Friday, December 7, 2007

Guitarred and Feathered (and edits)

Hey bitches (And Doctor Johns).

Here's the link to my work-in-progress website. There is more content in progress that isn't live yet.

http://alex.benevent.googlepages.com/

Check it out and let me know what you think.
I'm a little disappointed by the limitations of the medium but that's just because I'm stupid and don't know HTML or java or flash or any of that stuff. I had much bigger goals for this project, so I'm just going to have to make it extra weird.

Comments?
EDIT: I've been trying to make some more content that will hopefully endear readers to my protagonist of sorts. Content'll go live when I get off my couch, because my laptop is old and shitty, and won't work right when I try to publish content on my webspace. So check for it later, even if you read through it earlier today and already decided it was shit, then there'll be more shit for you to look at later.

Plus my glass of milk is out here and I'm not done with it yet, and my desktop is in my bedroom, and there's no way I can get there without getting up. I don't know much about architecture, but that's bullshit.

-A

13 comments:

Mike K said...

Hey, pretty cool. I'm not sure where you're going with it though. What are you trying to say/prove? Bottom line up front, as they say.

I wouldn't worry about the limitations...it looks like you're doing just fine w/ the text positioning and everything. Maybe if I knew how it ended, I'd tell you what I thought of the idea...

Adam Johns said...

How's this for a timely response?

Since this has multiple branches or pathways, I ironically read the diagnosis (http://alex.benevent.googlepages.com/2crazy)
last instead of first. I think my response would have been the same if I read it the other way around, but here goes, regardless...

Your use of the form is imaginative and effective; you pull off the institutional language well enough to make it hit hard. Funny how in our culture documents can be more real than people sometimes, huh?

Now, regarding all the other material, detailing this character. I liked it in small doses, and I liked your little visual flourishes, but overall it was highly repetitive. Johny is mesmerizing because his madness has links to the real world, and because it (and his language) - _progresses_. Ditto with other famously mad characters (Hamlet, Lear, Captain Ahab, etc. etc.). Lear is interesting not just because he lives inside his head, but because of what puts him there and how the contents of his head change in response to the world about him.

You could use some of that - you need more of a narrative drive than you have at the moment. You don't just want to make a fucked up character, but a fucked up character we care about.

A. Benevent said...

excellent advice, both Mike and Dr. Johns. I will take both into full consideration and make changes.

Also, I believe this marks the first non-quoted F bomb (that is, one that has not been read aloud from a book we were reading in class) that Dr. Johns has dropped.

It truly is the end of the year.

Adam Johns said...

That's entirely true - but keep in mind that it was for your benefit, a nod to your prowess at seamlessly cursing your way through class...

A. Benevent said...

I can contort the word "fuck" into more and varied uses than you, with your doctorate and considerable mastery of the English language could do with an entire arsenal of words, Dr. Johns.

Haha.

But anyway, what I'm trying to do with this project is, to dumb things way down, have this guy who's pretty fucked up, but at least he's only marginally screwed up some of the time, but every now and then and if you read deeper here or there there are little hints towards a more violent side of him. I haven't really gotten around to working that in yet, and I may have bitten off more than I can chew, because it is really difficult to write a plot for things in a format like this.

But you know what?
I'll manage.

Adam Johns said...

I once met a guy when I shined a flashlight into his eyes (thinking he was an animal), and after some yelling and jumping around and exchanging of identities, he said:

"Fucking fuck, man, I thought you were the fucking park service."

I'm just saying he'd give you a run for your money.

Also, I almost (accidentally) caused him to be boiled to death, but that's another story.

For context, this was in Yellowstone National Park, where dangerous animals and boiling water are in abundance.

A. Benevent said...

Haha, you've certainly had an odd run thus far, that's for damn sure.

So, freshman year, I drank. A lot. Like, enough to probably die a few times. Consequently I spent a lot of time drunk.

I was always a bit of a hothead, and when I'm out and with my friends and someone does something that bugs me, they find out about it (this almost resulted in a very West Side Story-esque knife/chain/brass knuckles showdown between cliques, but I digress).

Moral of the story is that on one such night, while particularly intoxicated, I got into a heated debate with a friend of mine over a topic I've long since forgotten.

He was a big logic fan, and so he had his quid-pro-quo and strawman bullshit going, and a fairly well-assembled (for drunk college kids) stance on the issue.

I, on the other hand, probably didn't even have so much as a cursory knowledge of the topic, and resorted to petty name calling and personal insults, the finale of which was a three to five minute vulgarity-laden rant during which I was later told I didn't repeat myself once.

So, we all won that day. I won an argument, and my friends learned some terms that even I think are inappropriate to print here, and they came out of my mouth.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
A. Benevent said...

Dear Yomi,

I would say something nasty to you if you couldn't bench two of me.

Sincerely,
Alex

Unknown said...

you two should just tie the knot now and spare the rest of us from trying to decipher the nature of the chemistry between you two. ha

Unknown said...

2.5 of you would be more accurate assuming u way 145. lol @ 2.5 x 145

A. Benevent said...

145 pounds of pure, unadulterated, not-made-from-concentrate awesome.

Mike K said...

For some reason, I just imagined Adam being able to bench like Yomi. I laughed.

13 comments, I think that's the record for this year. I should get a record for being able to type this well while totally wasted...