Maps To Anywhere Blog Response #2

Maps To Anywhere Blog Response #2

Brandon Lazovic

Continuing on from the week previous to this one is the second half of Maps To Anywhere. In the second half of the book is a lot of shorter story essays, but what I’ll be writing about is the largest essay story in the latter half of the novel. The story starts off with the sub chapter “House of the Future.” It begins with the narrator and his parents travelling to the House of the Future attraction and the narrator marvels at the world of possibilities and the imagination of the whole attraction. Throughout the next ten or so pages he cuts to his brother, who is slowly dying away from what appears to be Cancer. He keeps cutting back to the perfection of the future that the House of the Future opened up in his mind’s eye. This might be because he’s just a young child with an imagination common for those of that age, but I feel as though it’s really to escape the inevitability of his brother’s death due to the Cancer. He keeps trying to envision this perfect future to block out the pain that his brother is suffering at that moment. His brother, Gary, has this same idea, although his version of events is most likely different to his brothers. He looks into the future, using that as a lens to see all of the things that he’ll never be able to in the upcoming years. He knows he’s going to die, so he tries to envision what his life would’ve been like had he lived. Just my own speculation, however.

                The next chapter of the essay was “Dream House.” It goes into the condition of the house. Bernard’s mother and father are in denial regarding Gary’s illness, even as he’s slowly dying. They try to show him pictures of people who have gotten better from their sicknesses, but it doesn’t mean too much it seems. Bernard sees that his brother is slowly easing his body into death, just like easing yourself into the cool water of a swimming pool. “Dog House” Follows after this. It describes a couple who is friends with the family as the husband attempts to teach them ventriloquism. Bernard’s parents thrive off of them and I believe they’re used to lighten the mood and distract them from Gary’s illness. His brother also becomes attracted to his brother. Not in a sexual sense, but in a sense in which he knows that Gary is slowly slipping away. To me it’s an act of brotherly love as Bernard tries to evoke that love in more than just an emotional sense.

                After this the next few chapters basically go into Gary’s degeneration and his brother’s memories with him. Bernard was delusional, thinking that with the help of Martin, the nurse, his brother would instantly get back to regular health once again. It never happens, and it’s made obvious that it won’t happen when they leave to go to a show that Bernard is performing in. As the weeks up to his death continue everything gets worse: his skin is scaly, he’s constantly dehydrated, his symptoms are becoming more prominent. He eventually passes away.

                What I found interesting was the fact that every chapter had the word ‘House’ in it. The idea of architecture was also used several times, so I feel as though this was done to further the story along. Each chapter helped piece together a part of one large picture, adding a room to a house with each one in a sense. It describes memories that Bernard had and inspects various angles and emotions felt throughout the time period in which his brother was dying. In a sense that House that has been built seemingly falls apart with his brother’s death. It’s all one great analogy for how the story unfolded at the end. 

Maps To Anywhere Blog Post 1

Maps To Anywhere Blog Post 1

Brandon Lazovic

                For Creative Writing this week we had to read the first half of Maps To Anywhere by Bernard Cooper, which is a compilation of essays. The first essay is “Beacon’s Burning Down.” This essay details the perspective of a person that I feel is looking through a scrap book regarding their life. It details the name Bernard being uncommon as the narrator recants tales of his childhood looking at the complexity of names, trying to find underlying meaning in them and possibly his through extension. It moves on as he looks into his fathers scrapbook regarding various court cases that he had as a lawyer. It keeps some characterization to his father, detailing his sexual exploits while married to his mother. The essay goes into some religious context regarding Lazarus the chicken as well as religion being fake in his eyes in the sense of a TV show he used to watch as a kid, the host being a charlatan. The end of the essay focuses on his attempts to write a story. The line “Your eyes are like beacons burning down!” Might be regarding the guilt he feels about pushing off the story.

                Another essay, Capiche, is short, but interesting. It describes a setting in Italy and draws the reader in, believing every word written on the page. It turns out, however, that it was all a modulated lie and the narrator never actually went to Italy. I found it interesting that they would tell us this and makes the reader think/have some skepticism beyond that point. It destroyed the immersion of the story purposely and for that I find that direction that was taken to be interesting. On the Air is interesting as the past should be left behind and a pure, unadulterated future without limitations should be embraced.

                How to Draw follows a narrator and his path in art. I consider it interesting as he goes into detail regarding simplistic art as opposed to its complex counterpart. The essay, despite having a focus on simplicity, paints a picture in the mind of the reader regarding the setting and the drawings that the narrator creates or has seen. Maps to Anywhere is interesting as well (the essay, that is) as it follows Mr. Stone and Mrs. Mazel as they meet (Mr. Stone buying a globe from her). Regarding Mrs. Mazel she’s lost in her own world, with her own geography set in her mind while Mr. Stone watches on as she doesn’t notice him. Her view seems expanded and broad, while Mr. Stone describes the world shrinking around him when he loses his keys. They take two opposite approaches, Mrs. Mazel taken solace and excitement in the world being so large, while Mr. Stone feels alone because of the depth and size of the world, or that’s how I portray it.

                Lastly, The Wind Did It follows a father and son. It gives a good amount of character description, giving the characters essence and some connection. The narrator’s father seems as though he’s trying to escape his past, possibly as a stage of life (not wanting to look back on his mistakes or memories that burden him) but as the narrator and him are driving he keeps recanting tales and memories of the past. He might possibly be coming to terms with his age or that you can’t escape from your past. The story might actually be a continuation of “Beacon’s Burning Down” considering the narrator is Bernard, his father is divorced, is eighty years old, their relationship was tepid, and the father is rich (possibly from an attorney position, he was put in the newspaper as well). He’s also overweight and the doctor is ordering him to lose weight, which might have connection to the heart issues of the father in Beacon’s Burning Down. I enjoyed the story though as it portrays a growing connection between father and son. It also hints at familial problems between father and mother as they both wanted to move away and the father would go away on ‘business’ several times. Something must have happened in the past to separate father and son and it wasn’t until Bernard turned 35 that he got the chance to rekindle their relationship (as he states several times that he doesn’t want to do anything to put a dent in their newfound relationship). I also just realized that the author’s name is Bernard Cooper, so the Bernard in the essay might actually be him recanting events that he had witnessed/lived through.

Essay Blog Response

Brandon Lazovic

11/13/13

                For class this week we had to read a series of essays in a packet. There are a few essays in the packet, so I’ll discuss most of them. Two of the essays were “Sunday” and “Mint Snowball.” Both use colorful language to describe things, particularly food. “Sunday” is about a black family and how the cook and that’s where the imagery lies; in the food. “Snowball,” on the other hand, is about a family who worked at a soda fountain, particularly a great grandfather who’s secret recipe was mint vanilla ice cream. He sold the recipe, however, and no one could replicate the recipe after that. The essay takes a turn at the end as the narrator describes a disconnectedness with his or her personality, linking it to the mint recipe. Not sure the correlation, although the dessert was described as being like winter, so there might be a possible analogy or reference that I’m missing.

                The next essay, “Essay on the Sublimation of Dying” is really interesting. It bounces between two passages and it seems as though it’s drawing parallels and differences between the two. At first I thought that it was only talking about certain things with no correlation between each ‘Synthesis’ (the strings of passages) but as I continued to read it seemed as though each passage was either just a stream of consciousness for the writer or the writer wrote about the things that she saw in her day to day life. The first passage out of the Synthesis may not necessarily correlate, but I feel as though the second passages do (Synthesis 1, 3, and 5 correlate while Synthesis 2, 4, and 6 correlate). For 2, 4, and 6, they are titled ‘Distraction’ and the narrator breaks off into deep thought about the previous passage. Lastly there are excerpts or possibly poems at the bottom of each passage, which might give more context to each passage.

                The final essay, “Total Eclipse” is about a man named Gary and his wife going on a trip to see a Total Eclipse. The essay is pretty straight forward, being very descriptive about the scenery and the imagery is very noticeable. The narrator comments about how the whole things seems wrong because of the abnormality of the sun being missing during the eclipse and how everything is profoundly affected as a result. After the event the narrator seems frightened by the experience and even becomes a little nihilistic. “The sun was too small, and too cold, and too far away, to keep the world alive. The white ring is not enough. It was feeble and worthless.” She says she had been dead and gone and grieving. A boy described the sight as akin to a Life Saver, which snapped her out of her mind sight and ‘woke her up.’ At the end of it life continued to go on and everyone returned to their cars after the incidentto go about their daily lives again. 

Faith Short Story

Faith

Brandon Lazovic

                Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong. The church bell rocked back and forth in the church tower, uttering an almost melancholy sound as it marked the time. He looked down, glancing at his watch. 5 o’clock. He looked around and noticed that the streets were vacant, which was abnormal. Usually they were bustling with crowds of people, but not today. It was almost perturbing as he could hear his footsteps echo off the buildings before being whisked away by the slight groan of the wind. He continued on casually, with his hands in the black overcoat which he wore. Thunder rumbled in the distance, the sky filled with dark clouds ready to discharge the water that was held. Some trickled out, creating small splotches in the street. The air was humid, warm, with a scent that only rain water can deliver.

                He finally made it to the doors of the church. His hand hesitated at the door handle before clasping it and pushing the door inward. Just like the street he could hear his steps rebound off the walls and pillars, but it wasn’t as discomforting. In fact, it was almost peaceful. His fingertips caressed the tops of the pews as he walked past them, his mind in a distant place as this brought back memories of the past. A past untainted. Ambitious. Hopeful, optimistic, and, lest of all, ignorant. That was until the cataclysm changed the world. Whispering snapped his attention back to the front of the church, but nothing appeared before his sight. It gradually grew louder and in larger number, raising the hairs on the nape of his neck. A shudder escaped from his spine, but his outward demeanor portrayed a calm, collected man. The candles slowly blew out, one by one, until the chandelier was his only source of protection. He stood underneath it as the shadows charged forward, being repealed by its opposite.

                The voices combined in a cacophony of noise, surging ever forward until… they stopped just as quickly as they had risen. The quiet whispering took its place, the darkness seemingly muffling the sound. While there was still time he reached into the pocket of his overcoat, withdrawing a bottle of holy water, a bag of pinch salt and a golden cross. The cross glistened from the light overhead and the bottle reflected the ember hue of flame. He began to recite psalms, all the while drawing a circle with the salt and splashing it with the holy water. The cross moved up, down, left, and right several times before finally being moved down to his side. All he had to do now was wait.

                He sat down, crossed-legged in the center of the circle, eyes closed and cross folded between both hands. The voices cried in anguish and fury; the chandelier rocked in place, swinging wildly. After several moments it stopped moving, returning to its normal position. He continued on praying in his trance. Finally the voices returned to whispers again and with their combined effort blew out the candle light, enveloping the room with darkness. They screamed into the abyss. 

Fiction Packet 11/6/13

Fiction Packet #3

Brandon Lazovic

                So we had a few packets to read for our creative writing class this week. The first set of stories was from the book The Singing Fish by Peter Markos. My interpretation of the stories would have to be a mixed response. It feels like tribal myths, the way it is written, the elements, the way things happen and are all explained are a lead example of this. The last story that was written could also justify how children age and grow up, learning and how they try and explain things in life. The word ‘mud’ is used in large amounts throughout the stories, which could allude to that tribal age of misunderstanding about the world, or possibly refer to skin color and African culture. It would make sense because of the way the stories are written in an unlearned dialectic, but it’s just a shot in the dark.

                The next story is called The Falling Girl by Dino Buzzati. The story begins with a girl falling down a skyscraper. The story itself, I feel, alludes to life. At the top of the skyscraper you are young, and when most people are young they try to grow up as quick as possible, passing by all the imagery of life (evident as this girl moves quickly from all the people she passes as she falls). There is a sense of freedom and independence that young people tend to have. It isn’t until the age begins to creep on someone that they realize that they aren’t alone and there are people out there with better things than them, better looks, better material objects, better lives. This stage is similar to a mid-life crisis, and this girl experiences that as she sees other women dressed in better clothes falling just like she is. Then the story alludes to only seeing old women fall to their deaths at the bottom of the skyscraper, which reinforces the transitional stages of life as they make their descent. They tend to hear thumps at the bottom, which I feel represent someone’s worth in life. In this circumstance, however, they don’t hear anything as this girl hits the cement.

                The story August 25^th, 1983 by Jorge Luis Borges is about a man finding himself in his hotel room, aged. I feel as though the man is a representation of himself, the younger of the two being the optimist and the older one being the pessimist. A reference to the stoics was made, adding to a philosophical aspect to the story that might support the split personalities of the narrator. The pessimistic side died the night in the story, but it took a piece of the optimist with him. In this sense maybe the pessimist won out in a duel of the personalities, influencing the other half more than the other half influenced it.

                Lastly, The Fifth Story by Clarice Lespector is actually quite interesting. It describes various scenarios in which to kill cockroaches. However, with each story the thought process into killing them gets more intensive as the narrator puts more thought into their actions. It likens the cockroaches to Pompei as the volcano buried the town alive. This story might actually be explaining the human psyche and how we think into things so heavily. Everything is intrinsic, the pathways into thought every branching away as every action that we take has a reaction and another action. It kind of makes me think of Nietsche where nothing matters, having a nihilistic attitude. There’s also a theory that for every action somewhere in another parallel world you perform the opposite choice, so nothing you do technically matters. Not sure if this correlates with this story, but it makes me think of those two things.  

Fiction Packet Analysis

Blog Response 10/30/13

Brandon Lazovic

               

                To begin with, we were given three packets to introduce us to fiction. The first packet that I read was Writing Fiction by Burroway. Fiction is all about show vs. tell, and we are to tell through our own personal experiences and make the reader feel. The purpose of fiction is to allow the reader to feel things in which there is no negative price to pay for feeling them, such as love, condemn, condone, hope, dread, hate, without risk. We are to rely on the five senses to convey these emotions to the reader, as well as provide definite and concrete details to add to the validity of the story being told. Those details, however, must be relevant and significant. If we were to write about every single detail throughout the day it wouldn’t relay to the reader at all. In the end, emotion is the physical reaction of the body to react to information. In the packet it’s also touched upon that verbs can add to writing, but can also detract from the energy in using them with what is known as the pathetic fallacy (attributing emotions to man-made objects) if used too often. Adverbs can also express emphasis or suddenness, but slow the sentence down so it dilutes the force of the meaning in the sentence. Rhythm, prose, and punctuation are used to great effect as well when writing as it helps take the reader beyond just the words on the page. In the packet the story Everything that Rises must Converge by Flannery O’Connor demonstrates everything that the packet stated, tying it all together.

                The next packet, Polaroid, discusses characters and plot. It states that no one really knows how a draft will go, or what twists and turns it will take, but eventually a story will come out of it. The author discusses a special Olympics meet that they went to and eventually got an idea for their story. Again, emotional output is important to flesh out a character. Each person gets their own acre of land in an emotional sense, and we use that to make them come alive as we write about them. No person is exactly the same. It also says in the fiction packet that a likeable narrator is key in a story, and to this effect I’d have to agree. They use the analogy of, ‘if you enjoy someone’s company, even if they ask you to a garbage dump you couldn’t think of anywhere else you’d want to be, as opposed to having a boring or annoying person ask you on an expensive dinner date that they would pay for and you would rather stay at home.” Narrator’s also must be reliable and trustworthy. We have an obligation to telling the truth even though we are making up characters. We have to listen to our characters and give them justice on the page.

                The packet then moves on to plot and the main rule that I got out of it was write about the characters first, and the plot will soon follow. Don’t work so specifically on the plot scheme because in the end it just won’t work. Keep it vivid and continuous and have people read it to work out the kinks from a neutral standpoint. Dialogue becomes a topic and for me I consider dialogue to be extremely important. In a sense, having bad dialogue in an otherwise good story is like watching a B-list movie with horrible writing and acting, but the exposition is good. It just takes the reader out of the story and dissolves a character. Again, time will help flesh out the character. Dialogue requires a little finesse, only because you can’t jam words into the characters mouth. It has to come naturally, which will happen once your familiarity with the character becomes realized. The final packet, syntax by Goldberg, I feel ties in a lot with the previous two packets and reiterates the same things to varying degrees, so I’m not going to go in depth about that packet. But in all these three packets are a lot to take in, but really give good advice to aspiring writers that I’ve never thought about before when I’ve wrote stories, and I’ll come away from this with a good amount of writing tools to help expand my stories. 

Mechanical

Mechanical

Brandon Lazovic

               

                His heart was throbbing in his chest, the steady beat pounding against his rib cage. Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump. Blood was rushing throughout his body as he moved rhythmically without much thought. It was almost emotionless, without much passion. The only sound that he could hear were his own ragged breaths intermingled with her pleasure filled ones. Her nails dug into his bare back, leaving red marks that he would never see. His body was stiff, tense, focused on that one motion. Their hips grinded into each other more forcefully with each and every thrust, the creaking of the bed joining into the moans uttered from her mouth. A cacophony of passion fallen upon deaf ears. She tilted her head back, lower lip clenched by her pearly teeth, eyes tightly shut as pleasure flashed upon her imagination, painting a silent picture on a black portrait. He continued to look on, his mind completely blank. The only thing that he was aware of was his phallus, pulsating and hard. Even the shallow pleasure that he could feel was numbed by his indifference. He pushed harder, the rocking of the bed and louder moans adding to the impromptu melody being created.

                They were both coming close now, her hips moving up and down in a more erratic pattern. He tried keeping pace, but couldn’t quite match hers. They were arrhythmic, no longer one. Separate entities vying for their own gains. The little enjoyment that he had was now gone and the thought of taking hers away flashed upon his mind. He didn’t go through with it and pressed harder, his hands gripping into her shoulders just as hers sank into the flesh of his back, pulling him closer. She screamed in bliss, colors flashing across her vision, all sound distant and her mind focused on the singular, immense pleasure that she felt. As she was lost in her own world he felt a sharp climax, his phallus distinct for one final moment before softening. He stared off into the corner, unfeeling, devoid of emotion. Just as quickly as it had begun it ended and her grip slackened, her arms plopping onto the bedspread without control. He rolled off beside her, his hands tucked behind his head. As her breathing returned to normal she nestled up beside him, her head in the crook of his shoulder, arm wrapped around his chest and leg crossed over his thighs. She could feel his heart beat and he could feel hers. She was everything that he could never be, but loving was the most prominent one. Where she was light, he was darkness. Where she was whole, he was broken. Where her heart still vibrantly beat, his died long ago, shattered beyond repair. In a way they were two sides of the same coin; she was alive, while he was mechanical.

Poetry vs. Fiction Blog Response

Poetry vs. Fiction Blog Response

Brandon Lazovic

                So for my Blog Response this week since we are transitioning from poetry to fiction I want to bring up the question: what are the differences and similarities between the two? I think it’d be a good topic since we’re beginning to write micro stories (or rather we started last week). To begin with, I feel as though poetry and fiction are very distinctive counterparts to one another. Both can be written about literally any subject, but the word ‘literal’ can’t be used to truly describe poetry. It’s very subversive, vague, and written in a way so that the reader has to go back and reread the poem multiple times in order to uncover what the poem is actually about. The entire poem is a landmine field, with clues about the actual meaning of the poem littered throughout the entire page that it is written on. They just have to be uncovered first and that can be a messy process. Sometimes poetry can be misleading in its clues, contradicting what it said earlier in the poem to add emphasis to the topic that it is written about.

                Everything has to be analyzed in a poem, and I mean everything. The word scheme, layout, rhyme scheme, pacing, the very last sentences of the poem, the title, everything contributes to the poem. Poems tend to be short, not spanning over too many pages. I feel as though longer poems detract from the meaning that they output if they are beyond a few pages. It’s extremely hard to study and puzzle out if it spans very far as poetry can be very ambiguous. Sonnets are my favorite type of poetry to read as they keep it short, concise, and each quatrain or sestet has an underlying meaning to the entirety of the poem that must be realized. It’s also very pleasing to read based on the pacing. Some poetry utilizes a ‘jazz style’ to keep with the pacing, making it almost into a song rather than a poem. But it works and is pleasurable to read.

                 Fiction is a stark contrast to poetry. It focuses primarily on descriptive detail, character development, plot detail, and a more clear focus on what it’s about. Personally I enjoy writing fiction more than poetry. There isn’t so much emphasis on a word limit, line pacing, or finding that perfect word to fit the line you are currently writing. The descriptiveness paints a very clear picture in the reader’s head and holds them in its embrace as it takes them on a journey, telling them a story and painting a picture. That picture is the start as the camera pans out and it’s like watching a movie, only with so much detail about everything in the setting. Fiction stories can be as long as they want to be as there are different classifications of stories. There are micro stories, spanning no more than a few hundred words, short stories, novellas, novels, it continues on.

                I enjoy the characterization as it makes me feel as though I am right there, watching in a ghostly perspective where they can’t see me, but I can see them with an omniscient presence, knowing everything going on with each character. The writer takes you on a ride, revealing plot twists, minute details that play a role later on and are re-explained to add emphasis, and gradually reveals his or her message that is being explained in the book. It has to be delved into and is more time consuming than a poem’s message is (provided a book is much larger) but it just isn’t as vague as a poem. Because of the time consumption into the novel, however, the message has a much deeper impact since the reader has been involved in the story for hours or even days. It’s just like a movie, but not as chopped up and condensed.

                At the end of the day I enjoy writing both pieces of literature, but am more of a fiction guy than anything else. There are stark contrasts between both, in my mind being opposites in a lot of categories. I’ve learned a good amount about what poetry really is, and just as I’ve learned a lot in that section of the course I’m sure that I’ll learn just as much as we jump into the fiction portion. My final thought: what do you prefer to read or write? Poetry or Fiction?  

Short Stories Reading Packet Response

Blog Response

Brandon Lazovic

                This week we had to read a packet of short stories (about three of them). The first in this collection was Brian Evenson’s Internal. Throughout the story it follows an intern who has to analyze his mentor’s brother, spying on him in an apartment complex that he lives in. Throughout this story it seems to satire the way that the medical profession is run in terms of psychosis. The intern describes Rauch as having found 200 classifications of disorders for patients in his book, that list forever growing. However he never actually discusses a cause of these disorders. There is also a hint of dehumanization and distance with doctor Rauch as the intern prefers not to get close with him. The fact that Rauch’s brother seems to not exist also adds to that sense of dehumanization. Regarding the next psychologist, Kagen, he focuses on the behavior of his patients throughout the story. The intern obsesses over it, obsessively writing in his notebook posture of the man he is assigned to watch (Kagen’s brother). At times the intern obsesses over the brother’s behaviors as he spies on him, yet completely neglects his own behaviors and appearance, then describing his mannerisms as healthy, more than healthy.

                The intern seems off-kilter as well, spying on people who may never have been there. He analyzes himself in more than one way, through Rauch’s classifications of personality as well as Kagen’s behavioral studies. It could be looked at further in the sense that the brother’s that he is spying on are actually manifestations of his own personality. Throughout his travel to get to the rundown apartment building for Rauch’s brother he analyzes his own personality, trying to describe himself and find what personalities he has. But upon inspecting the building and poking holes to find an empty room this could be that he truly has no comprehension as to who he truly is and what personality traits he exhibits. Or, again, that whole trip was his attempt to discover his own personality traits. In a more abstract manner Dr. Rauch’s description of his brother may actually be the intern’s trait percentages, that 8% that is missing manifesting itself in his brother as the intern is unable to find that 8% of himself that is unknown.

                In regards to Kagen’s brother it’s apparent, or at least hinted at, that the brother isn’t truly there. The intern seemingly enters the exact same apartment considering the description of the apartment was similar to the first one: there being no kitchen, a heat plate, cans of soup in the closet; what gives the largest hint, however, are the holes poked into the wall from his previous spying attempts. The intern watches all of Kagen’s brothers mannerisms, behaviors, and obsessively scribbles them down in his notebook trying to make sense of them but ultimately cannot. In the awareness that he is spying on Kagen’s brother, this manifestation makes itself known in the intern as Kagen’s brother seemingly stares back at him and sends him blank sheets of paper through the wall. The intern becomes obsessive, trying to make sense of Kagen’s brother. But just as with Rauch’s brother he cannot understand what it all means, those blank sheets of paper coming through the hole an example of that as he cannot truly comprehend his own mannerisms.

                I feel as though the story is a satire on psychology methods practiced today, treating the symptoms that come about without actually understanding the underlying causes for them. The biggest piece of evidence for this assumption is the intern not understanding his mannerisms and personality traits at all despite knowing what they are on a shallow scale, as well as each doctor’s approach to trying and correct their disorders through their different methods without understanding the root cause of these disorders.

                The second story is called Point and Line by Thalia Field. It’s a very interesting story as it seemingly jumps from place to place. In my mind it jumps from perspective to perspective, the main one being that a woman in this man’s house. I would try and connect what is going on in the story with each other, but the phrase, “always assume nothing relates” in the story really sticks out to me. So instead of having everything written to follow each other in the story they really aren’t meant to, being their own stand out entities. Going back through it on a brief glance a second time I notice that each paragraph really doesn’t correlate with one another too much. Maybe the author was trying to write about things that she saw in daily life or was thinking about as she picked out particular events or experiences throughout the day.

                The two main parts of the story that do correlate with each other, however, are the fragments regarding the woman and man and the little girl on the street. It seems as though the woman had cheated on the man and they were discussing it, or discussing their issues with one another. The room was awkwardly silent, the cat the only one comfortable in its surroundings. She makes several allusions to Schrodinger’s cat, so in that regard it could pertain to the relationship. Something in it could’ve easily saved it and it was a 50-50 chance that they would still be together had an event or mannerism in time not transpired. But when the box was opened the cat was dead and as they discuss their relationship (ending one at that) the only option that the man explored was the one which wasn’t an option (being together still). The sentence, “We would have lived life differently had we known the dumb thing was empty!” probably refers to the fact that they maybe had nothing in the relationship, yet tried to keep it alive. The constant referring back to the cat in the room seems like it may support this notion. But in the end it didn’t matter if their relationship thrived or died off, pointing back to the sentence regarding the box being empty. The little girl on the street is somewhat surprising considering she stole a scarf, pretending to be an innocent little child but is really a thief, not caring if she were to get caught. That may be where “Always assume nothing relates,” in which case that could be translated to never judge a book by its cover. There is most likely more to the story that I am missing as it seems there is a large amount that I missed behind the way it’s worded and the particular word choice, allusions, and thoughts behind the story, Freudian references included.

                The final story is Close Range by Annie Proulx. The story follows two ranching families. One has an extremely hard life, while the other has extremely poor luck brought by their design. These families draw parallels and contrasts between one another. While both have it off bad, one family thrives while the other barely gets by, one working extremely hard while the other doesn’t. The Dunmire family are raised tough, hard, and bear the brunt of their hard life. The Tinsleys, on the other hand, seem more pampered in a sense, although misfortune falls upon them for better reasons considering they plant crops on the bad soil, plant the wrong crops and change their produce from season to season, and was a failure as a stockman. His wife threw their child into the river and killed it and as a result she was extremely overprotective of her children. Her son had aspirations of the sea and at the age of sixteen went out and explored the world. Unfortunately he wasn’t raised to face the cruelty of the world and returned years later scarred for the rest of his life, his face a mess, a hole in his throat, and a lame shamble on his leg that was broken numerous times.

                During this time the Great Depression and dustbowl hits, hurting both families with financial issues, livestock and produce burden and an overall horrible time to live. The Tinsley’s son ends up going about, exposing himself to neighboring women. He’s warned that he can’t do that (after doing it for a while) but he just laughs at his father for the first time. Well, he gets a fever and ends up dying because his penis was cut off with a dirty knife and it turns gangrenous. I feel like Ras didn’t care and actually wanted to die, his only freedom being that of having no rules or whims in which to follow. In a sense this story is about broken dreams and aspirations, considering both families are brought into unfortunate circumstances and don’t have a way to dig themselves out. It parallels the different paths that they take, but most of all it highlights the climate during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. The quote at the ends really adds an anti-climax to the story but gives a hint at what the story was trying to convey. “That was all sixty years ago and more. Those hard days are finished. The Dunmires are gone from the country, their big ranch broken in those dry years. The Tinsleys are buried somewhere or other, and cattle range now where the Moon and Stars grew. We are in a new millennium and such desperate things no longer happen. If you believe that you’ll believe anything.” So basically it’s saying that hard times will always be upon us, no matter when or where it is. If you believe that hard times no longer exist, you’re gullible and don’t understand how the world really works. There is a quote at the front of the story, saying “People in Hell just want a drink of water” and I feel as though it pertains to people wanting some respite from the hard ships that they face. They want the easy life and wish that they could have it while they’re in their own personal Hell. But throughout the story things didn’t seem to get any better and both families had to keep moving on against the adversity and hardship or else they’d drown in it. 

Blog Response (Chiaroscuro)

Blog Response (Chiaroscuro)

Brandon Lazovic

                So for my blog response this week instead of writing another response to an assignment in class (because I don’t have any other assignments to write on) I’m going to elaborate on one of the poems that I wrote this week, Chiaroscuro. It’s technically my thirteen lines assignment (when you take an object and write thirteen different ideas about it). Originally I thought about writing about emotions and the different ones that people feel, but I ended up writing about the Seven Deadly Sins. I’m not really sure why, but I just had a spark to write about them and ended up doing it. To fit the assignment I ended up accompanying them with the Seven Holy Virtues in order to make it fourteen lines instead of thirteen (close enough). In a sense I stuck to the emotion format, but tweeked it to make it more specific.

                Throughout the poem I write one sin and one virtue side by side to what I thought would match up the best (the opposite ends of the spectrum to fit each other). As I got down the list it got kind of hard to match them accordingly since some of the virtues didn’t quite match up correctly with the leftover sins, or any of the sins in general. I also wrote the poem in a ‘Ye old tyme’ format, to the best of my ability. I’ve always enjoyed the way older poems from previous centuries are written compared to modern times and wanted to emulate that in my writing this time, or at least try to incorporate certain aspects of it into my style of writing. Each quatrain is written in a ABAB format similar to a sonnet, along with the 10 syllables per line, except the last line I changed it to a 12 syllable sentence instead to lengthen up the conclusion for the sin or virtue.

                The rest of the poem is written kind of cryptically and vaguely, enough so that the reader can still have a general idea of what it’s about on first glance but the sentences need to be elaborated on in order to fully understand them (similar to that ‘ye old tyme’ style). The only other note worthy thing about my poem would have to be the title, Chiaroscuro, which in Italian means “light and dark.” It’s generally used in artistic contrast and style, but I thought it was the perfect title for my poem considering the poem bounces back and forth between sin and virtue, the worst aspects in people compared to the most highly regarded aspects in human nature. Some of the content of the poem has a few allusions, just enough to make the reader think a little in the context they’re used in without going over the top and overfilling the poem with them. In regards to what the poem’s content is it basically goes into detail about the sins and virtues. Again, it’s written cryptically to make the reader think about what the underlying meaning is, but in the end it’s all about the sin or virtue listed. But that’s all I have to really say without being too specific or picking apart the content of the poem, so read it and enjoy!

Chiaroscuro

Chiaroscuro  

Brandon Lazovic

Wrath, thy hearts angst against fellow human

An angered state of provoked emotion

As thy blood courses and pumps on demand

Crimson mercury spilt by preconceived notion

Prudence, thou’s wisdom unhindered in strife

Blinded in foresight thine eyes cannot be

Reason forever valued in thy life

Thou’s unmarred vision forever a guarantee

Greed, the downfall for those insatiable

Forever chasing wealth, status, and power

Thou art insidious, tyrannical

Thou’s desire shall lead to one’s final hour

Charity, friendship of man for Him

Benevolence reflected in thine heart

Even in circumstance proving most grim

Love for thy fellow man cannot keep thou apart

Sloth, encompassing state of dejection

Apathy of both body and spirit

Beware thy star’s silver inflection

Mischief befalls those whom laziness inherit

Faith, held in thy hand during time of need

Opening thou’s soul for thy Creator

As other’s speak untruth and heresy

Thou standeth against deceit, the serpent traitor

Pride, inflation of one’s mentality

Leads to thy demise and place infernal

Egotistic thoughts fool reality

Goliath, once proud and tall, slumbers eternal

Hope, optimistic interpretation

Eternal happiness thy only quest

Through the virtue of thy Divine Union

Ceaseless against hardship, thou’s light worn as a crest

Lust, thine guise masterful and unending

Intense desire forever burning

A bright phoenix flame thou art offending

With dark dragon’s flame burning thy soul through yearning

Temperance, a staple in character

Human spirit cannot maintain itself

Without control of excess poor feature

Restraint key in thy visage, building thy soul’s wealth

Envy, downfall in the hearts of many      

Wishing upon other’s inheritance

Spying through a lens procures jealousy

Benign or malicious, it shalt bring emptiness

Justice, thy art of reciprocity

Caught between the selfish and the selfless

Neutral standpoint, cousin of Charity

Giving those due of moral and legal assess

Gluttony, thou art a sin in excess

Shameful as thou binge to gratify tongue

 Immorality withstanding, but lest

Thine own image crack in thy reflection when sung

Fortitude, the quality of heroes

Apathy against thou’s antithesis

Thou’s moral courage is admirable

Venus’ silver tongue would prove even speechless

The Bird of Hermes

The Bird of Hermes

Brandon Lazovic

Reaching toward the sky

As Icarus flaps his wings overhead

Grasping at the sun

The wax begins to melt

Feathers fall to the Earth in clumped chunks

Making splashes in the vast sea

The biggest splash of all penetrates its depths

All he ever knew was the blue sky

Beautiful, yet unmarred, empty

The sky was the limit for his dreams

But it was fool’s gold, he soared too high

Reality grabbed hold with its foul grip

Pulling him forever downward

No fluffy clouds to buffer his descent

No winds to cushion his fall

No Benevolence to save him

Upward was a feathered silhouette, similar to his

It watched at a distance as he crashed into the sea

He thrashed about in the waters, gasping for air

The current and waves thrust themselves relentlessly

Forcing him into the cold ocean depths

Clinging for dear life he returned above surface again

And again

And again

And again

Gasping for breath

Flailing his aching arms to the sky above

Wishing to soar above the world

Having a mere taste of freedom

But his thread had been cut

And with the same scissors of fate his wings were clipped

His efforts were in vain and he sank into the sea

With hand outstretched towards the sky

The same that had immersed him in warm embrace

Now shunned him, taunting him with its brilliance

The sea overtook him, the sky becoming darker and darker

His hand still reaching above until not even the light pervaded the ocean abyss

The bird of Hermes is my name 

My wings were clipped to keep me tame

But falling to Earth seems so inane

Is clipping my wings really humane?  

Fiction Packet Summary

Fiction Packet Summary

Brandon Lazovic

               

                So this week’s blog will be about the short fiction packet that we are reading. This packet contains content from various authors, each story about a page or so. I’ll only mention stories that stood out to me since there are so many. Each description though is going to be a little short considering the length of each entry. The first story in the packet is Survivors by Kim Addonizio. This story tells the tale of a gay couple who have been together for quite some time. The main clincher is they are arguing about who is going to die first. The cause is somewhat hidden, but the first sentence refers to them counting down to their last T cells. I feel as though it is a reference to AIDs, considering they are gay and the AIDs virus kills off antibodies and other cells in the body as it spreads.

                Next up is Colonel by Carolyn Forche and the thing that stood out about this story is the fact that this colonel cuts off peoples ears, stores them in a sack and just litters them upon a table to show potential enemies not to mess with him. The shock factor is definitely what made the story stand out in my mind. It’s pretty gruesome in a simplistic way as it doesn’t really go into detail about the ears.

After this is Walking the Baby to the Liquor Store by Michael Van Wallegxen. I found it kind of bizarre as this father takes his child to a liquor store to spend time with her. The child adores the liquor store and when they get home they even take a drink together. But of all the fixations a child could have, why a liquor store? Maybe it’s his own fixation manifesting and that he is actually the one who adores the liquor store and is using the child as a crutch and an excuse to go. But that’s just my own personal explanation.

                Resident by T.J. Beitleman describes a man named Esterowicz who used to fly kites in his youth. Years later as he becomes older he contemplates life, a hermit who moves from town to town. He comments on the wind as it’s a main point in the short story. My thought on this is the allusion that the wind is actually a sense of freedom, as he blows with the wind and moves of his own volition from place to place. But the kite that he used to fly as a child restricted him as he was the one who ground it down so it couldn’t fly away. As a child he didn’t have the absolute freedom that he does know as an adult, hence why he doesn’t fly kites anymore. He is the master of his own destiny in a sense.   

                The Letter from Home by Jamaica Kincaid was really interesting to read. In the beginning it discusses this woman’s daily chores, but it enters this stream of consciousness format. What really caught my attention was the way everything was described; brief and not too descriptive. Towards the middle of the story the description of certain things started to take on a cause and effect aspect which was interesting to read/pace. But as the person thought about things each train of thought would lead into another train of thought. For example, “the earth spins on its axis, the axis is imaginary, the valleys correspond to the sea, the sea corresponds to the dry land, the dry land corresponds to the snake whose limbs are now reduced.” A large portion of the story is like this and it’s just interesting to read it in that perspective. A few portions of the story are normal and it leads me to believe that they are significant and have a purpose to why they were written, but to what effect I’m not able to discern.

                But what was her Name? by Dawn Raffel caught my intrigue. It’s vague in a sense, but basically it describes the life cycle of a woman. She is first born into the world ‘by some trick of oxygen,’ then is forwarded to being an adult in the kitchen cooking, having born kids and married. It jumps again, this time to her sitting in her chair as an elderly woman, grown senile. “A man she as raised delivers a slipper. Look at him! He wears the groom’s robe. Her fingerbone will not release the ring. “Father?” she says. She sees her breath. She has white in the bed of her birth. The past had taken hold of her—the heart’s last sleight.” She’s grown senile, mistaking her son for her father. She soon dies, remembering the past. People say that the last thing you do before you die is see your life flash before your eyes and that is what she did, seeing her father from the past, long dead. Regarding the story I enjoyed the way it was written, it made me think more in depth about of the story.

                Morning News by Jeremy Stern was another story that interested me. The main gist of it was that a man with his wife received bad news. He thought about life and how he would spend his last week, or month, or year in life. He imagined a final meal atop the Eiffel Tower, but ended up buying a sixty inch television in a warehouse. The main message is to not take life for granted and live in the now rather than the past or the future as well as to appreciate what life has to offer from day to day.

                This packet is interesting to say the least. There are several fiction shorts that are definitely worth a read, but overall most of the stories are different from each other in topic, diction, vocabulary, syntax, and the overall message they are trying to convey. Some of them are very peculiar and strange, but I feel as though that’s their draw point. The diversity of the packet as whole made it a worthwhile read. 

Red Russia

*Just to clarify for this assignment we had to follow a guideline (20 specific things that we had to incorporate into our poem) so if it seems a little funky that's why. Anyway, enjoy!*

Red Russia

Brandon Lazovic

Some days seem to me strange, almost a dream

They fade into memory like the Holocaust

Yet are always there, bursting at the seams

Visions cross of Putin addressing Moscow like Faust

As the Ruski’s march down Red Square

They shout Smert' vsem, chto protivopostavit nam (Death to all that oppose us)!

The guns in their hand quiet and controlled

I float above, awaiting their next move

A man named Laz stands amongst them yet alone

A future leader, waiting to pursue the truth

His red handgun holstered, waiting to speak

As it screams in the cities with a silencer

He crosses himself, muttering Pust' Bog miloserdiya (may God have mercy) under his breath

The gun whispers to him to continue on without fear

He continues on with his gun, without hesitation, causing death

His house is warm, the taste of bourbon heats his insides

He thinks to himself, Bary derutsya - u kholopov chuby treshchat (when the rich make war it’s the poor that die).

The golden bourbon clouds his thoughts

He imagines his wife, young and beautiful

The touch of her skin is delicate

He smells her perfume, his love for her infinite

Shots are fired in the distance

He could taste death on her lips, she was listless

He stood there as the snow fell, flaked with red stains

The Red of Russia. 

City Eclogue Summary

City Eclogue Summary

Brandon Lazovic

                For class this week we had to read City Eclogue by Ed Roberson. It’s a collection of poems by this author and is divided into several parts, the first of which is the chapter City Eclogue. In the beginning of this chapter the poems are ‘normal’ (as far as that goes). Something I noticed was as the poems went on the spacing between the words and sentences got more irregular. Since the title of the book is City Eclogue, it felt to me that it was done purposely to convey that the city was overcrowded and that nothing was quite routine. The sentence structure and thought process became more vague or limited with each story as well, only highlighting key words or phrases. Also there are many key things repeated in each poem, such as the planet, mirrors, eyes/sight, and the city of course. I’m not quite sure what they allude to, although maybe it’s supposed to elaborate on the scale at which we live (ourselves being tiny in comparison to a city or the world). As for the mirrors and eyes, my guess is that we see things everyday and it becomes normal to us. So much so that we take it for granted and live in the present as opposed to acknowledging the past or preparing for the future. The perspective also changes from more of a top, general view of everything to a more personalized view of an individual person’s perspective of the city, from the slums to the rich parties that some may have (as told in the last poem of this chapter).

                In the next chapter, Beauty Standing, it begins on a comparison to cities and oceans. The world is being polluted and as cities are built on the land Roberson states in one of the poems, “they are made   into land people pour into to colonize   as artificial reef is sunk next to dying corals on the sea floor   such as housing,” further emphasizing that as artificial cities are being made the natural beauty of nature is being destroyed. Throughout the chapter pollution and corruption are touched upon, talking about the pollution that cities emanate as well as the division between people (the rich and poor, the segregation of race, black being the prominent one). In this aspect a few poems follow a regular person who isn’t making enough money and is influenced to blame problems on blacks and even politics (as all politics try and focus on the values of people according to one poem). Most of the poems make the point to rhyme and the flow of words and the way they are worded doesn’t seem so fragmented and hectic, but rather makes it seem overwhelming in a sense as you read as it allows you to read quickly with a build up to it.

                The chapter after Beauty Standing is called The Open. The beginning of this chapter is extremely bleak, talking about fires and embers everywhere and a city basically burning down. As it continues all it speaks of a city in ruins, bleak, the history of it worn as the ambers settle and the years drag by. Death and the dead is commonly brought up throughout each poem, describing people as ghosts. This could allude to both the death of people as well as the death of culture in the city, the city becoming a ghost as most people move away in search of better things. One part of the very last poem in this chapter reinforces this, “ He wants to walk away from this. This rough odd luck how many in his make up brought---walking away from rope   irons    the capture--- up through him    his hair   the glide to his feet   the tendency to go fu’thuh in life   Somewhere a couple decent pair of shoes.” Things get bad enough and people leave in search of a better life, for a decent pair of shoes to wear on their feet. Not for wants, but necessities that are taken for granted amongst most people. Some can’t though as they are caught in bondage. This could be meant in a physical sense, but I feel as though it is more of an emotional sense or a financial sense. Everyone is too poor to leave, they have nothing waiting for them anywhere else and so they are caught in an endless loop of poverty.

                Next chapter is Ornithologies, and it’s kind of short compared to the other chapters. Basically it describes nature and almost praises it for its beauty and its peacefulness. It displays people living with nature in their city and the peace it brings compared to the busy lives of people in the city as their days converge on a time schedule. There really isn’t much else to say about it other than it’s a stark contrast compared to the chapter before it, maybe a prologue in the novel that the city is. Or maybe it’s even what the city became after the corruption and pollution that preceded it.

                The second to final chapter, Her Movement By The Moment In Occurrence, displays various human emotions, from love, primal instinct and survival, hate, and wishing for no emotion at all. It shifts from person intimate human contact to various geographical spots far away from civilization, from the Northern part of the globe to the vast blue sky. It contrasts between nature and human thought and how one is free and pure (nature) while the other is corrupted and destructive as well as ignorant (humanity). The final chapter, Eclogue, continues on, questioning human thought and if it is very far seeing and if we think beyond just the everyday norms that we come across every day. We do not as we kill the planet with our cities and way of life, destroying nature and the bounty that comes with it. “What can we say of our own that stand in Newark say   so far adrift from a chance to was   that the dirt on her feet cracks into sores the skin of her soles   and steps her in one more shit infection she has to kick, one more occupation of her body by her monkey rulers she will have to throw off into space   off her back   burned out but clear of starring habit.   Of her destroyed sun   say it endows the landfill   on which to build a new development   “We are the stuff of stars,” Sagan says.” In this context is seems that ‘she’ is the Earth and that all the terrible things happening to her are the effects of humanity, the cities that we produce, the pollution that is spewed about, and it slowly spreads from a little speck of dirt on her feet to sores and infections as it continues to grow.

                In short, a City Eclogue is a very diverse book of poetry. Each chapter correlates to a certain message and there are many allusions to be found in the book, from God (both Greek and Christian), to death, shadows, ghosts, culture, water/rivers and oceans, and a whole slew of other allusions. The main message is that the cities we live in are demonized, horrible environments that do nothing but harm ourselves, the way we think and act as well as the environment. The way the poems are written are thought out and different from one another in several aspects, and the main message is clear but has a depth of complexity to it that isn’t quite apparent in the first hand full of poems and the book conveys it to great effect.