Dr. Who & Julio Cortázar

Eventually I plan on having all the available episodes of Doctor Who in my collection so I can watch them in order. I had planned on focusing on each doctor at a time for my collection but some of the episodes are outrageously expensive. Instead I think I'm just going to purchase them in order from least expensive to most expensive and watch them as I get them. Considering the Doctor's timeline is not exactly linear I don't think it will matter too much. Once I've collected them all then I'll start from the beginning and work to the end. Maybe going through the canon in this way will alter my perception of it. It's like a lazy version of Julio Cortázar's Hopscotch, which I still need to reread in the hopping fashion.

The End of Doctor Who

OH Sad day. I just finished the seventh season of Doctor Who on Netflix. I was so upset that I watched the science behind Doctor Who to compensate. Of course I could go buy the new seasons or wait until Netflix catches up. But, as I was wallowing in my sadness I noticed that the classical Doctor Who series was put up on Netflix. So let the bingeing continue!

The Weltschmerz of Felix Weisse

In going through the long and tedious notes about aesthetics and What is Art by Tolstoy that I took nearly seven years ago... (Incredibly seven years ago was 2008???) I came across an interesting theory coming from Christian Felix Weiße. [on a side note I'm pretty pumped that I got the ß symbol on first guess on this Mac Keyboard]. Anyway, Christian Felix Wieße was a German writer and philosopher of education. He had this theory that Art comes into being through the introduction of spiritual reality into external, dead, indifferent matter. All I could think of was the Living Plastic from Doctor Who.

So I thought a good short story idea might be centered around this theory.

Think an artist suffering from Weltschmerz bringing to life work by introducing a spiritual reality into "external, dead, indifferent matter", a gestalt intelligence and mayhem.

The Weltschmerz of Felix Weisse

7 Days Off In the Land of Douglas Adams

Well, it's been seven days since I last posted. I've been traveling, moving my sister-in-law from Texas to Georgia. So, I do have a bit of an excuse. But, while I haven't been writing, I did do a little reading. Now that I once again have a computer right in front of me I'll jot down the little notes that I had over the week. It wasn't much, but just a few things.

While gone I immersed myself in some Douglas Adams. I had read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy a long time ago, but I think the version I had read before was the transcript from the old BBC Broadcast. Anyway, the time between my readings was very very big. On this occasion I've been reading The More than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I finished The Hitchhiker's Guide on the plane and then read The Restaurant At the End of the Universe, which if I ever do open up a restaurant I think I will call it Milliways - if I don't get sued. Since I didn't have any paper I jotted a few quotes down on my phone that I liked, with references, but this was a hassle so I don't have as much as I'd like. Suffice it to say that some of my writing style is influenced by Adams and I'm probably going to be reading a bit more of him in the near future. Without further ado though here are three quotes that I found particularly entertaining.

Ford to Arthur "History is never altered you see, it just fits together like a jigsaw" (303). I like this idea of time being thoroughly deterministic, not actually like it, but find it an interesting thing to explore in A Cornish Mess. Is time unable to be altered? Does the Grandfather Paradox hold true?

Zaphod, upon leaving Milliways right before the end of the universe [It is] "nothing but a gnab gib... opposite of a big bang" (233). I laughed aloud to myself at this one.

In the introduction I found another interesting concept to explore when writing on time traveling (which is the goal of my first novella I'm attempting, called A Cornish Mess. "There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is a nother which states that this has already happened" (148). It's funny, clever and a bit depressing all at once.

In addition to reading these two books I also listened to Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. It was very funny. Interestingly enough though, unlike Ford's assertion that history cannot be altered the ghost in this broadcast very nearly alters history by going back and nearly stopping life from being created on earth in the first place. Luckily it's stopped by Professor Chronotis altering time, after the ghost is trying to change time but before the present where the story mostly takes place.

I find Douglas Adams' stories to be pleasantly jarring to the brain in syntax and style. It's fantastic fun and smart. While I loved the movie, I find the book more riveting, though the ending of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is a bit depressing. Plus, Douglas Adams wrote for Doctor Who and that's about all you'd need for me to be hooked.