Things You Missed + Derby + "Bring It On" Week + Questions + Asterisks

[snurri]

Yesterday, while you were all at your wild, all-day George Washington parties and I was at work (NOT THAT I AM A RESENTFUL PERSON*), I posted about blogs that cover future urban concepts, one of my personal manias. I also posted the shiny trailer and banner for the upcoming Paper Cities antho, which Jeff VanderMeer (among others) has said very nice things about. (Scroll all the way down for the review.)

The Minnesota Roller Girls are at Roy Wilkins this Sunday. Locals: anybody going? Anybody want to? My planned companion has flaked on me discovered a scheduling conflict. I am in the mood to watch tattooed girls in fishnets shove each other around.** I'll go alone if I have to, but it won't be pretty. (Well, I won't be pretty. But then I rarely am.)

Things that are awesome: Chris Sims kicks off his "Bring It On" week with the 30-second recap. If you have not seen "Bring It On," you might be under the impression that a movie about cheerleaders cannot be awesome. You are sadly mistaken. Of course, Sims does his best to amp up the awesome with his stick-figures*** and Shakespearean dialog.

Finally, it has come to my attention that I am a cipher wrapped in an enigma, smothered with secret sauce. No, I am not Jimmy James. But being as this is a personal blog where I tend to skirt around the personal, when I actually do talk about something that's very personal--like, say, my recent tirades about Valentine's Day--apparently people aren't quite sure what to make of it. So, inspired in part by mrissa, I'm opening the floor. Ask me anything. Yes, anything.**** I will make an effort to be forthcoming, even if it's personal. If, on the other hand, you'd rather just trade smartass quips, I can do that too. It's kind of where I live.

* This is a lie.
** I am almost always in the mood for this.
*** Stick figures + Spirit fingers = Fail
**** Except THAT.

Comments

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Watch for the Paper Cities Airstream, coming soon to your neighborhood!!

As to your real question . . . hm. This should be interesting, because I'm not sure what I believe. My gut instinct is to say no, or at least that it's a personal decision. If you're asking whether I think fiction should be polemical in some way--even if it's just to the point of providing positive examples--then it's definitely a No. I don't believe that such things should be mandatory. I think it's too easy to run into trouble with, say, allegory, or even heavy symbolism, because you start to write not about people, but types; and even if those are ideal types, you can do damage with them. I'm also not of the social realism school (which now that I am looking at it may be the most obvious thing I have ever typed in my life) in that I don't think fiction should exhort the reader to improve the world in some way. I admire writers who are unafraid to show people at their worst, making terrible mistakes and unkind choices, because that is a very real thing. That said, I'm not very good at doing that myself. If I'm not working in more or less surrealistic territory, I'm usually trying to show people struggling to do the right thing, even if they end up doing the wrong one. I don't know that I do that out of a responsibility to anyone but myself, although I do spend a fair amount of energy (possibly too much) thinking about my audience.

So possibly my answer is: only if the fiction writer in question feels that responsibility him- or herself.

[wheatland-press.livejournal.com]

Good answer. By which, of course, I mean "answer that I agree with."

;)