Resonse to Jeremy's short story "Dreams"

      Jeremy, I did enjoy your short story. I thought your dialogue was effective and fairly realistic. Since basically the whole story is in dialogue, it is important that your dialogue between the characters Hikari and Sora to be realistic and significant. Although i did find some things repetitive, such as "she," but overall it was pretty realistic. Having so much dialogue allows the story to lack in detail. I would have liked to see more physical details about the characters and the setting. I'm not exactly sure how you would incorporate them because I don't want the descriptions to disrupt the flow of the story because I thought it flowed nicely throughout, but I would attempt to add some descriptions throughout the story about each character and the karate training setting. Along with that, I really would have liked to see Sora and the captain's relationship develop a little bit. The background information between the two helped me as a reader and also Hikari understand who Sora is and why he acts the way he does.
      I liked how you made the story focus on Sora even though it was mainly from Hikari's point of view. I thought you did a good job with the viewpoints and allowed the reader to see almost Sora and Hikari's viewpoints. Thus, I kind of wish I would have been able to see some things from the captain's viewpoint and see a little insight into who the captain is. I feel as though you could create a scene or two between the captain and Hikari or how the captain acts around Sora now, besides when they were young and the captain stood up for Sora.
      Overall, I enjoyed your story and thought it was very entertaining. For a short story, your characters were pretty well developed and your dialogue was effective, allowing the reader to trust you as an author. Great job!

Response to Richard Bausch's "1-900"

           The title of Bausch’s short story at first glance gave me no insight to what the story would contain, but as I read deeper into the story I realized it signified the sex chat line that John, the main character had called. Bausch chooses many interesting tactics and approaches to this short story. First, he chose to write the entire story in dialogue. Thus, the reader learns about John, Sharon, Kate, and John’s kids through dialogue and not descriptions by a narrator. Each line is either John or Sharon speaking through a phone. Another interesting approach is the story in general. An odd talkative character calls a phone sex line to basically blurt out his personal life issues. I found this quite humorous throughout; especially when John began talking about deeper ethical issues like the prostitutes choosing to follow certain laws when they have chosen a “career” that goes against the law.  Honestly, I do think John wanted to eventually get to the “sex part” like he says, but he obliviously and annoyingly seems to go off on tangents about his life. As Sharon begins to play the game by answering personal questions, I also found it humorous that John ends up turning Sharon off, who uses phone sex as a job. I would think it would take a whole lot to turn someone like that so off that they cannot even pretend to be interested or please the random person on the other side of the phone. I mean, she does it for a living! No wonder Kate divorced John. He seems a little creepy to me too. However, I thought the story was humorous and entertaining, but it wasn’t my favorite short story we have read so far. I kept waiting for something to happen, but nothing big ever really showed up. Of course, the whole “phone sex” theme made the story interesting, but I wish something beyond just talking on the phone could have happened.

Response to Denis Johnson's "Emergency"

       I found Johnson's short story through a stoner's eyes extremely entertaining and interesting. The dream-like quality and haziness throughout the story actually kept my hand turning each page to read what would happen next. Although many dramatic things happened, such as running over a rabbit, saving its babies, removing a knife from a man's eye, etc., the story lacked any sort of build-up. This made it difficult for me to become emotionally attached to the story or even the characters. The flat tone of how the story is told by the narrator and the odd responses each character has towards events, seem to make it a little disconnected to me as a reader; of course, that could just due to Georgie and the narrator being on high on stolen hospital drugs. For example, Georgie miraculously removes a knife from a man's lustful eye, and a nurse's only response to it is that Georgie needs to tie his shoe laces. Since these records are being recalled from the narrator's point of view and he says several times that he's not positive on all the details, some disconnection from the story and the reader also comes into play because we as readers do not see the narrator as a valid source for information. Also, the flat tone for me brought in a sense of humor because of the irony of the story. Heavy themes of death, failure, escape, guilt, saving lives, and even sight, are shown throughout the piece, but yet  they are presented in a light or passive way. Plus, the two main characters are high. As a whole, I did enjoy Johnson's short story. It made me laugh, search for a deeper meaning in the story, and confused me, but in a good way. Though as a reader I felt a little emotionally disconnected, it actually made me use my imagination to put myself in the main character's shoes.

A First World Pain - Television exercise

A First World Pain

By Jessica Mullino

Getting paid to lie on the couch, watch television, and raid a family’s pantry? I guess it can’t be that bad. I mean, that’s basically what I would do at home anyways, except for getting paid in cash I would more than likely be paid in yells ringing through the house from my mom, why aren’t you doing anything tonight? Or, if you’ve got all this time on your hands go fold your clothes or clean your room! Babysitting two small girls between the ages of five and seven on a Friday night doesn’t exactly lie at the very top of my high school bucket list, or even at all really, but I figure doing a sweet couple that I know through church a favor this one time wouldn’t completely kill me, although it would diminish my “twelfth weekend in a row hanging out with my friends in the middle of a field” record.

            After calling the Stiff’s, I gathered their address, 1147 Flatwood Road, that they would only be gone two to three hours at the most, and that they were paying me fifty dollars for the whole night. Two or three hours for fifty bucks? Not bad, Stiff family. Since I’m only sixteen, I’ll take any money I can get. Plus, all I’m going to do is watch my absolutely favorite television channel anyways.

            Channel forty was airing the final episode to the Missing series, in which a seventeen year old blonde girl goes missing. Though cliché, this thrilling series has captured my Tuesdays from 6:00pm-7:00pm. In the last three seasons, I’ve never missed a show, nor am I about to. With each episode, my heart beats faster and faster becoming attached to the helpless parents, shady policemen, and untrustworthy friends of the petite blonde. Tonight’s airing will answer all the questions I’ve been longing to know. Why is she missing? Is she alive? Who kidnapped her? Etc. Basically, this episode was expected to top every television show ever created. Tonight it goes down in history.

            As I arrived at the Stiff home, they welcomed me into their two-story home. The walls’ colors were warm and inviting, painted with soft desert tans and reds. Smells of cinnamon and vanilla filled the rooms as they toured me through each of the rooms, upstairs and downstairs. Mr. and Mrs. Stiff smiled and introduced their two young daughters, Kelly and Kameron. As they began to make their way towards the door, giving Kelly and Kameron kisses and reviewing the “be good” speeches, I glanced in the living room. Hmm… no television.

            “Oh, Mrs. Stiff, I didn’t see a T.V. earlier, where do y’all keep one?” Kelly and Kameron looked at me with annoyed faces as their mom joyfully explained that they did not own one. It is an evil device that “corrupts young minds.” I was in shock.

“What? NOOOO!” Mrs. Stiff smiled and bid us farewell as she winked and walked out the door.

Response to Lydia Davis's "Television"

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Lydia Davis’s short short-story, Televsion. This piece was definitely easy to identify with and read through due to the speaker’s informal tone and the types of television shows the speaker describes. Davis gives the speaker a very dry, but humorous, and seemingly sarcastic, tone through her honest words. Each line seems to weave in and out of sociological and sensory observations as well. “We listen to the ads until we’re exhausted, punished with lists: they want us to buy so much, and we try, but we don’t have a lot of money. Yet we can’t help admiring the science of it all.” One of Davis’s advanced skills seems to be breaking down an experience without letting her prose turn analytic, or distant. Along with these details, Davis uses significant concrete images throughout each scenario. One of the most vivid scenes in which concrete images are described is when the speaker explains the emotions a father expresses through the tears that swell in his eyes with pride on a quiz show week after week. The speaker also describes other characters from the one quiz show that “is particularly good,” with great imagery. The mother, whom the speaker does not like, flashes a constant smile with her “bad teeth” and the boy who blinks at the television.

                Davis shows another huge strength of hers through her effective movement from topic to topic. Although she does number paragraphs from 1-3, she is able to create a rhythmic flow throughout the entire piece by covering several topics such as television shows, movies, connections between audience and characters, as well as her reasoning behind watching television at night to waste time, and still tie each of them together creating a satisfying closure. Each paragraph seems to go in chronological order as the day passes by which helps the flow of the story. The structure of this short short-story is also very unique in itself. Davis allows her story to be read easier due to her unique line breaks that happen frequently. Several times throughout the story Davis skips two or three lines between paragraphs and indents only certain lines instead of indenting the first line of each new paragraph.