writing

I don't want to do it any more. I did it 20 years ago and now my brain is just too old. Let me read a good story instead. Well told, of course.

Erase it all, that's too silly.

Elizabeth "Liz" Gourley

lie, lady, lie

Nobody questions Bob Dylan's musical genius, but grammarian he was not, and the song Lay, Lady, Lay, one of the most popular songs of his early career, has led a generation astray. I have to say that Lie, Lady, Lie, however, misses something essential about the poetry of lyrics, even as it misleads. Bob Dylan, of course, was not imploring his lady-love to tell a lie, but rather to incline, or lie down across his big brass bed. Okay, we'll give him a pass since he's a rock star. Writers don't get off so easy.

I have my own grammar issues, particularly with lay and lie. I've figured out present tense. I know that while I lie on the big brass bed (not Dylan's!), I lay my teddy bear down on the bed. But past tense still gives me problems so much that I must consult my go-to grammar genius, Mignon Fogarty, aka Grammar Girl. Here is the sentence that was giving me fits, from my novel Fagin's Boys:

Rose had laid in a hospital bed for the past two months, most of that time barely conscious.

I knew that wasn't right, but not only was I not sure of the past tense, I was even more unsure of the past participle rules. Grammar Girl provided a nice graphic to help me out:

Beyond a doubt, Rose had lain on that hospital bed for the past two months, barely conscious. Poor Rose. Lucky for us that we have Grammar Girl. Consult the gadget on the right for grammatically correct podcasts and articles.

Garnet

origin of stories

I'm reading a fascinating book by Brian Boyd, On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction. Boyd counters the current thinking that stories are strictly a cultural phenomenon, by making the case that telling stories was an adaptive behavior crucial to our evolutionary development.

In an attempt to explore the beginnings of storytelling, he also looks at art, and comments on the drawings in the Chauvet Cave in France, which are believed to date back 32,000 years:

The wall markings were hardly the casual doodles of idle afternoons. The grotto at Chauvet was no dwelling place, and the drawings were no stone-age wallpaper. This remote cave, deep underground, accessible only by the light of a burning brand or a tallow candle, seems to have been selected precisely for its remoteness from disturbance, whether by weather, plant, or animal, expressly to preserve the art of particularly awe-inspiring craftsmen. We, too, prize and preserve our art, but who would bet that the most treasured possessions of our greatest galleries, or the galleries themselves, will be intact in another 30,000 years?

I recall something else I read about how those who knew about the paintings would bring visitors down into the depths of the cave with lit torches. When the flickering light hit the paintings there must have been quite a shock with the animals seeming almost to be animated. Think about the cinematic power of these cave paintings, long before representational media had been invented, when the only entertainment was the music and rhythmic dancing of early peoples.
Garnet