{"id":583,"date":"2011-07-15T08:37:19","date_gmt":"2011-07-15T15:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poisonspur.com\/?p=583"},"modified":"2015-03-30T17:19:36","modified_gmt":"2015-03-31T00:19:36","slug":"in-defense-of-bullshit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/poisonspur.com\/?p=583","title":{"rendered":"In Defense of Bullshit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prior to the Great System Crash of 2008 (See Back from the Dead<\/a> for details), I used to categorize my blog posts. I had reminiscence posts. \u00a0I had poetry posts. \u00a0I had fiction posts. \u00a0I had a category called “misc.” \u00a0I’m not sure what purpose a “misc” category was supposed to serve, but I had one anyway. \u00a0All in all, the “fiction” category was the one that gave me the most trouble.<\/p>\n

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The line between fiction and non-fiction is not as clear as one might think. \u00a0There is the kind of truth that a person is supposed to tell while under oath: purely factual, unembellished, devoid of opinion, and dull as dirt. \u00a0It doesn’t tell a whole story and it was never intended to. \u00a0It’s sole purpose is to give juries facts to chew on before they vote their emotions and preconceptions anyway.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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So a little embellishment is to be expected even in a true story, but how much? \u00a0For example, it’s allowed to have composites of non-central characters and events without crossing the line into fiction. \u00a0Some movie marketing makes an end-run claim to truth when it says the film is “inspired by actual events.” \u00a0It is important to remember that by this logic, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure<\/a> would qualify as a documentary.<\/div>\n
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I’ve never claimed that anything in Poison Spur was inspired by actual events because when it comes right down to it, everything is so the phrase means nothing. \u00a0Of course some material in the blog is truer than others. \u00a0I ultimately gave up labeling some work as fiction because I told myself I didn’t need to. \u00a0I figured my readers (all 30 or so of you) would know when I’ve been making stuff up. \u00a0After all, you’re not a bunch of idiots, right?<\/div>\n
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I mulled the idea of reviewing my blog and assigning the category fiction or non-fiction to each entry. \u00a0That certainly would clear up any confusion, but as I said before, where to draw that line is a bit arbitrary. \u00a0An invented sibling is clearly in the realm of fiction, but what about those accounts of nights at the Argus where some details had to be invented to replace the memories that drowned in my whiskey glass? Ultimately, I decided not to bother. \u00a0I think I made the right choice.<\/div>\n
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In conclusion, I would like this blog entry to serve as a disclaimer. \u00a0Please assume everything I write here, going forward as well as in the past, is a complete load of hooey. \u00a0Or if that takes the fun out of things, feel free to believe what I write is inspired by actual events. \u00a0That’s true enough, I suppose.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prior to the Great System Crash of 2008 (See Back from the Dead for details), I used to categorize my blog posts. I had reminiscence posts. \u00a0I had poetry posts. \u00a0I had fiction posts. \u00a0I had a category called “misc.” \u00a0I’m not sure what purpose a “misc” category was supposed to serve, but I had … Continue reading In Defense of Bullshit<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/poisonspur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/poisonspur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/poisonspur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/poisonspur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/poisonspur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=583"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/poisonspur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":584,"href":"http:\/\/poisonspur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions\/584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/poisonspur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/poisonspur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/poisonspur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}