I see no reason to segregate scientific and technical posts from humanistic ones. In my life, scientific concerns mix with ethical ones, and they shade into a philosophical interest in the nature of cognition and the nature of people. Doing science is as creative as writing fiction, and I get inspiration for both from the same gods.
You will find little here on current politics. I'm activist, but in causes not symptoms. Experience in martial arts shows me that the sure way to lose is reactivity; but if you stay cool and remember your training and what you're there for then you achieve goals and, when conflict is unavoidable, you fight and win. The idea of the liberal arts I was brought up in is that broad understanding of cultures and ideas gives you deeper, better goals -- making success more likely and more satisfying. Negatively, the hysteria since 9/11 shows how a country frightened and reactive can destroy itself more than an enemy can. I'm trying to contribute by changing the terms of discourse. See 
One fact shouldn't require special mention; but -- given the nature of the society in which I've grown up and lived -- it often does: namely that I'm gay. You'll see it in some posts and in some links below. I'm proud of being gay and do not hide; more about this on the 
This post introduces the ongoing series Poetry in the Arts.
“Do you know my poetry”
– Johnny Depp as William Blake, in Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man
Movie audiences have always demanded realism — or so studio executives have always thought — realism and expensive production values.It’s funny, though, if you think about it: Film is a non-realistic art form.It’s true enough that a film, unlike a play, can be shot on an actual location instead of a set. But in bringing the action to the audience, it’s the opposite. A play shows it to you live, before your very eyes, in real time. A movie shows you an artificial montage of disconnected shots taken at different times, from viewing locations and angles that may be impossible in real life, and shown at different magnifications.There are rules for making a film appear “realistic” — they evolve historically. Audiences accept and crave what they’re used to, with intermittent changes precipitated by trend-setting films.Some of us feel that one role of film criticism is to produce loud buzzing noises that prevent audiences and filmmakers from going to sleep in an endless cycle of mutual gratification. — Other critics feel their role is to praise routine work that’s skillfully done. They, and some audience members, do not like being rudely woken up.
The purpose of “continuity” is to supply shots that can be mounted together to make the audience look through what’s on the screen, as through a transparent window — to see the action that was filmed, unaware of the screen’s, or the filmmakers’, existence.
But — just as there have always been some filmmakers who feel that expensive production values are only one way to communicate with an audience — there have always been some filmmakers who feel that audiences are capable of simultaneously following both what’s on the screen and the action that the screen portrays. This method has its advantages.
It increases the complexity of the meaning that can be portrayed, because it increases the number of points of view from which the action can be seen.
It frees filmmakers to use mise-en-scene and montage for expressive purposes instead of having to use them to enforce the illusion of realism.
It means that the filmmakers and the audience could think of each other as human beings engaged in recognizable activities.
What I want to look at in this “Poetry in Art” series is: What is it that gives poetry to writing, or movies, or painting, or any work of art?
Poetry is a quality that some writing and some films have. It’s not the only way that writing can be successful or even artistic. But it is one way, a way that I respond to strongly.
Poetry in writing and in film is related to a similar quality in painting, in music, and in poems.
Table of Contents for this series: Poetry in the Arts
Tags: Art, Movies, Poetry, Screenwriting, Writing
