The Cinema Firmament

I am a sucker for the movie montage. I never cease to be enthralled by classic film clips taped together to the accompaniment of a cresendo of violin music. In fact, I don't even mind watching previews or film trailers. I get goose bumps. I do. Of course I'm only thinking about these things becuase of the Oscars last night and no, I don't want to talk about who won or who didn't or what they were wearing or who they were wearing, but I am all for talking nostalgia. I watch the Osacrs now more out of obligation than actual interest, out of hope rather than genuine faith. I watch them on the chance that I might come away infused with some of that good old movie magic, that tingly feeling that means something wonderful has happened. I made it my mission a few years ago to watch all of the films on the American Film Institute's Top 100 list just so that I could catch all of the references, all of the lines, the glances, the subtle nuances of the numerous movie montages dedicated to classic films. And what it comes down to is the instant pay off you get when you boil down a classic to one scene, one moment, one orchestra blaring up over the backdrop of Georgia sunset, one look across the room, one flick of the hair, one dress. I've never minded much the way our emotions are manipulated by those kinds do things, the way we're forced to feel a certain way because the music tells us to. I've always thought it rather wodnerful that we have the ability to be molded that way. Yes, rather wonderful that I can still know something of magic, of make-believe, of Hollywood.

Could I Get the Window Without the Doggie?

I am learning about windows. I want to walk down the street and say ah yes, there is an oculus, that nice oval one there, whereas that, that is a sign of the suburban seep, the casement window. I want to talk about dormers and diocletians and paladian windows. I want to tell you all about them beucase I want to know all about everything. I want to know that hard hats were invented by workers constructing the Hoover Dam. Look at that, I do know that after all.

So I heard that maybe secretly, in some dark cement like place, writers want to be architects, that writers envy the physical, the creation of an actual object versus an idea, a word blurb, a thought bubble. Here I thought all writers, all people on this Earth only ever really aspired to be rock stars. I don't believe writers want to build buildings, not in the literal sense, but it's encouraging to think that people could pine away after such a calculated, intellectual, thin black tie and glasses, kind of lifestyle. I also heard that fifteen year old boys don't dream of becoming essayists, but then maybe they do. Are there people who always wanted to be accountants? I toyed with, still toy with, becoming a dental assistant. I have multiple friends who want to be farmers. Funny that dreams need not be glamorous.

I'm sure it has been said before, many times and more eloquent, subtle ways, but Chicago rises out of the Midwest like the Emerald City. All that green and blue glinting glass. All that steel and wide open sidewalks and space. Everything shimmered there, looked royal there. Of course I have faith in brick and stone because their inherent strength emanates outward. I find beauty in the course red hue of brick, but I am willing to imagine the way Chicago must have felt like several decades ago, like the city of the future, the city rejecting the age old stones rolled up mountains on bent backs and instead built itself like a beacon of light and air.

Taking Flight

So I am off to AWP in Chicago to see what all the hubub is or is not about. I hear it's raining there, and I don't own an umbrella, but I won't let that spoil the trip. The biggest concern really is that my beloved black Chuck Taylors will not be making the trip with me as they are now ripped beyond repair. So little canvas left to them. I don't know how that happened, just a few miss-steps, a few hundred miles up and down and up and down Charles Street last year when I lived far away from campus and had no car and was too afraid to ride the bus. I did give up that fear though and gave public transportation a try. It was like the school bus all over again; the same people every morning except some of them were drunk or homeless, some of them were crazy, some of them told me from time to time to have a blessed day. You know a place that way, what is it they say, about going where the people are, the people on buses, on the light rail, waiting at the crosswalk.

Talk about diving deep into a labyrinth of paths in which every road leads you back to a beginning in a way you can't believe since you made it a point to go in different directions, or in this case, use different search terms. Yes, that's what is has been like trying to find more sites on The Garden of Forking Paths. Every search in some way brings me back to the geocities site I have already commented on. While it's funny considering the story that that should be the case, it's also frustrating that more people haven't taken advantage of the story. I think about this especailly in What turn places us and our narrator in a different part of the story? Or what about objects, such as the letter or the crucial telephone or the encyclopedia that transport us to different sections of the story? Granted the idea behind all of these scenarios is exactly the smae as clicking on a simple word, but I think that because the process of endlessly clicking and reading can be a bit cumbersome, being able to entice the audience with playful visuals would be a great help.

The first site I found about The Garden of Forking Paths was http://www.geocities.com/papanagnou/cover.htm. The gist of the site is that the story is written with various words appearing in color and when those random words are clicked on the text jumps to a different section of the story. The opening paragraph always appears the same, but the remainder of the story can be read in dozens of ways depending on what words you click. It works as an interesting, can I say neat, way of illustrating the story's point about an infinite story, but at the same time it is an impossible site to read. So while it is interesting conceptually, it isn't something you would really want to sit down and read seriously without losing interest. Of course at the same time this layout gives the reader the opportunity to function as the writer and change the story with a click of a button.

I just finished reading The Garden of Forking Paths and having already read it previously in a literary sense, I am now trying to look at it in terms of presenting a story through various mediums. The story itself is fairly straightforward (as well as completely unbelievable) but the ideas about infinite time and unending novels in which characters make not one choice but all choices, fits in perfectly with the internet and the infinite capacity to click on links and be continually transported. What really works for the story is the fact that it is one filled with so many important choices that the narrator must make: where to go when he knows his life is endanger, how to communicate his information to the Germans, whether or not to kill Mr. Albert, the man who knows so much about his ancestry, and so on. Because these choices are so pivotal, it makes it all the more interesting to think about what would happen if they were made differently, if all the possibilities were explored, if the narrator could, as in his ancestor's novel, make every choice.

A deceptively spring like day in the city today. A day when even with no snow, it smelled like thawing, like snow had melted everywhere, like it might rain in the late afternoon and start everything all over again. You can say what you want about winter, about ice scrapers and frozen car doors and salt stains on the bottom of everything you own, but isn't it amazing when it ends. I'm all about winter and not much for spring, but even I like the interim and the transition, that moment like standing in a train station when all the platforms and times flip over and you feel once again like you're going places.

As part of a class assignment, I was asked to search the internet for websites telling narratives, such as the one I hope to create here with my own stories. But, I must confess I am much better at using the web to buy things I don't need with money I don't have, than I am at using the internet as a research tool. Therefore, my finds are not stellar, but I enjoyed them.

The first is Post Secret, which I'm sure most people already know about, but the idea is brilliant and once you start reading people's secrets, it's impossible to stop. What makes the site effective is that the concept behind it, the gimmick of anonymously sending in secrets is, powerful enough to tie readers to people they don't know. Within the space of a postcard we are told a story, and because the story is so short we want to keep reading, keep acquiring secrets, and keep identifying with other people. The internet is all about identification, about a wonderful way to discover all the other people out there like you.


The second site I visited is called Travelogues.net. It is exactly what it says it is, a travelogue of one man's journeys around the world. The site is fairly low-tech, but I love reading first-hand accounts that deal with travel because of the rich opportunities they present to learns about people and places and culture. What I think this site has going for it is its candor. It presents the places in a way that is too informal for a guidebook and thus perfectly suited for the internet.


I have to admit I had a lot of trouble finding good narrative sites, and so my last one is perhaps more of a last-ditch effort, but still worth checking out because of the content. The site is for the quarterly webzine Cafe Irreal, which attempts to challenge the traditional notion of a realistic story and goes against created believable characters and situations. It is not necessarily my kind of fiction, but the point again is that is has found a forum in the internet that it might not have had in print.