The Loop is the most entertaining manifestation of F.I.A.T., and was in fact the first manifestation as well.
I was having a long conversation with some friends, and the subject of discussion drifted time and again, thoroughly naturally, until we wound up talking about something vastly removed from our original topic. But then I found a way to tie in our first subject back into the conversation, without in any way back-tracking. That was the first time I said “Thus demonstrating the fundamental interconnectedness of all things”, but by no means the last. It was only later that I realized it made a cool acronym. If you started talking about John Lennon, and segued in to apples, and then into computers, and then into HAL 9000, and then into Stanley Kubrick, and then into “Lolita”, and then into the name Humbert, and then into Hamburg, and then back to John Lennon, that would be a FIAT Loop. They can be longer or they can be shorter, but (A) they need to form organically (at least until the final connection), and (B) the “facet” at which you reconnect with your first subject has to be different from the “facet” from which you left it. F.I.A.T. as a principle is merely what makes the Loops possible.
Again, I don’t think of it as tangents (implying a spherical nature to all “things”), but as perpendicular connections between parallel facets (implying a crystalline structure). If everything in the universe had the qualitative structure of a Disco mirrorball (x10), then there are almost certain to be individual mirrors on any pair that face (and reflect back at) each other perfectly.
PS: The “Lennon > apple > computer” train was just an example off the top of my head of two seemingly disparate ideas (Lennon, computers) which can be linked quite easily by one intermediary idea (apple). Similarly, you might use “apple” to connect John Lennon to Chris Martin, which is a less obvious (and therefore more entertaining) link than their shared identities as British pop stars.
PPS: If, in the lengthy chain I posited above, you took a left turn from Humbert to Umberto (Eco), to “Foucault’s Pendulum” and “The Name of the Rose” (two books which infuenced my conception of F.I.A.T. to no small degree), to Sean Connery, to “Time Bandits,” to Handmade Films, to George Harrison, that again will bring you back to Lennon by yet another path. As with “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”, the shortest distance between two points is very often not the most interesting.
fritzoid Premium Member about 14 years ago
I wonder how Cynthia’s going to respond when she finally meets Clyde and he starts calling her “Cindy.”
fritzoid Premium Member about 14 years ago
The Loop is the most entertaining manifestation of F.I.A.T., and was in fact the first manifestation as well.
I was having a long conversation with some friends, and the subject of discussion drifted time and again, thoroughly naturally, until we wound up talking about something vastly removed from our original topic. But then I found a way to tie in our first subject back into the conversation, without in any way back-tracking. That was the first time I said “Thus demonstrating the fundamental interconnectedness of all things”, but by no means the last. It was only later that I realized it made a cool acronym. If you started talking about John Lennon, and segued in to apples, and then into computers, and then into HAL 9000, and then into Stanley Kubrick, and then into “Lolita”, and then into the name Humbert, and then into Hamburg, and then back to John Lennon, that would be a FIAT Loop. They can be longer or they can be shorter, but (A) they need to form organically (at least until the final connection), and (B) the “facet” at which you reconnect with your first subject has to be different from the “facet” from which you left it. F.I.A.T. as a principle is merely what makes the Loops possible.
Again, I don’t think of it as tangents (implying a spherical nature to all “things”), but as perpendicular connections between parallel facets (implying a crystalline structure). If everything in the universe had the qualitative structure of a Disco mirrorball (x10), then there are almost certain to be individual mirrors on any pair that face (and reflect back at) each other perfectly.
Dirty Dragon about 14 years ago
Who is on first.
fritzoid Premium Member about 14 years ago
PS: The “Lennon > apple > computer” train was just an example off the top of my head of two seemingly disparate ideas (Lennon, computers) which can be linked quite easily by one intermediary idea (apple). Similarly, you might use “apple” to connect John Lennon to Chris Martin, which is a less obvious (and therefore more entertaining) link than their shared identities as British pop stars.
fritzoid Premium Member about 14 years ago
PPS: If, in the lengthy chain I posited above, you took a left turn from Humbert to Umberto (Eco), to “Foucault’s Pendulum” and “The Name of the Rose” (two books which infuenced my conception of F.I.A.T. to no small degree), to Sean Connery, to “Time Bandits,” to Handmade Films, to George Harrison, that again will bring you back to Lennon by yet another path. As with “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”, the shortest distance between two points is very often not the most interesting.
fritzoid Premium Member about 14 years ago
^ “It’ll have to come out!” ^ (Python to Rutles to Beatles…) ^ (Tinker to Evers to Chance…) ^ (Who’s on First, What’s on Second…) ^ (DirtyDragon)
Loops within Loops…
fritzoid Premium Member about 14 years ago
Maybe so, but I gave it a cool acronym.
That’ll count for a lot when I’m selling my book…