Russell's Paradox - final version

Russell's Paradox now has an "official blog", russells-paradox.blogspot.com!



It's a finalist at the Raw Science FF 2020 and it's listed on IMDB!

RIIIIBIT! (short story 16)

Over a year ago, as an exercise, I started writing one short story a week. This was something Harlan Ellison (I think) suggested to one of his fans, his reasoning being "You can't write 52 bad short stories in a row." I'm not sure about that, but here's one of those stories.

The story below was inspired by the one act play by Ferenc Molnár "A Matter of Husbands" written in 1922 and published in English in 1923 (hence in the public domain). His play is about two women and a man, where one woman is lying to the other. It's so convincing that the the reveal at the end is that she was lying. I wondered, what if both were witches, one real and one not, and bother were lying.

*
Fred Quibble is a lawyer with a schoolboy’s crush on beautiful BeBe. BeBe Majors, a young actress who’s full of life and loves to flash her glittery dressing gown with an exotic design. They enter BeBe’s dressing room and Fred shuts the door.

BeBe’s dressing room has a dressing screen, a dressing table with various make-up trays and bowls spilling over with jewelry. A flower bouquet sits on a small table between a sofa and a chair. Behind the chair is a small closet. The closet door is open.

“She’s a witch, BeBe.” Fred says.

BeBe admires herself in the big mirror on her dressing table and barely looks at Fred. “All husbands say that about their wives, Freddie dear.”

“You don’t understand,” Fred says. Fred seems worried.

There’s a soft knock on BeBe’s dressing room door. BeBe looks at Fred and points to the closet. He tip-toes into the closet and quietly shuts the door behind
him.

Backstage, in the hallway outside a dressing room, Jane Quibble paints a portrait of a typical plain, worried, young woman with a nervous disposition. She’s dressed in a modest coat, a simple dress and well-worn shoes. She clutches her purse to her like it was a teddy bear. Jane knocks again timidly at BeBe’s door.

BeBe opens the door. “Come in, I’m just putting on my make-up. Do I know you?” BeBe asks.

“I’m Jane Quibble. You don’t know me but I know you,” Jane says.

BeBe waves Jane in. “I should hope so, my poster's in the lobby upstairs,” BeBe says with a bell-like laugh. “What can I do for you?”

“I know how easy it is for you. One night you dress like an exotic witch, and the next night you prance around practically nude like a Greek goddess. You’re beautiful and I’m not. What chance have I against you? I admit that when it comes to looks I’m no match for you.”

“You really think my costume is attractive? I’m playing the witch in Cinderella. You know, ‘abra-cadabra, alakazam!’ and the prince turns into a frog.”

“Yes, and and I don’t want my husband to turn into a frog.”

“I’m completely confused. What are you talking about?”

“Give me back my husband, or else!” Jane shouts.

“Give you back your husband? What's this about? What husband?”

“Give me back my husband, or else!”

“You’re wondering which one. Brown hair, mustache, glasses. He is your agent’s lawyer, Fred.”

“Oh, Freddie the lawyer! I met him once ... yes, of course.”

“You’ve met him more than once. Just give him back to me. It’s a simple request.”

“Again, I’m at a loss. Why do you say I have Freddie?”

“You just admitted that you knew him.”

“Of course I know him. He drew up my last contract. A nice man with a beard –”

“– mustache –”

“– mustache, glasses, and blond hair.”

“– brown hair.”

“I meant to say brown. ... Listen, if you weren’t such a foolish young woman I’d be angry. Where in the world did you get the idea that I’ve taken your husband from you?”

Jane pulls out an envelope from her purse. “Then what about this letter?”

“Letter? To me? Let me see,” BeBe says.

“No. I’ll read it to you.” Jane opens it and reads tearfully. “Ahem. ‘My darling, I won’t be able to see you at the theater tonight. Urgent business. A thousand apologies. Ten thousand kisses. Freddie.’ What do you say to that?”

“Oh!”

“I found it on his desk yesterday. He forgot it to pack it into his briefcase. And I opened it.” Jane sheds a tear.

BeBe offers Jane a tissue. “Are you saying your lawyer husband Freddie writes a letter and leaves it behind him on the desk accidentally? A good lawyer would never do that. Their livelihood depends on keeping track of papers - contracts, depositions, and so on.”

“I see.”

“Tell me, has your husband been ignoring you recently, but he used to be attentive and affectionate?” BeBe asks.

“Why, yes,” Jane admits.

“It’s perfectly clear that your husband has been playing a little joke on you to make you jealous.”

“You really think so?” Jane relaxes.

“There, dear, you mustn’t feel bad. You think your husband’s in a world of perpetual temptation, in a backstage world full of beautiful sirens without a moral in sight. You both hate us and fear us. No one knows that better than your husband. And so he writes a letter and leaves it behind for you to discover.”

“It’s forgotten already, dear.”

“What was it, ‘abra ...’?” Jane asks.

“abra-cadabra, alakazam!” BeBe reminds her.

“Abra-cadabra, Ala-kazam!” Jane says with a flourish!

RIBIT! A frog croaks in BeBe’s closet.

“That’s it!” BeBe turns around fishes through her bowl of jewels. She’s already forgotten about Jane.

“Oh, okay. Well, thank you again.” Jane fades out.

When BeBe looks around Jane is gone. “Freddie, she’s gone.”

BeBe gets up, goes to the closet. RIIIIBIT! Freddie the Frog croaks again on the floor of the closet. BeBe doesn’t even notice and drops her dressing gown on top of him, as she draped her witch costume over her body, admiring herself in the mirror.

Cargill's horror writing tips

While I'm not on twitter, screenwriter and novelist C. Robert Cargill is and he's offered up a number of horror writing tips that I think apply generally, with some modifications. He also has a podcast with David Chen, Write Along, which I like.

*

How to write a horror movie by C. Robert Cargill:

1. The characters are the most important part. If we care about them, we’ll get scared for them. Write interesting or likable characters; preferably both.
   
2. Write what scares you. I clowns freak you out, write clowns. If decapitation keeps you up at night, write that. What scares you scares others. Use that.
   
3. Make sure something scary happens every ten pages or so. Any longer and the audience forgets they’re in a horror film.
   
4. Be funny if and when you can. Not so much that it is a comedy, but used as a tension release, the audience will reset and be ready to be scared again. Character humor often works best here.
   
5. If the characters aren’t changed by their exposure to scary shit, that should be the whole point of the character.
   
6. If it's science fiction, the audience will expect everything to make logical sense. If the horror is magical in origin, they will give you much more leeway.
   
7. Imagine all the possible ways your characters could escape any deadly situation, because the audience most assuredly will. The characters should make the most logical choice.
   
8. Horror tends to be brief. Unless you have a lot of deep character work, aim for -100 pages.
   

Black vs Billem & Howe, LLC (short story 15)

Over a year ago, as an exercise, I started writing one short story a week. This was something Harlan Ellison (I think) suggested to one of his fans, his reasoning being "You can't write 52 bad short stories in a row." I'm not sure about that, but here's one of those stories.

The story below was inspired by the story of King Balak and Balaam in the Book of Numbers.

*
In the large, modern, glass and steel building which headquarters “White Industrials”, two men meet in a conference room with a beautiful view. It’s got a long wooden table, surrounded by expensive, plushy office chairs, and a coffee maker in the corner. They sit in two chairs near the window.

Dressed in a suit and tie, business consult John Billem holds out his laminated business card,
Billem and Howe, INC - Business Consultancy Group
with a welcoming smile. “Hello, I’m John Billem. Call me John. Are you Mr Black?”

Tom Black, also in a suit and tie, takes his card, stuffs it in his pocket. “Yes, I am. Call me Tom. Nice to meet you.” They shake hands. Mr Black indicates a chair. “Please, have a seat.”

“Well, you called me. How can I help you, Mr Black?”

“As you know, our main competitor is ‘Blue Industrials’. To be perfectly frank, business is suffering. We don’t just want to beat them but to recover market share, we need to drive them to ruin. Do you get my drift?”

“I take it you don’t like the people at ‘Blue Industrials’ and you want my firm to help you.”

“Precisely. Damn the folks at ‘Blue Industrials’ to hell is what I say,” Black said, gnashing his teeth. “Maybe you can plant a spy in their midst, or insert defective parts into one of their factories? You're the expert, you tell me.”

“I’ll consult the lead partner, Mr Howe. We’ll have an answer for you tomorrow.”

“Sounds good. Anything I should do in the meanwhile?”

“I recommend donating a million dollars worth of your Deluxe Gizmos to charity. I will do wonders for your public perception.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of money. And the Deluxe Gizmo is our top of the line product.”

“The better to increase your impact. Also, no one will suspect you if they know how generous you are.”

“Makes sense. Okay, will do.”

“And, of course, pray.”

“Isn’t that why I hire you?” Mr Black said with a snotty tone.

*
The next day they meet again in the offices of White Industrials.

“Good morning, Mr Black. My lead partner Mr Howe did not recommend planting a spy in their midst, nor did he recommend we insert defective parts in one of their factories.”

“That’s sad to here.”

“Yes, but he's the boss. Which charity did you contribute your million dollars to?”

“Corporation for Lying to the Media,” says Black.

“That’s a 503(c)?”

“Oh, yes. Lying is perfectly legal.”

“Odd choice. I would have gone with the Diabetes Foundation if I were you.”

“Why is that?” Mr Black asks.

“It's an important issue. Mr Howe's youngest daughter has diabetes. They are very close.”

“I see. Would you recommend donating a million dollars worth of Deluxe Gizmos to the Diabetes Foundation?”

“Yes I do. And I’ll go back to Mr Howe and see what he says about your idea to wipe your enemy off the face of the planet. We’ll have an answer for you tomorrow. Sound good?”

“Sounds great. See you tomorrow.”

“And, of course, pray.”

“That’s why I hire you,” Mr Black snapped.



*
The next day, they meet yet again.

“Good morning, Mr Black. I’m sorry to say that my lead partner Mr Howe, again, did not recommend planting a spy in their midst, nor did he recommend we plant defective parts in one of their factories.”

“That’s very disappointing news to hear. We spend two million dollars already, and for nothing. Is there anything we can do to turn this around?”

“This good news is that the diabetes of Mr Howe’s youngest child is doing better.”

“Good for her, but what about me?”

“But Mr Howe's wife has just been diagnosed with breast cancer.”

“Let me guess: you’d recommend donating a million dollars worth of Deluxe Gizmos to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation?”

“You guessed it! And I’ll go back to Mr Howe and see what he says about your idea to destroy Blue Industrials. We’ll have an answer for you tomorrow. Sound good?”

“Okay. See you tomorrow and the news had better be good.”

“And, of course, pray.”

“That's what you're hired for,” Mr Black snorted.



*
The next day, they meet yet again. This time, there are only folding chairs in the conference room of White Industrials. The coffee maker is boxed up.

“Mr Black, what happened?”

“On the news of three million dollars in losses, thanks to you, our stock price dropped. Blue Industrials bought the majority share in our company. Today is my last day.”

“I’m not surprised. The fact is, Blue Industrials hired my partner Mr Howe as a business consultant. He just advised them to pray.”

“Well, what do you have to say about that?”

“Of course, I'm going to tell you to --”

"Oh, shut up."

Aristotelean comedy according to Cooper, 2

I am fascinated with the academic side of comedy. So this post, a continuation of this one, won't be funny or humorous, but more about how philosophers think about comedy linguistically. I'm just an interested spectator, not a researcher myself but, hopefully this motivates you the reader to explore this interesting topic yourself!

Again, my source shall be Lane Cooper's 1922 book, An Aristotelian Theory of Comedy with an adaptation of the Poetics and a translation of the Tractatus Coislinianus. To begin, I quote (in some cases, I've paraphrased for ease of understanding, with my [comments] in square brackets) from its section "Fundamental demands of Aristotle":

To judge from the Poetics, what would Aristotle demand of a comedy as conducing to the function of a perfect work of art in this kind?

1. First of all, organic unity. To him, a work of art is like a living animal in that it is a unified organism. Even though the scheme of the whole were distorted for comic purposes, still it would be complete and unified; we might compare it to the outline of a ludicrous animal, which does not lack a sort of comic perfection.
   
2. Aristotle would demand that it produce the proper effect of comedy not any chance effect, but a calculated one ...
   [In other words, it's not unintentionally funny, such as an old scifi film with bad special effects.]
   
3. The correct means [calculated to effect comedy, as above] consist chiefly in what is said and done, and secondarily in the employment of music and spectacle. But underneath all lies the proper use of the law of proportion, and the law of necessity in the order of [plot] details. That is, whether he keeps things in proportion, or throws them out of proportion, the writer of comedy must understand true perspective. He must understand the law of proportion as surely as any other artist ...
   
4. According to Aristotle, in every drama [whether comedy or tragedy] there are six constitutive elements, to each of which the poet must give due attention. These are
   
• plot;
  
• ethos (shown in the kind of choices made by the characters);
  
• dianoia (the way in which the characters think and reason, ...);
  
• the diction, the medium in which the entire story is worked out ... through the utterance of the characters [eg, dialogue];
  
• the musical element in the drama (including individual songs, and instrumental accompaniment);
  
• spectacle (all that appertains to costume, stage-setting, scenery, and the like).
  
5. As in tragedy, so in comedy Aristotle would regard the plot, as the chief of the constituent parts of the play, since everything else depends on that. He would deem the plot to be fundamental... plot in its most general sense means to him the basic idea of a play.
   

The moon of the seventh witch (short story 14)

Over a year ago, as an exercise, I started writing one short story a week. This was something Harlan Ellison (I think) suggested to one of his fans, his reasoning being "You can't write 52 bad short stories in a row." I'm not sure about that, but here's one of those stories.

The story below was inspired by a talks given at the 2019 Columbia Film Festival on horror-comedy (in particular a script reading and writer Jamie Nash's commentary on it).

*
The local hairdresser's is a safe place for many women. Safe for the neighborhood women to talk about problems with their children, their parents, their husband or boyfriend (or wife or girlfriend), their annoying neighbor. Safe to talk about all these things, then get some comforting advice and a new look. When a safe place suddenly becomes unsafe, and trusted advice becomes evil intent, then it can seem like the world has flipped over on its edge. But, we're getting ahead of ourselves...
Chinese cousins Min and Jie are two very ambitious filmmakers living in Bejing. Much more Laurel and Hardy than the Duffer brothers. They work in their Grandma Nishi's beauty salon. Mostly it's sweeping after the business has closed for the day, setting up things before the start of the day, but sometimes it is to drive out and run errands or pick up supplies. For example, every day they pick up lunch for the hair dressers, a simple task which seems to take them twice the time it should. But Nishi is a patient grandma, as long as they behave. But when they misbehave, well, we're getting ahead of ourselves again ...
By a stroke of sheer luck, during promotion of a previous film,  Seventh Moon (a horror film based on Chinese occult), the famous director Ernesto del Luna had mentioned to one of his Chinese producers, an old wizardly looking fellow names Wu, that he has a special interest in the Chinese occult. In fact, on the plane flight over, del Luna said he'd read a book on the powerful Chinese witch Nishang. He is looking forlocations in mainland China for his next horror movie, one that might take place in a beauty salon. Limited locations, low budget, prefect.
So Wu made sure del Luna was invited to have dinner in the house of Min and Jie's grandma, Nishi. A large dinner table was set and del Luna managed to eat a good proportion using chopsticks. To make polite conversation, he mentioned his fascination with Chinese magic and the book he read a book on Nishang. (Little did he know that Grandma Nishi is none other than Nishang herself.) Min and Jie ask del Luna for details form the book. del Luna tries to recall the few facts he can remember. Nishi politely avoids correcting him, but instead smiles at his mistakes. She knows the book. She thinks it's full of errors, but she doesn't tell anyone. del Luna also (probably just to be polite) said he admired a small ornate carving, a piece of art in Nishi's home. (Little did he know that this was something used by Nishang in her magic. The carving is associated to an evil spirit monster that Nishi can summon at will using it. But, again, we are getting ahead of ourselves.) Nishi politely changes the topic of conversation to her hair salon. Min and Jie kindly offer to show it to del Luna before he has to return to America.

What does a witch have to do with movie directors and hairdressers you ask? This is where the genius of the great Mr. del Luna comes in. After he visits Nishi's hair salon, he decides his next movie is going to be set in Maryland, not China, and its title will be The Moon of the Seventh Witch. Using local talent lets him save money and time on traveling. Besides, the visit to Nishi's salon reminded him of the Cape St. Clair Hairsalon only an hour's drive away for his house. 
Back to our dynamic duo, Min and Jie. They are not just cousins but best friends, united in the desire to be the next Ernesto del Luna, at least whatever his analog would be in Bejing. This is why they've set their sights on making a BTS video documentary of Ernesto del Luna's The Moon of the Seventh Witch. They know the film is to be shot in Maryland, but that doesn't stop our tenatious heros. With confident enthusiasm, let's call it pure chutzpah, Min and Jie approach the legendary Ernesto del Luna, about their BTS documentary idea. Ernesto says "No, thanks, too busy.'' 
Not one to waste time, del Luna starts casting actors for his film. The moon witch will be played by a method actress named Devilla. One name, that's the way she likes it. And don't kid around and call her The Blair Witch, or she'll go full-blown bat-shit crazy on you. Don't ask me why. I think she thinks she's more of a bad-ass witch than Blair Witch ever was, but trust me you'll want to avoid that topic of conversation. (And don't mention Devilla to Nishang, who is dismissive of Devilla and her like, as being witch wannabes.)
Not ones to take no for an answer, Min and Jie "borrow'' (steal) Nishi's witch carving, get on the plane and tell del Luna that they will film BTS footage for free and do free promos in China for his film. They plead and give him the carving as a prop. Touched, he relents, thinking this will make a nice prop for Devilla to use.
The witch is a moon witch, each full moon brings out her evil powers. To prepare for the full moon, Devilla enters the Cape St. Clair Hairsalon and gets the so-called "The Devil Made Me Do It Perm,'' very popular around Halloween. The key scenes of the soon-to-be-blockbuster horror film will take place inside this very same salon.
Min and Jie visit the Cape St. Clair Hairsalon and get a haircut. Yes, they cut men's hair too. Even if Min and Jie did end up looking a little goofy in their new hairdos, they're happy to see that the salon had very good indoor lighting, suitable for their BTS shoot.
Back in China, Nishi discovers her carving is missing. She is not happy. Instantly, storm clouds form overhead.
Once film production begins, a lot of things go wrong. Weird things. Props go missing. Not Devilla's prop from China, other props, like a big, hairdresser's chair. Who steals a used hairdresser's chair? And even eerier, some things show up in the mirrors (the Cape St. Clair Hairsalon has lots of mirrors), but not in reality. The alien from Alien, the ghostly creatures from Seventh Moon, the very old possessed naked lady from The Shining, the bigfoot creature from Exists, all appear in the mirror to one crew/cast member or another. Each of these occurrences causes someone to be so scared on set that an accident occurs, either hurting someone or causing expensive damage. Another crazy thing: Crew got lost on the way to set, or their car breaks down, all too often. Then there's the biggie: actors don't show up on time, and they blame their call sheet. The assistant director even double checks the call sheets after they are printed, but some actors still get delivered incorrect call sheets. 
But not Devilla, she was always on time and prepared. No accidents for her.
Mysterious things happen to Min and Jie while making the BTS footage. They noticed that Nishi's carving has a cavity just the right size for a GoPro camera to fit in. The camera lens aligns perfectly with a hole in the carving making it seem like the carving has an eye. Their video show ghosts and creatures, or at least some unexplained images, in the mirrors but that weren't seen on set, but only for the gopro carving video. Their other cameras don't record these spirits in the mirror. For example, in one clip, Devilla disappears and on video turns into the evil spirit monster Nishang. In reality, she was there the whole time.
As the effects become more and more bizarre. Ernesto del Luna worries something is cursing his film. One weekend, there's a break in filming when Mr. del Luna goes back to Baltimore to talk to his financiers. They love the BTS footage and are paying extra to get it somehow incorporated into the script. That weekend, while del Luna is away, Devilla disappears, turns into Nishang, and brings to life the creatures from ``Altered,'' ``Seventh Moon,'' ``Lovely Molly,'' and ``Exists.'' These monsters kill everyone but Jie and Min, each dying a different but equally a gruesome death. Nishi appears to Jie and Min in a vision, then after lecturing then on the evils of disobeying elders, the stolen prop disappears and reappears in Nishi's home in China. Then the witch Nishang appears, makes some horrible noises, right there in the middle of the Cape St. Clair Hairsalon, and disappears into dust. Jie and Min pee their pants.
Ernesto del Luna returns to a destroyed set. He cries, "my film, it's gone, it's all gone. All the investors money, down the drain.'' But Jie and Min realize all their eerie BTS footage has survived. Ernesto smiles. He knows he's got a movie. He can see it all in that genius head of his. 
Once released, it makes a billion dollars in profits. Moreover, the following year, Cape St. Clair Hairsalon doubles their clientele with their Halloween season "The Devil Made Me Do It'' perm. Everyone's happy. Except Nishang.

Aristotelean comedy according to Cooper, 1

I am fascinated with the academic side of comedy, as this previous post hopefully demonstrated. So this post (or series of them) won't be funny or humorous, but more about how philosophers think about comedy linguistically. I'm just an interested spectator, not a researcher myself but, hopefully this motivates you the reader to explore this interesting topic yourself! 

We start with Aristotle's Poetics, which is a philosophical discussion of drama (especially tragedy) as it relates to epic poetry and stage play dramas. Several academics have conjectured that Aristotle also wrote a second volume concerning comedy (remember the Aristotelean dichotomy drama is either tragedy or comedy). My source shall be Lane Cooper's 1922 book, An Aristotelian Theory of Comedy with an adaptation of the Poetics and a translation of the Tractatus Coislinianus. To quote from its preface:

As the Poetics of Aristotle helps one to understand Greek tragedy and the epic poem, and, if employed with care, modern tragedy and the serious novel, so, it is hoped, the present volume will help college students and others to understand comedies ... have indeed included everything I could find in Aristotle, in his teacher Plato, or in his successors, that might aid us in reconstructing his views on comedy.

In the section "A lost Aristotelian discussion of comedy", Lane says:

It is generally believed that Aristotle included in his writings or lectures a systematic treatment of comedy ... evidence in the Poetics, references in his other works, evidence in other writers who refer to him, and general probability, favor the view that he discussed the subject in more than passing fashion in a written record. ... It is generally agreed that the loss of any discussion of comedy by Aristotle is a very serious one to students of literature.

The question is: if there really was a "lost" Aristotelean treatment of comedy, can we deduce from other sources what it might have said? A significant source of information for Lane Cooper's book is, as mentioned, the Tractatus Coislinianus. According to wikipedia, this is an ancient Greek manuscript outlining a theory of comedy in the tradition of Aristotle's Poetics. Some scholars believe it is the work of a commentator on Aristotle's theory of comedy, some that it's notes or sketches (written by Aristotle or a student of his) of the lost second section of the Poetics, and some believe that it's a later work, perhaps by Theophrastus (the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school). While the Tractatus Coislinianus is significant, it is not primary for Cooper's analysis. The primary source is Aristotle's Poetics.  

 I quote from Cooper's section "Fundamental demands of Aristotle":

According to Aristotle, in every drama there arc six constitutive elements, to each of which the poet must give due attention. These are

1. plot;
2. ethos or moral bent (shown in the kind of choices made by the personages of the drama);
3. dianoia or "intellect" (the way in which the personages think and reason, their generalizations and maxims, their processes in going from the particular to the general or from the general to the par- ticular, and their efforts to magnify or to belittle the importance of things);
4. the diction, the medium in which the entire story is worked out by the poet through the utterance of the personages;
5. melody or the musical element in the drama (including the chants of the chorus, individual songs, and the instrumental accompani- ment);
6. "spectacle" (all that appertains to costume, stage-setting, scenery, and the like).

The composing dramatist obviously does have to attend to these six elements, and the list, as Aristotle correctly observes, is exhaustive. It would be the same for a comic as for a tragic poet.

That's all for now. More in a later post.