It's James Ussher Day! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, THE UNIVERSE!

That's right, folks. Today's the day it all began. One sleepy day in late October, while strolling through the endless stretch of Nothingness and Chaos, God decided to make the Universe. And if it weren't for the dogged efforts of a 17th century Irish Archbishop named James Ussher, we never would have known it was today, 6015 years ago. If it wasn't for him paying close attention to the Bible and calculating back to the days of Adam and Eve, we would still be living the erroneous belief that it was 13.7 Billion years ago, not in 4004 BC. Whew! That was a close one! Thanks for putting that to rest, Jim. Good sleuthing!

Never mind that God started Time on a date as arbitrary as the 23rd of October (why not January 1st? Or Christmas? Or International Talk Like a Pirate Day?). And never mind that he started the clock counting down. Or that the earliest homo sapiens, the dinosaurs, most rocks, and Mickey Rooney all predate Ussher's reckoning of Genesis. Ussher was a smart guy! He was an Archbishop. You don't get promoted to Archbishop if you're the village idiot; he must've been doing something right. And hey, why not 4004 BC? Stranger things have happened. Besides, those creationists seem so darn sure about it. They must be right!

So for that, we thank you Mr. Ussher. And to you, the Universe, I say Bonne Fête à Toi! (And please don't stop existing just yet, k? I enjoy pizza too much!)

Returning to Faery: Creation Through Narration

I dare you to try to build an imaginary world for a character to walk through, fight for, destroy, love, die, etc. and not become instantly overwhelmed by the immensity of the task. Go on, try it.

Tolkien said that he created the mythology of Middle-earth because he wanted to imagine people who spoke the languages he had invented. For him, the languages came first, and then the stories. I'm working in the reverse, which has a host of problems, not the least of which being that I’m taking a path many have trodden before, and few have actually succeeded. I want to write a story in a fantastical world and in order to do that I must imagine the languages, the customs, and cultures they speak there. It must be rich in detail, or else it won’t bear the stamp of my own unique perspective. I won’t enjoy it because I’ll be telling someone else’s story. The thing is, I've realized that for me the Story comes first and foremost. Don't get me wrong, I've got a taste for languages myself. I’ve come to relish the rhythm and cadence of language, and the beauty and strangeness of words. But I am not a linguist by trade, and I've come to realize that if I'm ever going to get this bloody book finished, I have to accept that I’m not going to become a linguist any time soon. For all intents and purposes, I am a storyteller. And a storyteller’s trade is the Story.

So, after Story, everything else is secondary. The world does not exist outside of the story. But that seems like a problem to me, in fantasy. Story reigns like a tyrant here, but it is not the only important thing. I want to create a four-dimensional place, a sense that people in it keep moving through time and space, keep going about their business elsewhere during the main events of the story, long after the last page has been turned, and the book has been placed back on the shelf. So how does one go about doing that? Correction: how does one go about doing that without losing his mind? I know it must be done, but after countless false starts over the years it seemed like I would never find a way in.

Last summer, in a moment of recklessness I decided “to hell with it I’ll write the damn thing anyway” and proceeded with a ‘Write first, ask questions later’ mentality. What I found was this: if I just wrote a passage of the story I knew I wanted to happen, without editing or judging what came out, I could actually find some really cool stuff. It was liberation: I could carry out this story without knowing all the details of the world. In fact--and this was the best surprise of all--I would find just the details I needed through the telling of the story. Example: my protagonist is put in a prison. She falls asleep there in that dank hole and when she wakes up, she sees a vine has grown up the wall from where she lay her head, one that was not there when she got tossed in. This is a detail that I didn’t plan for, but it came up while I was writing the scene out. It may not lead anywhere, but then again, it just might.

Of course, there are some things that are harder to get around. In the next scene, my protagonist is escaping a city through an underground tunnel; she is escorted by a guard. What is the guard’s name? What are the men and women who live in this city named? I’ve always been hung up on names. It’s hard enough when finding the right name for a character set in our world. "Should I call this woman Lisa? Or is she a Deb? Or a Françoise?" The snag is tenfold in a world you made up. Eventually the responsibility of creating these people proves too much, and if you let it, it becomes death to creative flow. But every now and then, I’ll brainstorm some words and some names, and if they’re suitable for this culture, I’ll use them. Which leads me to the best part, which I only recently gave myself license to do: if I realize later on a name doesn’t work? No biggie! I can always go back and change it! What a thought! It sounds pretty obvious, but for a long time I had felt I couldn’t find the character until I had the name, and once it was down on paper the process was almost irreversible, because the name is a powerful thing and can take root quickly. But it doesn’t have to. So the guard’s name? Let’s call him “Kalfira.” Why? What does that name mean? “Don’t ask me! I don’t f#$%ing know! Because I like the way it sounds! Leave me alone! I’ll figure it out later!” is my response. In the meantime, I stop myself from getting hung up, and just keep writing. The result? I’ve actually started writing certain scenes I’ve had in my head for years. It’s finally happening!

That’s the other thing: I don’t have to write out this story in chronological order. The very start of it is still a bit fuzzy, but I can see very clearly where my characters are three or five steps ahead. So why wait for the first step? Figure out just where you are, take note of your surroundings, look for clues, and then you’ll have an easier time of retracing your steps back. C.S. Lewis described the genesis of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe as a series of different images he had in his head, which for one reason or another kept floating toward each other, so he wrote them out and went backwards and forwards connecting them. The original seed didn’t start with the children fleeing London to escape the Blitz. It started with the image of a satyr standing beneath a lamp in a wintry wood. He didn’t intend for it to be a Christian allegory, but that’s the direction the story took him, and he followed it. But before that it was a story, plain and simple. And before that, it was images. And it was through the telling of the story that the images came together to become Narnia.

I find this approach seems to work for me as well. World building is a pleasure in and of itself, but I don’t have as much success with it if I just do it systematically, listing out names of places and people, mapping it out and conjuring up static information like I’m preparing a Encyclopedia entry for it. To an extent these can be useful things to help organize your thoughts, but I find they don’t generate the ideas themselves. They don’t galvanize the imagination, they don’t lead to action. And being an actor, I like me some action. A new world is an awfully big place. I’d much rather go there as a travel writer, documenting what I find. That way, the world comes in flashes, in sounds, images, in songs, poems, war stories, love stories. Stories. Approach it with child-like wonder and the active voice of narration, rather than the authority of a God-like architect listing trivia, and the world will more willingly unfold itself.

Another major obstacle has been my lack of experience. I’ve questioned whether I should be writing this story at this time in my life, simply because I haven’t lived enough. It’s stewed for so long (half of my brief life, so far), and it’s come to mean so much to me, that I feel like it has to be my magnum opus, or it doesn’t see the light of day. For a while I put it off, deciding I should wait until I’m older, wiser, have more life experience and am in theory a better writer, so it will be a better story when I’m at the top of my game. I realise now just how silly this way of thinking is. This isn’t prudence, or good writing habits. It's vanity! I’m coddling the piece to death. The ego gets in the way and the story gets punished for it. This must stop! The story burns in me now! Not 10, 20, 30 years from now. I should be writing from that place that yearns to make itself heard in the present moment. If I try to write from somewhere else, it will not be genuine, and it will shrivel up. Of course I’ve got other story ideas, and I work on them as well (if this was all I had to work on I would go mad!). But if this fairy tale habitually crops up unbidden, I should take that as a sign. Opus shmopus. It may not be the best story I’ve ever written, it may even be a very bad one. It may simply be something I have to get down before I can move on to a new adventure. Then again, it may be wonderful. But for now that’s not my place to decide, is it?

For now, my job is to keep writing.

Montaigne, Renaissance Blogger

'I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.' -Michel de Montaigne

It's a little ironic, being a blogger, and one of the few people I know who actually enjoys writing essays, and has spent the past 4 years whipping up several of them (though not at many as maybe an English or History Major), that I should not have once come across the work of Michel de Montaigne. Montaigne was a French nobleman of the 16th century, and was best known as the father of what we now call the personal essay. His most memorable work is a collection of prose writings called Essais (French for "trial" or "attempt"), covering diverse topics ranging from sleep, to books, to the limits of human knowledge and our own mortality. Granted, I was not officially a student of literature or philosophy, so there was really no pressing need that could have led me to him, besides errant curiosity or procrastination. But my studies of Renaissance theatre brought me tantalizingly close to him; it's very likely that Shakespeare himself read Montaigne. You'd think the name would have come up at least a couple of times, and sooner. Nope. Rather, I am finally exposed to his writing long after school has ended. But I should be grateful that I've come across him at all.

I got a little three-dollar Dover Thrift edition of a selection of Montaigne's Essays from Russel Books a while back, and read it this past month. I found it invigorating. He (and his translator English poet Charles Cotton) have a knack for making you want to study and meditate on your own life, to flesh out your thoughts and to attain perspective through the act of writing. He made it his goal to paint an honest portrait of human life, using himself as a reference point. His style is skeptical, anecdotal, often going into tangets and never making any claim of possessing some absolute truth. In fact, one of his Essays is titled "That It Is Folly to Measure Truth and Error by Our Own Capacity", discussing just that; we can never get the entire picture.

Reading these essays I found the syntax to be long and meandering. The sentences were in appearance so tangled, so clogged with dependent clauses and sub-clauses--of course not uncommon to writers of his age--it could hardly be decoded by a 21st century reader like myself without breaking into a bit of a sweat, and maybe a slight headache. But I kinda liked it for that. It was a robust workout. I remember what our Prof. Jen Wise said in Theories of Acting, that when you diligently read something beyond your skill level, your mind strengthens and widens to accomodate the new territory. You become a better reader. I think that's something I've found rewarding from generally all archaic writings, including Shakespeare: for a cretin like myself, half the fun is in figuring out just what the hell they're saying. And once you've breached that wall, you can freely roam the country they've laid out for you. You can understand and relate to Montaigne's observations. You can relate to almost everything he's saying, and you feel a kinship with him, and those that have gone before him (he borrows heavily from older, classical writers like Seneca, Plutarch, Horace, Cicero, Aristotle, etc.) This is in no small part because of his very personal style of writing. You then become aware of a long unbroken chain of human experience from the days of ancient Rome, to the French Renaissance, to today. It is a reminder of all the richness that Western philosophy has to offer, something I've neglected of late. Time and distance are no barriers; Montaigne's words are still valuable to me, a young Canadian man in the 21st century. There is still wisdom to be found with him, because like myself, he was a very human being.

So I feel that in a way the blogging world owes a great debt to this French nobleman. My part of it certainly does. I and many others try to understand our lives through writing. And any one who attempts this owes Montaigne for making room for such an attempt. He was an innovator, bringing his own personal experience into his work, because the great subject of his work was himself. So that's why I'm dedicating this post to Michel de Montaigne, the Renaissance Blogger.

Update

Got back from a fantastic Kings of Leon concert in Caprica City--I mean, Vancouver. I was considerably less familiar with KOL going into it than most people there, but I recognized quite a few of their songs, and really liked almost every single one. This has launched me into an infatuation with their music, naturally. I partly wish I'd done more research before going to the concert, so I'd be able to appreciate it even more, but on the other hand it's not a bad way of getting into a band, no?

I don't have much else to report, right now. Life is busy enough, though. I'm bouncing between work, yoga and karate classes, and among all that I've got a couple of projects on the side to keep me involved with theatre and performance, and am working on a short, 1500 word piece for a CBC short story contest. Lots of variety. I wish I could've done more blog posts for this month. I feel bad having only done these two. Sorry about that, September. I'll do more for next month. I promise.

Inception: The Dark Knight Rises at Bag End, or What You Will

What do The Hobbit, Shakespeare, and Batman all have in common? Everything, apparently.

A few days ago I had a dream. At the time it was terrifying, but also exhilarating. Here's how it went:



I am with a bunch of other people; I don't know who. Somehow we end up running from something, and we're running along a huge, but unstable wall we made out of snow bricks. It collapses as I run on top. As it turns out, we're being chased by a giant monster made of snow, which I later learn is actually a Balrog covered in snow. We take refuge in a dark cavernous place, and I think it's beneath Bag End, in Hobbiton. I go as far down this cave as I possibly can, down to the very bottom where there's water, and platforms floating around on it. I, and I'm assuming all the other people who got in, look up and watch with anticipation the cave's entrance way above us, hoping we aren't spotted. I then hide inside a crevice in the wall, and whoever I was before, I am now viewing the action from the perspective of a small cave-dwelling creature.

And then, instead of everything happening above me, it's happening down below. I'm up in the higher walls, looking down from this crevice. There is a metal railing on the edge of it, and there are other metal railings, platforms, stairs and walkways built into the walls of the cave: it is none other than the Bat Cave. Of course. What else would be underneath Bag End? And suddenly I see below me, Batman flying away in his Batwing, through a huge opening in the cave, going out to do battle with the Snow-Balrog. He's gone for a few moments, but then I see a red light, and then an enormous ball of flame bursts through into the cave.



Something opens from behind me. I am a human again, and someone comes into my hiding place, as a cold light of an overcast day spills in, as if from the main level of a city street. The crevice is sealed off from the rest of the Bat Cave, and in from this door come a bunch of thugs. I am surrounded by Bane's cronies. And then someone begins to explain that Bane is an ex-UFC fighter, and Italian, and he's out to prove that William Shakespeare is his direct ancestor, which for some reason means that he has to kill Batman before he can prove it's true. Someone also mentions that Commissioner Gordon is in cahoots with Batman, so they decide to go after him too. This pisses me off and frightens me, because now Gordon's life is in danger as well.



I don't know whether Batman won or lost against the Snow-Balrog, but I know he can't be dead, because it's Batman! However, things look grim. The forces of evil have the upper hand, now that they've discovered the Bat Cave.

So what does this all mean? Well, I'm no psychoanalyst, but I'm pretty sure my subconscious is saying that Christoper Nolan and Peter Jackson need to scrap the movies they're working on, join forces, and make a movie based off of this story. If they don't come willing, then I may have to sneak inside their dreams and plant the seed. They'll both think it was their own idea, of course, but I'm okay with that. I'll do what it takes.

I think it'll work.

Principle

I recently applied for a job at the Good Planet Company, a store in Victoria that sells all eco-friendly home products. I admit I get excited at the prospect of working in a retail job where I can sell things with a clear conscience. I don't know what my chances of getting the job are, but it would be pretty cool to be a part of something I know is trying to make a difference in the world by transforming our consumer culture into a sustainable one. It would be nice to live by one's principles, wouldn't it?

As the summer is drawing to a close it seems like a good time to reflect on this, and how it is part of a larger pattern I have noticed in the past few months; a pattern characterized by principle.

I have learned of the efforts of others who have tried to live by their principles, and I have made the effort myself. Of course this is ongoing and hasn't come up just this summer, but now that I am out of school and more free than I've ever been, the matter stares me squarely in the face. I must decide how I live my life. What choices will I make?

Near the beginning of the summer I finished reading Anna Karenina. The journey of one of its main characters, Levin, is a struggle to live a life of purity (Levin, was based on Tolstoy himself, another man who tried the same). Around April I watched a video of Jonathan Safran Foer giving a talk at the RSA about his new book Eating Animals, and his take on the meat industry, the environment, and vegetarianism. I sent this video to my sister, which inspired her to become a vegetarian herself. I have not made that leap. Not yet, anyway.

About two weeks ago Kayla and I watched a documentary called No Impact Man, about a man, his wife and child, who try to live with as little environmental impact as possible for a year; that means no electricity, no car, no diapers, no fridge, no paper, only locally grown food, etc.--and in New York City to boot. A week or so later we watched a The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, the newest documentary by Morgan Spurlock. It follows the process a filmmaker must go through to get brands, corporate endorsements, and product placement in one's movie. It's obviously on the opposite end of the principle spectrum, albeit done tongue-in-cheek. But the irony of course is that the further he goes along this process, the harder it is to maintain the integrity of his film and not compromise the vision he has for it. Several of the companies that agree to be a part of the movie have jillions of little stipulations that must be met for their product to be displayed onscreen (e.g. one company that sells a drink product says it is the only drink that can appear in the movie; or a gas station/restaurant chain that demands that it be the only one in the movie, and so on.)

These are all examples of people and stories that kept cropping up in my summer, all marked by the theme of principle.

I have tried in small ways to live a life guided by principle. For example, I made it a goal for myself to write on a regular basis, and to meditate on a daily basis. The former works for a couple of weeks at a time, averaging about four to five hours a week, and then something comes up. The meditation worked for only two to three weeks. The question is: why did I not succeed in implementing these things? They reflect what is important to me, what I value. I know they would invariably bring me joy and grounding. So what got in the way?

In short, life. On the one hand, I became busy by heaping one commitment on top of another in an all-you-can-manage buffet; not to mention friends, relationship, family, etc. On the other, there were times I would come home and I would be simply too tired to make any serious effort at these things, or so I told myself. "But, Liam, you are being too hard on yourself," some people will undoubtedly say. "And friends and family are extremely important, you insensitive ass!" They may also say. Well on the second matter, of course they are. On the first? I am skeptical. Allow me to put forward the notion that there are people, ordinary people like you and I, who have managed to ingrain in themselves a habit of practicing their art on a regular basis. A singer or a musician do scales, a runner runs, a karate-ka practices kata. Daily. My dad is a painter, and as a rule does a minimum of one brush stroke a day (the genius of this of course is its disarming simplicity: one brush stroke will usually lead to many more once you sit down in front of the thing.) There is a great deal I can do with only one hour, out of twenty-four. There are ordinary people who have a solid routine, and still seem to lead balanced lives. I glut myself on hundreds of little reasons not to do these things that will bring me joy and peace of mind.

And what of the moral sphere? For example, I continue to eat meat knowing fully how destructive the meat industry is the environment. It's not a necessary evil, is it? We don't need to eat meat. My reasoning? I'm used to it, and I like the taste of meat. Jonathan Foer's response: so what? There are plenty of nutritional substitutes to meat that ought to consider (and we may have to at some point.) The planet is going to pot because I like the taste of hamburgers. I don't say this to condemn--I admit I am a part of the problem--but to draw attention to a hard fact. So when do our values, the things we believe to be right, step in?

Is it possible to live by our principles? Some people manage it, don't they? If possible, than to what degree? Moreover, what do you do when your principles clash with one another and compete for your attention? After the May 2 election I decided to write a letter to Stephen Harper. I penned it, and then put it away in my desk and never sent it. I decided it wasn't the right time for it, or it wasn't written clearly enough, or it probably wouldn't even reach him, it wasn't this, it wasn't that, till it wasn't anything at all. I decided it wasn't necessary to raise my voice and that I had to get on with other things.

What is more important here? Civic duty or artistic obligations? Art, or one's duty to the life of the spirit? Spiritual well-being, or physical well-being? It's hard to measure. Of course all of these are important, and all intrinsically linked. But that in itself presents problems. If they're all important, how does one prioritize? How do they all fit into your life, and the hierarchy of things that need tending to? Any thing worth doing takes hard work, but as soon as you focus in on something, other worthy causes get neglected. How does one serve these gods and not lose oneself?

The logistics are dizzying. Jury's out on this one, as far as I can tell.

To be fair, I have done a good amount of writing this summer, including a creative non-fiction piece, a short story, the scribblings of a poem, a new draft of an old story, the beginnings of another short story, and a few pages of my fairy tale. Not to mention the co-writing of an adaptation for the stage. I can safely say I haven't just sat around twiddling my thumbs, this summer. And I am only 21. My brain isn't even fully-formed yet, I am told. But it is the nature of the arts that nobody's going to wait for me. In this line of work, personal initiative is highly conducive to "making it". So what on Earth am I waiting for?

I think as far as getting a solid routine of any discipline is concerned, patience is key. Also, to not fear routine. Some people think of sheer drudgery when they think of routine. Some must imagine Sisyphus rolling a rock up a hill, only to have it fall down again for all eternity. Routine = tedium. Yet I don't think it needs to be seen that way. Routine is good. It's how you build muscles. It's how you play piano or project properly onstage. It's revelling in the process, the journey. So when we lose that ever-so-helpful regularness? Well, I think part of it though is acknowledging one's failings, and instead of wallowing in self-pity, you must renew your vows to the things you cherish, and carry on.

"Why do we fall?" asks Bruce Wayne's father. So we can learn to pick ourselves up.

My Day

Today was a hectic day. On top of it being BC's Heritage Day, which means my work hours are longer and all the pissy families and tourists come out, it was also the last day my parents were in town before they flew back to Calgary. I got to have lunch with them, and then I had to say goodbye. Thankfully my afternoon was busy enough that it didn't give me a chance to get too down in the dumps about them leaving. But I really am sad to see them gone. My family always rejuvenates me emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. Naturally, it's hard to see them go. This is also on top of the fact that quite a few of my good friends have all moved away from Victoria. Growing pains, you know?

Anyway, after I came home from work, I had to get groceries and clean, and then work on transcribing dialogue for the Fringe show I'm working on. I was worried I would just be toiling away until bedtime, a thought which never wins my vote. It was very easy for me to get frazzled and stressed. I was coming home from a troublesome grocery trip, feeling especially put upon: all this little quotidian tasks were eating away at my time to relax, and enjoy myself. I was even madder because only an hour and a half earlier I had had a brief period of meditation, and was feeling all pleased with myself for having done so and grounded myself etc. etc. And then suddenly I'm back to reality and lo and behold! my knickers are in a knot!

But there was a moment, as I was parking my bike, when this notion came to mind: It's not all about me. And for some reason, that truism is all it took. It wasn't a "suck-it-up buttercup" kind of notion. Well it was, partially, but not entirely. You are not at the centre of the universe; okay sure, that's a drag. But it's also the greatest news you could ever get. This is an enormous relief. There is something greater than you, and the burden is not on you to have all your ego's demands met.

I will forget this truth soon enough, and will need some reminding periodically. But it was nourishing all the same, a good pick-me-up when my spirits are flagging. Hopefully it'll come up again, down the road.

Just thought I'd share that with y'all. I have an idea for an essay I'd like to write, and I'll post it on here when it comes into existence. Until then, have a wonderful night everyone.