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Celebrity has always struck me as a dubious and transitory claim to achievement in our society. Status seekers and other so-called glitterati stand precariously on shifting sands, ever in danger of being swallowed up and then replaced by a fresh throng of famous or notorious stars.
Helen Hayes
Many of our best stories are about characters standing not on firm ground, but on shifting sand.
When did you know the main character in the story or one of his friends was in trouble?
Could you identify with them as the perceptions of their life shifted and tilted like a sand trap beneath their feet?
Did they have doubts and suspicions of disaster or even a clue before their world shattered?
Did you know before the character did? Did he miss a warning that you caught from experience or was it a form of dramatic irony?
Dramatic irony: When the audience (or reader) knows a fictional character is making a mistake, because the reader has more information than the character.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
In dramatic irony, the author causes a character to speak or act erroneously, out of ignorance of some portion of the truth of which the audience is aware. In other words, the audience knows the character is making a mistake, even as the character is making it. This technique highlights the importance of truth by portraying a person who is strikingly unaware of it.
Dramatic irony is the device of giving the spectator an item of information that at least one of the characters in the narrative is unaware of (at least consciously), thus placing the spectator a step ahead of at least one of the characters. Dramatic irony has three stages - installation, exploitation, and resolution (often also called preparation, suspension, and resolution) - producing dramatic conflict in what one character relies or appears to rely upon, the contrary of which is known by observers (especially the audience; sometimes to other characters within the drama) to be true. In summary, it means that the reader/watcher/listener knows something that one or more of the characters in the piece is not aware of.
For example:
In City Lights the audience knows that Charlie Chaplin's character is not a millionaire, but the blind flower girl (Virginia Cherrill) believes him to be rich.
In North by Northwest, the audience knows that Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is not Kaplan; Vandamm (James Mason) and his accomplices do not. The audience also knows that Kaplan is a fictitious agent invented by the CIA; Roger (initially) and Vandamm (throughout) do not.
In Oedipus the King, the reader knows that Oedipus himself is the murderer that he is seeking; Oedipus, Creon and Jocasta do not.
In Othello, the audience knows that Desdemona has been faithful to Othello, but Othello does not. The audience also knows that Iago is scheming to bring about Othello's downfall, a fact hidden from Othello, Desdemona, Cassio and Roderigo.
In The Cask of Amontillado, the reader knows that Montresor is planning on murdering Fortunato, while Fortunato believes they are friends.
In The Truman Show, the viewer is aware that Truman is on a television show, but Truman himself only gradually learns this.
In Romeo and Juliet, the other characters in the cast think Juliet is dead, but the audience knows she only took a sleeping potion.
In Forrest Gump, the audience knows the historical significance of the characters and scenarios Forrest Gump finds himself in, but he often does not.
1. In desert stories the sand may literally shift. Quarkstomper has been discussing Dune on Sundays at 9:30 PM and in Herbert’s story, if the sand is shifting, you are in a world of trouble if you are not prepared. The worm comes and fast.
2. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is another popular desert story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
An earlier memoir by the author recounts his aviation experiences in the Saharan desert. He is thought to have drawn on these same experiences for use as plot elements in The Little Prince.
Though ostensibly a children's book, The Little Prince makes several profound and idealistic observations about life and human nature. For example, Saint-Exupéry tells of a fox meeting the young prince as he exits the Sahara desert. The story's essence is contained in the lines uttered by the fox to the little prince: On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux. ("One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.") Other key thematic messages are articulated by the fox, such as: "You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed" and "It is the time you have lost for your rose that makes your rose so important."
3. The story of Lawrence of Arabia as told in Seven Pillars of Wisdom is a desert story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, CB, DSO (16 August 1888[5] – 19 May 1935), known professionally as T. E. Lawrence, was a British Army officer renowned especially for his liaison role during the Arab Revolt against Ottoman Turkish rule of 1916–18. The extraordinary breadth and variety of his activities and associations, and his ability to describe them vividly in writing, earned him international fame as Lawrence of Arabia, a title popularised by the 1962 film based on his First World War activities…
He became a practising archaeologist in the Middle East, working with David George Hogarth and Leonard Woolley on various excavations. In January 1914, following the outbreak of the First World War, Lawrence was co-opted by the British military to undertake a military survey of the Negev Desert while doing archaeological research.
Lawrence's public image was due in part to American journalist Lowell Thomas' sensationalised reportage of the revolt as well as to Lawrence's autobiographical account Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922)…
The Negev was of strategic importance, as it would have to be crossed by any Ottoman army attacking Egypt in the event of war. Woolley and Lawrence subsequently published a report of the expedition's archaeological findings, but a more important result was an updated mapping of the area, with special attention to features of military relevance such as water sources. Lawrence also visited Aqaba and Petra.
4. Gertrude Bell has an interesting life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell, CBE (14 July 1868 – 12 July 1926) was an English writer, traveller, political officer, administrator, and archaeologist who explored, mapped, and became highly influential to British imperial policy-making due to her extensive travels in Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Arabia. Along with T. E. Lawrence, Bell helped establish the Hashemite dynasties in what is today Jordan as well as in Iraq. She played a major role in establishing and helping administer the modern state of Iraq, utilizing her unique perspective from her travels and relations with tribal leaders throughout the Middle East. During her lifetime she was highly esteemed and trusted by British officials and given an immense amount of power for a woman at the time. She has also been described as "one of the few representatives of His Majesty's Government remembered by the Arabs with anything resembling affection".
5. Neil Peart loved the desert and describes it as he rides through it in his memoir, Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
6. Neil bought books by Edward Abbey such as Desert Solitaire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Edward Paul Abbey (January 29, 1927 – March 14, 1989) was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues and criticism of public land policies. His best-known works include the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which has been cited as an inspiration by radical environmental groups, and the non-fiction work Desert Solitaire. Writer Larry McMurtry referred to Abbey as the "Thoreau of the American West".
Another interesting thing about sand is “Singing sand”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Singing sand dunes, an example of the phenomenon of singing sand, produce a sound described as roaring, booming, squeaking, or the "Song of Dunes". This is a natural sound phenomenon of up to 105 decibels lasting as long as several minutes that occurs in about 35 desert locations around the world. The sound is similar to a loud, low-pitch, rumble, and it emanates from the crescent-shaped dunes, or barchans. The sound emission accompanies a slumping or avalanching movement of the sand, usually triggered by wind passing over the dune or by someone walking near the crest.
Examples of singing sand dunes include California's Kelso Dunes and Eureka Dunes, sugar sand beaches and Warren Dunes in southwestern Michigan, Sand Mountain in Nevada, the Booming Dunes in the Namib Desert, Africa, Porth Oer (also known as Whistling Sands) near Aberdaron in Wales, Indiana Dunes in Indiana, Barking Sands in Hawaiʻi, and Singing Beach in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts. Also near the Al Udeid Air Base west of Doha, in Qatar, and Gebel Naqous, near el-Tor, South Sinai, Egypt.
On some beaches around the world, dry sand will make a singing, squeaking, whistling, or barking sound if a person scuffs or shuffles their feet with sufficient force…
Not all sands sing, whistle or bark alike. The sounds heard have a wide frequency range that can be different for each patch of sand. Fine sands, where individual grains are barely visible to the naked eye, produce only a poor, weak sounding bark. Medium-sized grains can emit a range of sounds, from a faint squeak or a high-pitched sound, to the best and loudest barks when scuffed enthusiastically.
Water also influences the effect. Wet sands are usually silent because the grains stick together instead of sliding past each other, but small amounts of water can actually raise the pitch of the sounds produced. The most common part of the beach on which to hear singing sand is the dry upper beach above the normal high tide line, but singing has been reported on the lower beach near the low tide line as well.
Singing sand has been reported on thirty-three beaches in the British Isles including in the North of Wales, on the little island of Eigg in the Scottish Hebrides and at a number of beaches along the Atlantic Coast; at Souris, on the eastern tip of Prince Edward Island, in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts, and in other places.
In Michigan, we have to be careful about quicksand.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Water circulation underground can focus in an area with the optimal mixture of fine sands and other materials such as clay. The water moves up and then down slowly in a convection-like manner throughout a column of sand, and the sand remains a generally solid mass. The water lubricates the sand particles and renders them unable to support significant weight. Since water does not usually go up to the surface of the sand, the sand on top appears solid and can support leaves and other small debris, making quicksand difficult to distinguish from the surrounding environment…
In fiction
People falling into (and, unrealistically, being submerged in) quicksand or a similar substance is a trope of adventure fiction, notably movies. According to Slate magazine, this gimmick had its heyday in the 1960s, when almost three percent of all films showed someone sinking in mud, sand or clay, but it has since gradually fallen out of use. The proliferation of quicksand scenes in movies has given rise to an internet subculture and a fetish scene dedicated to the topic.
7. A story with a great Michigan swamp has a tragedy with quicksand that affects the young girl who is the main character. Gene Stratton Porter wrote Girl of the Limberlost and used the great swamp as a wonderful setting for a young woman to grow up in despite the dangers. Her mother has forbidden her to go into it, but the Bird Woman teaches her how to use its resources so she can earn money to go to school.
But back to the metaphorical shifting sands:
8. It seemed to me when I was reading Ulysses by Joyce, that Bloom’s life was something of a metaphor for shifting sand. He loves his wife, but thinks she has slept with another man, while he has a lady whom he writes love notes to himself. He has changed jobs and is not free from money worries and he misses his daughter. He attends the funeral of a friend and gives money to the man's family and thinks about death.
He sees the homelessness and promise of Stephen Dedalus and thinks to offer him a bedroom in his own home, yet he worries about inviting him home for a quick snack.
People admire his wife, but do not like it that he will not stand drinks in the pub. As I observe his long day and his final return home, I feel as if he is not standing on firm ground and that he doesn’t know it. I worry about him as the book ends.
My favorite quote from Bloom’s observation in the garden:
The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.
Ulysses
Chapter 17
9. In Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay, I worried that the main character and his family would suffer because of the quixotic behavior of the Emperor, the emperor’s favorite concubine and his son. Shen Tai has been given a gift of beautiful Sardian horses from the West and the gift is a terrible danger to him as well as an opportunity to earn his family’s safety.
Betrayal comes to the empire and Shen Tai depends on friends like the great poet Li Bai (based on Li Po) to help him. The sand shifts beneath his feet as armies approach the great city. His sister, Shen Li-Mei, also must act resourcefully to escape from the great grass plains above the wall where she was sent to marry an outlander. The story set in the Tang dynasty is fascinating.
10. In many stories as in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, it is an unexpected love that shifts the sand. Anna did not mean to fall in love, but it changes her life completely and disastrously.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
What are your favorite stories where the sand shifts beneath the protagonist's feet?
Diaries of the week
Limelite says:
eReaders & Book Lovers Club
I'll debut this series starting two weeks from today with a discussion of. . .Pardon the interruption, but no decisive vote "chose" the premiere reading selection. Consequently, I have made an executive decision. My choice for our first e-book club read is a whimsical piece of new fiction with something for everyone -- sci-fi, mystery, physics, philosophy, and humor. May I have the Kindle, please? And the decision is. . .Regarding Ducks and Universes by Neve Maslakovic, rated 4*, Kindle Price: $7.99, Powell's Price: $9.95 (used) .
The blurb (heavily edited):
On a foggy Monday in 1986, the Universe, suddenly, without warning, bifurcated. . .35 years later, Felix Sayers, resident of San Francisco, culinary writer, and wannabe author of Agatha Christie-style mysteries sets out to find his "alter" in Universe B. Very soon, it's obvious that Felix will need the assistance of some quirky characters if he's to succeed. And he may not. It's also obvious that someone isn't happy about him accomplishing his quest when he narrowly escapes death from a hit-and-run driver. Yet, Felix is determined to uncover the truth about his alter, the events of a particular Monday, and a wayward rubber duck before his time in both universes runs out.
Look forward to welcoming you all (look for the blinking neon sign that says eReaders & Book Lovers Club), Kindle in hand (So what it's early -- drink in the other?), for a lively discussion of Regarding Ducks and Universes THU, May 26th at 2 PM ET.
Write On! Brevity is the soul of.
by SensibleShoes
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Thursday Classical Music OPUS 38: Mozart Piano Concerto #23
by Dumbo
http://www.dailykos.com/...
mdmslle says:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
NEXT WEEK: INTO THE WILD by Jon Krakauer This will be an interesting discussion because the book by Krakauer was a best seller. Sean Penn adapted it for the screen and won an Oscar for best adaptation (which admittedly is NOT the same as best screenplay, but still). Yet the film tanked. What's that all about, anyway?! Read the book, watch the movie and if you're so inclined read the script for free and let's meet back here on FRIDAY JUNE 3rd at 9 p.m. talk about it. Bring a glass of wine. JUNE 3rd.
plf515 has a book talk on Wednesday mornings early.
sarahnity’s list of DKos authors
http://www.dailykos.com/...