What’s On Your Mind?

Scepticalscribe

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....

And then there's meta fiction: writers writing stories about writers writing stories... the construct has always been around since the days of Greeks and Romans, but now it has a groovy label and so now gets taught or at least analyzed at pricey workshops. It's possible the first meta writer was only just warming up to recover from an attack of 'the blank page' and the story was an effort to get past writer's block. Now it's a technique and a lot of it that makes it to bookshelves isn't worth the ink or the pixels. At least not compared to The Odyssey...
Writers writing stories about writers writing stories can work well, as can its kin, the old "I met a man who met a man who had a story to tell."

While it can be impossibly and ridiculously self-indulgent, it can also be a safe way to say something or touch upon an otherwise controversial topic (while simultaneously serving subtly to distance the writer from the content or topic - "Me? No, not at all....just a story I heard somewhere from someone...", allowing for possible disavowal, if that proves necessary.)

Two such tales that both employ this techique that come to mind are Thomas More's "Utopia", and Oscar Wilde's "The Portrait of Mr WH."
 
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Scepticalscribe

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Hope they pull through. Stories like this make me fear for Mrs AFB more and more. This week and next I’m travelling to London with a stop over and am paranoid I’ll bring it back home. I’ll be as careful as I can, but it’s not like I get much choice. I have to work.
Wince.

Mrs AFB is due to her other conditions and the reactions other people who are allergic to as many things as she is reacting badly. I have asked her to go talk to the doctors about it, but she refuses. She doesn’t trust doctors.
Is there any way she can be persuaded to think again?

Covid is extraordinarily contagious.
Miss AFB is on my mind this morning. Today is the sixth anniversary of when she went. I still miss her terribly. Some days it’s all I think about. Others not as much.
Give your kids a hug. You never know when it will be your last.
My sympathies.

There is not much I can say except to take care of yourself and be kind to yourselves.
 

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Death and loss are on my mind - and the New Year is supposed to be about New Things, New Beginnings.

Brothers were in touch yesterday to let me know that the last aunt on my mother's side - my mother's sole surviving sister-in-law had died.

So, this morning I have been on the phone.

To the wife (well, widow, now) of my cousin who died shortly before Christmas - I know from experience that compressed and incredibly intense time you often feel (endure? survive?) immediately after a death, not to mention the frenzy of the funeral; but I also vividly recall the quiet time that follows, when the fact that one is alone is brought home to you because the person who used to be there is there no longer.

We had a long and lovely chat, she really is a lovely person.

And then, I phoned my cousins to sympathise on the death of their mother.

They told me that their brother is still in the US, (where he lives and works, his wife is American) but buried his father-in-law last week, (in the US), and so, will not be able to take leave to travel Across The Pond to attend the funeral of his mother.
 
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yaxomoxay

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View attachment 10753

I’ve got this ad on Instagram. I’d rather buy an inflatable doll.
If nothing else my Instagram ads are getting better

F9F1C1B5-55B3-4507-9210-39D3D68709A1.jpeg


However, I still don’t think I’d look nice in that dress.
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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Ref the above, I wonder which scenario would piss my wife off more.

a) she gets home early and she finds me “playing” with an inflatable doll
b) she picks up my phone and finds out that I am sexting with an AI app.

Either case My obvious line is “honey I can explain.”

The ex-wife of my early years worked at an adult store. Along with some random "surprise me with something" requests, I had her bring me home an inflatable sheep because why not. The store was in a large strip mall and occasionally when I would visit her at work I would park as far away in the lot as possible so I could confidently walk to the store with my half deflated sheep in hand. Sometimes I like to give society something to tell their friends about.
 

SuperMatt

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The ex-wife of my early years worked at an adult store. Along with some random "surprise me with something" requests, I had her bring me home an inflatable sheep because why not. The store was in a large strip mall and occasionally when I would visit her at work I would park as far away in the lot as possible so I could confidently walk to the store with my half deflated sheep in hand. Sometimes I like to give society something to tell their friends about.
I remember somebody getting the “Love Ewe” as a gag gift at a party in the 90s…
 

lizkat

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Writers writing stories about writers writing stories can work well, as can its kin, the old "I met a man who met a man who had a story to tell."

While it can be impossibly and ridiculously self-indulgent, it can also be a safe way to say something or touch upon an otherwise controversial topic (while simultaneously serving subtly to distance the writer from the content or topic - "Me? No, not at all....just a story I heard somewhere from someone...", allowing for possible disavowal, if that proves necessary.)

Two such tales that both employ this techique that come to mind are Thomas More's "Utopia", and Oscar Wilde's "The Portrait of Mr WH."

Oh, sure, and there's value as well in efforts to "break the fourth wall" or introduce an unreliable narrator or whatever. There are lists floating around of people's favorite metafiction and a lot of them do include The Odyssey... and/or Arabian Nights.

My remark about some of them not being worth the pixels or ink, however, stems from a few times I've gone to the e-library to look for some particular book, discovered they don't have it, made a recommendation to the library to acquire it, then been asked if "in the meantime" I'd like to "try one of these", taken them up on that and discovered that it's practically boilerplate writing about a writer trying to write a story or write some other person's story or rebut a stereotyping reader in advance of what they'll read in chapter three, etc.

Sometimes the technique works. When too much of the mechanics show -- completely aside from what's intended to confront us-- then there's an early return of a book to the library when I'm the reader. I do like to read about "writers on writing" but mostly when I'm reading an interview of the writer. When I'm constantly reacting in mode of "ok I see what you did there" then I tire of sorting out what I was meant to observe and what was just a careless or shopworn application of some metafiction technique.

What's on my mind today: as a joke I had put up onto my iPhone's lockscreen wallpaper the other day --when it was almost 50ºF outside-- a painterly fabric swatch of two Adirondack chairs in the dunes along a sunny beach But since it was 8º this morning and is forecast to sink to 2º or below zero in the overnight a week from now, I've decided to look for some wallpaper that's a little less summery, ya think? Talk about metafiction.

lol adironack chairs on the beach.jpg
 

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It is always interesting how additional pieces of information can serve to transform a particular picture.

This transformed picture concerns the cousin - referred to in my previous post, above - who is marooned in the US, unable to attend his mother's funeral.

Anyway, earlier today, I had spoken with the husband of one of his two sisters.

Tonight, I spoke with his other sister, a gay feminist, who is raising her son with her partner, (in Brighton, in the UK), who explained with no small degree of exasperation that her brother, his American wife, and their family are all "Trumpets", - this was a detail I had not known - had voted for that individual in 2016 and would do so again were his name to appear on a ballot, and hold peculiar views on vaccination,- the sort of peculiar views on vaccination that mean that when one does indeed contract Covid, as my cousin did, one gets the sort of serious dose that - in this instance - gave rise to double pneumonia, and, in the case of this particular cousin, seems to have also triggered what may well have been underlying cardiac problems. And considerable medical expenses, needless to say.

So, the tale of his non-attendence at - and inability to attend - his mother's funeral is a little more complex than I had been given to understand. I confess that my sympathy (substantial) earlier in the day, has, to a considerable extent, since then, largely evaporated.

Moreover, that cousin's entire family hold (tenaciously) these peculiar views on vaccination, and it appears that the demise of the recently deceased father-in-law, (whose funeral occurred last week) might have been brought about as a consequence of such tenaciously held views.
 
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ronntaylor

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And then there's meta fiction: writers writing stories about writers writing stories... the construct has always been around since the days of Greeks and Romans, but now it has a groovy label and so now gets taught or at least analyzed at pricey workshops.
My fav author of meta fiction is Richard Grayson, a perennial outside candidate for political office (mostly) in Florida. He started writing while completing his MFA at Brooklyn College in the late 70s.
 

lizkat

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My fav author of meta fiction is Richard Grayson, a perennial outside candidate for political office (mostly) in Florida. He started writing while completing his MFA at Brooklyn College in the late 70s.

Now I now what to search for the next time the library offers me "meanwhile how about one of these?" Thanks!
 

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I have a facial scheduled for Sunday after dinner, and Monday morning my sister-in-law and I are getting a couple’s massage. I’m really looking forward to this cruise.
Oh, wow, wonderful.

Do enjoy; however, I won't deny my envy - just now, I think I would (or could) kill for a facial and a massage.
 

lizkat

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I've read this one several times:

Lincoln's Doctor's Dog: And Other Stories


Hey a collection of stories by anyone who reportedly "grew up in Brooklyn, attended Brooklyn College and... in 1982 garnered 26% of the vote running for the town council in Davie, Florida, on a platform of giving horses the right to vote" is probably worth at least one trip to the bricks and mortar library if they don't have e-book versions.
 

yaxomoxay

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Friend of mine, no vax, at the hospital, apparently her condition is very serious and might die. I truly hope she survives but I hope she learned her lesson and I hope she’ll use her mistake to be an example to other people.
My friend has passed away a couple of hours ago.

Despite my strong desire to yell “I told you so!!! Why didn’t you listen?” I will actually cherish the memories of how she took me many many years ago - when I was nothing more than a brand new immigrant and not yet a citizen and with not much clue of the land around me - and introduced me to local political and social action, which ultimately led me to look for a job in government, a job that now love and makes me give back what I can to our community.

May she Rest In Peace, sure that upon reaching the pearly gates she engaged in a vivid, yet honest political discussion with St Peter.
 
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