AMERICONORMAN

THE DOG RULE AND THE JAPANESE BEAUTY - BY JOSE GAINZA Georgia Takanaka was one of those women of Japanese descent that troubadours travel the oceans to get to. She was slender, fragile, long, and white as milk. She had enchanting green eyes and hair of black silk. She also had voluptuous breasts that many other women hoped were manufactured. She was brilliant and in graduate school to become a doctor of philosophy. She carried herself with an angelic aura. She came from a wealthy family who had prospered in Toronto for generations. Her parents had died some years ago and had left her with a vast fortune. She lived alone in a very tall condominium in the lower-eastern part of downtown Toronto, a full glass structure of emerald green, with prominent, long balconies of the same color. Her suite was on a high floor, and faced the east, so that the dawn would greet her every morning on her bed. It was a building that allowed no pets what so ever. The concierge staff considered her a model tenant of the building. She was polite, affectionate, and friendly with most of them. She wasn’t a stranger to polite conversation with them when she met with them to be provided with one of their services. She was one of the rare tenants who knew which concerns to properly bring to the concierge persons and which not to. She was not one of those tenants who would ask the concierge to get a toaster fixed that was bought at Wal-Mart and not provided by the developer. She never tried to abuse the visitor parking rules. She always brought back the locker room key on time. She did not go past her pre-assigned usage time of the recreational amenities. She defended the competent property manager and the concierge company when false accusations were brought up at general meetings. And at Christmas she gave each concierge member a generous envelope. She was not one of those tenants who were caught with a prohibited dog, cat, or cobra. She was an angel. She was an inspiration to the concierge staff. They, both men and women, knew that she was a philosopher, though she never made clear exactly what her philosophy was. So she had all the staff reading books on philosophy. One was reading Plato and Aristotle, another was foolishly ambitious and was reading Kant, another was reading Nietzsche, and another Sartre. One day the concierge guy reading Nietzsche asked her, “So why does Nietzsche call Christians dogs?” She chuckled at the innocent bluntness of the question. “Yes, Nietzsche is quite hostile. I believe that deep down he wanted to love humanity, but was too disturbed by what he saw around him. He was not romantic enough. He saw that his fellow German’s were too servile to authority of the church and the new philosophy that had just been born in Germany in the last two centuries before his. He was not a man to bow down to authority and yet millions of Germans seemed to have been born that way. And so he thought that there were two types of men, masters and slaves, men and animals, and that neither type could change their destiny. And so the key to changing the state of the world according to his vision of what men like him should be was to force it upon the lower types. Christianity was a doctrine that trained men to be obedient, satisfied, and unambitious.” “Are you a Nietzschean?” asked the concierge man newly introduced to Nietzsche. “No. I’m not an Idealist. Nietzsche was a victim of German Idealism. He had a glimpse of the right road but he turned it into a blind alley. It’s hard to be a rebel when your education has enabled you to injure your greatest weapon against the misery you see around you.” “What’s that weapon?” “Your mind … I got to go; keep on reading.” “Wait! Wait! One more question.” “Okay.” “You don’t have dreams? You don’t want to improve things?” “What are you talking about?” “You said you’re not an idealist.” “Oh! Look up Idealism on the internet. Check out Hegel. You’ll begin to know what I mean. Good night.” This young European found it hard to believe that a woman who was also Japanese could be so smart. She must be an angel. He in that moment was certain that she was a virgin. The next day the new Nietzsche enthusiast could not wait to see her walk in back from her day. He had been brainstorming in his mind what exactly he would say to her. How could he impress her? She walked in with a brown leather bag on her arm, and a handsome young stallion of a man on the other. “Dominic,” she said, “I need a parking permit for my boyfriend.” And as her new boyfriend gave Dominic the information as he wrote the permit, she was nibbling on her boyfriend’s ear. Dominic was a strong boy and he did not let this spectacle interfere with his calm composure. He simply asked a question. “So are you a philosopher too.” “No. I’m a mechanic.” Dominic could only complete the permit by filling: 4307, which was her suite number. She interrupted, “Vito services my Ferrari. No one knows the idiosyncrasies of my engine like he.” And she smirked in a devilish manner. Dominic was speechless for a moment. And soon he was able to mutter under his breath, while the couple was already at the elevator, “Do you know who Nietzsche is?” The question would have been directed at the boyfriend. In this way was extinguished the romantic idealism of our Dominic surrounding the person of Georgia Takanaka. Dominic got off at midnight on a Friday and he would be off then until the following Thursday at midnight. On his return he read the security reports. There were five noise complaints reports about suite 4307. That seemed impossible not only to Dominic but also to the rest of the staff because how could their sweet angel betray such an important condominium rule. The no pet rule was one of the main attractions to the building. Dominic remembered the mechanic of his last shift and felt: her betrayal is possible. It was 0143 hours when a call came in from 4308. The woman on the other line reported again persistent dog barking, wolf howls, scratching on the walls. Soon 4304 and 4306 reported similar noises. Dominic called up to 4307 but no one answered. The next step was to go upstairs and knock on that door. He knocked. Georgia answered wearing a green kimono with white camellias. “I’ve received three noise complaints about loud and strange dog barking from you suite.” “There’s no dog here.” “I hope that’s true because you know how strict the rules are here on that kind of thing.” “Yes. I have no dog.” “Can I come inside?” He had noticed that she was perspiring and her hair was damp, and that the kimono was thin. “No!” “Please.” “No. It’s for your own good. Now go away.” He went back to his desk in the lobby. He decided to review the parking log. There it was! The Ferrari mechanic had his car registered again. He had done so every night since the last one. “HE must be the one bringing the dog.” He spent the night reviewing the video system. He watched them every night ascend an elevator, kissing passionately. There was never a dog. How does he get it in? He wondered. He noticed that all the complaints were between midnight and two in the morning. At no other time was there any complaints or reports of a dog barking—not even when she was away for 12 hours at the University, which is when a dog would miss her most. What stupid dog would bark while she was home? He watched footage for the day time hours. No person with a dog came down the elevator. No one was seen walking a dog. It was too strange. He asked his supervisor whether he saw anyone walk a dog during his shift. No. He asked him what he had found out about this dog mystery. “I talked to her the other morning, Dominic, and she insists that she has no dog. I don’t know what to do. I believe her.” “Do you think it’s her boyfriend barking?” “Her? No! Not her.” “It can’t be.” On Dominic’s next shift he verified that the boyfriend’s car was registered. Then he went to her floor and stood in the vicinity of her suite door but in the stairwell. He stood there an hour. He was paged a few times but he did not answer. Tenants had been waiting to be served at the concierge desk. But Dominic was resolute. And then he heard it. It began like the howling of a wolf. Soon it changed into deep growls. Soon that became deep barking. And then there was whimpering. In the midst of wolf howls Dominic knocked violently on her door. The howls stopped. All was silent. He knocked for five minutes but no one came to answer the door. He went back to his desk and wrote the report. About an hour later he saw the boyfriend descending the elevator. He had an angry look on his face, and he was shaking his head, and banging his fist on the elevator door, as if in self-reproach, humiliation, and resentment. One could tell that he was muttering vulgarities. Soon Dominic could see his car speeding out of the parkade. From that day forward there were no more barking complaints from the neighbors of 4307. It occurred on a shift that lasted from 1600 Hours to 2400 Hours. It was approximately 1800 Hours. It was dinner time and Georgia came down and sat on a leather sofa in the lobby area. She called someone on her cell phone. “Hey there Jessica! It’s Georgia. I was wondering if you want to go get some sushi … That affair ended … He didn’t want to bark anymore … I know, I shouldn’t … I should have after the first time … I will respect it more … I must … So how about in a half hour at the usual place?” When she returned, Dominic could tell by the look on her face that the sushi had satisfied her. She was alone. She looked at him as if she was pleased to see him, and sorry that she did not give him the attention he craved for while she was sitting in the lobby talking to her friend. He looked at her with the eyes of a creature that guards a junkyard—when it is tamed. He could not wait until midnight came when he would be off shift. Midnight came and he was certain that she was alone. He handed over the keys and equipment to his relief co-worker and instead of walking in the direction of the main entrance, he walked towards the elevator. “Where are you going?” asked his co-worker. “There’s some business I got to take care of upstairs.” The co-worker pretended not to hear. When he arrived at her door, he did not knock. He knelt on the ground, with his back arched back. He howled like a wolf, “Awooooooooo!” He did it again. A neighbor came out. “What the hell are you doing?” she yelled. Then he began to bark passionately, “Woof! Woof! Woof!” “That’s it,” she said, “I’m calling the police!” He continued. When the woman entered her apartment, Georgia opened the door quickly. “What the hell are you doing?” she whispered. He whimpered. “Get in here!” she commanded He crawled inside. She closed the door. “Stand up like a man!” “I thought you liked that?” “What makes you think that?” “All those barking complaints, they were your boyfriend.” “So you figured it out. He’s not my boyfriend. It’s over. Why would you want a woman who wants you to bark?” “I figure that once I fulfill you for a night you won’t need me to bark anymore.” “I don’t need you to bark right now.” “What can I do? I’ll do anything. I’ll learn Nietzsche. I’ll learn to tell you about his relationship with Wagner, and his influence by Schopenhauer, how he detests Kant, his views on Greek tragedy, and some theories on why he went crazy. I’ll tell you about Existentialism and Bernard Shaw and Joseph Conrad.” “I know all that.” “Yah, but who else does, that’s as young as you, and beautiful as you?” “Not many. Learning Nietzsche won’t impress me.” “Fine then; Kant.” “I don’t think you can handle Kant.” “I’ll do it. That’s how much you mean to me. I keep on falling asleep during his Prolegomena but I’ll read that and both his Critique’s.” “Any silly philosophy professor can do that. Kant’s even worse than Nietzsche.” “So tell me. What should I learn? What will draw you to me?” “You know; none of my students so far has exhibited such a passion as you for ideas. You would actually torture yourself with Kant. Have you heard of Alicia Felicia?” “Yes. I have not gotten to her. She doesn’t appear until like after the Second World war.” “Oh. Start reading her quickly. You can send me e-mails about her. But that won’t get you anywhere with me. Get to know her well enough. And then read some histories of philosophy. Elect who you think are the major thinkers in the history of philosophy and write me a compare and contrast essay to them and Alicia Felicia.” “That sounds like fun.” “Oh and I hope I don’t have to tell you that if you don’t like her, you won’t get very far with me.” “I believe that philosophy is a practical science. Would you agree?” “Yes.” “Then if Alicia Felicia is anything like you then I’m sure I’ll write an essay as a tribute to her … and you’ll give an A+++.” “That’s charming.” And she gave him one peck on his left cheek. She gave him her business card and then kicked him out of her apartment. Dominic walked past his co-worker with a beaming smile, it was a smile that told his co-worker that this would not be the last time he saw him walk past his concierge desk, smiling. THE END

Though I don't think a guy like Richard Chamberlain is immoral for waiting so long, I could not bear it. I do want to be a famous novelist and screenplay writer, and who knows what else. I'm handsome, though a little chubby at the moment, and would surely attract the girls, well because of that and because I am charming, charismatic, funny, and "masculine", and sensitive, and artistic. However, I know that I do not have to be famous in order to have a fulfilling writing career. I know that one can find time to write that great novel and still work. Ayn Rand published We The Living at 32. It is great that I came out at 19. It was better for my career, though that is not the fundamental reason for coming out. I have written several "gay" stories which I am proud of and I think can have a wide appeal. It is good that I've chosen to write those at the beginning of my career, and not have written only straight stories which are not so contraversial. I rather get people used to the idea of my "secret" now, and not have it ruin me if I ever become famous. If the world will not buy me now because of my "gay" stories, so be it; they don't deserve me. In the big picture, it doesn't matter. The main setback to coming out, is the consideration of who is going to harm you because of it, who is going to stop loving you, who is going to try to keep you down. You got a problem if you feel shame for any other reason. I did fear losing my friends, and I lost some. I did fear losing my family, and we experienced tension. I did fear being hated by co-workers and some have hurt me. But really it is my Objectivist values and ideas that has aroused the most antagonism from people. They are also the real essence of my identity and my burning fuel. It is not the potential hatred one might encounter from telling people that is the problem. The bigger problem is the intense curiosity that it arouses in people, so that it soon dominates the topics of discussion. For example, in the workplace, men tend to talk mostly about sex and sports, and if one doesn't care to talk about those things, then one is automatically considered strange and ... gay. And then due to the considerations of social justice one is eventually pressured to come out. I think you're better off keeping quiet and simply stating that you are a professional and you don't think sex and such things should be discussed at work, and that you find those people childish or something like that. Again, it depends on the context. It is certainly not necessary to buy a half hour on a national television station to make a speech to the entire nation. (Actually that would be an interesting premise for a comedy: a man who works decades to buy the time on prime time television to announce to the nation that he is gay). It is interesting that I found Objectivism just before I fell in love with a guy that made it clear, clear, clear, that I was gay. Objectivism and him were what I wanted most in life at that time. For the first couple of years I thought that I would not be accepted by Objectivists if I was gay ... but I was surely willing to give up Objectivism if that were the case. But then I soon found out that the two things did not necessarily clash. Even when I came out to myself I would still tell some people that I was bisexual. But that surely wasn't true. The reason was because I had a pattern of having crushes on girls. But it was fake and a result of many years of convincing myself that that was what a boy was supposed to want, and convincing my body to want girls. But really the hunger was for boys. I remember clearly the different boys of my development, those I knew and even famous ones. Like, Leondardo Di Caprio in Growing Pains, Tom Cruise in Cocktail, Joey Lawrence in Blossom, Kirk Cameron in Growing Pains, or Zack in Saved By The Bell, just to give a few of the many, many examples. All those years it was a very pleasant secret that I kept all to myself. This is an illustration of the fact that one has to come out to oneself first. And it is philosophy that helped me. It is not your duty to tell anyone else but your lover. But it doesn't necessarily hurt telling others. Once you've reached the stage of enjoying your homosexuality honestly and with confidence, the issue ceases to have much philosophical importance. There are more interesting issues, at least in my opinion. Take care, Jose Gainza.

Philosophy, for one, will provide a man with the courage to come out, and it will help him decide on the reasons to come out? Logic will help him identify the issues involved. Sex will still be metaphysical whether he chooses to come out or not? Ethics will help him put the decision in the right moral perspective? Politics will tell him that it is his right to be gay, that it is right to have sex with whomever he chooses, and decide whether he lives in a state that will persecute him or not, etc., etc., etc. And Art? Jose.

It does not really matter how many people you come out to; the quantity of people is contextual. It is important that one comes out to oneself and one's potential lovers. If you have good friends and family members, then it would be great to come out to them. A good test would be when you are actually in a loving relationship. Those people who care about you and are or were close to you may want to know a little about the object that contributes to your great happiness. To the extent that your happiness is at stake in not coming out, is the extent that you should come out. If you are famous, then it may not be the best thing for you to come out. A good famous person's privacy is a huge value to his or her happiness. Like a famous actor or male singer, who is adored by millions of females, it does not have to be a duty to come out. This type of man may never come out. It all depends on who will and has the means to hurt you because of it. You're not going to put yourself in the position of a sitting duck when you are an angel and they hate you because of it.

The Fountainhead Atlas Shrugged Cyrano De Bergerac But they are not primarily love stories, except perhaps for the last. The Romantics (Rostand) Hearts and Crosses (O.Henry) Notre Dame de Paris (Victor Hugo) The Notebook A Thomas Crown Affair Bugsy Pearl Harbour The Illusionist The Cosby Show The Ruined Dress (Jose Gainza) A Noble Works The Corner (Jose Gainza) ..... [There will be more] Jose. By Courier (O. Henry) The Gift of the Magi (O. Henry) Mammon and the Archer (O. Henry) Rappucini's Daughter (Nathaniel Hawthorne) Taking Happiness Back (Jose Gainza)

The following isn't Youtube yet but it will be eventually. This is from Saturday Night Live yesterday. It is Andy Sandberg's love song to The Iranian President: Loving the Iranian President Jose.

I have decided to add a PDF version of my story Sangue de Galo Goals to the world. It is edition 1.1 with preface, the story, and an appendix. It is 1.1 because I will in the near future be working on a 2nd edition, which will have some serious re-arrangements in the plot and style. I hope you enjoy it. Jose Gainza Sangue_de_Galo_Goals_PDF.pdf

Danny Dancing Samba Justin Timberlake Punked Justin Timberlake gets Ashton back Jimmy Kimmel is an ASS to the lovely Matt Damon

I don't think there is an Ayn Rand introduction to Toilers of the Sea. I know for sure there is one for 93 and The Man Who Laughs. Shoshana Milgram wrote one in a 1993 Atlantean Press edition. Have you read his Preface To Cromwell? It's in a Harvard Classics edition called Famous Prefaces. If you haven't you should really check it out. It is a wonderful supplement to The Romantic Manifesto. I still need to read Hans D'Island, Ruy Blas, and Cromwell. The former I have in french editions and I can't read them that well yet. Jose.

Can you elaborate on the first part. I think there is something for me to learn here. However, I imagine it will still be violent though short lived as you say. But so would, I guess, the sudden moratorium on welfare payments? There is a clear difference between the legalization of alcohol and cocaine. The majority of people wanted to drink; it was clearly an unfair law. With cocaine, however, most people are afraid of it. Cocaine would be hard to market. But let's take Marijuana, which even famous people admit to doing; here, you would have a non-criminal explaining to people through mass marketing the joys to be found in smoking marijuana, a whole culture would be builit around it, whole new products would come into place, like "laced cigarettes", or teas, chocolate, pastries, food recipes, etc. It is easy for me to predict the envious "mafiosi" (mafiosi is my term for any organized gangster with a certain criminal philosophy), this mafiosi would make life very difficult for the legitimate business man. Yes, the police would have to protect the businessman. My point is that I don't think there will be enough police to do it, or competent police. I'm not attacking the police officers who do exist. I'm attacking the government who prefer to fund the whims of lobbyists as opposed to the core functions of government. What else do you think, Nerd?

I probably advocate the gradual legalization of drugs beginning with Marijuana. We knew how government creates black markets and about the violence surrounding them way back in the day of Al Capone. The government bureaucrats become the real gangsters. The point would be eloquently illustrated with the legalization of aspects of organized crime such as prostitution and drugs (which should not be illegal in the first place), because it would be legalized in an environment of gross taxation. The legalization of those things would make the government the grand pimps and the grand kingpins. The populace wold never support tax breaks for kingpin and pimps. They got in the mess when they outlawed such practices as prositution and drugs. And now, today, it would be the grand irony for them to get out of the mess by legalizing drugs and prostitution, because they would have to get a cut through taxation of a practice that was formerly illegal. There is a 'legitimate" black market, i.e., theft. When thieves get organized and sell stolen goods to ignorant citizens (or not). Fighting this is legitimate and the proper role of government. There will always be organized crime because all you need is more than one criminal. The essense of organized crime is not pyramid scheme. It is the effectiveness of being organized. Without the artificial crimes such as gambling, prostitution, and drugs, the archetypical mafiosi has to rely on crimes originating in force, such as extortion, contract murder, and theft. This is much easier to fight. Then you add the other stuff and the government creates a mess that they can never stop, because men will always find a way to do what they want. Before these artificial crimes, prostitution, for example, was in the open, and so it was easier to spot the abusive pimp, and get him for the brute force that he initiates, not for arranging a meeting between his "client" and his "employee". (When in history there was ever an environment such as this I do not know, but I can imagine such a time, and guess it is sometime in the late nineteenth century). Or the drug dealer would have a shop, and there would be protesters outside, and articles warning people against it, and warnings from parents and teachers. And there would be the medical researcher and psychologist who could test the popular drug and suggest to people healthier alternatives that have a similar effect. Or you could send non-religious missionaries to talk to the Johns walking out of the brothels and persuade them to feel shame and to change their ways. And then there's the economic issues involved where such things are cheaper on a free market. But really I can't say that I advocate the legalization of drugs right now because of the horrific war that would ensue between the criminal organizations and the entrepreneur who wants to start a legitimate business. The government would still have to support this entrepreneur and protect him. Otherwise the market would again be taken over by the criminal elements. This topic interests me. I would love to be able to sort through the mess and the blind alleys that confront us today. It seems to me that the real solution is the solution to everything. When a rational philosophy penetrates the schools, from pre-school to the universities. When men develop a love for learning and identifying reality akin to that of Leonardo Da Vinci.

Just so you know, the book is currently not available at Lulu. I will be working on the second edition soon and would like to add and introduction page and and appendix. My thanks to those who did purchase it. Jose Gainza.

Thanks for pointing that out to me. I'll check it out soon. Jose.

Perhaps Miss Rand did read the book and was inspired by it. Perhaps, she got Galt's name from it. She certainly did not get the plot of Atlas or the characterization from that book. Perhaps it was a literary spark. As a fiction writer, this is what my imagination gives me. Henry Galt may have evil practices. John Galt's past is not known really. Perhaps she had envisioned Galt first as a relative of a man like Henry Galt and then John Galt became what he became. Perhaps the type of character Henry Galt is when she read it, puzzled her, and she wanted to correct such a man. And perhaps she discovered other characters like Henry Galt in other books, and this process was part of her literary mental processes. This is what my dreams give me right now. But because it is a dream it is not significant or important, the connection, unless I knew for certain that this was the connection. I'm very interested in Ayn Rand's mental processes. Especially her literary growth. The Driver does sound interersting though. I'll get it if I find it one day at a used bookstore. Jose Gainza

Congratulations! Yes. I know how hard it is too even finish an essay on The Fountainhead when one is young, and so it is tremendous to win, given the types of judges, and their high standards. You should be really proud of yourself and use this as motivation to continue to write essays on Objectivism and other intellectuall ideas that interest you for the rest of your life. Jose Gainza.

I have written a book of fiction. It is a novelette and you can purchase it here. Its most interesting aspect in my opinion is the ingenuity of the plot in relation to a very simple story that serves as my story’s basis. One day I found on the internet some information related to a national Portuguese folk tale. Not only do the French associate themselves with the rooster (or cock) as their symbol. The Portuguese do too. At a time in history where the neighbors, Portugal and Spain, share animosity against each other, along with a natural suspicion; one day a Spaniard walks into a Portuguese town, Barcelos. A serious crime is committed. The townspeople come to believe that the Spanish stranger is the guilty party. They prepare to hang him. The accused has an opportunity to see the sentencing judge. He pleads his innocence. There is a cock in the room. In one version I read, the cock is dead and cooked. Either, way, the accused, a little bit mystical, declares that if that cock releases his morning song, then it means that he is innocent. Lo and behold, the cock sings. The Spaniard is set free. There was a seed for a story. Buy now. It's price is quite fair. I wanted to make it set in Toronto and in modern day. Last summer the Portuguese and Italians clashed violently over World Cup soccer in my city. The incidents were few but still they are important and suggestive of something that may very well be part of the downfall of a city. The story would touch on this issue but the central purpose would be to present this old legend from Portugal in a new and interesting way. So in what way would the accused of my story be a new comer to Toronto? What would be the crime and how serious would it be? Who would be the cock? What does it mean to be a cock? How would the singing of a cock be the cause of the acquittal of an accused, in a modern day metropolis, where alarm clocks replace his song, and where the advancements in genetic science and animal husbandry are causing a job shortage for an animal like the cock. I chose to make the main characters soccer players. And I chose to have the events revolve around their involvement in soccer. I chose to have a professional soccer club named The Toronto Cocks. In reviewing the work I have given the various sections headlines in my mind, or rather, in my journal. I decided to share this private estate to serve as an interesting prelude to what you will encounter when you chose to experience my story. (To those of you who are familiar with some of the fiction I have written and posted on this forum, I will assure you that this story is not a romance love story; neither between a man and a woman, or a man and a man, or a woman and woman). Behold the headlines below: 1. How the wine maker, Luis Galo, immigrated to Ontario. 2. How great grandson, Mike Galo, became a Toronto Cock. 3. Mike Galo’s best friend’s secret. 4. Tiago Viera on Honesty, Purpose, and Justice. 5. The grand legacy of Sangue de Galo. 6. The renunciation of Sangue de Galo over a glass of wine. 7. The consequences of organized crime. 8. Mike Galo and his Don Juan lust. 9. Mike Galo’s cock dance. 10. A suspicious looking Italian becomes a cock. 11. For the love of the game and a name. 12. How much does friendship cost in gold? 13. Who’s the bigger man? 14. Father’s news causes strife. 15. A virtuous game is played. 16. Who’s the better man? 17. Forced retirement. 18. Just hanging. 19. A Cock’s swansong. The title of this story is Sangue de Galo Goals. ‘Sangue’ means blood. ‘Galo’ means cock or rooster. “Even the devastation wrought by the shenanigans of organized crime could not stop the emergence of the greatness of the Galo family of Portugal. Their efficacious talents amidst the challenges of life, such as in agriculture, spread even into the world of professional soccer. Would this family remain unbeatable? And if they were to be defeated, would it be at the hands of another person or party, or would it arise from some defect within man’s soul? Would their defeat or triumph be considered a phenomenon of some collective, the family, or would it be a phenomenon of the individual? This is the fate you will discover when you enter into the world of Sangue de Galo Goals, and meet the likes of Mike Galo and Tiago Viera, bosom buddies encountering the challenges to man’s destiny." (Descpription originally found at Lulu dot com). You will be able to preview 7 pages of the story by me, Jose Gainza, at www.lulu.com. Thank you very much. Jose Gainza.

It is the way he came into my life that makes him unforgettable, he who is omnipresent still. He sat next to me and said, “You’re pretty,” and some other things. My immediate feeling was jealousy because I wondered whether he did that often. And then I felt disgust at the idea that he would hold me in such low regard as to be treated like a floozy sexual tramp. And then he started to speak some more. Struggling to hear his words, I also wondered how I could bear to take our meeting into the next day, letting him not be with me always, traveling and mingling with the rest of the city, perhaps approaching others with the same words, and thus betraying me. I knew I loved his audacity. And I loved the fact that I was wishing the same thing in that moment, that he speak to me and tell me I was pretty. I let him look at me for a long moment, he purposely silent, holding me in his eyes as some work of art, perhaps comparing my nose to my chin, and my cheeks to my lips, closing his eyes in one quick moment, biting his lips occasionally, but mainly just looking with an angelic smile on his face, like a being who has just seen his deity. And while he did that, and I tried not to look at him in the same way, I had visions of him in a dungeon I would make; I would have him chained to the walls, and when I allowed it I would have him tied to my bed posts, and handcuffed to the metal bar inside the shower stall. If he was going to dare to look at me as if I was his commander, then I would envision states in which I was his master. Such visions I could not hold in consciousness for much longer though. By them I knew that I wanted this man already. I had to accept the tantalization within my soul. I smiled at him and let his ideas enter and mingle with my subconscious. I would treat him as a man who has come so far, a man who took his opportunity, and who executed it well. Thus spoke Don Diego. “… It is perhaps unfortunate to the success of this endeavor with your heart and great regard as the goal that you do not seem to remember having seen me before. Perhaps it was the black fedora and the dark black sunglasses that I wore. But I surely remember you. You wore your hair tied in a pony tail that day. I remember how that accentuated your neck and throat. I can see by your eyes that that comment does not bother you, nor would the statement about me seeking you out for long-term co-habitation. “But at this moment you know nothing of my soul, except that I sometimes elect and prefer to wear a black fedora and dark sunglasses. Thus what mean these seeming brutish and carnivorous compliments from me? He who speaks so knows nothing of your fundamental magnificence. But I did hear you speak, I did grasp your meaning. “It was actually she who spoke first, the woman in pink on her cellular phone. She told a Charlie on the other end that she would love to watch Thomas Crown Affair with him because it was her favorite movie. She hung up the line saying that eight-thirty would be fine. “And then you spoke to her; (I was sitting two seats behind you). ‘I love that movie too,’ you said. And she said, ‘Crown’s attitude is so sexy!’ “‘Yes; such a touching story.’ “‘I love how everything fits together tightly, and yet there are still surprises and suspense.’ was her comment. “‘Do you remember the character played by Faye Dunaway?’ “‘Yes, the shrink.’ “‘Didn’t you love it how she laughed at Crown’s romance situation? What’s that line? If she is anything like you she’ll never know what she’s lost until it is too late. But she’s not laughing in a mean way, as if she resents Crown, and lusts for his failure. She admires Crown, and perhaps does not know why he is in therapy. But she laughs at him as if she knows he could be greater, and therefore, his predicament is silly, and thus simple to get over. Dunaway pulls it off beautifully, even with hysterical laughter.’ “‘Thank you,’ she said to you, ‘I’ll point it out to Charlie tonight.’ She soon got off the streetcar. “I was surprised that you know about that issue. I know that you cried and laughed when the painting was given to her on the heliport. I know; you don’t even have to admit it: I know. I did too by the time she got to the ticket counter. I know that it is impossible for you to hate a man like Thomas Crown. But you love more about him than just his financial wealth. You love that aspect of his character that would achieve the right to let a cherished Renoir fall into the fire. You love a man who could set the price of the stakes of the game he is playing—but life is not a game—who would toss away his fortune for the chance to win the right to kiss your lips forever, if such a privilege were the right and good thing to want.” I simply asked him a poignant question, “So what do you want?” “I have the rest of the evening free. I own a copy. I live along this streetcar line. Will you agree to watch it with me, right now?” “I own a copy too.” “Do you have the DVD, with the special features?” “No. But I was going to go home and cook; I’m hungry.” “I can offer to make you a hot kosher corned beef sandwich and a Russian Salad, giant pickle on the side of course.” “Can you make French fries too?” “Yes. I wasn’t sure whether you would approve of such a thing. Yes, of course I’d be honored to fry you fries.” “Sounds divine.” was what I decided to answer. THE END

Did you notice that this is odd. Deuce's crying seems odd because not too long after, Justin asks him to print out his screenplay; so why is he crying? Printing it out can mean that he didn't lose it. A seeming contradiction. I will admit that it was initially my careless mistake. But it is a mistake that is easy to fix by just telling you what I want to happen. So I added some lines to the following paragraph quoted below, when Justin is on the street car. Here are the lines that I added for better clarity that end the above just quoted paragraph: It was covered by black leather. The pages inside were lined, and on them were the slashes of a violent and elegant handwriting, written in a green ink, like blood that had poured from a passionate creature, a serpent in ecstasy. Justin knew that such an original document was priceless to its author. Jose.

By Jose Gainza He felt justified to consider Justin Just, a.k.a., J.J., as a man who was born to be the first great actor, the first giant jewel, of the twenty-first century. He, like too many others, watched Justin from far away, in another country. He often watched him on the screen, in a dark, crowded theatre while Justin perhaps was really surfing on the beach, or eating lunch with his mother, or dating some girl, or perhaps learning a new dance routine coz he was confident that Justin was capable of it, or working on making his voice more beautiful than it already was coz he had faith that Justin was a great singer too. He knew that Justin on the screen was not Justin live. He had no choice but to settle for that—such was the absolutism of reality. There was something about the way Justin Just walked, the way he stood, the way he looked into the camera that suggested to him that Justin could dance. He could imagine him as a background dancer in some hip hop music video, or tap dancing like Gregory Hines, doing the tango in some shining ballroom, or participating in some frenzied tribal stir from Africa. Perhaps these visions were created from his lust, or perhaps somewhere deeper: his fundamental appraisal of himself and the universe. Justin’s mother knew that her son would be the next Marlon Brando when he was only nine, when he decided to re-enact for her a short scene from The Godfather III; the scene outside the opera house, when Michael Corleone reacts to the murder of his daughter on those same steps, a moment just after it; when he lets out the monstrosity of a silent lament, mouth wide open as if unable to breathe, and about to die himself. Needless to say, Justin’s mother was very impressed at the accuracy and passion of her Justin’s performance. Justin Just got his start in the industry when he was fifteen, starring in a television show about a young popular music idol. It was called Phenomenon. Despite Justin’s zeal displayed in his learning how to sing for the role, and actually singing many of the songs presented in the show, the show was cancelled after one season. It wasn’t because the show was unpopular. The girls of North America loved Justin Just. It was not only the charisma that exuded from his character, but it was also his stunning beauty: his tight golden curls, his narrow gaunt face, his sandy colored skin, his slender frame, and his ocean colored eyes. Justin was fired because he had the audacity to make demands about the future storyline and its characterization. The producers could not tolerate such audacity from a fifteen year old kid. What was the issue? The first one was that the producers wanted the phenomenon to start having sexual relations with girls, thus bringing the issue of teenage sex to the story. However, Justin wanted the phenomenon to be a kid who wishes to wait until he meets a soul mate. The producers wanted a series of lovers to pass through the phenomenon’s life in the next season. Justin refused to play the part. When they asked him if he could compromise on the issue, he said he would—if only the series of lovers were males. The producers were horrified. That was the primary motive of Justin’s offer to the executives. He knew then that this insolence would get him fired. The consequence: millions of heartbroken girls; Justin kept his honor. So Justin dyed his hair black, and went to a high school in a small California town, where the school administration agreed to allow him to attend under a pseudonym. Meanwhile, for the next few years Justin auditioned from time to time for roles he coveted. It was to no avail. He did manage to get scattered work in television commercials. And it was during this time that he started to learn how to dance. One day when Justin Just was nineteen he got a telephone call from an eager movie director. He was producing his new movie about a white, twenty something rhythm and blues singer who has taken the world by storm. Each of his concerts is predominated by an ocean of screaming, frenzied young females. Millions and millions of females on this earth adore this boy. Millions of females suffer from the collective urge to sleep with this boy. Elvis had a similar power. His sexual appeal is perhaps why most of these females buy his records: to forever hear the voice from the throat of the godly-like frame that is Justin Just. How many women have to live in serenity with the dream of one day dating this boy, serenity because the dream is hopeless? Would they forgive him if he were to be married? Would they forgive him if he were to announce to the world suddenly that he loves men sexually, and only men? The premise: A young musical superstar, a world-wide idol and heart throb, is in danger of losing his fame, his wealth, and his music career, and his family, if he chooses to expose his love affair with his male lover, a poor starving artist from the ghetto. The Idol’s Choice was made. It had a decent run at the box office. It received an Academy award nomination. Justin Just received a Golden Globe nomination for best actor but didn’t win. Justin Just won an Academy Award for his next film. It was the sequel of A Thomas Crown Affair, a portrait of the early adventures of a young Thomas Crown, the role first made famous by Pierce Brosnan. It portrays Thomas’s prodigious rise to wealth and power and his loyalty to choosing the best in life, and his commitment to acquiring those bests. There is land, there is a woman, there is art, there are jewels, and there is a company. It was called Tommy’s Pride, Tommy’s Crown. The next film Justin Just starred in was called Paparazzi Conducted. The story was an indictment of the ruthlessness and amorality of a certain class of fame photographers. These types of photographers and gossipers are creatures who have never heard of the concept of privacy or private property. They justify their violations by the notion that once enough of the communication media has recognized a certain artist, then that artist loses his status as a human, and becomes public property to be spat on by any chance passerby, and marked by the pigeons overhead. It is comforting though that once an artist is famous, great wealth usually follows, and therefore the artist can buy his security and privacy, so that the tabloids remain tabloids—fictitious and exaggerated; even though the paparazzi like to pretend that rights to privacy are not inalienable and absolute, or that such a concept as ‘natural law’ is valid. In the movie a very famous actor orchestrates the fame and stardom of a young, ambitious tabloid journalist who has proved to be a scavenger on the life of the conductor, and who subsequently drove his girlfriend to suicide. The journalist gives up writing to become an actor himself when the opportunity throws itself on him, thrown by the hand of the conductor. Hidden cameras, recording devices, private investigators, on-set spies, and a director on the conductor’s pay roll, work together to deprive the journalist of any sense of privacy, and any sense of control over his destiny. In a moment of passion, inspired by a high speed chase, which ends on his driveway, the journalist shoots the driver of the car that was chasing him, another paparazzi. The journalist is convicted and sent away to prison. When he cannot tolerate the lack of privacy in jail, and the lack of freedom of action, he commits suicide. Justin Just played the conductor. This led him to his next acting role, which was neither on the screen or the stage. Tina Castro, the famous actress, was in love with a famous Latin American singer named Julio, not Justin the actor. But Julio was still in divorce proceedings with his wife, who he no longer loved. Tina’s last two relationships were highly publicized by the paparazzi. She sometimes wondered whether the tremendous media coverage was part of the reason why those relationships failed. She would not let them interfere with her love life again. Also, if Julio’s wife knew that he was in love with Tina, she would ask for too much money as her settlement, and perhaps she would never consent to the divorce. Tina and Julio fell in love after Julio had already asked his wife for the divorce. And they knew that the media had no right to know of any of this. Tina Castro and her Julio asked Justin Just to play the role of her fiancée, in the real life stage of being a superstar. Justin agreed. It was only until the divorce was final. There were pictures of them at night clubs, famous restaurants, on the beaches of the world; and kissing, embracing, and of course, arguing and fighting. Someone in the media came up with a name to call the relationship of Justin and Tina: ‘Justina’. Julio did not have to worry about Justina becoming true and genuine, for Justin had tried some years back to woo Julio for himself, which was a quickly failed attempt, but which led to Julio choosing him for his scheme. Julio had no interest in exposing Justin’s sexuality. The world believed that it was genuine. He did too. It must have been hard for him to watch Justin be intimate with one of the most beautiful women in the world. He had his own version of a prince charming story, where because the issue was not settled yet—there was no knowledge either way—that he could still believe that Justin was a possible dream. Justina ruined that dream. And yet he adored Tina as an actress and a human. He agreed that she was one of the most beautiful women in the world. And so he lived with the same serenity that most Justin fans had to live with, and a tolerable-insatiable hunger. One day Justina gave to the world the following press release: Since we are public figures, bestowed with the honor of being recognized by the masses, we feel that it is our duty and social responsibility to announce to the world that our engagement is off, our relationship is over, though we will remain great friends forever, even though we once shared a bed together. Yours truly, Justina. He smelled something funny when this statement came out. Though he was pleased by the fact of the break up, there seemed to be some thing very degrading about that statement. He didn’t know that those two beautiful beings could be capable of such selflessness. It allowed him to survive the reality that he could never possess Justin Just because it would mean that Justin accepted the injustice of being public property. And so he did not know that the last comment was more specific than most people could fathom: the bed they once shared together was that one time when they fell asleep after watching movies into the early morning. Julio was in that bed too. Three months later the world was shocked, as was he, to find out that Tina had married Julio in a secret wedding ceremony in Australia. By the time they were on their honeymoon the media had no interest in Tinulio. Their focus was still on lonely Justin, as was his. For all they knew, Justin Just was still single, and hopefully heartbroken, depressed, and shattered. And at the same time they hoped that he had found someone too. Justin’s experience in Justina left him disgusted with fame. He was proud of the freedom that he fostered for Tina Castro. And yet where was Justin’s? Because of it Justin gave himself the courage to declare to the world that he was gay. But he would not do that because then how would he know, out of the sudden storm of proposals that would surely come, which one was really genuine and true. He hadn’t really thought about how to select male romantic candidates before. He was primarily concerned with his career. The good roles were coming in steady and his future seemed very, very secure. He was just confident that one day it would happen, one day he would find him, or him would find Justin. He focused his mind on filming a movie in Toronto, a modern adaptation of Cyrano De Bergerac. He was fortunate enough to play Cyrano, a much coveted role. One day during a break in shooting, Justin took the opportunity to get to know the city a little bit more. He rode the various street car lines, looking at the changes in architecture, and the changes in the appearances and personalities of men, the flux of Toronto. He got onto the 505 streetcar at Dundas West station, where Dundas crosses Bloor. He walked towards an empty double-seater towards the back but the pair of seats was not completely vacant. Justin was surprised to find that a thin, brown leather bag inhabited the seat. Someone had lost it. Justin sat down and opened the bag in search of the owner’s name, address, and phone number. What he found immediately was a manuscript. The title page read Rachmaninoff’s Last Ovation: A Story of Praise and Understanding. It was a screenplay. Half way through the screenplay, Justin was interrupted by the driver when they had arrived again at Dundas West Station because Justin never disembarked from the car. The driver informed Justin that if he was going to stay on the street car for another round trip then he would have to put in six dollars. Justin walked with the driver to the cash box and slipped in a ten dollar bill. Then he returned to his seat to continue the reading. It was the story of a Romantic composer named Yuriy Rachmaninoff. His music made him world famous back in the day. He was so famous that his music was often sought after in the movies. Crowds of adoring fans ended his concerts with standing ovations. But Yuriy did not feel appreciated or understood by the roaring fans, or the critics, or the papers. People felt very much about him, and what they felt was perhaps love. But Yuriy wanted their thoughts, their thoughts on music, and perhaps their thoughts on metaphysics. He wanted to hear the words to name the importance of his musical achievements, because he, Yuriy, had the words for his own music. The movie is about Yuriy finally meeting someone who has the words to tell him why she loves him and why she loves his music. The movie was written by a certain Deuce Wilde. His address was available on the inside cover of the script. It was he. When Deuce Wilde opened the door for Justin, he was just wearing a pair blue soccer shorts. His chest and legs were fully exposed. He was of mixed race, of Latin American descent, of dark copper skin. His limbs were slender and tight. His face was a special beauty—at one angle he appeared to have the features of a Native, at another of an African, and at another, a Norman. Justin Just was certainly impressed and pleased. Deuce Wilde was more so, and for the first moments he was dumbfounded. “I’m Justin Just.” “I know.” “You look sad.” “I’m thrilled … but I lost something very important today.” “What?” “What are you doing here Mr. Just?” “Justin … I have a surprise for you, Mr. Wilde.” “Deuce … Do you have it behind your back?” “Yes.” “Well?” “Don’t you want to shake my hand?” “Yes, of course.” They shook. Deuce’s reaction was instinctive: he smelled his hand, the hand that had held that of Justin Just a moment ago. The reaction to that gesture of sensuality made Deuce cry because Justin’s hand smelled of leather, a smell too akin to the bag he had lost earlier that day. So Justin embraced him like a friend. And the bag fell to the floor. Soon they were both smiling and laughing. “How did you find it?” “Mere coincidence. I wanted to ride the streetcar, to know this city of yours. I’m glad I have come to meet you.” “Did you like it?” “I loved it. I’ll even tell you why.” “Don’t.” “Excuse me!” “Don’t. This is a great opportunity for me. That you like my script suggests that you can make my career. That you like my script, and read it in a day, suggests that we can be great friends. And yet I’m willing to risk losing all that this very moment, to perhaps scare you away forever.” “What are you talking about?” “I love you, Justin Just. I’ve loved you since I’ve known of your existence. I’ve loved you since the days of Phenomenon. I’ve loved you on those rare moments that I got a glimpse of you in some mediocre commercial. I own the DVD of Phenomenon. I watch it regularly to see the subtle facets of your personality, the idiosyncrasies of your expression. How could I not love you after An Idol’s Choice; it was a dream come true? You drove me mad in Tommy’s Pride, Tommy’s Crown. Even to see you dark and filled with rage, as in Paparazzi Conducted, made me sexual because of where it came from. I must admit that when you were with Tina Castro, I used to covet any chance glimpse or rumor of how you looked or what you were doing. I was glad you broke up. I’m sorry.” “Deuce—” “—Justin, I’m afraid to know you. I want to believe you are a great souled man.” “I would like to prove it to you.” “You’re not disgusted?” “Your honesty, your candor, your daring is admirable and sweet. Of course, I cannot give you what you want. I would like to take a chance at friendship.” “That would be thrilling.” “I want to help you. Listen, I’m wrapping up filming a movie here. When I get back to California, I’ll show a copy of your script to some people. Print me out a copy.” “Sure … what movie are you making?” Meanwhile, Deuce pressed print on his computer. “I’m starring in a modern adaptation of Cyrano.” “My god!” “It’s true. Finally.” “Yes! … I’ve envisioned you as an ideal Chanticleer. You know, Rostand’s play about a cock set on a farm?” “Of course. Chanticleer believes his singing makes the sun rise. Perhaps we make it after we make yours?” “Sounds heavenly.” “I gotta go, Deuce. It was a huge pleasure.” He extended his arm out to receive a copy of the script. “I’m speechless.” They embraced in the manner of brothers. But as he walked away from Deuce’s building, Justin had trouble walking coz he was beginning to feel like a lover. When he was on the 505 again, headed east towards his hotel, he called Deuce. “I forgot to ask you: do you need any money?” “No. That’s fine. Thanks for asking. Get my movie made; that’s all.” “Where do you work? What do you do?” “I work at Starbucks.” “Are you sure you want no money?” “I’m sure. Goodnight Justin.” “Goodnight Deuce.” In the late evening, Justin called his mother in California. “Hello, lady.” “Justin! What’s wrong?” “Everything is wonderful.” “So?” “I want you to come to Toronto.” “Do you miss me?” “I’m too busy to miss you.” “Then what the hell do you want?” “I want to get you a job at a Starbucks down here.” “Is this a joke?” “I want you to be my spy. I want you to work with this guy and tell me about him; what he says, what he does. Perhaps you can convince him to take dancing lessons. I’m going to start dancing a lot professionally soon.” “What? … Is this the one, Justin? Are you ready? Just him?” “Yes. You can help me surprise him when it’s time. I’ll tell you more when you get here. How soon can you get here? … yah, I guess I’ll have to pay your wages for the owner since you won’t have a worker’s visa. By the way, I just bought a condo in Scarborough; you can take care of it for a while.” “Where’s Scarborough?” “Far enough from downtown Toronto, still.” A few months later, Deuce was introduced to a middle-aged woman who was blonde and very healthy, “Monica Timber”, an alias. She was to be his new supervisor. They hit it off immediately, a relationship that had a mother-son feel to it; and they became confidantes to each other, to the extent that she was able to allow him to be her confidante. Many months after, Devon Anaconda of a popular television entertainment magazine reported the following: If you’re just tuning in you’re just in time to hear some shocking breaking news. Ladies, I advise you to have a seat. Yes, viewer discretion is perhaps advised. The superstar, Justin Just, digs … THE END

The Notebook Good Will Hunting Pearl Harbour Bridges of Madison County Love Affair (Beatty/Benning) Bugsy Far and Away Love Actually Meet Joe Black Legends of the Fall Carlito's Way White Palace A Knight's Tale All The Pretty Horses Havana ..... I'll be back, Jose.

I always thought that by demoting a relationship was meant was that it was impossible for Dagny to do so in her lifetime, as a grand example. We're not talking about a threesome. So in the first stage of her life Dagny has Francisco, and he represents her highest embodiment of her values. If Francisco didn't turn out to be a rational egoist, then perhaps you can demote it, but then that would be fraud and it annuls the previous relationship. Then she finds a man better for her, and for her specifically, because it is on Rearden's rails that her beloved line will travel on. It's a very intimate dependency. And then Rearden ends up giving away his metal to the looters and she has met Galt. Rearden seems lost to her because she is still fighting against Galt. And then she realizes she wants Galt, or rather, she names what she felt in Atlantis. The stature of her three relationships has grown in scope with each subsequent man. Each, in the context of her values, is a greater man than the other, within the class of men who are good and great. Merely remaining friends with Francisco is not the demotion of the relationship. They will never have sex again but they will still have what they had, have achieved the relationship that they achieved, because what they experienced in those woods was real after all. With Rearden she achieves even more. With Galt the ultimate. But she's still friends with both Frisco and Hank. What man could she possibly bring into a menage a trois--the only way she could have sex with another man is if he was greater, or perhaps equal to Galt? This whole scenario is preposterous but it illustrates the point. Let's assume she's confused and wants to have a relationship with both Ragnar and Galt separately and within the same time period. If Ragnar proves greater than Galt, then I she would chose Ragnar, and he would leave his wife for Dagny which is better. But then Dagny and Ragnar have the highest achieved romantic love. And yet there's room for Ragnar's ex to achieve her greatest; and Galt too; there is no sorrow essentially; she and he will reach their best too (and not the platonic best, but best within a context). Jose.

I'm glad you mentioned this. I have been thinking of John Ridpath recently, just wondering how his health is doing. That he will be giving this talk leads me to believe that he is in good health. I've been busy with my life and he's a man whose work I'd rather not interrupt, and so I've taken no opportunity to communicate with the man. You see, he's like my Monodnack Valley. Relative to the potential of an entire life, he taught me in mine for two years very early and then that gave me inspiration to move on with the adventure on my own. He is an amazing intellect. I can't make it to the talk. I live in Toronto. Jose.

Yes, of course, that is the primary purpose and justification of creating art, for yourself. I do say this later on in the piece, did you read that. And here's an example of a great experience, that a non-artist cannot experience: finish writing your great story, have your beloved read it and love it, and then celebrate in bed. kind of contraversial I suppose. Jose.

Notes On My Art Of Fiction By Jose Gainza Literature is not merely entertainment, though it can be and should be entertaining. A story can inspire in the reader great emotion and it can transport him, in his imagination, to a realm not like the one in which he lives existentially. A story can inspire this emotion either through the action or the ideas presented by its text; in most cases. Though this emotional reaction occurs, this is not the primary purpose of literature. The novel was born out of stage drama. Tragedy, for example, in Ancient Greece, allowed the spectator to purge sorrow, guilt, anger from his soul, as Aristotle says in his Poetics. Though Tragedy can accomplish this, this too is not the primary function of literature. It may seem petty to point out that literature uses words but the phenomenon of words and their nature holds the key to the true function of literature. In the life of a man words are not just written on paper or spoken aloud. They are psychological entities that serve as tools of human consciousness in order for it to achieve cognition about experience in the world; ultimately to remain living and living long range. Some of us fail and some of us succeed. We do not all always succeed. Concepts, ideas, allow us to identify reality in the most genial way. If living long-range via concepts is what life is all about then why do we need some writer’s words organized in the form of a story to inspire our imagination to see humans struggle for values in our consciousness, which is the same thing we are doing anyway existentially? Why do we need to “escape” into our own souls and dreams? There’s an obvious difference between life-struggle in existence and in the imagination of consciousness: and that is time. The conquest of your beloved in real life can take years, decades even. While reading a story the reader will experience the conquest of one character’s beloved in the time it takes to read the story, from some hours to some days, to some weeks (though in story-time it may be years as well). The human importance of literature is found in the experience of going through the story, either as the reader or the writer. To see human achievement in microcosm is the crux of the value of the story experience. You will admit of the thrill, for good or for bad, of seeing the characters of the story you are reading succeed or fail. Why this thrill? Because you know, at least subconsciously, that long-term value struggle is what your life and all human life is essentially about. The conclusion of a story will leave you with a sense of hope or a sense of doom. While you are still under the “spell” of the story, the conclusion of a story will confirm or deny whether success in life is possible to you. That is the underlying source of whatever emotion you are left feeling. I must tell you at this point that the reader will never experience the same thrill in reading a competent story as the thrill of the writing of it experienced by its creator. To illustrate the point, imagine what you imagine (as a reader) in your consciousness and what the writer does. First of all, the former is not possible without the latter. Second, the writer sees a “movie” in his head, and has to choose the words, and organization of words that will best assist the (archetypical) reader in imagining the closest reproduction of that movie originally within the writer’s consciousness. In other words, the dream that the writer inspires in your consciousness will not be an exact replica of the original dream of the writer, symbolized by his story. But this is not something to lament; it is merely the nature of the reality of writing fiction. To the extent that it is possible with words on paper, the better writer will make you experience his same dream (movie) the closest he can to the best of his ability. The Ancient Greek theatre was a lesson in imagination, or it was a mass celebration of the phenomenon of imagination. Previous to the theatre there was Homer, but his success as a story teller was only possible because he wrote about what his fans already had imagined in the form of the oral tales about their religion. Oral tales lack consistency and permanence. The original artist cannot be original in this way. The theatre allowed all the spectators to begin to see the exact same thing: the stage performance. Compared to their bare imaginations, with the theatre they did not have to imagine as much. The product of imagination, the dream, was provided primarily by the artist. For the spectator, this is more restful. The spectator will still witness the spectacle of value-struggle that he needs as a human being but with not as much effort from his imagination, thanks to the stage performance; the spectacle no longer a dream of consciousness but a reality of existence and sense. Perhaps, and probably very much so, people’s imagination (the show inside their heads) is much better than the stage performance. I cannot say for certain. However, I do know that knowing the craft of drama, and the principles of drama, allow the artist (the story teller) to communicate his dream more effectively than most. He becomes a rare type of man to the public. The spectators’ subconscious artistry, his dreams and his day dreams, may be very competent and exciting. But they are subconscious and not as frequent. There is a very real need for a story teller. Observe: today we spend billions of dollars on the movie industry. In Ancient times people would gather at a special place just to see the show; nowhere near the vividness and realism of today’s movies or our stage plays. With the novel we begin to have the mastery of the dramatist combined with the ease and luxury of staying in bed (if we want to). Though more effort is demanded of our imagination, our effort becomes easy to exert when guided by the excellence of the literary artist. And with movies the charm of the theatre is brought to our bedrooms (if we want), and at our convenience. Do you see the beauty in this luxury! The theatre, the novel, and the movie all serve the same human need: they show us human value struggle. Between the novel, the play, and the movie, the latter two are more passive, while the novel is more active; this is from the perspective of the viewer/consumer. They are all literary art, their method being the telling of a story. A novel organizes its paragraphs in such a way as to inspire an accurate replica within the consumer’s imagination (consciousness). (Usually once achieved the first time in a focused state, the reader will see the same vision every time he returns to that scene). The consumer’s senses are pulled inside (if you like) to sense the dream inspired by the words of the creator. The more effort and focus from the consumer, the more real and permanent the dream becomes. The producers of plays and movies bring the attention of man’s senses back outwards to their more natural and leisurely state. The level of realism of a play on the stage will still require effort from man’s rational faculty to assist the senses to suspend their disbelief. Yet when the actor runs across the stage and falls at the feet of his beloved, it is easier to comprehend than to read the words: Francisco swiftly crossed the room to fall on his knees before her, pleading for forgiveness … With the movies human consciousness witnesses precise, almost metaphysical realism. The motion picture of a movie becomes an incredible substitute for reality, the natural object of our consciousness. The consumer becomes the most real first hand witness of the lover falling on his knees. Implicit in all human action is philosophy. The aspect of philosophy which is most commonly observable in human action is morality or ethics. A code of morality is a code of values to guide man’s choices and actions, the choices and actions that determine the purpose and the course of his life (Ayn Rand). Men do have conscious moral values and will consciously act according to their beliefs. A man with conscious moral principles can act against them. The scenes in which he does act against them, is an instance of him acting on an implicit moral code, one that is in conflict with his conscious one. The Christian priest is a well-known example of a man with conscious moral motivation. Imagine the scene of this priest, who a few scenes earlier preached about celibacy and the impurity of sex, fall in love at first sight and feeling sexual hunger. Now imagine that same priest a couple of scenes later allow that woman to seduce him. Or imagine him allowing himself to be seduced, not by his beloved but by some woman he cannot love, the pope’s courtesan, or a leper. All these actions represent implicit moral beliefs different to the ones that he originally preached. As long as a writer is able to depict human action in a believable form via inspiration, he does not have to be conscious of his morals or of philosophy. The implicit moral implications of the actions he re-creates are what will keep the consumer interested, thus the reader does not have to be conscious of his morality either; because he is human, he will at least feel the implications. Relevant is the field of knowledge with which the writer views the “human condition”. The impact on the reader will differ whether the writer is a philosopher, a religionist, a psychologist, a sociologist, or an anthropologist. We hope that the writer is a philosopher, or at least a psychologist. Without this level of understanding, the writer is to that extent limited in terms of his originality and variety. There is an inherent richness with philosophy when applied to characterization. Philosophy is the mover of history. The different character types are only mastered with the knowledge of an historian of philosophy who possesses a philosophic intellect. Knowledge of psychology as well will allow you to apply the moral type you choose to depict to the specific character you want to draw. At this point of my writing career it is hard to imagine a writer writing from any other resource. I know that you do not have to be an expert in the career field of the character you choose. You do need to know enough about it to make the character and the background believable. You need to be an independent learner. You do have to study the field enough for your imagination to integrate it into your story. But this is not difficult. Most men can learn one career. Many too can learn a few in a life time. If you know philosophy, if you have a good epistemology, you can learn any subject and any business. Philosophy can be seen in any career. Business is itself an aspect of morality. Ethics does have something to say about it—for good or for bad: there’s Hank Rearden and Thomas Edison and then there’s Scrooge. I said that literature provides for human life the example of seeing human value struggle concretized. This is one of the central issues of philosophy. Even religion has an appraisal of human long-range life. The difference between a naturalist and a romanticist can be seen in the source of their creations. All writers are re-creating, imitating human life in their stories. This re-creation cannot take place without the writer calling upon his first hand experience in life. The subconscious does not forget. One’s conscious mind is that which thinks, feels, values in any given point in time. The subconscious is that which is not in focal awareness at any given point in time. So that if one is focused on this paragraph and this field of focus is what one is currently conscious of, then the subconscious is the paragraphs before it. The subconscious doesn’t forget: every perception, every thought, every emotion, perhaps every dream, is stored in one’s subconscious. The problem arises in accessing the material stored in there. If one has integrated an efficient and organized storage system, then retrieval will be easier, effortless, and quick to that extent. If you can observe this to be true, then you can also easily observe that one’s imagination, one’s day dreams, and dreams, are produced from the material stored in one’s subconscious. I have a much easier time describing Toronto on paper than I do New York City because I have lived in it all my life. However, New York is easier to describe than Atlanta because New York is so famous that I’ve seen so much of it on television and in the movies. Atlanta I have nothing to say about. However, I know that I can do a competent job describing New York if I were to study it in books of all sorts. This is because human imagination is able to use my experience in a big city like Toronto, to imagine the New York I would have read about in books. But if you live in New York, and you have studied its geography, history, architecture, politics, and lived in it long enough, then you will have an extraordinary and rich source of data stored in your subconscious to produce a remarkable re-creation. So much for the idea that first hand human experience is the original source of imagination. All writers begin the creative process at the same point by calling on their experience in life, but some end up going further than others. All considerate writers will get to the point of saying about life: this is the way people are today according to standard X, X standing for whatever field of science on human nature that the writer feels at home with. The writer can be a sociologist or a psychologist, among other things. He can also be a philosopher. To the extent that your field of science allows for change, i.e., improvement or degradation, is the extent that a writer can say about life: this is the way people could be according to standard X; I don’t have to write about how people are merely. Most people one has observed may be neurotics, but if one has knowledge of what psychological health is, then one has the material for writing about how men could be, and perhaps should be. And if one has a historical perspective of philosophy as a science then the variety of “could be`s” becomes a multiplicity, even having an impact on the multiplicity of potential psychologies. It is by philosophy that one will begin to develop philosophical absolutes, and definite convictions on ethics. One can then have a moral ideal as one’s could be. This moral “could be” becomes a should be. In the moral realm a writer can re-create a variety of moral archetypes in his story. When he champions one moral archetype, when the events of the story leads to a theme that favors one moral code, a writer is proclaiming what he believes human character should be like, his code of moral values serving as the standard. Character motivation can be evaluated on a few levels at least. A homely woman sits at her window every afternoon watching the activity of the street. Is her motivation unconscious, mainly a biological reaction to her satiety from lunch, so that she could digest her food, as a break, before she goes back to her household chores, which she does everyday, as she has done for several years now, as she will probably do for the next 20 to 30 years more? Does a beautiful man walk by everyday and is it her habit to watch him walk by in her timidity? Does she like the sounds of the city, has she evaluated city life intellectually, and does she do this as a sort of ritual of something quite profound and important? There is no limit to the length of a novel. One does not know at the outset how many pages it will be made of. One may have a rough estimate but one will not know for sure until the last edit is complete. In this way a novel may seem organic and living: it will have as many parts as its nature requires, and as many pages as it needs. But the author is the creator of this literary creature, and ultimately he is in control of its final structure. The creator’s purpose, the creator’s theme, will determine the structure of the novel: form follows function. A good writer has a conscious theme, maybe not in the beginning stages of the writing process, but certainly towards the end of the novel’s completion. Either his theme will pull the action and style towards it; or it will be reached after the quest for it. In the latter case more effort will be involved by the author in the editing stages of the novel. The theme of a novel is the essential or central message that the author intends to express by the action of the story, or the message he succeeds in expressing regardless of his conscious intention. A theme can be philosophical. A story can express ideas such as: that existence has primacy over consciousness; what the true nature of logic is, and how it is genial to man; what the correct moral code is for men to follow; whether a certain nation is the best to have ever been established, and why; whether a certain type of poetry is more effective than another. Each of the above themes represents a topic within one of the five branches of philosophy, namely, Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, Politics, and Aesthetics (Art), respectively. And within those branches there is a multiplicity of topics, of leaves (if you like). Philosophy is the source of any literary work of art, whether the author knows it or not. A man’s subconscious version of philosophy is the means by which he selects the various aspects of a novel. The only seeming escape from philosophy by a novel is to have the novel merely discuss a purely intellectual-scientific endeavor. Imagine a chronicle of the purely scientific thought processes of Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity. Let’s not be concerned with his family affairs, his loves, his business affairs, his travels, his friendships. Let’s describe the step-by-step logical process that he went through. Let’s assume he had no stumbling blocks, that he never got stuck. Who would find this interesting? The only type of person would be the physics enthusiast who has struggled along this same path, that Newton has not struggled with. It is the enthusiast’s own struggle in contrast to Newton’s “breeze”, by which the enthusiast will marvel at Newton’s achievement. Remember, the social significance of Newton’s work cannot be discussed by the author in this context, for that would be politics. We are concerned merely with the orchestra within Newton’s mind. Now let’s assume that Newton does encounter intellectual road blocks on his logical path to discovering his theory. This is more interesting. There is a sort of conflict here. How will Newton overcome his road blocks? First of all, that is unmistakably an epistemological issue. We’re back to philosophy again. But that will not be as interesting as bringing in the “personal” life of Newton into the picture. For what would be at stake if Newton fails? If he doesn’t solve the problem soon, he may lose his beloved, for she will grow impatient and desperate. Perhaps his reputation will be sullied. Perhaps his children will go hungry. Perhaps he will commit suicide, out of frustration, or carelessly by forgetting to eat and sleep. A man cannot escape philosophy in real life. An author cannot escape it in his writing of a story. Whatever theme you choose to write about, your story should seek to express. You do this primarily with Action. “Actions speak louder than words”. You can do this also with dialogue that explicitly expresses your theme. Or you can also do this by your narrative where the author speaks about his theme. Action is the most revealing, though. If in everyday life your actions imply your philosophy, then a novel can and should do the same with its characters. A female top executive of one of the leading auto parts makers in the world decides to leave her job to run for the Prime Minister ship of Canada. Her intelligence and her experience in the business world have led her to believe that there is something terribly wrong with the world. As a very able woman, she thinks she can do something to fix things. So she gets into politics. Two motives come to me at the moment: either it is her opportunity to give back to society for being a billionaire, or it is the audacity and excitement of being able to solve complicated problems to create a better world for her and her loved ones to live in. She begins with one party and then soon changes parties. Her explicit and expressed motive was that the former party conflicted with her code of moral values. She is a woman of integrity. And then a couple of years later, she announces that she is leaving politics to go back to run her father’s business. Perhaps she has observed the political stage and is now disgusted. Perhaps she only entered politics to investigate about what future policies might be enacted to affect the livelihood of her business. Perhaps she thinks that she can do a better job in fixing the world by helping her global business to succeed. Perhaps, the story is one of a woman who was in a mid-life crisis uncertain of whether she really loves her business, or whether she merely got into it originally to follow in her father’s footsteps and her political “experiment” is her way of trying to decide the issue. Now she knows she loves her factory, and the daughter has returned home. The action in this scenario is straight out of the headlines. I doubt the climax of her story has come yet. But if we get answers to some of the questions just posed, we will be able to predict what she probably or necessarily will do. When it happens, we will able to understand her journey by answering such questions. The point is that a man’s morality is a crucial psychological factor. His code of values is his motive power that pulls him forth into his destiny, and explains his decisions and actions. So the same goes in the universe of a fiction story. A story writer should know his code of ethics, should know of the science of ethics, and should choose character decisions and actions that express his moral theme, ultimately. A story should have a plot. A plot is a logical sequence of events leading to the resolution of a climax (Ayn Rand). I hope that you choose ethical themes; they are the most fruitful. You will want your hero to succeed. You will want him to succeed by his moral code, thus his success confirms yours; gives primarily to you, the writer, fuel to live long range. You will not want the achievement to come easy. You will want him to struggle. For me as the writer this is the way to move forward, it is psychologically thrilling. It will have a similar impact on most fan-readers. The story will end too quickly otherwise; i.e., the writing process and the consumer’s entertainment. You will want to establish the characters’ value purposes early because you need that for the comprehension of your climax. A good novel does not really begin to get exciting, relative to the last half of the book, until the first many chapters meant to establish the situation. Imagine the difference between a dog walking to the shore, and then a man walking to the shore. Now imagine just the man walking there without obstacles. Unless the scenery is breathtaking it is not that interesting. Now add a sudden rain storm, or an earthquake, or a car accident. Now imagine a mugger or a rapist as the antagonist. Now imagine his beloved interfering, or an attractive woman who is not his beloved. Or imagine his enemy is his obstacle. Or imagine his best friend is his obstacle who is acting as his enemy unwittingly, or even out of betrayal. The geographical location of the end of a man’s journey is insignificant without human moral values that it symbolizes. And neither is the accomplishment of a task, such as repairing a shipwrecked ship. So you want a hero who is motivated by his own moral values. This is what he wants to achieve in the story, in that fictional universe. The objects serve merely as background (realism or believability) and symbolism. You want the hero to have an antagonist with opposing values, either an enemy or a friend in a conflict of values. You want to set up the central conflict between the protagonist (the hero) and the antagonist (villain or friend). Then you want them to clash. You want to present the spectacle of this crash. And then you want to show whose values won out in the end. This is Romantic Novel writing. Writing short stories is not the proper long term purpose of a writer. Short stories serve the following functions: literary training and incidental, though important artistic amusement (for example, something a writer writes as a break while he is in the process of writing something really grand) A short story cannot fulfill the expression of a moral theme. It can only express aspects of it. You have to be much more selective in choosing the action. You’ll probably start with something too grand in your mind and have to break it down, cut it. This is the hard part of the writing and it takes place primarily in the mind. In this light a novel seems easier because you don’t have to do the cutting; the problem in the novel being its execution, the act of writing something so long, with so much detail, and very purposeful. A short story can be very beautiful, very poetic even. This will be accomplished by the style of it, because the action cannot do it alone; there’s not enough room for the action to live in. Though a short story may be very beautiful, it will never be as beautiful as a novel well done. If you want to portray the beauty of a man in a painting, you do not paint a portrait of his lips and nose merely, but rather of the entire face, even the throat and neck. Jose Gainza, April 2007

Something important is missing in your life, and the intoxication either allows you to view the object -- your life -- with an intensity of pleasure that is unmatched when not intoxicated. Or, the intoxication allows you to dream in an intense manner to see the object -- your life -- as it is not really. Or the drinking allows you to feel about life as you don't normally can, but as you actually do deserve, so that in those moments of intensity, you can feel great. In the latter case what is stopping you from feeling so great about your reality, is it you or is it other people that are hiding the truth from you? Usually, losing someone important in one's life leads to drinking. Then there is the case of some traumatic experience of your past that you do not want to see. And there is the case when you don't want to see how low your self-esteem is. The solution: you must learn how to experience life with the same intensity that you would otherwise do "only" with alcohol. This I believe is hard even for those who do not choose drink. Jose.