A short autobiography after the fashion of Nicholson Baker's "U & I" and Frederick Exley's "A Fan's Notes."
My life so far as lived in the shadow of, with the gift of Elliott Smith and his work.
Elliott as excuse for, trigger of retrospection, introspection.
A stranger as constant echo and friend of/in the imagination.
NOT a biography of Elliott Smith. A biography of me, but with a soundtrack.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Friday, May 11, 2007
The Sequel.
A sequel to The Truman Show.
Truman has 'escaped' from the dome that housed the television show that secretly broadcast his every move.
Since then, The Truman Show morphed to show Truman's troubles adapting to the real world of contemporary Los Angeles--simply called The Truman Show: The Sequel.
No longer a cause celebre, his relationship to his long-time secret crush, an activist dedicated to rescuing him, has foundered. Truman tried to help her with other causes--saving baby seals, blowing up SUV dealerships--but everything went rather pathetically (and comically) wrong.
Now The Sequel, as it came to be called, has been canceled.
Truman must find a job and survive in contemporary Los Angeles.
Everywhere he goes, he meets actors and technicians thrown out of work by the cancellation of the massive enterprise that was documenting his life. Before, everyone loved him. Now, everyone hates him in advance of anything he says or does.
This is the not-so-pretty life that does not take place in a small town, but everyone still knows your name.
Truman can't do anything requiring real knowledge, since it turns out that most of the science and other knowledge taught to him inside the dome was jerry-rigged and made-up just to keep him inside. The actual knowledge of the world as it is puzzles and terrifies him. ("We did what to the native Americans?")
Truman tries an acting career, since it's something that he knows, but he's no good at it. He can't act when he knows he's acting. (He's a true naif.)
What ever will become of Truman Burbank?
That is the question for which life does not prepare us.
--Edward R. O'Neill
Truman has 'escaped' from the dome that housed the television show that secretly broadcast his every move.
Since then, The Truman Show morphed to show Truman's troubles adapting to the real world of contemporary Los Angeles--simply called The Truman Show: The Sequel.
No longer a cause celebre, his relationship to his long-time secret crush, an activist dedicated to rescuing him, has foundered. Truman tried to help her with other causes--saving baby seals, blowing up SUV dealerships--but everything went rather pathetically (and comically) wrong.
Now The Sequel, as it came to be called, has been canceled.
Truman must find a job and survive in contemporary Los Angeles.
Everywhere he goes, he meets actors and technicians thrown out of work by the cancellation of the massive enterprise that was documenting his life. Before, everyone loved him. Now, everyone hates him in advance of anything he says or does.
This is the not-so-pretty life that does not take place in a small town, but everyone still knows your name.
Truman can't do anything requiring real knowledge, since it turns out that most of the science and other knowledge taught to him inside the dome was jerry-rigged and made-up just to keep him inside. The actual knowledge of the world as it is puzzles and terrifies him. ("We did what to the native Americans?")
Truman tries an acting career, since it's something that he knows, but he's no good at it. He can't act when he knows he's acting. (He's a true naif.)
What ever will become of Truman Burbank?
That is the question for which life does not prepare us.
--Edward R. O'Neill
Monday, May 7, 2007
The Dreamers
A genius dropout who works in a 24-hour market develops insomnia because of his schedule.
He just can't sleep.
Random strangers seem oddly interested in helping him sleep.
The fitful bits of sleep he gets resound with strange dreams.
He pieces together the pieces and realizes the truth.
A secret agency has invaded our dreams.
When we fall asleep, our brain's power to dream is being used as a distributed supercomputer. A single brain's power outstrips that of the fastest supercomputer, so this agency is using all our brains together.
Seemingly innocuous TV shows and advertisements program us with the information we need to process while we sleep.
Electrical circuits in everyday appliances--like cell phones--monitor our dreams and upload the results to the secret intelligence agency.
Our clerk hero has to find out who's behind it, what it's for, and, if need be, to smash the whole operation.
--E. R. O'Neill
He just can't sleep.
Random strangers seem oddly interested in helping him sleep.
The fitful bits of sleep he gets resound with strange dreams.
He pieces together the pieces and realizes the truth.
A secret agency has invaded our dreams.
When we fall asleep, our brain's power to dream is being used as a distributed supercomputer. A single brain's power outstrips that of the fastest supercomputer, so this agency is using all our brains together.
Seemingly innocuous TV shows and advertisements program us with the information we need to process while we sleep.
Electrical circuits in everyday appliances--like cell phones--monitor our dreams and upload the results to the secret intelligence agency.
Our clerk hero has to find out who's behind it, what it's for, and, if need be, to smash the whole operation.
--E. R. O'Neill
Monday, April 23, 2007
The Prophecy.
An update on Capra--in the Meet John Doe vein.
A fake-out beginning. We start with the lives of assorted losers and sad-sacks. They suddenly turn their lives around at the end of the first act, and they end up on an infomercial for a new self-help movement bordering on religion.
It's run by a fellow nicknamed 'The Teacher' who espouses a philosophy centered on what he calls 'The Prophecy.'
There's some sense to it: a bit of existentialism, a bit of Dale Carnegie, a bit of NeuroLinguistic Programming. Nothing new. But there's also much in it that's specious, if not absurd.
He disclaims mystic powers yet performs things people take to be miracles--they're almost more like magic tricks.
A tenacious female reporter (whom we've met early on) takes him on. She's hell-bent on exposing him as a charlatan. She's sure there's something bad about him, though she doesn't know why.
Midway through, the Teacher's team digs up dirt on her that throws suspicion on her motives. She loses her job.
Eventually, an underling of The Teacher exposes him as a kind of mild pervert. People are grossed out, and he loses his following.
Also, he's juggled the books of his organization and actually gets sent to prison on a short sentence. He's sent to a rather bad prison, too--not the typical white collar country club type, to prove the local D.A. is 'tough on crime'--he's running for mayor soon--and because everyone feels embarrassed they ever trusted this guy.
The reporter gets her job back, plus a promotion. She's receives an award for her reporting career, although it's given by exactly the weasels responsible for firing her and who failed to speak up for her.
All's unwound. The story's run its course: just another 'exciting new phenomenon' that's really more of the same ol' same ol'. This guy isn't Christ or Mohammed or Mary Baker Eddy, just another snake oil salesman, a con man of a not very elaborate sort.
Except that then, strangely, one of his 'prophecies' comes astoundingly true.
The reporter and others run back to the Teacher. What does he think of this astonishing fulfillment. But it's too late. The Teacher has been killed in a prison riot.
Was he something important? We'll never know. Everyone wants to forget. It's all reduced to a footnote--an old bargain bin paperback sold for a quarter.
Those whom the Teacher helped are bereft.
They gather together. By now, more prophecies have come true. There are no more bees. Several major species of fish have suddenly, unaccountably died off. Not a single bird still graces the earth.
One of the followers' children spots is found playing with a bird. The followers gather round in wonder. The bird flies away. An ominous sound grows all around: like the buzzing if thousands of insects.
One follower cries. Another laughs. Some hold each other. They wait.
Cut to black.
--Edward R. O'Neill
A fake-out beginning. We start with the lives of assorted losers and sad-sacks. They suddenly turn their lives around at the end of the first act, and they end up on an infomercial for a new self-help movement bordering on religion.
It's run by a fellow nicknamed 'The Teacher' who espouses a philosophy centered on what he calls 'The Prophecy.'
There's some sense to it: a bit of existentialism, a bit of Dale Carnegie, a bit of NeuroLinguistic Programming. Nothing new. But there's also much in it that's specious, if not absurd.
He disclaims mystic powers yet performs things people take to be miracles--they're almost more like magic tricks.
A tenacious female reporter (whom we've met early on) takes him on. She's hell-bent on exposing him as a charlatan. She's sure there's something bad about him, though she doesn't know why.
Midway through, the Teacher's team digs up dirt on her that throws suspicion on her motives. She loses her job.
Eventually, an underling of The Teacher exposes him as a kind of mild pervert. People are grossed out, and he loses his following.
Also, he's juggled the books of his organization and actually gets sent to prison on a short sentence. He's sent to a rather bad prison, too--not the typical white collar country club type, to prove the local D.A. is 'tough on crime'--he's running for mayor soon--and because everyone feels embarrassed they ever trusted this guy.
The reporter gets her job back, plus a promotion. She's receives an award for her reporting career, although it's given by exactly the weasels responsible for firing her and who failed to speak up for her.
All's unwound. The story's run its course: just another 'exciting new phenomenon' that's really more of the same ol' same ol'. This guy isn't Christ or Mohammed or Mary Baker Eddy, just another snake oil salesman, a con man of a not very elaborate sort.
Except that then, strangely, one of his 'prophecies' comes astoundingly true.
The reporter and others run back to the Teacher. What does he think of this astonishing fulfillment. But it's too late. The Teacher has been killed in a prison riot.
Was he something important? We'll never know. Everyone wants to forget. It's all reduced to a footnote--an old bargain bin paperback sold for a quarter.
Those whom the Teacher helped are bereft.
They gather together. By now, more prophecies have come true. There are no more bees. Several major species of fish have suddenly, unaccountably died off. Not a single bird still graces the earth.
One of the followers' children spots is found playing with a bird. The followers gather round in wonder. The bird flies away. An ominous sound grows all around: like the buzzing if thousands of insects.
One follower cries. Another laughs. Some hold each other. They wait.
Cut to black.
--Edward R. O'Neill
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Bookshelf Hijinks.
A book titled "I'm With Stupid." Bold, red letters. An arrow on the spine pointing left.
Pick your target.
Mine?
Tim LaHaye, naturally.
So "I'm With Stupid" would be written by Jim LaHays.
But one could pick any writer.
"I'm With Stupid" by Gorman Mailers.
Etc.
Pick your target.
Mine?
Tim LaHaye, naturally.
So "I'm With Stupid" would be written by Jim LaHays.
But one could pick any writer.
"I'm With Stupid" by Gorman Mailers.
Etc.
Peeking Over The Shoulders Of Giants.
Collection of essays about famous essays.
Revisiting, updating and correcting essays by famous writers.
How are the subjects faring? How have the places changed? Did the writer(s) misrepresent in egregious ways? Do organizations and people operate more self-consciously after being documented? Change for the better? Worse?
Examples:
I would take the same cruise, or visit the same fair as David Foster Wallace in "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again."
I would visit that traffic bureau from Didion's "The White Album."
Check out E.B. White's farm (documented so lovingly in "One Man's Meat.")
Etc.
Revisiting, updating and correcting essays by famous writers.
How are the subjects faring? How have the places changed? Did the writer(s) misrepresent in egregious ways? Do organizations and people operate more self-consciously after being documented? Change for the better? Worse?
Examples:
I would take the same cruise, or visit the same fair as David Foster Wallace in "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again."
I would visit that traffic bureau from Didion's "The White Album."
Check out E.B. White's farm (documented so lovingly in "One Man's Meat.")
Etc.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Cathy: The Movie.
A live-action version of Everyone's Favorite Everywoman, Cat-Lover, Failed Dieter, Shopaholic.
Cathy is played by different actresses (even actors) in different scenes.
Indie directors shoot different parts: Todd Haynes, Wes Anderson, etc.
Interviews express various viewpoints on Cathy and Her Significance from humorists, stars, cartoonists, intellectuals, etc. R. Crumb weighs in. So does Kevin Smith. Ethan Hawke offers fake deep insights and asks for more make-up between takes. Since Susan Sontag is dead, Margaret Cho appears as both herself and Sontag.
It's part fiction film, part documentary, part avante-garde fake-out. The viewer should never know if the whole thing is serious art, parodic entertainment, documentary, mockumentary, what--something for everyone.
It's Zelig Meets Storytelling meets Intolerance.
--E. R. O'Neill
Cathy is played by different actresses (even actors) in different scenes.
Indie directors shoot different parts: Todd Haynes, Wes Anderson, etc.
Interviews express various viewpoints on Cathy and Her Significance from humorists, stars, cartoonists, intellectuals, etc. R. Crumb weighs in. So does Kevin Smith. Ethan Hawke offers fake deep insights and asks for more make-up between takes. Since Susan Sontag is dead, Margaret Cho appears as both herself and Sontag.
It's part fiction film, part documentary, part avante-garde fake-out. The viewer should never know if the whole thing is serious art, parodic entertainment, documentary, mockumentary, what--something for everyone.
It's Zelig Meets Storytelling meets Intolerance.
--E. R. O'Neill
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