Tuesday

3.  Harold Sakata - third clip

2.  William F. Buckley and Mark Lane

This was the confrontational interview in question:

[Now to Toodles's comments which I gave an undertaking to abridge and not lose the meaning.]

It is odd when I agree with the liberal intellectual rather than with a conservative....which in reality he was not nor those with whom he [supposedly] identifies. It is that 'both ends playing against the middle' thing. The liberals and conservative elites. What a joke on us. 

I am thinking the Conservatives were worse than the out and out liberals. Even today we must be careful with whom we [align].  My nausea subsided as I saw Mark Lane nonchalantly hav[ing] ole Buckley Boy in a rope a dope as I continued to watch after the hair twirling and nose scratching of Buckley Boy. 

Between the Kennedy boys and WFB, Jr., which would give Bug's Bunny [a better] run for his money? I am thinking WFB, Jr.  could easily stand in for BB!

That's not all folks!

Then I started in on some more serious things ... the content of the debate of sorts and his [WFB,Jr.'s] statements and inconsistencies with prior statements that the 'Liberal' was mentioning. The fact that he cares not who murdered his president is strange to me. Also he does care that he was killed is nice of him ... or is it? 

We can care about what happens to something or someone and despise the thing or person while 'caring'.  I would care if a person or animal  who hurt someone I loved died or not. It doesn't mean that I loved them. It would probably be a relief to me they died ... are out of misery. 

In my opinion, his statement ...even that one about seemingly caring  is ambiguous, especially in the light of the other things and leanings he had in this particular interview [towards] the man on the Warren report. 

That statement is absurd and he is trying to put in a ridiculous perspective and people who thought he was [really] something probably adopted that viewpoint because he appears to be above the fray. 

I contend that he IS the fray.

There were other things. His way of speaking is so affected it left a horrible effect on me I can tell you !!!  

[The affected Trans-Atlantic accent I think Toodles is referring to.]

I remember him well, but perhaps never listened all the way through. Talk about a three dollar bill ...

I think I made a point in my comment that when he got behind closed doors instead of speaking so ridiculously with his drawn out endings and speech flow, from fast at first to strange holding patterns in mid flow,  then often a drawn out ending of the last word or sound of a word in a sentence.  He probably spoke Jive!

You can't get more Southern than Toodles in combining homespun with perspicacious and articulate - I'd rather have those perspectives any day over the pseudo-intellectualism of academia - one of the pet points of peeved provocation [by me] during my university career.  People such as Eric Foner get on my wick and Mark Lane would have done that too, had he not been in the right on this particular matter. 

How dare he smoke a pipe the way I did whilst pontificating in those days .  At least I wore an unaffected giant bowtie [tied, not elastic] and smoked a straight stem Peterson in days of yore.

And by the way, if you're going that affectation route in attire and demeanour, make sure your shoes are up to scratch, otherwise it undercuts the whole effect.

1.  Defending the “main protagonist”

Dearieme had a definition of protagonist but that in itself, plus this below, both beg the question of the use of singular or plural:

The concept of a protagonist comes from Ancient Greek drama, where the term originally meant, “the player of the first part or the chief actor.” In film today, the protagonist is the character who drives the plot, pursues the main goal of the story, and usually changes or grows over the course of the film.

The issue is the assumption that there is only one ... or that one eclipses the other[s].  And that is clearly what most writers have in mind, especially in screenplays but there is a specific reason why I do not in my stories.  

In my latest story, the protagonist, by the definition above, must be the little lady who pulls strings from the side, as many women in history have done.  

The main character who is visible upfront, leading the charge, is not the one who devises and then moves the action along.  So "main" protagonist is a justified expression, I contend, in that there are two ... and there's a specific reason for it due to my worldview on man-woman teams, which we could write a tome or collection of tomes on.

Not just man-woman either. There are three main characters in this very post now - the one who took me to task first - Toodles - the second being Dearieme who also did from his angle ... the third being me. 

The "player of the first part" is Toodles, the developer of the theme is Dearieme, the main mechanic behind the scenes and then upfront in the sense of publishing this post, is me.

This came out of a comment on my first and "long" book in which I strove, eventually unsuccessfully, to play down "Hugh" and make him but one of a few key plot-drivers.  It is that most hateful term "Mary-Sue" or its male equivalent where the central person in the story assumes all sorts of almost supernatural ways to overcome obstacles - this is what I dislike in a story.

That whole notion militates against my idea of who or what drives action - were I to snuff out, to dismiss Dearieme's comment, then he will have proven his point.  Were I not to dismiss the idea, then that would allow his action to move the plot forward as one of the main protagonists.

Also, who is driving this blogpost right now?

Eventually, it comes down to "primacy".  

If one concedes there might be three major characters driving things forward, then it's an academic exercise to support the contention that there is no "main" protagonist here but just a protagonist with other main characters.  

It's also an academic exercise to start speaking of "primacy", given that one character will always eclipse the others, despite any egalitarian moves on the part of the author.

Further - if the "pro" before 'tagonist' means "of the first part" [proto-tagonist?], then I counter that in my stories by introducing three concurrent pieces of action with different characters, in different places, and using a Roman numeric system to "split the screen".  

The primacy comes through later in the readers' minds.

When that means man-woman primacy ... there we're getting into Pauline theology are we not?  

And if I rail against the primacy of Jesus over the disciples/apostles still driven by Him, then is that reality or is it the pride of Lucifer wishing to dominate proceedings myself? Is that not the most overweening pride?