Your *cough, cough* true *cough* Memoir

[Kate Baker]

We all know that John would write something along the lines of:

"...selling my memoir of my life as a teenage transvestite in the Bogota slums, who later joined the Navy SEALs and adopted the twin daughters of the ruthless Afghan opium warlord whom I battled to the death using only a spoon and 14 bars of the 1812 Overture, and then, having beaten back a terrible addiction to khat, went on to become one of the most famous celebrity chefs on The Cooking Channel."

What would yours be?

Moonlight - The Absolutely True and not made up in the least, Story of Kate Baker (a.k.a Blind Jenny)
Renaissance woman and Governor of the Zimbabwe Tribe, the Chzulus.

Raised by circus clowns who believed they were werewolves, Kate Baker travelled the English country side wearing nothing but a cape made from peacock feathers and undergarments that reeked of cinnamon. After being rescued by the Pope himself while out for a swim Lake Lochness, she gave up her naked midnight runs in fields of sunflowers, only to be sent down to Africa to teach the Chzulus, religion.

Read this incredible and inspiring story of a woman who has seen and experienced it all.

[Nathan]

If I Did It - Read the amazing story of how an ex college and NFL superstar murdered his wife and totally beat the rap.

::Oh, you want stuff that didn't happen?::

[Kate Baker]

HAHAHAHAH!

[sng]

For a brief time following the age of the youth of the 'net was the period of the avian carriers. In which pigeons trained by our great sages and cheered on by our youth carried our packets hither and fro free like the wind. This was before the mighty Sun King created a foul flu to bring down our birds.

This ushered in the era of the bongos. In which all of our packets were transmitted by bongo drum playing admins. As titans they were in those days of yore. Working without end so that the data could flow free and clear like water from on high. Alas they were only men and lured to the south by the promise of beer we lost them. And great was the lament in the land.

And so led by a mighty Barbarian king from the north we started the Building Of The Tubes. Protected by our warriors our sages and wise men labored without end to build and deploy tubes through the land. Twas a battle that shall never be forgot. The blood of our wise and good men flowed like mighty rivers but they would not be stopped, even if they had to give their all. And thus was the Mighty Series Of Tubes created and the Sun King defeated and freedom preserved in the land.

And some day soon I shall tell you how the Duke Of Redmond created the Luser from tortured and twisted Admins.



And I was totally there for all of it.

Notes.

1) http://eagle.auc.ca/~dreid/ # TCP/IP over bongo drums. It's real. And real slow.
2) http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1149.txt # RFC 1149. TCP/IP Over Avian Carrier.
3) http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#33 # Puff The Barbarian is still my favorite OpenBSD release song. I just hope Ty never sees this cause he would be right for killing me where I stand for what I've done to his song.

[ora]

On a semi-philosophical note, aren't all memoirs fictions of a sort? Do we really remember the words people used at certain times, decades later? My grandfather just published the second volume of his memoirs and in the process told me about an event where his brother was beaten up. The funny thing is that when he asked his brother about it, he was convinced it was my grandfather who had been beaten up. They told the story identically except for the difference as to to who was the victim, and both are convinced they are right.

Certainly full on fabrication is one thing but a lot of people choose to not think about how much of 'real' memoirs is a form of fiction. It gets really interesting when you go from that into neurobiology and parts of psychology. It seems that in the retrieving and telling of a story we alter it and its the altered version that gets saved. Certainly I have memories that are now little but the standard patter i use to describe them.

As the great Spike Milligan said in the intro to the first volume of his hilarious memoirs:

“Of the events of the war, I have not ventured to speak from any chance
information, nor according to any notion of my own. I have described nothing but
what I saw myself, or learned from others of whom I have made the most careful
and particular inquiry”.
Thucydides, Peloponnesian War.

“I’ve just jazzed mine up a little”.
Spike Milligan, WWII.

PS I found a similar discussion and someone using the quote I was after (Can't find my copy right now) at http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/01/12/wr ... lion-lies/

[sng]

The difference is that nobody expects memory to be perfect. In the case of your grandad and his brother at least both of them think they're right and something happened. If we're going to call that fiction then not only memoirs but all other forms of history are fiction.

The line is fine but clear. Shit that you recall happening == stuff that can be put in a memoir. Shit that you randomly make up == fiction. To over think it much beyond that just seems like mental masturbation to me.

[izanobu]

Shit I recall happening today: 6 friends whom I'd never met but totally knew anyway helped me build a raft which we harnessed to a skywhale and flew up into a lightning storm so we could disperse magic dust given to me by my husband as he left for work. Sadly, the Umbral Lord (he introduced himself as this, I'm not making it up) was pretty angry about the whole thing and tore my friends to bloody shreds right in front of me before flinging me back down to the ground (I remembered I had magic at the last minute and managed to glide along until I could land in water). Meanwhile my dad borrowed my car and didn't fill up the gas tank.
And yes, then I woke up. But I remember the whole thing vividly.

I'm teasing. Though if I could include dreams and rpg characters, my memoirs would be more interesting.

[ora]

The difference is that nobody expects memory to be perfect. In the case of your grandad and his brother at least both of them think they're right and something happened. If we're going to call that fiction then not only memoirs but all other forms of history are fiction.

The line is fine but clear. Shit that you recall happening == stuff that can be put in a memoir. Shit that you randomly make up == fiction. To over think it much beyond that just seems like mental masturbation to me.

Well I wouldn't call it that, I'd call it more philosophy, and I like philosophy! My point is that while it may be what we recall (though i doubt that from time to time), autobiography and memoir still strikes me as more fictive that non-fiction books, because non-fiction actively acknowledges its status as a collection of second hand facts, whereas memoir is written unequivocally - not just in opinion but in the supposedly 'real' or 'true' events described. I think the constructed nature of memoir and autobiography is under-appreciated is all :)