Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Johnny (or Janey) Quest

Hey, I got your postcard. That's cool cut-out action! How do you do what you do so well? Do you have one of those circle-cutting Exacto knives? I could never control mine too well. I'll post a photo today.

I like your fairy tale in SF idea. The 80s are kind of fading from my memory—I was so young then. A teenager. Good age for a fairy tale though--starting out in life, maturing into an adult. Except the twist is I found a ton of adults who were not mature at all and were seemingly clinging to their feckless youth with everything they had.

Would it be funny to make the protagonist(s) already mature and wise (if raw and naive at first)? And everyone else completely out of their minds? Kind of like Through the Looking Glass, but semi-reality-based on SF.

What are your favorite fairy tales? When I was a kid, I always changed the adventurer-type characters into girls in my mind. I pictured a princess leaving a palace, dressing up in guy clothes with her trusty bow and arrow, and heading out to slay some dragons and such. I held onto this idea for a long time throughout my later childhood. I just didn't like traditional girl roles in stories. Still don't. There's attempts now to make girls more active in fairy tale movies and I wonder if little girls are relating to that. I bet some are.

Well, I'm rambling again. I guess if you're thinking fairy tale--the quest is kind of the epic goal the hero must accomplish. The quest in SF during the 80s was to survive on next to nothing while pursuing "art." Did anyone we know achieve this? Now it's impossible in that city because of the cost of living. The economy won! The artists must move to Oakland. And now that's becoming too expensive for many (rents are crazy-high). It's an ongoing quest in California. I hear Milwaukee has an active artist community. It's probably pretty affordable.

If the quest is to find true love, then this fairy tale would fail miserably, at least for a younger character in the 80s. I knew people who shacked up with each other then but none of them lasted. I think I better think about this further. Coming-of-age script where no one comes of age, finds maturity, true love or artistic freedom. Would the happy ending be the protagonist moving back to San Leandro or something? What a downer! Ha.

1 comment:

Dee See said...

You do know that I Exacto-ed for a living at Tower for a while, right? I got pretty good at it, especially with regard to foam core. I kind of messed up the 5 in this card but made an ok recovery. I don't miss foam core signage but in hind sight appreciate the appreciation it gave me for a clean line.