Saturday, May 20, 2006
So what's the STORY here....
So what's the story here, cat?
I had a posting comments exchange with BrownShoes a couple days ago about the possible demise of the TV program 'Invasion' that we've been following this season. I was grumbling about how little the audience mattered to the networks compared to 'the bottom line'. The concept of stopping in the middle of a story and walking away continues to outrage me. My mind was creating little hells for the evil hobgoblins of commercial TV and thinking They wouldn't do this to us over on HBO ... those guys know which side their bread is buttered on, but then I remembered 'Carnivale ' ... and how it died after three seasons and left us shaking our heads and muttering "Wha hoppin'?"
I propose that not only do we need water, dreams, and companions to survive in this world, we also need story. We are what we are because of story. Uninterrupted, unabbreviated story. Story carried to an ending. A conclusion. Story that remembered, if not the descent from the trees, the refuge the tree offered during the murderous nights. Story that carried knowledge forward from mind to mind for millenium after millenium with no tool but the passage of spoken word. Story that defined us in our many ways. Story that provided us with emotional roadmaps and gave us an ongoing relatedness. Perhaps our ability to contemplate the past and the future are artifacts of early rudimentary story evolving its form.
The 'book' remains a better bet than the TV as a transporter of story. No publisher would say --
"I think we're going to start losing our audience around page 423 ... so let's just toss the last 212 pages in the trash and go with what we've got ... the bottom line will be served."
Or an Indian story teller relating the tale of The Old Boogie Woman around a tribal fire .... and his sponsor, the arrowhead maker, waves him to a halt mid-story because arrowhead sales have fallen off. That would have created a very angry tribal society and maybe a thump on the arrowhead maker's skull with a slave-killer!
Story is a precious thing to humankind and those who deign to utilize it oughtn't be pissing around with it.
We are 'story' .... I am story. I create my story. I pick and choose elements from my past and present them as my story. Here, listen ... this is me. Behold my words ... and be moved with wonder! I am my story. Without it, I am just an upright omnivore walking around a carnivore ruled world at a distinct disadvantage.
I love NoApologie's story of the failed Big Event Project ... the iMovie. A story with all the elements .... here is what we planned and labored over, and here is where it broke down and failed, and HERE is what we did about it and HERE is the glory that we snatched from the slavering jaws of defeat.
Life holds so few real opportunities to use the word 'slavering'. Most of its life, as a word, is bound to story. Slavering. Brings up images of rabid coyotes, Cujo, and what teenage boys in the late forties did over their squirreled away pictures of Jane Russell in 'Outlaw'.
Photo by FossilGuy ... taken yesterday with my new Canon S2 digital .... crude mural on a concrete bulkhead tucked in behind Sheridan Park Community Center, Bremerton, WA
# posted by Clear Creek Girl : 9:22 AM
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As you know, I could not agree more FG.
Well written.
I am going to be very angry if we never get to know what happens next out there in the hybridized swamplands...
bs
To be a person is to have a story to tell. – Isak Dinesen
Well written.
I am going to be very angry if we never get to know what happens next out there in the hybridized swamplands...
bs
To be a person is to have a story to tell. – Isak Dinesen
Oh,yesserree, I am mad as hell about this ending to Invasion that wasn't an ending! I watched it the other night and because I knew they probably were not going to bring it back, I watched it as if it was the last one and damn it all to hell, all we got was Sheriff putting pregnant Ranger's wife in the water and no ending!!!! Of course, she will live, but what of the baby? What of her husband and her step-children? What about Lewis the one-armed loyal fellow? What about Sheriff who finally saw the Light? Okay, so Zero or whatever his name is, is dead, but what about all those others that went into the water? What about all those "babies" those women had in their bellies, who were dragged away by the "manta rays" that glowed and had claws???? What about it?
FG, I think you should send your blog to the network! If nothing else, you will have satisfied our need to protest!
P.S: that Canon is taking some pretty nifty photos.
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FG, I think you should send your blog to the network! If nothing else, you will have satisfied our need to protest!
P.S: that Canon is taking some pretty nifty photos.
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