Week 10, Junkyard Quote 1

"SNIPPY ALWAYS TELLS ME LIES. HE SUCKS.
I TRY TO CONVINCE HIM THAT CAPTAIN IS A REAL WIZARD AND RULER OF THE UNIVERSE, BUT SNIPPY IS A STUBBORN GOAT. HE SAYS "IT'S ALL MAGIC TRICKS" AND "YOU ARE GULLIBLE".
I CALLED HIM A "JIGGLY SLUG" AND PRESENTED HIM MY PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE.
SNIPPY CALLED MY PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE "PHOTOSHOP". I DON'T KNOW WHAT PHOTOSHOP IS, BUT IT SOUNDS SCARY. IT REMINDS ME OF THOSE OLD MAGAZINES I FOUND OF GIRLS WITH GLOSSY FACES. I THINK I WILL NAME MY CATERPILLAR FRIEND "PHOTOSHOP". THE CATERPILLAR GETS ALL GLOSSY AND ANGRY IF I TRY TO HELP HER FLY. IT TOOK A LOT OF WORK TO CATCH PHOTOSHOP AND TIE BALLOONS TO HER. NOW SHE CAN FINALLY BE FREE, LIKE A SKY-SHARK. SNIPPY CLAIMS HE IS A SMART, BUT I KNOW BETTER. REAL SCIENTISTS CREATE SKY-SHARKS. SNIPPY HASN'T CREATED ANYTHING LATELY.
PHOTOSHOP ROAMS THE SKY, I HOPE SHE LANDS ON SNIPPY."

- Pilot, from Romantically Apocalyptic, Issue 63.


I love this kind of writing, when done well, and I think this is a good piece that accompanies the silent images above it.

Week 9, Junkyard Quote 2

"As you approach the building you see the racetrack to its right, littered with debris and surrounded by desecrated bleachers."
- N. Parry, describing an abandoned racing circuit in a near-future wasteland scenario.

I heard "desecrated bleachers" and it struck me as very interesting language. The first half is paraphrased, didn't have time to write down the exact wording in the narration, but those two words stuck with me. What kind of character would describe a racing circuit as hallowed ground?

Week 9, Junkyard Quote 1

"I heard a baby crying. The child was lying on the ramp, wrapped in rags. A mother had left it behind, perhaps because she knew that women with infants were sent to the gas chambers immediately. I saw another SS soldier grab the baby by the legs. The crying had bothered him. He smashed the baby's head against the iron side of a truck until it was silent."

I've been reading about holocaust denial this afternoon, and came upon this translated interview from 2005 of Oskar Gröning, a Waffen-SS vet that worked at Auschwitz, who's accounts of what transpired at the camp is great evidence against deniers. The quote above, from the article, kind of struck me as very strong language... Uncomfortably gruesome, but strong nonetheless. Not something I would use on my own writing directly, but it might serve as inspiration.

Week 8, Calisthenics 1

The character I thought up during class was a Falklands veteran watching Jackass. Wrote up the scene where he was partially defined (the one I sketched up in class). It needs a lot of work, but here's my first shot at it.

Tired like a battered kite in a dust storm, mote of washed-out blue in a sea of light, my eyes fall to the sky. My sides burn, and I think there's a nest of argentine ants nearby, a stream carrying away gibblets, former parts of me.

I couldn't be arsed to give a damn about this island a year ago, had never heard its name. Couldn't be bothered to care about it yesterday, as we landed on it. I certainly don't give three shakes about it now, dying on it.

Strangely enough, I want to scratch my ass right about now. It's itching like crazy, and my left arm won't move--forget about my right, it's about ten yards too far away to be of any use.

"Save the Queen, see the world" and all that yack in my head, all I want is a beer and some quiet. Dead before twenty, and this doc won't stop talking at me, prodding at me with a frown.

Week 8, Junkyard Quote 2

"But I move my body a lot, like I'm a snake with a face deformity (...)"
- Overheard on campus from some girl, in a cheerful voice.

Week 8, Junkyard Quote 1

"So if anyone asks, the sword is there because of an ancient prophecy, not five dipshits in an airship."
- darthmarth28 on Reddit, quoting one of his players in an ongoing rp campaign.

For anyone who might want the full story as to why this was said, here it is. Things like these are what makes me come back again and again to the rpg genre.

Week 7, Reading Response 1

I couldn't sleep, so I kept flipping through Katie Chaple's "Pretty Little Rooms." I stumbled upon "The Art of Not Thinking" (p.51) and... Don't think I'll have an easier time sleeping tonight, to say the least.

The poem's imagery isn't very scary or unsettling individually, it's fairly mild, but the combination is very effective. The dialog the poem holds with the reader is like the monologue a closet daemon holds with its frightened child-prey. Unsettling, like a forgotten childhood memory.

There were some very interesting images, like "the taut breasts," "the flicker of mirrors," "unspooling bucket." Not because there's anything fresh about them, but because they all contribute to this feeling of tension, of foreboding. I'm really trying to come up with criticism or more thoughtful commentary, but I think this might just be my favourite poem in the book thus far, it's managed to make me anxious.

I would love to reproduce the seamlesness with which the piece meanders through the scene, from the outside to the room to the person to the outside, all in one fluid motion. It also manages to use very simple vocabulary to great effect-something I still have trouble with, liking 20-dollar words more than 20-cent ones. The poem has a total of three words with more than two syllables: "alphabet," "surrender," and "unspooling." That can be hard for me.

I also want to try this kind of dialog, half-order half-description, I think it's a very interesting resource.

Week 7, Classmate Response 2

This is a classmate response to Taylor's Improv/Imitation Entry 1 (Week 7).

This is an improv off the concept that Katie Chaple used, the concept of taking something in the news and using it as a triggering subject: I read an article today about some sort of video taken by an iPhone of the Mayan pyramid which showed a light beam coming from the top.

End of Days

A photo taken in seconds.
The quick click click captures
our end of days.
The stream of light emblazoned
in the memory of the iPhone 4.
Can the mesmerizing glitch symbolize our doom?

Now, photoshop dissects,
studies each pixel and the saturation sensor
wondering if their never failing software failed.
Meanwhile, the human race paces,
on the edge of their pyramids,
waiting to tumble off the edge
and watch ruins emerge from the lightbeams of Heaven.

That was a very emotive text, particularly the 2nd stanza, but also an overall good job.

"The quick click click captures" sounds very good when said out, but perhaps the second 'click' is unnecessary? It's even faster when that is removed, but I like the sound of it either way. "stream of light" sounds accessible, as if the two words were too intertwined already. Light should stay, for the sake of the poem's motive, and a more interesting word than stream put in its place. I enjoy the sound of the word "glitch", it's sharp, and works very well in-between the two slower words, like the middle-click of a slow metronome.

I like how common photoshop has become in our daily life that it's now not even capitalized, like velcro or post-it, good use of the word. "the saturation sensor" feels kind of extraneous, is it really necessary? you could mix it with 'pixel', like "each pixel's saturation" or something like that. I like the last line very much, it evokes a nice image, made me think of The Last of the Mohicans, don't know why.

Minor grammar hiccup when reading, shouldn't it be "on the edge of its pyramids."? I don't know for sure, I tend to write like that myself, but it jumped at me. Also, the two stanzas being different lengths confused me for a bit there, but that's just a personal preference for symmetry, not a criticism.

Anyhow, I like what you did with Katie Chaple's idea, well thought!

Week 7, Junkyard Quote 4

And sometimes I get this pain in my stomach's pit
It's what I get
I'm convinced it's my punishment
For those nights I got drunk and let go at some bar
In some city with some people I don't know
For all the times that the lines on your face
Reminded me of the days before the dagonflies escaped
It trips me out how you pick up all my traits
From the way that you spit to the fists that you make
I watch the way you try to keep your mom happy
Daddy learned that from you
You're supposed to learn that from daddy

 Little Man, from You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having (2005), Atmosphere

 Someone posted a link to an Atmosphere song in an alkie forum I frequent, and through a few related-video jumps I arrived at this song. The lines above really stood out to me, mostly the last two thirds (first third is there for completion's sake).

If anyone's interested in other good songs by the same people, so far I've found The Waitress (first and foremost) and The Ropes to be quite good, it's a very relaxed style of H.H.

Week 7, Classmate Response 1

This is a classmate response to Osa's Free Entry 1, Week 7:

 "They Walk..."

Out the front doors of the raddison
On prueview haggardly
past the cookie cutter coffee spot
She ahead
He staring
at her spine
Quickly behind him
all around
They cross the street
Heads down
Fake frowns shirts
rumpled
Choices made
Beds remade
Staying ten feet apart
Into the first and third yellow
cab

That was a pleasure to read, very promising piece of writing. I liked the pacing and styling, quick and to the point. It seemed to start slow, with the first two lines, but then... "cookie cutter cofee spot" appears, fantastic, rolls right of the tongue, definitely a keeper.

The "She ahead / He staring" was the only part that really upset my eyes as I was scanning through--the lack of a verb interrupted me. I'd personally add the 's to the two lines, since it won't slow anything down... Although if you're intentionally going for a "punctiation free" piece, I guess that's not an option due to the apostrophe, and "she is ahead / he is staring" /would/ slow down the reading.

At the end, it seems to slow back down, as to give closure, with "Staying ten feet apart / Into the first and third yellow"... But then, the last line is "cab". That kind of jarrs me, as it feels like the piece is winding down, yet there's a one syllable word as the lone last line. Not necessarily bad, either, just odd.

The title doesn't feel like it adds much to the piece, but that's just a bit of an offhand comment, last-minute, nothing much important. I like the piece overall, good job.

Week 7, Junkyard Quote 3

Daddy, who was tall and strong and liked going to the hospital to play with their fun machines, was put in the bye-bye box at a big, white house where everyone had a party for him even though it wasn't his birthday.
From "Daddy Put In Bye-bye Box", from The Onion.

Reminded me of some infantilist poetry I read a while back. Not very clashing or provoking or anything, just a funny article about the death of loved ones.

Week 7, Junkyard Quote 2

Sarah trusted her gut, and her gut said Agent Nightingale was an asshole. He felt wrong, and it wasn't just the smell of stale booze. It was in the way he flashed his badge, pulled rank, the look in his eyes when he wanted answers.

Sami Järvi, from "Alan Wake"

The writing may be mostly simplistic, but it fits the mood it's trying to complement extremely well. This is from an excellent adventure game, that revolves around a best-selling american writer. As a whole, the game has one of the best balances between Showing and Telling that I have seen (with "Max Payne" being next to it, a noir story by the same developers and writers). It shows you most everything, yet gives you enough nibbles of tells that you can find your bearing in places where the character's intentions may not be obvious.

Week 7, Junkyard Quote 1

The snow crunched under my feet as I walked with the Chechen rebel commander away from the warmth of our safe house. When we entered a bombed-out neighborhood 15 minutes away, I put the battery in my Iridium satellite phone and waited for the glowing screen to signal that I had locked on to the satellites.

Robert Young Pelton, "Kill the Messenger", article on ForeignPolicy.com.

In an otherwise kind-of-flat piece of journalism, I found that the article was a worthwhile read, literalily, for its content, not its form. I just found out that Marie Colvin died a week ago, this article being how I now know. The experiences of Pelton, that partially mirror Colvin's, and his commentary on how some governments make the gears turn, was a nice read.

Week 7, Calisthenics 1

What I wrote in class in response to the interview exercise felt kind of uninspired, so I put together something I'm a bit happier about, although it still needs a lot of tweaking (and no, no slinkies, don't like the sound of the word).

Between a ghost town and a village,
empty streets—no tangle ups,
accross from where Augusta stood
with a smoldering cat,
both hissing at the past.

Outside all's unknown,
hidden patterns taped to ceilings
glow, not shine
like alternating pegs,
their home not jet black space
but the flesh of a child.

Week 6, Junkyard Quote 3

"[A]t their word of command many millions of brainless, besotted beasts would stretch forth their noisome talons from the slums of a thousand cities"
- H.P. Lovecraft, from The Street (short story)

For the past year, or so, I've been slowly reading through Lovecraft's complete works (it's quite the daunting task, specially when combined with the other antologies and collections it has to contend for time with). This story, one of his early ones, is a non-horror story (quite uncommon), heavily tinted by nationalism, xenophobia, and nostalgia. I liked many of the scenes conjured in the story, of stout houses and stalwart men, but the line above was specially eye-catching.

Week 6, Junkyard Quote 2

"Yet even in this pastoral land
the green is mixed with battle cries
and phantom groans. A handsome spring
it was. But, my sweet God, to me
the flowers stank of sulphur and
their blooms were flecked with human blood."
A. Hudgins, from After the Lost War.

Been rereading After the Lost War, since it fell from my shelf yesterday, and I hadn't opened it in 3 years or so. Some passages like the one above feel very vivid, and a pleasure to read.

Week 6, Junkyard Quote 1

"Fluid sugar draws bees, fluid filth draws flies, and fluid situations attract the chaotic."
- FANTASYSMITH (pseudonym), from The Dragon #30 (Oct. 1979)

I love how "fluid filth draws flies" sounds and feels.

Week 6, Free Entry 1

During Mr. Vagnini's introduction, at the start of last Thursday's class, something he said about Italian ideas jumping over to English in interesting ways made me jot down a few lines on situations like that given between the languages I know and English.

Although poems are not my strength, I decided to give it a shot at one. This is my current draft:

Given a hug without scars,
west of Ithaca,
where killing shines
like amber mead.

A cotillion of snakes
shed from a myriad gorgons
is chasing its prey,
a breeze of mugged arms.

Standing atop the barren cliff
where a prince lost his sight,
the blue sawteeth race
and the flying cats cry.

Week 5, Classmate Response 2

This is a classmate response to Morgan's Free Entry, Wk 5.

This is a small sample of the short story i have been working on about the in memory of stickers on the back of cars. It doesn't have a title yet, but i wanted to get peps input on it. Here it is:

I have learned a lot about Sally Beckerson these past 20 minutes. She was born June 18th 1986. Her favorite color was pink-all shades of it from baby power pink to sonic boom neon pink. She was a dog lover-ASPCA was written across her boobs. Her hair was dyed an off shade of blond, paired with glasses that tried to scream sexy little librarian and an overly cheesy smile. She is a young 20 year old.
Damn, this is creepy! I try to look away from Sally, but I can’t she is literally staring at me only a few feet in front of me. If I look away, it isn’t good for anyone around me.

SO, I just on looking at her and I feel like a slinky stalker as I do it. I don’t want to seem too rude so I try to think up something to say to that awkward smile.

“What dog breed do you like?”

“Labs, I had one when I was younger, they are the best dogs.”

“Sweetness, I had a lab a few years ago too. She was like a huge fat cow.”

Silence.

Awkward.

Sometimes silence isn’t golden, that damn movie screen lies. From the very silent stares from the huge next to me, he thinks I’m talking on my cell phone, so I laugh to fill the void.

I am the maker of pure awkwardness.

Sally is still there just cheesin’ away, like she has no care in the world, which is honestly true.

“I like your glasses; they have a cute librarian vibe.”

“Thanks that was the look I was going for. I’m a huge book nerd.”

“Same, though Harry Potter is my weakness.”

“Holy Moses, same here!”

Talking about Harry Potter is probably the most amazing thing on this planet besides Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream. I go on a rampage about how Snape is the most outstanding character in all of novel history, and how I cried like a person in a Hallmark commercial at the end of Deathly Hallows Part 2. As I ramble away, Sally is smiling at me like she understands everything I am saying to her, but I know she is faking it just to be nice. That bitch.

Now I feel like a bitch for calling the smiling Sally a bitch for just staring at me. I am starting to hate this girl. She needs to stop being so damn happy. 

Interesting piece, I like the character's inner voice very much, although I felt like the piece needed a more physical background (I am left wondering, where did this happen?).

Some parts feel like they could use some reworking, like:
"Sometimes silence isn’t golden, that damn movie screen lies. From the very silent stares from the huge next to me, he thinks I’m talking on my cell phone, so I laugh to fill the void."
The first line is quite good (maybe change the 'that' to 'those'?), however the 2nd line honestly confused me--I get the gist of what's happening, but the way it's written doesn't make a very clear image.

There's also some spots where I feel some commas being added, or phrases being rearanged, might improve the overall tone (the 2nd paragraph, for example).

Overall, I like where it's going, and would love to read the whole thing, please keep us updated.

Week 5, Classmate Response 1

This was a response to April's Improv 2, Week 5.

 From Instructions, by Neil Gaiman, which can be found here. Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite contemporary authors. I love the mysticism in this piece, so I'm Improving it in my own way...

Instructions

Go out from the house, child, taking 127 paces South.
If you don't know where South is, that's okay.
Just spin around until you are dizzy. Then turn right.
Shut your eyes tight and count to ten. Open them. You should see
a skinny dirt path you never noticed before. Take it.

If you see an old crooked man with saucer ears,
small, square teeth and an eye patch -
Don't look away. Instead, look into his one good eye
and smile.
He may just give you the gift of a well-told story.

Go past the barren tree that twists like a unicorn's horn
but remember, as you pass, to say a prayer.

Take a bowl and place it on your head
and take a towel too. You can wrap it around yourself
or sit on it and have a picnic, if you wish.

Pay the Great Blue Moose a visit and give him clam chowder
if you have any. Pass the farm with six red chickens
and ring the bell at the edge of the gate. If you see the farmer,
tip your bowl-hat and say "How do you do?"

When you come to the edge of the forest, stop.
Bend down and grab a fistfull of grass. Blow it out of your hand
and sing "Yasha'el Maelin Katurna!" and pick up a rock.
This will protect you from the wicked things that eat children.

Do not be afraid when it gets dark. Listen to the purple nightingale,
who sings for you alone. Step carefully along the path and
watch out for creatures littler than you. When you get tired,
call out for the thee-eyed squirrel. His name is Daniel.
He will let you sleep in his treehouse if you use kind words.

In the morning, you will find yourself in your bed, cuddled up
with your favorite pillow and blanket.
Things will look the same. But you will be different.
Under your pillow you will find your magic rock.
Carry it with you
always.

Firstly, thanks for linking to that writing by Gaiman, he's an author I greatly enjoy--hadn't stumbled accross this piece yet, and I liked it a lot.

Your piece was very vivid, and was a breeze to read. I enjoyed some of the imagery, slightly absurd yet believable.

Some wording could use work, like "old crooked man." I can't think of a better phrasing right this instant, but old and crooked feel too overlapping, like one implies the other, although not completely.

One thing I could see changed would be the stanza about the grass and the wicked things--perhaps it should mirror the next stanza, about Daniel the squirrel, a bit more? You could give the wicked things a name, perhaps a smell.

Overall, it's a good draft, and with a few tweaks could be even greater! Thanks for sharing.