those three we had to read over the weekend?

i never did a reflection post on them! although... maybe that's 'cuz i didn't really like/get/whatever any of them. MAYBE. or i just slacked. that too.

a good scent from a strange mountain:
this story was... rather interesting. butler ties the smell of sugar on ho's hands throughout the story to weave a semi-consistent motif (if you will) kinda showing the fluidity of time in the narrator's mind. in relation to yearning... hrm. dao (the narrator) yearned for unity in his family while ho yearned for unity in his country. the line that really sticks with me is the very ending, where dao finally realizes that ho came maybe not only to say goodbye, but to understand him as well. dao knew that "you had to understand everything or you would be incomplete forever." i addressed this point in class, but i'm not so sure how well it got across. so... here we go. life is a giant kitchen. everything you come in contact with is one of the smells. dao came in contact with ho. he "got" him for awhile, but after they parted ways, not so much. ho became one of the smells dao no longer understood, and he was incomplete. before dao passed away, ho appeared to try and understand their time apart and their time together, thereby making the ho-smell (um... that didn't come out well) understandable to dao. since he was finally complete, he was able to pass away. but that's my perspective?

robert kennedy saved from drowning:
i personally didn't like this story. i know it shows bits and pieces of the main character through many different situations, but... i think i like a character that is gradually revealed to me (not like this though?). when it's bits and pieces, i have to do the hard work of piecing them together to get the whole picture. like i said before, i'm a big-picture guy, fitting together many little pictures doesn't work so well for me.

fiesta, 1980:
this one, although it was by junot diaz (finally realized i was spelling his name wrong, ops) i liked this one. it wasn't quite as coarse as nilda, and also we saw a return of some of the same characters (i love it when that happens!), letting us see another facet of them. in nilda, we saw rafa as just kind of this dude who got the chicks, was compassionate in his own way, and then... that was it. i felt like i liked the characters better in this short than in nilda. i'm not exactly sure what the main character yearned for... maybe a stronger stomach?

abp#2: pulling myself from between the letters.

lemme say in short that i tend not to pay a large amount of attention to people.
i'm a big-picture guy, and the little details (unless hilariously creepy or just utterly funny) don't stand out to me. i know people's mannerisms, but only slightly. if someone were to do something, i could probably say, "i knew that they'd do that." and now you want me to answer this about my skills at recognizing styles? um.... it doesn't get any better. i can pick out diaz's style, only because it's so unique--he never really uses quotations, he italicizes, he has his own individual voice (which i like, i think) and... that's all i can really think of. to phrase it badly, "i know it when i see it." butler's style is harder--i don't think i know how to pick it out as well. i would feel safe saying that i probably don't even know how to pull it out from between the letters.

as for my writing... i myself cannot distinguish a certain pattern. ask more little-picture people about my writing, and maybe i'll say, "yeah, that sounds about right." i know that mostly in my muses, it's been a sad portraiture of my inner landscape, and maybe that's my style. i never seem to be able to write well when i'm happy--just in the midst of sadness or heartbreak, that's when the ink flows. well... that or when i'm feeling creative enough. when that is, i don't really have any idea. also, adding on to my big-picture-ness, if you've read any of my muses, you'll notice that there's no exact setting--i'm horrible at constructing a setting. make me an architect of a dream, and you'll just find yourself in a generic somewhere generated from a memory of mine (sorry, the connection had to be made). i miss small details of the setting, i give just barely enough to get by. why i do this, i don't really know. my signature, i guess, is... that's a good question, actually. what do you think?

reflections on nilda, and muse:up against

nilda was a very interesting story. it was a rather interesting perspective of the author's brother's past relationship with the title character. juniot diaz has such a unique style. he insists on not using quotation marks, period, and he keeps the full sense of his coarse childhood intact. which, while i was trying not to cringe at the overly used obscenities every other second word, just drew me in and made the story that much truer. i really think that if diaz had censored all of that out, it wouldn't have been truth to him--and then would have been less of a story for the reader. life is uncensored, so why shouldn't writing, right?

additionally, diaz's memory seems a bit abridged. it's implied that his brother passes away, but it's never explicitly said. which leaves some holes for the reader, and i personally was wondering what happened to all the characters.

now, stepping out of those shoes, time for real life. kinda.
it seems that a year's worth of drama has been squeezed into the first two weeks of school, culminating in a fight that ended in angry words and tears. i was quick to respond, and was surprised that nobody else did. okay, i agree that we shouldn't get involved too heavily in people's problems, but if someone is crying is it too much to ask to comfort them?

muse:
it had been relatively silent, before. just a few laughs breaking the quiet of the library. but tensions began to rise, and everyone could feel it in the air. the giggles began to spread further apart, the quiet began to take over, and voices began to grow louder and louder, arguing about the proper role of leaders and who should take what role, culminating in a tearful exclamation.

he had noticed and jumped down from his perch on a bookshelf to comfort her. that seemed his job, to make people laugh, and to pick up broken pieces. he seemed to have the infinite caring capacity that every mother hen envied, as he raced towards his friend. he took her in his arms, creating a shelter. angry words continued to fly, and he tried to take the shots for her. anything to keep her safe, to keep her fragility from showing. suddenly, he became aware of the overwhelming silence along with the stunning amount of indifference from the bystanders. some sat huddled in a corner, others sat at their computers staring blankly at the screens. she cried out again, her voice breaking. the arguers stopped, looking at her. the boy's face betrayed a sliver of something, and he instantly gave in to her wishes. the girl, angrier, stared coldly at her opponent before shrugging off the burden. he murmured reassurances, and withdrew his arms. she looked up, quietly thanking him. and just like that, as he turned around, order was restored. the strangling quality of the air was gone, replaced by something lighter. but as he walked away, he felt that same choke-hold on his heart. he stopped in his tracks and collapsed.