Category: On Writing

GABBLER RECOMMENDS: Julian Darius’s Sequart Article on “Too Many Cooks” and Adaptability: ‘ “Too Many Cooks” is a Sublime Postmodern Masterpiece’

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If you are yet to experience “Too Many Cooks,” here it is:

‘It’s hard not to see this as a parody of how shows sometimes radically reinvent themselves, as well as of our current culture of reboots and reinterpretations. Sometimes, people claim that a concept’s “adaptability” illustrates its strength. “Too Many Cooks” demonstrates how weak this argument is, at least on its own. Because there’s nothing to adapt, except the theme music and the idea of too many cooks spoiling the broth.

It’s easy to see some of these title sequences as belonging to shows other than the sitcom Too Many Cooks — shows that reinterpret the original “concept.” But in fact, they are different aspects of the same show. All of these characters interact. The first generic departure, into detective drama, illustrates this concept: what we’re seeing is more akin to a spin-off, depicting the workplace adventures of the member of the Cook family who’s a police officer. Except, of course, this isn’t a spin-off. The title sequence is still continuing, so we’re simply reflecting the fact that Too Many Cooks is such an ensemble show that it has a whole second cast, focused around the police department. In fact, “Too Many Cooks” establishes this idea even earlier, when we meet a set of characters in an office. Even the sci-fi sequence, which feels the most like a reinterpretation or a separate show, is actually just another setting explored on the same show. After all, it’s also part of the same title sequence.’

Read the rest on Sequart.

[“BLA and GB Gabbler” (really just a pen name – singular) are the Editor and Narrator behind THE AUTOMATION, vol. 1 of the Circo del Herrero series. They are on facebook, twitter, tumblr, goodreads, and Vulcan’s shit list.]

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On anti-fame and the importance of identity (fake or otherwise):

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“‘When she performs, she chooses not to face the camera, but believe me, this is her singing live,’ announced Ellen in her introduction of Sia’s performance, accompanied by the faceless cover of the Aussie artist’s forthcoming album, 1000 Forms of Fear.

According to Sia, whose hits include Clap Your Hands and Breathe Me, the decision to shy away from the audience is in an effort to protect her mental health. The artist has never been secretive about her battle with painkiller addiction and alcoholism, disclosing all in an interview with Billboard last year (she covered the same issue with a paper bag over her head).

But is her attempt at fleeing the limelight thrusting her straight into it? Will it start a Bruce Wayne style obsession with unmasking the real Sia? Or is this a bold statement by an artist wanting to be judged by merits alone?

Daft Punk have successfully paved a masked empire…”

Read the rest.

There is something to be said about how, when the Entertainer distances themselves from the Audience, the Audience can better focus on the Art, and therefore the Entertainer remembers what it is like being an Artist. For there is no Art without the Artist. There is no Art or Artist without an Audience.

Is it the Artist/Entertainer who decides what is and is not art?

Where are the Art and Artist inseparable?

Thoughts?

[“BLA and GB Gabbler” (really just a pen name – singular) are the Editor and Narrator behind THE AUTOMATION, vol. 1 of the Circo del Herrero series. They are on facebook, twitter, tumblr, goodreads, and Vulcan’s shit list.]

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GABBLER RECOMMENDS: 2014 Film LOCKE

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Tom Hardy driving. Because he is good at it.

The ENTIRE film takes place inside the main character’s car. The only “outside” interactions you get are phone calls he takes or camera shots of the car driving down roads amongst other vehicles. You never once feel claustrophobic or restless because of the setting, which I think is the core grace of the film.

It is a story about a man whose life falls apart and how he tries to pick up the pieces–all in one drive.

As someone who annotated a novel where over half the setting takes place in a small apartment, it was very fascinating to see how others handled restrained circumstances.

– gabs

[“BLA and GB Gabbler” (really just a pen name – singular) are the Editor and Narrator behind THE AUTOMATION, vol. 1 of the Circo del Herrero series. They are on facebook, twitter, tumblr, goodreads, and Vulcan’s shit list.]

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2014 year roundup:

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2014 was a big year for us, guys.

For one, we published our first book (it’s about Automatons and the Greek god Hephaestus–kind of).

ALSO: Gabbler recommended a lot of stuff (Gabbler has great taste in stuff), we cataloged some writing tidbits (quotes from people more important than us and so on), and, last but not least, we wrote a couple of original posts that really help capture our year that was 2014 on this CIRCO blog (we’ve chosen 14 to be exact):

1) We wrote a post about 10 things you might not know about THE AUTOMATION (our 2014 novel)–using GIFs!!!

2) Gabbler went on a rant in an essay about what literature qualifies as art.

3) We posted the first chapter of THE AUTOMATION on our blog.

4) And then, later on in the year, we posted about how you can read the first five chapters of THE AUTOMATION for free too.

5) We posted an interesting excerpt from a book about statues and Pandora. You should check it out.

6) We gave our novel’s cover nipple pasties at one point because we are classy like that.

7) We talked a bit about why Zoella having a ghostwriter write her first novel matters.

8) We posted this thing about the Automatons in THE AUTOMATION and how they are different from just regular automatons (capital-A, thank you).

9) Gabbler posted an essay titled “What we talk about when we talk about post-apocalyptic stories”–which spoke a lot about our tendency to romanticize natalism in the genre.

10) Right after #9, Gabbler wrote another essay titled “On Interstellar: You know who else wanted to explore with the intent of inhabiting new land and using its resources? Conquistadors.” Needless to say, Gabbler did not like Interstellar.

11) We made this observation on Homer and recorded it here.

12) We asked the question “Why didn’t J.K. Rowling self-publish as Robert Galbraith?” Seriously, why?

13) BLA and Gabbler had a little argument over mythologists, recorded here.

14) We posted an excerpt from our book about the Midas touch here: “…When her finger left, it was no longer just a plastic, black ashtray. It was a golden ashtray.”

Here is to 2015! May the gods scheme ever in your favor.

 

P.S. Today’s the last day to enter our giveaway. Bring in the new year with some ancient myth!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Automation by G.B. Gabbler

The Automation

by G.B. Gabbler

Giveaway ends December 30, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

[“BLA and GB Gabbler” (really just a pen name) are the Editor and Narrator behind THE AUTOMATION, vol. 1 of the Circo del Herrero series. They are on facebook, twitter, tumblr, and goodreads.]

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Bryan Doerries on “‘Why Homer Matters,’ by Adam Nicolson”

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According to Nicolson, “Epic, which was invented after memory and before history, occupies a third space in the human desire to connect the present to the past: It is the attempt to extend the qualities of memory over the reach of time.” The purpose of epic “is to make the distant past as immediate to us as our own lives, to make the great stories of long ago beautiful and painful now.”

…He prefers the view that, instead of being the creation of a single man, let alone of a single time, “Homer reeks of long use.” Try thinking of Homer as a “plural noun,” he suggests, made up of “the frozen and preserved words of an entire culture.”

Read the rest here.

[“BLA and GB Gabbler” (really just a pen name) are the Editor and Narrator behind THE AUTOMATION, vol. 1 of the Circo del Herrero series. They are on facebook, twitter, tumblr, and goodreads.]

all yellow B&N | Amazon | Etc.