Maps to Anywhere Review 2

The Hurricane Ride

Page 70

With this story, I chose to review it because it brings back childhood memories. This story reminds me of my first time riding a ride similar to this one. The ride is circular where you place yourself on the wall. While you're standing leaning against the wall the ride starts to spin. It spins so fast where you stick to the wall. In the story he describes his aunt panicking. He explained that she was very frightened and disoriented on the ride. "She screamed as the floor dropped slowly away, lipstick staining her teeth. But she stuck to the wall as if charged with static and, along with others , didn't fall.She was dressed in checks and dangling shoes, her black handbag clinging to her hip.  The hurricane ride gathered speed. My aunt was hurtling, blurred. Her mouth became a long dark line. Her delirious eyes were multiplied. Checks and flesh turned diaphanous, her plump arms, gartered thighs. Her face dissolved, a trace of rouge. I swore I saw through her for the rest of the day, despite her bulk and constant chatter, to the sea heaving beyond the beyond the boardwalk, tide absconding with the sand, waves cooling the last of the light." This describes the fear in his aunt during the ride. When  I was on the ride for the first time I tried to pull myself off the wall. By some miracle of strength I released myself from the wall. As soon as I got off and relaxed I was thrown back to it. Later he talked about how fast does something have to be where your eyes cannot keep up. He says that the earth rotates at 1038 miles per hour and we are not able to see or feel it moving. This puts me in mind of a fan that spins to a certain speed where the eye cannot see it spinning but is shown an illusion of it holding still.

Maps to Anywhere Review

How To Draw

Pg. 31-34

I read and decided to review How to draw because of the title. It concerned me because I am an Art minor and can draw myself. When I seen the title I immediately thought that it would connect with me. When I began to read the story I shortly realized that it was not about teaching people how to draw but about the whole concept of art itself. He starts out talking about how a regular person's little amateur art was better than a professional art piece. He then elaborate on that idea. He begins to tell the audience that art is a piece of work created to reflect someone's emotions and feelings. Which then backs his idea up that amateur art is better than professional art. It now makes since. A picture a child draw for his parents is more emotional than a professional art piece where there is no emotion.
He then talks about how he was interested in art and when he first began to be. He talked about his little brother being into art and came down with a terminal illness. He talks about how him and his mother coped with the situation. When his mother took interest in Toulouse-Lautrec art, he was actually researching different artworks. His favorite was minimal art as simple as it was. He pursued what his little brother loved and learned about what his little brother loves and why. After his brother died he kept researching art. He even says that he went to school for art and took every class for it. Now he go around collecting valuable artistic sculptures and drawings. He does not buy professional pieces though, he like to collect doodles from bored students, folded paper and other artwork of that kind. He believe that they are more valuable than professionals. Once I got to the end I realized that he actually was teaching people how to draw in a way. He was encouraging people that whatever artwork that they make rather time consuming and complicated with full effort to simple drawings on the side of your paper, was a great artistic piece of work and better than the professionals' work.

Fiction Packet 3 Review

When I read fiction packet 3 I decided to review "When It Rains It Rains A River." This story talked about two brothers who loved the rain. When it rained usual children go in the house but they go outside to play. They play in mud and love when it rains. Most of the short story was metaphorical and I even got the feel that I was reading a poem at times. For example when the author says "When the rain stops drumming down, us brothers, we drop down, onto our hands and knees, down in mud, and we begin to eat. We eat until our bellies are big with mud." I believe that they were not actually not eating mud but metaphorically speaking. Mud is the building block of life so it means that they are eating plants. Also "We look up into girl's eyes to see that each moon, it is a mirror." I believe that it was referring to being in a relationship. "When we dive inside each of these moons, each moon shatters into a billion pieces. Each broken chunk becomes a star... The stars are burning fish." It reminds me of a heart break. And finally "Watch us brothers reach out to these burning fish fires with our hands mittened with mud. We stick our hands, unfisted, into this fire." This symbolize the boys reaching out for help or forgiveness from the girls. This story is filled with metaphors and pretty much talks about the boys relationship troubles.

Juice Response (Rant)

Well for this book I am probably going to keep this review short because I don't want to rant for a long time. For this book I couldn't grasp the concept of the story. Not just for one story but for all of the stories that compiled the book. The one story in which infuriated me was the first. To start off I couldn't understand the main character. Beginning with the fact that it was impossible for me to find it's damn gender. If you as a reader cannot connect with the main character of the story, you will not be able care for the story. Also as a character of a story there has to be some type of development for that character. When the story begins you should be able to see your character's goal, personality and their resolve. As the story progresses you should be able to see every character change, especially the main character. The thing that I hate the most about this story and all the others also is that the characters are so damn blank and unable to connect with, which makes it a boring story. As with the other stories, the characters were distant (if they were actually different or not) which made the stories not able to be enjoy. The stories had nothing attractive towards them in which I no idea what the plots were about. Well that's pretty much all I have for this review

Fiction Writing

Lamott Packet Character

Pg. 8

For the Lamott Polaroids packet I read on page 8 about characters.  The excerpt explained that as a writer you should not have the knowledge of your main character all down.  You should not be able to see what your character is going to be like in the future.  It was said that "You avoid forcing your characters to march too steadily to the drumbeat to your artistic purpose."  You should let your character develop as it should and not as you want all the time.  Treat your character like it is a real person, you would like to have this person one way but from his/her past experiences he/she became another way.  I don't think that the author should not be in control of his characters but not to be in absolute control.  If the author is in complete control the story won't be as enjoyable to go along.  When you let your character develop as you go it will be as much as a surprise to create your characters actions as the viewer reading your characters actions. This is especially for fiction writers.  As you go along you must leave room for your characters to develop on their own (metaphorically speaking) there have to be room for potential side characters to eventually branch out to become main characters too of the story too.  I have seen this in many shows I've watched and even heard the writers said that they do not even expect to see what their characters are going to do.  It is a basic thing to do as a writer so you can enjoy your story as much as your readers.

Short Story Reaction 2

Fiction Packet 2: Prairie

From the sound of the story, it seems like it took place on a ship of some sort.  I get that interpretation from the term "Captain" being used frequently.  I could be wrong about this but it gives me a feeling of a ship at sea.  When I read this story I can see a crew of people who encountered a person who was severely injured.  It was said in the story that this person had pieces of skin flayed off his back.  This could be that he was tortured, I am only guessing though.  In the start of the second paragraph of the story there was a word that was unfamiliar to me.  That word was "paroch."  I looked up the word to see that it was a abbreviated form of parochial which is a religious term of relating to a church parish.  Then there was a assortment of words pertain to religion like: "baptizing, church, scrolls, Jesus and sainthood." This made me believe that this was more of a religious story than my first theory.  If so then it explains why I really cannot understand this story.  The beginning of this story really attracted me because of the description of the man with the rips and tears on his back.  Once I read that I wanted to keep reading more.  Truthfully I couldn't interpret the setting or the plot of the story, so I just made assumptions from what knowledge I could gather from it.

Short Story Reaction 1

Walking the Baby to the Liquor Store

This story was a tale of a man who takes his daughter to the store everyday.  The man was a writer and was to be told that he was very busy and had a lot on his plate but instead of getting work done in the morning he would take his daughter to the liquor store.  He said she enjoyed the journey there every time and he enjoyed seeing her happy.  With that being said he put everything aside to keep her happy and take her to the store.  It is a story that tells the tale of fatherhood and and to never put anything over your son or daughter's happiness.

I was attracted to this story because it reminded me of my memories of store trips I had.   The whole plot reminds me of multiple trips to the store I had with my 2 nieces. My nieces lived at the corner house right before the liquor store.  I remember every time I go to the liquor store they would be outside.  As soon as they saw me they would ask to go with me.  Since I can not say no to them I give in every time they ask.  Every trip we take I'm out of 20 dollars.  It came to the point where I used to sneak and go to the store by walking around the corner.  It also reminds me of a friend of mine who does not live in the state anymore.  He moved a while ago but when he comes back he takes his son to the store everyday around 3pm.  He did this because he believed that his son enjoyed  going to the store with him.  He did this faithfully until he went back to home.