Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

Thanks for all your help.

I can't believe i missed that - i am a filmmaker, a huge Kubrick fan AND i own that film.

Glad to be of help.

Oh, you're a filmmaker?

Documentarian or fiction?

Short or feature?

Independent or not?



I'm also a filmmaker, as it happens. Or, I guess, used to be. I decided in April to turn my attentions to writing instead. Proper writing, no half measures.

And yeah somebody mentioned fluids back there a few posts ago. I can't hear that word ever without instantly thinking of Dr. Strangelove.

I write and direct fiction when the winds of good fortune blow my way (3 shorts and a feature to my credit). I earn my living as a director of photography - in days past exclusively in fiction (and the occasional music video), but these days, with a kid and an ailing industry I have joined the droves and take nearly anything that comes my way (and no, no porn ). Once the industry gets back on its feet - if it ever does - I hope to pick up where I left off.

I have also, in the meantime, turned my attention to writing. It is (i believe) what I am best at, though accurately judging one's own talents is about as feasible as lifting oneself off the ground with only one's own hands.

And that was me quipping about fluids in response to Art (strange sentence that!).

JBArk

It seems by your signature you've read John Barth? out of random curiosity.

Actually no, though his name has cropped up a few times in conversations. Your comment and a quick wiki search have intrigued me though - why did you think my signature evoked him? And if I wanted to read some of his work what would you recommend I start with?

And what title are you settling on for your story? Still a work in progress?

The title has actually always been just About Her, but I reference the title in the text which is where the French comes in. I settled on something else actually, unfortunately, putting all your work to waste :/ well, not to waste since I learned some interesting things about French and had to go through the process some how, but I ended up using 'Tandis que l'auteur l'a écrit avec désespoir, lui' as the French title.


If you read Barth you would see right away what I meant. Basically just a sort of self-referential thing. I'm by no means an expert on him, but the first work of his that I read was 'Lost in the Funhouse' and I suppose naturally I would recommend that as a starting point. After that I would almost just say follow him chronologically, or check out some of his short stories or essays. I would say stay away from him if you don't very much like postmodern writing, though. There is a sort of sadomasochistic quality to a lot of his writing, mainly his later stuff, that is specifically and categorically postmodern to the extreme.

Actually I should have said it depends on how familiar you are with postmodernism in general. If you've read (and liked) much of it then I would skip his first two novels and jump right in first to 'Giles Goat-Boy' then 'Last Voyage'. After 'Lost in the Funhouse' of course.

Peace

I have a great affinity with post-modern writing, though I think it is ultimately limited in its self-referential scope. I will definitely give LOST IN THE FUNHOUSE a read - I have already put it in my Amazon basket.

If you are interested, there is a fair amount of my writing on this site, mostly trip reports, but I do try to write them with serious intent and a lot of fun wordplay to convey that other, unreal yet familiar place. The least playful but most personal is probably "Aya with Ay and I", but there are a bunch of others:

Mycomysterium
Mycopax
Lucy dreams of lucy dreaming of dreams of lucy
In the playground of my mind I have installed a slide next to the swings
Salvation - the salvia diaries
The GVG diaries

There are probably more too. Again, only if you are interested.

(end shameless self promotion)


And for the title, very good - and unexpected! And don't worry about wasting my work. It's all about the process, right? Glad to have been a small part of the process.

Cheers,
JBArk

'No one is watching me – what a revelation!'

Right on.

Thanks for taking the time to read it! I hope you liked it.

JBArk

I'm maybe here too late.

I'm a native french speaker, and my best translation for "About her" could be " À propos d'elle " : http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A0_propos_de

'Au sujet d'elle' can be understandable, but it doesn't sound beautiful IMHO.


...an alternative could be "Quant à elle" : http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/quant_%C3%A0

...then I you want to touch the universality, you can just use "Elle" or "Elle...". That means you want to talk about a girl, but it could be understand you want to talk about girls, or an anonymous girl.
This has been use for a perfume for instance (the design is ugly sorry):


I've checked if there was a book with this title, and I didn't find it, but I found something very close :

Yeah, forgot that one in my list, and it's one of the best:

Quant a Elle.

Elegant, literary and straight to the point. Good one Explorateur!


JBArk

Well, I more or less finished that novella thing if any of you so desire to read it. It's pretty mediocre. Barely even past bad, in fact. Or maybe not even getting that far. And this isn't just me being self-deprecating. In any case, let me know what you think, any of who you may somehow end up being stupid enough to actually read any of it. And thanks again for the help with translating.

Wow - are you sure you're not canadian? That self-deprecating venom definitely sketches you as a citizen of one of our fine provinces!

I will definitely read it (I am apparently exactly that stupid ) when I am in a distraction-free environment, very likely this afternoon. I am sure I will have high praise for it given the low expectations you level, for if it were even an inkling as bad as you intimate, I doubt you could have written about how bad it was so succinctly!

JBArk

I'm Australian-Bolivian-Thai