Greetings, Catsignallers.
I’m going to do something I haven’t done before: I’m taking the holidays off. Meet you back here on January 3, 2011.
Between now and then, may the blessings of the season be yours.
Month: December 2010
Fiction: The Snowman Enigma
Leonard looked out the window to check on his children’s progress. Leila and her little brother, Leo, were working on a snowman in the front yard. They had made the bottom ball pretty big and had had some difficulty getting the next part of the snowman’s body on top of the base. Now they looked at the head and how high above their reach it needed to go.A moment later, Leonard walked out of the house.
“Need some help with that?”
“Yeah, Daddy. We can’t lift the head high enough,” Leila said.
“Well, I think I can manage that,” Leonard told them, and he knelt down for the snowman’s head. He hoisted it into place and patted some snow to secure it.
Quotable 32
Whenever I have endured or accomplished some difficult task — such as watching television, going out socially or sleeping — I always look forward to rewarding myself with the small pleasure of getting back to my typewriter and writing something.
– Isaac Asimov
haiku 143
whistle —
strong arctic winds
push past new window
Pen to Paper: Reimagining
One of the things writers do is to reimagine the old stories to make them more accessible to modern audiences. Jane Smiley won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with her novel A Thousand Acres, which was then made into a movie in 1997; it’s Shakespeare’s King Lear set on an Iowa farm. James Cameron added a touch of the Bard’s Romeo and Juliet to his Titanic to act as a focus for the tragedy of the lost liner. The Coen Brothers gave us a new way to view Homer’s Odyssey in O! Brother, Where Art Thou?
The stories of King Arthur and Robin Hood are periodically updated and retold. Even more modern heroes like Superman and Batman are given new focus both in print and on screen.
At its best, this practice keeps great stories fresh for a new generation and a new audience. At its worst, Hollywood remakes bad television shows into even worse motion pictures, or “reboots” perfectly good franchises just for the joy of screwing around with the well-known characters and trying to squeeze more bucks out of them.
I can’t recall that I’ve reworked an old favorite myself. I’ve built on well-known stories and expanded upon them, such as in my story “The Fatted Calf.” But perhaps I’ll try it one day just to see if I can find a new way to make a familiar story shine.
During my regular perusal of the Internet, I came across a visual depiction of the Myth of Sisyphus that, while being awfully funny in ways the original story was never meant to be, encapsulates the myth’s basic concept and got me to thinking about reimagining the great stories. That’s a nice new constellation of thoughts from one lolcat gif.
OT: A Catsignal from The Oatmeal
It’s not meant for this Catsignal, but I couldn’t resist posting this. See the whole storyline at The Oatmeal.
Fiction: Souled Out
Darlan, an agent of Hell on Earth, sighed into his coffee. A good, strong cup of coffee was one of the few things that made up for being trapped in human form to do his infernal majesty’s will.
You couldn’t get any in Hell.
Today, though, even coffee wasn’t perking Darlan up. He was waiting for today’s mark to come along. Another soul to speed on its way to Hell.
Big deal, Darlan thought. The place is overrun with souls as it is, cluttering things up, screaming, pleading, whining — oh, the whining.
Three hundred years earlier, when Darlan was first given the job of infernal shepherd, it was exciting. He always exceeded his quota and liked to take on the tougher jobs. But any job begins to pale after three centuries, and Darlan was doing little more now than putting in his time. Other agents were showing him up, but he didn’t care.
Quotable 31
Listen. All great literature is about what a bummer it is to be a human being: Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, The Red Badge of Courage, the Iliad and the Odyssey, Crime and Punishment, the Bible and The Charge of the Light Brigade.
– Kurt Vonnegut
haiku 142
December night —
white cattle gleam
in my headlights
Pen to Paper: Depression and Creativity
Today’s topic comes from Greg’s second comment on last week’s topic.
Is there, in fact, a link between the depressive personality and the creative one? Do they inhabit the same skin? The answer is a definite maybe. It all depends on the latest study done, which may say the opposite of the study before that. There are some interesting parallels, however, between the manic phase of bipolar disorder and the creative process.
Some research suggests that it is not depression but rather the coming out of depression which engenders a burst of creativity. This seems reasonable; if you’ve been seeing through a glass darkly and daylight begins to break, isn’t that cause for a psalm of joy? Or perhaps an epic tragedy?
The belief that depression is a necessary component of creativity may be a cultural orientation: “In the West many people believe that creativity comes from torment, while in the East there is more of a tradition of great art coming from balance and realization.”
Author, psychologist and creativity coach Eric Maisel is quoted as saying, “Creators are not necessarily afflicted with some biological disease or physiological disorder… They experience depression simply because they are caught up in a struggle to make life seem meaningful to them.”
If you’re a happy and creative person, don’t hunt for reasons to be unhappy on the theory that you’re not down in the trenches with the rest of us. And for those who are depressed, perhaps it will help to believe that although “weeping may endure for the night, joy comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5, speaking of psalms), and your creative cup will runneth over once more.
UPDATE, 12/16: Health.com has made a list of 10 Careers with High Rates of Depression. “Artist, entertainer, writer” is listed at number six. Right before “teacher.”