Monthly Archives: November 2010

Thanks for the Ideas, Amazon

30 Tuesday Nov 2010

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All of us have been afflicted with writers block at one time or another. It sucks. Weeks of over-caffeination mixed with imaginational stagnation leads to a downward spiral of keyboard smashing and moleskine burning. However, you don’t have too look far for inspiration. Actually, your friendly corporation down the block has some wonderful ideas for characters, just in case you need some help. People say literature is dead, but I think we can bring it back to life with the following character sketches of the modern consumer.

I ran across these archetype personalities while perusing Amazon on Black Friday. They’re meant for shoppers who are having a hard time trying to find gifts for beloved ones. Said shopper is supposed to label their potential recipient as one of Amazon’s helpfully re-invented American demographic categories. Then, Amazon will tell our intrepid yet uninventive shopper what that “character” wants. This prefabrication of character and desire provides great fodder for short stories. Wink wink. Continue reading »

False translation

29 Monday Nov 2010

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BACK TO WORK! You can do this. Power through!

Prompt: find a poem in another language (preferably one you do not know). Look at the words, look at the length of the lines. Translate the poem based solely on this information.

And yet another prompt

26 Friday Nov 2010

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Hello everyone. I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving.  Since today is Black Friday, I’m sure most of you are out shopping. Alas, I was not brave enough this year to wait in line for hours and to bump into someone every other step. So, I’ll just experience the crushing crowd (and the impatience I would have had waiting in line) when you write about your experience today.

Here’s the prompt: Write about anything out of the ordinary that happened during your Black Friday shopping experience (I’m sure there’s lots that occur). You can just be a bystander looking at all the mayhem, if you want. If nothing bizarre occurred then still write about your Black Friday experience. Try writing it as  a song, a sonnet, or anything else creative. Have fun with it.

You and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

19 Friday Nov 2010

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We all have bad days: they can ruin our mood for a couple of minutes, for hours, for the entire day, or even longer. Some bad days are worse than others. So, choose the worst day you’ve had recently (go back a couple of days if you have to. If you’re one of those lucky people bad luck can’t seem to find, then go back even further.) Try writing a poem or a short paragraph of that day. However, don’t write a point by point of everything that happened as if it was a report. Instead write an exaggeration of everything bad that could have happened to you. For example, instead of loosing your keys you could have left your cell on the bus and realized it when you got off. You start chasing the bus, only to slip on a puddle in front of a large crowd. So, the poem or paragraph (more if you want) should be something like “this is what happened but my day could have been so much worse”. It’ll make you laugh and get over your bad day… hopefully. If not, try some chocolates.

A Sidewalk Slam

19 Friday Nov 2010

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Being the procrastinator that I am, this post probably wont make it online until friday. Do forgive me devoted readers, but I have a good excuse, the best excuse possible in fact.  I have spent the last few hours engrossed in slam poetry at The Sidewalk Cafe, for The Intangible Collective’s first Semi-Final of the year.  Joanna Hoffman carried the night and won a spot on the Intangible’s Grand Slam finalists.  I even got to participate as one of the judges (in slam, it’s simply audience volunteers who give scores to the poets.)  Though picked because I didn’t know any of the poets personally, I’d like to think it was because I exuded an aura of “informed poetry critic,” so I’m just going to run with that version of events.

The Intangibles have just started using The Sidewalk Cafe as a semi-permanent home and the contrast from the nearby Nuyorican couldn’t be greater.  Although that’s bound to change if the spot catches on, it’s quite different to experience a slam in a quieter, darker, overall (and i cringe to use it but) chill environment where the candle-lit tables paint us in mysterious, pensive tones and the PBR flows as strong as the Hudson River.  Continue reading »

Google Translate and the Infirm of NYC

18 Thursday Nov 2010

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Let me start out by letting you know I’ve changed my sleeping habits this week in an effort to stimulate better writing. For most of the semester I’ve been operating under a 1 pm – 6 am waking schedule. This was fine, up until the daylight savings switch- 4 hours of sunlight a day does not work. Now I have rigged my alarm so I wake up at 5:30 am and fall asleep at a much more reasonable midnight.

I’ve always heard that writing directly after awakening is the way to do it, and naturally, I assumed this was bullshit invented by some old fart who can’t wake up after 8 am because of their arthritic bowel. It turns out that this is not bullshit. My internal critic is nice and quiet, and only gives me necessary advice on grammar. I can take my time and don’t feel pressured to impress anyone, since everyone else is asleep, and I can always delete what I’ve written before they wake up (take that!)

Anyways, this new temporal space I’ve inhabited for the past week has given me some new insights into New York City: Continue reading »

The Raven starts filming

15 Monday Nov 2010

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Hello all! I hope each and every one of you had a good lunch today. Big day, Monday. I hope you had a hearty sandwich.

How I wanted to title this post something like “The Raven takes flight” or “The Raven gets its wings”. I had enough self control not to use these, you see, but once I get hold of lip-smacking, cheesy ideas I really can’t stop or rid myself of the cheese. Someone get me a wet paper towel.

So this is news to me: The Raven, undoubtedly Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous poem (and made more famous by The Simpson’s stellar Halloween Special version), is being made into a movie starring John Cusack as Poe.  Continue reading »

It’s… it’s…it’s the start of—of what?

12 Friday Nov 2010

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I, sadly, can’t write poems that will leave everyone gobsmacked. I enjoy writing stories; I’m sure some of you like prose more than poetry as well. Well, I’m going to make your day if you do. I’m starting a  round-robin story; that  means you should all add lines (yes, as much or as little as you want. I would recommend writing more than a line everyone.) to the story to make it successful. Try it; make the story as grim, wacky, dramatic, etc… as possible. Later, we can post the entire story and see how great it is.

Here we go:

Marybelle huffed in annoyance as she hiked up the never ending material of her white gown. Blocks ago, she had thrown  her matching heels away. Grumbling under her breath, she crossed the street to the bus stop. A man walking by stared at her oddly.

“What? You’ve never seen a lady walking in her wedding dress?” She shouted at him. Continue reading »

A Brief Yet Wondrous Reading

11 Thursday Nov 2010

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96,ooo…Junot Díaz fans? holla…while the reading earlier tonight didn’t pack that many fans into Cantor, the line was certainly impressive enough.  By 7:00, the line wrapped around and down University Place, past where I stood outside of Weinstein, and down to at least the Silver Center.  Know that I almost gave up and headed home West Tenthers,  but in a move worthy of those comic book heroes that inspire his work, Diaz agreed to have a second reading in an adjacent theater.  Though I nearly had a heart attack when I was stopped by public safety in the doorway of Cantor while they checked capacity, the forces of good prevailed, and I was able to swoop in for one of the last seats.  This happenstance was probably best for all parties involved…since hell really hath no fury like a New Yorker waiting in line for over an hour.  While I was one of the lucky ones, the plight of the fans left outside highlights a recurring space problem with such events (there was similar insanity when Jonathan Safran Foer read earlier this semester).  I sincerely hope the Reading Series can provide bigger spaces in future readings for well-known authors.  NYU boasts one of the biggest theaters in downtown Manhattan.  As Darrell, pronounced Da-rrell would say, “can we have it?”

But, know what?  I’m willing to let it go because on this “comic-book thursday” Junot Díaz delivered. Continue reading »

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