Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Haiku: Water Blossom

a day in summer:

wind kissed the sunshine

water knew the way

Haiku: Water Blossom & Photo

By A. D. Camerone 7/28/10
Google Blog Version
Free Use Fiction
All Rights Reserved

Visit http://fairusefiction.blogspot.com/ for another Haiku Photo

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Free Use Fiction Announces Digital Library Expansion

"Apologies and Other Nuisances", A Play in Two Acts is added as the fourth play offering.

Now you can go to Scribd to read

http://www.scribd.com/a_camerone

Four Fantasy Plays

"Strawberry Fields" ,

"The Thought of It All" ,

"The Last Days of Howard Hughes" ,

& "Apologies and Other Nuisances"

Easy to access, free, read-only copies of

these copyrighted, fantasy plays titled:

"Strawberry Fields", the Plot revolves around the Afterlife Adventures of John Lennon as he interacts with major literary and/or historical figures , in NYC's Central Park in the year 1993. (Google version) (Scribd version)

"The Thought of It All", a Play in One Act easy to stage with only six characters and inexpensive set design. Two elderly, NYC booksellers wrestle with the devil and an angel, as they test their will to live and die with dignity.(Google version) (Scribd version)

"The Last Days of Howard Hughes", A Play in Three Acts is an instant cult classic. What happens in the 1970s when the world's richest man refuses to leave his luxury, Vegas Hotel Penthouse Suite? Howard Hughes starts speaking in Elizabethan soliloquies as he manipulates the tragedy of his inevitable demise.

(Google Version Part1 / Part2) (Scribd Version Part1 / Part2)

"Apologies and Other Nuisances", a Play in Two Acts An elderly woman leaves a mysterious video taped last will with a hidden message for her granddaughter. The message is that life is for living Easy to manage stage production with only a few characters and inexpensive set design. (Google Version) (Scribd Version)

All Free Use Fiction offerings are only for non-commerical, reading enjoyment. Visit Fair Use Fiction blog.

All offered plays are.pdf. If you have problems viewing, send me an email to a.camerone@gmail.com and I will forward you a free copy.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Twitter Social Network: Why "140 Characters" Works

Do we think in 140-Character Segments? 160-Characters: Reserve 20 for Admin and give 140-Characters for the Message. How can we talk this way?

Humans love to communicate. Twitter Text-Communication is unique in certain respects. There are also parallels between Digital Text-Communication and Spoken-Word Conversation.

A look at the parallels reveals a shared characteristic responsible for the Twitter experience being a user-friendly environment.

The Tweet is qualified by the limit of 140-Characters. The Spoken-Word Conversation organically occurs in groups of sentences of a like duration.

The 140 character Tweet is remarkably similar to what we already do during Spoken-Word Conversation. 140 Characters translates nicely into 3 sentences.

3 Sentences is a paragraph. One paragraph is an acceptable quantity of information to be communicated when "you have the floor", & it is your turn to speak.

The Art of Conversation is an interaction where people take turns speaking. The length of your turn to speak is qualified by certain limits.

Less than a 3 Sentence Paragraph is ok, but more than that much info may be too much for the modern listener's attention span.

Some still say the brevity of words will lead to cliche. As usual, it all depends on your mindset.

Tweets are surprisingly well suited to a stream of consciousness mindset. Works like Joyce's, "Ulysses", fit nicely into the 140 Character, Tweet-Friendly sections.

Another kindred spirit is the Haiku mindset. These poems require an economy of words intended to deliver a quality message.

When they are carefully chosen, a few words can go a long way. Well placed words can trigger an experiential reaction in the listener.

Here is a Haiku or two:

A Blink of the Eye / With Wisdom & Compassion / In Between a Gap
A Day in Summer / A Wind Blew on the Sunshine / A Bird Sat Chirping

Sometimes Haiku can be cryptic, and that is part of the premise. Twitter is predisposed to an enforced shorthand that can be ambiguous.

You want to express the thoughts inside your head, but you are limited by the "character counter" positioned on the right corner of the Twitter text-box.

The Tweet is Tricky because you have to balance conflicting limitations.

Take a step back and listen to what the post is saying before you hit a "tweet button" that sends your inner most thoughts out to the world.

Ask your self, "Where else, (besides inside your mind) do these words make sense?" You owe this step to your audience.

After a few quick edits, you may discover that with a little bit practice you can say alot with only 140 characters.

by A. D. Camerone 7/09/10
Google Blog Version
Free Use Fiction
All Rights Reserved

Monday, July 5, 2010

Free Use Fiction Continues to Expand

"The Last Days of Howard Hughes", A Play in Three Acts is added as the third play offering.

http://www.scribd.com/a_camerone

Now you can go to Scribd to read the plays

"Strawberry Fields" ,

"The Thought of It All" ,

& "The Last Days of Howard Hughes"

Easy to access, free, read-only copies of

these copyrighted, fantasy plays titled:

(Google Version Part1 / Part2) (Scribd Version Part1 / Part2)

All Free Use Fiction offerings are only for non-commerical, reading enjoyment.

All offered plays are.pdf. If you have problems viewing, send me an email to a.camerone@gmail.com and I will forward you a free copy.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

“Losing your Head” @ Wimbledon 2010: A Variation on Rudyard Kipling’s, “If”

Rudyard Kipling
If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Few places on Earth demand & command the level of tradition maintained within the Wimbledon grass court realm of the The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.

The Club's finely manicured grounds are precisely situated on Church Road, Merton, London SW19 5, United Kingdom. The venerable venue becomes a showcase for the spirit of individual achievement when the Isle of Great Britain hosts their yearly, early summer, grass court, Grand Slam Tennis Tournament @ Wimbledon.

Legendary dedication & discipline are required in order to emerge victorious as a Wimbledon Champion after the trials presented during this famous fortnight. The will to win is cultivated and inculcated with great zeal in the rarefied air on Wynnman's Hill.

As may be expected, The Lawn Tennis Association @ Wimbledon prefers that their tournament participants be well-rounded chaps. At those hallowed grounds of tennis nestled in suburban London, the players are not only expected to "know how to be good-winners" -- at the same time, Wimbledon players are also expected to master the rapidly disappearing art of being a good-loser.

Why is it to your advantage to be a good-loser? The crux of the matter appears to lie in the mind's eye . This ethereally based mental function is active during the creation & the execution of the strategies, the tactics and the logistics employed in conflict resolution. None the less, as it seems to be with most generalizations, the devil is in the details.

Grace under pressure is part of the Wimbledon pedigree. The ability to carry on during gut-wrenching adversity is a national trait in the UK. The idea is to retreat, to reinforce and to comeback. Part of the “comeback” process is to garner heroic resolve to stage a reversal of fortune. The quest may begin with “keeping a stiff upper lip", as the speakers of the English language say, and it may end with what the Irish mean by a “little bit of luck”.

Adversity at Wimbledon is not always the logical outcome of a linear, quid pro quo cause & effect sequence. Sometimes adversity seems to fall from out of the blue.

For no apparent reason, the tennis player's timing is suddenly off. It becomes harder to get first serves in, and aces refuse to fall. The backhand stroke that served you so well just moments ago has now become an awkward exercise in hitting the ball long or wide.

During times such as these, it may seem as if the “the sky is falling” as unforced errors become inevitable. During these mind-bending phases, the momentum of the tennis match swings like a pendulum . During these trying times, tennis players are prone to “lose their heads”.

Losing your Head @ Wimbledon can be like falling down the rabbit hole in a Lewis Carroll fantasy world. Your overall point of view is dream-like. Everything seems somewhat askew with things moving slightly slower or a bit quicker than the normal pace. You seem to be not quite in tune to what is transpiring, and it appears you cannot immediately overcome the flow of adversity. The dilemma is aptly described in the words of the American Patriot, Thomas Paine, "These are the times that try men's souls."

This quandary provides an opportune time to bolster your mettle. Time to see what you are made of as you dig deep within you. The battle you are waging, becomes a conflict between individual free will versus a destiny driven by adversity. As your options dwindle, you are forced to listen to that part of your psyche that usually gives you "pie in the sky" advice. The part of you which is called the voice inside your head .

Manifesting the will to go beyond previous limits is offered by your inner voice as a solution. There is a catch, you may have to hold on and strive for a while before the opportunity to fight the good fight materializes.

As circumstances spiral out of control, the player becomes out of sorts with his muscle memory. Uncharacteristic errors become common place. Over and over, for extended periods of tennis match time, everything goes wrong. As the points mount against you, your only chance is to get your head together, ponder a cliché or two, and think of something to do.

“Stiff upper lip”, yes ... that is easy enough to fathom. Or even better, try to keep your head and remember that great poem by Kipling,

"If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

We have plenty of advice on how to handle the overwhelming tough times, but how do we handle the overwhelming good times?

Kipling's advice is valued at Wimbledon, and two of If's lines are mounted in metal letters on the wall of the players centre court entrance.

This year at Wimbledon we found out that along with the risk of random failure, there is also the other side of the coin in the form of opportunity for random success.

What happens when everything goes right for both tennis players simultaneously?

What happens when this random windfall of good fortune keeps going for a very long time?

On Tuesday, June 22, 2010 the schedule on Court 18 had a relatively unremarkable match-up between 21^st ranked, 28 year old American, John Isner versus the unranked, 26 year old, Belgian, Nicolas Mahut. The match was conservatively scheduled to take around 4 hours. Those first four hours would pass quite quickly and the first day’s play on the unlit tennis court would be called for darkness at 9:09 PM local Wimbledon time.

When play began again on the next day, Wednesday, June 23 the conclusion of the Mahut vs Isner match was conservatively scheduled to take around two hours. The first two hours of the resumed-play match would pass quite quickly. A few hours later, the tennis chronicles were rewritten with the fifth set knotted in a tie at 59-59 after playing 118 games. Because of the lack of outdoor lighting on the outlying Court 18, the match would be halted due to darkness for a second time in as many days.

At that monumental moment in tennis highlights, many records had been shattered for Singles match play including: time played, games played, aces served, games won, & points scored. The match would end on the third day after 19 additional games culminated in Isner breaking Mahut’s serve to win the deciding, 5^th set by the necessary two-game margin, posting a historic 70 to 68 tally of 138 games played in a single set.

During that three-day, grass court, epic encounter, Nicolas Mahut’s trim, well-trained physique served him well. Mustering the mental energy needed to maintain focus was no small task. The random numbering of the games left Mahut with the unenviable job of serving under the threat of elimination an astounding, 65 times during the 11 hour struggle.

Mahut had to face the brink of defeat over and over. Except for one fatal time (except for the fatal 138th game) Nicolas Mahut answered the call. On the other side of the net, Isner was also answering the call over and over again. As luck would have it, the 6 foot 9 inch Isner would answer the call successfully one more time than Mahut, and as a result Isner would emerge the winner.

A gracious John Isner seemed to enjoy the post-match press barrage. When asked, "How he felt?", the victorious, lanky, American smiled as he replied, “A little tired …”.

The intrepid BBC interviewer carried on as he asked Isner, “What was going on in your mind as the unprecedented totals mounted, as the statistics for games played during the 5th sets skyrocketed?” Isner replied that at first he, "was just trying to stay in the moment".

Long John Isner elaborated a bit by noting that if things got too intense or rushed, "he would try to slow down by taking the time to ask the ball person for the towel".

Isner would use the towel to wipe the sweat from his brow, use the allotted time between points to take a moment to clear his head, and use mental gymnastics to systematically force his focus back on the point being played.

Sometimes it is as hard to live with prolonged, random success as it is to live with prolonged, random failure. Keeping your head during extraordinary circumstances requires an internal equanimity that is nutured by life's experiential interaction .

We become mature through a process enhanced by both opportunity and adversity. The sought after characteristic is founded in a "selective moderation" that is neither hindered by an unfounded fear of failure nor coveted by of a over-estimated promise of success.

As it is phrased by the poet's words that are installed across the storied entrance leading to grass court drama @ Wimbledon, it is easier to keep your head clear ,

"If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;"

When things get weird it always helps to keep the extremes in perspective. If you remain strong internally, you can fight to your limit and beyond. Before long you realize the advantage of not losing your head at the drop of hat.

This strategy takes patience to execute, but it is worth it, "if you can wait and not be tired by waiting ..."

by A. D. Camerone 6/29/10
Google Blog Version
Free Use Fiction
All Rights Reserved

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Free Use Fiction Play Offerings Expanded

"The Thought of It All", A Play in One Act is added as the second play offering.

Now you can go to Scribd to read the plays, "Strawberry Fields" & "The Thought of It All"
http://www.scribd.com/a_camerone

Easy to access, free, read-only copies of

my copyrighted, fantasy plays titled:

All Free Use Fiction offerings are only for non-commerical, reading enjoyment.

All offered plays are.pdf. If you have problems viewing, send me an email to a.camerone@gmail.com and I will forward you a free copy.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

The Finale of LOST, The Dream Work Theory of Freud & The Bardo of Dying in The Great Liberation Upon Hearing

Happy Father's Day 2010 to All the Dads Who Have Gone Before Us

LOST, as you may know, is a cult-classic, TV series sanctified by an avid viewer following. A few Sundays ago, on May 23, 2010, the ABC TV Network broadcast a much anticipated series finale to over 13 million "Lost" obsessives.

Since September 22, 2004, millions of fans faithfully watched the LOST episodes every week for the past six odd-years. After the airing, the "Lostites" dutifully diagnosed the many levels of detail carefully positioned by the show's creators and writers. As a result of this digital, frame-by-frame review, many would speculate on the hidden meaning of the show's many plot elements.

In the spirit of finding a selective, respective, alternate and/or concealed interpretation for what LOST was all about, here is my view (based on what was revealed in the series finale), of what was really happening all those years during all those story-arcs.

But for the moment, let me seem to digress...

The Tibetan Buddhists have a concept called the Bardo of Dying. This esoteric view is part of an ancient text, attributed to Padmasambhava, titled Bardo Thodol. The text is offered as a practical method to live and die with a Buddhist-based focus.

The job of the Bardo Thodol is to provide a road map for the Buddhist practitioner (something to help understand the very intense and dramatic time of death). One basic premise of Bardo of Dying is that at the moment of death reality will play tricks on the dying man's mind. As the body shuts down, the body creates visions of the dying man as he lives out fantastic adventures. These visions are characterized as "dream-like".

While you keep in mind the dying man's visions suggested in the Bardo Thodol of the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities , allow me to (what may appear at first) "go off on a tangent" ...

In Sigmund Freud's, seminal psychological work first published in 1900, "The Interpretations of Dreams", the concept of the individual's Dream-Work is presented.

The Dream Work has a specific purpose in keeping the individual functional in both everyday-sleep cycles, as well as, in sleep cycles during times of overwhelming crisis.

The job of the Dream-Work is to make the conscious review of catastrophic reality-events manageable without inducing madness in the dreamer. During the dream cycle the reflections on the mind-blowing reality-event are put in relatively "benign story scenarios". The Dream-Work creates story arcs that are representative of the reality-events, but the story elements are intentionally hidden in symbolic terms.

Successful Dream-Work symbolism has no easily discerned quid pro quo relation to the actual traumatic reality-events. In fact, the Dream-Work goes to great lengths to hide the real people, places and behaviour from the dreamer. The effect is deceptive but functional. The dreamer's conscious mind is saved from becoming overwhelmed by intense realization of the "too intense to deal with" reality-event; and, at the same time, the dreamer is allowed to tackle a mitigated, easier to fathom, version of said reality-event.

And now back to LOST ...

What exactly is the TV series LOST all about? The answer to that question has more than one valid answer. Remember there are many levels within the overall LOST plot where alternate realities manifest simultaneously:

The Reality-World where the characters boarded the Oceanic Flight 815
The Island-World
The Flash-Back-Island-World
The Flash-Forward-World
The Flash-Sideways-World
The Back-Story-World

TO BE CONTINUED ...

We now join are regularly scheduled blog already in progress ...

Previously, on Free Use Fiction blog ... we were finally getting to the point and attempting to answer the question: " What exactly is the TV series LOST all about?"

The evasive answer is that LOST is about different things to different people. Like the songs John Lennon used to pen, LOST is written with a sense of ambiguity that fosters respective interpretations. That being said, here is my respective conclusion about the denouement (based on a freeze-frame, comparative analysis of the wounds on Jack Shepard's right-eye shown in the Pilot & in the Series Finale).

The series Pilot opens with a close-up of the right-eye of Dr. Jack Shepard, who is lying on the ground amidst a Bamboo Grove on a deserted Pacific Island.

The good doctor has landed on his back as the result of falling from the sky after his Oceanic 815 jet flight from Sydney, Australia to LAX has crashed over the Pacific.

Shepard was returning from Down-Under with the coffin and remains of his father, Christian Shepard.

Jack's relationship with his father was lamentable. Both men were surgeons who practiced medicine together. In a tragic set of events, Jack exposed his father as an alcoholic who was responsible for the death of a patient.

Jack's betrayal of his father initiated a regrettable set of events that began with Christian losing his medical license after the malpractice trial. After losing his surgical practice, Christian Shepard relocated to Australia where he became a derelict who died destitute in Sydney.

The unresolved pain that Jack Shepard accumulated due to his role in his father's demise was sublimated. This unconscious baggage remained unresolved. In the pilot episode, as Jack Shepard lies dying in the Island's Bamboo Grove from the wounds received in the plane crash, his mind begins to play tricks on him.

What occurs next (and all that happens in every subsequent plot action during the entire series of LOST) takes place exclusively in Jack Shepard's mind's eye.

In the brief moments of Jack's Death Experience, his mind races to reconcile his relationship with his dead father, Christian Shepard.

During his Bardo of Dying, Jack is visited by the visions that are germane to his mindset. In his case, Jack Shepard uses the relative recent memories of the people he met while he was on the Oceanic 815 flight as characters for the plot of his death visions. Additionally, the dying man uses any other fabricated personalities/events available to be processed by his Dream-Work.

During the last minutes of his life, Jack Shepard's priority is to somehow meet his father so he can reconcile any conflict and make peace with Christian. By making peace with his father, Jack can make peace with himself and justify his life. After this resolution, Dr. Jack Shepard can finally move on.

The opening shot of the LOST pilot is a close-up of Jack Shepard's right-eye. The closing shot of the LOST series finale is a close-up pf Jack Shepard's right-eye. For the TV viewers it took 6 years of weekly episodes and water cooler conversations to piece together the diverse story elements.

All of the 6 years of tv action that leads up to those reconcilliation hugs in the church during the final episode takes place in a matter of only a few real-time minutes inside Jack's dying mind.

For us it may have taken years, but for the good doctor, Jack Shepard, it happened in the "blink of an eye".

by A. D. Camerone 6/21/10
Google Blog Version
Free Use Fiction
All Rights Reserved