Art vs Entertainment

Anyone who knows me knows I love the cinema. The stage, I think, is the ultimate medium for acting, and the book the ultimate medium for storytelling, but when done right, film is the perfect marriage of those two. I was reading a review the other day of a film I'd never seen before. The film sounds brilliant, and I moved it square to the top of my Netflix queue, but it's not the film itself that's important. Near the end of the review, the reviewer said something along the lines of, "Entertainment presents an ideal with some sort of message. Art just shows you stuff, no strings attached". I wish I could remember who it was or where I read it so I could give them due credit, but alas, the names escape me at the moment.

To go back to that misquote for a second, that isn't to say art is just sticking a camera in front of a tree and showing you two and a half hours of the tree's life. Entertainment is something like A Fistful of Dollars. A masterful, genius piece of work, but at the end of the day it still draws some sort of line between good and evil and the good still comes out on top, even if the good isn't exactly righteous. It's nice to think things work out like that. Often times things do. But life is harsh. Art reflects this. Art is like my personal favorite film -- The Bridge on the River Kwai. The film follows some entertainment bylines for a while, but by the end, it's done with trying to spin anything. It's simply reflecting the harsh reality of the situation, and the last line of the film sums it up perfectly: "Madness".

But now I'm wondering, can we apply these labels to literature? In a way we already do. Classics like Wuthering Heights or War and Peace are deemed masterpieces, triumphs of art. Fun romps like Live and Let Die are labeled pulp. Obviously film and literature are different beasts and regardless of which one we're trying to label, the above definitions don't fit all things perfectly. But it's got me thinking now. Can we use the above for literature? Art reflects reality, no spin, no message, no ideal or moral, just a nice big canvas of grey. Entertainment likes to turn into a panda bear. Or do the definitions of art and entertainment when it comes to literature have to be something different?

In a way I would think they do. Like I said, film and literature are very different beasts. For one thing, I think all novels would be entertainment if we went by the above. I have never read a novel which didn't have some degree of spin. Even memoirs and autobiographies usually have a little bit of something tucked away somewhere. Maybe it's impossible for a book to be art. Maybe, at the end of the day, literature needs some sort of message. It doesn't necessarily have to be allegorical -- it's not as if we're all writing 1984 -- but even I'm guilty of injecting the ideal. My story ain't pretty, and it's not like the heroes go riding off into the sunset or anything, but at the end of the day the good guys still win on some level. I'm willing to wager anything anyone out there is writing is the same. Even masterworks like War and Peace, which ain't exactly happy, ends with some degree of goodness.

But how else could we define art and entertainment? We could say art carries a "heavy" message; something of importance, of value. Entertainment is just that, entertainment. By that token, 1984 is art and The Murder on the Links is entertainment.

At the end of the day, I don't think either definition, or any others I can cook up, are right. At the end of the day, I don't think literature is ever art. I don't think it's ever entertainment either. Pulp or masterpiece, it's all just a piece of the author.

My characters

It dawned on me today that I have a flair for unintentional puns.

My late 19th century/early 20th century style detective I knew I wanted to name Ian. But he needed a surname. I was visiting friends in the UK and one day we were bumming around London looking for something to do and lo and behold, we come upon a school with the greatest name ever. Goodenough College, named for a man whose surname really was Goodenough. I just knew I had to use it. And so bam, Ian Goodenough. Only way that could be better is if his name were Evan.

Current protagonist, after many names changes, has finally settled into Daniel Cross. Not that hilarious on its own. But! his older brother's name is Zeke, short for Ezekiel. Daniel and Ezekiel Cross.

I don't know why my brain insists upon doing this, but I'm glad it does. Also for some reason I have this really sexy techno beat in my head. I wish I remembered more from my old band days so I could jot it down. I know it's a long shot and frankly I don't think I'll ever be good enough to be published, but if by the grace of whatever god or gods you believe in I am published and I get a series and said series becomes a TV show, I would love for this to be the theme. It's just grand.

I Drive Myself Insane

It's like my brain is a steam engine, my hands are a couple of horses, and the rest of me is hauling ass in a stagecoach from somewhere way, way back. Ugh. I should probably explain what I'm talking about. With my MS, where I am right now, my main character and his partner (okay, technically speaking Daniel is Paul's partner; semantics) have arrived at the house of the Brown family to go through the usual routine questions and then kick-off a missing persons case for their 14-year-old girl. Where my brain is, the missing persons case has evolved considerably, the red herring I planted has been outed, and the killer has all ready struck once, and although the events surrounding it aren't there yet the details of how the next victim is killed are all ready in my mind. I want to catch up with where my brain is...but I just can't. Not as quickly as I would like to. Where my brain is is considerably down the line in the novel. No one's turning up dead for a while, either. I wish they would though, mostly because more than anything, I just love the way in which these two vics turn up dead. Le sigh. I'm just going to have to keep plodding through until I finally catch up to my brain, which probably won't be until she's pulled into station.

Metropolis

I am a huge Fritz Lang fan, and as any Lang fan knows, recently the complete, original cut of Metropolis has been found and restored. TCM will be showing it at their film festival this April, but it's being shown at the Berlin film festival right now. Live stream kindly provided by the French channel Arte.

How important are the liberal arts?

A few weeks, maybe even a month ago, I was driving home from somewhere with my grandma. Somehow we got on to the topic of discussing my college plans, being that this year is my final year of high school. I told her the one college I really want to go to is the University of East Anglia but I have a lot of back-ups in New England, but that I didn't apply to any of them because for UEA I want to save up money for moving costs first, and in the case of the New England colleges I wanted to visit them, but still hadn't been out as mom hadn't taken me. In hindsight, I could've just paid for a ticket myself and gotten one of my several relatives who live in Massachusetts to take me around. Uncle Rick or my cousin Kim would've been more than happy to. But it's whatever. Anyway, back to the story. Being that I'm not going away to college come autumn, much as I want to, I'm going to community college. I figure this is a good thing because I can get the necessary credits out of the way for courses I suck at, like math. Didn't say this to her, mind. When I told her about going to community college, she said that it was a good idea, because then I could get "all that liberal arts nonsense done with and take real classes."

As a writer, I obviously took offence to this. As someone who is planning to major in English literature, I took offence to this. Being that it was my grandmother, I just nodded and smiled. Okay, mum-mum, whatever you say, and all that. But last night I was thinking about that, and to mind came one question: How important are the liberal arts? I don't mean how important are things like writing and drama in the real world. Drama, perhaps, you could make a case for as being useless, the same for painters and sculptors...I wouldn't, but you could. But literature would be a very hard thing to make a case for as being useless. So no, I don't mean the liberal arts are of no value to the real world. I mean how important are liberal arts courses? Creative writing, is that really necessary?

At the end of the day, I say the liberal arts are important, even in schools. I say this because, A. Liberal arts, traditionally, are simply the classical education structure. You know what that consists of? Grammar, rhetoric, logic, geometry, arithmetic, music, and astronomy. and B. I'm a writer. Of course I'm going to say I want courses that pander to my tastes. I have a vested interest; sue me.

Although I doubt I need to explain further, just to be clear, the liberal arts are no longer the classical system. Liberal arts denotes a curriculum that imparts general knowledge and increases intellectual abilities rather than teaching a student some professional or technical skill. These days it's things like literature, philosophy, and history. So I pose my question to the thin air and maybe readers: How important are the liberal arts?

Hooray for narcissism (kinda)

So, I was tagged in another one of those "reveal X things about yourself" on Facebook, but I've done so many of those FB quiz things out of boredom, I don't feel like cluttering my FB up with more of them. But I am still bored, so I'm going to do this here, for the thin air that may or may not eventually materialize into people. Kind of hoping you don't, Mr Thin Air, sir. Probably make them think I'm a bigger nut than they already do (which still wouldn't be the half of how nutso I am).

On the player now: Frank Sinatra - You're Awful

1. My paternal grandfather's side of the family, from which we derive our surname, slept around a lot. From his side of the family we have 54 countries which are considered "valid" when declaring bloodlines.

2. Conversely, my paternal grandmother's side of the family consists of only two countries: Scotland and Wales. Wales is only in there because when the King was on a rampage through Scotland razing everything in his path, we got the fuck out of there and lived in Wales for a couple of decades before returning to Fife.

3. I am descended of the Clan MacDuff, who were the Earls of Fife, and if the position still existed today I would have been 6th in line for it, but seeing as everyone else eligible died by the time I was 15, I could've become an Earl at 15. Also, I would've been a Viscount until that point. Sometimes I like to call myself an Earl, because c'mon, have you ever had a title of nobility? Greatest feeling EVER.

4. I am terrible at making decisions. I once stood in the local Genaurdi's for forty minutes debating whether I wanted to buy Honey Nut Cheerios or Peanut Butter Crunch.

5. I somehow manage to pick the most retarded pets from the local SPCA. My dog is just plain stupid. My one cat is the living definition of scaredy cat. My other cat has to have been dropped on her head as kitten. But I love them all and it's totally going to suck when they eventually die (though hopefully that's a long while off for all of them).

6. I kind of want to be given a funeral pyre on top of some ridiculously large building when I die, like the Empire State Building or the Eiffel Tower or something. It seems like a cool place to have a final service. Although I'm not sure any city would let you burn a dead body thousands of feet above their denizens.

On the player now: The Enemy - Be Somebody

7. I have only had the flu once in my life. My fever was never lower than 102 when I was sick and at its worst it hit 105. On that day when it hit 105, I sat down in the kitchen and had a three hour long argument with my fridge.

8. My diction is weird. It's a blend of the Norwich, Philadelphia, and Sheffield dialects, Scots, Latin, ancient Greek, and Japanese. How anyone can understand a word out of my mouth is beyond me.

9. I write crime fiction. So far unpublished but hoping to change that (to be fair I have yet to even complete a WIP of crime fiction, before this I wrote medieval fantasy, but that was way back in the day).

10. I consider myself a philosophical theist. A philosophical theist is someone who has pretty much the same mentality as a freethinker, but whereas freethinkers say there is no possibility for a deity because of lack of evidence, philosophical theists either take an agnostic approach and say we simply don't have the means to find evidence for a deity yet or they take the approach I take: blind statement that there is some form of deity (whether it be singular or plural). Philosophical theists also place no basis in religious tradition or organizations -- i.e. a philosophical theist could say Christians have the right idea about the nature of God, but the religion itself is wrong.

On the player now: Give Up the Funk - Parliament

11. I like to think if there is a form of deity, it's the ancient Norse ones. I dabbled in so many religions after I gave up Christianity, and the Norse were the closest to getting me, but I just can't dig the whole religion thing. Maybe some day I'll be praising Odin.

12. My first car was a 1994 Honda Accord. Originally my mom's, who took poor care of it, and then my sister's, who ran it into the ground. I was going to fix it up but it's just not worth it, so it sits in the driveway. Right now it's buried under a bajillion feet of snow thanks to the blizzards we got on Friday/Saturday and Tuesday/Wednesday. I have yet to get a second car, so I guess I shouldn't have said "was".

13. It amuses me that I'm sharing these semi-personal pieces of minutiae when just yesterday there was a discussion on Nathan's blog about authors' privacy and where to draw the line. Irony thy name be me.

14. My name uses the French/Italian spelling. NOT THE ENGLISH. You have no idea how crazy it makes me when people write my name with an H. I kind of want to thwap them with one of the pens I always keep handy (hey, I'm a writer. we never know when we'll need one).

15. I am studying Esperanto. It's very slow going, because like everything else I undertake, I get distracted by so many things. Actually I haven't done an Esperanto lesson in a week. Another one is not foreseeable in the near future.

16. When I'm home alone, I like to sing through everything I do. Sometimes it's simple singing narration of whatever I'm doing. Sometimes I break out into opera, though. This morning I sang Recondita armonia while cooking breakfast.

On the player now: Pavarotti - Nessun Dorma

17. I wish being a philosopher like Aristotle was still a valid job. I mean, I know he was a polymath and did other stuff, but the majority of the time I don't spend writing or distracting myself with games/TV, I'm pondering things about existence. Most of what I could come up with has probably already been said, but that would be the second best job in the world. Writing being the greatest, of course.

18. I play a lot of instruments. Bagpipes, ocarina, piano, violin, and trombone are the instruments I play most often. I suck at all but trombone and ocarina. Working on violin (I only just bought it this past December).

19. I have severe acrophobia. I'm also a herpetophobe. Those are the fear of heights and the fear of reptiles, respectively.

20. I am forever drawing and re-drawing the plans to my dream home. Generally it doesn't change much, but I like to keep it fresh in mind, should I ever have the money for it. It's pretty much just a big tudor house with a fairly simplistic and old fashioned interior, with every room perfectly suited to my needs. The largest room is the library, and even then I think I'd run out of space. I have over 300 books in my bedroom at present, and my collection shall continue to grow all my life.

21. I kind of want to go to the University of East Anglia for literature. However, much as I love the UK I'm not entirely sure I want to leave the US forever, and if I attend university in the UK I will end up living over there. If not forever, at least until I can afford to move back to the US, which will probably take a long time.

22. Near the top of my list of places I still have to visit is Dartmoor. Can you tell I'm an Arthur Conan Doyle lover?

23. Some psychologists think I have mild Asperger Syndrome. No across the board confirmation yet.

24. As a crime writer, I spend a lot of time devising ways to kill people. Sometimes this involves getting interactive. Once, while I was walking through how a killer would take out his third victim, I got so wrapped up in plotting the kill in the air behind this one girl at school (she had no idea what I was up to, bear in mind) that I followed her into the women's room without thinking about. I'm sure you can guess how this story ended.

25. Thanks to a variety of reasons, I pretty much became a recluse during middle school. Since I spend the majority of my free time at home not really talking to anyone, I talk way too much when I see my friends. I usually talk really, really fast and without pause, too. I pretty much stop to breathe only when I'm about to suffocate on my own talking.

Feel free to ask any questions in the comments, if there are any of you. I may totally ignore your question, though, if for whatever reason I don't feel like answering it. Usually this would only be if I feel it crosses some line, but sometimes I just get lazy.

Tah-tah for now.

Just A Little Update on Liverpool

Because I haven't posted in a very long time indeed. Keep meaning to. Got a few post drafts saved but I just can't seem to bring myself to actually write any of these. For those of you who don't follow, Liverpool brought in glorious victory over Man U the week after my anger post, lost on All Hallow's Eve, and tied things up on the 9th. So yes, things haven't been going too hot this season indeed, although it's becoming apparent it's for reasons other than Liverpool being a two-man team, thankfully. Anyway, as of last game, here are the Premier League rankings:

1 Chelsea 12 10 0 2 29 8 +21 30 2010–11 UEFA Champions League Group stage
2 Arsenal 11 8 1 2 36 14 +22 25
3 Manchester United 12 8 1 3 23 12 +11 25
4 Tottenham Hotspur 12 7 1 4 23 17 +6 22 2010–11 UEFA Champions League Play-off round
5 Aston Villa 12 6 3 3 20 12 +8 21 2010–11 UEFA Europa League Play-off round
6 Manchester City 11 5 5 1 21 14 +7 20
7 Liverpool 12 6 1 5 27 18 +9 19
8 Sunderland 12 5 2 5 20 19 +1 17
9 Stoke City 12 4 4 4 12 15 −3 16
10 Burnley 12 5 1 6 15 25 −10 16
11 Fulham 11 4 3 4 14 14 0 15
12 Everton 11 4 3 4 15 17 −2 15
13 Wigan Athletic 12 4 2 6 13 22 −9 14
14 Blackburn Rovers 11 4 1 6 14 25 −11 13
15 Birmingham City 12 3 3 6 10 14 −4 12
16 Bolton Wanderers 11 3 2 6 15 24 −9 11
17 Hull City 12 3 2 7 10 25 −15 11
18 West Ham United 12 2 4 6 16 20 −4 10 Relegation to 2010–11 Football League Championship
19 Wolverhampton Wanderers 12 2 4 6 12 22 −10 10
20 Portsmouth 12 2 1 9 10 18 −8 7

Which can be read in a neater format on Wikipedia.

So we're 7th right now, with a game against Man City next Saturday. I am PRAYING for a win. I am hopeful, nay, I am CERTAIN Liverpool will win. And a win against Man City could be enough to make the teams swap places. Then the Reds just need to knock Aston Villa out of the way. As long as we score enough points to keep in the top 5, I'll be content. Of course I'd be happy even if the Reds end up at #20. Once a Red, always a Red. But I'd really like to see the team go on to the top five again.