A Renaissance Man?

A Renaissance Man may be defined as a person skilled in many areas.  Allow me to introduce David Lee Jones, a Renaissance Man.

HOW WE MET

Twenty years ago, I was divorced, rearing two sons as a single mother and supplementing my school teacher's pay by selling magazine articles and promoting local performers as well as a couple of nationally known country/bluegrass artists.

One of the local singers I worked with was a very talented vocalist whom we shall call Michelle, though that isn't her name. An A&R representative from an LA record label was visiting a friend in Columbia and planned to scout at a local club Friday night. Michelle and I made sure she was booked to perform and outfitted to stage perfection. I'd impressed upon her what a break this could be to her career, but I also tried to calm her nervousness.

Before Michelle went onstage, I pitched her talent to the A&R rep. He seemed responsive, but he stressed professionalism. Michelle's set was dynamite, but I noticed she was sipping from a glass instead of her usual water bottle throughout her performance. I held my breath as she took a bow to great applause. . . then proceeded to fall off the stage in an totally snockered fashion. The school teacher in me wanted to scold her; the mother in me gave her a hug and told her boyfriend to take her home. As we summed it up later, Michelle had her break, but she broke it.

I stayed for the remainder of the show (my sons' weekend at Dad's), but I moved from the AR rep's table to the end of the bar where I spent some time talking with David Lee Jones, the young bartender son of the club's owner. He showed me his sketchbook, and I was impressed with his talent. I encouraged him to enter some artwork in the SC State Fair Art Exhibit. He did, and he placed.

FRIENDSHIP RENEWED

As time passed, I heard that David Lee was married. I ran into his father at the car wash with two beautiful grandchildren he said were David's. David Lee's father and I crossed paths in line at the bank years later. David was now divorced. After a talk about my kids and his kids, David's dad asked, "Didn't I hear you've had some books published?"

I told him all about Callie Parrish and the mystery series, and he proudly told me David Lee had a collection of stories published in England--Darkside of the Planet, which I purchased and found full of great mystery, horror, and science fiction tales. We have become good friends.

 MORIA VARATU

David and I recently had a joint book signing to celebrate publication of Jones's first novel Moria Varatu. This first in a sci fi trilogy is fast-paced and enthralling, and though I'm not a regular sci fi fan, I've read it twice, and Moria Varatu is a fascinating story.

Geologist Dr. Brandon Jordan flees to Mars to escape the tormenting loss of his young son and wife to a rampant global blood virus on Earth. Upon starting his life on the Red Planet, he stumbles onto an ancient secret that distracts him from the oppressive depression and sends his life hurtling into an adventure that not only solves eon's old mysteries on Mars, but connects to unsolved history back on Earth. In the end, he is forced to become an unlikely hero in a war that, unbeknown to humankind as a whole, has spanned across two worlds and unfathomable time altering the course of humanity.

LET'S GET PERSONAL

David Lee Jones was born and reared in Columbia, SC. After his parents' divorce, he moved to upstate New York and attended West Genessee Senior High School where his writing career began as a reporter for the school newspaper.

After graduation, Jones returned to South Carolina and attended Midlands Technical College where he earned an Associate's Degree in Commercial Graphics Technology. He uses that training in designing book covers.

Jones has a long career as a mixologist, having bartended for his father during college years. (That's when I first met him). He currently tends bar and offers advice and entertainment at Wings and Ale of Lexington in Lexington, SC. Years behind the bar have given him great insight into human behavior and psychology which shows in his dynamic writings. I believe he also has a long career awaiting him in writing.

He's also an excellent performer with a great voice.

Singer, ink & pencil artist, graphic artist and talented writer--my friend David Lee Jones, a Renaissance Man!

Until we meet again. . .take care of YOU.

My Two Cents Worth

Types of Literature

I thought for this post I’d throw in my two cents on the controversy of literary versus genre fiction. We read stories to vicariously satisfy our desire for pleasure and to sometimes explain reality. So why the separation? To satisfy our need to categorize to avoid confusion, to clarify in our minds how the world works. Enough philosophizing. On to my meditation on the subject.

The argument boils down to this: genre fiction is plot driven and literary fiction is character or theme driven. Literary fiction appeals to our intellect and emotions while genre appeals only to our emotions.

Although readers may get more out of fiction than entertainment, stories above all should entertain. But no matter whether it is genre or literary fiction, both require craftsmanship, for it is in the craft that effects on the reader are achieved. I admit in some genre stories the line between good and evil are sharp and clear and may not be so clear in literary fiction, but isn’t it possible that the clarity can make you as a reader think seriously about the human condition? And isn’t it possible that literary stories may be read for sheer enjoyment without any deep thinking about the human condition?

In an attempt to clarify the situation in my mind, I analyzed two crime stories, one literary and the other genre, by two  great writers.

In Hemingway’s story “The Killers,” two hoods, Max and Al, enter a diner and tells the counter man, George, the black cook Sam, and Nick Adams that they are there to kill Ole Andreson. The killers leave without hurting anyone because Ole, a former boxer, failed to come to the diner that day. When Nick later tells Ole about the two men, he says there is nothing he can do. He is resigned to his fate. The story certainly is not plot driven for what little plot there is suggests more than shows what is happening in Ole’s mind. The story is literary fiction.

Hammett’s “The Man Who Killed Dan Odams” is a plot-driven story about  how a woman outwits the man who killed her husband. The man who killed Dan Odams escapes from jail and takes refuge in a house with a woman and her 12 year-old son, not knowing she is Dan Odams’s widow. She recognizes him and tricks him into believing she sent her son outside to watch for his pursuers. The son in fact runs to a neighbor’s place for help. As he is dying, realizing the woman is Dan Odams’s widow, the fugitive expresses admiration for her avenging her husband’s murder. No question the story is plot driven.

Neither story enticed me to think very seriously about fatalism or revenge. I simply enjoyed reading them.

I also analyzed and enjoyed a story by a not so well known writer that made me think. In “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell, John Wright is murdered in his bed. His wife Minnie is suspected since she was the only other person in the house, but the men, Mr. Hale, who found the body, the sheriff, and the county attorney, don’t find any convincing evidence in the bedroom  crime scene that would convict her. The two women, Mrs. Hale, and Mrs. Peters, the sheriff’s wife, inspecting Minnie’s things in the kitchen, find an empty bird cage. The dead bird they find in the sewing  basket suggests Minnie had taken as much abuse from John as she could and his killing her bird was the proverbial last straw. This story made me think about the perennial theme of how women and men see things differently.

Literary or genre fiction, does it really matter so long as you enjoy the story. Like Daniel Abrahams on the SFsignal website in his essay “A Private Letter from Genre to Literature,” I too plead, “Please, please, darling let us stop this.This artificial separation between us is painful, it is undignified, and it fools no one.” 

Except maybe a few literary critics. 

I'm So Confused

Deja Vu All Over Again

by John M. Floyd

Driving home from the post office the other day, I heard a newsman on National Public Radio say someone "shared this in common" with someone else.  That bothered me.  (Not enough to make me switch to a rap or gospel music station, but it did bother me.)  I've forgotten exactly who he said was sharing something in common with whom, but--to use an example based on a Grisham book I'm currently reading--if you and your father are both baseball fans, you either share a love of baseball with your father or you and your father have that in common.  You don't share it in common, and if you say you do you've created a redundancy.

This kind of error can probably be forgiven more easily in speech than in writing.  We writers are supposed to know better, and to pay attention to things like that.  (So are NPR newscasters, actually.)  Not that I am guiltless.  Right here in this blog, I recently used the term added bonus.  That's a bit silly.  If it's a bonus, it is by definition added, and to use both words is redundant.  And in real life I'm always talking about something happening the exact same way it happened earlier.  Other phrases I use a lot are final outcome, plan ahead, and free gift.  Imagine how much time I would save and how much smarter I would sound if I cut out the words exact, final, ahead, and free.  (There is of course a lesson here, one my wife learned years ago: don't listen too closely to me when I talk.)

Alternative choices

I know what you're thinking.  Sometimes phrases containing redundancies are used intentionally, to add emphasis.  Examples might be completely surrounded, truly sincere, each and every, definite decision, cease and desist, direct confrontation, forever and ever, etc.  Redundancies also come into play when using certain abbreviations, like UPC code, HIV virus, please RSVP, DOS operating system, and AC current.  My favorite is PIN number.  But I still use the term.  The technically correct PI number just wouldn't roll off the tongue well, unless maybe you're referring to how many peach cobblers your aunt Bertha made last year.

A working awareness of this kind of thing can be handy to writers, because cutting out redundancies provides us with yet another way to "write tight."  An argument can even be made that such common and inoffensive phrases as sit down, stand up, nod your head, or shrug your shoulders are literary overkill as well, and do nothing except add extra words.  Why not just say (or write) sit, stand, nod, and shrug?  Where else would you stand but up?  What else would you shrug except your shoulders?

Unintentional Mistakes

Even if you're not a writer, here are a few more redundancies that come to mind:

twelve noon

sum total

commute back and forth

mental telepathy

advance reservations

drowned to death

merge together

observe by watching

armed gunman

visible to the eye

for all intents and purposes

hot-water heater

overexaggerate
false pretense

hollow tube

disappear from sight

myself personally

a prediction about the future

safe haven
during the course of

regular routine
a variety of different items

filled to capacity

pre-recorded

a pair of twins

unexpected surprise*

the reason is because

originally created

red in color

few in number

poisonous venom


* could also mean a pair of twins

Do you ever find yourself using these (or similar) phrases when you speak?  More importantly, do you embarrass yourself by using them when you write?  I try to watch for--and correct--them in my own manuscripts, but I'm sure some of them manage to make it through intact.  Can you think of others that I neglected to mention?  Are there any that you find particularly irritating?

The End Result

Time for a confession, here: I will probably (and happily) continue to use many of these redundancies in everyday conversation, and even in writing if they're a part of dialogue.  Sometimes they just "sound right."  But I wouldn't want to use them in a column like this one.

In point of fact, lest any of you protest against forward progress, past history reveals an unconfirmed rumor that a knowledge of repetitious redundancy is an absolute essential and that the issue might possibly grow in size to be a difficult dilemma. If there are any questions about the basic fundamentals, I'll be glad to revert back and spell it out in detail. And even repeat it again.

Or maybe postpone it until later.