Twyla Tharp

grounded where you feel the most confident that you are what you said you're at sea you could be going this way that way unless you know how to navigate from the stars which few people do anymore you're screwed so when i think about a spine in a like a scientific paper i was taught there can only really be one major conclusion maybe two

I am a great fan of Agatha Christie and Jonathan Couric.

And the reason why is because from the get-go, you know there is one conclusion.

But that their job is to keep you away from that conclusion for as long as possible.

Who did the crime?

Who's the killer?

Who, whatta, whatta?

What is the crime for starters?

And they'll delay as long as they can in their singular, you know, style, definite modes.

I mean, Agatha Christie has her format is practically that of a sonnet.

I'm sure you could actually count words and I've never seen a study.

that show along, okay, she's going to do red herring number one, X words in, and this is where she's going to throw in the extra crime to push the tension up to get it to go to here.

But we all know we're playing the same game.

I think that anyone who is successful in communicating to other people gains their trust, gains their confidence that you're not going to screw them.

The question about audience and intention is a sort of sensitive one because it's, okay, are you manipulating the audience and are you there just to take advantage of them?

Or at the other extreme of that spectrum, are you doing it because you're in an ivory tower and you're off here doing your own investigations and maybe they connect, maybe they don't, who cares, right?

Those are the two extremes, total manipulation of audience, total disregard.

of audience and depending on who I'm working for or with I do both.

Well, I think that the word intention, which is so vague these days, but why are you doing this?

What is your purpose in doing it?