HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2012-03-15, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 2012. PAGE 5.
“Writing is easy. All you do is just
stare at a blank sheet of paper
until drops of blood form on
your forehead.” – Gene Fowler
I owe it all to Eileen. That’s what I tell
people when they ask me what motivates
me as a writer – specifically, what makes
me get up in the morning and try to do it all
over again. Some people think there must
be a magic ritual, or a formula or a secret
prayer that makes the words come, but
I tell them no, it’s all because of Eileen.
Haven’t seen her in 30 years. Can’t even
remember her last name, but she keeps me
writing.
Most writers have much more exotic stimuli
to get themselves stoked. Hemingway wrote
standing at a desk. Norman Mailer preferred
to write in a loft which he could only get
to by clambering, Tarzan-style, up a rope. I
know a guy who writes mystery novels and
claims he has to do the first draft longhand on
pads of yellow legal paper using a fountain
pen and green ink – while lying in bed
surrounded by pillows. Loony? He’s written
four best-sellers.
Victor Hugo was weirder. The author of Les
Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame
(the novels, not the sappy musicals) started
his working day bare naked in a room with
only a desk, a sheaf of paper, a pen and a
pot of ink. He forbade his servants bring
him food or clothing until his writing for the
day was finished.
Maybe he was just working up to sappy
musicals because some composers make even
loopier demands on their muses. Richard
Wagner employed his pet dog ‘Peps’ as a
musical coach. Wagner would hit a difficult
patch, summon his pooch to the piano and play
until the dog howled in anguish. Wagner
would take the hint and change the tune to
Peps’ taste.
The famous Norwegian playwright,
Henrik Ibsen was inspired by hatred – hatred
of his rival August Strindberg. Strindberg
really was a tad insane but that’s another
story – the point is, Strindberg attacked
Ibsen in print, branding him a plagiarist
among other things. Ibsen responded by
buying a painting of his enemy and
hanging it on the wall overlooking his writing
desk.
“I cannot write a line,” Ibsen said, “without
that madman standing and staring down at me
with those crazy eyes.”
That rings a bell for me.
Decades ago, when I was starting out as a
writer I had a comfy little gig delivering a
weekly radio commentary for a CBC radio
show that played to rural Canada. My contact
was Eileen, a sweet and thoughtful
editor/producer on the radio show I worked
for. She greeted me cheerily every
week and invited me into the studio to record
my piece. It paid well and all I was required to
do was fill two minutes and forty-five seconds
with a few scripted words and remember not to
burp when the mic was on.
Then, one week, I couldn’t think of a topic.
The words wouldn’t come.
Well, so what? It happens, right? Eileen
would understand. At air time I ambled into
the studio, Eileen looked up and said “Hi
Arthur – what have you got for us this week?”
Nothing, I said. Couldn’t come up with an
idea.
Somebody must have turned up the air
conditioning. The studio became suddenly
very chilly. “You’ve got nothing?” hissed
Eileen.
But it wasn’t her words, it was her eyes.
They had gone from a blissful blue to
gunmetal grey. From Anne of Green Gables to
Adolf Hitler.
At that moment a message was imprinted in
my DNA: If you ever want to see these eyes
again, just miss a deadline. Haven’t missed a
deadline since.
(Comments: arblack43@shaw.ca)
Arthur
Black
Other Views Thank you Eileen, wherever you are
If you haven’t seen the movies Inception or
The Wrestler or the television show The
Sopranos and you might still want to, I
suggest you skip this column. There are plenty
of other interesting stories to read in this
week’s issue of The Citizen.
Alright, for those of you left, my subject this
week is the ‘new’ ending that’s sweeping that
nation as far as entertainment goes: the choose-
your-own ending.
Jess hates it. She can’t stand it. Whereas I
tend to like an ending that’s left up to the
viewer (or reader), as long as it’s done right.
Inception, for instance, is a movie where the
majority of the story takes place in people’s
dreams, not in the real world. At the end of the
film, a top spins, an indicator that we’ve come
to learn will tell you whether what’s happening
is occurring in real life, or in a dream. If the top
falls, this is real life, if it spins infinitely, we are
in a dream. The top spins away and the film
cuts to black just as the top begins to falter
slightly. There’s no clear resolution. Is it real
life or was it a dream? We’ll never know.
The Wrestler is the same deal. Mickey
Rourke stars, in an Academy Award-nominated
performance, as a washed-up professional
wrestler called out of retirement for one last
match, despite his deteriorating health and
tattered personal life. He is told by doctors that
one more match, as fake as professional
wrestling may be, could end his life due to his
poor heart health. At the end of the movie,
Rourke climbs the top rope, about to deliver a
devastating flying elbow to his opponent. He
lifts off and the camera stays with the
turnbuckle and fades to black, leaving the
audience, well, in the dark about whether or
not Rourke’s character lives to see another
match.
The Sopranos is perhaps the most famous
television show to end on such a note. The
audience follows protagonist Tony Soprano
through six seasons (spanning nearly a decade)
only to have the long-awaited finale end on a
quick cut to black as Tony seems to possibly be
in some danger and “Don’t Stop Believin’” by
Journey blares through the television speakers,
leaving the audience to debate Tony’s fate
amongst themselves.
One of my favourite books of all time is The
Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis. It
starts in mid-sentence and ends in mid-
sentence. No doubt that must drive English
teachers nuts seeing a book begin without a
capital letter and end without a period, but it
certainly is an interesting artistic statement.
Being my typical impatient self, I did some
research on an upcoming film that I can’t wait
to see called Shame, the story of a sex addict in
New York City. The movie stars up and coming
star Michael Fassbender and is directed by
Steve McQueen (not that Steve McQueen).
The pair teamed up on a film called Hunger
about Irish hunger striker Bobby Sands of
which I am particularly fond.
Reading the synopsis and unknowingly
reading a bit too far, it seems this movie ends
on a similar ‘cliffhanger’.
Creativity like this harkens back to the days
of my youth, picking up Choose-Your-Own-
Adventure books at the St. Anthony Daniel
library. You began the story and then when you
came to a major plot point, you were offered
two options, both with their accompanying
page and you turned accordingly.
As I said before, endings like these can
be thrilling and create a debate that will rage
in the public for years. However, the
important thing to remember when leaving
the movie theatre after such an experience
Happy endings
Discovery News (a subsidiary of the
Discovery Channel) is a great resource
for anyone interested in...well pretty
much anything.
Whether you want to know about space
travel, sea life, giant creatures or micro-
organisms, there is probably something
interesting on the site (news.discovery.com) to
sate your thirst for knowledge.
This week I found something very
interesting on the site I missed earlier this
year: Windstalks, or wind generators without
blades.
The original idea was presented at the 2010
Land Art Generator Initiative, a competition
designed to recognize the best work of art that
generates renewable energy.
Looking like a gathering of cattails along a
river bed, the stalks stand nearly 55 metres tall
with concrete bases between 10 and 20 metres
wide. They start at approximately 30
centimetres wide at the base and gradually
taper off until they are about five centimetres
at the top.
When the wind blows, the stalks move and
their innards, layers of electrodes and discs
made from special materials, put pressure on
each other, creating an electrical charge.
Created by Atelier DNA (atelierdna.com),
which was founded by partners Darío Núñez-
Ameni and Thomas Seigl in 2008, the first
batch of stalks was proposed to be erected
outside of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab
Emirates beside a planned city called Masdar,
a city labelled as “in tune with its
surrounding”. That means they’re aiming for
sustainability, one of those buzzwords
politicians like to keep throwing around
without (usually) acting on it.
The project would have consisted of 1,208
stalks with the bases channeling waters to the
green spaces in between them creating a lush
green space underneath the stalks.
Underneath the huge project would be some
kind of battery; possibly a water reservoir
system, to store the energy that is created (a
system that all the commercial wind genera-
tion in Huron County is lacking, making them
nearly useless at prime consumption times).
At night, when they are generating power,
small LED lamps at the top of each unit will
glow. The stronger the wind, the stronger the
glow, creating a unique light show.
And these systems do all this without
making noise according to Núñez-Ameni.
“Windstalk is completely silent,” he states.
Reading through this and learning of these
alternative wind options really got me to
thinking about the landscape of change in
Huron County.
Maybe it’s NIMBYism (Not in My Back
Yard-ism), maybe it’s a disdain for the new or
different or maybe it’s simply a fear of the
unknown. Whatever it is, whenever there is
going to be a major change people come out of
the woodwork and saying “You can’t do that
here.”
Of course the first example to come to mind
is the anti-wind turbine groups.
They realize that power needs to be created
(at least I hope they do) but they don’t, for a
variety of reasons, want it created via wind
turbines here (I’d imagine they wouldn’t be
keen on nuclear near their properties either).
We need energy to continue our lives but we
don’t want it close enough to hear, close
enough to affect us or in a spot that will ruin
the lovely view of the lake as the sun sets on it.
I’ve also seen people making the same
complaints about landfill sites and gravel pits.
People don’t want current landfill sites
changed because they have a hard enough time
living with the one that’s there or their
property values are already low enough with
what’s there.
Well, unfortunately, this is another case of a
necessary evil.
That landfill site needs to be there for the
garbage this society produces to be taken care
of.
If the chance came to go completely green
and have next to no non-recyclable waste, I
would be the first to jump on the bandwagon.
Unfortunately that simply isn’t true.
We need gravel pits to keep a good portion
of the roads in the county usable, but people
don’t want to see the gravel pits created close
to their home because it might affect their
property value or their water tables.
To the people making these complaints: I
understand your concerns, I do, but maybe I’m
just willing to put up with more because I
realize it’s all for the greater good.
I live in Blyth and one of the very few things
I’ve found about this town that I’m not a fan of
is the fact that, due to the proximity of farmers,
we sometimes have some fairly strong smells
drifting through town when farmers are
working on their fields.
Do I run to a council and tell them to move
it? No.
If someone suggested creating a field close
to my home and using manure, I would just
grin, close my windows and bear the smell
because I know that it’s a necessary evil.
Sure, I would do research and try and find
other options and present them, but if it came
down to it, I would say that I need to eat so the
smell has to stay.
I just found out that my family cottage in
Bluewater will soon be less than a country
block from wind turbines. That energy, while
not exactly provided when it’s needed, is
important, so I’m not going to go to Bluewater
council and complain.
That’s why I found this wind project so
exciting.
If it does everything it claims to and
provides a similar amount of power it may be
a solution to all of those groups that have been
protesting the placement of wind turbines.
If this project is anywhere near as effective
as it sounds, it could solve dozens of problems
that have been attributed to turbines.
Like I said, we need these services and they
are just like cat litter (as my girlfriend explains
it to me every time I complain about the smell
that follows it throughout the house): it needs
to be somewhere, we can only direct where.
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
Wind power without the problems?