Books to Look Into

The Alphabetization of the Popular Mind by Ivan Illich and Barry Sanders
Avatars of the World by James J. O'Donnell
The Brain that Changes Itself by Norman Doidge
The Castle of Crossed Destinies by Italo Calvino

I could not find The Oral Tradition of Common People

Film and Language

I am a film student. and as we discuss the terrible nature of the written word I can only imagine what that means about movies. On the one hand, having video footage of fact or fiction may be considered an attack on the imagination of the viewer. Less thought process is needed to retain what is being told, thus retention of the idea is that much weaker. On the other hand, while it may still be a technology, we are circumventing the need to interpret the subtleties of the spoken word through the constraints of writing. In fact, we are circumventing the technology of the spoken word itself. Rather than try to capture a memory of an image in words, we are giving you the very thing to remember, though still unreal. Of course, films are based on scripts, but too much happens between the page and the movie theater to call them constrained by the text.

Of particular relevance to me is the television series by Jim Henson, "The Storyteller," it was a series based on the purest form of various fairy tales and myths. None of the tales were sugar coated or rationalized like we see so much nowadays. What's more, the show was framed around a man sitting before a fire and telling the stories to us, blended with scenes from within the stories themselves. Thus, we were given a feeling of the oral tradition while still making use of the medium to see the filmmakers' visual interpretations. As an interesting note, spoken stories are traditionally thought of being told in firelight, filmed stories are physically shown through projected light in a darkened room.

What fascinates me are the different ways in which a story may be told: first hand account (limited by one perspective), the oral telling, the written word, a documentary, a fictional adaptation, an original concept, or an interactive video game. Games can create an engagement similar to the imagination required when listening to a storyteller or reading a novel. However, this engagement is more hands on. The overall events and images are already in place, but it is up to the player to make it through. Many games focus on the entertainment value of racking up points, which is fine, but some try to go further. Many games let you customize your character and choose your path. The best of these have alternate endings to your story, thus blending the engagement of personal control with the scale of a preconceived plot. On the other end of the spectrum are games that have little free will (though enough to keep you involved) but intricate storylines that you discover as you go.

One of my favorite games of all time is "The Longest Journey." It is an adventure game, point-and-click. The actual gameplay is mostly wandering around, picking up objects, and figuring out where to use the objects. The story is on a large scale and involves your character traveling between worlds and interacting with many peoples. Along the way she accomplishes feats that fulfill prophecies but learns the stories of the prophecies as well. Much of the game involves long conversations, including a tribe devoted to storytelling, but that is what makes the game memorable. Every individual and culture has the same ideas , but reinterpreted to suit their unique circumstances.

To return to my original topic, I would link this game to Star Wars. When the final episode of the the prequel trilogy came out I watched the entire series as a whole. The moment that I found most fulfilling in those six movies is in the final film, "Return of the Jedi." After all the adventures that have taken place, C-3PO tells their story to the Ewoks by a fire, sound effects included. We, as the audience, are strongly connected to this activity because, while we were not making the decisions, we were there the entire time, emotionally participating in the story.

Word Drunk

I'd like to post some thoughts from class that I have not referenced when writing about the chapters.

-Word of the day for me:
Mellifluous: sweetly or smoothly flowing; sweet-sounding: a mellifluous voice; mellifluous tones.

-I find I am greatly interested in the flow of language. This can be in conversation (as mentioned in class) the way one topic changes, reflects on itself, broadens and focuses in over time. I once drove to California (from Idaho) with my sister and her friend. For about almost an hour I stopped participating in there conversation and instead, wrote down the subjects and how they evolved. What interested me is that the topics would blend and flow smoothly for a long time before suddenly changing with no apparent motivation for the tangent. Later on they would return to an earlier train of thought as if uninterrupted. Similarly, it is interesting when having a conversation with a friend how a very specific conversation point will occur and you realize that they told you the exact same thing days, weeks, or months ago. It's not just the subject matter but the angle and perspective from which it is approached.

Another flowing of language deals with larger stories. The Battle of Troy, King Arthur, and countless other tales began as "true" accounts told by witnesses. These would be retold, exaggerated, and re-examined countless times over generations. Certain elements would stick, others would not. Eventually we reach modern times and while different interpretations exist, we have come to know the essential stories (even though much of them are rather unlikely). Once again I turn to Joseph Campbell on this topic, who also brings up that had writing not become widespread, all of our stories would have evolved in a similar fashion. Many stories that seem hard to understand would have advanced along with us, adapted to suit our needs as a culture. Unfortunately this seems to have been lost due to writing as well as news media and increase in general knowledge throughout the world. While all of this seems like a vast game of Telephone, Campbell insists that the subconscious mind plays a major part in the evolution of a story. Perhaps with the right amount of added chaos, a game of telephone could result in something innovative.

Finally, and much more briefly as I have already written about this subject, spoken language itself flows. In distant human prehistory, certain sounds stuck and became words. As the capabilities increased, the need for specificity in communication increased as well. The way in which we pluralize, infer the past, or speak sarcastically gradually emerged. Dialects became standard languages, which subsequently broke into new dialects. Words were borrowed, reinterpreted, and forgotten. These days less and less people write freehand. The grammatical shortcuts of texting culture is affecting the spoken word. We are rapidly becoming oral again due to cell phones, webcams, and the like. Language has become international. As subcultural blends of the standard languages become more prevalent, perhaps we as a world will communicate easier. It may look as though we are speaking and writing poorly, but "Standard English" is simply another interiorized technology that may need to go.

Change is the norm, loosen up.

Wisdom of the Storytellers Chapter One

The main thing that interested me from this was the most basic form of mythic story. The kind that simply gave practical knowledge (logical or mysterious) through a memorable tale. While the stories themselves may be the main reason to tell them, attaching exciting and unbelievable aspects to something more useful (like "don't eat white berries") ensures that the important information is never lost. Our culture could do with some more of that. I wonder if we could come up with tales in a similar fashion for modern life.

The Art of Memory Chapter 1

-Simonides was the developer of the memory theatre and also conceived the concept of mnemonics.

-Rather than a specific quote, I find myself inspired by a mixture of concepts from this chapter. Our author tells us that a storyteller moves through his memory theatre in his mind while telling. Specific objects act as cues. The imagery, the cues of the mind act like the letters and words on paper. "The same set of loci can be used again and again for remembering different material." What I wonder, from all of this, is whether at any point the type of symbolism involved bleeds over to the story itself, similar to the way the rules and techniques of the written word bleed into orality.

I like the idea of using an imagined space as your memory theatre. In an art class I took last semester our final assignment was to make a visual labyrinth. Somewhat abstract, there needed to be a sense of movement, a hint as to how you make your way through the maze. Perhaps an image like this could be used as a basis for the memory theatre. While in the class we had a lecture on the story of the Labyrinth and its basis in the real world. The actual city of Knossos on Crete (the island of the mythical labyrinth) was built like a maze, with no direct path to its central courtyard. Similarly, caves found on the island are thought to have had religious ceremonies taking place deep within. We have real world structures combining with symbolic ideas. Physical journeys through confusing passages lead to rewards, wisdom, and knowledge deep within. Mental and psychological journeys reap the same benefits. In the actual myth we find the man-eating Minotaur instead, but the idea of a physical journey standing in for a figurative one blends perfectly with the idea of memory theatre.

For those of you unfamiliar with Joseph Campbell, he writes of the hero's journey, an archetypal path that most myths and many other stories fit into. He focuses on certain events (refusing the call to adventure) and characters (woman as goddess or temptress) and how they fit into the journey as well as what these elements might represent. He draws his ideas from a wide range of stories as well as from other sources of symbolism, like Freud. Regardless to the consistency of such a system, I am curious as to its effect on a storyteller's memory theatre and vice-versa. Before Simonides officially founded the technique, could storytellers of old, needing to recall so very much, have subconsciously linked stories in a similar manner? Could this method of memory actually have made ancient stories more similar to one another? Could imagery used to affix the memory of the story have become part of the tale itself? It is true that using unique, astoundingly beautiful, or hideously grotesque images improves memory, and all of those things find there way into the most epic of stories.

In a more recent context, over ninety percent of movies are written in the three act structure (setup, confrontation, resolution) that includes a few more specific plot points that should exist. This is an outline that works. Most movies use it, when used poorly we call it cliche. A prominent problem is sticking too closely to rules and guidelines such as these, using them as a crutch. On the other hand, most successful stories (intentionally or not) follow it perfectly. Perhaps there is a need to have some sort of understanding (things are happy now, everything needs to get a lot worse and then even better than before by the end of the film). It creates relatability to the movie from the first viewing. This validates that the journey is much more important than the destination but that there needs to be even the slightest hint of order to help us through.

Question of the Day

A recurring theme in this class is the negative effect of the written word. This brings to mind a question: What would the world be like if we had somehow invented audio and video recording instead of writing? Obviously this would be very challenging, since this technology is very recent in comparison, so suspend your disbelief and think about it. Also, I'm not sure if this would also remove mathematical writing as very basic forms of this began before the written word.

Orality and Literacy Chapter 1

Grapholect: The dictionary defines it as a standard written language (such as Standard English) but the way the author describes brings up standard oral communication as well. There are many things we say in day to day conversation that are considered incorrect. Context, word confusion, actually making up new words unintentionally, all may violate Standard English. Some of these elements, particularly in regards to context, may be totally ignored, others, especially regional dialects, may be pointed out as poorly phrased. The thing is, had any of these inaccuracies been present far enough in the past, they would have been accepted as linguistic quirks or even alter the rules of the language itself. Though clarity is important in communication, people are often greatly looked down upon when they misspeak, even though those rules are based on the rules of written language, which are subsequently attempts to organize and systematize oral language, which has worked perfectly fine for all of human existence without any rules at all.