That's all, folks!

Looking back at the many pieces I have written for Daily Themes over the course of the semester, I can definitely see ways in which my writing has improved. I’ve started to develop a writerly voice: a combination of short, direct phrases, intentionally controlled sentence-lengths, and the occasional lapse into pedagogical expression. I don’t write as nervously, which is to say, I qualify my phrases less often. I’m also becoming a better editor. I’m less afraid to cut words, phrases, even whole sentences, and I’m getting better at knowing when I ought to. In first drafts, I still tend to repeat myself, to rephrase ideas slightly differently to little purpose. My guess is that I always will. Having the wherewithal to go back and cut things after a second reading, however, makes all the difference.

My dad has been keeping a journal daily since he was my age. Every day, he writes down the things he hears that stick with him. He doesn’t write much new himself – it’s mostly others’ words that he finds interesting, but I always admired him for committing to such a regular writing process. I also used to think I lacked the discipline to commit to something similarly. This class, however, has shown me that I can write every day, and that I enjoy doing so. I will definitely continue to write this summer. And when I move to London in the fall, I plan on starting up a new blog. I’m already excited about it.

Thanks for a great class!

Giant Spoon (Edit)

But for the fact that one of the screws holding up the giant decorative chrome spoon had come loose, today was a day just like any other in the Silliman dining hall. Chef Stu and his staff had been there since six thirty in the morning, and, as always, they were busy from the time they arrived, washing out last night’s pots and pans, sweeping the countertops, preparing breakfast. By eight, when the first bleary-eyed students began to wander in, everything was in its proper place: bagels waiting to be toasted, fresh cups of milk thirsting to be drunk, oatmeal ready to be poked at disinterestedly. The giant spoon gleamed in the sunlight, greeting each new breakfaster from its proper place above the pancake tray.

Stu chatted with one of the students and did his best to stifle a yawn. His son was pitching last night, and they had been out late together celebrating the win. But for the persistent bleeps of his alarm, he would not have made it in on time this morning. He had only just remembered to grab his screwdriver again on the way out the door. “She’s a beauty, ain’t she?” he said to the student. “Thirty pounds of pure utensil. First time I tried hanging her up, I used velcro. Nearly killed me.” The student laughed.

In his hurry to get the spoon up on the wall before he opened yesterday, however, Stu had not tightened the screws all the way. He’d had to leave it overnight, too, in order to make to Jim’s game on time. And since he’d been slow getting up this morning, he hadn’t been able to tighten them before opening for the day. For hours, one of the screws had slowly been working itself out of its socket.

When the screw gave out at last, a long line of students curved around the servery and out into the open foyer. Stu dove out of the way just in time as the giant spoon swung towards him. With a tremendous clang, it upturned the pancakes and the watery maple syrup, getting it everywhere: on Stu, on the oatmeal, and on the entire line of hungry, sticky students.

Stuck

The key in the lock is bronze. The lock is bronze, and old, and the keyhole is too big. When I take the key and turn it, it wiggles. I know no one is going to come in - I’ve closed the door - but I turn the key anyways, two turns. The lock clacks.

The lock clacks, blocks clack, trains clack on tracks. Grandpa said not to fiddle with the lock. I am big now. The lock is small. Grandma’s toilet seat has a wicker cover. Is this normal on Long Island? At home we do not have a cover. I go to the sink to wash my hands. Grandma likes to buy soap in interesting shapes. This bar is a scallop scented violet. At the beach near home the shells smell like salt.

The key is in the lock still. I turn it left. I pull the door but the door stays shut. I turn the key again. I am waiting for the clack. It does not clack. I turn, no clack. The key rattles a little in the too-big space, but it does not switch the lock. I shake the door. I want to leave now.

“David? Are you all right?” I hear on the other side of the door. Mom must be worried otherwise she wouldn’t ask. I am big now. I don’t want help. Do I need it? I sit down on the bumpy toilet seat.

“Yes, I’m all right,” I say and get up again. I turn the key again - no clack. I shake the door some more. “David?” I hear again. “I’m stuck!” I say. “You’re what?” she says. “Help!” I say.

Ovid

Now stands my task accomplished, such a work
As not the wrath of Jove, nor fire nor sword
Nor the devouring ages can destroy.
Let, when it will, that day, that has no claim
But to my mortal body, end the span
Of my uncertain years. Yet I'll be borne,
The finer part of me, above the stars,
Immortal, and my name shall never die.
Wherever through the lands beneath her sway
The might of Rome extends, my words shall be
Upon the lips of men. If truth at all
Is stablished by poetic prophecy,
My fame shall live to all eternity.

-Metamorphoses (trans. A. D. Melville)

Kundera

"I have no objection to my books being immortal. I wrote them in such a way that nobody could delete a single word. To resist every kind of adversity. But I myself, as a human being, as Ernest Hemingway, I don't give a damn about immortality!"

"I understand you very well, Ernest. But you should have been more careful while you were still alive. Now it's too late."

"More careful? Are you referring to my boastfulness? I admit that when I was young I loved to blow my own trumpet. I loved to show off in front of people. I enjoyed the anecdotes that were told about me. But beleive me, I wasn't such a monster as to do it on account of immortality! When I realized one day that this was the point of it all, I panicked. From that time on I must have told people a thousand times to leave my life alone. But the more I pleaded the worse it got. I moved to Cuba to get out of their sight. When I won the Nobel Prize I refused to go to Stockholm. Believe me, I didn't give a damn about immortality, and now I'll tell you something else: when I realized one day that it was holding me in its clutches, it terrified me more than death itself. A man can take his own life. But he cannot take his own immortality.

-Immortality

The Hawk and the Nightingale, Edit

You think your poems are something special? Have I got a story for you, then.

So there’s this nightingale sitting way up in an oak tree. Big eyes, red neck, warbling away. But then there’s this hawk, right? With big shiny claws and a baddd attitude. He’s zooming around overhead, real stealth like, when he hears the faintest traces of a melody. At this, his heart starts to thump a little faster. He swoops down for a closer looksee. And there she is, a mouthwatering morsel of a bird, songing her song. No sooner than he’s got her in his sights than his claws are digging into her pretty red neck. Mid-note, that tree is history.

Now the nightingale has a pretty good idea of what’s about to happen – lunch – and it’s not looking like she’s going to be the guest of honor. Stuck as she is in the middle of the air, the poor girl does the only thing she can. She begs. “Please, mister hawk, won’t you let me go? A bigger bird than me would taste as good, more filling, too. Just let me down, I’ll show you where to find one.” She’s crying a little as she says this, getting wet all down her neck. And normally the hawk wouldn’t say anything, but the whole scene is too goddamn pitiful. “Stop your whinging!” he screeches. “You’re headed my way, whether you like it or not.”

Now I’m not going to say whether the hawk eats the nightingale or not, and I’m not going to say why I even like this fable. The point is, he can, and I do. And your poems won’t make a hoot of a difference.

On Memory

Memories are tricky things to write. The mind is not linear. It takes details, alters them and simplifies. It mottles life’s chroma. In the pieces I wrote about getting stuck in the bathroom when I was eight, weird details came first to mind – the shape and smell of the soap my grandma had out that day, where I sat on the floor when I was scared. I had to piece the fragments together into a coherent narrative.

When I’m writing about the past, my past, the details come in spurts. This week, I tried to write in a way that reflected the actual process of remembering, of putting my membra, my limbs, back together. Consider the following: “I turn the key again. I am waiting for the clack. It does not clack. I turn, no clack.” In my mind, the sound the key should have made stuck out. But I couldn’t recall it all at once; it took several tries. In writing this experience, I tried to re-member the memory.

With more recent memories, the details are clearer. But I lose the sort of critical distance that allows for deep reflection. I’m still not sure whether I was actually helping in my work as a legal intern. The Haitian lady I was on the phone with certainly did not think so.

I’d like to think of remembering as unfurling a sail. Undo a few ropes, and then the details rush and billow out. More often, though, it feels more like panning for gold: a lot of shaking things up with very few nuggets to show for it.

Legal Aid

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” she says to me, all sass. This is the third time I’ve called to ask her why she stopped paying rent, hoping the answer – she doesn’t have the money – will be different. She thinks I’m slow, maybe. Or disorganized. Or that I just don’t care. None of these things are true - she’s one of fifteen clients I’ve spoken with this week and I just can’t remember. My fault for not writing it down, okay. She’s made her point. I feel like an asshole.

Truth is, I’m no lawyer. I’m just a college student who speaks better English than this Haitian lady I’m trying to keep from getting evicted. She won’t answer my questions, though, keeps talking about the “kaka-roaches” in her apartment. Maybe this is landlord negligence? Legal basis enough to withhold rent? Ignore for a second the three relatives she’s got sleeping in her living room, and maybe she’s got a case.

I’m making this up as I go. If I fuck up, she’s homeless. My boss knows a lot more than me about the law – he’s been to prison, actually – but he’s even busier than I am. He doesn’t know this lady exists. And here she is telling me I’m useless.

“Yes ma’am,” I say. “I’m sorry for repeating myself, but this is my job.” Job, summer internship – really what difference does it make? I’m just trying to help. But I don’t know what I’m doing, and it scares me shitless.

A heightened sense of emotion

I locked myself in a bathroom when I was eight. Justin is thirteen now, and I’m twenty two, which is old enough for me to be able to remember what it was like to be a little boy and scared. When Justin was eight, he was afraid of the beeping noises that elevators make. Every time we rode in one, he cried. My mother often shushed him and let him hug her leg. A heightened sense of emotion – that’s what she called his phobia. My father occasionally complained to my mother that she was “babying” his son.

But I think everyone needs to be babied once in a while. When I locked myself in the bathroom I thought I was going to starve to death. The lock had a tricky mechanism because the keyhole was slightly too large, and when I tried to leave the key didn’t work. Panic set in. I could not escape on my own, so I shouted until my mother came. She talked to me, calmed me down. And then got my grandfather to unhinge the door.

I later learned that the lock was not actually broken. I’d just been too anxious to figure out how to work it properly. This all seems rather silly in retrospect. At the time, though, it was very real and very scary. My father said she babied me that day. He’s a smart kid, he’ll figure it out, he’d said. Meanwhile I sat on the floor of the bathroom and cried. I was too scared to do anything else.

Stuck

The key in the lock is bronze. The lock is bronze, and old, and the keyhole is too big. When I take the key and turn it, there is space enough for me to wiggle the key a little. I know no one is going to come in - I’ve closed the door, after all - but I turn the key anyways, two turns. The lock clacks.

It’s always dark in this bathroom. The varnish on the wood is a deep brown, so no matter how bright the light is that shines through the window over the sink, I usually turn on the light. I do so now, and lift up the toilet seat with its wicker cover.

When I am done, I go to the sink to wash my hands. Grandma likes to buy soap in interesting shapes. This bar is a scallop scented violet. I wipe my hands with a fresh towel and turn as if to leave. The key is in the lock still, so I turn it to the left. I pull at the door, but it doesn’t open.

I turn the key again. I am waiting for the clack. It does not clack. I turn, no clack. The key rattles a little in the too-big space, but it does not unlock the door. I shake the door.

“David? Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m all right.”

I sit down on the floor. I do not want to ask for help. I get up. I turn the key again. No clack. I shake the door some more.

“David?”
“I’m stuck!”
“You’re what?”
“Help!”

Dream

Chicken fingers? Really? Yes, that’s what I said. You’re sure? I’m sure. How did they get in your wallet? I’m not sure. It was a dream. Look, you don’t have to believe me, I’m just telling you what I saw. Do you think maybe that means something? I don’t know. Maybe. Well what did the dwarf say? Maybe that would help? He didn’t say much. Only that I owed him. That’s why I took out my wallet in the first place. To show him you couldn’t pay him? Exactly. And they were frozen, you said? Yes. Hmm.

What would possess you to eat frozen chicken fingers? I think I was just being greedy. I didn’t want the dwarf to have them. Seems like an odd sort of greed. I couldn’t agree with you more. But you had cash on you, too, right? Six dollars. He didn’t want the money? I’m not sure. I was mostly concerned about the chicken fingers. How could they possibly have fit in your wallet? Seems too thick. I’m not sure. I didn’t know they were there until I opened it. That’s strange. Quite.

Can you tell me some more about this pants thing? I wasn’t wearing any. The dwarf told me so. Do you think maybe he took them? Took them? You know, as punishment. Because you ate the chicken fingers you owed him. I suppose that’s possible. It’s probably what happened. He seems like the type. But he had a beard! Was it full? Yes. Hmm.

Chicken Fingers

THE DWARF IN THE TWEED VEST furrowed his brow as he reached his hands into his pockets. He pulled them out again only to produce… nothing at all. He shrugged his shoulders and looked at me, his watery gray eyes uncomfortably feeling. It took me a second, but I caught on that this was supposed to be a demonstration.

“Hey pal you owe me,” he said, so I took my wallet out of my back pocket and opened the brown leather mouth with both of my thumbs. I couldn’t remember what I owed him for, but if he said I owed him it was probably true. He looked like an honest guy. At least, his beard was full enough.

Inside my wallet there was a one dollar bill, a five dollar bill, and two chicken fingers. As this was out of the ordinary, I took the chicken fingers out of my wallet to examine them more closely. They were chunky and cold to the touch; little bits of frost had accumulated in the chinks between the breading.

The dwarf looked at me. I looked at the dwarf. He opened his mouth as if to speak. I crammed both chicken fingers into my mouth and started chewing. Crunch. Crunch. They didn’t taste very good. I was just being greedy. I don't know why.

“Hey,” the dwarf said. “I was going to eat those. Also, why aren’t you wearing pants?” I looked down. It was true, I wasn’t wearing pants. I don’t remember when this happened. When I looked up again, the dwarf was gone.

Cato

SHOULD CATO FALL ON HIS SWORD? Last night, Caesar came to Cato in a dream. Standing over him, his armor gleaming and his head adorned with a crown of fresh bay leaves, the general began to speak. “Come, Cato, you have lost. Mine is the Republic, mine the fasces and the lictors. But the end of the Republic need not mean the end of life for you. I have pardoned many others already; you must needs only kneel, and my compassion will be yours as well.” As he spoke, Cato noticed an Eastern cobra sliding slowly up his arm. Its double tongue flicked cursorily between the fangs as venom dripped onto his cold defenseless flesh. The yellow poison sizzled when it landed. Cato remained prostrate, unable to move or even speak. “Think of Marcia, Cato,” Caesar wheedled. “Think of your son. Will you really deprive them of a husband and a father? Would your grandfather have wanted you to leave them to the mercy of my men?” The serpent let out a low, unhurried hiss and draped its body heavily across Cato’s shoulder blades. Slowly, slowly it curved its head back upwards until its face was inches from Cato’s own. And it, too, began to speak. “Cato,” it said, “Cato – why have you forsaken me?” And now Cato could move again. As he opened his mouth to explain himself, the snake reared its hood and lunged at his forehead.

Cato awoke with a shout. When his manservant rushed in to discover the cause of the trouble, he found Cato sitting up in bed. Blood was just dribbling out through two small cuts on his forehead. “Servius,” he said, “please bring me the Phaedo.”

Hunger

King Erysichthon killed a dryad. He needed wood, so he told his men to cut down the largest elm tree in the sacred grove. They wouldn’t do it, refused him to his face, in fact. Violate Demeter’s grove? For shame! Erysichthon didn’t care. He was too smart for such base superstitions. Enraged, he took the ax himself and found that elm tree. She wasn’t just an elm tree, though. She was a dryad. She screamed as he cut her open.

The wood nymphs went to Ceres, begged her to punish the king for killing their sister. Ceres nodded, and her nod rustled all the grain on Earth as if it had been blown by a strong wind.

Far up the coast of frozen Scythia, there is a place, a sad land, waste, where no trees grow. Hunger lives here. A rustic nymph found her in a field of stones, chewing on scant weeds with rotting, blackened teeth. She shuddered at Hunger’s coarse hair, her empty eyes, the pallor in her face. The old woman’s lips were gray from lack of use, her throat scabby with blight, her skin both rough and thin. The nymph could see her insides, all bones and bowed-out loins. Where her stomach ought to have been, nothing. Her limp breasts hung only from the wicker of her spine. Beside her, warmth was sucked into a void.

The nymph felt hungry even in her presence, but orders were orders. She held her breath as she flew Hunger to the king, wafting her empty body through the upper air. When they entered the bedchamber, the nymph left as quick as could be, and left Hunger alone with Erysichthon. The king was sleeping. Slowly, slowly the old woman approached him. Her swollen knees creaked as she worked her way towards the bed. Slowly, she lowered her feeble body on top of his. His mouth was open, and she worked her way inside him, first her arms, then her head, then all the rest. When she was almost all the way inside, the king coughed, and woke up. He was famished.

The Hawk and the Nightingale

A fable? Here’s a fable for you, Mr. Fancy Pants Poet Boy. There’s this nice nightingale sitting way up in a goddamn oak tree with her red neck, warbling away like every good nightingale should. But then there’s this hawk, right? With big shiny claws and a baddd attitude. He’s zooming around way up high, real stealth like, and he hears the nightingale songing her song so he swoops down for a closer looksee. He must like what he sees, too, because no sooner than he’s got her in his sights than his claws are digging into her pretty red neck real tight. And before the nightingale even knows what’s happening, that tree is history. She’s midair and stuck there.

Now the nightingale has a pretty good idea of what’s about to happen – lunch – and it’s not looking like she’s going to be the guest of honor. So the poor girl does the only thing she can, she begs. “Please Sir Mister Hawk Sir, won’t you let me go Sir? A bigger bird than me would taste as good, more filling, too.” She’s crying a little as she says this, getting wet little droplets all down her little red neck, because God knows things aren’t looking good. And normally the hawk wouldn’t say anything, but the whole scene is too goddamn pitiful. So “Look at yourself,” he says, “and pull yourself together. Christ! You’re headed my way, whether you like it or not. You don’t have to be a baby about it.”

Now I’m not going to say whether the hawk eats the nightingale or not. It doesn’t matter. Point is, he can, and your stupid poems won’t make a hoot of a difference.

ῥοδοδάκτυλος

On March 19, 2011, United States and United Nations coalition forces launched 112 Tomahawk missiles against loyalist forces in Libya. While nominally “enforcing a no-fly zone” in order to prevent Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi (Kadafy? Qaddafi?) from further tyrannizing his own people, the coalition missile strikes effectively bolster a band of rebel fighters who seek to overthrow the Libyan government. An admirable goal, if one ignores the rebel’s expressly anti-American views as well as strong indications that they have been collaborating with Al-Qaeda. At least they’re not slaughtering children and violating women. Gaddafi and his troops are.

The Pentagon calls the US military’s involvement in Libya “Operation Odyssey Dawn.” I think there’s a nice poetry to the image of dozens of rosy-fingered missiles streaking out from the horizon, illuminating the sky with violent light and promises of freedom. Four months ago in Tunis, fate and circumstance forced a vegetable seller’s hand. Today, in the same country where Dido once set herself on fire to mourn departed love, men now fight so that protest does not have to mean self-immolation. The Libyan battles are ones of epic allusions, if not proportions.

I enjoy these grand allusions. But there are ten year olds in America today who have never known America not to be at war. I wish that Gaddafi would stop harming his own people, so that we didn’t feel the need to blow things up anymore. And I can't help but wonder if we’re really helping. Two wars, I thought, was enough.

VAE DICTIS

Know you’re self-ish.

A seal of approval should never balance a ball on its nose.
Sloth is not a sin when it has toes.
The only guns worth bearing are your arms.
Lion’s dreams must give us paws.
A filthy dollar’s made of stinky cents.
Money sometimes routs evils.
Homophones are mostly gay themselves.

Salted roads melt snow.
Snow, the blanket, warms.
Husky corn has corny husks.
Summer won’t last. Build barns.
Don’t burn your barns: only Faulkner does so well.
A mouse is not the king of mice.
A multitude of rulers is no good thing—carpenters prefer tape measures.

A teabag has no leaves worth reading.

Rome has seven hills, but so does New South Wales.

Cookies are sometimes food.
A bigger size means bigger sighs.
One buys more fries with dollars than with sense.
Lassie, too, can fall down well.

An elephant prefers a trackpad to a mouse.
Frankly, Franco’s full of fluff.

All toads lead to roads.
I fear the geeks, even wearing shifts.
Love before you leap.
Clear water melts even pillars of salt.


A pen has only so much ink.

Things are looking up

The game is starting up soon, but we don’t end up walking down to the stadium until half time. Funny to come all the way up here from New Haven only to miss the whole first half, but we’re up to no good and loving it.

We’re at the tailgate, and things are looking up. I have my sunglasses on because of, well, the sun. It shines down from somewhere in front of the picture and off to the right. The shadow of Ike’s green and black leopard-striped cowboy hat creeps up my leg. Despite the shade, the sun is warming up. My unzipped jacket, splayed open in the late fall cool, hangs loosely off my shoulders.

Jack’s face catches the brightness right on, which is to say, he’s squinting. But he’s smiling, too, and peering intently off to the right. Just beyond the edge of the picture, a Branford freshman wears a strange erection on his head: a scale model of Harkness Tower. Jack, though, thinks it looks like a penis. “DICK TOWER. DICK TOWER. DICK TOWER,” he shouts. Jack is drunk.

Ike’s mouth is wide-open, mid-laugh, Lexi’s hands are up and clapping, and my raised left hand is pressed against my forehead, just above a gummy, goofy grin. Sure, towers are phallic. But you’re not supposed to say it. Now Ike chimes in, “DICK TOWER. DICK…” The freshman up and leaves, but we don’t care. Now we’re all chanting it. “DICK TOWER. DICK TOWER.” Our spirits swell.


(Orientational metaphor)

Sorry this is gross

Known primarily as the prime plot of real estate between Buttville and Scrotum City, the grundle is a space that has long arrested the imagination (and nose) of the American teenager. It is an essentially liminal space, a wizened haven between the body’s two most essential evacuation zones. Often the subject of locker room banter, the grundle has a long and storied history. There were grundles present for the moon landing. There were grundles on hand at the Diet of Worms. When Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his troops, thousands of grundles crossed with them.

The origins of the word are largely unknown. Could it be that its ultimate source is Grendel, the monster whom Beowulf slays in the eponymous Anglo-Saxon epic? An “infamous stalker in the marshes” (maére mearcstapa), Grendel terrifies and intimidates all who cross his path. Alternatively, some scholars speculate that grundle may be related to grundel, an 18th century term for small, bottom dwelling fishes such as the gudgeon and the loach. Such an etymology would at least account for the awful, awful stench that often emanates from the grundle after vigorous exercise. The most widely accepted theory, however, posits a connection to the Middle High German grundelinc, used to describe men “of base breeding sentiments.” The relationship requires no further explanation.

It is perhaps worthy of note that grundle is a gendered term; it refers specifically to the male iteration of what is known in the medical community as the perineum. Indeed, no woman has ever had occasion to refer to this region of her body in polite conversation. Yet the word enjoys, and will likely continue to enjoy, a considerable following. As South African American musician Dave Matthews once explained in a 2001 hit single:

The space between what’s wrong and right
is where you’ll find me hiding, waiting for you.

Long live the holy grundle!


(History of a word)

Creepy Kid

He shows up in costume, like the others. Tie-dyed shirt, eighties track jacket. I figure he’s supposed to be a hippie, but the look doesn’t suit him. Maybe it’s because he’s shaved his head, or because his pallid skin lacks the sheen of your average countercultural icon. Maybe it’s because he clenches his fists far more tightly than a hippie ever would. Or maybe it’s because his occasional sniffles remind me of wet rats. Whatever the reason, this kid gives me the creeps.

When I watch The Silence of the Lambs, I often sense that Anthony Hopkins intentionally looks at me when he talks about people he’s eaten. His pupils focus in on me, as if to say “Now you know my secret. Now you are implicated in my sin.” Each time this happens, I have to pause the movie. “Stop looking at me, Anthony Hopkins,” I reply in my mind. “And stop eating people!”

The way this kid stares into the light, there is a measure of Hannibal in him. He’s not just staring at the lamps. He’s staring at me. He sees through me. I can feel the spit of his disdain as it accumulates in his thyroid. He does not like it here. He does not want to talk.

From the nervous looks now circulating on the dark side of the table, I can tell I’m not the only one who sees it. Good old N., though, he keeps right on interviewing, his hulking shoulders hunched over a notebook full of questions.

“What is your greatest fear?”
Silence.
“Would you like me to repeat the question?”
Nothing but stare.
“Remember, you must answer every question.”
“What if I don’t feel like it?” he finally drawls.

He might as well have said, “I ate his liver with some fava beans, and a nice Chianti.”



(Flesh out a metaphor)

Vonnegut

Robert Kennedy, whose summer home is eight miles from the home I live in all year round, was shot two nights ago. He died last night. So it goes.

Martin Luther King was shot a month ago. He died, too. So it goes.

And every day my Government gives me a count of corpses created by military science in Vietnam. So it goes.

My father died many years ago now - of natural causes. So it goes. He was a sweet man. He was a gun nut, too. He left me his guns. They rust.

-Slaughterhouse Five

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I am not posting this week's themes online, sorry!

Sherwood Anderson

Ebenezer Cowley, the man who stood in the store listening to the eager patter of words that fell from the lips of the traveling man, was tall and lean and looked unwashed. On his scrawny neck was a large wen partially covered by a grey beard. He wore a long Prince Albert coat. The coat had been purchased to serve as a wedding garment. Before he became a merchant Ebenezer was a farmer and after his marriage he wore the Prince Albert coat to church on Sundays and on Saturday afternoons when he came into town to trade. When he sold the farm to become a merchant he wore the coat constantly. It had become brown with age and was covered with grease spots, but in it Ebenezer always felt dressed up and ready for the day in town.

As a merchant Ebenezer was not happily placed in life and he had not been happily placed as a farmer. Still he existed. His family, consisting of a daughter named Mabel and the son, lived with him in rooms above the store and it did not cost them much to live. His troubles were not financial. His unhappiness as a merchant lay in the fact that when a traveling man with wares to be sold came in at the front door he was afraid. Behind the counter he stood shaking his head. He was afraid, first that he would stubbornly refuse to buy and thus lose the opportunity to sell again; second that he would not be stubborn enough and would in a moment of weakness buy what could not be sold.

In the store on the morning when Elmer Cowley saw George Willard standing and apparently listening at the back door of the Eagle printshop, a situation had arisen that always stirred the son’s wrath. The traveling man talked and Ebenezer listened, his whole figure expressing uncertainty. “You see how quickly it is done,” said the traveling man, who had for sale a small flat metal substitute for collar buttons. With one hand he quickly unfastened a collar from his shirt and then fastened it on again. He assumed a flattering wheedling tone. “I tell you what, men have come to the end of all this fooling with collar buttons and you are the man to make money out of the change that is coming. I am offering you the exclusive agency for this town. Take twenty dozen of these fasteners and I’ll not visit any other store. I’ll leave the field to you."

The traveling man leaned over the counter and tapped with his finger on Ebenezer’s breast. “It’s an opportunity and I want you to take it,” he urged. “A friend of mine told me about you. ‘See that man Cowley,’ he said. ‘He’s a live one.’”

"Queer" - Winesburg, Ohio

Ten thousand words, and counting…

It’s hard to believe, but this is already the thirty-fifth piece we’re writing for Daily Themes. I’ve very much enjoyed the class so far (though, admittedly, I’m looking forward to the upcoming break) and I’ve found that writing every day has incredible value. It’s forced me to think about how I write: what’s successful, and what I can improve.

Something that I struggled with for the first few weeks of the semester was finding a comfortable voice in which to tell my stories. The preponderance of perhapses, seems, and mights from these early pieces indicate a lack of confidence that I am still working to overcome. I’ve found that I’m most effective (and have the most fun) when I vary sentence length, allow myself the occasional reference to literature or art, and use short, strong words to emphasize what I find important. I still don’t use these techniques all the time, but I’m at least gaining an awareness of when I ought to.

I’m also getting better at cutting out extraneous detail. It took me a while to realize that not every noun needs an adjective, and that most verbs I use should have enough force on their own not to require an adverb.

I found the week on lists especially helpful for increasing my confidence. When I’m having trouble figuring out what I want to say, I’ll sometimes start by examining an image and writing down everything about that image that I find striking. I’ve never been one to organize my thoughts before I start writing; starting with a list helps me to realize how to begin, continue, and conclude a piece most cogently.

One goal that I have for the rest of the semester is to be more adventurous with the topics that I choose. Mostly I have drawn from my own experiences in these pieces, but I’ve most enjoyed writing the few pieces that depart from this pattern. I’m looking forward to putting this goal into practice in the coming weeks!

Giant Spoon (Revision)

But for the fact that one of the screws holding up the giant decorative chrome spoon had come loose, today was a day just like any other in the Silliman dining hall. Chef Stu and his staff had been there since six thirty in the morning, and, as always, they were busy from the time they arrived, washing out last night’s pots and pans, sweeping the countertops, preparing breakfast. By eight, when the first bleary-eyed students began to wander in, everything was in its proper place: bagels waiting to be toasted, fresh cups of milk thirsting to be drunk, oatmeal ready to be poked at disinterestedly. The giant spoon gleamed in the sunlight, greeting each new breakfaster from its proper place above the pancake tray.

The first time Stu had tried to attach the spoon to the wall, it had come crashing down in minutes. Velcro, it turned out, was not a sufficient adhesive for a utensil of such magnitude. Then, fortunately, no one had been in its way, and when Stu brought in screws and a screwdriver from home, he thought he had preempted any future disasters. Yet in his hurry to get the spoon up on the wall before he opened the doors for the day, he had left one screw just a little too loose. For weeks now, it had slowly been working its way out of its socket.

On an average weekday, at least five hundred people eat lunch in the Silliman dining hall. Today was no different: the long line curved around the servery and out into the open foyer. And, with the stomp of so many feet and the clatter of so many trays, the screw gave out at last. Stu dove out of the way just in time as the giant spoon swung towards him. With a tremendous clang, it upturned the tray of meatball marinara, splattering everything: Stu, the other dishes, and the entire line of hungry, now wet students.

Marriage Woes

CURTIS, C. J. Appellant contests the validity of Section 251 of the Healthy Marriage Act of 1976, known as the No Wine on Week Nights Test, as being repugnant to the personal enjoyment clause under the Twelfth Amendment of the Silver Anniversary Constitution. The statute was sustained by the Lower Court of Sexual Frustration (217 X. Y. 312) and the case comes here on appeal.

The Act provides that, during the regular working week, neither wedded party shall have the right to imbibe sine permissione of the other; that any violation of this pact shall be punishable by whatever means necessary to prevent future violations…

The lower court upheld the statute as an emergency measure. Although conceding that the obligations of the contract were an undue hardship, the court acknowledged the change in priorities that often can result from lack of conjugal intercourse. Uncle Steve v. Martha’s Menses, 231 U.S. 21. Attention is thus directed to the Twelfth Amendment of the Silver Anniversary Constitution, which states that “Neither wedded party shall infringe on the personal enjoyment of the other without good cause.” The good cause provision is what is most relevant to our discussion here…

We are of the opinion that the No Wine Test as here applied stands in direct violation of the personal enjoyment clause. A declaratory judgment is therefore entered on behalf of the appellant. The issue of a mandamus for the restoration of conjugal intercourse shall be remanded to the Lower Court.

HOFFENDOODLE, J. and MCDONALD, J., concurring. AUSTIN, J., delivered a dissenting opinion.


(Parody of an official discourse)

Testing the Waters

With the piercing shriek of the teapot now quite unbearable, Marge Peterson got up from the table and went into the kitchen. Because of her size (large) and the peculiar way in which her liver-splotched skin folded in on itself on her upper arms, she reminded Arthur somewhat of an Apatosaurus. He watched nervously as she fussed with the arrangement of cups and saucers in the cabinet until she emerged with an almost-matching set. “Sugar, dear?” she asked him as she scooped two large lumps of the stuff into each cup. “None for me, thanks,” he replied.

How good of her to have him over on such short notice! After the truth about Laurel had come out, his relationship with his family had suffered considerably; Arthur had nowhere else to turn. But had she heard about what happened? He was worried lest her opinion on the matter be the same as those he had already received.

Marge placed the tray on the tea caddy beside the table and sat down again. The table was too small for two – his knees pressed uncomfortably against the middles of her fleshy shins. He wondered if this sensation had bothered Stephen while he was still alive. He sipped at his tea, and set it down quickly when it scalded his tongue.

“Fine weather, today,” she started. “Yes,” he said. He watched as she stared at him in silence. Arthur was confused. Perhaps she had not heard after all? He certainly did not want to be the one to tell her. And yet he felt that she was the only one who might be able to recommend the proper course of action going forward. There was no other way: he must speak his mind. Breathing in deeply, he looked her directly in the eye and said:

“Thank you for the tea.”

(Title as starting place for a story)

Some Davis Titles

Chapter one: How Our Story Begins. Arthur and his godmother are sitting in the sitting room. This is England, mind you, turn of the last century. Or why else Arthur? Then: The Ring. And now we have a plot. Arthur has recently broken off his engagement with Dolores, whose lithium addiction has proved an insurmountable obstacle to their prospective marriage. A shame, truly. Yet A Greater Concern occupies his mind – he has already bequeathed his grandmother’s engagement ring. He is unsure what to do. And so he seeks the advice of his godmother, a close personal friend despite the difference in age. In Testing the Waters, set over lukewarm tea so as to give full ironic force to the clichéd metaphor, he seeks to determine her opinion of his actions before requesting such advice outright. With his failure to do so comes Crumpets, a similarly ambiguous metaphor of a title. As they sit with their comestibles, Little is Said from which he can glean an impression of her thoughts. For which reason, perhaps, he proposes that they go for a walk. In Walking, he slowly loosens the strings of her thought until he thinks he has grasped her intentions. Then, finally, in The Truth Comes Out, she offers her thoughts voluntarily. All his anxieties have been for naught! Or so he thinks, until A Talking-To, in which everything he has expected is proved wrong. Finally comes Redemption, which is in some senses A False Redemption.

But that is A Story for Another Time.

Faulkner

Behind him the white man was shouting, "My horse! Fetch my horse!" and he thought for an instant of cutting across the park and climbing the fence into the road, but he did not know the park nor how high the vine-massed fence might be and he dared not risk it. So he ran on down the drive, blood and breath roaring; presently he was in the road again though he could not see it. He could not hear either: the galloping mare was almost upon him before he heard her, and even then he held his course, as if the urgency of his wild grief and need must in a moment more find him wings, waiting until the ultimate instant to hurl himself aside and into the weed-choked roadside ditch as the horse thundered past and on, for an instant in furious silhouette against the stars, the tranquil early summer night sky which, even before the shape of the horse and rider vanished, strained abruptly and violently upward: a long, swirling roar incredible and soundless, blotting the stars, and he springing up and into the road again, running again, knowing it was too late yet still running even after he heard the shot and, an instant later, two shots, pausing now without knowing he had ceased to run, crying "Pap! Pap!," running again before he knew he had begun to run, stumbling, tripping over something and scrabbling up again without ceasing to run, looking backward over his shoulder at the glare as he got up, running on among the invisible trees, panting, sobbing, "Father! Father!"

-Barn Burning

Krauss again

Original:

Outside, white. Large flakes rush down from somewhere, softly but with a purpose. The snow is sinister today, no purity or innocence to speak of. The air cold, especially so with the biting gusts that find the small opening at the neck of the coat, burying themselves inside like so many icicles. This blanket is not cashmere, but a harsher wool, itching and working its way under the skin.

Men trudge about the street, bundled into sweaters, jackets, hats. This one’s leather gloves are useless against the damp, soaked through and frozen into withered talons. His hands are red and raw from his wasted efforts with the shovel, better left for morning. That one braces himself against the storm, the collar up on his jacket, slogging his way. He did not expect the storm. Up the street, a dog laden with ice scratches at a door, whining its plea in vain. The whistle and the white consume the scene; both take on new meaning. The whistle is the terror and the push, the singer and the song, futility. The white is nothing and nothing again. The white is all.

Krauss watches from the window as a tumult of snow falls off the roof. The drawn-back curtains, a handsome red and gold tartan, are reflected in her coffee cup. She takes comfort in the fire in the fireplace. A quiet feline form rests beside her, curled up in an armchair. On the radio, the announcer interrupts her sonata to inform her of what she already knows. All those who are not performing essential services should remain at home. The state’s primary concerns are that all citizens are safe and that unnecessary travel is kept to a minimum. Krauss smiles at her relative good fortune, and sets about making another pot of coffee.

(WC: 301)

~

First Edit:

Outside, the large white flakes rush down. Biting gusts find the small opening at the neck of the coat, icy to the touch. The snow is sinister today.

Men trudge about the street, bundled into sweaters, jackets, hats. This one’s leather gloves are soaked through, frozen into withered talons. That one braces himself against the storm, the collar up on his jacket, slogging his way. Up the street, a dog laden with ice scratches at a door, whining in vain. The whistle and the white consume the scene.

Krauss watches from the window as a tumult of snow falls off the roof. The drawn-back curtains, a handsome red and gold tartan, are reflected in her coffee cup. She takes comfort in the fire in the fireplace. A quiet feline form rests beside her, curled up in an armchair. On the radio, the announcer interrupts her sonata: All those who are not performing essential services should remain at home. The state’s primary concerns are that all citizens are safe and that unnecessary travel is kept to a minimum. Krauss smiles, and sets about making another pot of coffee.

(WC: 187)

~

Second Edit:

Outside, the snow is sinister today.

Cold men trudge about the street. Chilly blasts bury themselves in the small opening at the neck of the coat. Harsh wool scratches their skin. Their leather gloves are frozen into withered talons. A dog shakes ice off its body as it scratches at a door in vain.

A tumult of white falls off the roof, and Krauss closes the curtain. Her cat rests beside her on the armchair. All those who are not performing essential services should remain at home, blares the radio. Krauss shivers, then smiles.

(WC: 88)

~

(Lishian edits)

Night. Culpeper, VA

From the back porch of the Tucker House on a clear night in June, July, or August, the kind of night when you strip down to your shirtsleeves in spite of the mosquitos just to feel what little breeze there is wisping up off the Rapidan, the view of the sky is unbelievable. Not unbelievable in a sophomoric, hyperbolic sort of way, although, this being the back porch of an all-boys dormitory at a mid-Virginian all-boys academy, I give due credit to this interpretation of the phrase. One simply cannot believe in it. It is as if upon pushing open the screen door the fantastic strokes of Munch replace reality.

The way the stars settle in over the Blue Ridge Mountains, which stay blue even when the sun is far off somewhere on the other side of Gaia, brings on both terror and delight. Great clusters declare themselves boldly over the peaks, some your standard white but others red and green and gold. Through the hazy summer atmosphere the moon itself obscures itself like a mercurial apparition. None can know for sure what it portends. But there is meaning there. What's more - the silhouettes of trees at the horizon stare back at you, immuring you as both a comfort and a threat. And amid the shouts of boys playing one last game of ball on the big lawn by the Residence, the drones of so many cricket violinists fill the deepening pit. For a city boy like me, who only ever sees stars in the movies, the whole experience is unreal.

(describe a night sky)

Down From Boston

“Boy, you killed that squirrel,” Jack Gacy stated matter-of-factly out as soon as we started driving again. “Yup,” I said, and we started laughing. Earlier, when we were passing through Culpeper, I’d swerved a little too late and knocked all hell out of some poor little critter. Gacy’s girlfriend got real upset though, couldn’t stand the thought of the thing being dead. Kept on asking about it, too. “Is he all right?” she kept saying with that Yankee accent of hers. Well, never have I seen a squirrel taste the bottom of a Firestone tire and live, but she seemed set on the thing being all right and I felt bad letting her down. Twyman’s Mill isn’t the easiest place to get to, especially when you're coming down from somewhere like Boston, and I wasn’t about to be the one to ruin her visit. I shut up and let Jack do the talking.

“Naw, honey, he missed it,” he’d said and put his arm around her. “Are you sure, dear?” she answered. “I could have sworn I felt a thump. Oh, that poor little creature, I feel terrible.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he’d said. “Just a hump in the road, that’s all. He got away.” I did my best to keep my face solemn as the grave. I was trying my best not to smile. Poor girl had probably never seen a thing killed before. Don’t imagine they done much hunting up in Massachusetts. “Ain’t that right, Jimbo?” All I could do was nod – I knew if I opened my mouth I'd start laughing.

The Sledding Hill

“Wait, please.”

The boy waited and held the rope in his hand. Down the road, at the base of a hill, a plow had heaped up the snow into a bank. It shone in the light.

They started to walk. He dragged the sled on the ice on the road. The old man coughed and looked down.

“Thank you.”

“How is it today?”

“Not bad.”

They reached the hill.

“Here?”

“Here is fine.”

The boy dragged the sled to the top of the hill. His boots left small tracks in the snow.

“Ready?”

The old man nodded. He stood at the base of the hill and took off his hat. He folded it in front of his mouth. The boy shouted and jumped on the sled. With the rope he aimed the runners at the snow bank. They scraped against the ice under the snow.

The wind blew. The old man put the hat back on his head. “That was not a bad run,” he said, and coughed. The boy laughed and looked back up the hill.

“Can I?”

“Just one more.”

“Is it bad now?”

“Just the one. Then we’ll go.”

“All right.”

The old man watched as the boy dragged the sled up the hill. He stepped again in the small tracks.

At the top, the boy said, “Are you sure?”

“It’s all right,” the old man said. “Come down now.”

The boy shouted and went down. The old man put his hand over his mouth. Behind his hand the corners of his mouth creased upwards.

Obey

He does it his own way. Patterned t-shirts with wild patterns and skulls and foreboding dicta like “OBEY” splashed across the front in bold. Button-downs, sometimes, and khakis, but Union Jack socks and Supra sneakers. Other times SB Dunks and Ray-Ban Clubmasters, $200 ripped jeans. Because he still wears his hair in the bowl cut he had in middle school, he looks like a Beach Boy with an attitude.

He doesn’t listen to those guys though, wouldn’t be caught dead listening to them. He listens to other music, weird music. Like YelaWolf. “Hip Hop / Ghettotech / Alternative”: that’s how they self-identify. Ghettotech? Alternative, at least, makes sense.

To the Exeter game, he wore a mink coat and a backpack for no particular reason. And looked good. People stared, but he didn’t mind; it’s what he wanted. Prep school not the most mixed of companies, yet he breathes confidence, is comfortable with this image he projects. He enjoys distinguishing himself, enjoys being distinguished. He has a necklace made of human bones.

More often than not, he is smiling, a tight-lipped smile, with the ends just hinting at an understated bliss. His smile has a sort of smirk to it, one side a little higher. As if he is smoking a pipe. He doesn’t though, doesn’t see the point to it. Drinks a little, maybe, but not much. Too cool for it. He just does what he likes. And he does it his own way. And that’s cool.

(Write about a specific style)

Classical Scholarship

"We are told, unreliably, that a cult to Aphrodite Kallipygos grew up at Syracuse after two peasant sisters began bickering as to which of them possessed the fairer behind, and eventually asked a passer-by to adjudicate (the passer-by not only fell violently in love with one of the girls, but despatched his younger brother along to inspect the other: double nuptials ensued); and we are told that hetairai might stage, among themselves, bottom competitions (philoneikia hyper tes pyges), though admittedly, the source for this is a late writer called Alciphron, who composed imaginary letters. The bottom competition is described, perhaps with an input of male fantasy, in the fourteenth of his Epistolai Hetairikai, or 'Letters of Courtesans'. What is significant about the account is not so much what determines a lovely bottom (there is talk of buttocks 'quivering like jelly', and marvelous rippling motions, and so on), but that Aphrodite is invoked as patroness, and this is explicitly Aphrodite's world..."

(This piece comes from an article on Greek art whose title and author I have unfortunately not been able to find. The passage is so absurd, though, that I figured it was worth sharing anyways.)

Bibliophile

“But where are your books?” he wondered at her empty shelves.

“I sell them back after I’m done with them.”

Daniel didn’t understand what she meant, done with them. His own shelves were filled with books: books of poems, short novels, histories, paperbacks with broken spines, hardcovers in clear plastic sheathes on loan from the library. Some he had designed himself, cute little chapbooks with perfect bindings and bright spines, blue and red and black. Others he had bought from used bookstores, or borrowed from friends, or received as gifts from his well-meaning aunt. Each had some special significance. For his birthday, he had asked for the Oxford Latin Dictionary. Now that was a book. Two thousand one hundred and twenty six beautiful bible-thin broadsheets, every word in every author from Ennius to Augustine. Sometimes on Sunday mornings when he was feeling especially contemplative he would open to a chance page just to feel it with the tips of his fingers, to breathe the musty paper vellum, to hear the brush of the pages as they turned.

There were books piled on his desk, books crammed in his bookshelf, books filling both drawers of the little dresser by his bed, books stacked precariously on his windowsills. The idea that she had none was strange; it made him feel superior. Most nights, he read until he fell asleep, the Epictetus that he kept on his nightstand, or Hemingway, or whatever text he could reach from his white-sheeted mattress. In half-consciousness, he deposited the phrases in his spirit like raindrops, letting them pool and wash over him. In mornings, too, he would read. The books were important, they were a part of him. And suddenly he realized how alone he really was.

(A fictional version of self, in third person narrative)

Enzo

When I arrive at the coffee shop, my new Italian friend already has a table. A soggy tea bag lies under a thin film of water at the bottom of his cup, which it seems he has been ignoring for some time now. Several pages of handwritten notes are set out before him on the table, on which he is scrawling something intently when I break his concentration. “Enzo,” I say at volume that is, as he will later inform me, appropriately American, “Good to see you.”

Neatly dressed in an oxford, v-neck sweater, dark pants and thick-framed glasses, Enzo is unapologetically Italian. He looks the part of a race-car driver at home the day before the Grand Prix. If his receding hairline and graying stubble are any indication, he is perhaps in his late twenties or early thirties.

“So where is the chessboard now?” he asks as he scoops up his notes into a brown leather messenger bag. It takes me a second to realize that he is referring to the conversation we began after the lecture I met him at earlier this week. Immediately, we start talking philosophy.

The notebook filled with questions lies forgotten in the bottom of my backpack as we bounce from one subject to the next. It gets to the point where neither one of knows what the other is talking about any more, and I’m not sure I even understand myself. But the enthusiasm with which he approaches our conversation makes this seem altogether normal. Of course we are talking about Seneca over a coffee roll. Of course we are debating the merits of Fascism. Doesn’t everybody do this?

Two hours later, we are still there talking. Finally, I remember to ask him about himself. “Where are you from?” I start. “Rome,” he says. “Mio dio! Look at the time. I must go.”

Rivka

He could remember her by her shoes. Nice shoes, brown shoes, soft leather curving into small gold buckles clasping simple little straps shoes. Ballet flats, the thin spaces between delicate little toes just seeable at the crushed dark velvet mouth. Big beautiful cowboy boots embossed with curls and swirls and twists. Duck boots topped with tufting, poofing fur. Heels to make her taller. Lovely, thoughtful shoes.

She used to be a dancer. She is not tall and thin enough, but she is exuberant and this matters. Demi-pointe, good. Now plié and one and two and yes. The barre cannot contain her, she takes to other forms and truly lives them. On stage, he considers now, that pose as she turned away: feet a little apart sprouting firmly rooted legs, right arm thrust behind her obscuring a perfect bottom and her head turned to meet him. The apostrophe: Rivka, you are wonderful.

This pose arrests him. Her hair with its fraying ends tousles with the turning of her neck; it is not perfect but asserts itself, knows itself and is secure. So too the shoes. It is nice to have nice things he thinks, a few of them and the right ones that will delight me. The shoes are something to use but also look at, let others look at and enjoy. That she does this without thinking encourages him. I too can have nice things he thinks. Let them be as genuine, as understated as the ritornello. And I will have her and enjoy them with her and everything will be wonderful. A lovely apparition.

(Metaphor or synecdoche)

Pompey

When Gnaeus Pompey was twenty-eight years old, he tried to ride into Rome on a chariot drawn by elephants. To be awarded a triumph was already such an ego boost that the Senate commissioned a slave to stand behind the victors in their (horse-drawn) chariots and whisper in their ears, “You are not a god.” For Pompey, this was the first of three triumphs he would be awarded in his lifetime. And yet horses were not enough. He capitulated only when someone realized that the elephants would not fit through the city gates.

Pompey was not the sort of man who liked to settle for less. After conquering North Africa, he went on to rid the Mediterranean of pirates, marry Julius Caesar’s daughter, and construct the first permanent theater at Rome. Maybe this is why he earned the title “Great.” For the Romans, “Pompey the Great” had the same ring to it that “Vlad the Impaler” would later have for Romanians. One can imagine the sigh of satisfaction with which he might react every time he was summoned by name, and the terror that it might invoke among his enemies.

Pompey’s busts demonstrate his satisfaction with himself. Small, generous eyes gaze out from a round, fleshy face, the forehead lightly wrinkled, his hair tossed up playfully at the part. Thin lips, a bulbous nose, jowls, and an ample chin complete the image. For all his achievements, he looks the part of an absentminded college professor. Yet this was a man who nearly saved Rome from destroying herself. Caesar, instead, destroyed him. He severed this head, and had it buried in Egypt, thousands of miles from home.

Noah

His gray BVDs poking loosely out the back of somewhat worn khaki pants, Noah is the only man in the room not wearing a shirt. A white and blue striped ribbon belt marks the whimsical boundary to his smoothly muscled upper half. A large tattoo of a bull, recently acquired, spreads across the upper right corner of this freckled terra incognita. The image derives from a Cretan wall painting in which a group of men dance around a bull while one leaps up and over its horns. The dancers are absent in Noah’s version. When asked, he explains, “I’m already the dancer, right? And my body’s the bull.”

It is not hard to see why he thinks so. Consider the following. The bull’s shaggy hide, a variegated palette of reds and browns and tans, resembles a raw marbled Porterhouse. The sweeping, almost elegant curve of its barreled torso hints at awesome power. And Noah? He, too, is matted with hair: blond fur climbing up his chest, blond tufts ringed around his nipples, strangely long blond hairs perched haphazardly between the bottom of his neck and the base of his closely cropped blond beard. This delicate fleece is distinguishable from flesh only by the latter’s ruddy flush. He is the David Hasselhoff of blondes. Hooga chaka, hooga chaka. His lats, his pecs, his biceps, his triceps, his delts, his abs, all give off an impression of enormous latent power. For him, a shirt would simply be an imposition. He is the bull.

(Choose a person you know well to describe physically)

Kesey

"Yes, Disturbed Ward for ol' Red McMurphy, I;m afraid. YOu know what I think, observing him these few days?"

"Schizophrenic reaction?" Alvin asks.

Pipe shakes his head.

"Latent Homosexual with Reaction Formation?" the third one says.
Pipe shakes his head again and shuts his eyes. "No," he says and smiles round the room, "Negative Oedipal."

They all congratulate him.

"Yes, I think there is a lot pointing to it," he says. "But whatever the final diagnosis is, we must keep one thing in mind: we're not dealing with an ordinary man."

"You - are very, very wrong, Mr. Gideon."

It's the Big Nurse.

Everybody's head jerks toward her - mine too, but I check myself and pass the motion off like I'm trying to scrub a peck I just discovered on the wall above my head. Everybody's confused all to hell for sure now. They figured they were proposing just what she'd want, just what she was planning to propose in the meeting herself. I thought so too. I've seen her send men half the size of McMurphy up to Disturbed for no more reason than there was a chance they might spit on somebody; now she's got this bull of a man who's bucked her and everybody else on the staff, a guy she all but said was on his way off the ward earlier this afternoon, and she says no.

"No. I don't agree. Not at all."

-One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Play to Win

“You know, Tom, I hate most people. But I hate you most of all.”

That’s Gray Grisham for you. He’s never been the sort of person who won’t speak his mind, even if he knows you won’t like what you’re about to hear. Especially then: he takes a special delight in telling people off. Usually, the person he’s telling off is me.

When Gray was twelve years old, he started crying over his Cheerios one day because he didn’t think he was ever going to have enough money to buy a share of Berkshire Hathaway. That’s the last time he ever remembers worrying about money. At fifteen, he managed and owned his own business. Five years later, he’d made his first million. These days, he could buy all of Berkshire if he wanted to. But he makes more money on his own. Which is I think why so many people are willing to put up with his bullshit. An asshole, yes, but a genius, too.

“I’m honored,” I say. “But you’re still wrong.”

I’ve known Gray since we were both in diapers, and I expect I’ll still know him when we’re both back in them again at some nursing home in Florida. That’s why I’m not worried about telling him how I feel about this Flaherty business. It’ll get him knocked if he’s not careful, and it’ll get him knocked even if he is.

He shouldn’t be involved, but I can already tell that he’s not going to listen to me. That’s not going to stop me from trying, though. In this business, if you don’t speak out, you lose. I’m not a loser.

(Free theme with some dialogue)

Waiter!

“Diane, listen. I –“ “I’m not finished. Do you remember when we were in Boca and you left the hotel to go play golf with your friends? Do you remember that, Roger? I called Stanley that afternoon, Roger. I know you didn’t play golf with him. Was it that blonde bimbo again? What’s her name? Stacey? Did you really think you could keep that from me? God! You are such a man. I can’t stand you.”

“You can’t stand me? You can’t stand me? Why do you think there was a Stacey in the first place, Diane? Every day, Diane. Every single day, it’s Roger you’re not doing this right, Roger stop doing that, Roger Roger Roger Roger Roger. I can’t take it anymore. It’s unbearable.”

“How dare you say that to me? How dare you? I’ve given every once of my life to this marriage and you’re making it out like this is my fault. I’m not the one with the bimbo girlfriend. Waiter! Waiter!”

“We’re not leaving, Diane. We are going to have a nice dinner and enjoy ourselves like any normal couple. This is our date night. This is supposed to be nice. I cannot believe you brought up that girl. That was years ago. Didn’t I say I was sorry? Didn’t I come crawling back to you on hand and knee and beg for forgiveness? That part of my life is over. Finished. And I feel terribly about it. But you can’t expect me to let you walk all over me now. It’s unbearable.”

“And how are you folks enjoying your time so far? Have you had a chance to look at the menu, or would you like a little more time?” “Actually, we’ve changed our minds on dinner. Can we have the check, pl-“ “Actually, no we haven’t. I would like the filet mignon, medium well. And a Caesar salad.” “Don’t make a scene, Roger. God!” “I’m making a scene? I’m making a scene?” “I’m sorry, I’ll come back in a minute.” “Just give us the goddamn check, waiter.” “Don’t you dare.” “I’ll just come back.”

(Dialogue with two speakers rubbing up against each other)

OJ

Last night I dreamt that someone had invented a helium balloon of the birthday party variety capable of bringing one to unimaginable heights. I grabbed hold, and soon I was at the clouds, between them, above. The wind was pushing me towards the Yale farm, which seemed like the proper place to be headed, although I had no way to alter my course if I had so desired. Passing low over fields, my balloon and I approached a thick forest at the edge of the farm. Others, too, had just landed. I observed two friends disentangling themselves from the ribbon and the thicket.

I realize that I need to get back home. But when I turn around my balloon is gone, and it seems suddenly hundreds of miles away from anywhere. Emerging from the forest onto a section of thick, gray pavement, I decide to call the minibus. “We can pick you up in half an hour” crackled the echoing voice inside myself cellphone.

But the bus is there immediately, a big yellow school bus, and I get on. At the time, this seems normal. Less normal: the girl sitting a few rows up who is drinking orange juice out of a metallic blue beer can. When she starts pouring the liquid all over her arm, I try to stop her but I can’t. “What are you doing?” I shout. “Drinking orange juice,” she explains calmly. “Oh,” I say.

“Want some?”
“Yeah.”

I hold out my arm. The juice feels cool and sticky on my skin. Then a siren sounds, and lights flash, and I wake up.

(A dream with a resonant voice)

The Beer Hunter

“You can do it, Frank.” Frank sits across from you, staring at the Silver Bullets on the table. “No, no. No.” “Frank… listen to me. You can do it. You have to.” “I want to go home, Sam.” “You can’t go home Frank. You have to do it. It’s the only way.” He looks at you, his eyes welling up, abject in his misery. “Listen to me, Frank! It’ll be over soon. You take your shot. Look at me, Frank. It’ll be OK.” You meet him with your eyes and he offers up a weak smile and shakes his head. The brother in charge slaps him across the face. “Do it, Frank!” His bandana is stained with sweat and tears, his shirt foul with days of grime. “I can’t, I just –.“ “Don’t give me that bullshit, Frank. They’ll make you go back in the clank. Don’t make them do that, Frank.” Again the head brother slaps him. He is close to breaking. The brothers are all shouting now, but you don’t recognize the words. The only thing that matters right now is getting him through this. “Do it, Frank. Do it. Do it. Do it Frank.” You lock eyes again, and give him what you hope is a reassuring nod. “Do it Frank. You have to.” Finally Frank nods. He understands now.

The shouting stops and all eyes focus on Frank. His arm trembling, he reaches across the table and chooses. You watch as he brings it to his head. He looks at you. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.” He pulls the tab. The Coors fizzes a little, but does not explode.

Your move.

(A conversation with a primary speaker and a group of other people responding)

How I Write

When I write, I often connect my thoughts as directly as possible. Lots of therefores, alsos, moreovers, and indeeds. I (also) start my sentences with participles more than most. Writing in this way, I jam a little extra context into sentences that maybe do not need it. Furthermore, I occasionally interrupt myself in the middle of a thought. This may (I think) indicate a lack of confidence in my own voice. I find I am rarely sure where my argument is going, and therefore qualify my points lest I say anything too outrageous. In a similar vein, I repeat myself occasionally, or almost repeat myself via paraphrase. Finally, I have a tendency to employ a Latinate vocabulary.

I started learning Latin in the seventh grade, and I have been reading and translating ancient authors ever since. Latin is a language that depends on participles far more than English does; I have unconsciously adopted some of that language's features in my own writing. In some ways I imitate the Greeks as well. Ancient Greek writers loved to connect their thoughts much as I do (although, admittedly, much more succinctly – there is a three-letter word in Greek that means “on the one hand” and a two-letter word that means “on the other”). It seems I have started to write and maybe even think like the authors I translate.

Now that I am writing every day, I am increasingly aware of my writing habits. I’ve been trying to avoid them where I can in order to experiment with other styles that work better for writing creatively. But old habits die hard.

Hemingway

"How can you say such things, Frances?" Cohn interrupted.

"Listen to him. I'm going to England. I'm going to visit friends. Ever visit friends that didn't want you? Oh, they'll have to take me all right. 'How do you do, my dear? Such a long time since we've seen you. And how is your dear mother?' Yes, how is my dear mother? She put all her money into French war bonds. Yes, she did. Probably the only person in the world that did. 'And what about Robert?' or else very careful talking about Robert. 'You must be most careful not to mention him, my dear. Poor Frances has had a most unfortunate experience.' Won't it be fun, Robert? Don't you think it will be fun, Jake?"

She turned to me with that terribly bright smile. It was very satisfactory to her to have an audience for this.

"And where are you going to be, Robert? It's my own fault, all right. Perfectly my own fault. When I made you get rid of your little secretary on the magazine I ought to have known you'd get rid of me the same way. Jake doesn't know about that. Should I tell him?"

"Shut up, Frances, for God's sake."

-The Sun Also Rises

Near Defenestration

WHEN OUR STORY BEGINS Stephanie is in the process of pouring a whole can of beer down the back of Turner’s shirt. The young gentleman has been somewhat impolitic in a recent invitation extended to the lady (“Hey, slut! Come funnel a beer with me!”), and her reaction is, admittedly, merited. In fact, she has been hoping to pour her beer over the top of his head, an act that would be equally merited. This is, alas, impossible, since, given his height (six feet five inches, even) and hers (five feet four and one half inches), such an act would violate the laws of physics. For which reason she has settled for his back. Her concession, however, goes unnoticed by Turner. He is pissed.

Turning, Turner tips his own glass deliberately down the front of Stephanie’s blouse. “Goddamn slut,” he exclaims. “You better watch yourself.” Yet the fact of the matter is that Stephanie, being a self-respecting, strong, and independent woman, is watching herself. For which reason, likely, she wipes the beer off her chin and retorts, “What did you just call me?” Turner, however, misses the cue for his apology entirely, and opts instead for an apologia: “I called you a slut, because you look like a slut, Slut.”

Now both are pissed. Stephanie rejects Turner’s tautology at once, and resolves to assert her (relative) sexual purity by striking him repeatedly. Yet with our omniscient, sober perspective on the situation, we may confidently observe the rashness of her decision. He is, after all, an enormous human being. As he notices her tiny arms flailing against his chest, the giant grabs her by the waist, hoists her up and over his shoulder, and attempts to throw her out of the open first floor window. Fortunately for Stephanie, he misses his mark. Together they crash upon the beer-soaked floor.

A Neighborhood Affair

Hello?

Hi, this is Janice. Is Larry around?

No, no he’s out right now. Can I take a message for you?

Sure! If you could just let him know that Janice was wondering if he could help her take her top off, I’d really appreciate it.

Sounds goo- Wait, I’m sorry, what?

If you could just let him know that I was hoping he could help me take my top off.

I’m sorry, you are aware who you are talking to, right?

Yes, of course. This is Larry’s wife. Your name is Sarah, yes?

Yes, that’s me.

Is there a problem?

Well I just think it’s a little unusual that you want my husband to help you take your top off.

You see, the thing is, I’ve had it on all winter, and I figure it’s about time. You know I just can’t do it by myself.

What? Of course you can. I take my top off by myself every day.

You do? Then you’re a stronger woman than I am.

Now let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Why do you want my husband to take your top off?

Well, like I said, it’s getting warmer now and I’m looking for a change. There’s just something so wonderful about that rush, you see.

The rush?

Oh you know, that feeling you get when your top is off. The wind on your face, the sun in your hair, great music playing on the radio. There’s nothing else quite like it. You don’t get that when you’re driving yours?

Driving? I’m not sure I follow you.

Driving your Jeep Wrangler with the top off. Like I said, I’m not strong enough to take mine off on my own, and I just thought since he has a Jeep as well your husband might be able to help. What on earth did you think we were talking about?

I just thought… never mind. I’ll let Larry know you called.

Thanks, Sarah.

No problem, Janice.

Oh, and Sarah, before I go: do you know if your son would want to help me shave my back?

What's the matter, Mr. Peebles?

When I was very young my greatest fear was to be bullied. I was, of course, and regularly – let just one child discover that you are insecure about being made fun of, and there goes any hope you have of making it through middle school without a constant stream of pushes, slights, and shunning. For the most part, I was able to cope with this hostile environment by retreating into myself; I read a lot, I talked (and smiled) little, in effect, I became an introvert. But what I was never able to overcome was the sheer humiliation of the nickname I was given: Mr. Peebles.

“Miss-ter Pee-bullz,” they would say. “Whassa matter, Miss-ter Pee-bullz?” These words, spoken so derisively, were a source of great shame to my eight-year-old psyche. I knew enough to know that they were intended as an insult, that it was hardly a good thing to be a Peebles. But I didn’t know what they meant, and that was worse by far than any other insult I had known. I knew what a sissy was, and what crybaby meant – these were aspects of myself that, while not flattering, I had at least accepted. But what did it mean to be a Mr. Peebles? “Miss-ter Peebullz,” they would say. “Whassa matter, Miss-ter Pee-bullz?” At this, I burst into tears.

After several weeks of this, I finally recognized that things would only continue if I did not somehow stand up for myself. It was lunchtime, and Ryan Goff, the class bully, came up to me, grinning and eager to revel in my insecurities. “Well look who it is,” he began. “Miss-ter –“

“I kissed your mom,” I blurted out. “And she liked it.” He began to cry.

McLuhan meets MTV

What’s up MTV rockers! Tonight it’s like totally my pleasure to invite on to the set long-time media theorist and sex-bomb professor Marshall McLuhan. Marshall McLuhan everybody.

Shitty pop music, canned applause.

Well thank you Jessica. It’s a, it’s a, hrm, pleasure to be joining you.

It’s honestly great having you here Mr. McLuhan. You can call me J-town, if you want. So how’s it, you know, going?

Well honestly I must admit that being here is, ahem, something of a shock.

Oh really? What’s up?

Well for starters, I’ve been dead for thirty years. Thirty years, um, this week actually.

No way! Can you believe that, rockers?

Yes, yes it’s, hrm, true. Um, I’m not actually… not actually sure how I ended up here. Say Jessica, do you know where I might locate a phone booth?

Hah you’re a funny one, Mr. McCluhan. Phone booth, right. Want to use my cell? The medium is the message and all that, you know.

I... I see.

Jessica hands him her iPhone. McLuhan holds the device in his hand confusedly, looking for buttons. After staring at it for a moment, he gives up and sets it down on the table in front of him.

Ok… So Mr. McLuhan, what are your, um, like first impressions of the twenty-first century?

Now this will take quite a while to explain but when I was theorizing about this back in the seventies I did think, I did think that it would be much closer to a global village than what I’ve been able to glean so far. Chatting casually, spontaneously without a script and paying attention to what is being said only goes so far, you see.

Huh? Global village? What’s, like, that?

The global village is like the way the American south felt about the Yankee north, as it were. It is a place of very arduous interfaces.

Oh for sure, Marshall. That’s like totally cool.

Jessica, clearly you know nothing of my work. You know, I think I would prefer if um, if you called me by my proper name.

Whoops! My bad, Mr. MacLowen. Sorry about that… Um, well it seems that we’ve just about run out of time! A fog horn sounds offstage. Again, thanks for joining all us rockers. This is MTV’s Jessica “J-town” Mascaroni, reporting, like, live from MTV Studios.

More canned applause, even shittier pop music.

Oh thank goodness. Can I please go now?

Sentence Sounds

Who forgets her underwear?
I don’t even know. Happens, I guess.
It’s not like socks. You can’t just forget to grab that on your way out the door.

Hey, just wanted to let you know I took care of everything.
You’re a boss.
Don’t even worry about it.

Do you have the book?
Shit. OK, I’ll be a little late.

No, I’m pretty sure I’m right, dude. Commons closes at nine.
No, you don’t even know.

Now look what you’ve made me do.
Oh my god I’m so sorry.
You’ll have to excuse my friend.

Do you see the way people are looking at you?
Yes, mommy.
Do you like the way that makes you feel?

You won’t do it.
Says who?
Says me.

Apparently someone came out with a clone of “Angry Birds” for Xbox Live. It’s called “Pissed Fish.”
Who did?
Some random mouthbreather.

How’d it go?
Whatever. I don’t want to talk about it.

I haven’t been here in forever.
Sup dude?
Been almost a week, maybe two.

Hey, slut, come funnel a beer with me.
What did you just call me?
I called you a slut because you look like a slut, slut.

Well, shit.
That was easy.

Well? What do you think?
Our grandparents worked their whole lives to get out of that shtetl, and you went back.

You know you want to.
You can’t be serious.
Now I may be wrong, but I think that sounds like a “Yes, Noah, I do.”

Mind if I join you?
Not at all.
So how’ve you been, buddy?

Yo what’s up Joe?
Good. You?
Not much.

Joyce

Did the process of divestiture continue?

Sensible of a benignant persistent ache in his footsoles he extended his foot to one side and observed the creases, protuberances and salient points caused by foot pressure in the course of walking repeatedly in several different directions, then, inclined, he disnoded the laceknots, unhooked and loosened the laces, took off each of his two boots for the second time, detached the partially moistened right sock through the fore part of which the nail of his great toe had again effracted, raised his right foot and, having unhooked a purple elastic sock suspender, took off his right sock, placed his unclothed right foot on the margin of the seat of his chair, picked at and gently lacerated the protruding part of the great toenail, raised the part lacerated to his nostrils and inhaled the odour of the quick, then, with satisfaction, threw away the lacerated unguinal fragment.

- Ulysses (Ithaca)

Naxos

That arch. A fading white, it stands out stark against the blue horizon. Savor it: it frames the sea. The sea, the sea! The sea, a pure blue capped with wonderful white crests, the sky a little lighter, few clouds to speak of, just a tuft here and there above the distant Parian peaks. Distance, then, a flattening of perspective, the browns of the closer mountains fading into blue. (A hazy blue, what Da Vinci once called atmospheric.) Waves slap against the spumy breakwater. This and the strong wind resonate. This is pure. Beautiful.

Feel the sand, and tufts of browning, dried-out grass, the dusty stone embankment. Gaze upon the once white, salted marble. The weathered, well-worked stones all scattered: little nubs of columns, blocks with carved out places for long-gone wooden lintels. An ancient earthquake sent the rest into the sea. Distorted columns, headstones rest just below the surface of the water by the shore.

Remember Ariadne? Here she, too, succumbed to crushing loneliness. Her clothes abandoned, she beat her breast in good Greek fashion and lamented her fate to the immenseness of the sea: perfide, deserto liquisti in litore, Theseu? The place is as empty now as it was then. Or almost: solitary tourists tramp about the ruins. They stand intentionally apart.

Embrace this alienation. Touch the weathered, sunbaked stones with dusty, sunburnt hands. Breathe, taste the salt in the wind. Savor it. Savor everything: the sea, the stones, that arch.

(Free theme that engages in some way with things)

Drinking Too Much

The following is an account of a friend’s Friday night, to the best of his memory:

- 1 shot of Jack Daniels in coffee after dinner
- 2 cups of coffee
- 2 Keystone Lights at Matt’s
- 1 Keystone at Fence Club
- 3 sips of mojito at Fence Club
- 1 Busch light at Fence Club
- 1 shot of vodka, poured onto arm after breaking window at Fence Club
- 1 Four Loko, purchased before the drink was banned, at Fence Club
- 2.5 Keystone over beer pong at Mike’s
- 1 hit off Tim’s pipe
- 3 Pabst Blue Ribbon over beer pong at Mike’s

This was a typical night out for him. In the unremitting clarity of his hangover, he seemed to regret his actions. He recognized that he probably should have ended his night early after putting his arm through a window. Yet in the moment, the thought didn’t even cross his mind. Instead, he poured vodka on the cuts and kept right on going. Why?

For many students at Yale, going out drinking is not just the way to celebrate a special occasion. It is the default way to spend our weekends. Drinking does, of course, have its appeal. Many a laugh has been brought on those telltale words: “I was soooo drunk last night.” But as a senior whose hangovers are only getting worse, I wonder sometimes whether it’s really worth it. The social pressure to imbibe is often unavoidable, yet I can’t help but feel that we’re all egging each other on without really wanting to ourselves.

We don’t just drink alcohol, either. It’s easy to forget, but caffeine is also a drug. So what’s the benefit? Can’t we just be happy with being ourselves, not ourselves in some chemically-induced state? In the course of three or four hours, my friend consumed the equivalent of fifteen beers and four cups of coffee. That just isn’t healthy. The strange part is, he laughed it off afterwards. Maybe this is normal, but should it be? I would like to think we still have the capacity to have fun sober. Increasingly, though, I don’t know.

How to Fold a Shirt

How to fold a shirt. The best way to fall in a river. Sharing a waffle. What “friends” means. Knowing it’s only a month. Talking to a sleeping person. Saying goodbye and thinking it’s forever. Crying even though you’re not twelve anymore. Going home.

Calling again. Things you can get away with in the middle of Central Park at noon. Ways to get to New York City every weekend. The first poem you ever wrote for someone. How to draw a butterfly. Writing letters worth reading. Sending them. Things being different. Things being special.

Sleeping together without sleeping together. Giving presents. Getting them. How to have nice things and not feel bad about it. Sleeping together. Saying I love you. Meaning it. Realizing it’s OK to leave your friends when there’s someone you’d rather be with.

Missing her. Texting every day. Calling sometimes. Learning to talk about nothing, just to hear that voice. Going to see her. What you can do under a coat on a train, but probably shouldn’t. Being naked sometimes. What it’s like not to be embarrassed. Meeting her friends. Leaving. Missing her again.

Going back. The right way to wear a tuxedo. Meeting her parents. Feeling old, but in a good way. Just feeling old. Things being the same. Worrying about it.

Things being different. Not meaning it anymore. Thinking about other people. Deciding to answer the phone. No longer wanting to. Going to see her. Saying goodbye and knowing it’s forever. Crying even though you’re not twelve anymore. Going home.

Giant Spoon

But for the fact that one of the screws holding up the giant decorative chrome spoon had come loose, today was a day just like any other in the Silliman dining hall. Chef Stu and his staff had been there since six thirty in the morning, and, as always, they were busy from the time they arrived, washing out last night’s pots and pans, sweeping the countertops, preparing breakfast. By eight, when the first bleary-eyed students began to wander in, everything was in its proper place: bagels waiting to be toasted, fresh cups of milk thirsting to be drunk, oatmeal ready to be poked at disinterestedly. A freshman forgot to spray down the waffle iron, and was obliged to scrape out the failure as best he could with a fork. Already patting together meatballs for lunchtime, Stu chatted animatedly with a student whom he had seen at last night’s hockey game. The team’s stick handling had never looked better. They had a good shot this year.

Then came lunch. Today’s long line curved around the servery and out into the open foyer. Little did they know what excitement they were about to witness. With the stomp of so many feet and the clatter of so many trays, the fateful screw was slowly working its way out of its socket. Suddenly, it stripped its hole entirely and hit Stu on the shoulder as if in slow motion. Looking up in surprise, Stu only just saw out of the corner of his eye as the giant spoon began to swing towards him perilously. He barely had time to move out of the way before the spoon came hurtling down into the meatball marinara, splattering the entire line of hungry students in its range.

(Narrate an incident with an object at the beginning that assumes a critical function by the end)

Common Room Table

The tabletop used to be black. It looks like wood but it is probably plastic because when Dan dropped a live coal on it, it smelled funny and was hollow inside. Recently, it seems that Cooper has been using this hole to keep his toothpicks in. Used toothpicks. This morning, of course, the table was clean. Now look: an empty book of matches, a diet Mountain Dew can, the green case for a missing Xbox disc. Typical. The box of Sweet Melon hookah tobacco is surely empty, that black Xbox controller doesn’t even work, and this light green plastic bag, more likely than not, has drugs inside. What were they doing with a rubber hose? Why are the Rock Band drumsticks out at this hour? One would think they could have at least settled on something, but no: the table is as cluttered as their heads.

So what if that white coffee mug was “borrowed” from the dining hall? You wanted to use it later, and now it’s half full with someone else’s phlegm. It’s no use finding out whose, since there’s no way to clean it out anyways: the bottle of liquid dish soap you just bought has tipped over and is dripping on to the floor. Why? A working hypothesis – Carl sometimes likes to blow bubbles when he’s high. And, while we’re playing detective, it’s worth pointing out that the hookah appears to be missing its hose. Hence the rubber substitute. Is that a battery powered light bulb? Is that a booger? Those idiots. Nothing left to do except turn on the TV and ignore it. Damn! There is soap on the remote.

(This theme is a still life)

Conrad

Originally he came from a parsonage. Many commanders of fine merchant-ships come from these abodes of piety and peace. Jim's father possessed such certain knowledge of the Unknowable as made for the righteousness of people in cottages without disturbing the ease of mind of those whom an unerring Providence enables to live in mansions. The little church on a hill had the mossy greyness of a rock seen through a ragged screen of leaves. It had stood there for centuries, but the trees around probably remembered the laying of the first stone. Below, the red front of the rectory gleamed with a warm tint in the midst of grass-plots, flower-beds, and fir-trees, with an orchard at the back, a paved stable-yard to the left, and the sloping glass of greenhouses tacked along a wall of bricks. The living had belonged to the family for generations; but Jim was one of five sons, and when after a course of light holiday literature his vocation for the sea had declared itself, he was sent at once to a 'training-ship for officers of the mercantile marine.'

-Lord Jim

New Years

Between the yelling and all the beer you just drank, you can hardly hear yourself think. Katharine was giving you eyes all night, and you know it’s a bad idea but little by little it’s seeming like less of one. Even if she’s a little obsessive she’s at least cute and tonight that might be good enough. Has she been drinking too? You don’t know but you know you have and you spilled it all over the big green tractor in the basement but cleaned it up with paper towel so it’s probably OK. Winning is hard sometimes. Someone is writing something on your stomach with a Sharpie but even if you could see you probably wouldn’t be able to read anything right now. You assume it’s a penis and try smudging it out with your hand. Doesn't work. Is someone making bacon? You’re not sure but you’d like some if they are.

She hands you a bottle of champagne asks you if you can open it for her and her hand feels warm against your chest. Katie is also here and it’s her house and she’d probably not like it if. Funny how they have the same name. Different people though and they have very different aims in mind which in your state you’re having trouble sorting out. You see her sitting at that secondhand piano just watching you and you’re not sure how you can without upsetting her. But Katharine is very close now and your brain is rolling around the inside of your head like a yolk and you’re the egg. The warmth you feel makes sense, it is tangible and she decides you need to be put to bed and pulls you towards the staircase. You look to see if Katie sees you but by the time you turn she’s gone.

(Use the first or third theme of this week as the setting for an incident. How does the scene affect what happens?)

Boxford

Just off of I-95 near the New Hampshire border, a medium-sized sign reads, “Boxford Village.“ Follow the road, and you will quickly come to the center of town – a Protestant church, the post office, a library, and the general store. Except for Benson’s ice cream stand, which is open between Memorial Day and the end of summer, this is the only store in town. On the other side of a grassy patch by the library, a large yellow saltbox from before the Revolution serves as the headquarters for the Boxford Historical Society. What they preserve there I can only guess at.

I wish I knew. I have lived in Boxford my whole life, and I’m still trying to figure out what that should mean for me. Apart from my family, I don’t know anyone in the town – prep school swept me away from whatever friendships I had made there as a kid, and I have never made much of an effort to get to know it. When I am home, I tend to spend most of my time visiting my friends in their town, Andover, where we went to school together, or farther south, in Boston. When I am not eating or sleeping, I am usually on my way out the door.

This leaves me free, I think, to wonder. Boxford: the name is somehow agrarian. It has a certain primness to it, the unapologetic pride of Jeffersonian democracy. Boxford. Take away the “b”, and you’ve got the famous university. Leave it in, and then what? The x makes you stop in the middle, think for a second. Boxford. If there is a ford somewhere in the town – and I am not sure that there is – what makes it boxy? What does it mean to be from a place and not to know it?

(Start with a place name)

Ariadne

The first thing anyone ever sees upon arriving in Naxos is a temple to Apollo. Make your way through the confused crowd of tourists and leave your bag with one of the eager hoteliers who greet you as you disembark, and you will find yourself on the small promontory where it lies. An earthquake sent most of the building into the sea long ago. Distorted columns, headstones, and lintels rest just below the surface of the water all along the beach. All that’s left is single marble arch. A fading white, it stands out stark against the blue horizon.

It is here that, according to the myth, Ariadne was abandoned by Theseus while she slept. Realizing her plight, the poor girl was driven insane. Her clothes abandoned to the sea, she beat her breast in good Greek fashion and lamented her fate to the immenseness of the sea: perfide, deserto liquisti in litore, Theseu? The place is as empty now as it was then.

Standing here, one feels the same crushing sense of loneliness once felt by Ariadne. All around, the rolling waves stretch out to infinity: a tenuous breakwater is all that connects this site to the rest of the island. The breakers beat hard against it with a slap that reminds of you of the erosion that is inevitably happening. The sheer improbability of the place has a spiritual effect; the forces of nature overwhelm your senses. Although it is difficult to explain the motivation exactly, intuitively you understand why the Greeks chose here to build their temple.

(Describe a sacred place. It need not be, although it can be, a place designated as sacred by custom and purpose, and you may not view it as sacred yourself.)

Looking Out

Outside, white. Large flakes rush down from somewhere, softly but with a purpose. The snow is sinister today, no purity or innocence to speak of. The air cold, especially so with the biting gusts that find the small opening at the neck of the coat, burying themselves inside like so many icicles. This blanket is not cashmere, but a harsher wool, itching and working its way under the skin.

Men trudge about the street, bundled into sweaters, jackets, hats. This one’s leather gloves are useless against the damp, soaked through and frozen into withered talons. His hands are red and raw from his wasted efforts with the shovel, better left for morning. That one braces himself against the storm, the collar up on his jacket, slogging his way. He did not expect the storm. Up the street, a dog laden with ice scratches at a door, whining its plea in vain. The whistle and the white consume the scene; both take on new meaning. The whistle is the terror and the push, the singer and the song, futility. The white is nothing and nothing again. The white is all.

Krauss watches from the window as a tumult of snow falls off the roof. The drawn-back curtains, a handsome red and gold tartan, are reflected in her coffee cup. She takes comfort in the fire in the fireplace. A quiet feline form rests beside her, curled up in an armchair. On the radio, the announcer interrupts her sonata to inform her of what she already knows. All those who are not performing essential services should remain at home. The state’s primary concerns are that all citizens are safe and that unnecessary travel is kept to a minimum. Krauss smiles at her relative good fortune, and sets about making another pot of coffee.

(Adopt a roving point of view, like the one Dickens creates with his fog, and make a moving pictue. You will need to decide how to establish the point of view. What does moving allow you to see that standing still doesn't? What does it keep you from seeing?)