Junot Diaz--How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie)

I was looking back on past stories that we have read for class and Junot Diaz stuck out to me. So, I googled him and one of the first things that popped up was this short story that he has posted on youtube. I believe it is him reading the story, but either way a thick Latino accent is present and makes the audible story very believable. One thing I really enjoyed about Junot's The Sun, the Moon, the Stars was his voice. "Let me confess: I love Santo Domingo. I love coming home to the guys in blazers trying to push little cups of Brugal into my hands. Love the plane landing, everybody clapping when the wheels kiss the runway. Love the fact that I'm the only n****r on board without a Cuban link or a flapjack of makeup on my face (p.18)." Junot does such a magnificent job at putting the reader into someone else's shoes and that's exactly what he does in How to Date a Brown Girl. 
Junot portrays the step-by-step process of dating a brown, black, white, or 'halfie' from the perspective of a Dominican teenager living in New Jersey. In one scene Junot writes: "Get back inside. Call her house and when her father picks up ask if she's there. He'll ask: Who is this? Hang up. He sounds like a principle, or a police chief, the sorta' dude with a big neck who never has to watch his back." That last line in particular struck me as beautiful. There's so many ways to describe this man or father but the way Junot describes him with "a big neck who never has to watch his back" sets up a perfect description and feeling in my head. I have seen this person before. I have shaken this person's hand. Junot sets it up perfectly. The two stories that I wrote for class were an attempt to put the reader into someone else's shoes. Junot is definitely one of my inspirations for attempting to place the reader into a different world from their own.

here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxqB7X1v77A

Nicholas

Pastoralia by George Saunders

I found this story on a list of modern short stories I came across on Google. Most of the stories did not have links, but this one did. I thought the name George Saunders looked familiar, so I thought it would be a good story. I was right. The story "Pastoralia" by George Saunders is a story about a man that is working in a theme park as a prehistoric times actor. He wears animal skins, and lives in a cave, and isn't supposed to speak in English while he is on duty. He has this job because he has a child who is very ill. He also works with a woman named Janet. Janet is not very good at her job. She speaks in English and drinks and smokes. No matter what Janet does the main character will not rat out Janet on her behavior even if the management of the park insists that he tell them if she is not doing her job. I thought this story was very funny. It had many similarities to the other story we read in class by George Saunders, "Sea Oak". In "Sea Oak" there is also a character in an odd professions because of problems in their lives. I liked this story better though because there was less magical realism. Even though this theme park has odd exhibits, I can still see there being something real about the situation. I mean some TV shows now days are quite a bit out there. I also really liked the Dynamic that Janet and the main character had. Janet hates her job, and shows it in her performance. The main character tries to get her to do better, but she just won't listen. Yet, he still will not rat her out to management. Even when management comes to the main character and tells him they no how bad Janet is at her job, and how they just need proof in his daily reports, he will not rat out his co-worker. I think he does this because He knows she has problems in her life too, and he feels for her. George Saunders has a way of adding his dry hilarious wit into even the most serious situation. I love this because no matter how bad things get in the story the depression never bogs me down. I would definitely recommend this story. I had to buy this story on the New Yorker in the April 2000 issue. I will also print out a copy if anyone wants to read it. Thanks Zach Larmer, and for some reason I can't make it not look like one big paragraph.

Short Story Assignment

Book Club Blog: 1. Find a short story, either read one of the stories on your syllabus we didn’t come to, or read an interview on The Paris Review and get into someone new. Do some research! Ask your English teacher, a friend, the avid reader at the coffee shop—track down a new short story. The point is to do a little research beforehand so you can track down something your into.
2. Read and review the story. First write: how did you come by it? Who recommended it? What did you think? What genre is it? Make a comparison if you can, who have we read that it is similar to? Give a short synopsis that doesn’t have any spoilers. Then make a recommendation. “I recommend this to human kind.” “I recommend this to people who love funny stories.” “I recommend this to people who want to kill themselves by boredom.” Etc.
3. Take one peer recommendations. Respond to the writers’ post in the comments section: “Hey Sally, read the short story you recommended. You are SO WRONG about it being good.” “Hey Sally, thanks for turning me onto the fiction of Baldwin. That guy is crazy.” Etc. Elaborate on what you liked, didn't like, share any thoughts you had.
4. Print out your post and your comment and make sure to include them into your portfolio.

How Much Land Does A Man Need? -Leo Tolstoy

            I was required to read a story of Tolstoy’s for one of my classes earlier in the semester, and I fell in love with his writing style. I also fell in love with that fact that he was adopted by the ‘common’ people during the Russian revolution. What made this man’s work so emotional for a huge amount of people?

            The more I read him, the more I understand. How Much Land Does a Man Need was my most recent read out of my collection of him. I wanted to recommend it to everyone. Even people who don’t read much can appreciate the surface-deep message in the title alone.

            Tolstoy was Christian, and he has themes leading back to the teachings of Jesus. The idea of ‘give up everything to follow me’ is strong and the funny yet dark presence of the ‘devil’ gives you the realization that religion was a basis for this piece of work. However, the devil plays the role he was meant for in the beginning, he is there to test and tempt, not to do bad things.

            The main character of Pahom, a poor farmer, makes a comment that tempts the devil to test him. The Devil believes that if Pahom was to become rich with land, he will have control over the man. With the help of an invisible devil the farmer becomes slowly wealthier. The reader is lead to question if this is really a good thing or not fairly quickly as a theme of dark laughter ensues and greed takes over.

            By the end of the story I was questioning belongings and capitalism more than usual. Tolstoy does a fantastic job at presenting this social critique to us through this story. Do you really need more than the bare minimums, or are people in a capitalistic society just greedy and over-zealous about their wants? It made it very easy to see why he was adopted by the ‘commoners’.

            I would enjoy hearing other people’s thoughts about this story, and I hope people enjoy it as much as I did.

-Casey

link to the story: http://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/2738/
link to Tolstoy's wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy

Incredibly Short Stories

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/sixwords.html

Here's the link to some short stories. I read through a couple of these before starting on my second short story about Abe. My goal was to express an idea in as few words as possible. I don't think Earnest Hemingway's famous six word story is on here but this is it... "For sale: baby shoes. Never worn." (Hope I got that right : / ) What do you think? Are six words enough to tell a story?

Hotel Rot by Aimee Bender

I really enjoyed The Remember by Aimee Bender. So I googled her and found her website, which is well-designed and interesting. The pictures are cute and the page layout is neat and clean. There are several links to her short stories, including The Remember, and after reading three of those stories, I decided that Hotel Rot is no doubt my favorite.

The story is short yet significant. There are three rooms in the hotel where birds are dying in the first, flowers are withering in the second, and bones are silently on show in the third. People buy tickets to visit these rooms.

Aimee Bender did a wonderful job making me and people in the story feel extremely sick. I love her way of writing such a dark story in a calm way as if she is an outsider. And I love her way of telling the story by providing large amount of facts rather than comments. There are many nouns and few adjectives in her story, but she successfully conveys the sense of disgust and depression to me. I think that is wonderful! The tone of the ending is quite different from the previous text, “Pease write a letter to the world” the author says. I’m not quite sure about what it is that she is trying to get across to us, but I think it has something to do with the human-nature relationship.

Equally fascinating is how they present this story: you read it with pictures relating to the story, and sounds of birds. And you click each time you finish a page. It is a way of reading that I have never tried before, but would like to try more in the future.

I would like to recommend this short story to those who are interested in the relation between human and nature, those who love birds and flowers, and those who want a ten-minute reading experience with vivid images and sounds of birds. And I would be more than glad if you read through this short piece of story and tell me how you feel about it.

Link to Hotel Rot: http://locusnovus.com/lnprojects/hotelrot/

Link to Aimee Bender’s website: http://www.flammableskirt.com/home.html

The Specialists Hat, by Kelly Link

"When you're Dead," Samantha says, "you don't have to brush your teeth."

"When you're Dead," Claire says, "you live in a box, and it's always dark, but you're not ever afraid."

Claire and Samantha are identical twins. Their combined age is twenty years, four months, and six days. Claire is better at being Dead than Samantha.

            Right from the beginning, The Specialists Hat draws you in with an eerie atmosphere. The story plays on some creepy aspects of the simplicity of childhood. It is centered around a game that the twins play, known as the dead game. The dead game consists of 3 rules:

1.      Numbers are significant

2.      The game is not played in front of grownups

3.      The most important rule. When you’re dead, you don’t have to be afraid of anything.

The story tells about the twins Claire and Samantha, who move with their dad to a mansion known as Eight Chimneys after their mother passes away. Their father has moved there for the summer to research an unknown bad poet named Rash, who lived in the mansion many years before. But the story then stated that the father began to spend more and more time out in the woods than he does researching the poet. The caretaker of the mansion, Mr. Coeslak, tells the children not to enter the woods outside the mansion, or the attic. The woods are filled with copperhead snakes, and the attic is haunted. One day the father decides he is going to the woods later that night to have dinner with a woman he met there, and calls on the caretaker to babysit the twins. The caretaker doesn’t dare stay in the house overnight, but tells him that he will find someone to watch them.

            The babysitter arrives that night and they begin to play games with her. When they decide she doesn’t seem like an adult, they invite her to play the dead game with them. She then reveals to them that she had lived in the house once before, and knows how to get into the attic. Once up there, the babysitter shows the twins what she calls “The specialists hat”, an object that can make any sound that you can imagine. But she also explains that it belongs to the specialist, a mysterious figure that will take you away and eat you if it catches you.

            This story is written with the simplistic tones of a child, creating a story that explains things in a matter-of-fact way, but at the same time reveals nothing about the world around the twins. It’s a very good story, but ends in what I’m beginning to see is a Kelly Link specialty; leaving the story open ended and unresolved. But instead of leaving the reader upset, it is done in a way that adds to the mystery in the end.

            I would recommend this story to anyone that enjoys a good ghost story, but who won’t get too upset when only one or two of the 10+ questions get answered.

To read this story, head to:

http://kellylink.net/fiction/link-specialist.htm

the Happy Prince

Oscar Wilde intended this as a children’s tale, but its melancholy tone and philosophical depth make the tale much more than a children’s tale. The Prince is called the Happy Prince, because in his life time he was always surrounded by pleasure. But is pleasure equal to happiness? After he dies, a golden statue of him is erected in the city square. Now stepping out of the royal walls and faced with the wail and woe of ordinary people, the Happy Prince feels obliged to help those who have been previously neglected by him. He asks a swallow for help, the help being that the swallow bring the worthy parts of the statue to those who mostly need money. By and by, the statue is literally stripped down to an ugly clump of clay, which in the end is pulled down and thrown into furnace.

The Prince is like an omniscient loving figure that sees everybody and pities everybody, a figure with the power to save people; while the swallow is like any common person in our society, who can’t get the panorama of the world’s misery but who comes in contact with the concrete misery of people around every day. But after all, the Prince is only a statue, whose resource will be exhausted anyway, and the swallow is not exactly the same as us, who don’t want to and can’t afford to sacrifice ourselves.

I recommend this story to those who want to see something simple but profound, and who has an innocent but resilient heart. 

For the story, please go to http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/HapPri.shtml

Miranda July

I've had an index card taped to the wall in front of my desk that reads, "What a terrible mistake to let go of something wonderful for something real." I'll be honest, it was something I came across on tumblr and proceeded to jot down so that I could think about it some more and it wouldn't just be something I reblogged and forgot about for forever (...wait? what? I have a tumblr? That's embarrassing). It wasn't particularly inspiring but something I was perplexed by. Regardless, I taped it to my wall when school meant there was a heap of papers on my desk and I wasn't ready to let go of the words I hadn't figured out yet.

When I have to do homework, I usually do one of two things : procrastinate by cleaning or procrastinate by going to the gym (proving I'll do anything not to do it)(this makes me sound like so much more of an active/"together" person than I am but I'll tell you now I'm not a gym person nor a clean person). One particularly frustrating day, I googled the quote I'd seen on tumblr and happened across a dozen more oddly perplexing but increasingly more fascinating quotes that after a few scrolls and clicks revealed themselves to be excerpts from Miranda July's "No One Belongs Here More Than You" book of short stories! Alas! Miranda July is an accomplished college drop out that at 37 years old has published two books of her short stories, directed and written the film Me and You and Everyone We Know (now at the top of my 'to watch' list), and did all of the above while acting in Portland, Oregon.  She'll also tell you that school got in the way of her beginning her adventures/aspirations and actually changed her own name to July based on a zine. Um, way cool.

I justified spending the twelve or so dollars on a copy of "No One Belongs Here More Than You" by telling myself I'd use one of her stories as my blog post for this class. Except, once I finished the book from cover to author's note, I wasn't quite sure what I thought anymore. The quotes I loved so dearly were needles in a haystack of a jumbled combination of plot twists, obscured reality, and a whole thought of stuff. In fact, in most of her stories I rushed through them so quickly to get to the quotes that I loved so much that I wasn't even sure what the point was or what it was about (...not that either is always necessary in a good story). Her amazing one liners that stand alone as quotable index cards to hang on your bedroom wall are perhaps the clearest clues as to the meaning of her story but other than that, she doesn't give you much but leaves you out on a limb to decipher the rest.

The story that stood out among the rest of the sixteen stories packed into the yellow covered book to me was called "Making Love in 2003". It begins with a nineteen year old young woman sitting in the living room of a publisher's home with his wife who told her that the fictional piece she wrote had "promise". One year after telling her so, she's back with the ultimatum that this moment will define if she is going to be a writer or if she is not going to be a writer. Unfortunately, he doesn't show up and she instead finds out that the woman who is eager to get her out of the house is none other than a famous author and also that her classmate is ahem getting risky with the publisher in his frontseat. The rest of the story follows revealing what that fictional piece was about (at first I thought it was a rape until I then realized it was the true story of her first love that she let go of) and then what she does when she teaches teenagers with disabilities. I still need to read it again to wrap my mind around all of the pieces, but the way in which the narrator recounts her relationship with the 'dark shape' is both relatable, haunting, sad, funny, and all together something I can't forget in the most genuine of ways. And I think I fell in love with being confused?

My favorite lines from the whole story:

For the first six months, I just walked around in a constant state of amazement. I looked at other couples and wondered how they could be so calm about it. They held hands as if they weren't even holding hands. When Steve and I held hands, I had to keep looking down to marvel at it. There was my hand, the same hand I'd always had- oh, but look! What is it holding? It's holding Steve's hand! Who is Steve? My three-dimensional boyfriend. Each day I wondered what would happen next. What happens when you stop wanting, when you are happy. I supposed I could go on being happy forever. I knew I would not mess things up by growing bored. I had done that once before.

If you like funky stories that are both emotionally driven and somewhat chaotic while still remaining down to earth and relatable, I'd recommend her pieces. I love how she makes out of the ordinary circumstances feel, well, normal such as an entire story about a woman who teaches swim lessons in her kitchen. Then again, the more I read her work the more I just want to read read read Miranda July and write less because I'll never write something so brilliantly.

sincerely,
maggie.

Workshop Schedule

April
Wednesday 18th: 1. Amanda 2. Celina
Friday 20th: 1. McKenna 2. Rosa
Monday 23rd: 1. Min 2. Russell
Wednesday 25th: 1. Douglas 2.Virginia
Friday 27th: 1. Erica 2.Zachary
Monday 30th: 1. Quinton 2. Jake

MAY
Wednesday 2nd:1. Chuck 2. Kat
Friday 4th: Celebration, Portfolios due

Remember, to hold onto your workshop spot I need an electronic copy of the story shortly before the class period before your scheduled workshop, or an email explaining why it is late, and when the class can expect it. Thanks!

As Promised

The Comic Sans Monologue

I Heart Lorrie Moore

The thing I love about a collection of short stories is how you can start it one year and finish it four later, which is what I've done with Lorrie Moore's Birds of America. Lorrie Moore has such a quirky sense of humor. In the first paragraph of "Beautiful Grade" Bill (our protagonist)'s good friend Arthur has just gotten divorced for the third time, and is hosting a New Year's Eve party to watch the footage from all three weddings and divorce proceedings. Moore writes, "Albert's elderly mother had videotaped the ceremony, and at the crucial moment in the vows, each time, Albert's face turns impishly from his bride, looks straight into the camera, and says, "I do. I swear I do." Later Albert vows "Now more divorces. No more wasting time. From here on in, I'm just going to go out there and a find a woman I really don't like very much, and give her a house."

In "Beautiful Grade" Bill, a solidly middle aged man has just begun to publicly date Debbie who is 24 and no longer a law student of his, though he is pinning after Lina another guest at the party. The story is a darkly humorous, and full of witticisms.

I also love a number of other stories in the collection, so I'd recommend perusing the whole thing. I'd recommend this to people who like high-brow, intellectual/academic humor (that pokes fun of itself,) people who like to laugh while contemplating real struggles, people who like exclamation points, and people who think it's fun to see a two whole pages of Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha! etc. etc. etc.

"Shades of Blue" by Claire Mikeson, from 2010 edition of The Oval

The Oval is the annual literary magazine published by the University Montana that features prose, visual art, and poetry submitted by undergraduates. While it's not a professional publication (and therefore technically out of the scope of this assignment), I wanted to review one of the stories I came across via this magazine. Plus I didn't want to waste the $8 I spent on it, haha.

Shades of Blue tells the story of Adele Edwards, a young woman living in the not-so-utopian town of Ashland, Kansas, leading a not-so-ideal life as a bartender at the hole-in-the-wall bar, the Cove, and doing next to nothing to follow her dreams of becoming an artist. Days and nights and bar flys and passing-throughs blur into each other until one night a drunk named Rick stumbles into the Cove. Though he comes off as a tough-as-nails asshole who doesn't really care about much more than his booze, Del finds him coming into the bar nightly and they strike up a friendship of sorts when he begins telling heartfelt stories of the mysterious Gabe. As Rick's stories continue to pour in and Del's intrigue in Gabe's identity increases, she uses Rick's descriptions of his life experiences to inspire her to paint more ferociously than she ever has before, and her passion for art is invigorated. When Gabe's identity is finally revealed and Rick suddenly disappears, the direction of Del's life changes in a dramatic way.

I was very impressed with the characters created in this story, and the author does an excellent job of showing without telling. Certain actions Del undertakes, such as painting the ocean, or words that Rick speaks, such as "Jesus, Christ, I don't have a god damn story", subtle tell more about their respective characters than  blatanat explanations would. There was also a good balance between the participation of these two characters throughout the piece. While Del was technically the main character, they was an equal amount of internal insight and emotional investment in both of them. There were certain specific moments throughout this story that were so key and had an almost cinematic feel to them; the description of the Cove, the man picking his nose in the corner, the specific scenes of Rick's life that Del painted, and when she opens the letter at the end all got to me. The only part of this piece that rubbed me the wrong way was the kiss during Rick and Del's last meeting. It felt out of nowhere, unnecessary, and honestly, kind of gross. It was somewhat expected and alluded to earlier, but I didn't really want to see it play out. The story could have had the same poignant effect without it.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this story, especially to anyone who likes coming-of-age/growing up stories or stories that have a strong sense of place.

Essay # 3: Leda and the Swan

   This story had a really entertaining sort of quirky, unruffled humor. It's in the form of an essay written by a high-school girl who goes to extreme lengths to explain and justify how and why she stole her sister's boyfriend. Written in a steady flow of detail-crammed sentences, it embodies perfectly the stream-of-consciousness thoughts of a typical love-struck teenage girl, whose amorous bamboozlement allows her to speak--or write-- unceasingly.
   It's extremely diverting in that it uses phrases like, "nasally obese". It keeps the reader fascinated with the inner workings of a girl's mind, but also hits on some more serious points. Such as: Stealing your sister's boyfriend might just be socially taboo....especially if she runs away after you do it.
   It brings to light the fluffy nature of some infatuations by illustrating how singular body parts, like "perfect gold arms", can completely capture the mind and allow it to look over the fact that "Said Owner of Magnificent Arms" is failing "trigonometry, chemistry, American history, and Spanish", and might have an average of three brain cells.
   Please read this story, people. It will teach you, (a) when weighing the options between stealing a family member's significant other and dating a speed-metalist with Jesus hair, choose the option that won't destroy your family member's sanity, (b) to go read "Leda and the Swan" by William Butler Yeats, because it's apparently about a rampaging rapist bird, and sounds quite interesting, and (c) how to royally entertain your professor with a gossipy monologue that might just earn you an "A" for entertainment.

Link: http://www.thesunmagazine.org/_media/article/pdf/363_Puchner.pdf