Hey, would definitely buy the red buildings as a piece of art. We went to the Dali Museum while in St. Petersburg, also the MOFA. Bought two Dali shirts and seriously coveted a pietre dure piece at the MOFA. Turned out, the pietre dure piece was sitting outside in the Florida weather for many years till some scholars pointed out that was indeed NOT a tabletop but a Medici commissioned piece from the 17th century.
Partly, I guess, why we soft-skinned, little-teethed, de-clawed creeps moved into caves. Wide open spaces are insecure? The "fill it in" part does make the work more interesting to me! Thanks for bringing that to the front. Although, sometimes I don't do so well at filling in where its going - like in the movie Inception.
Apr 18, 2023·edited Apr 18, 2023Liked by Michael Marshall Smith
At the other end of the scale of screenwriting ability, I just watched 'The Last of Us'. If you haven't… don't bother. There are a couple of interesting/emotional side stories, but the main plot may as well be a video game (yes… I am aware), complete with tunnel walkthroughs & big shoot-em-ups at the end of each ;)
I do want to watch Kaleidoscope [in my queue, yet to watch] by 'throwing dice' though I get the feeling that knowing i can watch the episodes in any order may be more satisfying than actually trying out many iterations just to prove a point.
Succession, I'm holding on & avoiding spoilers until I can binge all S04. We just binged the last three [slow to catch up on fashion sometimes] & are still wondering how we can keep watching such a bunch of obnoxious pathological narcissists & give a damn at all… yet we still watch.
It does make me wonder what people would make of a photo if me in 1983 & one now. What imaginative plot-lines that could draw. The truth would be stranger, but maybe not as interesting.
I love this insight and I find fiction a perfect place for people to fill those gaps and make assumptions. People seem to be very good at it in daily life! So many assumptions made to fill in our gaps of knowledge.
On another note this entry made me think of one time I felt a bit robbed by a gap. No country for old men. Moss' death in both book and film happens away from the main story. It felt odd to me. I wondered if maybe it was a way to highlight the randomness of death but it never sat right with me.
"The spaces between things humanize." — Love this sentence! I've come to appreciate this less-is-more approach as a parent. When I give my kids less info, they end up understanding on a deeper level by figuring out the gaps themselves. Of course, I only learned this after doing the opposite.
Billy Wilder (though he attributed the advice to Ernst Lubitsch), is, as always, worth listening to: "Let the audience add up two plus two. They'll love you forever."
This is very pertinent to writing comics and something I consider all the time when breaking down stories into panels. As Scott McCloud noted in 'Understanding Comics' the key to good comic scriptwriting is knowing that the action is happening in the gutters between the art. We are pouring our imagination into the blank spaces and imagining the unspoken story.
I'm always trying to whittle away as much story as possible to allow the reader to make the imaginative leap. They much prefer it.
I always do this when reading or watching a film or a tv series. Imagining what is going on in the background, what happened in the moments left unwritten or not actually visualised. I am curious as to how people reached those moments from a sociological amd psychological perspective. It can be frustrating when you have invested so much of your time in a film, series or a story, to end up feeling that you have been left wanting as it were, but I also like the idea of imagining and comstructing little back stories of what if's and maybes. I guess it could be that as human beings we need resolution in our understanding and involvement, after all these chatacters have become an integral part of our inner landscape at that particular moment in time. That is just my persoective anyway. 😊
And filling in the gaps can kill the magic. The Dune prequels being a case in point: when the original alludes to the end of thinking machines during the Butlerian Jihad, it’s a backstory we all fill in uniquely. I don’t want three sequels that rob me of that.
Love this. Two people looking at exactly the same thing can perceive something completely different - subjective reality. Perception as a process of filling in the missing information, making meaning. And it is so much fun. We are all hallucinating all the time, filling in the blind spot with what we think goes there. Most of the time we get it right :)
This works in the visual arts as well as in music.
There is nothing more concrete and defined than a painting exhibited in a museum.
The artist's concept was expressed by him and is evident to everyone. The author has already held a conference, where he explained in detail, every millimeter of the canvas, what he meant exactly and which historical, religious, naturalistic or pure fantasy concept inspired him.
..…But….There are always people who did not attend the conference (one could say “Aaaa..Yes… We know those who do not follow the events and know nothing about Greek mythology”)…
And well..???…We are all spectators…
The people who attended the conference, as well as those who didn't attend it, are perhaps subjected at this precise moment to the joyful or perhaps sad events of their lives. Everyone with their own vision of the world will inevitably create their own story of that painting. May be, it won't change the general concept, but it will add something of it. Then, we all go home, study thoroughly what we have seen, change our minds.
But … history has already been created and the judgment has already been formed and has the right to exist and fits perfectly into the philosophical concept: "Critical judgment - it is already a historical judgment."
The painter-author of the painting would be very surprised if he could know at least in part those new stories that everyone added to his painting about him. These stories have a right to exist. The battles between critics about what is more right and what the painter wanted to say are useless. The stories of each of us in that painting have the right to exist, to live their own lives. "Critical judgment is already a historical judgment".
P.S. “The spaces between things humanize. As soon as we've got gaps to live in, we feel more at home, and more ourselves. Who knows, maybe time itself works that way too. An endless series of moments, and it's only us who turn them into reality.." Bello…
Hey, would definitely buy the red buildings as a piece of art. We went to the Dali Museum while in St. Petersburg, also the MOFA. Bought two Dali shirts and seriously coveted a pietre dure piece at the MOFA. Turned out, the pietre dure piece was sitting outside in the Florida weather for many years till some scholars pointed out that was indeed NOT a tabletop but a Medici commissioned piece from the 17th century.
Partly, I guess, why we soft-skinned, little-teethed, de-clawed creeps moved into caves. Wide open spaces are insecure? The "fill it in" part does make the work more interesting to me! Thanks for bringing that to the front. Although, sometimes I don't do so well at filling in where its going - like in the movie Inception.
At the other end of the scale of screenwriting ability, I just watched 'The Last of Us'. If you haven't… don't bother. There are a couple of interesting/emotional side stories, but the main plot may as well be a video game (yes… I am aware), complete with tunnel walkthroughs & big shoot-em-ups at the end of each ;)
I do want to watch Kaleidoscope [in my queue, yet to watch] by 'throwing dice' though I get the feeling that knowing i can watch the episodes in any order may be more satisfying than actually trying out many iterations just to prove a point.
Succession, I'm holding on & avoiding spoilers until I can binge all S04. We just binged the last three [slow to catch up on fashion sometimes] & are still wondering how we can keep watching such a bunch of obnoxious pathological narcissists & give a damn at all… yet we still watch.
It does make me wonder what people would make of a photo if me in 1983 & one now. What imaginative plot-lines that could draw. The truth would be stranger, but maybe not as interesting.
Like the Baudrillard quote I posted on Twitter the other day: "We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning"
Everyone knows that "we are what we eat", but even more so we're how we get from A to B (or H to C, or brass to menthol).
I love this insight and I find fiction a perfect place for people to fill those gaps and make assumptions. People seem to be very good at it in daily life! So many assumptions made to fill in our gaps of knowledge.
On another note this entry made me think of one time I felt a bit robbed by a gap. No country for old men. Moss' death in both book and film happens away from the main story. It felt odd to me. I wondered if maybe it was a way to highlight the randomness of death but it never sat right with me.
"The spaces between things humanize." — Love this sentence! I've come to appreciate this less-is-more approach as a parent. When I give my kids less info, they end up understanding on a deeper level by figuring out the gaps themselves. Of course, I only learned this after doing the opposite.
Billy Wilder (though he attributed the advice to Ernst Lubitsch), is, as always, worth listening to: "Let the audience add up two plus two. They'll love you forever."
This is very pertinent to writing comics and something I consider all the time when breaking down stories into panels. As Scott McCloud noted in 'Understanding Comics' the key to good comic scriptwriting is knowing that the action is happening in the gutters between the art. We are pouring our imagination into the blank spaces and imagining the unspoken story.
I'm always trying to whittle away as much story as possible to allow the reader to make the imaginative leap. They much prefer it.
Fascinating and thoughtful-provoking, thank you. I’ve long loved the Debussy quote: “Music is the space between the notes”.
I always do this when reading or watching a film or a tv series. Imagining what is going on in the background, what happened in the moments left unwritten or not actually visualised. I am curious as to how people reached those moments from a sociological amd psychological perspective. It can be frustrating when you have invested so much of your time in a film, series or a story, to end up feeling that you have been left wanting as it were, but I also like the idea of imagining and comstructing little back stories of what if's and maybes. I guess it could be that as human beings we need resolution in our understanding and involvement, after all these chatacters have become an integral part of our inner landscape at that particular moment in time. That is just my persoective anyway. 😊
And filling in the gaps can kill the magic. The Dune prequels being a case in point: when the original alludes to the end of thinking machines during the Butlerian Jihad, it’s a backstory we all fill in uniquely. I don’t want three sequels that rob me of that.
Love this. Two people looking at exactly the same thing can perceive something completely different - subjective reality. Perception as a process of filling in the missing information, making meaning. And it is so much fun. We are all hallucinating all the time, filling in the blind spot with what we think goes there. Most of the time we get it right :)
This works in the visual arts as well as in music.
There is nothing more concrete and defined than a painting exhibited in a museum.
The artist's concept was expressed by him and is evident to everyone. The author has already held a conference, where he explained in detail, every millimeter of the canvas, what he meant exactly and which historical, religious, naturalistic or pure fantasy concept inspired him.
..…But….There are always people who did not attend the conference (one could say “Aaaa..Yes… We know those who do not follow the events and know nothing about Greek mythology”)…
And well..???…We are all spectators…
The people who attended the conference, as well as those who didn't attend it, are perhaps subjected at this precise moment to the joyful or perhaps sad events of their lives. Everyone with their own vision of the world will inevitably create their own story of that painting. May be, it won't change the general concept, but it will add something of it. Then, we all go home, study thoroughly what we have seen, change our minds.
But … history has already been created and the judgment has already been formed and has the right to exist and fits perfectly into the philosophical concept: "Critical judgment - it is already a historical judgment."
The painter-author of the painting would be very surprised if he could know at least in part those new stories that everyone added to his painting about him. These stories have a right to exist. The battles between critics about what is more right and what the painter wanted to say are useless. The stories of each of us in that painting have the right to exist, to live their own lives. "Critical judgment is already a historical judgment".
P.S. “The spaces between things humanize. As soon as we've got gaps to live in, we feel more at home, and more ourselves. Who knows, maybe time itself works that way too. An endless series of moments, and it's only us who turn them into reality.." Bello…