I like not knowing. I thrive on not knowing whether or not what I am seeing or hearing or reading is true. And who defines truth anyways? The author? The reader? The critic?

Does it matter?

Anyhow, either his remote-flipping finger got tired or he nodded off, but the TV was settled on a movie and, with nothing better to do, I started watching it. I think it was called “The Rookie” and as it neared the end I commented that it was the stupidest, most contrived story I’d ever seen and it that confirmed my self-righteous normal position of avoiding TV and movies. At the end, there was some narrative explaining that it was a true story.

It’s usually the other way around: we want our films and video games and books to become real life. The authenticity is that that movies show the way it really does happen but the way we oh-so-wish it would happen.

Mike: What is the subject of your book? Non fiction?
Miles: Uh, no. It’s… it’s a novel. Fiction. Yes. Although there is quite a bit from my own life… so I suppose that, technically some of it is nonfiction.
Mike:Good I like non fiction. There is so much to know about this world. I think you read something somebody just invented, it’s a waste of time.
Miles: That’s an interesting perspective.

I would recommend that anyone interested in Ryan Adams should check out “Strangers Alamanac” - a CD he released when he was with the band Whiskeytown.

“But he IS from the South, which I guess gives him a little authenticity.”

Perhaps. But just a minor nit that not all country music is from the South. Lots of great authentic ‘country’ hails from the north, and west too (e.g., “Summer Wages” Ian Tyson.)

I do not buy into the opinion above one little bit. Hardly any films are based on a true story. Certainly fewer successful films are either. I don’t want rappers being real gangsters that go around killing people, doing other criminal acts and treating women like animals when they are not rapping about it. There are few country stars who are rednecks a term invented as a derogatory term by urban wanna be ‘Uber Men’ Yankees to promote a stereotype that doesn’t exist today if it ever did.

Where do people get these weird and strange thoughts that are just based on little more than their imaginations and erroneous untested assumptions?

I wrote stories from personal experience and from my imagination, and he liked them both.

Sometimes nothing is more delightful than a little bit of make-believe.

C.S. Lewis and Tolkein have both considered the value of fairy stories and fantasy in their works; try Lewis’ “Of Other Worlds” for more great arguments on the value of imaginative stories.

I turn real wood. Grows on trees. Sometimes I even leave live edges on…

I have real sawdust in my real shop, and even use real tools, bust real knuckles and use real sandpaper.

I even make useful items in addition to “Art”.

That authentic enough?