sleialgnion
Thursday, December 06, 2007
sleialgnion
it has now begun
What would happen if a novel was typed into a blog utility, but, instead of adding daily posts, the originating post was updated, added to,
resulting in a correct progression of chapters (chronological, forward narrational order) -- with the first entry always appearing first, as it should be, way at the top, and subsequent entries taking their place in order, underneath, ending, as is proper and just, with the final installment to the "novel"?
Would this question itself be part of the novel, or an editorial aside that was supplemental? Where would be the best location for this intro remark that exists as a question?
In a preface? But if the novel never turns to stare at the reader, if it just sits there, questioning its own reality, if it refuses to face the reader, how can an absence of face have a pre-face?
In an afterward? An appendix? A post-logue?
In a post card insert? that can be mailed by the reader to the author directly, via a post office box, letting me know if it stinks, or not, and how bad?
What if the novel were nothing but questions, with few statements, and consisted of one long chapter, a chapter one, with no following chapters, but content added frequently, with no scenary, no plot, no characters, no action, no dialogue, and no foreseeable conclusion?
Or with all those adornments, all those fictive devices, those narrative gestures...but only in a massively limited, bare bones, phantasmic sense?
Could a "novel", that which is "new", there can be no "old novels", no "not new newness", ever not be, just because of what it refrained from doing, or doing in the old fashioned manner?
"If novel derives from novellus, novus, nouveau, novelty, and now," you may ask, "then why are some considered not new?"
? "novel" ? = ? "long fictional prose narrative with plot" ?
Notice how "characters", "scenary", "dialogue", "suspense", "character development", "foreshadowing", "irony", "allegory", and other terms are left out of the fundamental definition of "novel", according to Webster's New World Dictionary, 1968 edition?
So if action is demanded, how about the following?
Did you see him rake the leaves in her yard?
He was curiously attracted to a rather substantial lumpy pile of leaves in the middle of her back yard, and wondered, "Is something wrong here?"
As he raked, he kept glancing over at the lump pile, did he not? And didn't he seem more extraordinarily nervous as he moved toward it in his mind, preparing himself for the actual journey, all the way across the yawning expanse of front and half way across the back yard?
When the lump began to be closer to him, what made him wade right into the middle of it, like it were a pool of orange water? As he started to sink into the huge mound of leaves, as he began to drown in it, what could he possibly have been thinking?
Did he ever dream in his wildest imaginations that the leaves would one day rake him, pull him down under their hideous patch-work blanket, drag him to his inevitable doom? where he would join a tribe of leaf-smothered companions, now stiff as the twigs that sealed their cell?
An alien monster, cleverly disguised as a nice happy hill of autumnal leaves, but with a rotten agenda lying within its core, would this make the reader smile a smirk of satisfaction, to be presented with a tidy and not unimaginable spectacle of unseen, solid, simpering recognition?
Of course, you've seen it move, too, have you not?
Perhaps it happened late last night, or three nights ago, it's been unseasonably active as of late, with the moon's rays lightly glancing across the shimmering shell?
Did it seem like little eyes were peering out at you as you hurriedly disappeared back into the house through the side kitchen entrance, rather than the front door, which is never used and is just for "show"?
The face of the house is turned off, and, being sub-normal, many will wonder, "Why?"
You always, and I say this, but not without any cautious lack of hesitation, always, and I mean without fail, you always make the front entrance not even an exit, but a non-portal, a solid wall for all intents and purposes, the door and knob being supplemental, not necessary to its dysfunction...or what say you?
I mean, well, you are thinking that you're "reading" "a new novel" by someone, it hardly matters who, yet what if this what you call "reading" is another form of writing?
We imprint, temporarily memorize, while gazing at them, the sentences we speak silently in our minds as we read them.
Read = transform silent text into sounds, colors, shapes, feelings, within our imaginations, not just slavishly mentally repeat the sounds of the words alone.
Reading is a specialized auto-echo of inscriptions, words, language.
Reading is not similar to looking at a painting, photo, or event. In these cases, one must supply one's own thoughts, cloaked in words, to the process, to enlist it with meaning.
Within reading, however, the sentences are pre-supplied. When you look at words, you not only see them, you also hear them mentally. There is no easy way to look at one word, but hear quite another, an entirely different, word.
Try it.
Look at this word: "book".
Now keep looking at it, but hear the word "robot" instead. Not easy, nor is it fun.
If the novel loses its faith in itself, as it's being composed by the author's conditioning, what would indicate such an event to the reader? How many novels in existence lost the interest of the author part-way through, and were rushed off to a predictably unexpected but rational or symbolic conclusion?
What's the difference between a theory of the novel and the novel itself, for example, a, any novel? When does the idea, the formula for the novel begin to change into a separate, new thing, an invasion of the unknown into the being read?
He was worrying about these things, and didn't notice how something seemed to be grasping his ankles and hauling him bodily down into the depths of the leafy hell.
As piles of leaves, coffee shops, malls, mailboxes, and other ordinary things were taken over, imitated, or used as camouflage, the aliens caused us to flee to the bizarre, the extraordinary, the exceptional.
Plain vanilla mediocre generic conventionality, in every realm of life, including music, diet, and clothing styles, was viewed with increasing suspicion, if not outright animosity.
It was quite amusing, but tragic, too. It took an alien invasion, extraterrestials posing as common objects, to force people to seek and appreciate the unconventional, experimental, idiosyncratic.
I watched in detached boredom how the tide had turned against the conformists, traditionalists, and conservatives. Now the cry was for the radical, the extreme, the wild. From colors to fragrances and everything in between.
It was at this time that I decided to write the novel from a hovel, entitled "qwigilasg".
This astounding literary achievement was unheard of at the time, and made me an overnight success, with instant cash-stuffed suitcases going in fifteen different directions, like mind-mummies chasing chocolate gauze.
Of course, we all got a little nervous when we saw a pile of leaves in the back of the couch house, near the wrought iron lamp of Abraham Lincoln. It made the dogs uncomfortable, as they were noticed growling and whimpering in obvious, hopeless dread.
It wouldn't have been so evidently alien, had it just remained in one spot. Everyone would assume that someone must have thought well of getting some fresh air and exercise, by raking some leaves. But what were we to think when we all were fortunate enough to see it slowly inch its way closer to the kennel. It was hungry, we all knew it and we agreed that by eating the dogs, we'd gain a little time to come up with a plan.
The plan never materialized.
Every dog was gone the next morning, the morning after the night we first noticed the pile was able to move and not just wait for a victim to wander into it.
Hank said he thought there were more leaves in the basement than normal. I mean normally, there are no leaves in the basement, everyone leaves their shoes or boots with the doorman. No dirt or debris gets tracked in, and certainly nothing could possibly get all the way down to the basement.
But there, in the northwest corner, sure enough, was a huge pile of leaves. I found a few little holes through which the alien could have slowly accumulated in this spot, but this was not a slow operation, it happened within about 5 minutes, when I was last down there.
it has now begun
What would happen if a novel was typed into a blog utility, but, instead of adding daily posts, the originating post was updated, added to,
resulting in a correct progression of chapters (chronological, forward narrational order) -- with the first entry always appearing first, as it should be, way at the top, and subsequent entries taking their place in order, underneath, ending, as is proper and just, with the final installment to the "novel"?
Would this question itself be part of the novel, or an editorial aside that was supplemental? Where would be the best location for this intro remark that exists as a question?
In a preface? But if the novel never turns to stare at the reader, if it just sits there, questioning its own reality, if it refuses to face the reader, how can an absence of face have a pre-face?
In an afterward? An appendix? A post-logue?
In a post card insert? that can be mailed by the reader to the author directly, via a post office box, letting me know if it stinks, or not, and how bad?
What if the novel were nothing but questions, with few statements, and consisted of one long chapter, a chapter one, with no following chapters, but content added frequently, with no scenary, no plot, no characters, no action, no dialogue, and no foreseeable conclusion?
Or with all those adornments, all those fictive devices, those narrative gestures...but only in a massively limited, bare bones, phantasmic sense?
Could a "novel", that which is "new", there can be no "old novels", no "not new newness", ever not be, just because of what it refrained from doing, or doing in the old fashioned manner?
"If novel derives from novellus, novus, nouveau, novelty, and now," you may ask, "then why are some considered not new?"
? "novel" ? = ? "long fictional prose narrative with plot" ?
Notice how "characters", "scenary", "dialogue", "suspense", "character development", "foreshadowing", "irony", "allegory", and other terms are left out of the fundamental definition of "novel", according to Webster's New World Dictionary, 1968 edition?
So if action is demanded, how about the following?
Did you see him rake the leaves in her yard?
He was curiously attracted to a rather substantial lumpy pile of leaves in the middle of her back yard, and wondered, "Is something wrong here?"
As he raked, he kept glancing over at the lump pile, did he not? And didn't he seem more extraordinarily nervous as he moved toward it in his mind, preparing himself for the actual journey, all the way across the yawning expanse of front and half way across the back yard?
When the lump began to be closer to him, what made him wade right into the middle of it, like it were a pool of orange water? As he started to sink into the huge mound of leaves, as he began to drown in it, what could he possibly have been thinking?
Did he ever dream in his wildest imaginations that the leaves would one day rake him, pull him down under their hideous patch-work blanket, drag him to his inevitable doom? where he would join a tribe of leaf-smothered companions, now stiff as the twigs that sealed their cell?
An alien monster, cleverly disguised as a nice happy hill of autumnal leaves, but with a rotten agenda lying within its core, would this make the reader smile a smirk of satisfaction, to be presented with a tidy and not unimaginable spectacle of unseen, solid, simpering recognition?
Of course, you've seen it move, too, have you not?
Perhaps it happened late last night, or three nights ago, it's been unseasonably active as of late, with the moon's rays lightly glancing across the shimmering shell?
Did it seem like little eyes were peering out at you as you hurriedly disappeared back into the house through the side kitchen entrance, rather than the front door, which is never used and is just for "show"?
The face of the house is turned off, and, being sub-normal, many will wonder, "Why?"
You always, and I say this, but not without any cautious lack of hesitation, always, and I mean without fail, you always make the front entrance not even an exit, but a non-portal, a solid wall for all intents and purposes, the door and knob being supplemental, not necessary to its dysfunction...or what say you?
I mean, well, you are thinking that you're "reading" "a new novel" by someone, it hardly matters who, yet what if this what you call "reading" is another form of writing?
We imprint, temporarily memorize, while gazing at them, the sentences we speak silently in our minds as we read them.
Read = transform silent text into sounds, colors, shapes, feelings, within our imaginations, not just slavishly mentally repeat the sounds of the words alone.
Reading is a specialized auto-echo of inscriptions, words, language.
Reading is not similar to looking at a painting, photo, or event. In these cases, one must supply one's own thoughts, cloaked in words, to the process, to enlist it with meaning.
Within reading, however, the sentences are pre-supplied. When you look at words, you not only see them, you also hear them mentally. There is no easy way to look at one word, but hear quite another, an entirely different, word.
Try it.
Look at this word: "book".
Now keep looking at it, but hear the word "robot" instead. Not easy, nor is it fun.
If the novel loses its faith in itself, as it's being composed by the author's conditioning, what would indicate such an event to the reader? How many novels in existence lost the interest of the author part-way through, and were rushed off to a predictably unexpected but rational or symbolic conclusion?
What's the difference between a theory of the novel and the novel itself, for example, a, any novel? When does the idea, the formula for the novel begin to change into a separate, new thing, an invasion of the unknown into the being read?
He was worrying about these things, and didn't notice how something seemed to be grasping his ankles and hauling him bodily down into the depths of the leafy hell.
As piles of leaves, coffee shops, malls, mailboxes, and other ordinary things were taken over, imitated, or used as camouflage, the aliens caused us to flee to the bizarre, the extraordinary, the exceptional.
Plain vanilla mediocre generic conventionality, in every realm of life, including music, diet, and clothing styles, was viewed with increasing suspicion, if not outright animosity.
It was quite amusing, but tragic, too. It took an alien invasion, extraterrestials posing as common objects, to force people to seek and appreciate the unconventional, experimental, idiosyncratic.
I watched in detached boredom how the tide had turned against the conformists, traditionalists, and conservatives. Now the cry was for the radical, the extreme, the wild. From colors to fragrances and everything in between.
It was at this time that I decided to write the novel from a hovel, entitled "qwigilasg".
This astounding literary achievement was unheard of at the time, and made me an overnight success, with instant cash-stuffed suitcases going in fifteen different directions, like mind-mummies chasing chocolate gauze.
Of course, we all got a little nervous when we saw a pile of leaves in the back of the couch house, near the wrought iron lamp of Abraham Lincoln. It made the dogs uncomfortable, as they were noticed growling and whimpering in obvious, hopeless dread.
It wouldn't have been so evidently alien, had it just remained in one spot. Everyone would assume that someone must have thought well of getting some fresh air and exercise, by raking some leaves. But what were we to think when we all were fortunate enough to see it slowly inch its way closer to the kennel. It was hungry, we all knew it and we agreed that by eating the dogs, we'd gain a little time to come up with a plan.
The plan never materialized.
Every dog was gone the next morning, the morning after the night we first noticed the pile was able to move and not just wait for a victim to wander into it.
Hank said he thought there were more leaves in the basement than normal. I mean normally, there are no leaves in the basement, everyone leaves their shoes or boots with the doorman. No dirt or debris gets tracked in, and certainly nothing could possibly get all the way down to the basement.
But there, in the northwest corner, sure enough, was a huge pile of leaves. I found a few little holes through which the alien could have slowly accumulated in this spot, but this was not a slow operation, it happened within about 5 minutes, when I was last down there.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
me name be sleialgnion
Hello everyone in general and nobody in particular.
My nomenclature is: Sleialgnion. Pronounced "Slee-al-nee-on" w/emphasis accent on the "al" as in Al Bundy or Al Roecker or Al Capone or Al Cohol.
When I started this novel, and a novelist is not supposed to enter his novel, but here I go anyway, it was flat. Now, with proper lumping and molding, it has all the hills and valleys that any normal life or story must certainly be seen to have.
In my
My nomenclature is: Sleialgnion. Pronounced "Slee-al-nee-on" w/emphasis accent on the "al" as in Al Bundy or Al Roecker or Al Capone or Al Cohol.
When I started this novel, and a novelist is not supposed to enter his novel, but here I go anyway, it was flat. Now, with proper lumping and molding, it has all the hills and valleys that any normal life or story must certainly be seen to have.
In my
Friday, January 27, 2006
We know you did it, Slei
"We know you did it, so don't even try to convince us otherwise." the Night Manager said.
"Did what?" Sleialgnion (slee-al-nee-on) asked unassumptively.
"You know you're the one," the Meat Inspector chortled triumphantly, with a mad glint in his eye.
"The one what?" Sleialgnion replied.
"You've been stealing food from the cafeteria," the Night Manager said.
"The break room refrigerator," the Meat Inspector corrected him, his hair hanging haughtily over his left eye.
An ant crawled across the floor, toward Sleialgnion, aggressively. He felt surrounded, trapped, attacked in a merciless madness that had just begun to disclose its intentions. Shifting his shoe slightly, to let the ant travel past him, but it stopped and stared at him instead, Sleialgnion was feeling breezey, as though being swallowed whole by a vertigo vortex of voices and accusations.
"A what-cha-ma-call-it?" he asked, trying to gain time to think in a panic with fear and foreboding sailing sinkingly through him like a catastrophic comet.
"Huh?" the Meat Inspector said.
"You're fired, from now on," the Night Manager said.
"Right now," the Meat Inspector corrected.
"Today? For how long? A few days?" Sleialgnion inquired pensively.
"Forever, and yes, as of now," the Night Manager said.
"Now wait a portion of a minute," Sleialgnion commanded. "How can I be fired for something I didn't do, and it's effective both right now and in perpetuity? According to string-theory quantum metaphysics, this is not possible. It's like being two places at once when you're nowhere at all."
"How so?" the Meat Inspector asked childishly.
"If I am fired now, and in the future, I would have to exist in both locations of time, correct?" was the rapid fire answer from our hero. "And if you say that since I will exist in the future, you can go ahead and make rules for it, you claim to possess omniscience, a supernatural insight into my whereabouts temporally. How do you know I am here right now and also there in the future? Answer me that."
As the security personnel forcibly escorted me, I mean Sleialgnion, off the premises, he continued his monologic diatribe on time, events, and non-inevitability. The police squad car seat felt cold and stiff.
He smiled sadly. The clouds in the sky seemed to be suspended from rubber springs.
"Did what?" Sleialgnion (slee-al-nee-on) asked unassumptively.
"You know you're the one," the Meat Inspector chortled triumphantly, with a mad glint in his eye.
"The one what?" Sleialgnion replied.
"You've been stealing food from the cafeteria," the Night Manager said.
"The break room refrigerator," the Meat Inspector corrected him, his hair hanging haughtily over his left eye.
An ant crawled across the floor, toward Sleialgnion, aggressively. He felt surrounded, trapped, attacked in a merciless madness that had just begun to disclose its intentions. Shifting his shoe slightly, to let the ant travel past him, but it stopped and stared at him instead, Sleialgnion was feeling breezey, as though being swallowed whole by a vertigo vortex of voices and accusations.
"A what-cha-ma-call-it?" he asked, trying to gain time to think in a panic with fear and foreboding sailing sinkingly through him like a catastrophic comet.
"Huh?" the Meat Inspector said.
"You're fired, from now on," the Night Manager said.
"Right now," the Meat Inspector corrected.
"Today? For how long? A few days?" Sleialgnion inquired pensively.
"Forever, and yes, as of now," the Night Manager said.
"Now wait a portion of a minute," Sleialgnion commanded. "How can I be fired for something I didn't do, and it's effective both right now and in perpetuity? According to string-theory quantum metaphysics, this is not possible. It's like being two places at once when you're nowhere at all."
"How so?" the Meat Inspector asked childishly.
"If I am fired now, and in the future, I would have to exist in both locations of time, correct?" was the rapid fire answer from our hero. "And if you say that since I will exist in the future, you can go ahead and make rules for it, you claim to possess omniscience, a supernatural insight into my whereabouts temporally. How do you know I am here right now and also there in the future? Answer me that."
As the security personnel forcibly escorted me, I mean Sleialgnion, off the premises, he continued his monologic diatribe on time, events, and non-inevitability. The police squad car seat felt cold and stiff.
He smiled sadly. The clouds in the sky seemed to be suspended from rubber springs.
revchron is bad
Reverse chronological order is a bad way to live. It makes you feel like the now is more than the once was or might be someday. It is an illusion to think your life, your memoirs work that way.
Have you ever read an autobiography or journal that started with the last and final entry, and worked its way backward, in reverse chronological order?
RevChron is bad. It's counter-clockwise, against nature, is ill bred, a boor. It's presumptuous to think that the latest occurence is of the most importance or significance. How can you predict any future movement based on a backward motion?
RevChron is at cross purposes to reality. It goes from Finish to Start, the horse after the cart.
Have you ever read an autobiography or journal that started with the last and final entry, and worked its way backward, in reverse chronological order?
RevChron is bad. It's counter-clockwise, against nature, is ill bred, a boor. It's presumptuous to think that the latest occurence is of the most importance or significance. How can you predict any future movement based on a backward motion?
RevChron is at cross purposes to reality. It goes from Finish to Start, the horse after the cart.
today's the day
Today's the day I decide about it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to do it. In fact, with all my ducks in a row, it seems appropo.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
sleialgnion gets harshed
"We also have heard some of the female employees say they felt uncomfortable around you. They complain of how you stare at them. Then, finally, we have reports of a strong smell of alcohol on your breath, especially when you work evening shifts."
Sleialgnion felt the lights switch off inside him. The fun, easy, interesting job was ending, being slaughtered right before him, here, in this dark closet where the "meeting" was being conducted.
They were desperate now, and the sight and sound of this was repulsive to witness. He felt like an outpost of the irreal. They could find nothing wrong with him, no reason to slice, but they were trying to invent some fictional dysfunction and paste it onto his work behavior.
"I'm a happily married man, with a dog kennel behind the garage, and a huge library of paper books. I have no reason to gawk or otherwise lollygag around females who are not my wife, which is basically all females, except one."
He was getting, as usual, all tangled up in an inarticulated mess of words awakened out of their busy sleep.
"All we're saying", the management team continued, oblivious to facts or logic, "is that we need to see some improvement in this area, even if you have to try to avoid the women in the other departments, or else we'll have to determine what to do next."
Sleialgnion wanted to laugh, but refrained, with a discreet and gentlemanly finesse, from doing so. He remembered the heroism of the stoic non-confidante stance. You divulge nothing and absorb nothing that the opponent says. It bounces off like ping pong balls hitting a solid brass wall at 100 miles per hour.
"Check", he replied in his enigmatic manner. ("...mate!" he was thinking in the back of his mind.)
He was always happier when a job ended than when it began, though he like to work. He like very much to work. He like doing it, work, very radically much. Now he was going to be harder, braver, smarter.
He decided to get signed affadavits from each girl-type person in the company, sealed and notarized by a justice of the peace with halo and wings, that he was not staring, had not stared, and did not plan to ever stare, at them.
Yes. The plan seemed right and foolproof.
Sleialgnion felt the lights switch off inside him. The fun, easy, interesting job was ending, being slaughtered right before him, here, in this dark closet where the "meeting" was being conducted.
They were desperate now, and the sight and sound of this was repulsive to witness. He felt like an outpost of the irreal. They could find nothing wrong with him, no reason to slice, but they were trying to invent some fictional dysfunction and paste it onto his work behavior.
"I'm a happily married man, with a dog kennel behind the garage, and a huge library of paper books. I have no reason to gawk or otherwise lollygag around females who are not my wife, which is basically all females, except one."
He was getting, as usual, all tangled up in an inarticulated mess of words awakened out of their busy sleep.
"All we're saying", the management team continued, oblivious to facts or logic, "is that we need to see some improvement in this area, even if you have to try to avoid the women in the other departments, or else we'll have to determine what to do next."
Sleialgnion wanted to laugh, but refrained, with a discreet and gentlemanly finesse, from doing so. He remembered the heroism of the stoic non-confidante stance. You divulge nothing and absorb nothing that the opponent says. It bounces off like ping pong balls hitting a solid brass wall at 100 miles per hour.
"Check", he replied in his enigmatic manner. ("...mate!" he was thinking in the back of his mind.)
He was always happier when a job ended than when it began, though he like to work. He like very much to work. He like doing it, work, very radically much. Now he was going to be harder, braver, smarter.
He decided to get signed affadavits from each girl-type person in the company, sealed and notarized by a justice of the peace with halo and wings, that he was not staring, had not stared, and did not plan to ever stare, at them.
Yes. The plan seemed right and foolproof.