Veronica Swift: Home is an extension of oneself

After the concert…

Beatrice: Really enjoyed it.  Your voice, your onstage energy, and the threading stories between songs.

Veronica: Thank you. A show isn’t just a sequence of songs. It’s a narrative arc. 

Beatrice: As a linguist, I liked your storytelling. The way you spoke about “home” as an extension of the self, and then contrasted that with the trauma of losing your house.

Veronica: There have been setbacks, certainly. But I think they’ve helped me grow, both as a person and as an artist. So, you’re a linguist? We’re cousins. Singers and linguists both live and thrive through language.

Beatrice: You seem to stretch language beyond its usual limits. Like with scatting.

Veronica: I try to. Sometimes words aren’t enough, or they get in the way. Improvisation with band members, it’s a kind of conversation beyond language. Maybe that’s where the truest parts of the story live.

Home is an extension of oneself

__________

Voice-over

A concert we often wonder where the songs come from. What they mean to the singer. Especially if it was the singer who wrote the song. What relations are between the members of the band. 

MTB 454

A war story…

.

Raleigh: Picked it up at Belfast shipyards and headed for Lands End. Fire broke out on a switchboard so returned. Attempted sabotage, it was. Even the shipyards had sympathizers. Had that fixed. Asked for a letter to recommend running engines at 2000 rpm so we could plane.

481 and 454 planing

.

Grandson: 2000?

.

Raleigh: Yes, we were only authorized to run them at 1600 rpm. Couldn’t get up to planing speed. Wallowed along.

.

Grandson: I can imagine. Like a hippopotamus.

.

Raleigh: So we got up to planing speed, 20 knots or so. Skimmed around Lands End and up to Falmouth. But when we arrived we received a Morse message. Report to HQ. I was asked, “Did you exceed 1600 rpm?”

.

Grandson: But you had permission?

454, remembered

.

Raleigh: I had a letter, yes. But it didn’t prevent a rap over the knuckles. Carried on to Felixstowe at the designated speed.

.

Grandson: But you had fond memories of 454. So much so you named your lake boat the same.

.

Raleigh: Er, yes.

_______________

Voice-over

MTBs were sprightly little vessels/warcraft, later models achieving 30 knots. Post-war, a generation of MTB sailors relived their memories, in stories, even on boats.

...

Names for fictional personae

-->

Interviewing an author…

.

Demetrius: When you give names to characters, how do you choose those names?

.

Hmm. Fagin?

Areeba: I think of similar historical figures, or foreign names. Something with a hidden meaning. Sometimes with a bit of wry humor.

.

Demetrius: Names that reflect the nature of the person?

.

Welcome to the
Billy Goat Tavern.

Areeba: Charles Dickens was the master of naming characters. Thomas Gradgrind and Wackford Squeers, different kinds of schoolmasters, Mr Bumble, full of bombast, and Dr Payne. Some modern writers follow a similar approach. Mike Royko with his Slats Grobnik and Dr. I.M. Kookie.

____________

Voice-over

And even for real-life: does the name influence the game? Usain Bolt (sprinter). William Wordsworth (poet). Nomen est omen.

...

Structures of Narrative: News stories, Magazine stories, Novels

News, magazine articles, novels…

Neo: They’re all just stories, right?

News Story Structure

Skelley: The structures are different.

Neo: Not just beginning, middle, end?

Skelley: Not at all. News stories put all the important facts at the front, magazine articles maybe start with a human interest story or a question to pique your curiosity, and novels usually build up to the important facts at the end.

Novel Structure

Neo: This is always so?

Skelley: Well, there are journalists who write magazine style, just as there are novelists who write like journalists.

_________________

Voice-over

The inverted pyramid defines the news story structure. A triangle on a graph simplifies the timeline of a novel.

…

Simpifying into Three Types...

“Great leaders are 
almost always great 
simplifiers, who can 
cut through argument, 
debate and doubt, 
to offer a solution 
everybody 
can understand.”

Colin Powell

Reductio ad..?

Branson: Why is it that people who like to simplify often divide people into three groups?

Powell: Do they? Who do you mean, “they”?

Branson: Malcolm Gladwell did it in The Tipping Point. Mavens, connectors and salesmen.

Powell: I see your point. I just ran across some postings on Quora by people who like to divide others into “puzzle-solvers”, “tool-users” and “storytellers”.

Branson: I’ve seen that distinction before. It popped up in an obscure academic book in German containing a reference to Jerome Bruner. So you say others claim it as their own paradigm? It happens. Anyway, what’s magical about three? 

Powell: Indeed. Why not four or five? Some home in on “seven”. “Seven Habits….” But I think three has a pedigree of simplicity and authority. The triple, the trio, the triangle. The tripod, the triathlon, the trinity.

__________

Voice-over

Mavens: Connect us with new information. They have knowledge, social skills and an ability to communicate.

Connectors: Know large numbers of people and provide introductions. They have active social networks of over 100 people.

Salesmen: Good at persuading others. They are charismatic people with charm and negotiation skills.

Puzzle-solvers: Tend to minimize emotional and social context of thinking.

Tool-users: Focus on tools to make changes in the environment.
Storytellers: Use narratives to show causal and consequential relations.

...