Unusual Place where Millions of Characters from Literature Exist and Interact

Somewhere, characters from countless selections of literature and media exist and interact.

Making educated guesses based upon your chosen individuals from novels, movies, etc., take us on a mystery tour of their conversations, actions, and views.

To write your adventure, assume your main character's 1st-person point-of-view, though any other point-of-view would also be fine. (Mention each title in brackets or parentheses).

Place the interacting characters in a particular novel or real-life setting.

Another fascinating possibility is to have them talk and interact with actual famous individuals of human history or the present.

For instance, Huck Finn (Mark Twain's novel) and Wolf Larsen (Jack London's The Sea Wolf) meet John Proctor (the real individual of history or the fictional character in Arthur Miller's The Crucible) one of the falsely accused at the Salem Witchcraft Trials.

Playing around with time and space is a possible option, too.

What if Europeans didn't discover the Americas?!

Or what happens if a current American political leader shows up in 1859 and meets Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara (Margaret Mitchel's Gone with the Wind)?

The possibilities in this imaginative literary lounge are limitless:-)


In the Light,

-Dan Wilcox

Seal of Stone

STONE WHALE --

SEAL OF STONE-

Seal of stone
Gray lighted in the dusked evening
Scarred, laying low in the damp sand
Snout seeped in the incoming eddy of tide,
Waiting eons and eons
Covered
Uncovered
Covered
Repeatedly
Ceaselessly
By the Pacific sea,
Worn down by its cold crashing breakers,
The rolling, rolling of sand and small pebbles
And the sometimes perch of a hungry gull,
For the stone fish that will never come.


Dan Wilcox

Prof. James F. McGrath: "Never lose site of the humanity of the oppressor..."

--

"Science...Skeptical...Yet Drop-Jawed Amazement"

According to the science writer, Chet Raymo, and many other scientists,
“Science is founded on twin cornerstones of skepticism and astonishment.”

“The thoughtful person will try to walk the line between drop-jawed amazement...and cautious skepticism about the correctness of our knowledge."

Science, is "A story of sublime dimension. Tentative, evolving, and not always comfortable, carrying us in our imaginations to the farthest reaches of space and time..."

"Scientific knowledge enlivens our every experience and tunes us to the deepest mysteries...to the world that evades our limited senses. Science cannot nor should not be a religion, but it can be the basis for...” wonder and awe.
From Skeptics and True Believers
by Chet Raymo, p. 252, 254 Raymo, a professor of physics and astronomy, has received commendations for his science writing from evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould and other scientists and the general reading public.

According to the Jewish thinker Martin Buber, all of us humans, to one degree or another, live in both the I-examine-the-it and the I-experience-the-'other'.
--

My thoughts: It’s only when these 2 very different categories get confused, mixed up, and muddled that bad trouble results.

Science is we-it, the impersonal objective study of the cosmos, nature, life, and human primates.

However, I, as an amateur, an enthusiast of science, and most professional scientists, first got into science itself because of WONDER AND ASKING AND SEEKING--the we-experiential...

When young, we science-lovers felt jolted over by little creepies and/or big animals, dandelions and tall trees, by the natural world, the ocean and the mountains, the stars and the UNKNOWN.

So before we formally studied anthropology or astronomy, etc., we first encountered the I-experience of awareness, life, relationship--whether between 2 individuals, between a human and an animal, or even the impersonal experienced as a fascinating rock or sea shell, a scenic vista, or the awe-inspiring falling meteors, distant planets, stars, galaxies and Existence itself.

For example, a professional scientist studies and writes about human primate behavior such as kissing. That’s we-it.

But when the scientist gets home and kisses his/her sweetheart, the scientist isn’t thinking about biology, physiology, matter, molecules, atoms, but experiencing passion, joy, intent, commitment, sharing, etc. That’s I-personal-experiential.

Imagine him coming home, and when his wife kisses him, he pulls back and says, 'let's discuss the molecular structure of your primate vermillion border.'

LOL;-)

The experiential encounter is lost. Maybe he will have to sleep on the couch...

But if she suddenly feels wracking pain in her lips, the scientist, especially if he is a physician or medical specialist, will quickly switch to the I-examine it.

Only when we humans confuse study with personal experience, and vice versa, do we get into all sorts of trouble.
Would anyone choose to give up the wonder of the star-spangled sky, and choose to relate his/her spouse via a test tube and statistics?

I wouldn’t.

But, tragically, billions of humans now (and in the past) choose to reject healthy skepticism and the scientific method in order to keep what they feel is true based on their own experiences, which are actually illusions and delusions.

I wouldn’t.

ONLY when humans are balanced using both the scientific method AND personal experience—are we whole, having both a mind and a heart.


In the LIGHT--we-experience and we-study and we-relate,

Daniel Wilcox

Playing with Words

Montana’s History Lesson

Bulky Pompei’s Pillar
Towers over Yellowstone's Rivering,
A rugged brown bluff
Engraved with historic graffiti

With Clark’s signatur'd
Declaration still writ large
Behind Plexiglas for us to gawk,
But Lewis ended it all;

Still the icy water courses on
Toward our Big Muddy
Finally down to the Gulf,
Each of us a brief tag
In this
Muddled flow of history.


-Daniel Wilcox
First pub. in Lunarosity

"...history provides much evidence to show that the minds of poets have functioned like antennae."

"Poets express the beliefs, hopes, and ambitions that are eventually recognized by everyone. Ultimately, these values become part of a nation’s sense of identity."

"We learn what common experiences unite their people. We learn what they cherish from the past and what they aspire to in the future.
The practical language of the elected legislator [and the historian] supplies the record; the imaginative language of the [poet and novelist] gives that record both its meaning and its spiritual dimensions."

"But no matter how seriously we take these discussions of poetry, we must remember that poetry is also a form of playing...
with words, rhymes, and rhythms...by using their imaginations...the play of meanings...
the simplest kind of play with meanings is punning.
"The Elements of Poetry"
John Malcom Brinnin

Here is a playful rendition to nature, history, and human wording by a former teaching colleague
of ours at Perris High School in California:


Perris Valley

by Larry Yohn*

Join me now in seeing the beautiful playing of beings all around us,
Expressively sharing the biosphere of earth with us.

Dolphins frolicking, dashing spray at sea,
Squirrels with their tails flowing, leaping tree to tree,

An elk stag bugling, sounding his love call,
Peregrine falcons mating in free fall;

A timber wolf cocking her head quizzically,
Tiger cubs cuffing, sprawling clumsily;

Penguins popping up on the ice flow,
Humming birds hovering, darting to and fro;
--
A big dog bounding high to catch a Frisbee,
Kittens with their tiny claws having an unquilting bee;

Thoroughbreds at the gate, tossing their heads a prancing,
Elephants trumpeting, in the jungle dancing;

Otters sliding down the mud slide,
A white whale sounding, breaching high an’ wide.

CHORUS
All kinds of play are found round the world,
From chess in the Ukraine to bull fights in Spain,

From Olympic Games with banners furled,
To Death Games amid sand grains at El Alamein,

Yes, play is a word we use every which way,
From gun play to sword play to word play to foreplay,

From gamboling lambs in a meadow in May
Or a gambling man in old Santa Fe,

One space to play in,
One place to fly free south of L.A.

And in from the sea, diving away from the D.C.3,
High in the wind over Perris Valley, valley, valleeee, Perris Valleeee.

I close my eyes and see people at play,
Age in the night to this day:

A batter swinging in the box,
A climber reaching on the rocks,

A skier swooshing by on skis,
A glider gliding in the breeze,

A biker pumping by on a bike,
A tyke pedaling on a trike,

A bird watcher watching birds,
A poet stringing together words,

A caver torching in a cave,
A surfer riding on a wave,

A marathoner running the race,
A poker player playing an ace,
--
A gambler rolling on the table two dice,
A skater twirling on the ice,

A soap box speaker being verbose,
A late night comic being gross,
--
A gymnast swinging on the rings,
A guitarist playing on the strings,

Skydivers swooping to the formation,
[A band playing the National Anthem]

Chuck Anderson- yellow, Al Krueger - orange, Tom Henley - blue, Larry Yohn - black.
Photo by Carl Boenish


*From AP Wire:
"NOVEMBER 14, 1999
POMONA, Calif. (AP) - A parachutist died after crash landing into a guard
wall of a race track during opening ceremonies Sunday for the...NHRA Finals."

"Lawrence Yohn, 59...was part of a four-person team that
parachuted onto the Pomona Raceway as part of pre-race ceremonies...
The national anthem was playing while Yohn made his
jump onto the track."

"Yohn was a skydiving instructor at Perris Airport Sport Parachuting Center
and an Aztec Sky Diving Team member. He had jumped more than 2,500 times...
a 1-legged jumper who taught high school, and was an avid reader. Yohn lost his
leg in India on a motor scooter 30 years ago."
--


Under the Sky World

Under the sky world
Below the sloshing white caps,
Liquid life undulates down through
The watery sphere’s domain;

Deep down under

A soft brilliance of rays from
Above strike silver lines down
Through the deepening green
While strange denizens move in
Rhythmic concertos;

Deep down under

A great turtle flippers alone, dull-jade submarine;
Then sheened orchestras of under creatures
Tuna, halibut, and cod their way
In a Strauss waltz west with the current;

Deep down under

Snorkeling deeper,
Finned life multiplies to the seventh
Wide oceans crowded round,
Translucent, entrailed, scaled and numinous;
Scuttling down to endless flips of tail
Iridescent, orange, purple, yellow;

Deep down under

Suddenly spades-black ink billows out
Deep in the guts of the world’s water
To the side of the neon coral,
So mused reefs,
Expanding, darkening the undermost

Deep down under

Arms, arms, arms, and arms—
Many a league,
The fabled
One



--Daniel Wilcox

First pub. in The Greensilk Journal
--



Art Clasps


A Monet moment
splashes in vibrancy--

yellow-orangish irises
rise from blue and green
130 years after the paint.

Below the beauty

But the impractical clasping
of the momentary irises

by impressed paintbrush strokes,

Hold
scintillating eye glances

and shimmering lights up for us to see,

saved from
the oblivion of another time and place.

Likewise a fellow traveler, I clasp words

to this sheet, my own flat canvas--irised memories

For new eyes
down
through
future
landscaped
time



-Daniel Wilcox
First pub. in Mississippi Crow Magazine



In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Part #2: What Is Clarity of the Mind?

Continuing with the series, Purity of Mind and Heart:

#1: Use reason to clarify your worldview, when making major decisions, and in opposing what is false, wrong, and destructive.
Steer clear of informal and logical fallacies.

#2 Keep in mind that sometimes the term fallacy can even be used as a fallacy! For example, it has often happened in “appeal to authority.” An individual states 98% of plumbers in the U.S. think that such and such pipe is more reliable than…Or most philosophers think that…
And a person who disagrees says, “Oh, that’s just an appeal to authority—Fallacy!"

Nope. Showing that most authorities in their field support a view--the consensus--isn’t a fallacy, that’s evidence.

The fallacy, “appeal to authority” is when you argue most ministers, or most people in the U.S., believe that evolution is false. That is an error in authority because whether or not evolution is true or false is a subject for biologists to study and present evidence for one way or the other (97% of scientists say evolution is a fact).

Whether or not not most ministers, or most of the public, oppose evolution as false is not significant because they aren't scientists!

#3 Though carefully thought out reasoning is the watch-word, It’s okay, (even sometimes needed or necessary), to make intuitive jumps. Scientists and other thinkers often use intuition including famous ones such as Albert Einstein. Remember his comment about how imagination is more important than knowledge.

When making intuitive leaps, however, make sure it’s not near a cliff;-).

If you’ve been studying a project or issue in depth and haven’t solved the problem, then taking a break, even sleeping on it may help. One scientist actually made an important discovery in a dream.

However, if you are about to try out a new parachute, launch a rocket, get married, or change worldviews, it behooves you to double check your sudden intuitive insight with some careful thinking and evidence.

#4 When thinking through an ethical problem, be careful about semantic confusion, simplistic terms, and confirmation bias. Take a look at Peanuts:

And consider another example of confirmation bias, semantic confusion, and simplistic term-iteness:

"I'm pro-life! Strongly against abortion. We stand with America and our troops. Remember what our Christian leader said, God's gift to America
is the atom bomb."

Huh?



In the Light of Reason,

Daniel Wilcox