Who is Roger Lionel Carbunkle?

Over the course of the coming week Mark will learn two pivotal things: (a) A 30 page doco. treatment will not write itself, and (b) 5000 word biographies on non-existent persons might be a little, erm, excessive.

Look! The first half-page of a 30 page documentary treatment!:

I AM ANONYMOUS

Dawn. We are in a narrow alleyway laid with gravel. The sun has triumphed the horizon, but tall brick walls occlude our view of it, their faces defiled by graffiti. There is a hint of movement further afield, a quiver, a jolt. The clatter of metal on metal as a brooding entity emerges from behind a disused Skip bin. It is a man, so haggard. He unfurls with a massive, braying yawn, and stretches his rumpled form into its full self. He scratches, mumbles, stumbles to the wall as though it were home, and scrawls his own urinal graffiti upon it. Splash. Twinkle. Sigh.

A little later, a little lighter, and he talks to us. Meet Gerry. Squat on haunches, he squints to examine a snail questing along the ground. In puerile language and a crib-warm voice, he queries the little alien on where it is going; compliments it on his regal silver trail; compares the snail’s brittle carapace to his own -- a shopping trolley just feet away, bag and blankets stashed within. Contemplation for a beat, then Gerry issues an apology: Sorry for what I’m about to do, comrade, it’s for your own good. He stomps on the snail with a deathly crunch, surveys the mess.

Gerry rolls his trolleyload down the alleyway, zig-zagging at the mercy of the wheels. He confides in us, between phlegmy coughs, that as a child he wanted to be an edge-of-the-world adventurer, like Marco Polo. Maybe an astronaut. As it eventuates, he is an entrepreneur. Been in the game for years. We follow lockstep as he navigates a Kafkaesque labyrinth of alleyways, each corner begetting a new one, the din of traffic intensifying.

The fatalist's war.

Lesson 1: Empathise with your enemy.
Lesson 2: Rationality will not save us.
Lesson 3: There's something beyond one's self.
Lesson 4: Maximise efficiency.
Lesson 5: Proportionality should be a guideline in war.
Lesson 6: Get the data.
Lesson 7: Belief and seeing are both often wrong.
Lesson 8: Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning.
Lesson 9: In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil.
Lesson 10: Never say never.

Lesson 11: You can't change human nature.

The smallest, slightest, subtlest paean.

So it's day one of semester and you've slunk into class five minutes late. Summer was swell, but a wholly past tense. Slothchild. Future tense consumes you now: deadlines, crooked back, coffee sickness, nails gnawed down to the moon. Someone slides the prospectus across to you:

"In this seminar we will revel in the architectonic of good nonfiction writing. We will consider admirable sentences and marvelous paragraphs. We will study foundations and jointure, account for senses of spaciousness and constriction. We will examine and upend the myth of "objectivity." We will try to determine what makes one piece of writing "true to life," while another lies there simply dead. We will read as if writing mattered, and write as if reading did."

Up front of class sits Lawrence Weschler, grin just barely discernible through that bracken of beard. He is about to teach you a thing or three on 'The Fiction of Non-Fiction' (what the unit dares call itself!). Now sit up. Slough off the songs of summer. Listen, N.Y.U. freshman, and let live.

Whereupon, he simply walked away.

"During the early seventies, when Robert Irwin was on the road a lot, visiting art schools and chatting with students, he was proffered an honorary doctorate by the San Francisco Art Institute. The school's graduation ceremony that year took place in an outdoor courtyard on a sunny, breezy afternoon, sparkling clear. Irwin approached the podium, and began, 'I wasn't going to accept this degree, except it occurred to me that unless I did I wasn't going to be able to say that.' He paused, waiting as the mild laughter eddied. 'All I want to say,' he continued, 'is that the wonder is still there.' Whereupon, he simply walked away."

Gutterball.

i. Rendezvous Romance Books.

ii. Bernard's Magic Shop.

iii. Creative Wigs.