tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2046663689477874544.post5046319583737559299..comments2023-11-05T05:01:58.563-05:00Comments on Ward Six: The TruthUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2046663689477874544.post-34222664729646533712008-11-20T09:53:00.000-05:002008-11-20T09:53:00.000-05:00jr: I cannot help but think of the running gag in ...jr: I cannot help but think of the running gag in Woody Allen's "Love and Death", regarding objectivity:<BR/><BR/>"...but murder is immoral!"<BR/>"Morality is subjective."<BR/>"Subjectivity is objective!"Matthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12235525041894772335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2046663689477874544.post-63705736593552069802008-11-20T09:46:00.000-05:002008-11-20T09:46:00.000-05:00Okay, that's OTT.Okay, that's OTT.rmellishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03133206908895131438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2046663689477874544.post-70208478725738510452008-11-20T09:14:00.000-05:002008-11-20T09:14:00.000-05:00Damn, girl, you're GOOD."Maybe someday, I realized...Damn, girl, you're GOOD.<BR/><BR/>"Maybe someday, I realized, Mother and I would come to a new understanding: for her, a way to see that I really was my own man; for me, to know the struggle she had gone through to raise me. But for now, I simply put the necklace back into the safe, tiptoed out the door, and shed a single, very masculine, tear."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2046663689477874544.post-53064514190621240172008-11-20T09:10:00.000-05:002008-11-20T09:10:00.000-05:00Is there some kind of contest for precious endings...Is there some kind of contest for precious endings? I know there's the Bulwer Lytton prize for cheesy opening lines, and that other one for skeeviest sex scene. If there's not one for horridly cutesy endings, there really should be.AChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15077988599467518893noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2046663689477874544.post-9297158500996483712008-11-20T08:58:00.000-05:002008-11-20T08:58:00.000-05:00"As I gazed across the golden landscape, I realize..."As I gazed across the golden landscape, I realized that we were all One. One."rmellishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03133206908895131438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2046663689477874544.post-72276597116871205672008-11-20T08:10:00.000-05:002008-11-20T08:10:00.000-05:00I should add that one of the reasons this preoccup...I should add that one of the reasons this preoccupies me is that I'm soon to start working on a novel about a documentary filmmaker...all this stuff is going to come into play. I am increasingly interested in the impossibility of objectivity...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2046663689477874544.post-82963559703296710112008-11-19T23:28:00.000-05:002008-11-19T23:28:00.000-05:00You did not write that. I refuse to believe it. ...You did not write that. I refuse to believe it. Well, I believe the extra cheese part, but nothing else.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2046663689477874544.post-80826001780500378082008-11-19T18:00:00.000-05:002008-11-19T18:00:00.000-05:00I feel the same way about documentaries as you do ...I feel the same way about documentaries as you do about "personal essays". Unless the filmmaker decides to let the camera roll and do it all in one take, without sound design or music added (a more hardcore Dogme 95 in some sense) then it's being manipulated. <BR/><BR/>But some of those manipulations are beautiful. It's not a question of "you might as well write fiction" but rather that "you might as well indulge in your personal essay", which is not to say you should be untruthful, but rather more passionate or articulate than you (or I or most people) are in waking life.<BR/><BR/>Just a thought.Matthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12235525041894772335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2046663689477874544.post-11820179623501162882008-11-19T17:32:00.000-05:002008-11-19T17:32:00.000-05:00"Then I tousled Jacob's hair and we went out and g..."Then I tousled Jacob's hair and we went out and got hamburgers together -- with extra cheese! Like father, like son."rmellishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03133206908895131438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2046663689477874544.post-40666197995254372912008-11-19T17:06:00.000-05:002008-11-19T17:06:00.000-05:00JR -- I like your blog essays (a while back there ...JR -- I like your blog essays (a while back there was one on your love of polaroids I particularly liked), so I think you already do that kind of thing.<BR/><BR/>Anyway, I don't think the most important thing about an essay is whether it's "true" or not. It's whether it's interesting. For me, that means the writer has an opinion about something I don't know a lot about, and then tells me why I should care, or at least keep reading the essay. Do you remember that Nicholson Baker essay in the New Yorker about card catalogs? Now THERE's an essay -- about a weird subject, and then about something sort of universal, and all wrapped up in really good writing. Write one of those!! <BR/><BR/>I'm not so interested in memoir. I don't know if this is what Riann means, but I think the stuff that happens to people is almost always more compelling when it appears in a novel or a story. <BR/><BR/>And, finally, I want an example of a cutesy ending!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2046663689477874544.post-22106250010601862042008-11-19T17:02:00.000-05:002008-11-19T17:02:00.000-05:00Yeah, you're right about the cute endings. I wasn...Yeah, you're right about the cute endings. I wasn't really going to use them.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2046663689477874544.post-85351122384521384232008-11-19T16:41:00.000-05:002008-11-19T16:41:00.000-05:00"Embrace the winking non-truth"? No way! No, reall..."Embrace the winking non-truth"? No way! No, really: no way. I know it's an unpopular stance these days, but I think the line between fiction and non should be fast and clear. Okay, fiction can have true bits, but non-fiction cannot distort reality. YOUR reality, anyway.<BR/><BR/>Truth-fudging went out with the Bush administration.<BR/><BR/>Write yr essays, but don't put on those cutesy endings. They suck, they really do.rmellishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03133206908895131438noreply@blogger.com