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Two Sorts of Narratives
I drive, I think. Today I was thinking about how literature and music are similar:
- They are both narrative arts, by which I mean they can only be appreciated
as a process, a series of discrete events unfolding over time, not as a singular event like a painting or a sculpture.
- A few novelties notwithstanding, neither can well exist outside of a coherent system, a matrix of shared assumptions. Those assumptions may be many and strict, as Palistrina’s manual is said to have been, or loose enough to admit Cage, Kerouac, or Joyce. The point is not what the systemic matrix is, but that there is one.
- Both operate on multiple levels: genre, form, discourse,
tone, register, pacing, viewpoint; genre, form, structure, harmony,
timbre, tempo. A novel breaks into chapters, paragraphs, sentences, clauses, phrases, words, morphemes, phonemes, and sounds. A symphony into movements, development units, lines, phrases, chords, notes, and sounds.
- They are each composed of symbols — chords on the one hand, words on the other — that are arbitrary. The symbols don’t have meaning, they are assigned meaning. C# has no intrinsic meaning, nor does the sequence of letters I-N-D-E-F-E-N-S-I-B-L-E. Within a system, they are assigned meaning — C# in the matrix of a harmonic system, and then a key or mode within that system, “indefensible” within a language, and then a frame within it. Furthermore, while the meaning of each symbol may be specified broadly in the lexicon of each system, they do not reach their full potential for meaning until they are placed within a context: “Many in Israel believe the country would be indefensible without the occupied territories. Many outside Israel find the country and its policies to be indefensible in any event.”
- Both string their symbols along in discourses. Not all symbols in the discourse have equal weight, and not every sequence of symbols is equally “marked.” C# in the context of the key of F# is a subdominant, and fairly mundane. Unmarked. In the key of C major, it is the Neapolitan sixth. Highly marked. That is to say that they both exhibit information structure. Each must manage old information and new, recalling what came before and is relevant again, introducing and framing what is to be added.
- Either can be “approachable” or “obscure,” depending on the extent to which the matrix of assumptions is shared by the author or composer and the audience — and on how much those assumptions are folded, spindled, and mutilated.
- Much of their genius lies in the interplay between expectation and surprise
— where the unfolding accords with what has come in the narrative up to any given point (expectation) and where it ignores, distorts, departs from, or subverts it (surprise).
Like I say: I drive, I think.
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Finger Painting, Future-style
I’m sorry, but this is just cool.
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I enjoy Design View
I enjoy reading Andy Rutledge’s blog Design View, and I bet you would, too. Here are a few reasons why I think so:
Do I agree with everything he writes? Of course not, but it’s always worth reading.
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Less is More
As I get older, I find that the world is too full. There’s too much, and little of value. Maybe it’s just me?
So I took a critical look at my old website. Too many notes and too many features. So I treated it as if I were trimming a bonsai tree: It isn’t finished until there is nothing more to take away.
Web sites are tools. Tools should be simple to find, to learn, and to use. Answer my questions. Entertain me. Teach me something I don’t know. (Or never would have thought of.) But don’t waste my time, please. I need all I can spare to deal with the complexity already inherent in my life. In nature itself.
I don’t visit blog sites much any more. There’s too much cruft there. I subscribe to their news feeds instead. No DHTML calendar controls. No adsense. No flickering or flashing. Just the stuff I want to read. I redesigned this site so that the only stuff here is stuff you want to see.
Less isn’t always more. But when it is? Warmth. Light. Joy.
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Beware the Maven’s Pen
Beware the maven’s pen my son,
Which dangles from his hip;
Waiting for the Philistine
To loose its fearful drip.
Oh, fearful pedant! Petty tyrant,
Merciless and mean:
Stamping out the infidel,
Washing dirty adverbs clean.
He holds the hidden knowledge,
The Rum-Tum and Pitter-Pat:
Which that should be a which,
And which which should be a that.
On every errant clause he lights,
With holy zealous glee;
He guillotines the “gerunds,”
And garrotes the “forms of be.”
Pages gashed with inky wounds
Lie bleeding in his wake:
He burns the pens and salts the ink,
“For Grammar is at stake!”
“To be or not to be,” he says,
“That isn’t very clear!
Perhaps I should kill myself —
Yes, that’s much better on the ear!”
He rations every part of speech,
He doles out each iota:
“No more adjectives for you, my friend!
You’re well beyond your quota.”
And when his rule is at an end,
His carcass lain to rest;
His dread disciples’ tuneless dirge is
Needless words delenda est.
And carved into the pediment,
Beneath his idol’s stand:
IN EVERY LIST HE EVER WROTE
A COMMA BEFORE THE “AND”
His soul (in fiery torment found)
Is all the more perturbed;
He shakes his fist and hurls his worst:
“Fragment! Passive! Gerund! Verb!”
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Hello, World!
I hereby inaugurate the web presence of one Eli T. Evans. Whatever I have to say to the world will get said here for now. Roger wilco. Over and out.
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