[Writingworkshop] Alternatron D11
Daniel Peters
danieltpeters at gmail.com
Sun Feb 17 16:05:49 EST 2008
Your process is fascinating. My brother is studying improvisational comedy
in chicago and it sounds like the mechanics are very similar, which, i
suppose, shouldn't be surprising. "If there are enough of these dialectics
going on I can just start and write to the end". Cool stuff man. And as
for the report on the conference please, please keep em coming. Hilarious.
Fortunately there was a spare seat next to me.
On 2/17/08, Neale Morison <neale at nealemorison.com> wrote:
>
> Those two SF vignettes took two to three hours each for the first draft.
> The second one I finished off during my Psychosemantics session on
> Friday. There was this level of background stimulation, but nothing you
> needed to cognitively address. Meditative, like having ideas while
> shaving; "... while a three year old demonstrates statistically
> significant changes in quantifier comprehension. Asked 'Are all the
> farmers petting donkeys, more than 70% of subjects..." I was thinking of
> giving up the class, but now I'm in two minds. Make that three.
> In 1999-2000 I had a weekly column writing this sort of story for an
> Australian clone of The Industry Standard, a magazine that was somehow
> making huge advertising dollars out of the Internet boom.
> http://www.nealemorison.org/theend/index.html
> I evolved a system of writing the story framed as a page that might
> appear on the web: a report, an email, a press release, an interview, a
> chat session. There would be a story underneath that was at odds with
> the story on the surface. The rave press release reveals the
> shortcomings of the product, or the friendly email reveals the malicious
> intentions of the sender. Once I picked a frame, I had a voice, and I
> could then start the voice speaking and write down what it said. So
> while others were making billions out of the boom, I was being paid to
> amuse myself with technoabsurdist vignettes. Then came the Tech Wreck.
>
> I trotted out the same approach for these stories.
> I started with an idea like in the future someone actually solves the
> mind body problem, or in the future there will be access to alternate
> universes, and then I looked for an absurd frame.
> With What Mind, I thought at first the person with the key to the mind
> body problem might be a young child, so I asked my eight year old "Do
> you think the mind is separate from the body?" She said, "I don't
> understand the question."
> I liked that answer a lot, so the frame was someone talking from a
> viewpoint in which people had forgotten what the problem was with the
> mind body problem. It was pretty easy to decide it was the anniversary
> of the discovery and natural for it to be a commemorative speech by a
> pedantic academic. The mind body problem couldn't be solved without
> bringing together academics who normally refuse to talk to each other,
> like neuroscientists and computer scientists, so it seemed likely they
> would meet out of hours by accident. When I was listing the contributors
> to the paper I realised the third contributor was organically
> challenged, and then I realized that his very existence solved the
> problem.
> I was quite surprised when Rover showed up again at the end.
>
> With the Alternatron the frame was a support call about a malfunctioning
> product that harnesses fundamental forces for trivial purposes. I didn't
> realise until the end that the universe was going to disappear, but
> naturally it would.
> I have to say, "I wish to make a complaint" is one of the all time best
> opening lines. I don't find it very entertaining when people parrot the
> entire sketch, but that's an opening line with possibilities. It gives
> you the entire frame.
> I also had a recent positive online support experience. I didn't make a
> date with the support guy, but it reminded me of the fun to be had with
> the conflict between loyalty to the company and its products and
> actually helping the customer. A life of glossing over horrific problems
> in technical manuals has to be useful for something.
> And I'm surrounded by people who take mind-boggling technology for
> granted. Think about the philosophical, technological, engineering,
> legislative and social problems that were solved to create the cellular
> phone, and think about what SMS messages are about.
> I had a third friction between the near-zero vocabulary (I'm like so
> totally wow) of common parlance and the complexity of the ideas for
> discussion.
>
> If there are enough of these dialectics going on, I can just start and
> write to the end. Once the people start talking they reveal their
> agenda. You still have to come up jokes and events. Jokes are just
> confounded expectation. They emerge out of the conflicts. You spring a
> piece of withheld information that changes the direction, or you respond
> to a piece of dialog with the wrong response, or set up a context and
> jump out of it. If all else fails make a list. You need events for the
> action, but in a tiny story you only need two or three, and they occur
> as you write, especially if you've watched Die Hard often enough.
>
> This morning I went to the AAAS conference, as Julie, my wife, who is
> doing some reporting on it and had a pass. If anybody asked about my
> name I planned to give one of two responses "Short for Julian, darling,"
> or (in gravel-voiced South Boston accent) "Who wants to know'?", but
> sadly nobody asked.
>
> The session I went to was 'Mind of a Toolmaker'. It was a
> cross-disciplinary symposium on Cognitive Evolution, with a guest
> appearance by Naom Chomsky that never eventuated. The speakers were
> terrific - Richard C. Lewontin (Why We Know Nothing about the Evolution
> of Cognition), Robert C. Berwick (The Human and Chimp Genomic
> Interface), Christopher Walsh (Genes that Control the Shape and Size of
> the Human Cerebral Cortex), Dean Falk (Hominim Brain Evolution: It's
> About Time), Marc D. Hauser (Humaniqueness). So, right away, you can
> have fun with just the titles.
>
> One of the questions someone asked was "What about Alex the parrot?"
> See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_(parrot) (quote: According to
> Pepperberg, Alex's loss will not halt the research but will be a large
> setback.)
> Ever get the feeling you're trapped in a recursive parrot sketch?
>
> The story that emerged from this was that the organizer had put it
> together in order to get all these bigwigs to come and listen to her own
> theory on cognitive evolution. She's Canadian, so it's a touchy feely
> theory, which she calls Paleodoodles: Primitive hominids create
> meaningless marks on stones, thus becoming aware of the connection
> between themselves and their environment, realizing they can create
> their environment, honing the precision of their muscular coordination
> and protolinguistic skills by feedback from their environment, then,
> wait for it, hairy boy takes the paleodoodle over to hairy girl and
> gives it to her and they're married, or in Vancouverese, they forge a
> stable social bond. Paleodoodles are a girl's best friend. It's just a
> small step from this to community, civilization, the industrial
> revolution, online dating and the loop is closed.
> "We haven't been treating the ancient hominids as people with feelings,"
> said Mimi. Untroubled by the slight unverifiability of these assertions,
> she goes on to suggest that the coevolution of human speech and trade is
> in line with her theory: after all, the girls had to grunt some kind of
> thank you when they got the paleodoodle, hence speech, and the
> paleodoodles themselves were a primitive currency, redeemable eventually
> for more than sexual favors.
>
> I was loving the symposium before, but at this point, as the entire room
> writhed in disbelief, embarrassment and this wonderful, primitive,
> palpable academic impatience that happens when the professor is not
> holding the floor and knows how to do it so much better, I was beside
> myself. Fortunately there was a spare seat next to me.
>
> I have three hours of recorded conference and 16 pages of notes, and I
> have no idea how many story ideas.
>
>
> So much more than you asked.
>
>
> Daniel Peters wrote:
> > "What made her say that?"
> > Awesome line. Followed perfectly. How long does this take you from
> > inspiration to my inbox?
> >
> > On 2/16/08, *Neale Morison* <neale at nealemorison.com
> > <mailto:neale at nealemorison.com>> wrote:
> >
> > Alternatron D11
> >
> >
> > I wish to make a complaint.
> >
> > Select Department: Sales/Billing, Technical Support, Pre-purchase
> >
> > Technical Support.
> >
> > Product: Eternitizer 3000, Alternatron D11, MixWhizz 98
> >
> > Alternatron D11.
> >
> > Priority: Low, Medium, High, Emergency, Critical
> >
> > Critical.
> >
> > Problem Area: Response time, Scan precision, Matter transfer
> > integrity,
> > None of the above
> >
> > None of the above.
> >
> > Please briefly describe the problem.
> >
> > Like it says in the manual I scan for an alternate and when one
> > comes up
> > green I press Transfer, Enter but nothing happens.
> >
> > Submit.
> >
> > Your support enquiry is being assigned. Please wait.
> >
> > My name is Troy. How may I help you today?
> >
> > Is your name really Troy?
> >
> > No.
> >
> > Do you look anything like that photograph?
> >
> > No.
> >
> > Ok. I just wanted to establish an honest relationship.
> >
> > Understood.
> >
> > Did you read my description?
> >
> > Yes.
> >
> > So any ideas?
> >
> > Have you got it plugged in?
> >
> > Yes, I've got it plugged in. It comes up green.
> >
> > Sorry. You wouldn't believe the people I get.
> >
> > I get a green, I press Transfer, Enter, zilch.
> >
> > Do you have it there?
> >
> > Yes.
> >
> > Can you press Transfer, then hold down Enter for three seconds, then
> > release Transfer and press it quickly two more times?
> >
> > Ok, hang on. Wow, there's all this scrolling text and flashing
> lights.
> >
> > That's right, now scroll right down to the bottom. What do you see?
> >
> > The portal has rejected your application for access.
> >
> > Ok, good.
> >
> > What does that mean? How can it reject my application?
> >
> > It's just the message that gets logged, what's really happening is
> > they've shut down the portal.
> >
> > They? Which they?
> >
> > The guys in the other universe.
> >
> > How can they do that?
> >
> > It happens in the preferred alternate universes. There's going to be
> > ones that are really crap and ones that are really cool, you know,
> > like
> > they have world peace and cake grows on trees and they still have
> > unicorns and the dolphins can really talk. They end up with all
> these
> > people arriving with attitudes from bad universes and bringing
> > them all
> > down. So they figure out how to close the portal.
> >
> > I mean how can they do it? You can't close a wormhole can you?
> >
> > No, I don't know, they do something with gravitons, we haven't
> figured
> > it out yet.
> >
> > But it came up green.
> >
> > We know, the next version fixes it.
> >
> > When's that out?
> >
> > We haven't announced the release date yet, that thing has so many
> > bugs,
> > I tell you.
> >
> > Well, I don't want to upgrade, anyway.
> >
> > Ok, there's this workaround.
> >
> > I'm listening.
> >
> > What you do, you get your green, then you save the code in your
> > favourites.
> >
> > Ok.
> >
> > Then you go to your favourites menu and select the one you just
> saved.
> >
> > Got it.
> >
> > Then you choose Show Me More Like This.
> >
> > Right.
> >
> > Then you choose the second one from the bottom every time.
> >
> > Second one from the bottom.
> >
> > And you keep doing that until you find one that's open.
> >
> > That's going to take a while.
> >
> > It doesn't take too long, there's some quantum statistical effect, I
> > forget what it's called. Helmholtz?
> >
> > That's when someone's choking, isn't it?
> >
> > Heidegger?
> >
> > Never mind. So the second one from the bottom?
> >
> > Yeah, and oh, when you find one that's open, right, so you press
> > Transfer, Enter, and it goes yellow and says Confirm?
> >
> > Yeah?
> >
> > Press Enter again right away. I mean don't even hesitate for a
> second.
> >
> > Why?
> >
> > Just take my word for it.
> >
> > Come on, Troy. Why?
> >
> > Well, there's this possibility that they're going to shut the portal
> > between the time you press the Transfer Enter, and the Confirm
> > Enter. So
> > you leave, but you don't arrive.
> >
> > How likely is that?
> >
> > We don't really know. Not very. Maybe in some universes it happens
> > every
> > time. Skip that universe, right?
> >
> > And where are you, if you don't arrive?
> >
> > Don't ask me.
> >
> > Well can you get back?
> >
> > It's hard to tell, we're trying to find someone who did it and
> > came back
> > so we can put it in the manual.
> >
> > What do you think happens?
> >
> > We were talking about it next to the coffee maker and this one girl,
> > Ray, says maybe you disperse into an evenly distributed
> > interstitial net
> > with psychic access to all universes simultaneously.
> >
> > What made her say that?
> >
> > She's always saying stuff like that.
> >
> > That would be great.
> >
> > It would be kind of cool.
> >
> > So you just wait a while before you press Confirm Enter?
> >
> > Yeah, but you don't know how long you're going to have to wait.
> > And I'm
> > not saying it does that anyway, you know, Ray is pretty weird.
> >
> > Anyway, I wasn't trying to turn myself into some kind of Star Child
> or
> > anything, I just wanted to find a store where they haven't run out
> of
> > Ginseng and Lemon tea.
> >
> > They have that in the MegaHealth downstairs.
> >
> > Oh, really. Where are you?
> >
> > Three blocks down in Main Street.
> >
> > Ok, I'm just going to zap over. Why don't we meet for a coffee? Wait
> a
> > minute, it's not coming up green.
> >
> > What isn't?
> >
> > This universe. What does that mean?
> >
> > -
> >
> > Troy?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Neale Morison
> > neale at nealemorison.com <mailto:neale at nealemorison.com>
> > http://www.nealemorison.com
> > 31 Maple Ave #2, Cambridge MA 02139
> > +1 617 460 9969
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Writingworkshop at nealemorison.org
> > <mailto:Writingworkshop at nealemorison.org>
> >
> http://nealemorison.org/mailman/listinfo/writingworkshop_nealemorison.org
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
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> >
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> >
>
>
> --
> Neale Morison
> neale at nealemorison.com
> http://www.nealemorison.com
> 31 Maple Ave #2, Cambridge MA 02139
> +1 617 460 9969
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Writingworkshop mailing list
> Writingworkshop at nealemorison.org
> http://nealemorison.org/mailman/listinfo/writingworkshop_nealemorison.org
>
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