The Day of Mortality

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

original posting: Mon, 6 Feb 1995 12:57:24 EST

In a lecture recently about the molding events in the life of Oe (nobel-prize winning author, I think), the translator mentioned the day that God stepped down and admitted he was mortal (or, in Oe's case, the day the Emperor told the nation he was mortal).

Contemplating that...

1. Pick two or three characters.

2. Put them in a situation (resort, work, restaurant, what have you)...

3. And through the doors steps the divine being of your choice (god, goddess, mythological, religious, or otherwise supreme...). The divine being is seeking acceptance as a mere mortal among mortals...

What happens? Do your characters accept the divinity as a divinity? Do they accept the divinity as mortal?

Why is the divinity doing the mortal bit? Just a break from Mount Olympus (those gods seemed to enjoy slumming...) or has something more serious happened? Are they, in fact, actually mortal? Would you let one marry your brother?

And they lived a short, but fulfilling life, thereafter?

Not quite the same ring, but maybe there's potential there.

Write!

[Note: Oe  is Japanese, and the nation where the emperor told everyone that he was mortal is Japan.]

Looks aren't everything?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

original posting: January 9, 1995 (?)

(skimming through the morning mail in between helping our new blind programmer get settled in--interesting that he uses phrases such as "let me see what's happening" quite unconsciously...)

Mary Jane (*god bless slippery rock nymphs and keep them away from pick'm ups with guns in the windows*) suggested that some of the new folk don't quite know what us old wizened critters look like? So...

1. Pick a persona offa the list (tink or someone).

2. And here they come, roaring into your life! Imagine meeting them in the woods, the malls, the rain, the sunshine, perhaps skydiving into the swimming pool...

3. WRITE IT UP! The meeting of a lifetime, right there in your skull, complete with soundbites, tastes of the tongue, smells of the nose, and maybe even (hush! whisper it in my ear!) a touch here and there...

oh, and the sights! don't forget to describe the curling purplish locks of the aging baby bumper or the greenish glint in the third eye of the young grunt.

Come one, come all, to the writers' sideshow! Yes, here you can meet the human skeleton, handing out bony embraces! Or how about watching the twin desires pull a sacrifice in twain? Right before your very eyes, on the square screen full of words...

Write!

(how much brine does it take to wizen an old critter, anyway?)

The Wizard is OUT?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

original posting: January 4, 1995

Bad news. The wizard (of odd, id, oz, izzy and horiat, or erewhon...at your pleasure and indiscretion) had to wobble off to lunch.

[well, At least the wiz was holding that tummy when the wobbling set in (shortly after mumbling something about bad buns or puns or something...)]

In the absence of the wiz, YOU are in charge! yes, for a once in a lifetime thrill, you are sitting in the hotseat when...

the hotline rings.

you pick it up, and there is a voice on the line, asking one of those questions that makes the world spin and monkeys race through the vines...

(TAKE NOTES!)

you, with cool calmness, fortitude, and other wisdom tempered by the flames of adversity and so forth, answer with the precise words and logic to calm their troubled little life!

[whoo, faked them out, huh!]

and the phone rings again?

yes, while waiting for the wiz to fill that gaping pit under the unclean nostrils, you get call after call, each penetrating in its questioning of the world, and you respond with vorpal swords or undulating words or something like that...

do at least five questions. make the dialogue sharp, so we get a picture of the person at the other end and really want to keep reading. make your answers, your responses, as if you were a candidate for the position of grand wiz (which may be true... what's keeping the rascal now?)

[locked the door to keep him out? what a joker!]

a phone, a bell ringing, and you...what a pretty little scene...

WRITE!