Writing

In Wikipedia, I ran across a quote I remember from one of Vonnegut’s books. I thought it good advice, and I thought I ought to paste it here:

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 ”On pages 9 and 10 of his book Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, Vonnegut listed eight rules for writing a short story:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.”

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And another, one of my all time favorites:

In early 2006, while speaking at The Ohio State University, which he proclaimed would be the bookends of his college speaking career, as the first and last school he would ever speak at, Kurt Vonnegut said: “If you really want to disappoint your parents, and don’t have the nerve to be gay, go into the arts.”

Requiem

Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday. If you haven’t read any of his work, do so. Breakfast of Champions is an easy one.

I’ve pasted below the close of his last book, which also closed his New York Times obituary. I find it apt.

When the last living thing

has died on account of us,

how poetical it would be

if Earth could say,

in a voice floating up

perhaps

from the floor

of the Grand Canyon,

“It is done.”

People did not like it here.

Random

Is it me, or does Firefox simply suck? I absolutely love the features and goodies that come with it, but it regularly crashes on every computer on which I’ve installed it. My favorite is when it just disappears, and then I reopen the application and I get a guilty little message that tells me “Firefox closed abrubtly last time,” and gives me the option to restore my previous session. My second favorite is when I’m told firefox is already running, and so I can’t open it… because when I close it, apparently it doesn’t always close…

I’m at the Westin in Southfield, near Detroit, and I’m doing a bit of work, with the television on the Discovery Channel. The single most idiotic show I’ve ever seen is on: A Haunting. What is wrong with people? I want to believe in “something else” as much as the next guy, but why do so many people go to such lengths to convince themselves and create fantasies? Seriously, this is the dumbest shit I’ve ever seen – so bad it makes me want to flip the screen off over and over again. Double seriously, EVP is the uber-studpidest thing ever… well, enough about that. Listen to the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe – they do rants much better than I.

I’m going to blog at length about Detroit, as this is my 6th week here in about 2 months. I have a lot of observations, but I have to put off writing. I feel like going downstairs for a cigarette.

Skeptical?

In the throes of cramming for the bar exam and spending a company-sponsored week in Detroit, I came across a podcast, The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, which has become a favorite. Check it out if you’re tired of charlatans and the hegemony of the feeble-minded.

Must love…

Have you ever really liked a terrible movie? I’m hoping I wake up tomorrow with more sense, but I recommend “Must Love Dogs,”if only for the Cusack-Lane-Plummer-Channing  performances.

The final few scenes are gut-wrenchingly awful.

Quick! To the library!

“The History of Farting by Benjamin Bart is a collection of assorted limericks, facts, and blurbs on farting, while Who Cut the Cheese: A Cultural History of the Fart by Jim Dawson gives a more complete cultural discussion of the historical and social significance of farting.” – From a wikipedia post.

Brilliant

Please click this and watch it. It is brilliant cinema within a cartoon.