Interview notes (January 2023)

Interview notes (January 2023)

To do:

• Collage, mom
• Early works: finger painting, story
• My need to document
• Photographs
• Screenshots of work in progress

• A puzzle. What's in a mashup?
  • Answer on the wiki page
  • Why I Love MediaWiki

• Evolution of Gnomon Chronicles
  • Notes at hand for social media posts

• Evolution of Twitter account

Tell me about yourself

Interview notes 1 (January 2023)

"Tell me about yourself. Not as the chronicler, that’ll come later, but as the person."

I was born in Minneapolis in 1961. Grew up in a middle-class household in a nice neighborhood. My parents were both liberal intellectuals who encouraged reading, art, science — whatever I wanted to study, they encouraged it.

My dad read science fiction, so I was exposed at an early age to the works of Philip K. Dick, John Brunner, and Bruce Sterling, among other writers.

Satire appealed to me very early in life. I remember being eight or nine years old. My dad worked for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, so we got the paper delivered free. Dad had a custom: on Sunday mornings, he would make a big skillet breakfast for the family, with cinnamon rolls and orange juice. After breakfast we would all — Mom, Dad, my brother Geoff, and myself — would sit down in the living room and read the Sunday paper. For the kids, this meant reading the funny pages. Then the real fun began. Dad would pull out this book of classical art prints, so thick old volume. He would pick out some particular plate: I recall one with Napoleon atop a rearing horse. Dad would pick a comic panel, carefully cut out a talk balloon, and paste it over Napoleon's head. I forget what the talk bubble said, but whatever it was, we found it hilarious.

Another pleasure from around that time was Wacky Packages. Oh, I loved Wacky Packages!

Where I'm from

Interview notes 2 (January 2023)

"Now tell me a bit about where you’re from! What it’s like, what does it mean to you , any particular places you love visiting?"

What I do with the Gnomon Chronicles

Interview notes 3 (January 2023)

Name

Interview notes 4 (January 2023)

"Where did the name Gnomon Chronicles come from?"

Inspiration

Interview notes 5 (January 2023)

Synchronization

Interview notes 6 (January 2023)

Aims

Interview notes 7 (January 2023)

Which tweets do I reply to?

Interview notes 8 (January 2023)

What keeps my twitter account going

Interview notes 9 (January 2023)

Online community

Interview notes 10 (January 2023)

Trouble

Interview notes 11 (January 2023)

How to people feel

Interview notes 12 (January 2023)

Personal updates

Interview notes 13 (January 2023)

Inventing movies

Interview notes 14 (January 2023)

"You are a man who spends his time inventing movies , so I must take some time to ask you about them. Firstly, how up to date are you with popular culture? Do you make an effort to keep on top of the latest releases for the account, or do you simply watch what you want to and build on that."

I don't rate myself as being up to date on popular culture, not for the present day, nor for any era of the past. It's true that I know a lot of things about a lot of things: but this is a fishing line in the ocean. I catch fish most every time. Yet I can see from my boat that the ocean is unimaginably vast, and populated by creatures equally unimaginable.

Put another way: I'm not a cineaste. I don't know films like film buffs know films. In the course of making Chronicles, I have watched hundreds of trailers for films I've never seen.

Movie mashups have been very successful for me. They find a ready audience: people respond to them. And I enjoy making movie mashups. But perhaps I have drained some of the vitality from my awareness of movies. Often they are like tools, something I pick up and use then I need them, then put down without further thought.

Favorite films

Interview notes 15 (January 2023)

Inspirations

Interview notes 16 (January 2023)

Inspirational words

Interview notes 17 (January 2023)

"Words of inspiration for readers on doing what they love?"

Believe in yourself.

"Follow your bliss." (Robert Bly)

Don't give up. Keep trying. Find a way.

I met a smuggler once, back in the nineties. Nice guy, Don. "Antiquities, and gems", he would emphasize: "Not drugs." Great story-teller. He would get onstage and keep an audience captivated for a hour or more.

Don would say, There I was, in the desert at the edge of South America, carrying illegal emeralds, with four native guides I couldn't understand and didn't trust. And if I managed to reach the ocean, and hire a boat, and head towards the United States, more problems would come at me. Problems and more problems inherent in smuggling. And so smugglers have a creed:

"There is always a way."

There is always a way, yes. There has to be. Art demands it.

Don't give up. Keep trying. Find a way.

Believe in yourself.

Fiction cross-reference

• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Gnomon Chronicles (nonfiction)

External links

• [ Post] @ Twitter (30 January 2023)