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A Rant About Writing.
Posted Aug 1, 2003
I'd like to talk about literature for a moment, particularly 'The Catcher in the Rye,' by JD Salinger. A lot of people babble on about how brilliant it is, but the fact of the matter is that is is quite simply one of the worst books ever written. It should in fact go like this: 'I got expelled from school for the quintillionth time, this time right before the holidays started. I didn't want to go home right away so I just went around and drank and smoked a bit. I did eventually go home to meet my sister but I swore her to secrecy about me returning.' and you wouldn't lose anything. The quality of writing is poor, what passes for a plot is vague and uninteresting, the main character is a complete hypocrite, characterisation is non-existent, and overall the book seems more concerned with hidden meanings than the actual story. Now, in my opinion, the main point of books is to tell a story, not to make a statement (unless they're actually non-fiction, of course), and so any hidden meanings should comlement the story, not take precedence over it. After all, books are just our way of preserving and telling stories whish were originally told by bards, seanchaí, travelling storytellers and poets, etc., and these guys weren't slightly interested in hidden meanings.
So why is that all of a sudden a book must have myriad secret meanings, statements, and metaphors if it is to be considered good? This is not to say that I dislike all books with hidden meanings - in the same year as I read 'TCITR,' I also read John Steinbeck's 'Of Mice And Men' and thouroughly enjoyed it. Now that's a book in which the story and hidden meanings work together rather than in opposition. Now, to get back to a point about a book not being considered good without hidden meanings, etc., people have found a lot of hidden meanings in 'The Lord Of The Rings' despite JRR Tolkien explicitly saying at the start of it that there are not any. I think that this is because a group of pretentious English proffessors somewhere like Oxford (I'm not saying anything bad about Oxford here, merely that somewhere like Oxford may be some of the people I'm talking about) decided that only books with the afformentioned hidden meanings could be good, so then when they read and enjoyed 'TLOTR,' they noticed there were no hidden meanings and so had to invent some in order to justify their enjoyment of it.
In the preface to 'The Stand,' Stephen King describes a hack as 'an artist whose worl is appreciated by too many people,' which is why the so-called exprets in Literature hate him, but he has legions of loyal fans who are all waiting on tenterhooks for his next book to come out. In the introduction the 'Nightmares and Dreamscapes,' a collection of short stories, he describes a literary anorexia that has descended on the world, whereby the critics seem to <quote> 'regard generosity with suspicion, texture with dislike, and any broad literary stroke with outright hate' . He then says that he may be just a little bit mad at being badly treated by the critics, but I feel that what he has written here really rings a bell when talking about 'TCITR'. Now don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with having hiddne meanings in books, even writing books to make a point ('OMAM' comes instantly to mind), but to return to my original point, when a writer decides to take a point and write a (bad) book around it, the result is the terrible 'TCITR'. The book supposedly aims to highlight the problems of growing up, but if you really want to know about that, why not just ask a teenager? I know I could do a much better job of expressing the insanity and angst present in all adolescents than some guy who clearly hasn't talked to one for maybe seven hundred years.
To round off this little rant, I would like to complain about so-caled originality in writing. I often read about books which numerous critics say are completely original, and I always have to laugh. These books are all realistic, which really kills almost all potential for originality. What about the numerous fantasy, science fiction, and to a lesser extent horror novels all over the bookshelves? These have the most incredible ideas contained in them, and yet are all but ignored outside the dedicated fantasy/scifi/horror magazines and publications. These rae far more original, and frequntly more interesting and exciting as well as better written than a lot of critically acclaimed books, yet they receive significantly less attention. This is a serious injustice. The main point of books is to escpae from reality, but how can we when so many writers seem intent on keeping us up to date on just how horrible things could be and and telling us what the world's like?
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Latest reply: Aug 1, 2003
Answers to Unanswerable Questions
Posted Jul 24, 2003
Here, I have decided to answer some unanswerable questions, and then provide a humerous spin on them. Here goes:
1) What is the sound of one hand clapping? No sound at all. Many of you have seen the episode of The Simpsons where Bart answers the question, but he's wrong, that's not one hand clapping, that's rpaidly closing and unclosing your fist. Start clapping normally. Now remove one hand. You are left with one hand clapping, whcih makes no sound at all.
2) If a tree falls in the woods and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? Yes. Sound is a vibration of air molecules, which would be produced by any tree falling, or indeed anything falling at all. Just because no one expreiences it doesn't mean it's not there. If that were true, then nothing exists outside the room I'm in now, which is ridiculous, as my sister could come in at any moment, but could not if she did not exist, plus I can leave the room and do talk to her. *Does so.* Well, I'm back, and stuff does exist outside this room, hence a tree always makes a sound when it falls.
3) How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? No idea, but wouldn't you think angels would have better stuff to do?
And now for the humerous twists:
1a) What is the sound of one ass cheek farting?
2a) If a tree falls in the woods and there's no one there to hear it and it hits a pop star, does anyone care?
3a) How long can demons dance on the head of a pin before they kill each other?
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Latest reply: Jul 24, 2003
The Downfall of Harry Potter
Posted Jul 22, 2003
This was written by a friend of mine IRL and could at one point be found at http://www.schwoom.com . It is a joke based on the opening scene from The Naked Gun 33 1/3 and I do not mean to offend Harry Potter fans. The original author is a big fan himself.
6:59 pm.
Harry sat in Hogwarts cafeteria, regarding his dinner. He had the feeling that something bad was going to happen soon, but he wasn't quite sure what. He had a fairly good idea, though.
7:00 pm
"Look out everyone, it's Voldemort," shouted a nameless person from the back of the room. With an exasperated sigh, Harry got up, pointed his wand at the fiend, and let rip a few arcane words. Sparks leapt from his wand and engulfed Voldemort, thus ending that nightmare.
"Oh my God, it's Dracula!" shouted the same person. Harry pointed his wand at the newcomer, uttered some more arcane words, and Dracula vanished in a puff of smoke.
"And Sauron!" Harry, now growing weary, pointed his wand at the foul lord of Mordor, uttered a few very powerful magick words, and banished the dark lord forever.
"And Carrie!" Where had he heard that before? It was in some book by something King, wasn't it? The red-haired girl floated into the room and furniture flew everywhere. Harry readied his wand, but at that moment a table fell on him and broke his spellcasting arm. Then, just when everything looked its darkest, the great grandfather clock fell and crushed her. That was somewhat unsatisfying, having the evil nemesis defeated by something other than his own magick.
"Oh no! Creatures from every other fantasy WAAGH my spleen!" And then in rushed more creatures than anyone at Hogwarts had ever seen, with angels alongside demons, elves alongside orcs, Italian plumbers alongside blue hedgehogs, Autobots alongside Decepticons, bounty hunters alongside space pirates, English alongside Irish, fairies alongside humans, and a guy in orange with the word 'Wizzard' written across his hat. And at that moment, Harry Potter woke up to find Dumbledore beside his bed.
"Oh, Professor, Dumbledore, I had the most horrible dream. I dreamt that Voldemort was attacking again."
"Don't worry, Harry. You killed Voldemort, remember?"
"And...and then there was Dracula... and Sauron..."
"Don't worry, they're just fictional characters."
"And Carrie..."
"Another fictional character."
And at that moment, creatures from every other fantasy world burst in the door, killed Dumbledore, and for the first time in his eighteen years, Harry Potter swore.
"Oh, s**t!"
The last thing he was aware of was an orange hat with the word 'Wizzard' written across the top, bearing down upon him.
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Latest reply: Jul 22, 2003
Demonic Philosphy
Posted Jul 15, 2003
The world is endlessly dividing series of factions, groups, rivalries, and factions within factions but in the end, we're all alone. Ultimately, each of us is a faction of one - Philosophy of Malphas, Demon Prince of Factions.
What do you think?
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Latest reply: Jul 15, 2003
The Air Show
Posted Jul 7, 2003
Yesterday I went to see the Salthill Air Show in Galway city, which is the biggest free air show in all of Europe. I didn't see all of it, but what I did see was more than worth it. There were some people protesting the presence of war planes in Galway, but no one was paying any attention to them. All eyes were on the sky. First up I saw two F-18s flying around and making a lot of noise. Cool planes. Next up were some surprisingly fast propeller planes, which performed various stunts, and were quite impressive. After this was a display of the A-10 Thunderbolt II, better known as the Warthog. This is a very big, very slow plane used for attacking tanks, and gets its name from being the ugliest plane ever. It is also used for search and rescue operations at sea, finding the people in danger and sending their location back to base. My dad said that the shape of its undercarriage containers would allow it to land on water. The pilot sits in a titanium tub to protect him from hostile fire.
The highlight of the show was undoubtedly the performance by none other than the world-famous Red Arrows themselves! The clouds had cleared up by the time they went on, which was fortunate because if they hadn't we would never have seen their incredible, heart-stopping stunts. Their death defying feats of aerobatics provided an incredible feast for the eyes. For example, five of them were flying in a pentagon to the north and another one flew right through the middle of them towards the south, and they never collided. Consider they were hurtling through the air at over 500 kph with less than a metre between them, and it sounds a lot more impressive, but to really appreciate the heart stopping excitement, you had to be there. A similar trick, called the 'Opposition Barrel Roll,' was performed several times, whereby two jets fly directly towards each other and, at the last microsecond, pull into sideways positions and fly directly past each other. It almost seemed they were >trying< to crash, and it was 
ing amazing that they didn't!
At another point, three of them, trailing red smoke, drew a heart with an arrow through it in the sky for all the ladies who were watching. They also performed their trademark move, the 'Starburst.' The way that works is, the planes get into an arrow formation and fly vertically, trailing alternating red, white, and blue smoke. As they rise, the two on the outside pull away to the side. A little further up, the two now on the outside pull away again. The rest continue to rise, eventually turning upside down at right angles to the way they were going and heading back to Earth. The whole stunt, and the smoke trail they leave behind, is truly a sight to behold and experience, though unfortunately the sheer thrill, excitement, brilliance, and 'spectacularness' cannot be expressed in mere words, you have to see it for yourself. For this reason, I urge all of you who can get to an air show featuring the Red Arrows to go. Trust me, it's worth it. You truly haven't lived until you've seen a Red Arrows performance.
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Latest reply: Jul 7, 2003
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