F. Scott Fitzgerald
I suppose it really should be Nick Carraway or Jay Gatsby as the “borrower” for this entry, but I will give credit for one of the best lines of all literature to its author, F. Scott Fitzgerald. “Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever… His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.”
From chapter 5 of The Great Gatsby
This is the second major project for the MATX Production Lab and our instructions were to make a short flash piece based on a quote. I choose the green light line because it has haunted me from the day I read it.
I made this while in Form and Theory of Fiction, and was reminded in that class of the plot line illustrations in Tristram Shandy (you can see these drawings on pages 379-380 of the edition in Google Books). I wanted to somehow show the aliveness of text and the possible permutations of stories, so I started with free floating letters that quickly jumped to one of Shandy’s plot lines. The “a” travels along the plot line before it explodes into Gatsby’s green light. Then, there is darkness hinged on possibility. The quote is measured out very deliberately in an attempt to carry the emotional weight of the line in its pacing.
The Green Light2009
Flash CS4, ActionScript 3.0
Text from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Scribner, 1925
:37
(click on the "a" to begin)
A NOTE ON THE SIGNATURE THAT LED YOU HERE:
That is supposedly F. Scott Fitzgerald’s actual signature. The next two pieces, “borrowed” respectively by Marie Antoinette and Alexander Pope, also feature actual signatures (more or less verifiable than Fitzgerald’s). Of course, none of the three are actual signatures, but are images of signatures photoshopped into being from yet another image of the actual signature. The entire checkout card is a simulacrum, one that not only exists in time before the original, but also stands in place of an original that never existed and could never exist. The rest of the signatures are complete invention, using various fonts that strike me as either looking sufficiently like a signature, or acting, as in the case of L.E.L, Jennie Flexner, and Sloane, as metaphors for my conception of the authors. Letitia Elizabeth Landon signed her poems as L.E.L and it strikes me, that if she could, she would sign my checkout card the same way. Jennie Flexner and Sloane were both constrained by systems of writing. Flexner, therefore, signs her name in Copperplate script, one of the earliest hands used in creating cataloging records. Sloane, a man of his times, would, I think, leave a calling card.