A long time ago in Cincinnati, in hopes of enriching his service, a minister built a parlor organ, the first organ ever built in the city. On Sundays, one of his boys played out of the hymnal. Even the Indians, loitering about the streets, came in to see the attraction. The red men sat quietly through the entire service, just listening…
– for a new story, “The Organists”
(from HARPER’S, June 2005)
I’ve been taken lately with maps and storytelling. It started at Cambridge, where I did these rough “psychological” maps of London in Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend, continued during my senior project, and it got started again when I read a book called Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer. In Maps, Peter Turchi, (who edited a book with Charles Baxter and teaches fiction at Warren Wilson College), writes about fiction using the metaphor of making maps. The sociology article containing the above graphic can be found here, and a collection of crazy network maps, here.
The New York Times recently interviewed the makers of LOST, writer Damon Lindelof and executive producer Carlton Cuse. They discussed the pitfalls of writing a serial drama.
CUSE: Twin Peaks looms large to me as cautionary tale. That was a show where the mythology sort of overwhelmed everything else, principally the construction of believable, plausible characters.
LINDELOF: It’s all about character, character, character. Everything has to be in service of the people. That is the secret ingredient of the show.
Supposedly, the creators do know how the series ends. “The survivors will not learn they are part of some dastardly experiment, or discover they are in purgatory, or wake up from a bad dream.”
CUSE: These guys get off the island.
LINDELOF: If it’s an island.
X-Files + Twin Peaks + Weekly World News + Stephen King = Best Show on Television.
Corey Gillen is not only the coolest best friend in the world, he might be the best drummer, too. Check out his current gig, The Josh Krajcik Band. Last month they threw their gear into the back of a Yukon and drove across the country to play two gigs in L.A. They ended up playing four. Here’s some footage I shot at ComFest 2005.
Smokin’.
“Well, filet my ass and plastinate me.”
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