Jeremy's "Dreams"

Jeremy, I was very impressed by your story.  To me, it seemed like a commentary on perseverance and adolescence and how those two go hand-in-hand.  The story tends to revolve around the two characters Hikari and Sora.  Hikari was the first character introduced, but Sora acts as the protagonist.  He is determined to be strong and skilled enough to defend himself in any situation.  He will know he's accomplished this when he beats the captain, Ryu.  The story does not seem to have much conflict, but acts like an exposition without anything afterwords.  The only change that happens is the relationship between Hikari and Sora, which I liked.

I also loved the dialogue.  I'm not too good at that and was impressed at your ability to make the relationship between Hikari and Sora so real and believable.  It seemed very natural. I also liked the open ending, even though it's on the edge of cliche.

Despite how much I liked it, I do feel like the dialogue could use some polishing.  There were points where it was dragging out a bit or was too vague. When Sora starting describing his relationship with Ryu and why they fight every day, that took away from the present where Hikari and Sora were talking.  Actions between the two became sort of limited.  The story about Ryu and Sora was also sort of summed up very quickly, taking away from the interest.  However, that story about Ryu and Sora seemed interesting if there were more detail.  There were a couple of interactions between Sora and Hikari that seemed a little strange.  The main example I can think of is when Sora laughs until he's crying about something that didn't seem to me that funny.

I liked the story, Jeremy.  If I had to offer any advice, I would say to make the story more about Ryu and Sora and how they met, or take it in a less expository direction and focus on Hikari and Sora.  Overall, I think you're on to something.

Dialogue in the Library

B.J. Choe walks up to the study table with a salad and a bottle of water where Andrew is sketching for his Graphic Design class.

"I'm about to eat this salad."
"Yeah you are."
"Cuz I gotta take my medicine."
"What kind of salad is that?"

B.J. brings the box close to his face.

"I got the uh...Chef's Salad."
"Do you think a chef really prepared that?" Andrew asks without looking up.
"Naw," B.J. laughs as he places the salad box to the side to take out his computer.
"Oh. I bet you wish he did."
"How do I know? Cuz I used to work for Caribou."
"You can tell by the way it is!"
"Haha you can tell by the way it is. Just look at it."

The two laugh at their exclusive inside joke.

"Aw man. I don't want to be in the library. Actually..." Andrew pauses to think. "I just don't want to have to do stuff."
"Dude, I'm right there with ya. I've got so much stuff to do."

B.J. opens the salad box to see the top part of it sticking to the top of the box.

"Yeah, this thing was definitely made by a chef," his voice thick with sarcasm.
"Dude that's the mark of quality right there. The fact that it's glued to the top of the box"

The two chuckle at B.J.'s misfortune. Andrew sighs crumbling the piece of paper he had been writing on and looks around.

"Oh there's Joe. Don't... don't bring up the fact that we want to have U.S.A. shaved in his head."
"Man I kinda want that though."
"He's being sensitive about it. We've been giving him a hard time."
"I rove America doe!" B.J. says in his fake Korean accent.

Joe walks up to our table.

"Hey guys...Aw dammit. I brought the wrong computer. I can't get on the Internet here."

Repsonse to 1-900

Richard Bausch's "1-900" seems to me to be a metaphor of modern day society's selfishness and fear of intimacy.  Also, it demonstrates the power of intimacy.

The structure of the story was confusing at times.  I would get mixed up with who was talking at the time, but it worked. The story was completely dialogue, so the quick back and forth made it easy to read.  I think it would be entertaining to watch actors act this out.

It's interesting that John's wife is mainly interested in "the history of men keeping women down," since he is on the phone with a phone sex employee.  It's an interesting contrast that just demonstrates how badly he gets along with his wife.

John, the caller seems to be interested in Shannon (Marilyn) but constantly talks about his personal life.  He twists every comment she makes to refer back to himself. In addition to this, Shannon resorts to her Marilyn dialogue whenever she is asked a personal question. Eventually, John bugs her so much that she gives in and starts revealing very personal things about her love life, family, and future pursuits. Once she is confronted with herself, it is like looking in a mirror and she is uncomfortable. While she is formerly annoyed with John, new-founded affection for John is strange and she runs away from the intimacy that John is presenting.  John is happy with where the conversation led and is ready for the sex talk.

John and Shannon seem to be two polar opposites. John, obsessed with intimacy and true love, and Shannon with safeguarding her personal life. Both are selfish and unable to give in to what the other desires. When intimacy arises it causes a strong change.  Shannon is now unable to talk about sex and John is. That is the most interesting thing in the story to me.

Response to "Emergnecy"

"Emergency" by Denis Johnson is a short story that I would have to read several more times before I could wrap my mind around it.  It reminded me of a Hunter S. Thompson story.  There was so much casual drug use it stressed me out, but within every action there seemed to be some sort of important meaning hidden between the lines.

The story was set in 1973, which was the end of the hippie movement, that Hunter S. Thompson actually described as a "high and beautiful wave" that crashed and rolled back in his book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.  This story seems to show the affects of the movement "crashing."

The narrator is a clerk in the hospital who spends most of his time with Georgie, an orderly, and they are almost always doing drugs.  Georgie seems to be more out of his mind than the narrator.  At one point he cuts open a mother rabbit and "saves" its babies.  It's in this moment where Georgie realizes he should have been a doctor so he could save lives.  When the narrator accidently kills the tiny bunnies, Georgie gets furious with him and scolds him by asking, "Does everything you touch turn to shit?"

This seems to be a form of projection on Georgie's part.  He sees his shortcomings, but subconsciously places them on the narrator's shoulders. Meanwhile, the narrator accepts these accusations, because he seems to think with more sense.  For instance, he begs Georgie to take him home back to town and to forget about the rabbits.

Later in the story, the two heroes pick up a hitch hiker that the narrator knows, named Hardee.  Hardee had been drafted and was trying to flee to Canada.  Georgie accepted responsibility for Hardee and decided to take him to Canada.  When Hardee asked him what he did for a living, Georgie said "I save lives."  Georgie's efforts to assist Hardee's escape from the draft was like redemption to his life choice of not being a doctor.

I liked this story, because drug narratives are fun.  I feel like discussions on it could last for a long time and remain interesting.  However, I feel like there was a lot I didn't understand.

"The Inside of a Cup" -short-short exercise

Jeffrey struggled with the rusted lock on his door until it gave way.  The air was almost as cold inside as it was outside.  He walked in darkness to the sink and wiped a dirty cup on his jacket which he hadn't taken off.  The outside of the cup seemed a bit cleaner, but the inside was still coated with dust and the dried film of milk.  He held the cup under the faucet and turned the handle.  The faucet sprayed out water and air and came to an abrupt stop. 

The water bill...

Jeffrey walked to his couch and wrapped himself in the blanket his grandmother had made years ago and turned on the TV.  The dark room lit up from the light of the screen.  A man dressed in a pinstripe suit with gold cufflinks and slicked back hair was selling his book on an infomercial. It was called 8 Steps to the Better You.  Jeffrey left the TV on that channel, because the channel buttons on the remote had quit working.

"Wealth is nothing to be ashamed of.  But in order to acquire it, you have to give to receive.  My new book will walk you through the eight steps that will help you grant yourself the life and wealth you've always wanted.  If you call now---"

The TV shut off leaving Jeffrey cold in the dark.  Far away he could hear the sound of a couple fighting.

The power bill...

Response to "Television"

The short story "Television" was written by Lydia Davis.

The story is told from the first person perspective of a wife and mother.  I feel like this was an appropriate choice.  However, the story isn't your typical narrative.  There is not a clear, sequential order of events or any dialogue.  I think this is effective, though slightly annoying.  The story is about the family gathered around a television all the time.  The narrator describes the many different programs and commercials that go on.  The choppy line breaks signal the short attention span the narrator must have due to the excessive amount of television that is watched.  Also, the absence of dialogue is an effect of the how much television is watched.  This family puts forth all their energy to watching, not discussing.

Another interesting thing I noticed that was important to the story is the way the narrator described her favorite parts of television.  These parts had very much to do with real life.  For instance, when the family is watching the quiz show, their superficiality is displayed by their opinions of the boy and mother.  They don't care about the boy (the show's main focus) and they dislike the mother because she has "bad teeth." The commercials and programs that show only beautiful people have clearly made an impact on the family's psyche.  However, one spark of humanity beckons them away from the television.  They are moved by the father's tears on the television.  They get so caught up in his emotions, they turn off the phone to watch him.  The emotions being shown by the father are stronger than any other emotion on the show and that is what sparks the family's interest.  Unfortunately, this is at the expense of the father on the television, another point the author is surely trying to make.

Overall, this story was moving, convicting, and interesting.  I didn't like her style and felt that a true narrative could have conveyed the same message and point, but that is merely a stylistic preference of mine.