Story Slam: Lost in Translation & Wild Things

Two pieces. First, "Lost in Translation." A piece I'd originally intended to tell for the theme "Awkward," the reasons for which will become obvious upon listening. Re: being naked on the Internet, that's a story I haven't told yet.

Second, "Wild Things." This piece relates a moment I've been chewing on for a bit and something that I think will be part of a longer fiction piece although, as is the case in most of my fiction (but not non-fiction), in the end no one returns and no one is saved.

Story Slam: Sundry Pieces

I realized I haven't posted the various Story Slam pieces I've done over the past few months, so here they are.

First, The Great Outdoors where, for me, stepping out into the wild unfamiliar means going to New York with friends from Indiana.


Next, my piece from the Grand Slam whose theme was Dilemma. This is the story of my first two trips to the Indiana Academy.


Third, Liar Liar, where I try to tell a story about how we all ultimately lie about ourselves to ourselves in mixtape form. I hadn't rehearsed, hadn't sorted it out on paper the way I wanted, and, just reviewing the video to try to remember what the story was, I notice I mumbled a lot, making the story even more unintelligible.


Finally, Busted, the story of the job that broke me.


As a bonus, First Person Arts asked me to write a piece for their blog. Help Me Bro is one of the stories from my time working at a gas station in Houston. Other stories include selling beer-by-the-can at rush hour in little "DUI bags," finding myself the subject of a sting operation, and an itinerant carpenter walking the 45 miles to downtown.

Students in the Hands of an Angry Teacher

Classes start again for me on Wednesday so I'm preparing my paperwork and introductory lectures. Here's something I wrote last semester when I grew piqued during grading. It's now going to be part of my standard syllabi.

Classroom and paper rules: AKA Mr. Deeley's Manifesto
PAPERS:
No first person: it gets in the way of your idea and leads to telling the story of writing, not making an argument
No questions: this is a specific rhetorical move that either directs inquiry through a mass of information (more than you'll be handling in a 10 page or less paper) or expresses a tone of moral outrage that belongs in a church newsletter, not a college paper
No semi-colons: you're bad at them.
All papers in required format: I say 12pt Times New Roman. If it's not, I won't read it. Follow the directions.
Don't use Wikipedia: apart from all the other issues with Wikipedia, you're in college; you need to use better sources than an encyclopedia.
No ALL CAPS or text speak in general: you're writing a paper, not a blog post
Papers are due on workshop days: this is not a work day for you to begin to write the paper, this is for you to focus on the process of revising. If you come to workshop without your paper, you are absent. If you are absent for workshop, I will not accept your paper.
No papers via email.

CLASSROOM:
No coming in late
No cell phones, laptops, or tablets
If you haven't done the reading, don't come. If I find out you didn't read the piece, I'll ask you to leave and you'll be marked absent. If you haven't done the homework, you can't participate in the discussion, so you aren't actually present anyway.
If you miss more than 2 weeks of classes, you automatically fail the course because you've missed too much to catch up on. Real life happens and I will not judge you for making hard choices.
This is a critical reading/writing class which means it's focused on the skills of argument and writing. Do not focus on your grade, focus on improving your arguments and writing. I am a hard grader, I also curve hard. If you do the work this course asks of you, you will get a good grade so focus on learning. The rest will take care of itself.
Do what I tell you to do. I grade the assignments I give; I'm the judge. When I tell you what I'm going to look for, those are things you should make sure are there.
READ GOOD THINGS! Do not limit your reading to course assignments. Learning to write well comes from reading good writing. Get classics from the library, read the work of historical thinkers, ask people you respect for suggestions, and read as much as you can. There's a reason certain writers had an impact. Learn why, look at how they did it, and do that in your own writing. Avoid pop fiction whether it be the latest National Book Award winner or something you bought from a table at the subway. Such writing is to the classics as popcorn is to a true meal—it can fill you up and be delicious, but is mostly air and cannot provide the sustenance and substance of a real meal. While it may sate your hunger, you will ultimately starve on a diet of popcorn. Treat your intellectual appetite the same way; dine on something you can truly chew.

Spicy Dinner Menu

Here's a menu built around several spicy dishes I'm familiar with. I'm thinking of making this the next time I have friends over for dinner, maybe for an anti-Valentine's Day party.

Appetizers:
Salsa
Cheese Empanadas
Margaritas
Soup: Slow-cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup or Gazpacho
Main course: Tacos/Vegan Tacos
Side dish: Mexican Blackened Corn
Dessert: Aztec "Hot" Chocolate Ice Cream
Red Wine to pair

Why I'm Reading “Jeeves and the Yule-Tide Spirit” in Rittenhouse Square

The simple reason, and the glib one, is I'm doing it to do it. Look to the anarchists and Situationists for that logic: the purpose of the act is the act itself; all other goals are incidental and impossible to predict. There is a larger reason, but it doesn't touch on politics or art. The core purpose remains, and always will remain, to do this because I think it'll be fun.

I could say the root of the idea goes back to college when I wanted to prank the street corner preachers by shouting from Green Eggs and Ham from the opposite corner, but the real root came from Occupy Philly. Their encampment at City Hall had a kids' corner and the occupation was happening during October. The natural thing seemed to be to read Bunnicula out loud to those kids. I never made it happen though. It just remained another one of those ideas that I never followed through on.

Only this idea stayed with me. If not at Occupy, then in Rittenhouse Square, the next most public gathering place in Philly. The text changed as well. Bunnicula is only compelling in the run-up to Halloween. I thought about reading a Wodehouse book all the way through, doing a new one every weekend in fact. Become a strange fixture in the park, performing but never asking for money, arriving, reading, then leaving all without comment. Keep it strange.

I'm a big fan of keep it strange. Philebrity has “keep Philly weird” as their slogan and I appreciate that sentiment. As quiet and middle-class as I am (and existing in every state of privilege that one can), I've never been a fan of suburban normalcy; I've always felt like the freak and I've always felt like I've been getting everything wrong. I do mean “everything:” how to be a man, how to be an adult, what I'm supposed to enjoy, what life I'm supposed to live, what, ultimately, dreams are okay to have and which ones aren't. That's what this really comes down to, insisting that different ways of dreaming are okay.

Reading a Wodehouse story out loud is not a radical act and no amount of intellectual gymnastics can make it one. However it does represent an opening of possibilities. This act, any act, asserts that this is a world where these things can happen and if these things, why not others? I want to create moments for people where they wonder later if that really happened, if they understood what was going on, if there's anyone else who can confirm it for them. I want a world with moments of inexplicable beauty and I don't want that in some eye-rollingly cliched hippy sense. Thinking about doing this makes me giddy because I know I'm going to be really self-conscious while doing it, that probably no one will pay attention, that I might even get in trouble because if you do anything that steps even slightly outside of what's expected, people get snippy. But I want that.

I'm 33 and want the world to still make me giddy so I'm going to read in Rittenhouse Square.

Story Slam: Close Quarters

Story Slam piece about dancing at a gay bar with an ex-girlfriend. Video here. Possibly NSFW so not embedded. Plus the thumbnail gives away the big surprise of the piece.

Story Slam: Power Trips

I won with this story and so will be competing in the next Grand Slam. Honestly, though, not one of my favorite pieces.