panopticist

Here's a great piece about the novelist Don DeLillo that is worth looking at. It shows how meticulous a novelist can be as he writes. panopticist

The Kentucky Derby: Call to the Derby Post

Hunter S. Thompson shot himself this past weekend. One of the truly original American writers--and a Louisville native. Here is The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved

Tuesday, Feb 22nd--Funeral Poem

Read Sapia’s “My Uncle Guillermo Speaks at His Own Funeral” p334
Write a poem, minimum of 15 lines, in which a figure in your family speaks at his own funeral.

February 17 assignment

Read Kirby, “How to Use this Body” p35

And write your own instruction poem.

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: My Family's Power Rankings.

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: My Family's Power Rankings.

For Tuesday, Feb 15th

[ remember that we meet in the Dragon's Tail in the Library on Tuesday]

For Tuesday—The Familiar as Frontier

250-500 words
Pick a place that you regularly visit. Cafeteria, dorm lounge, workplace, restaurant. Go there and deliberately see it for the first time. What do you notice that, because of familiarity and routine, you ceased to notice. Become aware of the scene as much as possible. Look in odd corners, make the peripheral central. Take lots of notes. Record conversations. Observe the familiar in a writerly way

Then write a short description of this place.

Assignment for Thursday--writing about food

Select one and write 300-500 words.

Write about eating in relation to times of day--morning, noon, night, late night, traveling, etc.

Weave two themes together, a food and music.

Think about those great food scenes in movies: _Big Night_, _Tom Jones_, _Chocolate_. Write a scene from your past that lends itself to especially vivid, pungent fiction scenes. Film it in words.