17 April 2021

You worked in the outback, raking and then spraying to kill the many thicket bushes starting to come back; other natural foliage is welcome to return. You notice that I prefer the ariel typeset rather than the script type this time around. You likewise changed your habit. Subtle but effective, I imagine. - Amorella

2123 hrs. The less casual and laidback style has gone to the wayside. Where have you been this last year? 

You survived without my presence. The passion left and has not returned; it has with anecdotal evidence been 'burned away' (with a memorable wink to Wilder's "Our Town"). 

2212 hrs. I did not consciously remember "burned away," but it sounds authentic. I did some checking. 

** **

Our Town
Thornton Wilder

THE STORY continued

ACT III

NOTE: According to Wilder's stage directions, the dead "do not turn their heads or their eyes to the right or left, but they sit in a quiet without stiffness. When they speak, their tone is a matter of fact, without sentimentality." Wilder wants the audience to notice that the dead have lost their emotional attachment to the living. Later, you will understand that even this becomes a comment on what it means to be alive. 

The Stage Manager takes up his usual position, and when the house lights go down, he begins to speak. Nine years have gone by this time. And this is a different part of Grover's Corners, "an important part," on a hilltop. He talks about the beauty of the setting and points out the oldest graves belonging to the "strong-minded" settlers. Genealogists, paid by people who want to be certain they have colonial ancestors, visit the graves. "Wherever you come near the human race, there's layers and layers of nonsense," he says. Then he points out the Civil War veterans. "New Hampshire boys... had a notion that the Union ought to be kept together, though they'd never seen more than fifty miles of it themselves... And they went and died about it." 

Wilder is pointing out that humans are both silly and noble. There is no such thing as "either/or" when it comes to an understanding the human race. It contains all possibilities. 

Finally, the Stage Manager points to the actors sitting on chairs. Mrs. Gibbs, who worried so much about her husband, is dead. So are Simon Stimson, Mrs. Soames, and Wally Webb. 

NOTE: At the beginning of the play, the Stage Manager mentioned the deaths of several characters, including Mrs. Gibbs. It wasn't upsetting because you hadn't met them yet. And he didn't talk about every character's death. Now, learning about the death of Mrs. Gibbs and of Wally causes a pang. You've met them. They aren't just names anymore. Why do you think Wilder has done this? You may recall the question, "How's it going to end?" Wilder wants you to realize that most people go through life asking such questions when they know the answer perfectly well. Everyone is going to die. Yet, everyone acts as if death is unexpected. 

Wilder uses the Stage Manager to state some other beliefs. "We all know that something is eternal. And it ain't houses, and it ain't names... That something has to do with human beings." There is, he says, something within each one of us that lives on beyond our own life force. Is he talking about the soul? The Stage Manager says that all the great thinkers have been saying it throughout history, but people have trouble remembering the idea. "We all know," says the Stage Manager. Is he right? Do we all know? Does Wilder think we all know? 

NOTE: Wilder has been accused of being too much like a teacher, hitting you over the head with his message. Do you think this is a valid criticism? Or is the sugarcoating of humor and emotion thick enough to make the message go down easily? Or is Wilder raising questions rather than insisting on certain answers? 

In one of the most lyrical passages in the play, the Stage Manager describes how the "earth part" of people has burned away after death, and the "eternal part" comes out. The part that attaches people to the earth, memory and personal identity, has to disappear. (This is why the actors in the chairs speak and behave passively. The earth part of them is burning out.) It is not that the dead cease to care about the living; they hardly remember what it was to be alive. Do you suppose that this is the perfection that people talked about earlier in the play?   . . .

Selected from - http://pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/barrons/ourtownx.asp

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2221 hrs. Are you suggesting this bolded concept should be a set piece for this autobiography?

Yes. You will move from Caesar to Wilder at this point. - Amorella

1026 hrs. Interesting. The tone of thinking here appears at a higher, more intellectual, and consciously stable level. I cannot be doing this without your guidance. The tone carried is that while writing, I am among Wilder's dead in the play.

As you wish, you are the writer. - Amorella '

1039 hrs. Upon your return to the Notes on 14 April, you said, "Who to better play the guardian Angel than me, Amorella?"

My tonal construction will be similar to that of the Stage Manager in Wilder's play. You will be more comfortable seeing me in this light. - Amorella

1050 hrs. I am glad I am sharing this with Fritz. I am not comfortable not sharing. 

At present, let's share with Fritz and on the blog. - Amorella

2257 hrs. Strange, I don't think of the blog as a sharing because no one reads it anyway. 

You are a very private man; there is no need to exploit that. Send this on to Fritz. He is a very private man also. - Amorella

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 * * *

16 April 2021

1056 hrs. Translation:

** **

Gallic War by Julius Caesar 

Loeb Classical Library 1917

 

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Caesar/Gallic_War/1A*.html

 

1 Gaul is a whole divided into three parts, one of which is inhabited by the Belgae, another by the Aquitani, and a third by a people called in their own tongue Celtae, in the Latin Galli. All these are different one from another in language, institutions, and laws. The Galli (Gauls) are separated from the Aquitani by the river Garonne, from the Belgae by the Marne and the Seine. Of all these peoples the Belgae are the most courageous, because they are farthest removed from the culture and civilization of the Province, and least often visited by merchants introducing the commodities that make for effeminacy; and also, because they are nearest to the Germans dwelling beyond the Rhine, with whom they are continually at war. For this cause the Helvetii also excel the rest of the Gauls in valour, because they are struggling in almost daily fights with the Germans, either endeavouring to keep them out of Gallic territory or waging an aggressive warfare in German territory. The separate part of the country which, as has been said, is occupied by the Gauls, starts from the river Rhone, and is bounded by the river Garonne, the Ocean, and the territory of the Belgae; moreover, on the side of the Sequani and the Helvetii, it touches on the river Rhine; and its general trend is northward. The Belgae, beginning from the edge of the Gallic territory, reach to the lower part of the river Rhine, bearing towards the north and east. Aquitania, starting from the Garonne, reaches to the Pyrenees and to that part of the Ocean which is by Spain: its bearing is between west and north.

** **

** **

Classic Style: Prose as a Window Into the World

Transcript

The last writing style we’re going to look at is what has been called “classic style”.

It’s quite different from the other styles we’ve looked at, and it’s gotten some buzz recently with the publication of Steven Pinker’s book The Sense of Style, subtitled “the thinking person’s guide to writing in the 21st century”.

In the book he strongly advocates for classic style as an ideal to which academic writers should aspire. . ..

Classic Style

The model scene for classic style is one person speaking to another, a conversation between equals.

The writer uses prose as a window to describe a world, and to draw attention to the objects and actions going on within this world.

The assertions, the claims that the writer wants to make, are depicted in this world, and the writer tries to get the audience, the reader, to see what is depicted by positioning the reader so that he or she can see what the writer sees.

The writer wants to reveal some truth about the world, and their goal is to get the reader to see this truth, through a conversational dialogue about the world that the writer has created, but that is imaginatively accessible to both of them.

This is the discursive setup for classic style. . ..

Classic style aims at the presentation of an objective, disinterested truth about the world — a truth that can be confirmed by anyone with a suitable background and position to see it.

Second, this is also very different from reflexive style, where the author wants to draw the reader’s attention to the act of writing itself, and to the challenges the writer faces.

The classic writer wants the reader to see through the text — hence the metaphor of a window — into the world depicted by the text, because that’s the subject of the writing, not the writing itself. You don’t want the reader to notice smudges or cracks in the window, or even that the world is being framed by a window — you just want them to pay attention to the scene depicted through the window.

Third, classic style is different from practical style.

Classic and practical style have a common interest in clarity and directness in writing, but they value this for different reasons.

In practical style, clarity is a virtue because its primary goal is to be easily understood by the reader, so that it can help the reader with whatever practical problem they’re facing.

Classic style isn’t concerned with solving a practical problem for the reader.

In classic style we value clarity and simplicity because TRUTH is clear and simple — this is a presupposition of the conceptual stance that grounds classic style. Hence the title of Thomas and Turner’s book on classic style, Clear and Simple as the Truth.

A fourth point I want to note about classic style is that the goal of writing in this style is a kind of performance.

When the writer is able to create this world and successfully lead the reader through the scene, that’s a kind of artfully constructed performance. . ..

The goal of writing in classic style is a kind of performance that presents all truths are expressible and knowable in the way described, that the truths being presented are objective features of the world, and the writer is confident in making these assertions without hedging or qualifying.

But the writer knows that this is a performance, it’s a pretense.

The real writer — you and I, sitting at our laptops struggling to find the right words, we don’t have to believe any of this. But when we choose to write in the classic style, we’re choosing to embrace these fictions, like an actor on stage playing a role, or a musician performing during a concert.

You can be as skeptical and uncertain and philosophically sophisticated as you want in real life, but when writing in the classic mode you hide that skepticism and uncertainty and philosophical sophistication for the sake of presenting a truth in as clear and compelling a way as possible.

Any writing style requires adopting a persona of some kind — this is the persona of the classic writer.

Summary

Here’s a summary of the main points.

• Classic style views prose as a window to the world. 
• The model scene is one where the writer and the reader are in conversation.
• The writer’s goal is to depict a world that presents a truth, and to position the reader in such a way that the reader can see what the writer sees, and thereby confirm the truth that the writer is presenting. 
• Truth is understood to be clear, simple and verifiable. 
• Classic style is a performative style, where it’s understood by the writer that the truth may not be clear or simple, but when writing in the classic mode the writer aims to present truth as clear and simple and verifiable — this the persona that the writer adopts, a presupposition of the conceptual stance that grounds classic style. 

In the next video we’ll look at some examples of classic writing and how classic style can help improve your academic writing.

https://criticalthinkeracademy.com/courses/22120/lectures/315866

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1152 hours. On Being Human: A Commentary appears to be a good working title. 

**

Gaul is a whole divided into three parts, one of which is inhabited by the Belgae, another by the Aquitani, and a third by a people called in their own tongue Celtae, in the Latin Galli. All these are different one from another in language, institutions, and laws.

**

Being Human is a whole divided into three parts, one of which is physical, another is spiritual, and a third is the clear consciousness to know the exact difference.

Being Human is divided into three parts: the physical, another is spiritual, and a third is a clear consciousness in understanding the difference.

There you have it, the first sentence of your book, now titled, BEING HUMAN: A COMMENTARY. - Amorella

1212 hrs. Yes, I have a beginning.

Being Human is divided into three parts: the physical, another is spiritual, and a third is a clear consciousness in understanding the difference. This understanding radiates from the combination of the physical brain/body enclosing the measurable physical/emotional heart and rational mind as separate from the attributes of spiritually unmeasurable heartansoulanmind. The concept through this autobiography is to provide a self-study guide to help balance herorhis late-in-life imperfect nature to better personally speculate on how to meet an Afterlife, if indeed, one, or even many, may exist. 

Your Grammarly performance is 100 percent on the above and suggests this work is geared for the college not the high school level reader. 

1254 hrs. The problem I am foreseeing is that the spiritual heartansoulanmind is not verifiable scientifically as such although such subjective evidence is available through observation of self and others. 

Send this to Fritz and post in current blog. - Amorella

 * * *

15 April 2021

Evening. This is Amorella. Put all your material in a new folder titled, 'Jan-Apr.2021.D.Pouch'. Title the new folder: 'AutoBio.Apr.2021'.

0918 hrs. I trust you with this new project Amorella. I prefer the April 2021 Notes begin a new blog as the end of the Miss Havisham Notes Blog. 

Set up a new blog and title - 

* * *

NOTES

Clearing Life's Clutter:

An Auto Bio in Third Person

 

* * *

0936 hrs. Looks good to me.

Post. - Amorella

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Surprise

• April 14, 2021

Wednesday evening. The five flowering bushes were planted along the fence row today by Mr. J. Garcia. You are ever thankful. You are thinking of combining your fiction selections to an autobiography, the fiction reflecting your creative life woven in reality as a matter of course. Your thought is dropping this setting in the first few days of being Dead, the focus of who you were in life - an objectively balanced portrait of your humanity with me, a personification of your soul, as an off-stage guide and perhaps Jadah as an animal spirit guide as well. Perhaps, the book with the title, "A Life Framed in Irony and Dark Humor." - Ms. Havisham.

Who to better play the guardian Angel than me, Amorella? 

1022 hours. This is an unexpected visit. 

Mutual, I'm sure. Post. - Amorella