Forum / what does "liminal" mean to you?

• 
  brian warfield

  Oct 10, 09:16pm

  So for Birkensnake 6 I have been trying to get more specific with these very obscure guidelines (http://birkensnake.com/submit.php#crossingthresholds) by trying to figure exactly what it is I'm even looking for, as an editor.
  What does a liminal story look like? What do the influences listed have to do with the liminal? What kind of story would you like to write upon a wall?

• 
  Dolemite

  Oct 11, 01:22am

  Well, to answer the question, I always thought liminal meant the border itself, so it's interesting to learn that it means the state *between* states, as in being in the midst of a life-altering ritual where the original state is left but the aimed-for state has not yet arrived.

  (and Henry Darger IS very interesting. The full docu. on him is available on youtube.)

• 
  W.F. Lantry

  Oct 11, 04:03am

  Tough one. Not much to go on. Wild swing:

  You walk into a bar. There's a woman there, you only know her a little, maybe her name, and she knows yours, not much else. But neither of you know anyone else, so you sit down and have a drink together. After one or two drinks, you notice her hand extended on the table, and you take it. But then the playoff game ends, celebrating fans pour into the bar, the place turns into bedlam, you lose track of each other.

  You go home, and try to write about it. But really, there's not much there: no plot, no conflict, no climax. Not even much to do with character. The story turns into a rambling mess. And where would you publish it, anyway? It reads like a fan fiction piece. Is she Mary Sue? Or is it more Philo than fiction? Was she acting in bad faith? Were you? You hand it to your aunt, ask her what she thinks. She's reminded of a time, long ago, when she was in her 20s, and walked into a bar, maybe it was 1986, and the Red Sox were playing, and Bill Buckner...

  Yeah, that's the ticket... ;)

• 
  Gloria Garfunkel

  Oct 11, 12:48pm

  I think of liminality as overlapping borders, like the line where the water comes up and then recedes from the beach and the sand is wet. I think if it as overlapping identities. I think of it as the condition of more and more people on this planet with multiple identities and heritages, the opposite of, say, a heritage straight from the Mayflower.

• 
  Barry Basden

  Oct 11, 02:37pm

  Hmmm. I took a stab at that word awhile ago. Did I miss too badly, Bill? At least it was in a bar...

  http://fictionaut.com/stories/barry-basden/lingering-over-drinks

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Oct 11, 04:51pm

  Liminal things are best approached with some very good columbian herb.

  The little things... the least noticable things can have enormous relevance when relevance itself is suddenly exhaled.

  Or so I've heard.

• 
  Dolemite

  Oct 12, 04:27pm

  Okay, I understand it now:
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  What Fictionaut was:

  You're great!
  YOU'RE great!!
  Thank you!
  Thank YOU!!
  I'll blog you!
  I'll blog YOU!!
  I'll publish you!
  I'll publish YOU!!
  I'll interview you!
  I'll interview YOU!!
  I'll nominate you!
  I'll nominate YOU!!
  I WILL BLURB YOU!
  omg it worked!!

  What Fictionaut is:

  More relaxed (less exciting)

  What Fictionaut will become:

  ?

• 
  Copper Sloane Levy

  Oct 12, 11:51pm

  Liminal: The sixty seconds (or more) immediately following the conclusion of a sexual orgasm.

• 
  Dolemite

  Oct 13, 02:09am

  C'est vrai!

• 
  strannikov

  Oct 13, 02:45pm

  Nyet, that would be "libidinal". Ask someone fluent in German, but I hazard that "liminal" is something like the Germans' "die Zwischenwelt", which I've understood as "the in-between world". Dawns, dusks, doorways, those kinds of things. Births, deaths. Vestibules and narthexes. Boarding lounges and departure gates.

• 
  Marcus Speh

  Oct 13, 07:18pm

  well done, @strannikov. "Zwischenwelt" it is ("zwischenwelthaft", "zwischen den Welten stehend"). nothing wrong with libido, of course.

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