Saturday, December 30, 2006

Mark it on the calendar

Today we are all well. Unless you count Sam being on an antibiotic and me still not really being able to eat without feeling sick. But other than that, all four of us carried on our normal, everyday lives today. Hoorah!

Just saw Stranger Than Fiction, and I was amused. Not the best movie I've seen, not the worst either. Very clever. Reminded me a lot of Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of an Author," which I haven't read in about 15 years but I remember liking a whole lot when I did read it. Emma Thompson was really good, I thought. Very believable. And although DH thought the cast was "odd" (Thompson, Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Queen Latifah and Dustin Hoffman) I thought it worked quite well. It especially spoke to me as a writer, as I'm one of the annoying ones who often says that when I really get going I don't write the story, the characters do. Except that this character Harold Crick, didn't. But the idea that the character is an entity separate from the author--that's it's out there beyond you--I wholly subscribe to that (Derrida, anyone?). Or is it structuralism? can't remember. It's the theory that once a work is published and out there, there is no author anymore, and author intent is null and void. Ah, Foucault. Charlie Shepherdson, where are you?

Apparently at SUNY Albany

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