IT'S. SIX. A.M.

[jsnlv]

Those who know me well know the only possible way I could be up this early is that I stayed up all night, which would be absolutely correct. If I were sensible, I'd have spent that time cleaning or writing or working out or something. As it was, I read about six months' entries from this man's journal, partly because it passed the time and partly because I am thinking about my Next Big Thing.

I have a website all about detailing my various Next Big Things, titled "Work In Progress." Fittingly, it's still under construction, so I'm just going to talk about my Next Big Thing right here. It's actually more appropriate that way, since This Particular Big Thing is (hopefully) going to play out on these very LiveJournal pages.

I have alluded to it before. I call it "People of Influence."

In the time I've spent on the Internet, I've come across a lot of influential people. Other times, less informed by the good word of Cat and Girl, I'd have called these people Heroes or Geniuses, (and actually I probably have in the past) but I'd have been unable to tell you what made them so heroic or what their genius was. People like theferrett and 108 are awesome for reasons, however, and I'd like to try honing my weak and under-developed critical thinking skills by explaining why they're awesome and by using an example of their influence in the process of describing how they've influenced me.

Take 108, for example. I don't want to completely eclipse the (the what? The essay? The article? Let's just call it a "piece.") piece by going into all the details of why I'm so impressed by him, but one of the main points is his approach to writing videogame reviews or features or, for that matter, just about any of his articles on his website. The thing he does is he always includes a huge dose of the personal with whatever it is he's reviewing, so it becomes not so much a critique of the game itself as a critique of the experience of playing the game. Maybe it's fictitious, or maybe it distracts, or maybe you can come up with another reason why that's not such a good thing, but at the very least, it's memorable. I like the idea of reviews that exist not just to reaffirm the reader's membership in the videogame community.

The whole point of writing this, actually, was to document one of the main differences between his writing and mine (I mean, besides the years of experience and polish and profanity and the rest): he can write and write and write the most senseless random blather, but he can get away with it because he refuses to apologize for it. Sure, it wins him no friends amongst the literary Lawful Neutral, but he does it anyway.

I like that, even as he tries to distance himself from it. I'll take his mantra and reverse it: the Internet IS my personal writing exercise. Or at least, it SHOULD be; I've been ignoring my lessons until now.

Comments

hey jasonlove. what's up?

[(Anonymous)]

The Passion of The Christ (http://www.ThePassionOfTheChrist.com) is in theaters soon - this week on Wednesday.. what do you think about this movie? I'm going to see it for sure - the trailers (http://www.thepassion.tv) were enough to convince me. I read somewhere that it's the widest opening ever for a subtitled movie; I have a feeling subtitles won't detract from the full effect of this movie though. After looking at the trailers which have no subtitles or english at all, it was reinforced for me that lack of spoken english in this film won't hurt one bit. To sum up my impression of The Passion: it's a work of art.
Good Website (http://www.passion-movie.com)
Another fascinating aspect to this movie is all the controversy that has been generated about it.
Some people, not really representative of Jewish people, but rather self appointed Jewish spokespeople, such as Abraham Foxman from the Anti-Defamation League, seem to have been attempting to denounce this film for months as being anti-Semitic. The news reported that they even stole the script last year! But here's what some Jews say (Jews who don't make it their job to tear apart other people): by Rabbi Daniel Lapin.

Nice to see some people speaking rationally.

So what do you think of all this?

*** Kyle

...

[turandot.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to figure out if the post above is spam or not.

Anyway, I occasionally read Tim Powers' journal too. I think I'm the minority when it comes to my online contacts in that I find him harmlessly amusing, rather than dangerously out of control. Why should the man apologize to anyone for making himself look like a spectacle of foolishness occasionally (baiting for outraged reactions from other so called "game journalists" is part of the spectacle, btb)? I think choosing to take some of the stuff he says somewhat too seriously is pretty much ignoring the point of his whole persona.

Re: ...

[jasonlove.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me too.

As for the man himself, I'm of three minds. The first two argue over how much is an act, whether or not "his enemies" are real, or even real to him, and whether his writign is even any good. The third part can stand back, and look at it all without needing to know of its accuracy, or truthfulness, or intentionality, and simply appreciate the imagery his writing conjures. That's something I can't do; I lack the ability to write vividly, particularly when I'm writing about something that's not immediately relevant to me. I don't do anecdotes... well. The first part would argue that neither does he.

A part of what I'd originally meant to bring across with this entry was the sense of contrast I got between theferrett and 108--not so much in the personas displayed, however accurate they might be--but rather just in the way writing is approached. theferrett writes for accessability. If people are going to be driven away by what he writes, he wants them to be driven away by the content, by the ideas. But he's going to make those ideas as available as possible in his writing; he uses very little obfuscation of identity, he always tries to provide some sort of context for the current discussion, he refrains from posting memes or things that would dilute from the general message of The Ferrett--hell, he even rejects the idea of lj-cut. 108, on the other hand, is pretty much the opposite, on at least three of those counts: he's the very picture of obfuscation, his writing is full of alllusions and references, and he uses cuts pretty much constantly. His goal, it seems, is more just to write quantity--as he's stated elsewhere*, that account is (or was?) just a warm-up session for the day's actual writing. I don't really care how accurate that is, because I like the idea, and enjoy the writing it produced.

...and, just like when I was writing the actual entry, this response has lost its point and I don't know what the hell I was trying to say. It's an interesting contrast, and I'm not sure whose approach is more "right," or at least, right for me.

*Actually, that link says no such thing, but five minutes of searching and I still can't find the real one. That one's pretty close. It's close enough for me.

Re: ...

[108.livejournal.com]

The "enemies" thing is fun. It's fun to make up stuff like that.

For being harmlessly amused, Turandot, you win something good. Kind of.

Re: ...

[norondor.livejournal.com]

The same message is on Bloiffy's journal (only with the title "Wow. I guess that's ok, sometimes..." in response to NOTHING) so yeah, it's spam. MUST KILL