The Greatest Gambling Stories Ever Told – Lyons

As assiduous readers will recall, the risk theatre (otherwise known as my interpretation of tragedy) sees tragic heroes as gamblers of sorts. They play for higher and higher stakes and, in the mania of white heat, finally encounter the unexpected. The unexpected does bad things to them. Which is sort of surprising, since can’t the unexpected also be good? Well in tragedy, the heroes never run across fat tails on the right of the bell curve (unexpectedly fortuitous events such as winning the lottery); they always run across the fat tail on the left of the bell curve (some disastrous event). Here’s an explanation of fat tailed risk from the New York Times. So, that’s the reason why I’m interested in gambling.

But unfortunately I don’t have one single gambling bone in my body! To find out more about this world, I bought some stock in the Great Canadian Casino company (ticker GC.to). And I also went down to their View Royal location to observe other gamblers in action. They also kindly gave me a used deck of cards for the Dead Man’s Hand photo shoot (did you know each deck of cards is only used once?). But that wasn’t enough. I wanted to read about gambling. That’s when I came across this book of 31 gambling short stories (some are excerpts from novels) put together by Paul Lyons.

Lyons, The Greatest Gambling Stories Ever Told

Lyons, The Greatest Gambling Stories Ever Told

Just the cover illustration tells an interesting story! Did the fellow on the left lose and the one on the right win? But what about the guy in the middle?-he seems impassive to it all.

Back Blurb:

Whether your vice be a tame game of bingo or a visit to the local horse track, a friendly game of poker with friends or a tense match of billiards in a smoky parlor, chances are that you, at one time or another, have gambled on something. And nowhere is man”s fascination with gambling more clearly evident than in the massive profits amassed each year by illegal bookmakers and the lavish casinos in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and abroad.

In The Greatest Gambling Stories Ever Told, editor Paul Lyons has compiled thirty-one of the finest writings, both fact and realistic fiction, ever penned about our collective gambling vice, which has been a part of our history and culture since Biblical times.

With contributions from such renowned writers as Fyodor Dostoevsky, David Mamet, and Charles Bukowski, as well as some rare, lesser-known gems of the genre from Dan McGoorty, Michael Konik, and Jane Smiley, The Greatest Gambling Stories Ever Told is an entertaining and enlightening collection sure to appeal to anyone who has ever picked up a cue, cards, dice, or racing form, and to anyone out there looking to feel a little bit of “juice.”

Paul Lyons, the editor of The Quotable Gambler, was raised in New York City, and received his early gambling training at Guys and Dolls Billiards-recalled in his novel Table Legs. He received a Ph.D. in American Literature from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and now teaches English at the University of Hawaii, Manoa.

Contents

Lyons, The Greatest Gambling Stories Ever Told, Contents 1

Lyons, The Greatest Gambling Stories Ever Told, Contents 1

Lyons, The Greatest Gambling Stories Ever Told, Contents 2

Lyons, The Greatest Gambling Stories Ever Told, Contents 2

As editor, Lyons is our guide throughout the book. He writes the standard introduction. But he’s at his best in the short little introductions preceding each of the 31 stories: he points out why the selection is special. For example, Lyons directs the reader to appreciate how Zweig captures the interior, physiological sensation of gambling through his hero: a lady who is an astute observer of hands. That’s something I would have missed, but it made that selection all the more enriching.

The other thing awesome about this book is that I finally get to meet all these characters of lore: fast Eddie, Minnesota Fats, the Cincinnati Kid, and so on. And believe it or not, I have never read Balzac and D.H. Lawrence! Looking forward to that. And why is it that some people are always referred to by first initials and last name? Like T.S. Eliot and D.H. Lawrence. You wouldn’t really say ‘Eliot’ or ‘Lawrence’ but T.S. Eliot and D.H. Lawrence. I wonder.

And yes, I cheated! I am not through the collection, just through the first couple of stories! Oh my…

BOOM Review (Belfry August 7)

It’s good to go out and see a live show. Especially since I profess to be a theatre expert! Well, the blog constantly reminds me of how seldom I get out. It doesn’t lie: from the reviews I’m averaging two shows a year. Part of the reason for starting the blog in the first place was to get me to go out more often. It hasn’t worked out that way. But on August 7, I had a chance to see Boom with my friend S. It was playing at the Belfry theatre down the street, a ten minute walk.

Boom is a one man show written, produced, and performed by Rick Miller. It follows the lives of three individuals growing up in post-war Europe, USA, and Canada. The performance is two hours and the time covered by the performance is over 20 years. One of the last musical cuts is ‘Born to be Wild’ by Steppenwolf which came out in 1968. The boomer generation proper is, I believe, those born from 1946 to 1964.

In a previous post, I had commented on how tight the margins must be in live theatre. In fact, I couldn’t really understand how some shows could even be profitable. Unless one had deep pockets or some kind of corporate or government funding, the one man show is the way to go for independent artists. We estimated the Friday crowd to be 100 strong. At $50 average per ticket, that translates to $5000. To rent the Belfry (one of the nicer of the smaller venues) along with a sound and lights team for a night must cost $2500, ball park. Remember, the Belfry, unlike the Blue Bridge Theatre, is union. So union rates. The artist is travelling, so allow another $300 for accommodations and food. That leaves him $2200. Not bad for one night, you say. But also remember, this is a Friday night show. Maybe half the people show up during the weekdays. And tickets are less as well on weekdays. To top it off: it took Miller two years of hard work to put Boom together. That has to be accounted for in the calculation as well. Theatre is a labour of love. Which is why I appreciate it. It’s real. They’re not doing it for the money. At least that’s what the back of the napkin calculations say!

It was a good choice for the three characters: one is a white Austrian fellow, one is his mom, and the last a black American musician. Since Miller plays all the roles, having a clearly differentiated set of characters is helpful! It adds to the perspective as well. Not only do we see the boomer years through the lens of different nationalities, races, and sexes, the action is spread over Canada, USA, and Europe.

There were two takeaways from this show for me. The first is that damn this guy is a good performer. He impersonates all the politicians, musicians, and actors. Dylan must have been one of the harder ones. I wasn’t quite sure if he played all the instruments, but he definitely plays guitar and harmonica. Maybe the piano… Probably. He’s talented.

The other takeaway is the history lesson. I didn’t know that the Soviets had been so far ahead in the space race. JFK I knew was assassinated. But I didn’t know about his brother Bobby. It was fun to see how things have changed too: the popularity of processed food. Nowadays you couldn’t pay someone enough to eat that stuff. He had ad footage and processed food was IT! The same with DDT. They had spray cans so that you could treat fleas on your dog. You don’t see that anymore! It reminds me: it will be like that with the things we hold precious today. Give it thirty years.

As entertaining as the show was, it was more a documentary than a drama. A drama is doing and acting. The story emerges from the doing and the acting. At least that’s my idea of drama. Boom is more narrative. Telling. Relating. Mind you, Miller intended it to be like that and it shows off his storytelling and impersonating skills. But I guess this is one of the weaknesses of one man shows: it’s hard to create drama with one actor. But I should end on a positive note. With one man shows–especially if the performer is also the writer–all the lines are spoken with perfect conviction. The delivery is splendid.

Until next time, I’m Edwin Wong, and I’ve been Doing Melpomene’s Work at the Belfry Theatre.

Back Blurb Revision

Books on self-publishing give pointers on writing the back blurb: that’s the short introduction on the back cover of books. This is how a book sale works. The customer comes into the bookstore. If the cover art/design is appealing, the customer will pick up the book. If it isn’t appealing, then all is lost. But the customer doesn’t buy on the basis of the cover art. It’s the back blurb that makes the sale. The back blurb is like the elevator pitch: you have 15 seconds of the customer’s time: make it happen. Why do they need to read your book?

My friend TS was in town last week. He’s an English professor and we got talking into how it’d be cool if I could test out some of my ideas at the college where he teaches. Give a lecture or something like that. What he wanted was a short description of what I was working on to present to the department. I thought, ‘I should revise the back blurb and send it to him’.

Revised Back Blurb (with Shout Line)

YOU CAN’T BE A HERO IF YOU GOT NOTHING TO LOSE

Tragedy is a high stakes game where gamblers stake the milk of human kindness for a crown (Macbeth), the immortal soul for mortal glory (Dr. Faustus), or happiness for distinction (The Master Builder). By playing the game, heroes expose themselves to risk: a dead man’s hand or a queen of spades lurks in the cards. This is the idea of the risk theatre.

Paying Melpomene’s Price is about the risk theatre. The risk theatre sells heroes its benefits at a dear cost. Oedipus saves Thebes, but pays the price in doing so. Because relief is purchased by exile, love is purchased by blood, and power comes at the cost of the soul, tragedy is a valuing mechanism. It assigns a tangible value to intangible human qualities: the milk of human kindness may be exchanged for a crown. In an increasingly monetized world, tragedy restores value to humanity because its transactions are not measured in dollars and cents, but blood, sweat, and tears.

This book is written for students of tragic art theory looking for a philosophy of tragedy that celebrates the innate value of life. It is also written with dramatists in mind: in these pages is a neoclassical working model of drama. With its template, the dramatist can bring the idea of risk theatre to the stage. It is also written for those dismayed in the monetization of all things: the risk theatre puts the human back in humanity.

Old Back Blurb

The loss of a sense of value in a world where everything has become monetized has led to a reexamination of the tragic art form as a means of reclaiming human value. What if tragedy were a marketplace? What if it were like one of the great bourses in New York or Frankfurt, except anger and ambitions change hands instead of stock certificates? What is more, what if Melpomene’s price is not something to be paid in dollars and cents, but the terms of payment are all-too-human things such as faith, the milk of human kindness, or even the soul of a man.

This book is the meeting of Aristotle’s Poetics with Smith’s Wealth of Nations. It paints a picture of the hero as a gambler willing to lay down his life in gage for the great reward. It will help you conceptualize how the hero rediscovers human value by playing the high stakes game in the ludic theatre. Written for dramatists, theatregoers, and students of tragic art theory, there are detailed examples of how tragedy can be conceptualized not as a destructive medium, but as a celebration of the spiritual wealth which resides in each one of us.

Written by a lifelong connoisseur and student of the theatrical arts, this comprehensive study breaks down tragedy into its constituent parts: the hero’s wager, the myth of the price you pay, and the role of the unexpected. They myth of the price you pay provides the philosophic underpinnings of tragedy: you get something for something, nothing for nothing, and sometimes nothing for something. In the hero’s wager is the dramatization of the myth of the price you pay. Finally, the role of the unexpected generates the thrill of theatre. In breaking down tragedy into its constituent parts, it builds them back up to argue that tragedy is the greatest show on earth.

Edwin Wong is an expert on theatre and literary theory. He has written and lectured widely on the subject. He graduated with a BA in Greek and Roman Studies at the University of Victoria and a MA in Classics from Brown University. Check out his theatre blog at: melpomeneswork.com. His favourite tragedy is Macbeth and his favourite tragedian Aeschylus.

The new back blurb is 40% shorter. It gets to the point quicker. And it offers specific examples right away instead of talking about generalities. These are things that the style guides have been talking about. What do you think–is the new back blurb better?

What is Concision in Writing?

The other day CM and I were catching up. We hadn’t chatted in months. He’s been working on his yard. Landscaping. The big project was a picket fence. I betcha it looks good. As assiduous readers will recall from prior posts, I’ve started the rewriting and editing process. I shared with him the good news that the first draft of the book was complete and that the goal was to get the book down from 210 pages to 150 or less. ‘The writing has to be concise’, I said, parroting what the style guides were saying. Concision is everything. But then CM asked, ‘What exactly is concision in writing?’. Well, I hadn’t actually thought of that! Concise is to say as much as possible in as few words as possible. But what is ‘as much as possible’? How does one know? Is there a boundary between too little and too much?

How to Express Concision

Communication is a two way street. When attempting to get ideas across, it’s always helpful to remember how the other person is looking at things. It just so happens that me and CM share a construction background. In fact, years ago, when I was thinking of getting into the trades, I asked CM which trade I should get into. He said if he were doing it all again, he’d check out either electrical or plumbing: they’re paid well and you’re not outside working in the rain or on top of a slippery roof.

So, when asked ‘What exactly is concision in writing?’, I came up with the following: concision is like what you find on a blueprint. Tradespeople read blueprints when they build a house. The print tells them where the stairs go, the rise and the run of the treads, how many levels the house has. It tells them how to lay out the walls, where the bathrooms are, and how many bedrooms there are. It does not tell them where to hang the Monet, where to put the TV, or which pan goes into which cupboard.

The plan tells the tradespeople what they need to know to build the house. And in very exact terms: the shear wall will be screwed together with certain types of screws. The length and type of plating of exterior screws will be specified. But it does not go beyond what it is designed to do: it will not talk about where the TV goes, for example. This is concision: the state of expressing as efficiently as possible what needs to be said.

How Concision Works

If a set of blueprints for a house can be described as being ‘concise’, concision works because there is an understanding between the architect who drafts the blueprints and the tradespeople who interpret the blueprints. Through experience, the architect knows what to put on the blueprints and what not to put on. And through experience, the tradespeople know what to look for. A book then, must be like a set of blueprints: it must start off with a well defined goal. Just as the point of a blueprint is so a house can be built, the writer must define the purpose of the book.

To continue the analogy, once the writer defines the purpose of a book, the next thing to establish is the book’s audience. Just as an architect is making a set of blueprints for tradespeople, the writer must figure out who the audience is. That way, the right amount of information is conveyed. Once the architect defines the audience as an audience of tradespeople, certain things can be said which do not need further elaboration. For instance, if acoustic insulation is specified, it can be presumed that the tradespeople are familiar with how to install it: no need to give a lesson on the history and application of acoustic insulation. For the same reason, if a writer is writing about theatre to an audience of theatregoers, there is no need to give the background of each play under discussion: it can be presumed the audience is already familiar. There is no need, for example, to say that Macbeth is a play by Shakespeare in which an ambitious vassal assassinates his lord. That information would be superfluous. To include it would not be concise.

The Current State of Paying Melpomene’s Price

Now that the process of rewriting and editing the book has started, how does it look? To use the blueprint analogy, currently the book is like a glorious house built in the clouds. It has no foundation. Some of the stairs lead nowhere. Others are in the wrong place. It needs concision.

But even in this bad state, one can tell that the house has an interesting design. With the proper corrections, one could live in there. And comfortably. The crucial thing I can see right now is that what I have created is not yet a house, but, can become a house with the proper revisions. And that for now is good enough. Actually, in a way, I’m counting my lucky stars because I’ve started off a lot of projects where, looking back on them, they’re not even salvageable.

Until next time, I’m Edwin Wong and I’m Doing Melpomene’s Work many times over.

Editing & Style

Since the first draft is complete, it’s time to start rewriting and editing. The manuscript is at 126 Microsoft Word pages which is equal to about 210 softcover book pages (depending on size, font, etc.,). I’ve started rewriting the preface. The goal with the preface is to shorten it 20% and it looks like I might be able to exceed that. I’ve also started to put in the appropriate footnotes. And then it struck me: I can’t remember all the formats! It’s been eight years since I’ve done this sort of stuff. Same for editing. I haven’t edited anything in these last eight years either. Rusty. Of course, the goal is to get professional editors to go through everything. But the goal also is to get it to the very best of my ability before getting outside help. Junk in, junk out, as they say. And if you’re wondering, no, my ‘academic’ writing isn’t the same as my ‘blogging’ writing. Too bad. Because my ‘blogging’ writing actually has some good things going for it. It’s short. It’s fairly concise. It’s readily understandable. At least that’s what Yoast SEO reports: ‘The copy scores 70 on the Flesch Reading Ease test which is considered easy to read’. I’m pretty sure if I fed my manuscript into WordPress Yoast SEO it would yell at me for making things too difficult to read. Time to change that. I think I might try too hard to appear clever in my academic writing. This is where having a blog sorta helps me out.

Off to the Library to Find Editing Books

So, at the library I found four interesting volumes. And on the bookshelf at home, there was a good old standby. Here’s the library picks:

Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style. I’ve never read this before. But everyone swears by it. It’s the only book to appear on every top 10 list. And it’s short. Actually, all these style guides are short. Maybe that’s some sort of hint to would-be writers. Some famous writers read this volume yearly. Wow. Here’s the back blurb:

Making ‘every word tell’ is what The Elements of Style is all about. This famous manual, now in a fourth edition, has conveyed the principles of plain English style to millions of readers. It is probably the only style manual ever to appear on the best seller lists.

Whether you write letters, term papers, or novels, the ‘little’ book, as it has come to be called, can help you communicate more effectively. It will show you how to cut deadwood out of your sentences; enliven your prose with the active voice; put statements in a positive for; approach style by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, simplicity.

The original ‘little’ book was written by William Strunk, Jr., late professor of English at Cornell, for use by his students. Years later, one of the most illustrious of those students, E.B. White, prepared an edition of the book for the general public, revising the original and contributing a chapter of his own that sought to lead the reader beyond mere correctness toward distinction in English style.

I like it. The goal of writing is to ‘communicate’ with readers. Put this way, I’m beginning to understand why simplicity and concision are desirable: it’s just like talking with people. Who appreciates a conversation when someone is hammering them over their head with huge words and sentences which never end?

Number two is the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. I used to have the 5th ed. Now it’s up to the 7th ed.! This volume has all the goods on the format footnotes go in, how to do abbreviations, and so on. Maybe it will even tell me how to differentiate between ‘which’ and ‘that’: that’s something I’ve forgotten how to do! Here’s the back blurb:

The MLA Handbook is published by the Modern Language Association, the authority on MLA documentation style. Widely adopted by universities, colleges, and secondary schools, the MLA Handbook gives step-by-step advice on every aspect of writing research papers, from selecting a topic to submitting the completed paper.

The seventh edition is a comprehensive, up-to-date guide to research and writing in the online environment. It provides an authoritative account of MLA documentation style for use in student writing, including simplified guidelines for citing works published on the Web and new recommendations for citing several kinds of works, such as digital files and graphic narratives.

Number three is The Canadian Writer’s Handbook. Here’s its blurb:

For over twenty-five years, The Canadian Writer’s Handbook has provided invaluable guidance on all aspects of the writing process, from the mechanics of building effective sentences and paragraphs to the intricacies of writing, formatting, and documenting full-length research papers. Building on the foundations laid by William Messenger and Jan de Bruyn, Judy Brown and Ramona Montagnes, both of the respected UBC Writing Centre, have updated this comprehensive and authoritative text.

This volume has MLA, APA, Chicago, and CSE style guides for citing references. I can compare it with the MLA Handbook to come up with a style appropriate for my book.

Last there is my own dog eared copy of Style: Toward Clarity and Grace by Joseph Williams. Here’s what its back blurb has to say:

This acclaimed book is a master teacher’s tested program for turning clumsy prose into clear, powerful, effective writing. A logical, expert, easy-to-use plan for achieving excellence in expression, Style offers neither simplistic rules nor endless lists of dos and don’ts. Rather, Joseph Williams and Gregory Colomb explain how to be concise, how to be focused, how to be organized.

Filled with realistic examples of good, bad, and better writing, and step-by-step strategies for crafting a sentence or organizing a paragraph, Style does much more than teach mechanics: it helps anyone who must write clearly and persuasively transform even the roughest of drafts into a polished work of clarity, coherence, impact, and personality.

Wow! I am SOLD! And, believe it or not, I find books on style actually quite entertaining to read.

Until next time, I’m Edwin Wong and I am editing and re-Doing Melpomene’s Work.

Philosophy for Beginners – Osborne

Between you and me, Philosophy for Beginners by Richard Osborne and illustrated by Ralph Edney has probably been sitting on the bookshelf since its publication date of 1992. There’s a vague recollection of having had purchased it at Munro’s Books years ago. That was before the time of amazon.com. Before the time of ABE books. The good old days when I used to wander around the bookshops listening to the obligatory baroque chamber orchestras playing through bookstore loudspeakers. And buying more books than I was reading. Have to remember this in the future: balance input with output. Or better yet, consider the public library as an extension of your personal bookshelf. We all pay the taxes. Might as well derive benefit from it. And best of all, no philosopher is required to prove that theorem!

Philosophy for Beginners Cover Illustration

Philosophy for Beginners Cover Illustration

Philosophy for Beginners Cover Illustration

The ‘cosmic’ look of the Greek philosopher in the background is fitting. It must be Thales. And it appears the philosophers closer to modernity get bigger and colour as well (i.e. Nietzsche and nice use of foreshortening on his clenched fist). Three guesses to the philosopher smashing the painting? If you said J.J. Rousseau, you are absolutely right! That must be a reference to his First Discourse on the Arts where he said that all art is decadent. And on the top left that’s Pythagoras, who’s looking a little cross-eyed staring into his magical dodecahedron.

The art is really top notch as well. Did I ever tell you I used to be a comic collector? Not big time. But enough to go down to the comic book store every other paycheque and pick something up. Mostly Marvel comics. So nothing ‘serious’ like Image or DC. But the soap opera Spider-Man stories still have a place in my heart.

Philosophy for Beginners Back Blurb

Why does philosophy give some people a headache, others a real buzz, and yet others a feeling that it is subversive & dangerous? Why do a lot of people think philosophy is totally irrelevant? What is philosophy anyway?

The ABCs of philosophy-easy to understand but never simplistic.

Beginning with basic questions posed by the ancient Greeks-‘What is the world made of?’ ‘What is man?’ ‘What is knowledge?’ ‘What is good and evil?’-this guide traces the development of these questions as the key to understanding how western philosophy developed over the last 2,500 years.

Nice and to the point.

The Book

Its nice to read these summary books. And the visual comic format is inviting after a long day. Summary books give you the whole picture quickly and identify points of further interest. For example, I’d like to read something by Willard Quine, a contemporary American philosopher. Also J.S. Mill. He argued that things like pleasure could not be quantified like coal. This is one of my arguments in Paying Melpomene’s Price so it’d be interesting to see if my argument would be made stronger from seeing what he has to say. And the book reminded me that I must absolutely get with the times and read some Derrida, though I think he’s a bum. It’s always easy destroying meaning and form. Building it is harder. And more noble. As a summary, Osborne and Edney have done a terrific job. I would definitely check out others in this series.

The Comics

Here’s some of my favourites, in chronological order.

Aurelius

Aurelius

He’s too busy philosophizing to defend the Empire! He was one of the good emperors but its a funny caricature at any rate.

Spinoza

Spinoza

Here’s Spinoza arguing with Hobbes! Spinoza is so involved with Euclidean geometry that he has become a collage of boxes and triangles!

Hegel

Hegel

Here is Daffy Duck interviewing Hegel’s imperial eagle. Or maybe it’s a fictitious heraldic animal of sorts. The joke must be that Hegel was an avowed Prussian nationalist.

CS Peirce 1

CS Peirce 1

CS Peirce 2

CS Peirce 2

I don’t know much about C.S. Peirce, but as you can tell, he’s an early American philosopher out in the Wild West! I like his actions speak louder than words philosophy!

Derrida

Derrida

Haha, even though I don’t like Derrida, it’s funny watching his robot ‘deconstruct’ its structuralist adversary. If only it were the other way around!

Until next time, I’m Edwin Wong and these are the light hearted hours of Doing Melpomene’s Work.

Done Like Dinner (well 1st draft!)

The weekend was quite satisfying. The best part was typing ‘THE END’ in big capital letters at the end of chapter 9, the final chapter. In a prior post, I had been writing on the finish line mentality: the closer to the finish, the more things seemed to drag on. Well, after writing the post and realizing the error of my ways, I picked up the pace! It’s only the first draft, so ‘THE END’ is just another beginning but, hey, it was just satisfying typing that. Actually, damn satisfying. Here.s how it looks:

'The End' on 1st Draft

‘The End’ on 1st Draft

What will I do? I’m going to Disneyland! Well, no. Not yet. Or maybe better yet never. I went for a walk down to Dallas road where the kitesurfers were practicing their arts and thought what to do after the first draft was finished.

There’s a list of short stories and novels I’ve been meaning to read but haven’t had the time. Most of the reading lately has been research. The common theme behind the list is that the titles all have to do with the unexpected. It’s been collected over the years from a multitude of places. I kept the list running at the end of each Microsoft Word document that I was working on. As each chapter got completed, I would paste the list onto the end of the next Word document and so on. In other words, I’ve been looking guiltily at this list for a long time. Here it is:

Hermann Hesse The Glass Bead Game

Shalom Aleichem Lottery Ticket

Matilde Serao Land of Plenty

Edgar Allan Poe William Wilson

Honoré de Balzac The Wild Ass’s Skin

Jean Cocteau Children of the Game

Stephan Zweig The Gambler

Wow, some of these titles are surprisingly hard to find. Looking at the Greater Victoria Public Library (GVPL) catalogue, couldn’t find the Balzac, Serao, Zweig, or Aleichem titles. Maybe some of the writers are obscure, but Balzac? C’mon!

What else now the first draft is done like dinner? Time to start rereading and rewriting. Let’s see how many pages there are as it stands:

Preface – 10 pages

Chapter 1 ‘Tragedy Equals Risk Times Time’ – 7 pages

Chapter 2 ‘The Power of Three’ – 10 pages

Chapter 3 ‘Forms of Tragedy’ – 18 pages

Chapter 4 ‘The Myth of the Price You Pay’ – 15 pages

Chapter 5 ‘Debemur morti’ – 2 pages

Chapter 6 ‘Elements of the Counter-Monetization’ – 8 pages

Chapter 7 ‘Taking the All-In Wager to the Stage’ – 21 pages

Chapter 8 ‘The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men’ – 18 pages

Chapter 9 ‘A Riddle’ – 17 pages

Grand total of 126 Microsoft Word pages. Now, I’m not quite sure how Microsoft Word pages will convert into the final product, but based on comparing number of words in Microsoft per page to the number of words per page in a standard type Penguin softcover, the factor is to divide by 0.6 to convert. So, 126 Word pages = 210 softcover pages. That’s a bit too many pages.

For what I’m doing, 100 to 150 pages should be more than sufficient. The ludic theory of tragedy is actually quite simple. This is no Critique of Pure Reason. I want the book to be approachable. Something a reader can finish in a couple of sittings, if not one. A lot of the best books are actually quite small. How to Do Things with Words by the philosopher Austin comes to mind. He clocks in just over 150 pages, but really short pages that you can slice through like butter. Same with another game changer, Abel’s Metatheatre. Seminal book. Only 146 pages. Big idea, small book. Let’s see what I can do.

Until next time, I’m Edwin Wong, and I have just finished the first draft in the never ending project of Doing Melpomene’s Work.

Time

Here’s an ‘around the water cooler’ post for assiduous readers today on time, that familiar stranger in our lives. How did the topic come about? Every so often-which is, at it turns out, once every couple of months-I pick up some donuts and head out to say hi to the boys at my old work, Bayside Mechanical out in Sidney. For one it’s fun to catch up on how everyone is doing. And then it’s a good excuse to jump on the bike. Pedal bike that is. If only they could make cars as dependable as bicycles. A bike can sit unused for years: just pump up the tyres (notice saucy British spelling!) and away you go. Built in climate control: if it’s hot slow down. If it’s cool, push the pedal to the metal! Beautiful machines. They make life efficient. No need for gym membership! But what was I talking about…ah…time.

‘What Do You Do With All Your Time?’

One of the things my colleagues say is: ‘Man, what do you do with yourself? I wouldn’t know what to do with all that extra time! I’d go nuts’. Well, that’s not quite what they say, but something along those lines. For those readers just hopping aboard, I used to work at Bayside Mechanical full time up till November last year. The routine was: out the door to catch the bus at 6:30AM and get in the door at 6PM. All-in with the commute (and I think that’s the proper way to calculate how long work takes) that’s almost twelve hours or half the day. So the way my colleagues are seeing it, well, I have a whole lot more time on my hands!

Accounting for All That Extra Time

Let’s see how things have changed. Before I used to go to bed around 11PM and get up 5:30AM. Now it’s more like bed at midnight and get up at 8AM. So I’m sleeping 1-1/2 hours more. What else? Grocery shopping used to be once a week. A big shop on Saturday at Fairway Markets. Now I go between Market on Yates, Fairway, and Fisgard Market in Chinatown for best pricing. This probably knocks 3 bucks off the weekly grocery spend of ~$55. It wouldn’t have been worth it to do this last year, that’s for sure. Milk and specials at the Market, meat and most staples at Fairway, and fruits and veggies in Chinatown. So shopping consumes another, say, 15 minutes a day on average (shopping is not every day but since everything is being calculated by day, keeps the numbers apples to apples). Then the library. Walking to the library and back again, coming home for lunch, going back… That’s gotta be another hour a day right there. Then blogging. That’s the amazing one. Blogging is actually very time intensive. This blog right here will probably take 2 hours altogether (I work on it on and off). Actually, maybe even more. It’s getting faster with practise though. Remember Seneca’s aphorisms? Witty things like ‘upon the author crimes come back?’. Well, these didn’t just ‘come’ to Seneca. In his educational treatises, he advises students of oratory to come up with one or two sententia each day. Blogging requires practise too. And hey, blogging is good for writers. Its an exercise to get your thoughts out there right here right now as opposed to labourious writing in the ‘academic’ style that is constantly written and rewritten. So, what are we at? Almost 5 hours. 7 hours of ‘regained’ time are still unaccounted for. That must be the time I’m writing and reading. Oh, and snacking. Good thing there’s time to work out because I snack a lot more. Also cooking more at home and eating out a lot less. But really, that should be time neutral: the time saved by going out is burnt by well, going and and coming back.

The Nature of Time

The strange thing is, it doesn’t seem like there’s all that extra time. There must be something psychological in how time flows. Actually, there is. And as project managers, we know this: give a worker a task, and he will fit his day to it. Time and productivity are like a gas in a container. If the container is small, the gas will fit but be at a higher pressure. If the container is large, the gas will also fit but be more ‘relaxed’. Operating at high pressures for too long, and something’s going to blow up. Operate at low pressures for too long, and the container might even implode out of boredom. The trick is to find a happy medium.

So, for those of you fearing that when you retire, there’s going to be too much time, well, don’t worry. That’s not going to be a problem. The one thing that is hard to understand is that once time becomes your own time why its considered to be time wasted or time off the grid. Why shouldn’t time be worth more when it is your own time?

There’s a really good book that I read years ago that shaped my thinking on work and time. It’s called Your Money or Your Life. It’s by Robin and Dominguez. It’s one of the few books that I’ve read multiple times. Do you know what actually happens when you get paid? Well, you’re actually trading in your life for money, which you spend on other things. By consuming, you’re actually consuming your own life. Ever talk to the old guys? You hear they say lots of things, but have you ever heard an old guy say, ‘I wish I had spent more time in the office?’. Betcha you haven’t. And if you have, I’d sure like to know why!

My Efficiency Rating

So, it would seem in hindsight that when time is my own time, I’m less efficient than before. Or that I’m underutilized. Grocery shopping in multiple places. Sleeping more. Walking more. But that’s an illusion. Sometimes you hear people saying we only use 10% of our brains. Well, that’s an illusion too, because if someone lopped out the 90% that is not being used, I’m sure the brain would not work at all! So, I’m at, taking a guestimate, 75% efficiency compared to before. But it’s in my downtime that the ideas appear: during walks, taking a break, hey, even in my dreams sometimes! And I think this is true not only of me, but also of a lot of artists and, dare I say it, scientists as well? For the Curies to have experimented enough to discover radiation or for Mendel to have come up with genetics, they must have had a lot of spare time. But really, its not ‘spare’ time! It’s ‘spare’ only in the sense of ‘we’re only using 10% of our brain’!

So, although from a purely quantitative perspective, my production is down, it is the way it has to be. A certain amount of leisure is necessary in the production of art, or *gasp* even science. But though the production seems down, my days are still too short. As Seneca said in another aphorism: no day is too long for the busy. It.s already 7:42PM and I still must finish Plato’s Phaedo and the Ion tonight and start on something else. Maybe finish Schiller’s The Robbers which has eluded me for a month now.

Until next time, I’m Edwin Wong and there is much to do when one is Doing Melpomene’s Work.

Finish Line Psychology

Almost There!

Writing a theory of drama’s been a goal since the late teenage years. I’m forty now. It’s been like a long distance run. The last major intellectual hurdle was cleared this afternoon. So, if we’re going to compare writing with long distance running, it’s the moment where the Boston Marathon runner gets over Heartbreak Hill. While Heartbreak Hill isn’t the steepest hill out there, it’s location, location, location. It’s after the 20th mile right before the finish. Runners are usually pretty tuckered out by then. Not that I’ve experienced it. The longest I usually go for is 10k (which is roughly 6 miles) and I’m pretty tuckered out by that! But writing the book has sure been like a marathon. Looking back, the preface was written way back in 2010. So, by clearing the last major intellectual hurdle, it should all be downhill from here!

Finish Line Psychology

So there’s some odds and ends to tie up. The last hurdle was differentiating between ex-ante and ex-post arts. Ex-ante and ex-post arts? What are those? Well, those are my terms for backwards and forwards looking arts. Comedy and tragedy are ex-ante: they look forwards into the unknown. History and philosophy are ex-post arts because they look backwards. History was easy to classify as ex-post because there’s no history of the future. Philosophy was more of a challenge. I thought for a few weeks I would have to go through the philosophical corpus (which is tough slogging) until a solution presented itself. Thankfully, an easy solution came to mind: philosophy must be ex-post because it is based on interpreting experiences which have already happened.

All there’s left to do now is to compare and contrast tragedy and comedy. Unless there’s some hidden hobgoblin I can’t see, this should be straightforward. A page should do it. Maybe less than a page. And then after that, final words on the consolation that the various genres offer. Another page for that. AND THEN I AM DONE LIKE DINNER!

But the interesting thing about finish line psychology is that I seem to be slowing down as I approach the finish line! Where’s the finishing kick runners are famous for? It’s like a part of me has been living with writing this thing for so long that I don’t want to finish! Could it be? Of course, even when I finish and type out ‘THE END’, it’s not really done. Then there’s the editing. I’ll go back, reread the whole thing (it’s been so long I can hardly remember the first few chapters), and delete about half of it. A lot of the time when I’m writing it feels like it’s something awesome but then looking back on it, it isn’t so great. I want the book to be short rather than long. Crisply argued rather than densely argued. I value my readers’ time. In fact its a privilege to have someone read your work.

So even when I’m done it’s not done. In fact the whole process of seeing this thing come to print after the draft is ready might be as hard as producing the draft in the first place! That’s what the self-publishing ‘how-to’ books have been telling me. So why is this finish line psychology slowing me down?

Maybe it has been the routine of writing. Once I finish it means that I’ll be reading the manuscript and beginning the rewriting process. Maybe I’m afraid of doing this. Maybe there’s something in there that I won’t like. That must be it. But good thing I read the War of Art. The book is all about situations such as this. It says that the fear is the ‘Resistance’ talking. The ‘Resistance’ is the built in negativity that prevents us from doing stupid things but also prevents us from going on to do great things. The important thing now is to get over this finish line psychology. Time for the final kick. Faster and faster towards the finish line. There’s one thing worse than writing a bad book: not finishing. But what am I saying? It’s going to be great!

Until next time, I’m Edwin Wong and I have been Doing Melpomene’s Work now for a long time.

Going Beyond Dualistic Thinking

Many thanks to diligent reader LH for asking the question in response to yesterday’s post: is it possible to go beyond dualistic thinking? The post yesterday discussed ageism in Plato’s Apology: is Socrates condemned in part because of a conflict between the old and the young? Of course, the focus on ageism is not to discount the other factors, such as the conflict between the aristocrats and the democrats. Oops, that’s another example of dualistic thinking! It’s sure hard to get away from it.

Dualistic Thinking in Philosophy

Since it’s been steady stream of philosophy books of late, what better place to start the discussion on dualistic thinking! So, what do we have in philosophy? For starters, there’s materialism (primacy of matter) versus idealism (mind over matter). Then there’s empiricism (trust sense) versus rationalism (trust logic). But that’s not all. There’s nominalism (particular examples) or realism (existence of universals) and naturalism (natural laws) and theism (God exists). Lots of examples of dualistic thinking!

Monistic and Triadic Structures

Now the question is: does it have to be like this? For example, instead of dualistic dichotomies, there could be monistic or triadic structures. Let’s start with triadic structures. Plays sometimes have three acts. There’s the Capitoline Triad of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. And of course the Trinity of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Then there’s music: the triad of the root, third, and fifth form a cornerstone of harmony. What else? There’s the troika: the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the IMF. Oh ya, and triangles too.

Then there can be monistic structures. A line or a strand is monistic. One can make patterns out of it. Celtic or Muslim arts come to mind. They weave the strand into patterns and shapes sensible to human understanding. Instead of a chord, a note is a monistic structure. One could play scales. What else? I’m having a hard time thinking of other examples.

Part of the problem with monistic structures is that there’s nothing there to oppose them. So it’s hard to define them. We don’t think about it all the time, but a lot of the time we define what something is by coming to terms with what it is not. Take a superhero. He is defined as much by his powers as by the types of villains he fights against. The negative part is half of understanding. So that’s the drawback of monistic structures: the lack of the negative element.

What about triadic structures? Well, the common denominator looking at the above list is that they’re complicated. The Trinity is just complicated a priori. Anyone been following the Greek crisis?-just look at how complicated any negotiations are with the Troika! And then consider geometry. The complexity going from a point (monistic structure) to a line (dualistic structure) isn’t doubled. It’s more like a hundredfold more complex. The same with going from a line to a triangle (triadic structure). The geometry isn’t doubly complex, it’s infinitely more complex than the line. So that’s the drawback of triadic structures: they’re very complicated.

As a matter of fact, you can have triadic structures in philosophy. Take Hegel. His logic is triadic: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. And his system is also threefold: logic, philosophy of nature, and philosophy of spirit. But can anyone properly understand Hegel? Just look at the multiplicity of competing interpretations out there of each of his ideas! Just exactly how does one get to the Absolute Spirit through synthesis and why is it possible? Through a faculty of the soul? How does he know about this?!? Could you imagine having Hegel as your professor lecturing at 8AM Monday morning on Absolute Spirit? So, like I was saying, triadic structures are like chords. The amount of sounds harmonic structures (chords) can make on, say a piano, aren’t doubly or trebly more than is possible playing individual notes but is infinitely more complex (remember there are also the harmonics of notes blending together when played simultaneously).

So, with dualistic thinking, you get the drawback of an us against them mentality. With monistic thinking, there’s ‘us’ but who’s ‘us’? This is the superhero without the villain. Finally, with triadic approaches, the complexity becomes too great for most mortal minds to handle. It’s not very accessible. Opportunity cost. Always opportunity cost.

Another Approach

One thing that’s been of interest of late is the question of monism and dualism as it pertains to consciousness. Dualism would say that there is the body and the mind and that the mind (or consciousness) is something separate from the body. Monism would say that consciousness arises from the physical properties of matter. So, in a way, the philosophy of the mind or the philosophy of consciousness is dualistic in nature. And since the monist and dualist views have been duking it out since Plato’s time (with Plato expounding dualism and Lucretius monism-there is a specialized type of atom making up the Lucretian soul), it’s likely that the solution will not come from within philosophy itself.

This is where science comes in. This is the approach that will allow us to go beyond dualistic thinking. If the scientists can come up with a hypothesis of consciousness and devise a proof of concept (through artificial intelligence, perhaps), then the debate between monism and dualism (not to be confused with dualistic!) can be solved once and for all. And until science steps up to the plate, the debate between monism and dualism will never be solved by reason alone. Either consciousness can arise from matter or it can’t. Now, given that the brain is the most complicated machine in the whole universe, it’s going to be a tough go for science to find out it’s secrets. But there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be able to one day in the future. Monism can be proved if a physical basis can be found for consciousness. And dualism can be proved if there was a way to separate consciousness from the body. Like they do in the movies when the lawnmower man uploads himself into the internet. A self aware machine could also prove dualism.

My take is that dualistic structures have drawbacks but something in the deep structure of how we think (from fight or flight instincts, etc.,) makes them appealing. Triadic structures are too labourious for all but the most hardy intellects. And monistic structures lack the negative portion of a definition. Dualistic structures can be transcended, but not by thought alone, which, for all the things it does has limits. If philosophy with its love of dualistic structures is going to be transcended, it’s going to be by the slow trial and error process of science. Philosophy is that area which science has not figured out yet. As science progresses, it does so at the expense of philosophy, whose domain is becoming ever more encroached upon.

Until next time, I’m Edwin Wong and there’s no dualistic roadblocks in my single minded pursuit of Doing Melpomene’s Work.

Bonus dualistic comic! Materialism vs idealism–

Dualistic Comic Marx vs Descartes

Dualistic Comic Marx vs Descartes