Friday, May 14, 2010

Originality

All right. It is or should be the goal of every artist to be original. How many actually succeed? The word derivative probably wouldn't exist, at least in that context, if many did. For a writer to be original, well if you think you are, don't read Shakespeare, because just about everything written about since, was written by him first.

My father once told me there were only 39 basic plots. A few years later I figured that one out: That's how many shows there were in a television season at the time. Does that mean now there are only 20 plots? If it is indeed finite, I would say it is the number of plays Shakespeare wrote, whatever that number is. But, of course it is infinite, not challenged much these days, but infinite nonetheless. I recall once saying something original. We had had a volcano eruption. I was staying with friend and for a reason I cannot recall at the moment I had my huge Weber barbecue grill with me. I looked out the window and said to my friend, " Maybe I had better go out there and clear the volcano ash off my grill." Thinking about it, I doubt anybody else in the world had ever said that. Original, I believe.

With that in mind, now I am wondering if this is original. In many, many sitcoms, the main guy has a sidekick who is a little off, maybe a slob, maybe stupid, maybe conniving. Think Maynard G. Krebs, think Joey, there are many. So in the slob sort of sidekick forma, tonight I was talking with my niece on line about my daughter's wedding plans and having some frozen fried chicken that I managed to overcook so the breading was crispy. It was the Banquet variety which my son and I call mystery chicken because many of the pieces don't look like they came from any chicken we have ever seen.

So here I am alone in my little bachelor house, chatting online, nibbling on mystery chicken and watching a "Bones" rerun on TV. What I wasn't watching was where all the little crispy crumbs of chicken were falling. Now most people would probably use a napkin to clean them up, right? I DID have a napkin in my lap but it didn't do much good. What does the slobby sidekick do? Not sure. What I did was reach for my Dyson industrial grade hand vacuum cleaner. End of problem, though I probably could have used a different accessory that wouldn't have sucked my shirt in several times. This might be original. I am pretty sure Shakespeare didn't write about it, although I will bet that some king or Roman in his writing did something unusual to rid himself of food residue. It does seem an effective way to deal with the problem though I am pretty sure I will not be taking the Dyson to my daughter's wedding dinner. (Although the slob sidekick in the sitcom might... it would be the kicker at the end at the main guy's wedding, the last thing you see before the fadeout is him pulling out his trusty Dyson to pick up a spill on the floor, or table favors, or the groom's tie, or picking the wallet out of a rich uncle's pocket, or...)

So, for now, at the very least I am claiming originality. Now the work begins to expand it into an entirely new plot. Believe me, this is not a breath-holding situation.

Addendum: This is embarrassing. For fun I looked it up. Shakespeare wrote 38 plays that survive. Could my father have been right? Just one number off? I am sticking with the number of shows in a TV season. Or, and this might be intriguing, is there one plot out there Shakespeare didn't write? Like maybe that thirtieth song of Robert Johnson's?


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Memorable quotations

The best way to know you are having an adventure is when you wish you were home talking about it." — a mechanic on the Alaska State Ferry System. Or as in my own case planning how I will be writing it on this blog.

"You can't promote principled anti-corruption without pissing off corrupt people." — George Kent

"If only the British had held on to the airports, the whole thing might have gone differently for us." — Mick Jagger

"You can do anything as long as you don't scare the horses." — a mother's favorite saying recalled by a friend

A poem is an egg with a horse inside” — anonymous fourth grader

“My children will likely turn my picture to the wall but what the hell, you only get old once." — Joe May

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” — Ernest Hemingway

When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth. Kurt Vonnegut

“If you wrote something for which someone sent you a cheque, if you cashed the cheque and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”Stephen King

The thing about ignorance is, you don't have to remain ignorant. — me again"

"It was like the aftermath of an orgasm with the wrong partner." – David Lagercrants “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.”

Why worry about dying, you aren't going to live to regret it.

Never debate with someone who gets ink by the barrel" — George Hayes, former Alaska Attorney General who died recently

My dear Mr. Frost: two roads never diverge in a yellow wood. Three roads meet there. — @Shakespeare on Twitter

Normal is how somebody else thinks you should act.

"The mark of a great shiphandler is never getting into situations that require great shiphandling," Adm. Ernest King, USN

Me: Does the restaurant have cute waitresses?

My friend Gail: All waitresses are cute when you're hungry.

I'm not a writer, but sometimes I push around words to see what happens. – Scott Berry

I realized today how many of my stories start out "years ago." What's next? Once upon a time?"

“The rivers of Alaska are strewn with the bones of men who made but one mistake” - Fred McGarry, a Nushagak Trapper

Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stared at walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing. – Meg Chittenden

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. – Franz Kafka

We are all immortal until the one day we are not. – me again

If the muse is late, start without her – Peter S. Beagle

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain Actually you could do the same thing with the word "really" as in "really cold."

If you are looking for an experience that will temper your vanity, this is it. There's no one to impress when you're alone on the trap line. – Michael Carey quoting his father's journal

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. – Benjamin Franklin

It’s nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums of money to get rid of. – Shirley Hazzard

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence -- Bertrand Russell

You know that I always just wanted to have a small ship to take stuff from a place that had a lot of that stuff to a place that did not have a lot of that stuff and so prosper.—Jackie Faber, “The Wake of the Lorelei Lee”

If you attack the arguer instead of the argument, you lose both

If an insurance company won’t pay for damages caused by an “act of God,” shouldn’t it then have to prove the existence of God? – I said that

I used to think getting old was about vanity—but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial. – Eugene O’Neill

German General to Swiss General: “You have only 500,000 men in your army; what would you do if I invaded with 1 million men?”

Swiss General: “Well, I suppose every one of my soldiers would need to fire twice.”

Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.—Gloria Steinem

Exceed your bandwidth—sign on the wall of the maintenance shop at the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center

One thing I do know, if you keep at it, you usually wind up getting something done.—Patricia Monaghan

Do you want to know what kind of person makes the best reporter? I’ll tell you. A borderline sociopath. Someone smart, inquisitive, stubborn, disorganized, chaotic, and in a perpetual state of simmering rage at the failings of the world.—Brett Arends

It is a very simple mind that only knows how to spell a word one way.—Andrew Jackson

3:30 is too late or too early to do anything—Rene Descartes

Everything is okay when it’s 50-below as long as everything is okay. – an Alaskan in Tom Walker’s “The Seventymile Kid”

You can have your own opinion but you can’t have your own science.—commenter arguing on a story about polar bears and global warming

He looks at three ex wives as a good start—TV police drama

Talkeetna: A friendly little drinking town with a climbing problem.—a handmade bumper sticker

“You’re either into the wall or into the show”—Marco Andretti on giving it all to qualify last at the 2011 Indy 500

Makeup is not for the faint of heart—the makeup guerrilla

“I’m going to relax in a very adult manner.”—Danica Patrick after sweating it out and qualifying half an hour before Andretti

“Asking Congress to come back is like asking a mugger to come back because he forgot your wallet.”—a roundtable participant on Fox of all places

As Republicans go further back in the conception process to define when life actually begins, I am beginning to think the eventual definition will be life begins in the beer I was drinking when I met her.—me again

Hunting is a “critical element for the long-term conservation of wood bison.”—a state department of Fish and Game official explaining why the state would not go along with a federal plan to reintroduce wood bison in Alaska because the agreement did not specifically allow hunting

Each day do something that won’t compute – anon

I can’t belive I still have to protest this shit – a sign carriend by an elderly woman at an Occupy demonstration

Life should be a little nuts or else it’s just a bunch of Thursdays strung together—Kevin Costner as Beau Burroughs in “Rumor has it”

You’re just a wanker whipping up fear —Irish President Michael D. Higgins to a tea party radio announcer

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Sports malaprops

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A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

Man loses his testicles after attempting to smoke weed through a SCUBA tank

Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

Homicide victims rarely talk to police

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GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

GOPer files complaint against Democrat for telling the truth about Big Lie social posts

Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

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