On building worlds and universes (cont.)

So there are two basic elements that can make or break a story. One is cohesiveness, the other truthfulness. The former is established through the universe the story takes place in, the latter through the characters inhabiting it.

Let's address the universe part first. What you are creating is a parallel universe, even when your intention is to have the story take place in 'this' reality, like when you set out to do a historical fiction or a crime thriller. The reason is, the world you create will be grounded in your experience and yours alone, and that is a pretty restricted view. However, it's your goal to share this universe of yours and have others have a shot at making it their own. To achieve this, others have to believe in it, and to have them believe in it, it has got to add up – there must be no pinpricks, that's to say.

Now the characters. Their task is to be your audience's eyes and ears in the universe you created. It's through them that other people can experience your universe. To achieve this, your characters have got to be relatable, which is a subjective thing: one character might do the trick for A, but not for B. You can't control your audience's reaction, but what you can do is control the degree of realness they are based on: pick a person from the real world, observe him, drop him into your universe. If done right, it's the characters that will dictate the story's plot; you just channel them (at least that's how I imagine it would be). If the characters are real, then so will their actions and reactions, and the audience will perceive this as truthfulness. One contemporary writer who is a master at this is George Pelecanos.

On building worlds and universes

I am not enthused about the upcoming Transformers flick. One of the reasons being is the world the franchise has tried to create on the widescreen just doesn't click. It isn't cohesive, which is key to building a world or a universe no matter how fantastical or weird. I'll give you a couple of examples of world-building projects that came across successfully as cohesive – one did so by design and the other by chance.

The first one – the by-design one – is Joseph Heller's Catch-22. It's a sin to use adjectives, if I've read Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft correctly, but Catch-22 fires them off like a machine gun to great effect because they all serve the greater cause of creating cohesiveness, of making the characters appear and act in a way that's consistent with the natural laws that govern the world of Catch-22. Nothing in the novel can escape from these laws, and the reader can therefore invest emotionally in this story with confidence. The story throws you down the rabbit hole and into the world of Catch-22, and while in Wonderland rest assured you won't find a Starbucks because if you do, that would be incongruous with that world's natural laws, it would be a pinprick that makes you go "huh?" and wake you up from your dream, from the illusion.

The second example is the Guns N' Roses song Paradise City. Now, stay with me here. The song is from the album Appetite for Destruction, a truthful if not gritty account on sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. Play the album and you can hear, see, and smell the streets of LA. It's a cohesive world that it's created and therefore safe for you to invest in emotionally. The song Paradise City, however, is our pinprick. But, like the album, it too is cohesive (and therefore a world within a world in the album's context). From the jangly guitar intro to the innocent lyrics, the whole thing operates according to its own natural laws and forms a cohesive world because… it rings true. The band was telling a truth. The song was conceived in the back of a van when the band, still unknown at the time, was traveling back home to LA from a brotherhood-forging road trip. They were feeling triumphant and out came this song.

Which tells me something else. One of the ingredients to creating a cohesive universe, no matter how outlandish, is truth. You have got to tell the truth, a truth or several truths. Star Wars is the perfect world-building success story. It's a universe that operates according to its own natural laws, and because it's so successful and popular people must have gotten some truths out of it, even if they were there by chance.

Anyway, to round this off, for something to be enjoyed on an artistic level it has got to be cohesive, meaning it has got to operate and abide by its own set of natural laws. Why? Because that's how we, humans, perceive and experience our existence in the here-and-now and if this is reflected in that something it tells us that it is being truthful. The currency of art is after all Truth.

Guns N' Roses Best of Volume I

Guns N' Roses is going to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tomorrow. Very cool and it feels like closure of sorts. So, in reflection of that sentiment I'm going to do a list of the band's best songs off the albums they made between 1987 and 1993.

There are five of them: Appetite for Destruction (1987), G N' R Lies (1988), Use Your Illusion I (1991), Use Your Illusion II (1991), and "The Spaghetti Incident?" (1993).

Each is a masterpiece as they are cases of art imitating life – your life. So here goes:

Guns N' Roses Best of Volume I

1. Welcome to the Jungle
You're in Kansas no more, honey.

2. Nightrain
It's about a graffiti-clad commuter train plying an urban night sky.

3. Think About You
This is Izzy, not filler.

4. Reckless Life
I'm where? Senior high?

5. Move to the City
Going to senior high is supposed to feel like doing time.

6. One in a Million
Because singing about it is cheaper than seeing a shrink.

7. November Rain
No more cowbells? Ever?

8. Dead Horse
For no clear reason, a personal favourite of mine second only to Nightrain.

9. Coma
They went from Appetite to this, how?

10. Yesterdays
Because Yesterday (singular) has been taken.

11. Locomotive
It's a dinner and a show when the outro plays.

12. Estranged
The purpose of the oil tanker is to offset the guitar.

13. Don't Cry (Alternate lyrics)
Cooler vibes win out against the original version.

Bonus track:
14. Ain't It Fun (feat. Michael Monroe)
Something I asked myself a lot as I headed for the home stretch at senior high.

Emerald City

Get a load of this crock. Dr. S. James Gates, Jr., a theoretical physicist at the University of Maryland, thinks we're actually living in a Matrix-like world.

You see, while doing research on something called supersymmetry, Gates discovered "the presence of codes in the equations of physics", much in the way you would run into DNA when studying an animal.

Don't believe him? I know, I don't even know what supersymmetry is, but if the following isn't proof of some sort, I just don't know what is:

Axl Rose, Buckethead, and Daft Punk are in talks to join forces in a pwoject tentatively titled Emerald City. As a point in fact, they've set their sights on becoming the wold's most weclusive band.

Gene Simmons of KISS fame has claimed to have discovewed the band and that he suggested they call themselves Dowothy's Suga Daddy. Axl Wose, who is Emerald's designated spokesperson, has wemained mum on the matter.

Axl's old band Guns N' Woses, in the meantime, will be inducted into the Wock and Woll Hall of Fame on Apwil 14 in Cleveland, OH. Simmons, who has bought out the wights to the fwanchise, has pewsonally awwanged fo the band to be inducted by none othew than Jewwy Spwingew.

Now, go to Google Translate, type in your name, and have it pronounced in Fwench.

My 3 all-time guitar heroes

In its list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time", Rolling Stone placed Edward Van Halen at #8, Slash at #65, and omitted Buckethead altogether. Needless to say, that list is wrong.

Lists usually are, except when a list is made by you. Then stuff is sweet. Then stuff is right. So I'll just go ahead and make my own list and title it "My 3 All-time Guitar Heroes":

#3 Buckethead
Kudos to Axl Rose for exposing me to Buckethead. For a while Buckethead played lead guitar for the new Guns N' Roses and when he didn't anymore, I made a point of finding more Buckethead music on Youtube. When I stumbled upon a video of Buckethead prancing on stage with the new Guns N' Roses wearing a cape, I just knew: me and him, we're gonna be tight.

"Big Sur Moon" from the album Colma (1998):




#2 Edward Van Halen
I knew of Van Halen. I heard them on the radio – "Panama" – and I thought the video clip for "Hot for Teacher" was funny. I also thought they were loud, but that their music also brimmed with personality. Only much later did I find out that the Van Halen brothers hailed from Holland (which made perfect sense once I pronounced "Van Halen" the Dutch way), had some Indonesian in them, and that to properly appreciate Edward's playing you needed to hear it through earphones: If you close your eyes you can see sunshine and orange trees and scantily clad ladies dancing to his guitar. A musician's musician, Edward's playing continues to evolve and mature over time.

"Once" from the album Van Halen III (1998):




#1 Slash
Slash got me through puberty and for that alone I owe him everlasting allegiance. He continues to be an inspiration even today: professionally, personally – he's not infallible; I know he's not, but he has also no qualms of grabbing life by the cojones. I saw Slash live at Istora Gelora Bung Karno, Jakarta, on August 3rd, 2010 (set list). I walked in a fan with my hands trembling and walked away half-deaf and with respect: larger-than-life rock 'n' roll persona aside, turns out the man is a consummate pro.

Slash covering "Hey Joe" at the UK Music Hall of Fame (2005):