Friday, December 15, 2006

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Letter Stacking


I was thinking. About how we read left to right. The only reason we read left to right is because we were taught that way. Had we been born in China we would read top to bottom, right to left. But for that matter we might have been taught to read dark to light or front to back. Imagine how much page space you could save if we could just stack letters on top of one another. I don’t know if it would work. Maybe for short words like dog, but when I stacked ‘rendezvous’ it became unintelligible.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Neu Storytellers or The Lack of Content

The neu storytellers. That is those employed in the telling of tales. Including, but not exclusively, authors, filmmakers, music makers, and designers. The neu storytellers unlike those of old, have only to tell a partial story. The less they say, the more they say. I mean in this in the most postpostmodern way. Shall we call it the Neu Present Era?

I mean to say that these storytellers, whether they like it or not, are not being viewed, listened to, appreciated, in a controlled environment. In a theater, auditorium, or library. The customers are taking the stories into the streets. They are watching Godfather Part II on the number four line on the way to work, they are listening to Moonlight Sonata while jogging around the block. The neu storytellers are presenting their tales alongside the bumble rumble of real life, and they must recognize this. There are those who shed tears over the death of an old way. Of phonographs and music halls. There will always be a place for these rich souls, tragicly misplaced in history's timeline. For they remind us of our past, and hold firm the foundation we will buld upon. But for those adventerous wetfeet who would rather shape the future than the past, I write.

We recognize that we are the conducters and the world outside is orchestra. There is a thinning thread between the realm of art and the realm of reality. Consider the greatest living artists of our age, those who practice graffiti. Is their art locked away in a museum? No it is on the streets, confronting huminaty and establishing itself not as a reflection of our world, but a part of it. So must it be with all forms of storytelling.

Stories must be true to life, yet lift the appreciater above life. They will show the viewer the world anew. They will be the lenses he wears. They must be humbled. The eyeglass must not think it is the eye. For the real show, the real art, the real beauty is already before us. The neu storytellers must simply show us how to see it.