Literature: April 2003 Archive Page

Play the part of the famous lovers with this customized version of the classic Shakespearean drama. Relive the thrill of classic lines with you in them.

"Oh Brad, Brad. Wherefore art thou Brad?"
"But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Helen is the sun."

What's more, if you choose the Happy Ending Version a new scene is added with a twist -- the lovers live happily ever after! A short scene is added after Act V Scene III. It turns out the apothecary's poison didn't work and Romeo survives, and Juliet's stabbing of herself merely made her pass out."

The "Happy Ending Version"? I bite my thumb at Customized Classics and say, "Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!" -- Brad and Helen, Act IV Scene V --DGJ

Update, 01 May: The good sports at Customized Classics write, "Heh. Methinks the blogger doth protest too much," and offered me a 20% discount. --Romeo and Juliet Starring YOU as Romeo or Juliet and a special someone as your true love (Customized Classics)

"Anyone can write a bad poem. To appreciate a good one, though, takes knowledge and commitment. As a society, we lack this knowledge and commitment. People don’t possess the patience to read a poem 20 times before the sound and sense of it takes hold. They aren’t willing to let the words wash over them like a wave, demanding instead for the meaning to flow clearly and quickly. They want narrative-driven forms, stand-alone art that doesn’t require an understanding of the larger context.|I, too, want these things." Bruce Wexler

--Poetry is Dead. Does Anybody Really Care?MSNBC/Newsweek)

A heartfelt elegy, but perhaps overstated. Due to the enthusiasm of several members of the UWEC English faculty and a larger number of students, the local scene in Eau Clare features visiting poets, poetry slams and more. Will the students continue their love for poetry after they graduate? One hopes so. Wexler's essay is perhaps an agit-prop piece, inciting the faithful to rise up and take action. Don't miss the reference to Frost in the closing lines.

"If you like Interactive Fiction at all, I would like to draw your attention to Ad Verbum, a marvellous game written in 2000 by Nick Montfort. When I first downloaded this, I really didn't expect it to be any fun at all -- I prefer IF that is more a story than a game, and I generally detest puzzle-heavy games because they tend to get me stuck early. As Graham Nelson puts it, an adventure game is a narrative at war with a crossword puzzle; in this game, the narrative doesn't really put up much of a fight at all. And I love it! Because the puzzles in Ad Verbum are really good puzzles." Arnt Richard Johnson

--Ad Verbum: A Successful IF ExperimentARJ)

With Stuart Moulthrop, Montfort will be presenting "Face It, Tiger, You Just Hit the Jackpot: Reading and Playing Cadre's Varicella." at Digital Arts and Culture. The paper, among other things, challenges Nelson's formulation of IF, and suggests that theorists and artists move beyond the old categories and recognize works of IF as accomplishments in their own right.

Completely unrelated query. The quote I took from Johnson's website included a passage that reads "any fun at all &emdash; I prefer". I changed the "&emdash;" to "--", which was surely the author's intention. But I feel somehow that I may have violated the Blogger's Code by changing a quotation. Oh, well. Nick's site seems to be down for the moment... here's the ELO 2002 gallery page for Ad Verbum.

"Cecile de Brunhoff, the inspiration for Babar, the enchanting little elephant whose adventures captivated generations of children, has died in Paris. She was 99."

--Inspiration for 'Babar the Elephant' DiesAP)

To say that somebody was the inspiration for a cartoon Elephant suggests something unflattering. The headline could have been clearer: "Inspiration for 'Babar' Stories Dies" ?