talking heads talk strategy

sailboat

talking heads talk strategy

roundtable discussion featuring Mara Liasson, Chris Matthews, Lara Spencer, and Doris Kearns Goodwin

ML: The seeds are assumptions. Press go. Events unfold.
DKG: Its reminiscent of Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (TUOT). The seeds are the single volume of the encyclopedia that started everything. Growth is the ensuing world as it changes after discovery of the unusual edition.
ML: It's more than that Doris. Its a paradigm of social engineering. Instead of going after direct results they establish a framework -- a structure which unfolds under its own behavioral schema.
DKG: In the classic sense we have:

• truth leading to consequences
• direct becoming indirect
• individuals forming relationships
• action causing reaction
• premise leading to outcome
• assumptions forging proof

CM: How’s this going to play in the heartland? How much artifice will the reader tolerate? Who sits around reading Borges?
LS: Yes, yes absolutely Chris.
CM: Lara, please don’t touch me.
ML: TUOT is a cool way of explaining this, but that story reeks of sci-fi. Like "Kiln People" -- where they create a world. This book is a book of books. Borges plus. The aggregate of plots intertwine like vines generating a life of their own.
DKG: It's like Batboy The Musical, based on a fake newspaper.
LS: Do they still sell Weekly World News? I haven’t seen it in the checkout racks.
CM: Batboy is a better mentor than Borges. Borges is a dead, whereas Batboy remains fresh. Like fresh human blood.
LS: Oh Chris.
ML: Its not beyond the realm of possibility that this intertwining will continue indefinitely. Like the war on terror. This book may go way beyond the current ending.
DKG: I’m surprised the author never considered tightening up the structure with details, and storytelling.
ML: If you keep intertwining, development will occur naturally with new assumptions arising from relationships, and in turn, new relationships arising from those new assumptions. The world, I mean book, will keep expanding, all the while folding in on itself. Isn’t that more interesting than tightening up what you already have?
DKG: The current structure has merit due to its quest-like, over the rainbow ending and some endearing characters. The intertwining is best left to future books.
ML: Here's an idea: Use the intertwining to create secret ancient knowledge which foretells the original structure.
DKG: Like prophecies?
CM: Have you guys lost your minds?
ML: So here we have 1) a premise 2) events, and 3) new premises generated by events (intertwining). This leads to secret knowledge i.e. prophecies which inform the premise. A feedback loop.
DKG: Mara, lets go back to my room and generate new indexes.

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