Will O'B wrote: I pity you poor finalists . . you will not be getting much sleep over the next few days.
Who's not going to sleep? I'm going to sleep. Whether or not my race for 4th place is successful or not isn't something to lose sleep over. I can name a thread after myself. (temper tantrum.)
Tell us something.: I used to be a regular then I took up the bassoon. Bassoons don't have a lot of chiff. Not really, I have always been a drummer, and my C&F years were when I was a little tired of the drums. Now I'm back playing drums. I mist the C&F years, though.
john swinton wrote:this post is to keep the poll at the top. and to let people give me suggestions for a better ending.
[voice="Master Po"]Ah, Grasshoppah, Grasshoppah! Always seek the answer that is within yourself. And when you can snatch the bottle of Christian Brothers out of Bloomfield's hand, it will be time for you to go.[/voice]
john swinton wrote:this post is to keep the poll at the top. and to let people give me suggestions for a better ending.
[voice="Master Po"]Ah, Grasshoppah, Grasshoppah! Always seek the answer that is within yourself. And when you can snatch the bottle of Christian Brothers out of Bloomfield's hand, it will be time for you to go.[/voice]
note to self: NEVER ask for help. it can be perceved as weekness. speaking of weeks, next sunday im doing a mink kayak trip. anyway, must finish off the last of bloomfeilds Crihstian Brothers.
john swinton wrote:this post is to keep the poll at the top. and to let people give me suggestions for a better ending.
[voice="Master Po"]Ah, Grasshoppah, Grasshoppah! Always seek the answer that is within yourself. And when you can snatch the bottle of Christian Brothers out of Bloomfield's hand, it will be time for you to go.[/voice]
oh NO!!! It's really REALLY sad that I actually KNOW where you got that from. I have seen that movie way too many times...in fact we just watched the TV show in rerun on Wednesday night, and young Grasshoppah was trying to snatch the pebble from Master's hand Although, you know, nano...I don't remember Master EVER having a bottle of Christian Brothers in his hand.....
Someday, everything is gonna be diff'rent
When I paint my masterpiece.
I've never seen a kayak for minks.
But here's something close: a play boat for ferrets.
(I wonder if John Swinton does all the paddling, or if the minks help. It seems the whole notion might work better with otters.)
If you haven't yet, please get your vote in soon, thanks.
To encourage further voting, I thought I might editorialize a bit on the finalist entries, in just mentioning what I liked best about each entry.
Cloven: The piece is driven by taken a wild and scary thing (the devil exorcised from a person) and using it to reveal the absurdity in our lives. The jokes run along those lines: "It's an exorcism what were you expecting?", the ouzo, the cafe, the dreadlocks & birkenstocks. Would the devil really fit in this easily?
Annie's Baby: The glimpse of the hard life is pure and brought out beautifully in the unassuming language. The image of the Annie standing on the porch, waiting for her absentee husband and remembering him pushing a pram for 300 miles the last time (I can see the dust rising, man and pram alone on the endless road) is powerful. The need of lovers and the their limits: she can't expect less, he can't stay put. Carson McCullers stuff.
Got a Cigarette?: Here is an attempt to simmer it down, to take the word-limit one step further. The piece is effective because it reveals the complex emotions of the giver (compassion, irritation, and perhaps a trifle complacency), and of the bum. Social norms, wealth, personal interaction in the sound of the panhandler spitting. You feel your face flush.
Zany Granddaughter: This works well because it pushes the cute-kid buttons, and the cool-grandparent. Love and the healing power of humor. The shtick is the precautious 5-year-old joking with words that you and I have to look up, and people never really being mad. We all want a family like that.
Cautious Captain: The brilliance of this piece is the density of the images conveyed: the wreck, the sea, the children... the scene is vivid and complete. It feels real because it is complex: that final, unresolved leap, motivated by love for an inaccessible woman that will transform or crush the little boy (that's life, not child's play), narrated from the perspective of the sister who is torn between condescension and affection for her brother.
The Associate: A genre piece, if you will, all Dashiell Hammet in the 1990s. It's powerful for the juxtaposition of the mad and noisy circus of the ludcriously enhanced bimbo, the rapacious widow, the hapless boss, with the sudden and inexplicable hermetic calm of the decision to get out.
Blueberry Summer: The blueberries are the means to express love and appreciation for family, tradition, belonging, and home. The piece works because the tone is right, not sappy and it doesn't actually resolve happily. Things change, loved ones are lost, all the deep emotions of life expressed in social meaning of food.
Sarah shuffles through fallen leaves... : Big emotion, tiny instance. The first mysterious mention of blond hair and blood opens up the Fall afternoon to the really big picture. The author then skillfully walks the line between somber hints and real-life and specific emotion. The tragedy of the boys death feels immediate because we feel that we are glimpsing it unbidden rather than being shown it. Powerful image of the tear and the leaf falling, the surface of the water.
Our Song: Using a song here makes it possible to avoid sappiness. The piece is effective in that it is understated, just like the widower-lovers gingerly approaching one another while talking of setting the world alight. Love can do that, is the message, as can music.
The Dissolution: The power of this piece lies in real portrayal of relationships: Self-perception and the perceived perception of the other meld, you start understanding and defining yourself through the other. There is the tension between the half-heartedness of either partner and the strong sense of connection between the partners. A connection that they don't comprehend, that brings pain, and that has to do with tenderness.
Last edited by Bloomfield on Mon Dec 06, 2004 4:11 pm, edited 2 times in total.
john swinton wrote:...and to let people give me suggestions for a better ending.
Assuming you are really asking, here are a couple of pointers:
...
Eddie was turning into his street now, he shuffled past the place he first got stabbed, and he shuffled up to his gate. Putting a thin hand on the rusted latch he pressed it down and the iron gate squeaked open on ancient hinges.
Two days later, a man came home to find his adopted son lying on the floor with a bottle of pills in his hand.
What Eddie had looked for 15 years was love. That simple 4 lettered word that means so much to people. He had never received any, only giving it away until he was a hollow shell. Devoid of any good emotion, only filled with hatred, evil and anger.
In the first paragraph of this excerpt, you are imbuing the real world with meaning: the gate, the thin hand, the squeaking on ancient hinges, all that and the place where he first (!) got stabbed. That works.
The next sentence is the sort of stark shocker sentence I was fond of as a teenager. It sometimes works, sometimes doesn't, the trick is to be careful what is around it.
The last paragraph is what kills it really. "What Eddie had looked for 15 years was love. That simple 4 lettered word that means so much to people" There is nothing specific here anymore. The real world has dropped out and all that is left is a sermonizing narrator making banal statements (what does it matter to love how many letters the word has?). There is nothing specific left, and the images are broken: First we are told that poor Eddie empty: a hollow shell and devoid of good emotion. But then all of a sudden his full of hatred, evil, and anger. Apart from the empty/full thing, is hatred, evil, and anger really what explains a suicide by sleeping pills?
A story with a great start & potential, you might just want to work on that ending. One approach might be to just leave out the last paragraph.
(temper tantrum.)
