The Trouble with Genre

Science Fiction meets Memoir

My mother was a scuttering neutrino, my father a gravid black hole…

Robinsonade meets Erotica

Under the Seemen Sea on the sunken Eyeland of Titlantis, Monday moan-fucked Tuesday so hard thunder-thighed Wednesday shot from here to Friday’s friggin’ eye…

Black Comedy meets Küntslerroman

Bawdy Bodé, Jokey Gorky, and Jesty F. Wallace walk into Babe’s Loins, a bar-cum-hanging-gasper-garden serving abysmous absinthe and bottomless baijiu…

Rothko 1968.jpg

Gothic Sword-and-Sandal meets Western Chicklit

Moonstruck morning-star-wielding Maciste, the unforgiven lord of the mazy Castle of Ursus, plunged into the Red River Saloon at high noon in search of Big-Love Cat Ballou and her wild bunch of shopaho lickin' gossiphounds…

Mystery meets Musical Bestiary

Girl, who killed Strawberry Lucy?

Gotta find Ob-La-Di Walrus

Octopus’s waiting for the word

Get back—Piggy’s getting better

Bulldog’s barkin’ down Blue Jay Way

Ob-La Blackbird’s fixing a hole

Where Nowhere Man’s gonna hide Monkey…

Cannibalistic Horror meets Spiritual Cookbook

La Cène

(Menu Sacrificiel)

Arcimboldo Earth.jpg

Hors d’Oeuvres

Mahomet à la Marinière

Potages

Vishnu Vichyssoise

Potée Lao Tseu Lorraine

Plats Principaux

Jésus au Jus

Mahavira en Meurette

Brochette de Bouddha Bourguignon

Desserts

Nougat Nanak

Mousse au Moïse

Baba au Bahá'u'lláh

Clafoutis au Confucius

Nonsense Fiction meets Travelogue

Befear-arfter lychyearns oof draema-ing loovah deepartour, Speek’n-S’pain laft Quarxotic oner liberary-crooze tootoot sliverry Gorgin Borgis shundderin-Ψ…

Magic Realism meets Cyberiad

October 5, 2011. Job Jobs died, was reborn in cypherspace ,

and the Windows stopped crashing, the strange Faces in the Book

became fast (meaning slow) friends , the goggle-eyed iGadgets

stopped chanting i,i,i , the tricky sticky whirl-eyed Web

Brain xray2.jpg released its mesmerized prey Crying Spider.jpg , and burning a new page nag
hammadi.jpg ,

Salty Sergey Panopticontrashed his Hypno-Googles Bacon Glasses.jpg , O crave

mu wrld!

Metafiction meets Antinovel

This is not an i. (Call me O.)

The Trouble with Genre
Genre familiarizes reality's sur-passing strangeness, training us to seek the same in the different. (Genre as a technology deploying repetition to control difference.)	Streamlining the production and consumption of narrative, genre streamlines the commodification of story. Coordinated by genre, producers of narrative know what to deliver to consumers who know what to demand.
Narrative iconography
Characters The seeker, the lover, the beloved, the father, the rival, the ally, the stranger, the friend, the impostor, the victor, the victim,...	Objects The wound, the prize, the map, the clock, the sign, the secret, the door, the key, the monster, the thing, the weapon, the reward,...	Settings The home, the temple, the forest, the mind, the dream, the sea, the ship, the strange land, the crossroads, the prison, the clearing, the destination,...
All narrative essentially melodrama.	Actions The search, the journey (departure, pursuit, flight, homecoming), the transgression, the punishment, the sacrifice, the trick, the reversal, the choice, the battle, the judgment, the revelation, the recognition, the death, the union,...	From beginning to end, genre contains story in the circle of convention.

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