Oh noes…another definition of art!

November 23rd, 2011

I have been spending the bulk of my dk time lately producing a series of paintings for the soon to be updated website. With TWO in the hands of the merciless editing machine Belinda, and ONE on hold until the New Year, it has been a nice to get out of the coalface for a while and swap out my keyboard for a brush…well mostly…

I am using combination of watercolours and inks, a process that saw me begin to ditch the brushes in favour of various sized cut outs of foam. Why am I talking about this? Well for no other reason than this process led me to conclude a rather amusing personal cycle that I thought might be fun to share.

I was redoing our Ruth cover art, a piece that I felt highlighted the need for an upgrade. The pencils, bless their leaded sols, just don’t cut it in terms of contrast and thus fail at offering an effective “pop,” ink on the other hand is bloody glorious at doing just that and so it was that the piece was completed using almost entirely this medium. Once I had finished I placed the canvas on the bookshelf and frowned, gaped and then sat amazed on the chair.

No it wasn’t my ability or lack-there-of that had stunned me, rather that I had just unwittingly reproduced a piece that I had ink-swipe/painted nearly twenty years ago, that was in fact my first attempt at a painting. A highly contentious work that was a source of extreme frustration for me way back in 1992 and a seminal experience in terms of my understanding of art.

This had all happened at High School, where looking to capitalize on an education process which consisted of me mostly doodling when I was supposed to have been finding the remainder or memorizing something about someone or other, I took an art class. Now I considered myself a pretty handy little drawer and figured I would not only have a lot of fun but also enjoy a well-earned break from social/legal studies, which lurked cruelly within the confines of my schedule.

Boy was I wrong.

My teacher for this class, perhaps locking onto the rather dubious claim I made for her “not to worry, I’m good at this stuff,” proceeded to ride me relentlessly for the entire first semester. A somewhat ironic turn of events, as this same semester had begun with her own dubious claim that we could paint ANYTHING that we wanted.

Awesome! I thought and immediately set about laying out my incisive critique on modern corporate agenda by depicting a giant suited man perched atop a skyscraper like Donkey-Kong, turfing rubbish down atop my helpless protagonist, represented by a naked female attempting to protect a rose growing through a crack in the pavement.

Even now one can only admire the amount of cliché I managed to cram into this baby.

Enter Graceypoo (name changed to protect the…err…well-intentioned teacher trying to do her best with a cocksure novice), who nodded sagely throughout my explanations before offering her own take on what I was about to do. How are you going to represent the buildings?

Repre-what? I’m just going to paint buildings.

What’s with Donkey-Kong guy? You don’t need him.

Huh? But he’s the whole point!

Here…here’s some ink…turf the guy and try this…do it this way.

Okay long story short, I was putty in Graceypoo’s hands and after roughly ten weeks of systematic sculpture, my teacher managed to produce by agency of me, a work she no doubt deemed it would be appropriate that I produce. Looking at the thing afterward, I was greatly annoyed. I couldn’t stand the darn thing! Not only this but I couldn’t stand the idea I had just wasted my time producing something that had only a tenuous connection to my vision at best. How had this happened? Had I honestly been so brow-beaten by this woman that I had wiped every idea that I had had to end up with something that looked like a mirror captured rainbow landing square in a junkyard?

Short answer? Yes. So it was that I ignored everything Graceypoo said for the rest of the year and produced two more works that whilst were decidedly average, were nonetheless exactly what I wanted to produce. And so satisfied, I threw invisible Donkey-Kong in the bin and grumbled to myself for years about how I had struck a blow for following the heart, fighting the power, believing in myself and so forth…

And yet to quote the mighty Frank Herbert: “A short term solution is never a long term one.” Enter long term realization…

When I popped my redone Ruth up on the bookshelf to admire her I pretty much shat a brick. Here was the same female protagonist, protecting her dream against a relentless and slowly encroaching economic reality; lovingly represented utilizing the very technique insisted by Graceypoo during that fateful semester. Here, almost twenty years later, had occurred the exact teacher-student harmony Graceypoo had originally intended reaching out of my unconscious like a ghostly hand.

I say harmony not to protect the integrity of my work here, but to illustrate the warmth I felt as this impossible event revealed itself to me. The fact was that the elements of my original dream had remained the same, yet I had gone on to use those same colours in practically the same way, as if Graceypoo herself had been guiding me. Even Donkey-Kong had of his own accord vanished into the mists of unnecessary depiction like an elusive Grey Man. All this and yet my memory had managed to secret this story from my day-to-day awareness so completely, that it wasn’t until I was staring at the piece complete that I remembered…the orange sky…the dragged collage of blues and browns out of which emerged the impression of a skyline…and that God-awful piece of crap that I had binned twenty years ago for daring to compromise me so.

Quite the gestation period! And yet, thinking back over that time as a grown man, rather than the passionate fury I had forever associated with this whole saga, all I can see now is the simplicity of a communication breakdown. The fact was, I was unable to hear a darn word my teacher had said because back in the days of High School my experience of what made art Art, or perhaps more correctly for me, what made a picture a picture, was it’s realism. Nothing more, nothing less, any meaning to be deciphered could be done so via the characters or settings depicted, what the hell about brushstrokes, medium, the courage one draws to execute and the ability to tighten or relax accordingly?

So standby then…as I present the fourteen billionth and no doubt somewhere along the line plagiarized definition of Art or rather, what I have learned coming full circle on the futile guidance of a well-meaning arts teacher.

Art is the measure of our limit. We have not the science or tools to reproduce the work of our senses, our Earth, the sun, the rhythm of the moon and the mystery of its void canvas and so we retreat within to our memory and dream. Art is the fruit of this retreat, where we seek the essence of our character and offer it a voice, an image, a name, all food for a more elusive sense.

And so Art, more than anything, celebrates the way that we as humans fall short.

Art is not a search for reality nor the isolation of its reflection, but rather the rabid delusion or glorious surrender of an imagination seeking to be framed. As Don Juan said to his student, even if your defeat the three enemies of knowledge, the fourth and final enemy is always Old Age.

Art is courage.

The courage to celebrate flaw, a celebration that cultivates hope that anyone may choose to share. No you cannot win…not everything is for everyone and our mediums are as diverse as our tastes…but do it anyway, maybe in the long run one of us will cross the great water and send word of just the right method for you. Just as Graceypoo had done for me, even though it took me twenty years to decrypt her message it has been wonderful to finally meet her now in my memory.

So thanks Gracey.

* Here is the old piece, a combination of pencils, pens and digital editing, though we will front our website with a piece from TWO to celebrate its release…

the new inked piece will be edited by Belinda before becoming available as a desktop for download along with other scenes from the trilogy.

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Gaia and the Line of Kings

October 10th, 2011

I love Greek Mythology. The stories are so rich and inviting, the Gods and Goddesses varied as the potential interpretations. Whether the deities themselves are viewed as beings, forces of nature or emotional humors, their diverse and even flawed nature offer a rich landscape for parable work, in my opinion more so than if dealing with the perfection inferred in a monotheistic system.

That is not to say that the idea of one God isn’t valid, nor beneficial, only that the question of whether or not “God/s care/s” seems to me to be addressed far more readily in the pantheon of the Greeks, with the answers as diverse as the personalities. Perhaps most importantly to derelict koan, is that the Greek stories lend themselves well to elements of theme.

The idea of “ruling myth” in the trilogy works as a kind of theme governance. In THREE, the use of the Gaia and the Line of Kings, Ouranos, Kronos and Zeus, (aka Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter), explores the idea of rule itself, as it is first encountered and reflects not only the internal dilemmas of our beloved protagonist, but perhaps the mechanisms perceived in the external world of the not-so-loved Lance P King.

As each succession of rule occurs, similar waves of growth inflict the characters themselves, which serves to arrange their moral compass. I think the most important aspect of these myths of rule in THREE, is they are examined at a level of Ruth’s consciousness that understands them as total and unquestioned. That is, they are beliefs, and as such, mathematically complete ideas.

The subsequent move down to the doings of demi-Gods in TWO however, shows the Gods taking a step back as our dear protagonist begins to take control of her own fate. This will be continued again in ONE, as the Gods become even more distanced and take on more of a two-dimensional aspect. I suppose the key here, is that we are seeing a world of objectivity that marginalizes systems of faith to the point that they become irrelevant, an idea that strikes at the very heart of the Greek pantheon.

The idea of Age succession was key to the work of both Hesiod and Ovid (Roman expression), and so it is in the derelict koan trilogy. In THREE, the movement is tracked through both the Gold and Silver ages, and examines the role of Prometheus, a key figure in the Olympian revolution. Though most remember him best as the fire-stealer, our trilogy is perhaps more interested in his ill-fated plots to take out his frustration on Zeus, who treats the sullen Titan with something-like amused disdain.

When Prometheus creates mankind, he does so as a kind of sulk, giving off all the airs of an ostracized child, plagued with the guilt of his choices. As such, he serves as a figurehead for the regret of certain characters, who appear to engage in a similar frustration by attempting to outwit their fate. Perhaps most curious in this whole event is the fact (eek!) that Zeus is not only aware of Prometheus’s scheme but allows him to proceed, choosing not to intervene until the process has expired.

Obviously there are spoilers to consider here, so I hold my passion at bay and move on to discuss its role in the narrative. Gaia and the Line of Kings is three pages in length and comes in at chapter two of THREE, a decision that was considered at length. Originally, the chapter was a rather intimidating thirty pages, which was then attacked furiously with the old carving tool out of sympathy for our dear readers. Finally it was broken into two chapters, the second of which appears three pages long again, as chapter six.

Why such a savage edit?

More than anything, it was the names. All those syllables and the rather large character pool had the potential to overburden our reader as quickly as an over-weighted hiker. Too much too fast and none of it familiar, can be a risk early in a novel, when all a reader really wants is to be on the path and walking. Which begs the question:

So why keep such things at all?

Because it offers more, more of the world to come, more of Ruth, it is another layer, another avenue to construct meaning for both Ruth and the reader. The Greek myth in the derelict koan trilogy although brief, is a direct portal to the core of our dear protagonist, and one that demands she examine their relevance in much the same way that our reader may be doing. We intend of course that this process would bond the reader to Ruth, however such an element has to be treated carefully when you throw it in early. Such chapters can break the momentum you have just spent twenty-odd pages generating, especially if the parallels are not immediately obvious.

Are they obvious? (Well they are now!) I believe so, though I suppose the narrative is in question here. Though the plot of THREE appears as a non-linear progression, the parallel world of myth does in fact follow a linear design, and as such serves as a reflection of the state of Ruth herself, who begins her journey fractured and desperate in her need for answers. The net result of this, does see the narrative coil slowly at the first, though it is exciting to see the quickening occur as she begins to makes her choices, arrange her priorities, bind her story, remember her dream and begin to act.

By the time we reach the Heroic Age in TWO, Ruth has generated her own momentum, so much so that she is seen to move in concert with the world around her, rather than feeling a mere agent of its machinations. A delusional state perhaps, but then isn’t that what story is all about?

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Why Mental Illness

October 3rd, 2011

A difficult subject matter no doubt, and one we consider rather nebulous. Some years ago, a dear friend of mine pointed out to me the similarities of mental illness and mystical experience and I suppose the idea took root. Through the trilogy this concept has grown to include cultural and political clashes and legal/ethical dilemmas to the point where a mathematical assessment became increasingly seductive.

I love numbers, particularly number theory, and though this passion is represented within the confines of the work I think the more appropriate term when considering the topic of mental illness is: outnumbered.

“You’re crazy!”

Such an easy thing to say, and I don’t think its inappropriate to assume that at least a few people have muttered these words upon the arrival of foreign ships on long-held shores, a ground-breaking scientific idea, a big business agenda in a small isolated community, a new kid at school or perhaps most pertinent to our dear protagonist, within the confines of ones own mind.

Indeed, how else to sort through the piles of potential choice than dismiss some ideas outright? Crazy, stupid, childish, futile, dangerous, ill-fated and yet, it has been so often through time that this cache of once invalidated ideas has led to great human progress, if not individual suffering.

It is in our poetry, our songs, our advice and our desire for our loved ones to do well in life and yet on this last…how often do we encourage caution in our friends and family? In our own minds? How often, is the fear of standing outnumbered, the force that corrals an inspired will?

In any society, it is cultural tradition that sets the agenda for normalcy/madness, with each successive generation finding their limits before turning back within themselves to mutter reassuringly about the ‘good old days.’ This does not have to be a bitter sentiment of course, though I would be tempted to argue that the more common view is that it is indeed a bitter process. Yet even if it were the case, what’s a touch of nostalgia when measured against cherished/romanticized patterns that are actually damaging to the individual?

But then…can we really know the difference between a metamorphosis and damage? And from a generational perspective, isn’t damage one of those most effective agents of change available?

When we take Ling Po Koi out of her natural environment and drop her down on the shores of Australia, the disparity between woman and world is obvious. Behaviours that had sustained her through a cruel war now appear outdated, unnecessary and ultimately crazy in a land of relative peace. And yet such borders only really hold along with our belief in nationalism, which one would have to admit has proved a rather tenacious idea. Again, the key lies with the idea of being outnumbered, both by sympathetic ears and prevailing political climates.

Early in TWO, we see the suggestion that had she not practised such brutal tenacity, she could possibly have perished a lot younger…certainly, a key part of her would have. So then, the very features that define her sanity and power as an individual in one world become the burdens that drive her into the dark corners of the other, the tragedy perhaps not in the idea that she could not conform to the environment, but that she didn’t have the time to successfully overthrow the unnecessary patterns.

Change can be a slow process, one that is often resisted even at close quarters. When so much of the social identity is based on “you’re this” or “you’re that,” embarking upon changes can lead to all kinds of conflict, be they overt…like say the world is flat, or I’m increasing the price of a barrel of oil, or subtle, as in innuendo that nests between the cruel and kind, or behavioural shifts within the individual themselves.

So just as revolutions in politics, breakthroughs in science and adjustments in legalities, outdated elements of the personality face the challenge of a bucking new method. For Ling, change is difficult if not impossible, for Betty, an absolute necessity if she is to provide for her daughter and of course for our dear protagonist, a continued struggle somewhere between the two. For Ruth, this struggle evokes guilt, shame, confusion and of course, madness.

So then, mental illness or awakening of the spirit? A fruitful interaction with ones environment, or the fight against it? Which elements do we choose to make a home for and why? For aren’t these elements always alien? Copied or borrowed, or are some dreams of identity that are fundamentally ours?

Whichever it is, one thing is clear, crazy is a trait that is seldom desired and yet its borders are difficult to define, perhaps nationalism has its perks after all?

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Onto the finale!

September 28th, 2011

What a great feeling to have the second novel in editing stage, TWO couldn’t have turned out better and perhaps most assuring, was that the narrative stuck very close to the initial plan. Even sections that seemed to want to go feral on us, eventually resumed their original course, which was surprising yet enjoyable to watch.

Novel writing can be such an unpredictable process at times, with the various competing arcs all pushing each other out of the way in their race to obtain the most light. When THREE was compiled, one of the trickiest things in the end was the better arrangement of ‘reader reward’ in order to keep the narrative moving. The decision to run with a rather fractured layout was potentially dangerous, as it requires the reader to put in a certain amount of work before the answers begin to reveal themselves and yet we felt it was an important design choice.

Why?

While the far safer route of a hook and consistent timeline was always there, we just felt our subject matter (and Ruth herself) was far better represented in the structure of the narrative itself, offering show rather than tell. And though in the end we were very happy with the way the opening novel whirl-pooled toward its resolution…being the first novel of three, much of the ‘answers’ had to be kept in reserve, creating a potential double whammy in terms of effort / reward.

Now, however, I can safely say that TWO has justified my love tenfold, and what a wonderful feeling it is! With that very same fractured landscape offering loads of narrative energy as it winds its way through the course of TWO. Resulting in not only a swift pacing but also a rather delightful lightening of tone as the story curves from dark into light.

The decision to ‘leave nothing in the tank,’ was made very early in the planning process of TWO and after locking away the first two hundred pages it became clear that all of our work in arranging THREE the way we had was bearing loads of fruit. While writing TWO, it was gratifying to be almost overburdened with answers to allocate, having raised so many questions in THREE that the writing itself began to take on the energy of walking a season affected Great Dane.

I guess from here we can only hope that the results speak for themselves, though we are very excited for our readers. The page count is significantly up, with TWO almost doubling the page count of its predecessor, again a satisfying event, as the initial plan forecast a page limit that came within seven pages of the final document. All in all, a great victory for the creative process and one that makes me very excited for our readership.

After the turmoil experienced throughout THREE, it is heart-warming to witness the confluence of arcs within the narrative, mirror the internal processes of our courageous protagonist Ruth as she goes on her romantic quest – which not only fuels the movement of the events of TWO, but even serves to shine sweet dappled light back into the dark corners of THREE.

Suffice it to say, we are equally excited for ONE.

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Inception

October 7th, 2010

As small budget independents, you can imagine my surprise when I heard Three being advertised on TV the other day. I stopped dead in my tracks, concerned that my entire day to this point had all been a dream.

It turned out to be a review of Inception.

We haven’t seen Inception yet. So the most I know of it is that it is popularly and critically acclaimed, and I have even heard it proclaimed as a future classic. Zoo Weekly makes the tongue-in-cheek accusation that the premise is stolen from this 2002 Scrooge McDuck comic. It is of interest to us because, from what we’ve heard, Inception (and Scrooge McDuck) works with similar materials to what we’ve sculpted through derelict koan: security and dream.

As even the posters on this article note, the idea has been around for a long time, and may yet even become cliché in the mode of – she awoke to find it was all a dream.

It’s not the first time derelict koan has been challenged with a potential ‘You just ripped off blah-blah.’ The difference now is that there’s nothing we can do about it. Three has been published, and any forward changes we might consider making in Two – the draft is practically finished – and One – will have repercussions that will fracture all the books, and that is a compromise that we are not willing to make.

Indeed, one of the reasons we decided to pursue derelict koan was because we were not prepared to compromise (there is enough of that already when two artists collaborate). We wanted to have a hand in every part of the artistic process – not only writing the books, but devising our own strategies and developing direct relationships with our readers.

But sometimes, such as when big-budget films and popular television shows encroach on our subject matter, it’s easy to lament the competition of artistic budgets and yet, far more rewarding to focus on the positives: That the audience is out there, that a wider narrative is being established (perhaps to the point of genre seeding) and that thanks to the internet, we can be a part of this process.

The way of art has taken us on a circuitous route to unexpected places, and contests of intellectual property aside, we look forward to finding ourselves surprised more and more. Sure on one level it’s a little annoying, yet on another it’s encouraging to see that people out there are as interested in our subject matter as we are. As such, we’ve decided to remain faithful to the former and in our darkest moments offer prayer to the grace of Scrooge McDuck and continue to trust in the double edge sword of life.

I’ve heard it said that you are either a Matrix person or an Inception person. For reasons already mentioned, I can’t say which derelict koan is. The Matrix was one of the influences for the derelict koan trilogy yet Inception might create a receptive audience, which would be great for us in the long run. I guess the question at this point then, which would seem to us to be the most pertinent, is indeed the most irrelevant: why do we care?

Well, it’s simple really – we’d really love to see Inception, but sadly at this point, we simply can’t afford to. Not that money is that tight, though we all know it can be at times, but that the critical overlap of subject matter would make such a viewing consequential in a way we’d prefer it was not. Instead, we will put Inception in the growing pile of things to do once our writing task is complete, where we can simply watch and enjoy the show.

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A word on genre

September 30th, 2010

Where to draw the line with genre? The derelict koan trilogy has been a bit tricky to pigeonhole – not on account of its general resistance to marketing, rather it has a potentially fatal overlap of literary/sci-fi. I guess the fatal comes from the sci-fi camp as, for decades, the genre has struggled to gain respect in the literary world – with some sci-fi writers at pains to distance themselves from the shantytown constructed around the term science fiction.

By contrast, the term ‘speculative fiction’ incorporates sci-fi into its legitimating borders. While speculative fiction broadly blankets science fiction (in all its myriad forms), fantasy, urban fantasy, magical realism, cyberpunk, steampunk, and many other sub-genres, some camps use the words ‘speculative fiction’ to disengage works with literary credibility from the pulp of the constituent genres. (Well, that’s not quite right. Cyberpunk and magical realism are generally considered ‘literary’.)

About her science fiction, Margaret Atwood comments in Moving Targets (the same essay is available in Writing with Intent Essays, Reviews, Personal Prose: 1983–2005) that

…Oryx and Crake is a speculative fiction, not a science fiction proper. It contains no intergalactic space travel, no teleportation, no Martians.

These tropes are more frequently associated with the science fiction subgenre the marketeers term space opera, ‘the mode of SF most familiar to the public.’ (Doctorow & Schroeder, Complete Idiot’s Guide to Publishing Science Fiction, 2000) Doctorow and Schroeder respectfully note that

[Space opera is] usually considered a juvenile market – aimed towards kids – but the fact is that many adult SF readers grew up on this stuff, and they love to return to it.

The idea of ‘Martians’ in the sense of little green men has been discredited in the contemporary world. Now, we look to Mars for evidence of water and micro-organisms, perhaps scouting for another planet home after we trash this one. Atwood’s inclusion of Martians in her definition marginalises science fiction as irrelevant to the contemporary world, and ignores the symbolism, allegory and cultural critique inherent to building new worlds. Which is probably why some science fiction fans got their backs up. If you want to sell science fiction books to literary readers, the kind of readers that care about Booker Prizes, this is probably a good marketing ploy on Atwood’s part. But probably not so great for people who really love the sci-fi genre, and who maybe outnumber so-called literary readers.

Martians might be a cheesy motif to call out sci-fi, even so, there are examples of Martian space travel that can be read in terms of a mythological symbolism. That is how I sometimes read the Mars colonies in Philip K Dick’s work – to do so every time would be to ignore the spirit of his work. Just as to deny the non-literal layers of sci-fi is to ignore the reader’s role in interpreting art and producing art’s meanings. And isn’t intertextuality one of the markers of contemporary (postmodern) art? Mars – the god of war – has a very long literary pedigree; it could be argued that to evoke him is shorthand for every reference to Mars ever published. Or at least to all the sub-conscious, half-known ideas about either god or planet or chocolate bar.

Atwood has since toned down her comments about science fiction, but still, the question of how to pigeon-hole our own work remains. It seems plain to me, at least, that genres – like ‘disciplines’ – are slippery little things, prone to morph into something else the moment you turn your back, resisting the very identity you assumed would keep it safe.

Perhaps this is just one of the ways that invisible things grow, conceived in the tides of security of dream.

Still, for the sake of our dear readers: We do consider the derelict koan trilogy to be speculative fiction, and not ‘science fiction proper’: it does include ‘what-if’ technology doing ‘what-if’ things, still considerable effort has been made to render ‘Gemini’ with as much layers of realism as we possibly could, as we simply enjoy our fiction that way.

Oh…the derelict koan trilogy doesn’t include any Martians.

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a derelict koan

March 29th, 2010

What’s in a name?

Ruth Chambers was born here, Ruth has achieved this and considers herself that. Ruth’s favourite colour is blue and she worked as a telecommunications expert for five years whilst pursuing her dream of novel writing.

Such a pattern of content is easily identifiable and no doubt neutralises some part of the nervous system, reassuring some stored imprint that it remains necessary. Perhaps these patterns of ours function like the calling of birds to one another, offering an equation of spatial location that can assure those that hear that we are indeed human and that, like them, we reside in the third dimension.

Words are often like this. Indeed, much of our species’ dialogue may be boiled down to the repeated rhythm of a single question and answer: am I here?

Yes. You are here.

The koan is a question that defies rational interpretation and yet offers itself to the intuition. It is, to us, a perfect allegory of the writing process and something we hope to shed light on within the pages of our work. Although we believe strongly in this process and in the potential the idea contains for the generation and cultivation of meaning, it nonetheless carries a certain futility in its wake. That is to say that words on their own, without the music of the speaker’s intent, are like all abstract phenomena: exiled as the dead.

And yet what of tone? Like the aforementioned birdcalls, tone speaks to a part of us that does not feel divorced, but rather, is connected. An empathy that seems — dare we write it — like oneness. God? Spirit? Love? Vitality? Indefinable body that our words will fail to contain without cutting it off from its own atmosphere.

Instead they will float, detecting signals as the harvesting of satellites, destined to remain in orbit until their decryptions become ultimately outdated, so they may at last be disabled and sent to crash into the ocean to dissolve under salt and pressure.

Derelict at last.

Much of the trilogy revolves around such a system. In our work, this process is imagined in the technology we have called Gemini. It is in part a neural interface and part a representation of emergent intelligence based on models of the human brain. It is not necessarily self-aware — without the user it doesn’t function at all — and yet with the user it is extremely competent. Interestingly, it was members of the MIT AI division that began developing what became known as ‘hacker koans’, as they wrestled with the relentless paradox at the heart of consciousness.

Here is an example, taken from the wiki, for your enjoyment:

A cocky novice once said to Stallman: ‘I can guess why the editor is called Emacs, but why is the justifier called Bolio?’

Stallman replied forcefully, ‘Names are but names, “Emack & Bolio’s” is the name of a popular ice cream shop in Boston-town. Neither of these men had anything to do with the software.’

His question answered, yet unanswered, the novice turned to go, but Stallman called to him, ‘Neither Emack nor Bolio had anything to do with the ice cream shop, either.’

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