The First Meeting with Dayna and Co.

Meeting

At the end of last week myself, Mus, Kayleigh and Sam all met up with Dayna to have a chat about the Interactive Classics project. 

The meeting was really interesting and I think it would be nice if we met like this regularly. This was suggested during the meeting, so it looks like that will probably be the case. 

Dayna was switched on to the project idea after reading a book by French renaissance writer, Francoise Rabelais. The book was Gargantua, and is a fine example of 16th century satire. One of the sections in the book describes the protagonists' plight to find the perfect item to wipe his butt with - and this was the section Dayna favoured most:

I have', answered Gargantua, 'by a long and curious experience found out a means to wipe my bum. The most lordly, the most excellent, the most convenient that was ever seen. I have wiped my tail with a hen, with a cock, with a pullet, with a calf's skin, with a hare, with a pigeon, with a cormorant, with an attorney's bag, with a Montero, with a falconer's lure. But to conclude, I say and maintain that of all the torcheculs, arsewisps, bumfodders, tail-napkins, bunghole cleansers, and wipe-breeches, there is none in the world comparable to the neck of a goose, that is well downed, if you hold her head betwixt your legs. And believe me therein upon mine honour, for you will thereby feel in your nockhole a most wonderful pleasure, both in regard of the softness of the said down and of the temporate heat of the goose, which is easily communicated to the bum-gut and the rest of the inwards, in so far as to come even to the regions of the heart and brains.

The Story Mechanics

I've signed up to the next Story Mechanics lab session. I'm really looking forward to this because I haven't really got any idea what it'll be like. The session is titled "The Protagonist", and is going to be held near the end of this month, but the date is yet to be confirmed.

Personal Thoughts

I previously expressed an interest to focus on the interactive side of the adaptation process; but I didn't really have any real thoughts on what I wanted to achieve.

During the meeting I began to think about the way "O' Brother, Where Art Thou" was created. I love the indirect idea of adaptation, and the way in which the story is taken and applied in a completely different context. So sort of using the original stories' events as a vague guide to tell your own story.

That lead me on to thinking about folk tales and the way in which they were spread because of the important strong life lessons they preached. And then I started to think about how interactive story telling could harness these lessons. So say if I was to take something like the original tale of Cinderella from the Grimm collection (which differs greatly from the Disney adaptation, and can be read here), or at least the purpose/lesson from it, and weaved it into a new context, in which you make the decisions. Basically a half breed between an adaptation and a Choose your Own Adventure! book. I think this idea is still pretty crummy, but I normally need to go through a bunch of these ideas before the good ones start arriving. So I'm not too worried as I have an avenue to start looking into at least.

That's all folks.