Discernment

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A funny and ironic consequence of writing this particular column is that I had to rewrite it a few times. I’m my own worst critic.

That’s the topic here: criticism. Judgement and how to do it properly. So I realized I’ve done a few of these criticism pieces (Recently Read: Tom Hanks) and all I did was throw in some subjective stuff about whether I liked the book, or not. Nothing really wrong with subjective stuff, is there? Except, a person reading the critique might not have any way to measure my self-proclaimed enjoyment.

“Did you like like it, or just kind of like it? And how close to love is your like anyway?”

With that in mind, I also thought about the generic 5 star system. How do you get anything out of that, other than more subjective criticism. If each star is without measurement stats, then the 4 stars for one person could mean 5 stars for another. It’s sloppy and without standard.

Thinking about what, in my mind, makes a great story, I came up with 7 things a story needs to truly be great.

  1. Drawing power: Does the story pull you in and make you feel as if you’re part of the world?
  2. Interest factor: Is the story something you want to hear, see, know? Are you craving to discover how it ends?
  3. Offensive factor: Does it present sex, violence, cursing too abundantly or too vividly? Does it present a querulous agenda?
  4. Range of emotion: Is the story serious when necessary? Do the jokes come at appropriate times? Does the story present emotions at pleasing intervals?
  5. Character factor: Are there good actors (not necessarily famous ones) in the film? Are there quality protagonists/antagonists in the literary work? Is there a quality dynamic between the characters? Is the narrator mostly invisible?
  6. Style: Does the film use sloppy-cam? Does the literary work use loose plot lines? Are all the words in the right places? Are all the props in the right scenes?
  7. Proper length: Does a fantasy world require multiple manuscripts? Does a dystopian world beg to be spartan or truncated?

 

Guitar Super Hero

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I ain’t braggin’ or nothin’ but I can listen to a little piece of a Satriani song and tell you the title of that song. If you’re unfamiliar with Joe Satriani, you might think that’s no big deal. But if you know that very few, extremely few, of his songs have words, then you might get an idea how difficult that skill is. Unless you’re him, how are you going to know the title of every song? Especially since he has written such a large amount of musical material. He’s actually in the dictionary under the word ‘prolific’.

To illustrate his prolificness, in his solo career alone, he has put forth about 18 albums. So that’s not counting what I would call side projects like Chickenfoot. That’s not counting live recordings or repeated material in compilations and such. With those same exceptions, he’s created around 450 songs. I’m still guessing when I say he’s only made about five or six of those with lyrics. The rest are instrumental.

I don’t even need to argue that the instrumental songs are just as good as any song with lyrics. Joe Satriani sells his music. The fans, like me, have spoken. We enjoy the cosmic canticles he creates.

Speaking of cosmic, listening to most of Satriani’s music is very much like hearing a landscape, or seeing the emanations of a radio station. It can be extremely thrilling, assuming you’re in the right frame of mind already. If you’re too stiff and stubborn, unable to flex, then you won’t likely see the possibility of intergalactic surfing that his guitar is defining before your very ears.

Now, before I stay in that mode, let me give you one more perspective. When I hear a signature Satriani instrumental, I envision science fiction scenes. My wife, though, says that all of his music reminds her of summertime. She loves summertime the most, so that really is a compliment. Mostly, she likes his slower, quieter?, love songs, so maybe those are all she’s talking about, but does it matter? I don’t think so. Once she explained her perspective to me, I could hear summertime in all of his music as well. Whichever perspective you happen to agree with at the moment, you can see that we relate it with what we enjoy. To make the definition as simple as possible, Joe Satriani makes happy music.

Respond with a Picture

There are times when a debate rages inside you and you type out a response to one argument, or another. And there are times when a gif will do better than any worded response.

Sometimes looking at one picture reminds you of another one. Has that ever happened to you? I saw the two below on the same day, and I thought they went together so well.

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I don’t even need to describe why these two go so well together. They mean something to me, but your interpretation could be wildly different.

Here are two more that have linkage:

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No commentary necessary, right?

So, here are two more:

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Six thousand words.

The end.

 

RastaRobert

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It all seemed to turn around after I met Bob Marley. The day was kind of sour, but he said something to me I won’t soon forget.

“Will you roll this joint for me?”

I couldn’t believe it at first, but then I watched his fingers fumbling with the paper. Bright green stuff peppered the center of the paper, tilted to one end, threatening to fall out. He really didn’t know how to do it. Which got me wondering how many he had smoked in his life. And how many had he rolled in that same life?

And if he didn’t roll them, then who did? People like me who he met on the street?

It got me thinking how many times I’d felt like I was born to do something only to find out that thing was really hard for me.

Why did I quit when things got hard? I should’ve just kept after it ’til I got better at it.

Skateboarding when I was a young punk—that was hard—especially the falling down part; I should have done it more, fallen down less as I progressed.

What a great bit of advice! What a revelatory idea!

That Bob Marley is so insightful!

He made my day better. He helped raise my motivation level. I thought of more things I could have done if I worked through the struggling stage. Major League Baseball. Navigating the North Pacific. Parachuting. Aerospace engineering. Understanding women.

Even understanding Rastafarian escapism. Suddenly I did. I understood it. But I understood his advice that much better, so I told him, “Take your own advice. You’ll never learn if someone else does it for you.”

And I walked on, with a smile on my face.

Thanks Bob!

Room for More

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I woke this morning and skipped the common starts. Instead of cereal, I poured milk into the coffee grounds. I grabbed a spoon and started chowing. It was gritty, like Grape Nuts.

While I was eating, I figured I’d save some time, so I fit things in between chews in this order: I started the 3D printer, clipped my toenails, and knitted myself a sweater.

It’s now my favorite sweater.

Pretty soon my 3D printer was done printing the bus I had dialed in, so I jumped in it and revved the engine. Only then I realized the bus was in my living room. Shrugging my shoulders three times for good luck I said to myself, “You needed a new garage anyway.”

I busted through the walls. As I drove away I heard the wheels of the bus crunching over bricks and glass. Back and forth a few times, I recorded that sound and it became the soundtrack of the day.

Everyone knows I’m a power pack, except the ladies at the library, so I went and abducted all the books. I forced all the books at flamethrower-point to get on the bus. They folded themselves in like good soldiers.

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In the driver’s seat again, I revved the engine and cranked up the soundtrack. Because I didn’t have assigned seats, there was some chaos. Westerns were mingling with Romances. Horrors were chewing on Young Adults. Non-fictions were making the Encyclopaedia Britannicas fall asleep! Amazing! but chaos, so I forced them all to group up into categories. (I don’t say genres because I’m not French.)

Once they were all settled, and not colliding with each other anymore, I figured I’d share my plans for The Really Angry Red Robot. I didn’t have room to build it before, but now that I had a new garage…