You have to maintain a much more focused attention when reading a good short story versus a novel, because if you skim, you might miss something. For this reason, I find it a little more difficult on my brain to read short stories. But if you're going to write in the form, you should read in the form (and others--I have yet to memorize a poem as was suggested in my workshop last week), so I've been trying. Lauren Groff has a story called "At the Round Earth's Imagined Corners" in Best American Short Stories, 2014. You might have read her novel The Monsters of Templeton, or her other short story from a previous Best of collection, "Delicate Edible Birds" (also the name of her book of short stories), I have a vague recollection that that story was about World War II or possibly World War I and a dinner party where the people invited are living it up . I seem to also remember a line about the crunching of tiny bird bones. The Monsters of Templeton
Candyman hits on almost all of the sections we discussed over the last six weeks. Let's start from the most obvious and move from there. Race: A large part of Candyman confronts the anger and rage of the Black community after years and years and years and years of systemic racism. Candyman is an embodiment of all of the men who have suffered at the hands of whites (white police man, the white community, white systems that have set them up to fail such as the housing projects of Cabrini-Green). The monster of Candyman is a tornado of retribution, a hive of bees swirling angrily and containing the men who have been lynched or tortured by whites, starting with the original death of a Black male painter who dared to fall in love with a white woman whose portrait he painted. This monster, like the original, can be summoned by anyone who dares to say his name out loud in front of a mirror five times. Until the very end, the only people who do this are white--and every one of them is
I have been feeling very self-righteous lately because I have managed NOT to blow all of my prize money on something dumb like a gigantic trampoline or a 500 gallon aquarium. And then to my own shock and amazement, I ordered an i-Pod. Why did I do this? Well, in my defense, there were many different factors involved. Jess and Scott had sent me a $40 gift card from Target as a house-warming gift. At first, I was going to be really responsible and buy like $40 worth of sponges or a toaster, but then I just couldn't decide, and plus, Target is really close to my house now if I need to get anything from there post-haste. Second, I've been thinking about how I might walk more if I had a better soundtrack than the sounds of buses and of helicopters flying above my house (as was the case this morning). So, if I have an i-Pod, then maybe I'll walk more or go to the gym more. Look, it's a possibility. Finally, someone recently mentioned that it's not that hard to put songs o
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