or gathered around the piano at home. One of my favorite songs was "Tell Me Why".'
Darwin's Dangerous Idea (Dennett 01995, p. 1)
#6
`Chapter 1: The Ionian Enchantment
I remember very well the time I was captured by the dream of unified learning,'
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (Wilson 01998, p. 1)
#7
`Introduction: Animal, Human, Art, Story
Some people eat with chopsticks, some with knives and forks, and some with neither. Are these discrete cultural inventions, or do they have common roots?'
On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction (Boyd 02009, p. 1)
#8
`1. Disillusionment
The End of History Has Been Postponed
Humans think in stories rather than facts, numbers or equations, and the simpler the story the better.'
21 Lessons for the 21st Century (Harari 02019)
#9
`Part 1 - Enlightenment
Enlightenment Now (Pinker 02018, p. 1)
#10
`1. Setting the Stage
This book is about creativity, based on histories of contemporary people who know about it firsthand.'
Creativity (Csikszentmihalyi 01996, p. 1)
#11
`Introduction
When on board H,M,S, `Beagle', as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and of the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent.'
On the Origin of Species (Darwin 01859)
#12
`Book One - The Art of Discovery and the Discoveries of Art
1. The Logic of Laughter
The Triptych
The three panels of the rounded triptych shown on the frontispiece indicate three domains of creativity which shade into each other without sharp boundaries: Humour, Discovery, and Art. The reason for this seemingly perverse order of arrangement - the Sage flanked by the Jester and the Artist on opposite sides - will become apparent as the argument unfolds.'
The Act of Creation (Koestler 1964, p. 1)
----------------------
Anyway; I could also add many more books that inspire me, but - that's a good start.
Q: What do they all have in common?
A: Not sure; they range from statements of fact to personal anecdotes, to both.
If we start with their body text, and not with the chapter headings/subheadings/section headings - none of them begin with: A question.
But for one thing (in common): they all still engage (`hook') me, and compel me to read on.
(See: Classic Writing for more...)
...Hmmmm...
How to write a great opening line for my specific nonfiction book...?
...Hmmmm...!
---------------------------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
or JoeTV
or JTV
or that random guy
who knows
it's flexible
depends on the context----------------------------
`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as
JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/
& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems Theorist
See: https://storyality.wordpress.com/
& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia Researcher
Academia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee
Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.
by JTV
So I guess, we all know about stuff, like:
100 Best First Lines from Novels
and
53 Of The Best Opening Sentences In Literature
and
The Best 100 Opening Lines from Books
and, suchlike...
(If not, then maybe ask Uncle Google about "Best opening lines novels".)
Anyway; so I'm trying to write a nonfiction book right now, and so - for the sake of studying success, here are the opening paras of 10 nonfiction books I like. (That also happen to be: bestsellers.)
This is all meant to inspire (and: educate) me.
(Maybe it will you, too...)
--------------------
#1
`Chapter 1. Why are people?
Intelligent life on a planet comes of age when it first works out the reason for its own existence.'
The Selfish Gene (Dawkins 01976, p. 1)
#2
`Chapter 1 - Welcome to the most important conversation of our age
Technology is giving life the potential to flourish like never before - or to self-destruct.-Future of Life Institute
Thirteen point eight billion years after its birth, our universe has awoken and become aware of itself.'
Life 3.0 (Tegmark 02018)
#3
`1. An Animal of No Significance
About 13.5 billion years ago, matter, energy, time and space came into being in what is known as The Big Bang. The story of these fundamental features of our universe is called Physics.'
Sapiens (Harari 02015, p. 1)
#4
`1. The New Human Agenda
At the dawn of the third millennium, humanity wakes up, stretching its limbs and rubbing its eyes.'
Homo Deus (Harari 02017, p. 1)
#5
`Chapter 1: Tell Me Why
1. Is Nothing Sacred?
We used to sing a lot when I was a child, around the campfire at summer camp, at school and Sunday school, or gathered around the piano at home. One of my favorite songs was "Tell Me Why".'
Darwin's Dangerous Idea (Dennett 01995, p. 1)
#6
`Chapter 1: The Ionian Enchantment
I remember very well the time I was captured by the dream of unified learning,'
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (Wilson 01998, p. 1)
#7
`Introduction: Animal, Human, Art, Story
Some people eat with chopsticks, some with knives and forks, and some with neither. Are these discrete cultural inventions, or do they have common roots?'
On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction (Boyd 02009, p. 1)
#8
`1. Disillusionment
The End of History Has Been Postponed
Humans think in stories rather than facts, numbers or equations, and the simpler the story the better.'
21 Lessons for the 21st Century (Harari 02019)
#9
`Part 1 - Enlightenment
`The common sense of the eighteenth century, its grasp of the obvious facts of human suffering, and of the obvious demands of human nature, acted on the world like a bath of moral cleansing.'
-Alfred North WhiteheadIn the course of several decades giving public lectures on language, mind, and human nature, I have been asked some mighty strange questions. Which is the best language? Are clams and oysters conscious? When will I be able to upload my mind to the internet? Is obesity a form of violence?'
Enlightenment Now (Pinker 02018, p. 1)
#10
`1. Setting the Stage
This book is about creativity, based on histories of contemporary people who know about it firsthand.'
Creativity (Csikszentmihalyi 01996, p. 1)
#11
`Introduction
When on board H,M,S, `Beagle', as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and of the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent.'
On the Origin of Species (Darwin 01859)
#12
`Book One - The Art of Discovery and the Discoveries of Art
1. The Logic of Laughter
The Triptych
The three panels of the rounded triptych shown on the frontispiece indicate three domains of creativity which shade into each other without sharp boundaries: Humour, Discovery, and Art. The reason for this seemingly perverse order of arrangement - the Sage flanked by the Jester and the Artist on opposite sides - will become apparent as the argument unfolds.'
The Act of Creation (Koestler 1964, p. 1)
----------------------
Anyway; I could also add many more books that inspire me, but - that's a good start.
Q: What do they all have in common?
A: Not sure; they range from statements of fact to personal anecdotes, to both.
If we start with their body text, and not with the chapter headings/subheadings/section headings - none of them begin with: A question.
But for one thing (in common): they all still engage (`hook') me, and compel me to read on.
(See: Classic Writing for more...)
...Hmmmm...
How to write a great opening line for my specific nonfiction book...?
...Hmmmm...!
---------------------------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
or JoeTV
or JTV
or that random guy
who knows
it's flexible
depends on the context----------------------------
`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as
JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/
& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems Theorist
See: https://storyality.wordpress.com/
& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia Researcher
Academia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee
Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.
August 18, 2019
What's on my Walkman (Aug 02019)
What's on my Walkman?And who cares, besides me, anyway?[Aug 02019]J the T the V
Not that anyone but me should really care: still; ya never know. (All of life is doing science. Let's try this experiment and see if anyone cares. I predict they won't - but am happy to be falsified (a la, re: per: my hero#423 Sir Karl Popper) on that)
Here's: my Walkman:
Here's what's on my Walkman:
And, here's why:
Death of Ivan Ilyich - because this is currently one of my fave books/novellas/stories/narrative-style things of all time. Tolstory. What a beast that guy was. The opening chapter has 3 funny as shit things, then it goes downhill all the way till that thing at the end (no spoilers)
Hey this reminds me - Check out, this! (just - re: Vonnegut, on plotting Story emotional-rollercoasters). Gotta love Vonnegut.
"I have tried to bring scientific thinking to literary criticism, and there has been very little gratitude for this... [audience laughs]"(For more on that specific WAR OF IDEAS - see: Consilience vs PoMo and see: Schools of Thought)
Anyway, next up ->
The Descent of Man (1871) - cos I love Charles Darwin's brain. The greatest genius that ever lived (so far), probably. I got such a man-crush / bromance on that guy. (Wish he wasn't so: dead.) I listen to this sorta awesome shit on my daily "constitutional" walks... Well; ...except, when, I don't. (Cos sometimes, I'm listening to Radio National's Big Ideas or something. (I like large ideas. The larger the better. See my: the holon/parton structure of the meme, the unit of culture , for example.)) ...I like nested brackets.
Next?
`Killer Combo' - Hmph. This is just a bunch of random music / songs I like to listen to, sometimes. This list of songs changes now and then - whenever I make myself sick of, those specific songs. I go on a tear and listen the fuck outta some songs, but then I can't stand 'em any more. Always been that way. Go figure. I like keeping myself in the Flow state. (Makes me less unhappy, or: more happy.)
FYI - Here's the songs, currently in it: (that folder, [Walkman ["Killer Combo"]) but this may well change soon to: something else. Depends. (A while back, used to be a lotta Prodigy in there: Medusa's Path and Spitfire, and whatnot. omg, that stuff was so cool when i wasn't: sick of it.)
Music in my Walkman (well; just right now anyway)
That Sting song is - maybe - my fave song of all time. "Bring On the Night/When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around" – (11:41) (But that may well: change)That other stuff is just good and/or happy and/or fun stuff... Songs. Whatever they are. XD
Next:
Kubrick - this is 2 interviews with Kubrick, so we can see how his (genius) brain worked.
e.g. One of them is this one:
Stanley Kubrick Interview (Jeremy Bernstein 1966)
and the other:
3 x Interviews with Kubrick (On: Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket), by Michel Ciment.
Sometime, soonish... (before the end of 02019 - noting, the Long Now), I will transcribe those 3 interviews too, like I did with the Bernstein 1966 one. - It helps us all to research creativity (i.e. problem solving). ...Because: that's how you save a world. :) (...see Heroism Science! )(I note, then you have to give General Problem Solving Algorithms to a supercomputer - and it saves the world - as humans aren't capable of it on their own; the world is too complex and fast for that now.)
Anyway next:
Louis CK - a few Louis standup comedy shows; e.g. that bootlegged 2019 Governor's one (genius! so funny); The Palace 2010; & Jerusalem 2016.
Nexts:
2 x copies of On the Origin of Species Audiobooks from Librivox. I dunno, just obsessed with Darwin...? Go figure. (Mainly as I'm trying to do with Culture what he did with Biology. [And, seems it's working... Slowly.] They may even `label' me a `5-C genius' when I'm dead. Or, not, what do I care, I'll be DEAD. LOL. And: all my problems will be over. LOL. Meantime I gotta get this stuff done and save the world. ...Or, not? Is it worth saving? Convince me, in the Comments. LOL XD
See: my article on: Kubrick and Darwin and Joe Campbell and Me, in the Journal of Genius and Eminence (2018) .
Next:
Pain Free - this is a guided hypnosis thingy (45 mins?) by Rick Collingstone or something, that I've been listening to, since 2010, or whatever. (Have had a back back for that long... In fact - for about 32 years now, but who's counting? My point is, Intense Daily Physical Pain can be a very good motivator to get into Flow, and thus get lots of work done, as: you escape the physical reality / consciousness, as it usually: sucks, balls.) [See this is another reason I can't wait to get dead, LOL... omg it's gonna be so good to stop existing and be conscious of: bad things.]
Nest: (yes I know that's not how you spell `Next'; but - happy accidents can be deep, meaningful and profound, useful solutions to creative problems/goals)
See Kubrick on Joyce on it. :)
Phillip K Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (abridged/condensed audiobook of the novel, read by Matthew Modine & Callista Flockhart - hey, remember her?)I read this novel in Year 8 or whatever and loved it. (Why didn't Ridley etc put Mercerism and the `Mood Organ' in the 1982 Blade Runner movie?? It's/they're: the 2 best sci fi ideas in the book!!!)omfg.Genius!Oh well. Anyway I heart P K Dick's stuff.
Nezt?
Relax - this is 5 copies of that most relaxing/anxiety-reducing song, ever: Macaroni Onion's: You are too fat (I hate anxiety, and had a traumatic childhood [when: it wasn't amazing and fun and adventurous, which it was - a LOT, but - it was also (in parts): uber-traumatic, but - that's probably why I'm so creative, see Csikszentmihalyi on it: shitty childhoods give you a powerful imagination, to escape into, for: life! YAY! i.e. My imagination is a billion times better than "reality", seriously. It's safe and fun and rich and interesting and exciting in there... So-called `Real Life' is: a labyrinth of clusterfuckery.] so anyway I prolly have lifelong PTSD, and if you don't, you're not paying attention t how fucked up everything is, LOL. e.g. Trump is President. WTF. i.e. - Are you f*cking kidding me? Stop the world - this one is way too stoopid, funny and absurd for words. ...Beam me up Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here... LOL XD) Juuuust kidding. Or - am I? [Ambiguity makes for timeless art. trust me on this... Or go read Martindale (1990), Clockwork Muse. Or not. What do I care. Fuck you, anyway, probably... As: 99% of everything is lousy/evolution crushes it, like a bug. (So, statistically, this means: you. And me too]) - hey dig the nested brackets there
Nect:
RN Big Ideas - So, in here, is:
- AC Grayling on The History of Philosophy (on: Late Nite Live)- Brian Boyd on: On the Origin of Stories (2009) (on: The Book Show)- Mental Health Politics (I just dig Alistair Campbell's take on a lotta stuff, eg: Brexit and Trump!)- Moonkind (I just dig her voice. Also: moon stuff. Also: Science!)- Yuval Noah Harari on Homo Deus on Big Ideas
I re-listen to all this stuff, quite a lot - as I notice different things, each time. (Jam-Packed with hypercompressed Info!)
Next:
The Third Policeman - audiobook, read by Jim Norton.My fave novel, ever. ...THE END.Have listened to it, hundreds of times. Maybe even: thousands-?(Spoiler Alert - STOP! Don't know anything more about it, just: buy, download and listen. Then: read the book. Genie-ass: Funny. Dark. Smart. L o v e it.)
Vipassana - a 15-min guided meditation.I get tons of great ideas listening to this. Yes I know I'm sposed to think of: nothing. It rarely if ever works for me. I always "have" (hear? find? get?) a treasure-trove of (GREAT) ideas whenever I listen to this (twice a day, usually). Allows your subconscious to start yelling out ideas at you.(PS - I have cut the `first 5 mins' Intro out. As: Who needs it? Not I.)
Finally: (phew, finally!)
WM Music - actually - have never listened to this; the Walkman came with it loaded on. Wondr what's in there. Oh well we may never know. You've gotta use your time wisely. Just because someone thinks I should absorb some info, doesn't mean they are right. (Fuck 'em!)(Ads don't work on me, either. Weird? Then again - been studying ads, since I was about 13? I know all their `tricks'. See em coming a mile off, LOL XD
Okay so that's what's on there / what I'm listening to right now.(Maybe not right now, as you read this, but: I mean, in general terms, in Aug 02019. Hey watch out for that Long Now, it's gonna gitcha!) XD
Sadly, or happily, or neither, or both...The End of this post.
Hey - James Joyce, would be jealous!!!!! haha - funny - LOL - XD
i.e.:
Note: eyepatch. Said it helped him see better. (Ironic.)
Writing Tip: Always look for the irony.i.e., NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS...eg Clowns are actually sad-fucks, etc
I love youse all...
Except those I don't
(Haters gonna heart, etc)
...Yes I know I said `heart' there.
It was intentional.
Like pretty much everything I ever do.
...Unless we don't have free will, but that's a long discussion for another time.
...Be good!!!
Sinceriously!
---------------------------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
or JoeTV
or JTV
or that random guy
who knows
it's flexible----------------------------
`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as
JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/
& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems Theorist
See: https://storyality.wordpress.com/
& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia Researcher
Academia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee
Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.
Not that anyone but me should really care: still; ya never know. (All of life is doing science. Let's try this experiment and see if anyone cares. I predict they won't - but am happy to be falsified (a la, re: per: my hero#423 Sir Karl Popper) on that)
Here's: my Walkman:
Here's what's on my Walkman:
And, here's why:
Death of Ivan Ilyich - because this is currently one of my fave books/novellas/stories/narrative-style things of all time. Tolstory. What a beast that guy was. The opening chapter has 3 funny as shit things, then it goes downhill all the way till that thing at the end (no spoilers)
Hey this reminds me - Check out, this! (just - re: Vonnegut, on plotting Story emotional-rollercoasters). Gotta love Vonnegut.
"I have tried to bring scientific thinking to literary criticism, and there has been very little gratitude for this... [audience laughs]"(For more on that specific WAR OF IDEAS - see: Consilience vs PoMo and see: Schools of Thought)
Anyway, next up ->
The Descent of Man (1871) - cos I love Charles Darwin's brain. The greatest genius that ever lived (so far), probably. I got such a man-crush / bromance on that guy. (Wish he wasn't so: dead.) I listen to this sorta awesome shit on my daily "constitutional" walks... Well; ...except, when, I don't. (Cos sometimes, I'm listening to Radio National's Big Ideas or something. (I like large ideas. The larger the better. See my: the holon/parton structure of the meme, the unit of culture , for example.)) ...I like nested brackets.
Next?
`Killer Combo' - Hmph. This is just a bunch of random music / songs I like to listen to, sometimes. This list of songs changes now and then - whenever I make myself sick of, those specific songs. I go on a tear and listen the fuck outta some songs, but then I can't stand 'em any more. Always been that way. Go figure. I like keeping myself in the Flow state. (Makes me less unhappy, or: more happy.)
FYI - Here's the songs, currently in it: (that folder, [Walkman ["Killer Combo"]) but this may well change soon to: something else. Depends. (A while back, used to be a lotta Prodigy in there: Medusa's Path and Spitfire, and whatnot. omg, that stuff was so cool when i wasn't: sick of it.)
Music in my Walkman (well; just right now anyway)That Sting song is - maybe - my fave song of all time. "Bring On the Night/When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around" – (11:41) (But that may well: change)That other stuff is just good and/or happy and/or fun stuff... Songs. Whatever they are. XD
Next:
Kubrick - this is 2 interviews with Kubrick, so we can see how his (genius) brain worked.
e.g. One of them is this one:
Stanley Kubrick Interview (Jeremy Bernstein 1966)
and the other:
3 x Interviews with Kubrick (On: Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket), by Michel Ciment.
Sometime, soonish... (before the end of 02019 - noting, the Long Now), I will transcribe those 3 interviews too, like I did with the Bernstein 1966 one. - It helps us all to research creativity (i.e. problem solving). ...Because: that's how you save a world. :) (...see Heroism Science! )(I note, then you have to give General Problem Solving Algorithms to a supercomputer - and it saves the world - as humans aren't capable of it on their own; the world is too complex and fast for that now.)
Anyway next:
Louis CK - a few Louis standup comedy shows; e.g. that bootlegged 2019 Governor's one (genius! so funny); The Palace 2010; & Jerusalem 2016.
Nexts:
2 x copies of On the Origin of Species Audiobooks from Librivox. I dunno, just obsessed with Darwin...? Go figure. (Mainly as I'm trying to do with Culture what he did with Biology. [And, seems it's working... Slowly.] They may even `label' me a `5-C genius' when I'm dead. Or, not, what do I care, I'll be DEAD. LOL. And: all my problems will be over. LOL. Meantime I gotta get this stuff done and save the world. ...Or, not? Is it worth saving? Convince me, in the Comments. LOL XD
See: my article on: Kubrick and Darwin and Joe Campbell and Me, in the Journal of Genius and Eminence (2018) .
Next:
Pain Free - this is a guided hypnosis thingy (45 mins?) by Rick Collingstone or something, that I've been listening to, since 2010, or whatever. (Have had a back back for that long... In fact - for about 32 years now, but who's counting? My point is, Intense Daily Physical Pain can be a very good motivator to get into Flow, and thus get lots of work done, as: you escape the physical reality / consciousness, as it usually: sucks, balls.) [See this is another reason I can't wait to get dead, LOL... omg it's gonna be so good to stop existing and be conscious of: bad things.]
Nest: (yes I know that's not how you spell `Next'; but - happy accidents can be deep, meaningful and profound, useful solutions to creative problems/goals)
See Kubrick on Joyce on it. :)
Phillip K Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (abridged/condensed audiobook of the novel, read by Matthew Modine & Callista Flockhart - hey, remember her?)I read this novel in Year 8 or whatever and loved it. (Why didn't Ridley etc put Mercerism and the `Mood Organ' in the 1982 Blade Runner movie?? It's/they're: the 2 best sci fi ideas in the book!!!)omfg.Genius!Oh well. Anyway I heart P K Dick's stuff.
Nezt?
Relax - this is 5 copies of that most relaxing/anxiety-reducing song, ever: Macaroni Onion's: You are too fat (I hate anxiety, and had a traumatic childhood [when: it wasn't amazing and fun and adventurous, which it was - a LOT, but - it was also (in parts): uber-traumatic, but - that's probably why I'm so creative, see Csikszentmihalyi on it: shitty childhoods give you a powerful imagination, to escape into, for: life! YAY! i.e. My imagination is a billion times better than "reality", seriously. It's safe and fun and rich and interesting and exciting in there... So-called `Real Life' is: a labyrinth of clusterfuckery.] so anyway I prolly have lifelong PTSD, and if you don't, you're not paying attention t how fucked up everything is, LOL. e.g. Trump is President. WTF. i.e. - Are you f*cking kidding me? Stop the world - this one is way too stoopid, funny and absurd for words. ...Beam me up Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here... LOL XD) Juuuust kidding. Or - am I? [Ambiguity makes for timeless art. trust me on this... Or go read Martindale (1990), Clockwork Muse. Or not. What do I care. Fuck you, anyway, probably... As: 99% of everything is lousy/evolution crushes it, like a bug. (So, statistically, this means: you. And me too]) - hey dig the nested brackets there
Nect:
RN Big Ideas - So, in here, is:
- AC Grayling on The History of Philosophy (on: Late Nite Live)- Brian Boyd on: On the Origin of Stories (2009) (on: The Book Show)- Mental Health Politics (I just dig Alistair Campbell's take on a lotta stuff, eg: Brexit and Trump!)- Moonkind (I just dig her voice. Also: moon stuff. Also: Science!)- Yuval Noah Harari on Homo Deus on Big Ideas
I re-listen to all this stuff, quite a lot - as I notice different things, each time. (Jam-Packed with hypercompressed Info!)
Next:
The Third Policeman - audiobook, read by Jim Norton.My fave novel, ever. ...THE END.Have listened to it, hundreds of times. Maybe even: thousands-?(Spoiler Alert - STOP! Don't know anything more about it, just: buy, download and listen. Then: read the book. Genie-ass: Funny. Dark. Smart. L o v e it.)
Vipassana - a 15-min guided meditation.I get tons of great ideas listening to this. Yes I know I'm sposed to think of: nothing. It rarely if ever works for me. I always "have" (hear? find? get?) a treasure-trove of (GREAT) ideas whenever I listen to this (twice a day, usually). Allows your subconscious to start yelling out ideas at you.(PS - I have cut the `first 5 mins' Intro out. As: Who needs it? Not I.)
Finally: (phew, finally!)
WM Music - actually - have never listened to this; the Walkman came with it loaded on. Wondr what's in there. Oh well we may never know. You've gotta use your time wisely. Just because someone thinks I should absorb some info, doesn't mean they are right. (Fuck 'em!)(Ads don't work on me, either. Weird? Then again - been studying ads, since I was about 13? I know all their `tricks'. See em coming a mile off, LOL XD
Okay so that's what's on there / what I'm listening to right now.(Maybe not right now, as you read this, but: I mean, in general terms, in Aug 02019. Hey watch out for that Long Now, it's gonna gitcha!) XD
Sadly, or happily, or neither, or both...The End of this post.
Hey - James Joyce, would be jealous!!!!! haha - funny - LOL - XD
i.e.:
Note: eyepatch. Said it helped him see better. (Ironic.)Writing Tip: Always look for the irony.i.e., NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS...eg Clowns are actually sad-fucks, etc
I love youse all...
Except those I don't
(Haters gonna heart, etc)
...Yes I know I said `heart' there.
It was intentional.
Like pretty much everything I ever do.
...Unless we don't have free will, but that's a long discussion for another time.
...Be good!!!
Sinceriously!
---------------------------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
or JoeTV
or JTV
or that random guy
who knows
it's flexible----------------------------
`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as
JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/
& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems Theorist
See: https://storyality.wordpress.com/
& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia Researcher
Academia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee
Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.
August 16, 2019
ESP#1 - Essay, Story, Poem
ESP#1 - Essay, Story, Poem
Okay - so, sci-fi writer guy Ray Bradbury often just gave out (for free! Holy-radioactive-shitballs) this very good advice / heuristic, for How To Become A Less-Bad Writer ...
He said: (or sayed, if you are shit at spelling)
"Read an Essay, a Short Story, and a Poem, every day." [0]
(Actually, he said: every night , but look, I'm paraphrasing him here. [I don't even care.] It doesn't really HAVE to be at night , surely? ...Wait - Maybe, he's trying to stuff it all into your subconscious; so that you dream about it, or something...? Dreaming is what happens when your brain prunes all the shit it doesn't need, but - this also can mean, all the `items' [stored `info'/data/memories] getting thrown in the trash, combine in random ways [as you dream; as those neurons are discarded/pruned], and - some of em can be [maybe] a creative [i.e., new, useful, surprising] solution to some problem/task/goal/whatevadafuck, ie... This is all: BVSR, or - How creativity/evolution [same diff!] works.)
Okay so, my aim is to do that shit, and blog something about: Whatever ESP stuff I read, each day [or NIGHT for fuck's sake].
i.e. So, in simulating the future in my mind, I suspect/imagine, my future Posts on this topic will be, like:
ESP#2 - (whatever I read that day or night, jeez, is the time of day that important?), and, then ESP#3 - etc...(Do you see the pattern-? Note - Humanimals are: pattern-finding, and pattern-matching `machines'.)
Anyway - so - here comes ESP#1 (Aug 16th 02019) - ...hey, note the 10k-year calendar (Not 2019, but 02019), there. I just want to note how much: I am a forward thinker. Remember all the shit that went down with the Millennium / Y2K Bug? This is: saving / avoiding that whole fucking problem for the augmented humanimals [or whatever the fuck the humanimal race becomes / evolves, or extincts into] in about 8k years' time. i.e. The year, 10,000 ACE. But - sheesh After Christian Era (ACE) seems silly to me anyway. Surely all religion/superstition/myth/fake-news shit will be outlawed in about 100 years (sooner if we're lucky?) which means: fuck the `old' BC/ACE calendar. But I digress, because: I can.
Paraphrasing Descartes: I digress, therefore I am... (annoying my audience)
Philosophical Q: Are digressions any good?
Hey - idea - Suggested PhD Topic:
Digressions are bullshit; Discuss.
(Better still, do a scientific study as a PhD.
Fuck `discussions' anyway. Just gimme the fax.)
Anyway -
Here it fucking comes. As the robot actress transmitted to the robot bishop.
--------------------------------------------ESP #1
by
J the T the V
16th of fucking August 02019
Here's what I read / absorbed / inputted-into-my-cognitive-systems, today:
Essay: Gifts (Ralph Waldo Emerson)(I wanted to read a real short essay, as I'm kinda tired right now.) This essay was: great! Synopsis: He reckons: flowers and fruit are always good, as presents/gifts. (No great shocks, there? Doesn't everyone know this? Hmm - Then again, as for fruits as good gifts - not so much, Durians, as: they smell like a fart. But man, they give you a rush. I feel a mild high / a `buzz' when I eat those fuckers. Even the chips. ie Durian crisps. You know the ones? Try them. You might like em.) Hey also - some flowers don't make good gifts, like that big one that stinks like a dead guy: Titan Arum .
Fave line/s: "Nature does not cocker us; we are children, not pets; she is not fond; everything is dealt to us without fear or favor, after severe universal laws. Yet these delicate flowers look like the frolic and interference of love and beauty."
Also:
Basically, I think he really digs: homemade-presents?
Also I didn't even know about Timon of Athens , but: now I do, and so do you....Man; I gotta go read all of Shakespeare, one of these lifetimes.
Short Story: The Zombies Can't Be Killed With Selfie-Sticks by Joy Kennedy-O'Neill (02019)https://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/future-societies/joy-kennedy-o-neill/the-zombies-cant-be-killed-with-selfie-sticks
Holy fuckaroly, IMHO this short story (sci fi flash fiction) was: genius. I love this writer's style!!!! Go read the fuck out of it. (See link above... I don't know how to be any clearer. Get me?)
My Fave line, in it: `The system pings again. "Reminder: it's been one minute since you stopped reminders."' (I smiled out loud at this. Maybe even LOLed. Reason: Self-Recursive-shit is hilarious to me.)I like lots of things about this, but mainly the Tone/Style/Voice. Just the whole fucking thing. ...LOVE IT. HEART IT!
Poem: Acquainted with the Night (by Robert Frost)Wow - well; this is weird ironicity, crossed with, synchronicityness. After all my bitching, about how, the whole "day/nite" shit above, doesn't matter, that seems to be what this poem is: `all about'. Or... (wait...) am I just interpreting it that way - as, that's all been recently in: working memory? (for: Moi...?)(Aw Maaan? People who casually and randomly throw French into their conversation really give me the murdering merdes.)[Self-recursivity! BAAAAAM! As that great philosopher, The Jerky Boys, once said] Fave bit: "One luminary clock against the sky". Dunno; just feels: nice.
Anyway so - that was ESP#1.
I could go on about how: Bradbury's advice is the practical/layperson way of saying you need to internalize the [cultural] domain [eg: literature? essays/short stories/poems?] before you can do anything creative in it, yourself. See my: Creative Practice Theory BS.But I am not the kind of guy to keep hitting that same old hacksaw over and again with chestnuts.
Man I love Sam Goldwynisms . That stuff makes me smile out loud.
~JTV
----------------
VIDEO FOOTNOTES:
[0] "See: 2mins:50sec of the below vid - “I’ll give you a very simple program to follow every night... for the next thousand nights: read one short story, one poem (not modern poetry) and one essay. ... At the end of a thousand nights, Jesus God, you’ll be full of stuff, won’t you! You’ll be full of ideas!”
Ray [fucking] Bradbury - See: 2mins50secs onwards: "Read a poem, a short story, and an essay, a night!"(But I still say: daytime reading is a-ok. -JTV)
Hey this Video Footnotes thing I just `accidentally invented' here, above [am sure I'm not the first; unless I am, in which case - hey see what a goddamn fucking creative genius I am? Sheesh] reminds me of all this great shit:
Computational Essays - by Stephen J Wolfram unless that's not his name.
Hey - and do this Creativity Quiz , it's for science.ie The Aha! Challenge . (Note: Not: Anal Challenge; Aha! Challenge.)
The End of this post.
---------------------------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)----------------------------
`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as
JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/
& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems Theorist
See: https://storyality.wordpress.com/
& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia Researcher
Academia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee
Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.
Okay - so, sci-fi writer guy Ray Bradbury often just gave out (for free! Holy-radioactive-shitballs) this very good advice / heuristic, for How To Become A Less-Bad Writer ...
He said: (or sayed, if you are shit at spelling)
"Read an Essay, a Short Story, and a Poem, every day." [0]
(Actually, he said: every night , but look, I'm paraphrasing him here. [I don't even care.] It doesn't really HAVE to be at night , surely? ...Wait - Maybe, he's trying to stuff it all into your subconscious; so that you dream about it, or something...? Dreaming is what happens when your brain prunes all the shit it doesn't need, but - this also can mean, all the `items' [stored `info'/data/memories] getting thrown in the trash, combine in random ways [as you dream; as those neurons are discarded/pruned], and - some of em can be [maybe] a creative [i.e., new, useful, surprising] solution to some problem/task/goal/whatevadafuck, ie... This is all: BVSR, or - How creativity/evolution [same diff!] works.)
Okay so, my aim is to do that shit, and blog something about: Whatever ESP stuff I read, each day [or NIGHT for fuck's sake].
i.e. So, in simulating the future in my mind, I suspect/imagine, my future Posts on this topic will be, like:
ESP#2 - (whatever I read that day or night, jeez, is the time of day that important?), and, then ESP#3 - etc...(Do you see the pattern-? Note - Humanimals are: pattern-finding, and pattern-matching `machines'.)
Anyway - so - here comes ESP#1 (Aug 16th 02019) - ...hey, note the 10k-year calendar (Not 2019, but 02019), there. I just want to note how much: I am a forward thinker. Remember all the shit that went down with the Millennium / Y2K Bug? This is: saving / avoiding that whole fucking problem for the augmented humanimals [or whatever the fuck the humanimal race becomes / evolves, or extincts into] in about 8k years' time. i.e. The year, 10,000 ACE. But - sheesh After Christian Era (ACE) seems silly to me anyway. Surely all religion/superstition/myth/fake-news shit will be outlawed in about 100 years (sooner if we're lucky?) which means: fuck the `old' BC/ACE calendar. But I digress, because: I can.
Paraphrasing Descartes: I digress, therefore I am... (annoying my audience)
Philosophical Q: Are digressions any good?
Hey - idea - Suggested PhD Topic:
Digressions are bullshit; Discuss.
(Better still, do a scientific study as a PhD.
Fuck `discussions' anyway. Just gimme the fax.)
Anyway -
Here it fucking comes. As the robot actress transmitted to the robot bishop.
--------------------------------------------ESP #1
by
J the T the V
16th of fucking August 02019
Here's what I read / absorbed / inputted-into-my-cognitive-systems, today:
Essay: Gifts (Ralph Waldo Emerson)(I wanted to read a real short essay, as I'm kinda tired right now.) This essay was: great! Synopsis: He reckons: flowers and fruit are always good, as presents/gifts. (No great shocks, there? Doesn't everyone know this? Hmm - Then again, as for fruits as good gifts - not so much, Durians, as: they smell like a fart. But man, they give you a rush. I feel a mild high / a `buzz' when I eat those fuckers. Even the chips. ie Durian crisps. You know the ones? Try them. You might like em.) Hey also - some flowers don't make good gifts, like that big one that stinks like a dead guy: Titan Arum .
Fave line/s: "Nature does not cocker us; we are children, not pets; she is not fond; everything is dealt to us without fear or favor, after severe universal laws. Yet these delicate flowers look like the frolic and interference of love and beauty."
Also:
"But our tokens of compliment and love are for the most part barbarous. Rings and other jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me. Therefore the poet brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a gem; the sailor, coral and shells; the painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing [; and of cuss, the blogger, his blog-post]. This is right and pleasing, for it restores society in so far to the primary basis... when a man's biography is conveyed in his gift, and every man's wealth is an index of his merit. But it is a cold lifeless business when you go to the shops to buy me something which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith's." (Emerson)[bold additions were my own, just to update this stuff a bit]
Basically, I think he really digs: homemade-presents?
Also I didn't even know about Timon of Athens , but: now I do, and so do you....Man; I gotta go read all of Shakespeare, one of these lifetimes.
Short Story: The Zombies Can't Be Killed With Selfie-Sticks by Joy Kennedy-O'Neill (02019)https://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/future-societies/joy-kennedy-o-neill/the-zombies-cant-be-killed-with-selfie-sticks
Holy fuckaroly, IMHO this short story (sci fi flash fiction) was: genius. I love this writer's style!!!! Go read the fuck out of it. (See link above... I don't know how to be any clearer. Get me?)
My Fave line, in it: `The system pings again. "Reminder: it's been one minute since you stopped reminders."' (I smiled out loud at this. Maybe even LOLed. Reason: Self-Recursive-shit is hilarious to me.)I like lots of things about this, but mainly the Tone/Style/Voice. Just the whole fucking thing. ...LOVE IT. HEART IT!
Poem: Acquainted with the Night (by Robert Frost)Wow - well; this is weird ironicity, crossed with, synchronicityness. After all my bitching, about how, the whole "day/nite" shit above, doesn't matter, that seems to be what this poem is: `all about'. Or... (wait...) am I just interpreting it that way - as, that's all been recently in: working memory? (for: Moi...?)(Aw Maaan? People who casually and randomly throw French into their conversation really give me the murdering merdes.)[Self-recursivity! BAAAAAM! As that great philosopher, The Jerky Boys, once said] Fave bit: "One luminary clock against the sky". Dunno; just feels: nice.
Anyway so - that was ESP#1.
I could go on about how: Bradbury's advice is the practical/layperson way of saying you need to internalize the [cultural] domain [eg: literature? essays/short stories/poems?] before you can do anything creative in it, yourself. See my: Creative Practice Theory BS.But I am not the kind of guy to keep hitting that same old hacksaw over and again with chestnuts.
Man I love Sam Goldwynisms . That stuff makes me smile out loud.
~JTV
----------------
VIDEO FOOTNOTES:
[0] "See: 2mins:50sec of the below vid - “I’ll give you a very simple program to follow every night... for the next thousand nights: read one short story, one poem (not modern poetry) and one essay. ... At the end of a thousand nights, Jesus God, you’ll be full of stuff, won’t you! You’ll be full of ideas!”
Ray [fucking] Bradbury - See: 2mins50secs onwards: "Read a poem, a short story, and an essay, a night!"(But I still say: daytime reading is a-ok. -JTV)
Hey this Video Footnotes thing I just `accidentally invented' here, above [am sure I'm not the first; unless I am, in which case - hey see what a goddamn fucking creative genius I am? Sheesh] reminds me of all this great shit:
Computational Essays - by Stephen J Wolfram unless that's not his name.
Hey - and do this Creativity Quiz , it's for science.ie The Aha! Challenge . (Note: Not: Anal Challenge; Aha! Challenge.)
The End of this post.
---------------------------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)----------------------------
`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as
JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/
& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems Theorist
See: https://storyality.wordpress.com/
& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia Researcher
Academia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee
Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.
August 10, 2019
A Short Story Recipe
A Short Story Recipe (or: Template or Algorithm or - [gasp] - Formula)by JTV
So, some will know I like studying (sometimes even, being the first in the universe to identify) patterns in things. Like, in stories, songs, movies, books, artworks, whatever.
e.g. See my collection of movie-story element patterns, in this book:
The Feature Film Screenwriters' Workbook
(Velikovsky 1995, 2011)
And see: https://storyality.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/storyality-28-screenwriting-manuals-since-1913/ And see my (2016) PhD for much more. Also see this: The StoryAlity Screenplay Syntagm
Also some of my stuff is in this (great) book:
StoryAlity #126 – Miller’s Compendium of Timeless Tools for the Modern Writer (2015)
Anyway; I digress. Just trying to demonstrate that I like: recipes, algorithms, patterns.
Also... I like writing haikus. (See some of my: Horrifying Haikus )
Anyway - be all that as it may.
I think, we've all got to ask ourselves:
Why are the (classic) James Bond plots so formulaic?
Why are, the (classic) Agatha Christie stories?
Why are, the (classic) Sherlock Holmes stories?
Also, why do these things sell so well? Why so canon, and not, so archive?There's one random answer here, (that pretty much, applies) - but that's another story.
What I am really trying to get at here, is: formulas (I like to call 'em algorithms) for short stories.
Okay - some more background, before I get to the point.
In the domain of Short Stories, there's a `classic' (i.e., recognizable, characteristic) algorithm for certain kinds of clearly-identifiable:
O. Henry `twist' stories...
Roald Dahl `twist' stories...
Phillip K Dick `mindbender' stories
Jorges Luis Borges mindblower-philosophy stories
Edgar Allen Poe spooky stories (aka "weird tales", aka Cosmic Horror)
H P Lovecraft stories
Aesop's Fables stories
The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin (aka Nasreddin) stories
Franz Kafka stories...
(and - there are also many others, but you get the idea...)
By contrast - I also want to point out that Tolstoy doesn't really have an identifiable style/voice/form/format/formula/algorithm, in his short stories... (At least, not as much as the others above, do) ...He seemed to: mix it up a lot. (I am also not suggesting: that's either good or bad. It is what it is.)
I also just want to note, the 7-word microstory El Dinosaurio: "When he awoke, the dinosaur was still there." (Monterroso, 1959). (I feel this cosmic horror every day I wake up and Trump is still Prez of the US.) I also do not want to note, the apocryphal Hemingway 6-word story, For Sale, but I just did. It's not important.
Okay so - with all that in mind, I've randomly come up with a template (recipe, algorithm) for a certain kind of short story (flash fiction). Here it is.All of this stuff, needs to be in <1000 words.
[STORY TITLE HERE] (has to be: 3 words)
1) Story opens with a question (Could well be: a Philosophical Q, but, doesn't have to be that). Then the 2nd sentence somehow sums up, the whole story (but - without giving away the ending, or the twist).2) Then, it has a visual metaphor for the whole story. (This is integrated into the following, ie 3); and shouldn't seem: arbitrary/shoehorned in there.) 3) Establishes the: Setting, the Character(s) and their Problem/s...4) Character/s attempted Solution (of the problem/s) [...this part could take some time]5) Mind-blowing (also: mind-bending) End Twist.
Also, it has to change your life. By: changing your mind (by: blowing it).Also, it has to be super-engaging. (Slow & boring is a no-go.)I note: It doesn't need to be about: Characters who Change. (See my PhD, for why: that's never important. Character + Problem + Attempted Solution is all that matters.)
So...Why, the above recipe? Because: there's too many conventional short stories, and they're getting old now? That old algorithm is pretty worn out. I want a short story to be worth my time reading it... A yuge: Benefit/Cost ratio.
Ok and so, I'm going to write some flash fiction, according to this schema. And see what happens....Let's see how it goes...
The idea is: to create a recognizable style/format/voice/algorithm within the Genre.
P.S. - Oh, and (the recipe/algorithm) it starts with a Question (#1), because of: Classic Writing style. Hooks you right in...
PPS - Some of my fave sci-fi short stories. (But I forgot to mention The Dinosaurs by Italo Calvino, from his Cosmicomics. I heart that story.)
-----------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
-------------------
`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as
JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/
& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems Theorist
See: https://storyality.wordpress.com/
& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia Researcher
Academia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee
Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.
So, some will know I like studying (sometimes even, being the first in the universe to identify) patterns in things. Like, in stories, songs, movies, books, artworks, whatever.
e.g. See my collection of movie-story element patterns, in this book:
The Feature Film Screenwriters' Workbook
(Velikovsky 1995, 2011)And see: https://storyality.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/storyality-28-screenwriting-manuals-since-1913/ And see my (2016) PhD for much more. Also see this: The StoryAlity Screenplay Syntagm
Also some of my stuff is in this (great) book:
StoryAlity #126 – Miller’s Compendium of Timeless Tools for the Modern Writer (2015)
Anyway; I digress. Just trying to demonstrate that I like: recipes, algorithms, patterns.
Also... I like writing haikus. (See some of my: Horrifying Haikus )
Anyway - be all that as it may.
I think, we've all got to ask ourselves:
Why are the (classic) James Bond plots so formulaic?
Why are, the (classic) Agatha Christie stories?
Why are, the (classic) Sherlock Holmes stories?
Also, why do these things sell so well? Why so canon, and not, so archive?There's one random answer here, (that pretty much, applies) - but that's another story.
What I am really trying to get at here, is: formulas (I like to call 'em algorithms) for short stories.
Okay - some more background, before I get to the point.
In the domain of Short Stories, there's a `classic' (i.e., recognizable, characteristic) algorithm for certain kinds of clearly-identifiable:
O. Henry `twist' stories...
Roald Dahl `twist' stories...
Phillip K Dick `mindbender' stories
Jorges Luis Borges mindblower-philosophy stories
Edgar Allen Poe spooky stories (aka "weird tales", aka Cosmic Horror)
H P Lovecraft stories
Aesop's Fables stories
The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin (aka Nasreddin) stories
Franz Kafka stories...
(and - there are also many others, but you get the idea...)
By contrast - I also want to point out that Tolstoy doesn't really have an identifiable style/voice/form/format/formula/algorithm, in his short stories... (At least, not as much as the others above, do) ...He seemed to: mix it up a lot. (I am also not suggesting: that's either good or bad. It is what it is.)
I also just want to note, the 7-word microstory El Dinosaurio: "When he awoke, the dinosaur was still there." (Monterroso, 1959). (I feel this cosmic horror every day I wake up and Trump is still Prez of the US.) I also do not want to note, the apocryphal Hemingway 6-word story, For Sale, but I just did. It's not important.
Okay so - with all that in mind, I've randomly come up with a template (recipe, algorithm) for a certain kind of short story (flash fiction). Here it is.All of this stuff, needs to be in <1000 words.
[STORY TITLE HERE] (has to be: 3 words)
1) Story opens with a question (Could well be: a Philosophical Q, but, doesn't have to be that). Then the 2nd sentence somehow sums up, the whole story (but - without giving away the ending, or the twist).2) Then, it has a visual metaphor for the whole story. (This is integrated into the following, ie 3); and shouldn't seem: arbitrary/shoehorned in there.) 3) Establishes the: Setting, the Character(s) and their Problem/s...4) Character/s attempted Solution (of the problem/s) [...this part could take some time]5) Mind-blowing (also: mind-bending) End Twist.
Also, it has to change your life. By: changing your mind (by: blowing it).Also, it has to be super-engaging. (Slow & boring is a no-go.)I note: It doesn't need to be about: Characters who Change. (See my PhD, for why: that's never important. Character + Problem + Attempted Solution is all that matters.)
So...Why, the above recipe? Because: there's too many conventional short stories, and they're getting old now? That old algorithm is pretty worn out. I want a short story to be worth my time reading it... A yuge: Benefit/Cost ratio.
Ok and so, I'm going to write some flash fiction, according to this schema. And see what happens....Let's see how it goes...
The idea is: to create a recognizable style/format/voice/algorithm within the Genre.
P.S. - Oh, and (the recipe/algorithm) it starts with a Question (#1), because of: Classic Writing style. Hooks you right in...
PPS - Some of my fave sci-fi short stories. (But I forgot to mention The Dinosaurs by Italo Calvino, from his Cosmicomics. I heart that story.)
-----------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
-------------------
`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as
JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/
& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems Theorist
See: https://storyality.wordpress.com/
& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia Researcher
Academia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee
Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.
August 9, 2019
My current Network of Enterprises (2019)
My current Network of Enterprises (2019)by JTV
The projects I'm working on: (8 x major projects, at last count...)
#1 - Memes book (non-fiction)...Is, this one (expanding: this chapter)https://storyality.wordpress.com/2019/03/10/storyality152-the-holon-parton-structure-of-the-meme-or-the-unit-of-culture-in-amatiaicsahci-2019/
#2 - Publishing more sci-fi short storiese.g.: https://on-writering.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-ancient-cities-of-tomorrow-365.html
#3 - Completing & Publishing my `Consilience' novelWriting a novel about consilience. (Can't say any more right now.)
#4 - Completing & Publishing my `Sim' noveli.e. Writing this one: https://on-writering.blogspot.com/2017/08/jb-above-top-secret-agent-guy-person.html
#5 - Republishing AM SO AS .As 2nd edn, in both hard copy and Kindle.
#6 - Publishing a book of Very Short Stories & Essays (hard copy & Kindle)i.e., this: https://outrageous-bullshit.blogspot.com/
#7 - More Zen Stupidity songse.g. this: https://outrageous-bullshit.blogspot.com/2019/05/zen-stupidity-concept-albumen.html
#8 - And of course - there's a whole bunch of (intense) reading (articles, books, etc) to do, for almost all of the above... e.g. Works, written in Classic Style. And, general research works.
Q: But why show it as a diagram, and with links between projects, as in the above diagram? Well here's one reason: Darwin did it that way, even if he didn't mean to...
Anyway... this post is just meant to keep me focussed.
...Let's hope it works?
---------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)
& Sci-Fi Writer-Guy
etc
-------------------
`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as
JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/
& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems TheoristSee: https://storyality.wordpress.com/
& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia ResearcherAcademia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee
Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.
The projects I'm working on: (8 x major projects, at last count...)
#1 - Memes book (non-fiction)...Is, this one (expanding: this chapter)https://storyality.wordpress.com/2019/03/10/storyality152-the-holon-parton-structure-of-the-meme-or-the-unit-of-culture-in-amatiaicsahci-2019/
#2 - Publishing more sci-fi short storiese.g.: https://on-writering.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-ancient-cities-of-tomorrow-365.html
#3 - Completing & Publishing my `Consilience' novelWriting a novel about consilience. (Can't say any more right now.)
#4 - Completing & Publishing my `Sim' noveli.e. Writing this one: https://on-writering.blogspot.com/2017/08/jb-above-top-secret-agent-guy-person.html
#5 - Republishing AM SO AS .As 2nd edn, in both hard copy and Kindle.
#6 - Publishing a book of Very Short Stories & Essays (hard copy & Kindle)i.e., this: https://outrageous-bullshit.blogspot.com/
#7 - More Zen Stupidity songse.g. this: https://outrageous-bullshit.blogspot.com/2019/05/zen-stupidity-concept-albumen.html
#8 - And of course - there's a whole bunch of (intense) reading (articles, books, etc) to do, for almost all of the above... e.g. Works, written in Classic Style. And, general research works.
Q: But why show it as a diagram, and with links between projects, as in the above diagram? Well here's one reason: Darwin did it that way, even if he didn't mean to...
Anyway... this post is just meant to keep me focussed.
...Let's hope it works?
---------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)
& Sci-Fi Writer-Guy
etc
-------------------
`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as
JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/
& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems TheoristSee: https://storyality.wordpress.com/
& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia ResearcherAcademia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee
Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.
August 3, 2019
Some of my fave random quotes (2019)
Some of my fave random quotes
Collated by JTV
2019
----------------------
And, if you like this kind of thing, see David Parker on General Problem Solving (GPS)...
-------------------
---------------------
---------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)
& Sci-Fi Writer-Guy
etc
-------------------
`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as
JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/
& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems TheoristSee: https://storyality.wordpress.com/
& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia ResearcherAcademia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee
Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.
Collated by JTV
2019
----------------------
`I think that, if you get involved in any kind of Problem-Solving in depth, on almost anything - it is surprisingly similar to Problem Solving, on anything…'
Stanley Kubrick, interviewed by Jeremy Bernstein 1966.----------------
And, if you like this kind of thing, see David Parker on General Problem Solving (GPS)...
-------------------
`New thoughts, particularly those which contradict current assumptions, are always painful for the human mind to contemplate.'
Source: H H Humphrey, Wikipedia
---------------------
`All of Life is Problem Solving'Sir Karl Popper (1999)
---------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)
& Sci-Fi Writer-Guy
etc
-------------------
`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as
JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/
& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems TheoristSee: https://storyality.wordpress.com/
& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia ResearcherAcademia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee
Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.
July 10, 2019
The Ancient Cities of Tomorrow @ 365 Tomorrows
The Ancient Cities of Tomorrow @ 365 Tomorrows
News Flash (Fiction): (10 July 2019)
I just had a short sci-fi (flash fiction) story published on 365 Tomorrows. Yay!
See: https://365tomorrows.com/2019/07/10/the-ancient-cities-of-tomorrow/
---------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)
& Sci-Fi Writer-Guy
etc
-------------------
`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as
JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/
& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems TheoristSee: https://storyality.wordpress.com/
& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia ResearcherAcademia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee
Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.
News Flash (Fiction): (10 July 2019)
I just had a short sci-fi (flash fiction) story published on 365 Tomorrows. Yay!
See: https://365tomorrows.com/2019/07/10/the-ancient-cities-of-tomorrow/
---------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)
& Sci-Fi Writer-Guy
etc
-------------------
`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as
JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/
& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems TheoristSee: https://storyality.wordpress.com/
& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia ResearcherAcademia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee
Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.
June 22, 2019
Koestler on habitus in `Insight and Outlook' (1949)
Koestler on habitus in `Insight and Outlook' (1949)
Look, I am just not sure if you're keeping up with the trends in what Arthur Koestler is doing and saying in the year 1949, but, if not, now's the time to keep reading this post, and these words.
Koestler says, the word habitus :
And - this factoid has rocked my world.
See: Bourdieu on habitus . At: Creative Practice Theory .
Hey, but look at this:
Also Koestler says lots of other things, apart from the word, habitus.
He (1949) says, these diagrams too:
But I guess, you need to read that page in the book, to get why these diagrams are important.
Also - check this out. I always thought (up to now) bisociation was only presented in The Act of Creation, (1964), but - he was working on this idea since even before 1949!
This has vast consequences for my Theory of Creativity, namely that evolution causes it. In, both biology and in culture. See, this book chapter of mine.
Anyway, so, wowsers.
What an amazing humanimal he really was. Koestler, I mean.
Also, me.
Anyways read the book, maybe.
---------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)
-------------------
`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, asJT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/
& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems TheoristSee: https://storyality.wordpress.com/
& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia ResearcherAcademia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee
Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.
Look, I am just not sure if you're keeping up with the trends in what Arthur Koestler is doing and saying in the year 1949, but, if not, now's the time to keep reading this post, and these words.
Koestler says, the word habitus :
And - this factoid has rocked my world.
See: Bourdieu on habitus . At: Creative Practice Theory .
Hey, but look at this:
Also Koestler says lots of other things, apart from the word, habitus.
He (1949) says, these diagrams too:
But I guess, you need to read that page in the book, to get why these diagrams are important.Also - check this out. I always thought (up to now) bisociation was only presented in The Act of Creation, (1964), but - he was working on this idea since even before 1949!
This has vast consequences for my Theory of Creativity, namely that evolution causes it. In, both biology and in culture. See, this book chapter of mine.
Anyway, so, wowsers.
What an amazing humanimal he really was. Koestler, I mean.
Also, me.
Anyways read the book, maybe.
---------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)
-------------------
`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, asJT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/
& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems TheoristSee: https://storyality.wordpress.com/
& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia ResearcherAcademia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee
Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.
June 21, 2019
JTV's Oeuvre
JTV's Oeuvre (aka `body of work', as @ 2019)
In reverse order...
About 150+ blog-posts, on my PhD weblog: StoryAlity
About 50+ satirical Short Stories, and Essays, (in various Genres) on the blog: Outrageous Bullshit
A PhD on movie creativity...
A bunch of videogames... (usually, as both Game Designer & Writer)
A satirical novel, about The Simulation Argument, and how the Universe is a videogame: A Meaningless Sequence of Arbitrary Symbols .
A satirical rhyming play about Charles Darwin's visit to Bathurst, in 1836: Darwin Down Under .
A satirical play about Ralf Entwhistle and the Ribbon Gang: The Abercrombie Zombie.
A book, summarizing about 100 Story/Screenwriting Craft books: The Feature Screenwriters' Workbook.
Contributed some songs, on some albums: Texas Radio, and Everything's Okay.
And, created a musical concept-album: Zen Stupidity .
About 30 x feature-length (90 mins) movie screenplays, about 10 x TV series, and about 100 short films... (See: my YouTube channel.)
A bunch of haikus .
A bunch of comics.
Created some words: e.g.: filmovie (a film that's also a movie: i.e., artistic and commercial, at once), humanimal (i.e., human animals, eg, us!)
...Some A.I. (artificial intelligence) programs.
--------------------
And, that's about all I can think of, right now.
I guess I like: creating stuff.
Hey - Here's some cool posts:
On Creativity:StoryAlity #6 – What is Creativity and How Does It Work?StoryAlity #6B – Flow Theory, Creativity and HappinessStoryAlity #7 – On “the 10-Year Rule” and CreativityStoryAlity #8 – More on the 10-Year Rule” and CreativityStoryAlity #8B – On the 10-year-rule and creativity in Standup ComedyStoryAlity #9 – How To Be More CreativeStoryAlity #9B – Creativity in Science (and – The Arts, and Film)StoryAlity #10 – About The Creative PersonalityStoryAlity #11 – Wallas and the Creative ProcessStoryAlity #12 – Combining Practice Theory – and the Systems Model of CreativityStoryAlity #13- Creativity and Solved Domain ProblemsStoryAlity #13B – Creativity, Cinema, Stanley Kubrick & GeniusStoryAlity #14 – On some Romantic myths of CreativityStoryAlity #14B – Creativity – the missing link between “The Two Cultures”StoryAlity #14C – Two Crucial American Psychological Association speeches: J P Guilford (1950) and D T Campbell (1975).StoryAlity #141 – The StoryAlity-Theory `Robo-Raconteur’ artificial-writer
Thanks for reading!
-----------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)
-------------------
`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, asJT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/
& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems TheoristSee: https://storyality.wordpress.com/
& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia ResearcherAcademia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee
Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.
In reverse order...
About 150+ blog-posts, on my PhD weblog: StoryAlity
About 50+ satirical Short Stories, and Essays, (in various Genres) on the blog: Outrageous Bullshit
A PhD on movie creativity...
A bunch of videogames... (usually, as both Game Designer & Writer)
A satirical novel, about The Simulation Argument, and how the Universe is a videogame: A Meaningless Sequence of Arbitrary Symbols .
A satirical rhyming play about Charles Darwin's visit to Bathurst, in 1836: Darwin Down Under .
A satirical play about Ralf Entwhistle and the Ribbon Gang: The Abercrombie Zombie.
A book, summarizing about 100 Story/Screenwriting Craft books: The Feature Screenwriters' Workbook.
Contributed some songs, on some albums: Texas Radio, and Everything's Okay.
And, created a musical concept-album: Zen Stupidity .
About 30 x feature-length (90 mins) movie screenplays, about 10 x TV series, and about 100 short films... (See: my YouTube channel.)
A bunch of haikus .
A bunch of comics.
Created some words: e.g.: filmovie (a film that's also a movie: i.e., artistic and commercial, at once), humanimal (i.e., human animals, eg, us!)
...Some A.I. (artificial intelligence) programs.
--------------------
And, that's about all I can think of, right now.
I guess I like: creating stuff.
Hey - Here's some cool posts:
On Creativity:StoryAlity #6 – What is Creativity and How Does It Work?StoryAlity #6B – Flow Theory, Creativity and HappinessStoryAlity #7 – On “the 10-Year Rule” and CreativityStoryAlity #8 – More on the 10-Year Rule” and CreativityStoryAlity #8B – On the 10-year-rule and creativity in Standup ComedyStoryAlity #9 – How To Be More CreativeStoryAlity #9B – Creativity in Science (and – The Arts, and Film)StoryAlity #10 – About The Creative PersonalityStoryAlity #11 – Wallas and the Creative ProcessStoryAlity #12 – Combining Practice Theory – and the Systems Model of CreativityStoryAlity #13- Creativity and Solved Domain ProblemsStoryAlity #13B – Creativity, Cinema, Stanley Kubrick & GeniusStoryAlity #14 – On some Romantic myths of CreativityStoryAlity #14B – Creativity – the missing link between “The Two Cultures”StoryAlity #14C – Two Crucial American Psychological Association speeches: J P Guilford (1950) and D T Campbell (1975).StoryAlity #141 – The StoryAlity-Theory `Robo-Raconteur’ artificial-writer
Thanks for reading!
-----------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)
-------------------
`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, asJT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/
& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems TheoristSee: https://storyality.wordpress.com/
& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia ResearcherAcademia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee
Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.
June 13, 2019
Book Review: `Machines Like Me' (McEwan 2019)
Book Review: Machines Like Me (McEwan 2019)
So, I just read the novel Machines Like Me (McEwan 2019)...
Machines Like Me (McEwan 2019)
Warning: Spoiler Alerts.
I didn't like it...?
And if, like me, you like robots and AI and utopias, then: don't read it!
It will probably annoy you.
I don't think it fairly represents: robots.
The Premise of the novel is that: A British loser-guy (who's also in love with a woman who lives in his apartment block) buys an android; she helps program it, and then it falls in love with her, so a weird love-triangle ensues. Also: murder, rape, stalking, homeless kids, and, other bad and very depressing stuff. Also anytime something good happens, it soon comes undone.
That's just: depressing.
Okay, so... to be fair.
Well; look - McEwan is hailed as a terrific writer, and, hey - he probably is...?
The prose is: mostly, fine?
Though, quite a few sentences, I had to re-read, till they made sense.
And it was a bit of a chore to read.
So overall, I didn't like the book at all.
I wanted it to be: exhilarating, and enjoyable.
...It's about robots, AI, and the future!
(Well, kind of. In an alternate past, anyways.)
Instead, I found it: horribly depressing...?
(In the same way that I find Martin Amis' Money depressing.)
...Nothing very good ever happens, and, tons of bad stuff does.
Also - it's so (too) serious in tone - there's no funny/lightness in there...
That I can remember, anyway.
So - if you like heavy dark `serious' (downer) literature, then - you may well love it?
I like, optimistic stories - about: A.I., robots, computers, the future, and utopias.
And, I like: happy and funny stuff.
See:
StoryAlity #151 – My article on Stanley Kubrick, Charles Darwin and Joe Campbell’s monomyth, in The Journal of Genius and Eminence (March 2018)StoryAlity #152 – The Holon/Parton Structure of the Meme, or The Unit of Culture. In the book Advanced Methodologies and Technologies in Artificial Intelligence, Computer Simulation, and Human-Computer Interaction (2019)StoryAlity #139 – On the evolution of Darwin’s `Tree of Life’ DiagramStoryAlity#140 – The Evolution of the Systems Model of Creativity (Csikszentmihalyi 1988-onwards)StoryAlity #141 – The StoryAlity-Theory `Robo-Raconteur’ artificial-writerStoryAlity #142 – Our StoryAlity so far – random Technological MarvelsStoryAlity #143 – All of life is doing scienceStoryAlity #144 – The structure of the meme, the unit of culture (in: The Encyclopedia of Information Science & Technology, Velikovsky 2017)StoryAlity #145 – Five views of the monomyth (Velikovsky 2017)For me, the book was just: a very stressful `downer' of a story?
It left me feeling: really depressed...?
I mean sure, why not, show all the ways stuff can go wrong if you screw up, in integrating robots with humans?
But - these then became plot holes in this novel.
...The android manufacturer would have solved all that stuff before release.
OR ELSE - THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE RELEASED THEM YET, AS CONSUMER ITEMS!
Or, they should have monitored the robots (with security cameras everywhere, and make each home a reality-TV show, and have armed guards standing by. But aain this is the dark side of it all. Show how it works, well!)
Also, I had a huge problem with 2 other plot-holes that crop up, about halfway through the book:
Here they come:
1) If, you had a super-intelligent AI robot - and you were a stock-market day-trader (like the main guy, Charlie Friend, is), wouldn't you immediately put the robot to work, doing: that?
In the book, the main guy takes ages, to do that...
(So - I soon felt, the main guy was: just too dumb...? To: care about.)
and,
2) I also felt, once the robot turns all nasty and jealous, and, threatens the main guy, (and snaps his arm!), you'd do something about it, quick.
Like: get the damn cops to come take this (jerky-ass) prick of a robot away, or, call the manufacturer and get a refund, or - jeez, do something?!
So again, the main guy seems: too super-dumb...?
So - because of those 2 huge holes. it lost me, about halfway through.
These are 2 insurmountable plotting (and: character) errors, in my view...
Also - it deals with: rape, and stalking, and homeless kids, and loads of depressing shit like that.
In short - it just wasn't the `fun ride' that I wanted / hoped for :)
Yes - those're all important issues, and all that.
But - this was all too heavy.
...My fave novel is: Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman.
(Yes - it's dark and heavy - but - it's funny. And isn't: a chore to read.)
On the upside, McEwan deals with some current issues, like:
- Universal Basic Income - once we tax the robots! (p. 170)
- Breaking the cycle of inherited privilege (p. 207) - ...but, then, on p 213 he takes it back and calls it a human universal! (...Annoying! STOP IT!)
- He talks about a guy who wrote 50 short stories in his 30s... (p 215, ie - First page of Ch 8)
- He mentions how, Shakespeare kinda ripped off Montaigne (p. 222) - but hey that's (kinda) how creativity works anyway. See: Creative Practice Theory .
- He says: tyrannies decide policy by plebiscites (p 257) - but - we agreed on same-sex marriage in Oz with a plebiscite? But, yes - the Liberal (Conservative) Party are kinda tyrannical jerks anyway. And so is Trump.
- He talks about, a robot practising the art of feeling (p 266). ...WRONG! We need to keep emotions out of robots! But - emotions are just algorithms anyway, so if you DID include them, they'd be easy to mimic? McEwan shoulda done more AI research.
- He finally says, The `Moral' Is - the robots just couldn't handle human-decision-making (with: all of its cognitive bias and emotions, etc). SO, AGAIN - If that was true, then - why'd the manufacturers not test the robots, with humans first? ...Yuuuuge plot-hole... And - It makes robots: look bad.
Or else, is a badly-plotted novel...? Neither of those is: good.
- McEwan has Alan Turing castigate the main dumb-guy (Charlie Friend) because: human brains are way better than robot-brains... See the same point as above! ...It was the manufacturer's fault, for selling them before they were safe...! (pp 302-3).
If so many people read early drafts of this novel and missed that, they're dumb.
Sorry. I'm annoyed.
Also - some of the dialog just doesn't ring true, for some specific characters (e.g. Miranda recounting a memory, also, some stuff the rapist-guy verbally recounts... The dialog there, sounds too much like McEwan, and not those characters, as they're set up.).
Anyway, so, I pretty-much, hated it.
...My own stuff about AI and robots and utopias (etc) is: way better.
So - sorry, anyone, if you wanted me to like this novel.
I didn't.
I also didn't like, a lot of the "Alternate History" stuff.
Though I can see why, McEwan set it in the past...
(Cos if he set it in the future it'd become outdated real quick. So, that was kind of a clever move.)
But - even then - he should've given more reasons why Science and Tech advanced much quicker there, than in our shitty universe...
ie He should have given religion a good serve, for holding science and tech back, for one thing.
He was a friend of Hitch's!
Hey see also, this new religion, I made up: Scientism.
In short - I wanted this novel to be great, as, it's by McEwan after all...(!)
And he's supposed to be: a goddamn literary-genius or something.
So - Sheesh.
So now, I guess it's down to me, to write a great and funny novel about AI and robots and whatnot.
Sorry -- I'm just really disappointed in this novel.
Also - it should have had better `end twists',
Like: Charlie Friend turns out to be an android... P K Dick style.
And Miranda too.
Also you should never name 2 main characters, with the same first letter. I kept getting Miranda and Miriam mixed up. Bad character-name choices. (Sorry.)
Anyway so - this just isn't very good science fiction, sorry.
But hey, thanks for reading!
Also, the robots are coming...
And see
MeToo Gnome
Anyway - I'm not the only one who didn't like it (i.e., Machines Like Me)
See the unfavourable reviews (`Pans') at:
https://bookmarks.reviews/reviews/machines-like-me/
and
https://bookmarks.reviews/point-counterpoint-ian-mcewans-machines-like-me/
~JTV
-----------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)
-------------------
`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, asJT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/
& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems TheoristSee: https://storyality.wordpress.com/
& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia ResearcherAcademia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee
Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.
Anyway the above is probably a satire, that belongs over at Outrageous BS . Unless it isn't. Hard to say.
Either way - I don't think Roko's Basilisk will like Machines Like Me.
So, I just read the novel Machines Like Me (McEwan 2019)...
Machines Like Me (McEwan 2019)
Warning: Spoiler Alerts.
I didn't like it...?
And if, like me, you like robots and AI and utopias, then: don't read it!
It will probably annoy you.
I don't think it fairly represents: robots.
The Premise of the novel is that: A British loser-guy (who's also in love with a woman who lives in his apartment block) buys an android; she helps program it, and then it falls in love with her, so a weird love-triangle ensues. Also: murder, rape, stalking, homeless kids, and, other bad and very depressing stuff. Also anytime something good happens, it soon comes undone.
That's just: depressing.
Okay, so... to be fair.
Well; look - McEwan is hailed as a terrific writer, and, hey - he probably is...?
The prose is: mostly, fine?
Though, quite a few sentences, I had to re-read, till they made sense.
And it was a bit of a chore to read.
So overall, I didn't like the book at all.
I wanted it to be: exhilarating, and enjoyable.
...It's about robots, AI, and the future!
(Well, kind of. In an alternate past, anyways.)
Instead, I found it: horribly depressing...?
(In the same way that I find Martin Amis' Money depressing.)
...Nothing very good ever happens, and, tons of bad stuff does.
Also - it's so (too) serious in tone - there's no funny/lightness in there...
That I can remember, anyway.
So - if you like heavy dark `serious' (downer) literature, then - you may well love it?
I like, optimistic stories - about: A.I., robots, computers, the future, and utopias.
And, I like: happy and funny stuff.
See:
StoryAlity #151 – My article on Stanley Kubrick, Charles Darwin and Joe Campbell’s monomyth, in The Journal of Genius and Eminence (March 2018)StoryAlity #152 – The Holon/Parton Structure of the Meme, or The Unit of Culture. In the book Advanced Methodologies and Technologies in Artificial Intelligence, Computer Simulation, and Human-Computer Interaction (2019)StoryAlity #139 – On the evolution of Darwin’s `Tree of Life’ DiagramStoryAlity#140 – The Evolution of the Systems Model of Creativity (Csikszentmihalyi 1988-onwards)StoryAlity #141 – The StoryAlity-Theory `Robo-Raconteur’ artificial-writerStoryAlity #142 – Our StoryAlity so far – random Technological MarvelsStoryAlity #143 – All of life is doing scienceStoryAlity #144 – The structure of the meme, the unit of culture (in: The Encyclopedia of Information Science & Technology, Velikovsky 2017)StoryAlity #145 – Five views of the monomyth (Velikovsky 2017)For me, the book was just: a very stressful `downer' of a story?
It left me feeling: really depressed...?
I mean sure, why not, show all the ways stuff can go wrong if you screw up, in integrating robots with humans?
But - these then became plot holes in this novel.
...The android manufacturer would have solved all that stuff before release.
OR ELSE - THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE RELEASED THEM YET, AS CONSUMER ITEMS!
Or, they should have monitored the robots (with security cameras everywhere, and make each home a reality-TV show, and have armed guards standing by. But aain this is the dark side of it all. Show how it works, well!)
Also, I had a huge problem with 2 other plot-holes that crop up, about halfway through the book:
Here they come:
1) If, you had a super-intelligent AI robot - and you were a stock-market day-trader (like the main guy, Charlie Friend, is), wouldn't you immediately put the robot to work, doing: that?
In the book, the main guy takes ages, to do that...
(So - I soon felt, the main guy was: just too dumb...? To: care about.)
and,
2) I also felt, once the robot turns all nasty and jealous, and, threatens the main guy, (and snaps his arm!), you'd do something about it, quick.
Like: get the damn cops to come take this (jerky-ass) prick of a robot away, or, call the manufacturer and get a refund, or - jeez, do something?!
So again, the main guy seems: too super-dumb...?
So - because of those 2 huge holes. it lost me, about halfway through.
These are 2 insurmountable plotting (and: character) errors, in my view...
Also - it deals with: rape, and stalking, and homeless kids, and loads of depressing shit like that.
In short - it just wasn't the `fun ride' that I wanted / hoped for :)
Yes - those're all important issues, and all that.
But - this was all too heavy.
...My fave novel is: Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman.
(Yes - it's dark and heavy - but - it's funny. And isn't: a chore to read.)
On the upside, McEwan deals with some current issues, like:
- Universal Basic Income - once we tax the robots! (p. 170)
- Breaking the cycle of inherited privilege (p. 207) - ...but, then, on p 213 he takes it back and calls it a human universal! (...Annoying! STOP IT!)
- He talks about a guy who wrote 50 short stories in his 30s... (p 215, ie - First page of Ch 8)
- He mentions how, Shakespeare kinda ripped off Montaigne (p. 222) - but hey that's (kinda) how creativity works anyway. See: Creative Practice Theory .
- He says: tyrannies decide policy by plebiscites (p 257) - but - we agreed on same-sex marriage in Oz with a plebiscite? But, yes - the Liberal (Conservative) Party are kinda tyrannical jerks anyway. And so is Trump.
- He talks about, a robot practising the art of feeling (p 266). ...WRONG! We need to keep emotions out of robots! But - emotions are just algorithms anyway, so if you DID include them, they'd be easy to mimic? McEwan shoulda done more AI research.
- He finally says, The `Moral' Is - the robots just couldn't handle human-decision-making (with: all of its cognitive bias and emotions, etc). SO, AGAIN - If that was true, then - why'd the manufacturers not test the robots, with humans first? ...Yuuuuge plot-hole... And - It makes robots: look bad.
Or else, is a badly-plotted novel...? Neither of those is: good.
- McEwan has Alan Turing castigate the main dumb-guy (Charlie Friend) because: human brains are way better than robot-brains... See the same point as above! ...It was the manufacturer's fault, for selling them before they were safe...! (pp 302-3).
If so many people read early drafts of this novel and missed that, they're dumb.
Sorry. I'm annoyed.
Also - some of the dialog just doesn't ring true, for some specific characters (e.g. Miranda recounting a memory, also, some stuff the rapist-guy verbally recounts... The dialog there, sounds too much like McEwan, and not those characters, as they're set up.).
Anyway, so, I pretty-much, hated it.
...My own stuff about AI and robots and utopias (etc) is: way better.
So - sorry, anyone, if you wanted me to like this novel.
I didn't.
I also didn't like, a lot of the "Alternate History" stuff.
Though I can see why, McEwan set it in the past...
(Cos if he set it in the future it'd become outdated real quick. So, that was kind of a clever move.)
But - even then - he should've given more reasons why Science and Tech advanced much quicker there, than in our shitty universe...
ie He should have given religion a good serve, for holding science and tech back, for one thing.
He was a friend of Hitch's!
Hey see also, this new religion, I made up: Scientism.
In short - I wanted this novel to be great, as, it's by McEwan after all...(!)
And he's supposed to be: a goddamn literary-genius or something.
So - Sheesh.
So now, I guess it's down to me, to write a great and funny novel about AI and robots and whatnot.
Sorry -- I'm just really disappointed in this novel.
Also - it should have had better `end twists',
Like: Charlie Friend turns out to be an android... P K Dick style.
And Miranda too.
Also you should never name 2 main characters, with the same first letter. I kept getting Miranda and Miriam mixed up. Bad character-name choices. (Sorry.)
Anyway so - this just isn't very good science fiction, sorry.
But hey, thanks for reading!
Also, the robots are coming...
And see
MeToo Gnome
Anyway - I'm not the only one who didn't like it (i.e., Machines Like Me)
See the unfavourable reviews (`Pans') at:
https://bookmarks.reviews/reviews/machines-like-me/
and
https://bookmarks.reviews/point-counterpoint-ian-mcewans-machines-like-me/
~JTV
-----------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)
-------------------
`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, asJT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/
& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems TheoristSee: https://storyality.wordpress.com/
& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia ResearcherAcademia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee
Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.
Anyway the above is probably a satire, that belongs over at Outrageous BS . Unless it isn't. Hard to say.
Either way - I don't think Roko's Basilisk will like Machines Like Me.
