I visited the Boston MFA and was duly impressed by the myriad of art I saw there. One that really caught my eyes was Lilith by Kiki Smith. Based on an old Jewish tale, she was Adams first wife but wanted to be equal to him so was kicked out of Eden and replaced by more submissive Eve

Lilith

Funny to hear such a story and wonder what to make of the ancients and how they seemed to beat each other into submission (all but the powerful and psychotic, it seems) via stories like these. Sometimes I think that as our world’s iniquities and inequalities (never unrelated) grow we might have to grasp at such stories to explain our world. Though I hope, too, that something more powerful, in terms of an answer, will come about.

Nevertheless, I find this experience to be one of those joys of life where you can crack open a little more knowledge about a piece of history that you previously didn’t know much or anything about. In my case it tends to stretch my imagination and view of the world a little more.

Of course, it’s very interesting to hear about fan fiction for classic books — the Bible in this case. This shows that then, as now, people’s imaginations really ran wild and the official versions didn’t explain enough. Thus, they had to supplement the official stories with their own.

I’m no different. As a writer I always find that I want to tweak some stories I hear or see (I’ll leave out what exactly any original creation is since there is nothing new under the sun, but let’s entertain that some things are close to copies and others are mixed enough with other ideas to be different or “original”).

My Satan’s Plea is one such example. I hesitate to call it fan fiction, but it’s damn close. Here we have Satan discrediting all the Bible’s stories trying to proclaim his innocence.

Closer, though, to the heart and spirit of that piece I saw was my idea of a writer who created fractal pieces of work. In this pseudo essay, the writer has infinitely branching stories that never end. In many ways this is how these stories work as well. It seems a natural way that the mind wants to think and it reflects reality. That makes the internet and not the book a prime chance for us to find the end result or medium for a truly human and post modern story.

Your thoughts?