Fountain of Knowledge

Oh gracious.

Magic realism I think I could pull off. This slipstream stuff, though, if I'm getting a feel for what it really is...

I think it's going to be a real stretch to me to write slipstream, in that case, because frankly the "it's profound because it's odd" psychedelic approach to literature drives me up the wall. It's NOT profound just because you wrote it while you were high (I'm looking at you, Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas, and you, On the Road). Maybe it comes of being a hardnosed nurse and having to reassure too many detoxing patients that there weren't any ants coming out of the television set, but self-induced psychosis holds no allure for me.

Now, that little rant out of the way, I like The Matrix, and I actually like movies/stories where you're led to question whether your reality is real. (Thank you, Ben, for confirming I wasn't nuts with the whole South American thing, btw.)

I am beginning to think that slipstream might be more of a... hm, literary device? than a genre, now that I hear everyone's ideas about it. Because I would have classified, for instance, The Matrix as sci-fi, Night Shaymalan's stuff as Dark Fantasy (even the one with aliens), and Neil Gaiman as dark fantasy too.

Perhaps I'll just write a classical melodrama, down to a villian who twists his mustache and says "curses, foiled again", but then his mustache will turn into a face-eating worm and destroy him and that's what will save the day. But I don't think even that will make literary mags like me... :)

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