Interview notes (January 2023)
Interview notes (January 2023)
To do:
- Collage, mom
- Early works: finger painting, story
- Evolution of Gnomon Chronicles: stages
- Photographs
- Screenshots of work in progress
- A puzzle. What's in a mashup?
- Answer on the wiki page
- Why I Love MediaWiki
Tell me about yourself
"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
"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
"Explain to the readers what it is you do with the Gnomon Chronicles. Just give a lowdown of what it is"
An idea will come to me, for example the title of an imaginary movie, say two real movies, the source movies, mashed together.
Usually the first thing I do is create folders on my computer desktop: one for the imaginary movie, one for each of the real movies (if I don't already have them on file). I download links and images for the real movies. I mashup images from the two movies to make my new movie poster. I do much of my work in GIMP; occasionally I use an online editor for simple mashups.
Now that I have a title and poster for my imaginary movie, I may upload the image to the Gnomon Chronicles wiki, and create a new wiki page with the article, title, and a description of the movie.
Or, I might wait to make the wiki page, and first post my fictional movie to Twitter and other social media. I like to accompany the post with links to YouTube showing trailers for, or scenes from the two source movies. Then some time later I will make the wiki page, in which case I make another Twitter post, this time including the link to the wiki page.
When I create the wiki page, I cross-reference it to one or more (usually two, to start) other Chronicles. The images and a brief description for the other Chronicles appear in the "In the News" section of each wiki page. The idea here is that the reader is presented with thumbnail images of other Chronicles: bright shiny objects to follow. My hope is that readers who enjoy this kind of thing will click from page to page to page, one Chronicle after another.
There is one more step to a complete Chronicle: making it appear on the wiki home page at least once a year (typically three times a years). The home page is made up of a series of date-coded templates, one for each day of the year. So for example there are 365 templates for "Better Than News", 365 for "Beyond Plausible", and so on. The home page displays the templates for that day. I'll add the new movie post with brief description to (say) three "Better Than News" templates, spaced roughly four months apart. I like three: not to often, but more often than once a year.
The point is for the home page of the wiki to have fresh material every day. As long as I keep adding new material, the page you see today will be different from the page you saw a year ago. This allows me to publish fresh material while making good use of old material.
That's about it. That's a Chronicle: at least, a movie mashup Chronicle. I do a lot of movie mashups, but there are other kinds as well: essays, photographs, drawings, nonfiction articles, and so on. These will have wiki pages, and cross-references to other Chronicles, but not always images.
Name
"Where did the name Gnomon Chronicles come from?"
"Gnomon Chronicles" began as a title for the imprint of an original comic book series. I was working with an illustrator around 2014, kicking around ideas for stories which I would write and he would illustrate. That project fizzled out, but the name stuck.
Inspiration
"What inspired you to take up the gnomon chronicles ? It’s something you are clearly very dedicated to, so it couldn’t have been a simple decision … or was it?"
TO DO ...
Synchronization
"Have the gnomon chronicles site and twitter page always been in unison? Did one come first, or do you prioritise one over the other etc?"
The Chronicles wiki came first, and is the heart of the matters. Novelists write novels. I write my wiki.
Twitter serves two purposes:
1. As advertising, a billboard where strangers might see my work.
2. As a workshop, a laboratory, where I test and refine new material. In this sense, Twitter is a feeder to the wiki, the minor leagues which bring up stars to the major leagues.
Aims
"What is it you aim to do with the gnomon chronicles? Is it for personal pleasure, or to entertain others? I’m intrigued."
I take pleasure in what I do, but I am doing it for others. I want to entertain people. Entertain, and inform.
Some authors write short stories. Some write novels. Some write plays or poems or scripts.
I write my Chronicles.
Which tweets do I reply to?
"I often find your satirical posts in replies to tweets that perhaps wouldn’t be expecting it to respond to them. How do you decide which tweets to respond to with your satirical media?"
Replying to tweets in an unexpected satirical manner is fine, fine pleasure, which I greatly enjoy.
I'm like an improv comedian. To do my best work, I need to interact with an audience. Not merely entertain an audience by doing my act. I love wing it, to improvise, in response to other people.
How do I decide which ones to respond to? I try to mix it up:
1. Followers, because they have earned my time
2. Strangers, because I want to charm them with my work, win them over, convert them to followers
Those are the two big categories for satire.
Occasionally I also respond in a non-satirical manner:
3. Informational posts, where I think people could use the information
4. Consoling posts, a few kind words, emoticons for heart, crying, prayers
5. Insults and harsh advice for people I despise
What keeps my twitter account going
"What is it that keeps this account going. A lot of online personalities maintain their accounts to ensure a constantly growing level of engagement , but if you don’t mind me saying (and I mean this with no disrespect of course), you haven’t got the largest level of consistent engagement , at least if one was to look at every piece of satire you post . Do you ever think about this or take it into account?"
What keeps me going is my obsession. This is what I want to do most of all, more than anything else.
No offense taken, by the way, about my number of followers. It is what it is, I try to not get emotionally attached.
Let me tell you a story, by way of analogy.
I play guitar, and I sing. When I was young — fifteen, twenty — it was very important to me to know how people felt about my performance. Naturally I wanted their approval.
But with time, in particular with experience on stage, I came to understand that I give a better performance (and live a happier life) if I *stop thinking* about what people think. The more I put aside "Do they love me? Do they hate me?", the more free I felt to *be myself*.
In the same vein, I try to *not care* that I have 1200 followers, and not five thousand, or ten, or fifty. As I am fond of saying: Do your work. Only the work matters.
Online community
"I’ve noticed in my time following you that you’ve cultivated a very lovely online community that stays in touch through twitter posts and threads . Do you feel you’ve found people on twitter that you would genuinely call friends? Or do you more see them as followers."
I have met a small group of people — say, twenty — with whom I feel a connection, a real human connection. I have met none of them in real life, and don't suppose I will. But they are important to me.
When I reached a thousand followers, I made a promise to these Twitter friends, that they would always be special to me when I had five thousand follower, or ten thousand, or a hundred thousand. (This is not hypothetical: these are my goals.) By a thousand followers it was obvious that more followers meant less personal attention. My promise is to not forget the first thousand: to always hold them close, is special regard, no matter how many others come along.
That said, I do want followers, as many as possible. What artist does not want an audience for their work?
Trouble
"Have you ever had any trouble online, with trolls or bothersome personalities? If so, how do you deal with them?"
Yes, I have encountered trolls and bothersome personalities online. Typically I am the instigator: I post something on someone's timeline which they find offensive, they make rude replies. (I don't recall any case where I was bothered about something I posted to my own profile.)
How I deal with trolls and other trouble accounts is simple: I block them immediately, without warning, explanation, or remorse.
Full disclosure, I do sometimes deliberately bait trolls, or make serious critical replies to people whose views offend me. But this is usually over politics, and not fictional Chronicles. And it's a different motivation: typically what I feel is rage or contempt, not the creation of art.
How to people feel
"How do the people in your life feel about the Gnomon Chronicles?"
A few of them get it, and support me.
Most don't know about it, or don't care, it's not their thing.
Personal updates
"Alongside the usual satirical posts , you often provide lovely updates on what you’re up to , what the weather is like or how your day has been. Do you find this is important to the idea of the gnomon chronicles / building a community, or is there a different motivation for this."
Yes, it's true, I like to sprinkle in occasional personal post among the satires. One reason I do this is because people like it, they respond to it, and naturally I am pleased by the attention.
But it's not just self-serving calculation. Mine is a restless, mercurial mind. (Some might say disorganized and flighty. Enduring such opinions with grace is an essential skill.) I like to try different things.
In principle (I tell myself, from time to time), posting only satires to Twitter builds a better brand: readers know what to expect: all satire, all the time.
But I prefer to play things the way I do: mostly satire most of the ime, but with an occasional touch of personal thoughts, personal photos. I also like to occasionally retweet posts by others which I find compelling, intriguing, deserving yet underappreciated, and so on.
Inventing movies
"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
"What would you say are some of your favourite films ? Tell me and the readers why it is you love them."
"The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" (1988)
I distinctly recall telling my friends, as we debouched from the glamorous Uptown Theater into the milling Saturday night crowd:
I am going to see that movie *eleven times*—!
And I did.
I watch a lot of movies, and I enjoy them. But as I noted elsewhere, I tend to use movies like tools, for making new imaginary movie.
Inspirations
"Do you have an inspiration for what you do ? Someone or something that made you think, 'I could do this'!"
First let me admit that I have always — since early childhood — had a firm and entirely unjustified belief that I can do *anything at all that I put my mind to*. Sad to say, this is ridiculously untrue.
Nonetheless, I have what I think are a formidable array of talents, and if thinking too highly of myself means I experience both amazing successes and predictably stupid failures, so be it.
Now, there are examples in the world which inspire me. I remember being eight or nine, reading excerpts from Ambrose Bierce's "The Devil's Dictionary". Another example of the pleasure I took at a young age in satire! At the time, I did not say "I'm going to do that when I grow up!" But the seeds of the idea were there, waiting for someday.
Inspirational words
"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.
In the News
Fiction cross-reference
Nonfiction cross-reference
External links
- [ Post] @ Twitter (30 January 2023)