Fw: [FairfieldLife] Re: Is Voldemort a hack? (was The Prerequisites for Enlightenment)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnb7-nVKzLE From: emilymae.reyn emilymae.r...@yahoo.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, August 18, 2013 10:08:00 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Is Voldemort a hack? (was The Prerequisites for Enlightenment) Bob, welcome back - are you here to restore musicality? Raise the bar a bit? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bob Price wrote: From: turquoiseb no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2013 7:58:43 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Prerequisites for Enlightenment And for your information, I dash off things here and send them without editing them because most of the time I'm just having fun with them. That, and the audience I'm writing for doesn't meet my standards for deserving edited copy -- they're not paying me. For paying customers, I edit. Non-paying customers who don't like my unedited posts can go suck eggs. Non-paying editors who get off on editing my posts for me should pay *me*, for providing them with something to do on those days when they're off work and thus not busy...uh...editing.  :-) ** I was thrilled with last weeks *posting without limits*, it gave me a sense of power and control knowing that I could respond to any and all of the 1500+ posts that I just finished reading. One of our illustrious contributors suggested that we might consider a *Best of FFL* going forward, and with that in mind I set myself the difficult task of picking my favorite subject for the week; it was a challenge (how could anyone best Share's attempt to prove she speaks in tongues), but a decision had to be made and I'm going with: Is Voldemort a hack? When I read Voldemort's posts I ask myself: Where's the art?. For someone with his considerable output on FFL, who puts so much effort into selling himself to us as a creative writer, art seems conspicuously absent from his contributions; this might be less true if you consider manual (or phonebook) writing a creative act. As he makes clear above, Voldemort is a writer of manuals, and, IMO, when he attempts anything more than that, the word hack pretty much nails what he becomes. For something to be considered art it's imperative that it have the ability to defamiliarize* by making the familiar, unfamiliar and *new*; Voldemort's posts completely fail at this. OTOH, Judy's choice of the word hack, to describe Voldemort, is a great example of effective defamiliarization---it gave me a new experience of something that was familiar about him. I also must agree with Judy that irony is the life blood of creative writing (writing phonebooks, not as much), and reading Voldemort's attempts at writing creatively ---when he is so handicapped in the irony department (narcissism will do that), is like watching someone with no hands attempt to show off his penmanship (no My left foot jokes please). He also appears to be unable to go beyond cliche and what Martin Amis calls heard words, which make his offerings, on this forum at least, quite artless. Anyone who considers Voldemort a creative writer might consider rereading Hemingway (if you are interested in understanding some of Kerouac's limitations, who Voldemort attempts to emulate---without demonstrating any of Kerouac's talent as an artist). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Abc819rT6wI The film The Master was an example for me of the way art can make the familiar *new*; the whole film delivered artistically, but the scene where Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman) Processes Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix)---for the first time, felt in some way like the first time I meditated; my experience of the scene was familiar and at the same time completely new; part of it was the suggestiveness of Dodd's voice, but more was the scene's transition from Dodd's voice to Quell *living* a previous experience as if for the first time, and the familiarity it had to my first meditation and the first superlative clarity of the thought (engram or, if you will, un-stressing) that reported or noticed an artifact of my awareness that had just existed without thinking. The art of the writing, acting, and editing were part of it, but I believe it was the cinematography, with its use of 70mm film (which is rare today), that more than anything else was essential to making the experience possible for me. Another component of the film that worked the same way for me was Joaquin Phoenix's characterization of Freddie Quell, which allowed me to experience---as if for the first time---character types that I met as a child who were friends of my father that had served with him in WW2; JP's characterization of Quell had the same effect on me as a number of
Fw: [FairfieldLife] Re: Is Voldemort a hack? (was The Prerequisites for Enlightenment)
Since death is all we can count on (if taxes are not your thing, there's always Dubai or life as an illegal alien in the Netherlands) I think the key to picking a female householder is finding one with a shared belief in unicorns. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCz0mLFsSFE From: obbajeeba no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Dear Bob, Greetings to you and yours. Cherishing this moment to share this message. I mischievously piled on top of Ann's post last evening due to similar requirements of need, sleep and dreams. Please give the wife my well wishes, and please tell her not to worry about anything, because, even though John was married, he too had fans http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLvTq6FdOj4 and may the post limits be dropped forever, and may the members monitor each other, just like the buddy system on a course, of course. -Obbajeeba http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54sZ8TFFAmY
Fw: [FairfieldLife] Re: Is Voldemort a hack? (was The Prerequisites for Enlightenment)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd5dYQHoZS0 From: raunchydog raunchy...@yahoo.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, August 18, 2013 10:46:45 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Is Voldemort a hack? (was The Prerequisites for Enlightenment) You came home! Welcome back, Bob. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bob Price wrote: From: turquoiseb no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2013 7:58:43 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Prerequisites for Enlightenment And for your information, I dash off things here and send them without editing them because most of the time I'm just having fun with them. That, and the audience I'm writing for doesn't meet my standards for deserving edited copy -- they're not paying me. For paying customers, I edit. Non-paying customers who don't like my unedited posts can go suck eggs. Non-paying editors who get off on editing my posts for me should pay *me*, for providing them with something to do on those days when they're off work and thus not busy...uh...editing.  :-) ** I was thrilled with last weeks *posting without limits*, it gave me a sense of power and control knowing that I could respond to any and all of the 1500+ posts that I just finished reading. One of our illustrious contributors suggested that we might consider a *Best of FFL* going forward, and with that in mind I set myself the difficult task of picking my favorite subject for the week; it was a challenge (how could anyone best Share's attempt to prove she speaks in tongues), but a decision had to be made and I'm going with: Is Voldemort a hack? When I read Voldemort's posts I ask myself: Where's the art?. For someone with his considerable output on FFL, who puts so much effort into selling himself to us as a creative writer, art seems conspicuously absent from his contributions; this might be less true if you consider manual (or phonebook) writing a creative act. As he makes clear above, Voldemort is a writer of manuals, and, IMO, when he attempts anything more than that, the word hack pretty much nails what he becomes. For something to be considered art it's imperative that it have the ability to defamiliarize* by making the familiar, unfamiliar and *new*; Voldemort's posts completely fail at this. OTOH, Judy's choice of the word hack, to describe Voldemort, is a great example of effective defamiliarization---it gave me a new experience of something that was familiar about him. I also must agree with Judy that irony is the life blood of creative writing (writing phonebooks, not as much), and reading Voldemort's attempts at writing creatively ---when he is so handicapped in the irony department (narcissism will do that), is like watching someone with no hands attempt to show off his penmanship (no My left foot jokes please). He also appears to be unable to go beyond cliche and what Martin Amis calls heard words, which make his offerings, on this forum at least, quite artless. Anyone who considers Voldemort a creative writer might consider rereading Hemingway (if you are interested in understanding some of Kerouac's limitations, who Voldemort attempts to emulate---without demonstrating any of Kerouac's talent as an artist). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Abc819rT6wI The film The Master was an example for me of the way art can make the familiar *new*; the whole film delivered artistically, but the scene where Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman) Processes Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix)---for the first time, felt in some way like the first time I meditated; my experience of the scene was familiar and at the same time completely new; part of it was the suggestiveness of Dodd's voice, but more was the scene's transition from Dodd's voice to Quell *living* a previous experience as if for the first time, and the familiarity it had to my first meditation and the first superlative clarity of the thought (engram or, if you will, un-stressing) that reported or noticed an artifact of my awareness that had just existed without thinking. The art of the writing, acting, and editing were part of it, but I believe it was the cinematography, with its use of 70mm film (which is rare today), that more than anything else was essential to making the experience possible for me. Another component of the film that worked the same way for me was Joaquin Phoenix's characterization of Freddie Quell, which allowed me to experience---as if for the first time---character types that I met as a child who were friends of my father that had served with him in WW2; JP's characterization of Quell had the same effect on me as a number of characters Jim Thompson (writer of The Getaway
Fw: [FairfieldLife] Re: Is Voldemort a hack? (was The Prerequisites for Enlightenment)
Mr. Price, Bob, I have no words to express a proper response http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvVSTmfQJyk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvVSTmfQJyk except, I have a current passport, will travel. Dubai (Silently chuckle internally, at the plastic evergreens in the malls? What about illegal kissing on the beach? I can abide to respect these.) flights will at least give us metal cutlery for dinner, and that is a step up from here, a little bit more civilized, don't you think? The Netherlands, I hear there are Unicorns. Yeah, unicorns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG5l8qyY7LI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG5l8qyY7LI this can keep me humble, while I wait. Death happens everyday, life is for the living. :) Yours truly, -Obba --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bob Price wrote: Since death is all we can count on (if taxes are not your thing, there's always Dubai or life as an illegal alien in the Netherlands) I think the key to picking a female householder is finding one with a shared belief in unicorns. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCz0mLFsSFE From: obbajeeba no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com  Dear Bob, Greetings to you and yours. Cherishing this moment to share this message. I mischievously piled on top of Ann's post last evening due to similar requirements of need, sleep and dreams. Please give the wife my well wishes, and please tell her not to worry about anything, because, even though John was married, he too had fans  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLvTq6FdOj4     and may the post limits be dropped forever, and may the members monitor each other, just like the buddy system on a course, of course. -Obbajeeba http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54sZ8TFFAmY Â
