Review of Mariyana’s “A Puppy in the Sun”
Having read Hemingway’s story, I, to be honest, felt a bit depressed. Such a strained relationship between the characters, so many emotions, most of them false, so much left unsaid. This was the original story. Phew, I thought, luckily we have an upcoming parody, can’t wait to read something to brighten up this cold night. Well, I do not intend to sound nasty, but “A Puppy in the Sun” sounded even more depressing… If only the task itself didn’t require some “chortle”, I would have applauded Mariyana’s story.
A perfect reflection of “Cat in the Rain” – this is what you get when you put a minus in front of “A Puppy in the Sun”, like in a mathematical equation. The only problem is I did not get to laugh. Parody, after all, is about laughing, isn’t it?
Nevertheless, if we ignore the not-funny part, I like the precision of Mariyana’s mirror story – each and every element is as if gently handled with a pair of tweezers only to briefly examine it and then to pin its total counterpart, while at the same time managing to keep the original grimness of the story. This does not sound easy. I was intrigued by the way Mariyana succeeded in making rain and heat seem equal – too much of either is never welcome; cat and dog seem interchangeable; a bad relationship still being bad whether the characters try to hide it or not, etc.
Still, unfortunately, exchanging white for black does not make the story an original piece of writing. What the reader expected to see, if you ask me, was not simply a reflection, but a reflection in a distorted mirror – a funny image to giggle at. The simple switch of different elements is a signal of lack of creativeness – which I am sure is not the case here, maybe just the task was not right.
Monday 14 December 2009
Task 6 - "Desert Temple" by Irina
Desert Temple
The group of campers were waking up. Some were slowly getting out of their sleeping bags, others remained lying, perhaps feeling too tired and hungry to lift themselves up. Carrie was one of the latter. She had just raised herself on her elbows. The stark beauty of the landscape dazzled her. The intricate patterns of the brown hills in the distance were glowing in the morning sun. The air was still fresh from the night’s cold and the heat hadn’t set in yet, the scorching heat of Arizona in the afternoon. She was partly looking forward to it, for the night had been freezing. The whole group, about sixty people, had spent the hours of dark and cold with just sleeping bags to protect them. Actually no, she was one of the few who had resisted the temptation of buying a Peruvian poncho for just $250, when Jean, the chief of Ray’s assistants, was offering them. Carrie took this experience seriously, she had joined the Spiritual Warrior retreat to achieve harmony in life and she was determined to follow all of Ray’s commands. The idea was to test your endurance and clean your body, and if she had to freeze and sweat for that, freeze and sweat she would. “I’m determined to make it through. This will change my life,” she thought. She was annoyed at some of the others who kept complaining about the fasting. “This was not a five-star hotel, you’re here to become better people and you will have to work hard on that,” she wanted to tell them.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the camp, James Arthur Ray, a well-built, 38-year-old man with a big smile and ego had just finished his breakfast in his tent and now he was updating his Twitter page. “Hm, I love google ads, always relevant. Here, I love this BMW, a couple of retreats like that and I’ll be able to buy a dozen of these, not that I need them, but it’s a good feeling, to know I can buy all this stuff…I’m a genius, I love myself. That’s what all the others should do – reach out and grab what you want, like I do. The Law of Attraction. Ok, let’s focus now… Jean tells me my dear sweet followers are a bit grumpy this morning. Maybe it’s been enough fasting, these guys aren’t as trained as those monks in Tibet that I interviewed about the benefits of fasting.”
He called out: “Jean, dear, would you be so kind as to offer the camp the buffet meal we were saving for after the sweat lodge. I’ll order an extra meal for later. I think some refreshment would do them good.”
“But you told them the fasting rule was very strict and important. How shall I explain this?” Jean, a small plump woman in her fifties, was puzzled.
“Just tell them they have worked hard and their Spiritual Leader thanks them with this inspirational buffet meal that he has sanctified in his meditational dreams during the night,” Ray said, opening himself another bottle of cold water.
The day continued much like the previous few days of the retreat. The devoted believers listened to Ray’s revealing philosophy. He taught them the Secret – you can achieve anything, yes, anything with the power of your thought. And all the body-purging exercises would help them learn how to make their wishes materialize. Damian spent the meditation time in strenuous efforts to imagine his promotion at work. Meryl could almost touch the Pear-shaped diamond necklace by Christie’s. And Jeff knew his new restaurant would turn a huge profit so he’ll be able to finally afford that scuba diving vacation in the Great Barrier Reef. Panny pictured herself married, 4 inches taller, with hair twice as long and no pimples at all. And they were all confident and secure, “This retreat is worth each and every cent of the nine thousand dollars I spent on it,” they all thought. This was the final day and there was a feeling of fulfillment among the group.
Ray shared that too. For the past few days he had enjoyed the status of a god, a prophet who knew the answer to all problems – the simple formula – know, feel and receive. This was all based on The Law of Attraction, the scientific evidence that all our thoughts attract events. He had talked to many people, traveled to sacred places all over the world and knew many stories of ordinary people who had believed in themselves and grabbed their opportunities. His followers adored him and obeyed all his commands. “I can’t wait to get the feedbacks from this retreat, I can smell the praise… and with the series of future retreats coming…then I’ll write another book or two, maybe that will get me on Oprah, or Larry King again… I’ve always known I was born to be a prophet… This is the mission of my life, to help others achieve success in life like I did.”
The retreat concluded with the ancient Native American ritual of the sweat lodge. The traditional tent was already built – a low structure covered in plastic sheeting with a hearth in the middle. Scolding, lava-hot stones were brought in by Ray’s assistants and as he poured water and incense over them, he explained the cleansing purpose of the ritual to his followers, all of them packed together in the small tent. They would purify their bodies and souls, the heat would evaporate all dirt from their spirits. Sitting cross-legged on the ground, very close to each other, they listened to the inspired words of their prophet, who kept bringing in more and more meltingly hot stones. They were lulled by the vapors and his voice. Sleepy and nauseous, vomiting and gasping, yelling for water and nudging each other to see if your neighbor is still awake, they all knew this was the beginning of their new, happy life of riches, promotions and new shoes. Nobody thought of trying to go out – this would have been sacrilegious. They could see nothing in the dark excruciating heat, scorching their very souls inside their lungs. From this human boiling pot some of them arouse, finding new heights of the tent, then realizing they have actually left the tent and were again in the chill outside evening desert air. They had achieved everything one could hope for in life, they could now float freely above the desert shrubs and in an instant they were on top of the intricate-patterned brown hills touching the orange purple glow the sunset had left behind.
Around the sweat lodge they had just left, ambulances were gathering. People were crawling out, spitting blood, mucus flowing from their eyes, crying for help, struggling to breathe.
James Arthur Ray was already on his way to his car. A bit dazed from the last round of the ritual, he was thinking about how difficult his mission had become and how he would overcome this minor obstacle on his way. For he was sure that nobody would understand what had actually happened in the sweat lodge, all the joy his followers had shared, all the purity they had acquired, he knew there would be accusations, for police had arrived with the ambulances. So he opened his laptop and before driving off sent a quick email to Joe Tackler, a man with lots of experience in publicity.
Task 2 - "Breaking News" by Irina
Irina Hinova
Breaking News
[Advertisement]
[SparkReports theme tune]
[Camera 2]
Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome to SparkReports – the most trusted name in news. I’m Sland Gosper. Stay with us as we try to get to the bottom of the political scandal that has shaken the Cabinet. It is rumoured that some Ministers may hand in their resignations by the end of the week.
But first let us try and go back to the beginning of this story and find the actual causes of the scandal, which started with last week’s fiasco at Miss Cosmetics. This is what the chief manager of the contest Robert Pattison told us:
[Video no. 53.17- Robert Pattison interview]
“So, Mr. Pattison, tell us how it all happened.”
“From the beginning we were prepared, we knew just what to do, for hadn’t we seen it all a hundred times?—the good people of the town going about their business, the suddenly interrupted TV programs, the faces in the crowd looking up, the little girl pointing in the air, the mouths opening, the dog yapping, the traffic stopped, the shopping bag falling to the sidewalk, and there, in the sky, coming closer – the huge majestic sequin-covered pageant platform – descending graciously onto the main square. As always, we had kept the time of the event in absolute secrecy. Nobody knew the exact time or venue – would it land on the main square, or the stadium, or float on the lake …”
“Yes, right, but was there anything different in the rules this time? It’s said that some of the girls knew there’d be a change and reorganized their daily beauty routines to follow the new fashion trend, but they had little time to get the desired results. Perhaps there was a leak?”
“No, no, no, everything was as in previous years. The candidates for the title Miss Cosmetics were expected to lead their usual lives and follow latest fashion trends and were called for the show only two hours before it started. Nobody had expected it would… turn out like that.”
[video no. 72.00 –Miss Cosmetics contestants interview]
“I’ve been preparing for a whole year, you know. Fashion magazines, latest products, first row in all Fashion Guild shows – cause they set the trends, you know. I felt ssso disappointed, my heart like broke, you know, cause just 30 minutes before we went on stage, we were just lining up to fly up on the platform, you know…Oh, it’s so hard for me to take it…”
“All I can tell you is – like… half an hour before the show this bloke, Robert Somebody, he just came in and went ‘You’re all totally disqualified. The latest trend in tan is orange and you’re all mauve or pink ivory.’…apparently the Fashion Guild had just… like issued a totally new fashion trend. I was like how could they do this to me! That was totally uncalled for, I did everything…”
[studio]
[Sland Gosper on camera 3]
“As you can see, Ladies and Gentlemen, the girls are all devastated. The only one who had somehow anticipated the new trend was Anna-Sui Redmond, her tan was impeccably orange. Being the only contestant, she was crowned Miss Cosmetics according to the rules of the contest – the one closest to latest fashion trend wins. Since she is the daughter of Celeb Redmond, the Minister of Greens, Education, Gardens and Greenish Garments, rumours about corruption led to the launch of an official investigation. Miss Redmond said in her father’s defence that her orange tan was casued by a fault in the sunbed at her beauty salon. She added that the fault was discovered too late for her to have a tan repair and because of that she had fallen in a deep depression and she had learned about the new fashion trend only when all the others did. Nevertheless, Mr. Redmond is accused of using classified Fashion Guild emails, to which he had access as an official, to his daughter’s advantage. Another fact that fuels suspicion is his Garden project. Here’s what he said yesterday on the phone to our reporter:
[Recording no. 45.07 – Redmond interview]
[Redmond photo on screen]
“Mr. Redmond, why did you choose orange for your project? Our sources say you had to order extra paint for the trees and you even exceeded the ministry budget. There are also rumours about ministry officials selling orange paint on the black market days before the announcement about the new trend… ”
“Well, we had all these children out planting trees, see, because we figured that ... that was part of their education, to see how, you know, the root systems ... and also the sense of responsibility, taking care of things, being individually responsible. You know what I mean. And the trees all died. They were orange trees. I don’t know why they died, they just died.”
“But why exactly orange, who gave you the information?… [The line is dropped.]
It seems the connection failed…”
[studio]
[Sland Gosper on camera 1]
It seems there is trouble in store for Mr. Redmond. The Cabinet is soon expected to issue an official statement…
***
TASK 8 - "Night of the Wet Cat!" by Tsvetelina
“That’s it, I’ll go torch the damn fleabag.” Valerie was hysterical. She was hysterical and was hysterically clutching a zippo lighter in one hand and a hairspray in the other. It was raining in through the open window. Someone dumped a tangled mass of spaghetti leftovers from a window on the upper floor. A sticky meatball brushed her nose and crash-landed on the window sill. She didn’t notice.
“You’ll do no such thing.” That came from the unoccupied corner of John’s mouth. The other corner was occupied. Lucky Strike. John was languidly chopping carrots. The carrots were orange. His nails were yellow. He was in the company of a dead salmon. It was staring at him from an oval white plate on the kitchen counter. It didn’t say much.
“It won’t stop mewing. I’m out of laundry pins and it hid under the table anyway. That mewing freaks me out. Plus, it’s wet. Wet cats stink like hell. I’ll go dry it out.” The door slammed shut behind her. The meatball on the window sill was sticky.
“Don’t get wet. These are my only good socks you’re wearing.” The chopped carrots were piled in the baking tin. They were still orange. John decapitated a fennel bulb. His cigarette resting in peace in the ashtray, he now started whistling a tune from “La Traviata”. The kitchen filled with the sound of sparrows being strangled. The salmon didn’t mind.
The landlord was allergic to peanuts. He was a retired cook for the US army. He had lost his left eye in a freak accident involving a cripple Venecian prostitute, a stiletto heel and considerable amounts of cheap grappa. He was replacing the light bulb in the lobby, strenuously stretching his scrawny arms to reach it while precariously balancing his asparagus of a body on a red plastic bucket. When Valerie rushed past him, creating a whirl strong enough to make him clumsily grasp for the lamp cord he squeaked under his bushy moustache: “Jeez, woman, where’s the fire!?”
“Oh, we’ll have one alright!”
“What’s with the hairspray? Having a bad hair day, are we?”
“I’ll go torch a cat.”
“Well, I’ll be damned! What for?”
“It won’t stop mewing. It wails like a friggin’ siren.”
“The guys from my platoon in Vietnam never complained of such nuisance. Cats tend to be very quiet when served with rice and soy sauce, if you know what I mean.”
“John silenced a fish for dinner. I have a cat to torch.”
Valerie turned her back on the peanut intolerant, cat-cooking, one-eyed asparagus perched on a red plastic bucket and darted off towards the mewing, wet, stinky, hairball-vomiting, rat-eating, soon-to-be-torched fleabag. The sky over Bologna was full of night and rain. On the splashy pavement there was a tangled mass of spaghetti leftovers. On the same splashy pavement there wasn’t a wet stinky cat. On the window sill above her there was a lone meatball. The lone meatball was sticky.
John’s only good socks were soaked. Valerie’s hair looked like a tangled mass of spaghetti leftovers. Her hairspray couldn’t do anything about her bad hair day and it couldn’t torch the cat that wasn’t there. What it could do was nest in the nearest trash bin. Valerie squelched in the lobby. The landlord attached to the bushy moustache was perched on a red plastic bucket.
“Dinner ready yet?”, mumbled the orifice under the moustache.
“The damn fleabag’s gone!”
“Oh, well, look on the bright side. Maybe it got run over by the milkman’s truck.”
“Yeah, yeah. I hope it’s cat pate by now. Or dog food.”
The apartment smelled of roasting silent fish. John was in the john. Valerie looked down through the window. She wished her hair was short. That way there was a chance she wouldn’t look like a mafia cuisine specialty. On the pavement below there was a cat who wasn’t there.
“Did you torch the damn fleabag? Are my only good socks ruined?” John’s voice carried from inside the john.
“There’s spaghetti on the pavement and on my head.”
“I told you we’re eating fish tonight.”
Two hours later on the kitchen counter there was a cooling speechless fish with a stupid expression, snuggly buried in multi-colored vegetables. On the window sill there was a contented pigeon with a sticky meatball in his belly. The doorbell rang. Valerie opened, wearing John’s not-so-good-but-dry socks. The landlord smiled sheepishly which caused his bushy moustache to part in the middle – a telltale sign he was allergic to peanuts. He held a baking tin in his hands. There, snuggly buried in rice and splashed with soy sauce, lay a roasted quiet cat.
“You’ll do no such thing.” That came from the unoccupied corner of John’s mouth. The other corner was occupied. Lucky Strike. John was languidly chopping carrots. The carrots were orange. His nails were yellow. He was in the company of a dead salmon. It was staring at him from an oval white plate on the kitchen counter. It didn’t say much.
“It won’t stop mewing. I’m out of laundry pins and it hid under the table anyway. That mewing freaks me out. Plus, it’s wet. Wet cats stink like hell. I’ll go dry it out.” The door slammed shut behind her. The meatball on the window sill was sticky.
“Don’t get wet. These are my only good socks you’re wearing.” The chopped carrots were piled in the baking tin. They were still orange. John decapitated a fennel bulb. His cigarette resting in peace in the ashtray, he now started whistling a tune from “La Traviata”. The kitchen filled with the sound of sparrows being strangled. The salmon didn’t mind.
The landlord was allergic to peanuts. He was a retired cook for the US army. He had lost his left eye in a freak accident involving a cripple Venecian prostitute, a stiletto heel and considerable amounts of cheap grappa. He was replacing the light bulb in the lobby, strenuously stretching his scrawny arms to reach it while precariously balancing his asparagus of a body on a red plastic bucket. When Valerie rushed past him, creating a whirl strong enough to make him clumsily grasp for the lamp cord he squeaked under his bushy moustache: “Jeez, woman, where’s the fire!?”
“Oh, we’ll have one alright!”
“What’s with the hairspray? Having a bad hair day, are we?”
“I’ll go torch a cat.”
“Well, I’ll be damned! What for?”
“It won’t stop mewing. It wails like a friggin’ siren.”
“The guys from my platoon in Vietnam never complained of such nuisance. Cats tend to be very quiet when served with rice and soy sauce, if you know what I mean.”
“John silenced a fish for dinner. I have a cat to torch.”
Valerie turned her back on the peanut intolerant, cat-cooking, one-eyed asparagus perched on a red plastic bucket and darted off towards the mewing, wet, stinky, hairball-vomiting, rat-eating, soon-to-be-torched fleabag. The sky over Bologna was full of night and rain. On the splashy pavement there was a tangled mass of spaghetti leftovers. On the same splashy pavement there wasn’t a wet stinky cat. On the window sill above her there was a lone meatball. The lone meatball was sticky.
John’s only good socks were soaked. Valerie’s hair looked like a tangled mass of spaghetti leftovers. Her hairspray couldn’t do anything about her bad hair day and it couldn’t torch the cat that wasn’t there. What it could do was nest in the nearest trash bin. Valerie squelched in the lobby. The landlord attached to the bushy moustache was perched on a red plastic bucket.
“Dinner ready yet?”, mumbled the orifice under the moustache.
“The damn fleabag’s gone!”
“Oh, well, look on the bright side. Maybe it got run over by the milkman’s truck.”
“Yeah, yeah. I hope it’s cat pate by now. Or dog food.”
The apartment smelled of roasting silent fish. John was in the john. Valerie looked down through the window. She wished her hair was short. That way there was a chance she wouldn’t look like a mafia cuisine specialty. On the pavement below there was a cat who wasn’t there.
“Did you torch the damn fleabag? Are my only good socks ruined?” John’s voice carried from inside the john.
“There’s spaghetti on the pavement and on my head.”
“I told you we’re eating fish tonight.”
Two hours later on the kitchen counter there was a cooling speechless fish with a stupid expression, snuggly buried in multi-colored vegetables. On the window sill there was a contented pigeon with a sticky meatball in his belly. The doorbell rang. Valerie opened, wearing John’s not-so-good-but-dry socks. The landlord smiled sheepishly which caused his bushy moustache to part in the middle – a telltale sign he was allergic to peanuts. He held a baking tin in his hands. There, snuggly buried in rice and splashed with soy sauce, lay a roasted quiet cat.
MARIYANA REVIEW
This is a neatly written story which follows very closely the style, the setting and the characters in the original. Actually, the writer’s most noteworthy achievement is her way of preserving the minimalistic tone of Hemingway’s version.
However, there are hardly any changes to speak of. The only more significant alteration seems to concern the animal – the cat in the rain has become a puppy in the sun. Another modification: the American husband and wife have, for some reason, assumed names. Also, the husband is not reading a book but a gardening magazine, which is probably meant to trivialize the situation, and in this sense is a good idea.
Other than that, the closest the story comes to comic distortion (which is a very important aspect of what a parody is about) is George’s retort at his wife’s fuss over her hair: “I’ll buy you a wig”, said the husband unconcerned.
To cut a long story short, there is too much overlapping between Cat in the Rain and A Puppy in the Sun to call Mariyana’s endeavour a parody.
MILENA REVIEW
Ms Stoilova has based her parody on modifications of the setting of the original and some alterations in the female character’s personality. In this version, the American wife is more blatantly vain and naïve than Hemingway’s American wife. She is obsessed with making her girlfriends feel “green with envy” and she likes “the pink that the new Cosmo reported to be trendy this year”.
Also, her rhetoric is magisterially pro-occidental: she thinks of the Japanese as “small yellowish people”. It is in this culture gap that the humour constitutes itself. The American I-want-it-all-I want-it –now ethos is pitted against the Eastern respect for convention, and the situation is quite promisingly funny. The woman’s inability to make out why it wouldn’t be possible to have something if you pay for it opens up a goldmine of comic possibilities, which, I think, are not fully deployed. Actually, I would have extended the dialogue with the receptionist.
The part I enjoyed immensely is the one with the husband watching those “corpulent diaper-wrapped giants with female hairdos.” This moment reminded me of a chapter in David Lodge’s novel Changing Places where an American professor in
All in all, Ms Stoilova has done a good job of adhering to Hemingway’s economical style and she is quite good at manipulating the characters and the situation. And the “origami tree” at the end of the story is a killer of an idea. I would have appreciated a few more laughs, though.
SNEZHANA REVIEW
From the very beginning, Ms Bezus does a very good job of both following and straying (for comic effect) from Hemingway’s original. The artists with their easels, for example, are here replaced by “grannies …enjoying the buzzing of horse-flies around the toilets while trimming handkerchiefs with lace.” The artistic atmosphere of Hemingway’s Italian environment has given way to “the rural ambiance” of a provincial German town with all the kitsch that will, probably, go with it. The collocation “rural ambiance” itself is a winner, as the pretentiousness of the noun clashes with the down-to-earthness of the attribute. I would have trimmed some of the adjectives in this description, however. You may have noticed that Hemingway hates the accumulation of adjectives. So a sentence like “...a backyard equipped with fully functional authentic outdoor toilets dating from the early 19th century” doesn’t sound like Hemingway at all.
After this descriptive paragraph, the story keeps following the logic of the obverse and it actually goes from strength to strength. The American wife’s role is here taken over by a Japanese husband, who is after a rat rather than a cat, and who wants to kill it rather than hug it. The keeper is a cartoonish corpulent Frau, whose assistance in the pursuit of the rat adds a further touch of the absurd to the situation. To me, the ludicrous actually reaches its peak with the “large raindrop hanging from her pale Aryan nose”.
Then, the suddenly feminized Japanese husband, whose vanity is meant to repeat and pervert the American wife’s, is another brilliant idea. So is the abrupt switch to the guy’s belligerent mindset with: “I want this rat’s head on a silver plate. It’s my duty to offer it as a gift to my brave ancestors.” The ending, albeit a bit too bloody, is also appropriate in the context of a parody. The only detail I would slightly modify is the slip-stick comic moment when the German Frau pokes the husband’s behind with her umbrella. I found this a bit cheap.
Actually, what I liked most about the story is that it uses Hemingway’s text as a matrix which allows it to highlight and deliberately distort some cultural stereotypes. I was amused.
So, the Germans always win at the end of the day, right?
Sunday 13 December 2009
Saturday 12 December 2009
Task 8 - "Rat in the Rain" by Snezhana
The elderly Japanese couple was in
The Japanese gentleman stood peering through the window. Outside right under the first of the marble tables he saw a rat. The rat was hiding from the rain but at the same time it seemed to be glaring at him and showing him its teeth.
‘How dare this rat glare at me like that. I’m going down to kill it with my ninjato[1],’ he said suddenly.
‘Do you want me to go and do it with my kaiken[2]?’ asked the elderly wife from the rocking chair she had rested herself in.
‘No, it belongs to me. I’m not coming back without its head.’
‘Be careful with your kimono,’ she murmured from the insides of the chair as he closed the door on his way out.
The husband went downstairs. He passed through the lobby where the hotel keeper sat behind her desk drinking beer. She was a big German matron in a crimson silk dress, her muscular neck and massive biceps bulging under the fine fabric.
‘Gute nacht’, said the husband. He was impressed with the frau’s warlike appearance.
‘Schönes Wetter heute,’ she responded in a thunderous voice.
The husband did not speak much German but he thought that the hotel keeper was indeed very polite, so he turned to her and bowed reverently. Then he opened the door, took out his ninjato and prepared for combat. Suddenly he heard a flapping sound and at the same time felt a poking sensation in his behind. He turned around and saw the hotel keeper who had unfurled a large umbrella without measuring the distance and now was giggling with embarrassment.
‘Not get wet, you,’ she boomed and lifted the umbrella above his head.
‘Arigato,’ said the husband and they stepped into the cold rain outside. They reached the backyard where the toilets glistened mysteriously in the moonlight. The husband carefully examined the space around the tables with the shining ninjato ready in his hand, but the rat was gone.
‘Warum du out in rain?’ humbly asked the formidable frau.
‘There was a rat.’ said the Japanese gentleman and pointed under the first table.
‘Rat…rat…’ the hotel keeper started mumbling to herself, scratching her head.
‘Yes, a rat. I saw it from my window. It was hiding from the rain under that same table. It glared at me and showed me its teeth.’
He looked at the hotel keeper who by that point had become rather confused, a large raindrop hanging from her pale Aryan nose.
‘Go in...get wet...’ she said and smiled somewhat hesitantly at him.
‘Alright then,’ agreed the husband and reluctantly sheathed his ninjato.
They went back into the hotel lobby. The husband watched the hotel keeper as she folded the umbrella and violently shook it to get the water off. ‘Impressive woman,’ he thought, ‘gentle yet brave.’ He pressed his palms together and bowed reverently again.
‘Oyasuminasai,’ he said and went up to his room. He opened the door and saw his wife still crouching on the rocking chair. She was listening to haiku on her iPod.
‘Did you kill the rat?’ she asked as she removed the buds from her ears.
‘No. It was gone.’
‘Maybe it was struck by lightning. After all, the bold do receive their punishment.’
‘It was mine. Its head should have fallen under the infallible blade of my ninjato. Maybe I should have taken its miserable life with my shuriken the very moment I saw it from that window…’
His wife had resumed listening to haiku.
He walked up to the big mirror that hung on one of the walls and took off his pants. He carefully examined his thighs, his left buttock, his right buttock and his six-pack. Then he started tensing them rhythmically like a bodybuilder.
‘Do you think it would be a good idea if I wax my legs?’
His wife removed the earbuds again and, after a moment of consideration, replied ‘Only legs won't do. You should go for chest and back as well. Maybe there, too,’ and she nodded sagely at his loins.
The husband stepped back from the mirror and went to the window, peering through the glass into the mellow German night.
‘I want to be smooth. I want to be silky smooth. Like the silk of a kimono. Like the silk of the hotel keeper’s dress..’
‘What the hell..’ started the wife.
‘I want this rat’s head on a silver plate. It’s my duty to offer it as a gift to my brave ancestors.’
‘Why don’t you try some haiku?’
The husband still stood with his pants down in front of the window. He couldn’t stop thinking about the rat. The rat in the rain. The rat that had laughed at him and then ran away. The shame had almost covered him from head to toes when someone knocked on the door.
‘Wilkommen,’ he responded.
The door opened and there stood the formidable frau, the hotel keeper, in her crimson silk dress, bloody cleaver in one hand, slain rat in the other.
‘Entschuldigen Sie bitte,’ she said solemnly, ‘Rat!’
Task 8 - "A Puppy In The Sun" by Mariyana
A Puppy in the Sun
A very hot day in July. The sea and the palm trees in the public garden were still in the haze. There was an artist drawing a half naked girl sitting on a bench. The square with the war monument was empty. A waiter stood at the door of a nearby café and looked the progress of the artist and especially the girl. Another girl was looking out of the window of the second floor of a hotel. A newly-wed American couple on vacation. She was looking at the waiter while her husband was sitting in the bed with a book in his hands. Right under their window a puppy was lying in the heat breathing heavily with a tongue protruding out of its little muzzle.
“ Go down and get that puppy,”said Anne.
“Mhm,” answered the husband without moving from the bed.
“ Did you hear me at all. I want that puppy. It is thirsty and I will give it some water.”
“ Well, go get it yourself.”
The American wife hated her husband. She went out of the room hating him and banged the door behind her.
Downstairs she passed by the office of the owner. The door was open and he had the displeasure to make an effort and bow to the lady. He was an old man with small hands and the face of a weasel.
“Fa Caldo”, the wife said
“Si,si, Signora. It is very hot.
He stood behind his desk counting money. The wife didn’t like him. She didn’t like his forced servitude and most of all she didn’t like his small hands. The slowness of his manners reminded her of her own husband. She could picture George lying on the bed and reading a magazine entitled “ How to grow roses.” from the Home Gardening Series. She opened the door of the hotel. In this moment the maid who looked after their room came and offered a parasol with a perfunctory polite grimace. The hotel-keeper had sent her undoubtedly.
“Grazie. I don’t need it. I’m only going to get that sweet black puppy in the garden,” said the wife.
She went to the spot where the puppy lied but it was not there any more. She thought it a really awful vacation, ascended the stairs to their room and fuming opened the door with a bang.
“The puppy was gone.”
Her husband only shrugged his shoulders. He was reading the latest edition of the Home Gardening series - “How to grow lilies.” The roses edition was on the bedside table. She took it from the table, ripped it in two pieces and throw it out of the window. That made George lift his eyes from his magazine and ask:
“What do you want ,honey?I bought you that diamond ring, the fur coat and the golden necklace. Why are you so angry? We are on vacation. Have some rest,” said he with his soft voice and artificial smile.
“Are you going to lie and read through the whole vacation?”
“Well, I’m making up with the editions I missed. I was too busy at work. You know I have to take care of the garden.”
“ I want to go on long walks. I want to have fun. And I’m tired of this short hair. I want long hair tied on a bun. I want it to sway gently on my back as I walk. I want to tie it with a golden ribbon and watch myself on the mirror brushing it at night.
“I’ll buy you a wig,” said the husband unconcerned.
“I don’t want a wig. I want a long red dress and candles and a long walk around the city and a puppy. And most of all I want to have fun. I want to have fun now. I want fun.”
“Oh, shut up! I want a quiet vacation. I want to lazy around all day and I’m doing it. Get a magazine to read! ,” said the husband.
Anne sat on the chair beside the dressing table and went back to looking out of the window. She thought that he is hopeless anyway. Her attention was attracted again by the waiter in the nearby café. He was still standing at the door .The artist and the girl were gone. The square was empty. She could see he was not like most Italians. He was tall and muscular. She remembered his beautiful face from the previous morning when he had served her table.
“ I’m going for a walk,” said the wife.
“Have a nice walk.”
Anne went out of the room leaving George on the bed. After some time there was a knock on the door and the maid came in the room holding the black puppy.
“Excuse me” said the maid “ the puppy Signora was looking for appeared again.”
Anne was in the café. George had finished the lilies edition and was playing with the puppy.
A very hot day in July. The sea and the palm trees in the public garden were still in the haze. There was an artist drawing a half naked girl sitting on a bench. The square with the war monument was empty. A waiter stood at the door of a nearby café and looked the progress of the artist and especially the girl. Another girl was looking out of the window of the second floor of a hotel. A newly-wed American couple on vacation. She was looking at the waiter while her husband was sitting in the bed with a book in his hands. Right under their window a puppy was lying in the heat breathing heavily with a tongue protruding out of its little muzzle.
“ Go down and get that puppy,”said Anne.
“Mhm,” answered the husband without moving from the bed.
“ Did you hear me at all. I want that puppy. It is thirsty and I will give it some water.”
“ Well, go get it yourself.”
The American wife hated her husband. She went out of the room hating him and banged the door behind her.
Downstairs she passed by the office of the owner. The door was open and he had the displeasure to make an effort and bow to the lady. He was an old man with small hands and the face of a weasel.
“Fa Caldo”, the wife said
“Si,si, Signora. It is very hot.
He stood behind his desk counting money. The wife didn’t like him. She didn’t like his forced servitude and most of all she didn’t like his small hands. The slowness of his manners reminded her of her own husband. She could picture George lying on the bed and reading a magazine entitled “ How to grow roses.” from the Home Gardening Series. She opened the door of the hotel. In this moment the maid who looked after their room came and offered a parasol with a perfunctory polite grimace. The hotel-keeper had sent her undoubtedly.
“Grazie. I don’t need it. I’m only going to get that sweet black puppy in the garden,” said the wife.
She went to the spot where the puppy lied but it was not there any more. She thought it a really awful vacation, ascended the stairs to their room and fuming opened the door with a bang.
“The puppy was gone.”
Her husband only shrugged his shoulders. He was reading the latest edition of the Home Gardening series - “How to grow lilies.” The roses edition was on the bedside table. She took it from the table, ripped it in two pieces and throw it out of the window. That made George lift his eyes from his magazine and ask:
“What do you want ,honey?I bought you that diamond ring, the fur coat and the golden necklace. Why are you so angry? We are on vacation. Have some rest,” said he with his soft voice and artificial smile.
“Are you going to lie and read through the whole vacation?”
“Well, I’m making up with the editions I missed. I was too busy at work. You know I have to take care of the garden.”
“ I want to go on long walks. I want to have fun. And I’m tired of this short hair. I want long hair tied on a bun. I want it to sway gently on my back as I walk. I want to tie it with a golden ribbon and watch myself on the mirror brushing it at night.
“I’ll buy you a wig,” said the husband unconcerned.
“I don’t want a wig. I want a long red dress and candles and a long walk around the city and a puppy. And most of all I want to have fun. I want to have fun now. I want fun.”
“Oh, shut up! I want a quiet vacation. I want to lazy around all day and I’m doing it. Get a magazine to read! ,” said the husband.
Anne sat on the chair beside the dressing table and went back to looking out of the window. She thought that he is hopeless anyway. Her attention was attracted again by the waiter in the nearby café. He was still standing at the door .The artist and the girl were gone. The square was empty. She could see he was not like most Italians. He was tall and muscular. She remembered his beautiful face from the previous morning when he had served her table.
“ I’m going for a walk,” said the wife.
“Have a nice walk.”
Anne went out of the room leaving George on the bed. After some time there was a knock on the door and the maid came in the room holding the black puppy.
“Excuse me” said the maid “ the puppy Signora was looking for appeared again.”
Anne was in the café. George had finished the lilies edition and was playing with the puppy.
Wednesday 2 December 2009
Task 4 - "A Day on Mind Channel" by Ani
A Day on Mind Channel
Now this is just awful! How am I supposed to do… the cleaning, for instance, all around the house when there are two whole rooms missing sets?! I can miss a bargain as big as a whole supermarket! Not that I don’t appreciate his efforts, of course I do, but hey, this is life today. It’s just like that… can’t miss anything. I must talk to Robert, but really gently, don’t want to upset him now, do I? Hah. We’ll work it out, we always do, somehow… Like with the coffee machine… oh-oh-oh, must make a cup now or I’ll have to drink three in the afternoon! And Sharon experienced what happens if you don’t consume the right amount of coffee – they take the machine away! Oh no oh no. This is The Greatest One. Can’t let that happen. Hah, I’m so absent-minded today, lucky I remembered. But I’ve got to talk to him. At least we’ve got the handset here. Now I can relax a bit till I wait for my coffee. Don’t have to run around the house so I don’t miss the program. But still… oh anyway, we’ll talk.
Mmm. Tastes great. Oh I’ve got to call Molly, we’ll miss the 11.30 make-up discounts, God what a disgrace that would be. Only once a week. And I’ll have like an hour or so before that just to myself, just me and the Bargains!!!! God knows what’ll be on today, can’t wait can’t wait. Where’s that phone?
Hello Molly dear!
-Hi Judy! You’ll be ready for 11.15? I’ll come pick you up with our new caaaar!
New car?! Oh my, how time flies… haha! So, yes, of course dear, I’ll be out front. So, see you in a while then!
- See you!
Now let’s see, program two, just in time. Oh I just love this announcer, I can almost guess by that face of his what the next number will be. Hah. Reminds me of someone, though… Hmmm. Ok now, 391-HW8-612….4! NOO! Shit. I think it’s one of Robert’s friends… or patients? But why would a patient be seeing him when he’s off duty? Oh I know who he is! I saw him once. That morning when I was with Robert in the car to the hospital, we were supposed to go pick the new microwave. That freak, Hathaway. That’s who he reminds me of. Never mind, concentrate now… 503? Nononono. Not my day today… That guy, he’s totally crazy. Can you imagine, people being manipulated? Hah! Now that’s outrageous. Who would do that? And how, as a matter of fact? Robert said he blamed those signs they’ve been putting up lately. Now this is totally … stupid. It’s just that he can’t afford it, that’s all. Jealous of the good hard-working people who can. So let’s go now and try to spoil it all for them. And poor Robert, that weirdo’s got on to him. Playing with his mind when he’s got so much to think of… we’ve got the mortgage, and all the debts, and his job, now that he’s working even on Saturdays… 876-1LS-K780… Ohmygod! I WON! HA! Happy new TV, ho-ho-ho! …… Aaand what do I tell Robert now? Hope he doesn’t mind. But he’s a reasonable man, sure he’ll understand we can’t live here like some cave people, we have to have everything we need, this is our age now, this is the way we live… I know it’s hard sometimes, but reality is reality. And I already won it so we’ll just have to pay for it. Can’t imagine how much it would cost without the discount… Lucky I guessed the numbers then! Good girl, hihihi. Now I’ll just have to phone in to tell them the address. And get ready cause Molly’ll be here in 10 minutes. And let some fresh air in. Oh my, they’ve put up a new sign? It’s huge now isn’t it. Wonder what it will advertize, still blank. Ok, should get dressed now, and I must not forget to grab a new coat of some kind while we’re at it with Molly. Don’t know how I thought of that but it’s a good thing I did, the old one’s already… old.
*****
Home sweet home. That hypermarket’s the greatest. Managed to buy so many red-point items, they’ve probably won me like a thousand points up till now, and soon we’ll be able to buy some new things with monstrous discounts. And those absolutely gorgeous coats, I simply had to have them both, the second one being more or less free. Yes, Molly’s right, I’m really putting so much effort in trying my best to economize and I’m always running the whole town through just to find the biggest bargain, and now I’m all hysterical about how Robert was going to react, blah-blah. He’s a brilliant man, my darling, but sometimes he’s just too old fashioned. He has to get used to the fact that it’s no longer the hippy age, it’s not cool to live in a dump and not have the basic things you need to live a comfy life. And I’ve the feeling it’s all that loony’s fault. Come to think of it, it is strange that those signs are blank, and that people seem just a bit more … eager. But what do the signs have to do with it? It truly is crazy. Subliminal control. Hah. Molly almost choked with laughter. So don’t be absurd, Judith, get a grip, this is all the conspiracy phobia of a madman’s sick mind. They can’t make us spend so much……. Is it really much that we spend? What’s gotten into me?! I’ve got to talk to Robert, that guy’s starting to blur my own mind too, let alone his, the way that weirdo’s been lurking around the hospital to talk crazy things to my naïve darling. He is the actual subliminal monster! He’s trying to make people do strange things against their will and making them act unnaturally. Cause it’s a natural turn of events, our reality, isn’t it? That’s just the way it is. This is our world. Now let’s see what’s the newest bargain.
So how do you like our blog?
Welcome to our blog! (TA-DA-TA-DAAAAA)
I hope you like it! I did my best. If my best is not good enough though - feel free to criticize! I'm a blog-owner virgin and I am not ashamed! You can comment on anything - I can add new tools, change the color (yes, it's black - it soothes my soul)or completely reorganize it if someone comes up with a good idea! Now that my work is done (or not?), I would love to see active participants in it! Continue your old threads and start new ones. :)
I am looking forward to your feedback! :P
P.S. One more handy thing: Follow this blog! This will show you all the new threads at your profile page and it should also probably e-mail you when a new thread appears - not sure about that... Haven't had the chance to try it out yet.
To follow the blog: Log in. At your profile page go to the bottom and click on Add (in the blogs I'm following section) and paste the blog URL, which is: http://creative-writing-su.blogspot.com/
I hope you like it! I did my best. If my best is not good enough though - feel free to criticize! I'm a blog-owner virgin and I am not ashamed! You can comment on anything - I can add new tools, change the color (yes, it's black - it soothes my soul)or completely reorganize it if someone comes up with a good idea! Now that my work is done (or not?), I would love to see active participants in it! Continue your old threads and start new ones. :)
I am looking forward to your feedback! :P
P.S. One more handy thing: Follow this blog! This will show you all the new threads at your profile page and it should also probably e-mail you when a new thread appears - not sure about that... Haven't had the chance to try it out yet.
To follow the blog: Log in. At your profile page go to the bottom and click on Add (in the blogs I'm following section) and paste the blog URL, which is: http://creative-writing-su.blogspot.com/
Task 8 - Parody
TASK 8
Write a parody of this famous 1,000-word short story by Ernest Hemingway.
You must give enough clues (thematic and stylistic) to any reader who knows the story to let them understand that your piece means to mirror it. The first clue might be a skillfully modified title.
You’d better stick to the style of the original but you might want to highlight (through exaggeration) any of its peculiar features.
The setting should be almost the same (i.e. a hotel but it could be located somewhere else). Don’t make it a hotel freely floating in the Universe, though.
Try to keep almost the same proportion between dialogue and narrative report.
Stick to the number of characters in the original.
Manipulate the characters. Reverse their roles, if you wish. Play with nationalities.
Will the cat be a cat in the rain or a completely different animal in the sun? Your decision.
Manipulate the conflict. Make it more emotional, if you wish, depending on your characters and your setting.
Importantly, make us chortle.
You have as many words as Hemingway needed for his story.
WRITERS
Milena
Reviewed by Danail, Daniela, Galina, Zlatina
Mariyana
Reviewed by Tzvetomila, Antonia, Maria, Ani
Snezhana
Reviewed by Emo, Evgeniya, Madlen, Aglika
Tzvetelina
Reviewed by Yolanda, Irina, Alex, Kiril
I am not certain whether Hristina, Nataliya, Zlatko and Karamfil are planning to quit. That’s why I didn’t put them on the list of reviewers. If you’re still on, pls write to me and try to adopt a more responsible attitude to your assignments.
CAT IN THE RAIN
————————
FIRST PRINTED IN
IN OUR TIME
1924
————————
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
There were only two Americans stopping at the hotel. They did not know any of the people they passed on the stairs on their way to and from their room. Their room was on the second floor facing the sea. It also faced the public garden and war monument. There were big palms and green benches in the public garden. In the good weather there was always an artist with his easel. Artists liked the way the palms grew and the bright colors of the hotels facing the sea. Italians came from a long way off to look up at the war monument. It was made of bronze and glistened in the rain. It was raining. The rain dripped from the palm trees. Water stood in pools on the gravel paths. The sea broke in a long line in the rain. The motor cars were gone from the square by the war monument. Across the square in the doorway of the cafe a waiter stood looking out at the empty square.
The American wife stood at the window looking out. Outside right under their window a cat was crouched under one of the dripping green tables. The cat was trying to make herself so compact that she would not be dripped on.
“I’m going down and get that kitty,” the American wife said.
“I’ll do it,” her husband offered from the bed.
“No, I’ll get it. The poor kitty is out trying to keep dry under the table.”
The husband went on reading, lying propped up with the two pillows at the foot of the bed.
“Don’t get wet,” he said.
The wife went downstairs and the hotel owner stood up and bowed to her as she passed the office. His desk was at the far end of the office. He was an old man and very tall.
“Il piove,” the wife said. She liked the hotelkeeper.
“Si, si, Signora, brutto tempo. It is very bad weather.”
He stood behind his desk in the far end of the dim room. The wife liked him. She liked the way he wanted to serve her. She liked the way he felt about being a hotel-keeper. She liked his old, heavy face and big hands.
Liking him she opened the door and looked out. It was raining harder. A man in a rubber cape was crossing the empty square to the cafe. The cat would be around to the right. Perhaps she could go along to the eaves. As she stood in the doorway an umbrella opened behind her. It was the maid who looked after their room.
“You must not get wet,” she smiled, speaking Italian. Of course, the hotel-keeper had sent her.
With the maid holding the umbrella over her, she walked along the gravel path until she was under their window. The table was there, washed bright green in the rain, but the cat was gone. She was suddenly disappointed. The maid looked up at her.
“Ha perduto qualque cosa, Signora?”
“There was a cat,” said the American girl.
“A cat?”
“Si, il gatto.”
“A cat?” the maid laughed. “A cat in the rain?”
“Yes,” she said, “under the table.” Then, “Oh, I wanted it so much. I wanted a kitty.”
When she talked English the maid’s face tightened.
“Come, Signora,” she said. “We must get back inside. You will be wet.”
“I suppose so,” said the American girl.
They went back along the gravel path and passed in the door. The maid stayed outside to close the umbrella. As the American girl passed the office, the padrone bowed from his desk. Something felt very small and tight inside the girl. The padrone made her feel very small and at the same time really important. She had a momentary feeling of being of supreme importance. She went on up the stairs. She opened the door of the room. George was on the bed reading.
“Did you get the cat?” he asked, putting the book down.
“It was gone.”
“Wonder where it went to,” he said, resting his eyes from reading. She sat down on the bed.
“I wanted it so much,” she said. “I don’t know why I wanted it so much. I wanted that poor kitty. It isn’t any fun to be a poor kitty out in the rain.”
George was reading again.
She went over and sat in front of the mirror of the dressing table looking at herself with the hand glass. She studied her profile, first one side and then the other. Then she studied the back of her head and her neck.
“Don’t you think it would be a good idea if I let my hair grow out?” she asked, looking at her profile again.
George looked up and saw the back of her neck, clipped close like a boy’s.
“I like it the way it is.”
“I get so tired of it,” she said. “I get so tired of looking like a boy.”
George shifted his position in the bed. He hadn’t looked away from her since she started to speak.
“You look pretty darn nice,” he said.
She laid the mirror down on the dresser and went over to the window and looked out. It was getting dark.
“I want to pull my hair back tight and smooth and make a big knot at the back that I can feel,” she said. “I want to have a kitty to sit on my lap and purr when I stroke her.”
“Yeah?” George said from the bed.
“And I want to eat at a table with my own silver and I want candles. And I want it to be spring and I want to brush my hair out in front of a mirror and I want a kitty and I want some new clothes.”
“Oh, shut up and get something to read,” George said. He was reading again.
His wife was looking out of the window. It was quite dark now and still raining in the palm trees.
“Anyway, I want a cat,” she said, “I want a cat. I want a cat now. If I can’t have long hair or any fun, I can have a cat.”
George was not listening. He was reading his book. His wife looked out of the window where the light had come on in the square.
Someone knocked at the door.
“Avanti,” George said. He looked up from his book. In the doorway stood the maid. She held a big tortoise-shell cat pressed tight against her and swung down against her body.
“Excuse me,” she said, “the padrone asked me to bring this for the Signora.”
Ernest Hemingway
1925
Write a parody of this famous 1,000-word short story by Ernest Hemingway.
You must give enough clues (thematic and stylistic) to any reader who knows the story to let them understand that your piece means to mirror it. The first clue might be a skillfully modified title.
You’d better stick to the style of the original but you might want to highlight (through exaggeration) any of its peculiar features.
The setting should be almost the same (i.e. a hotel but it could be located somewhere else). Don’t make it a hotel freely floating in the Universe, though.
Try to keep almost the same proportion between dialogue and narrative report.
Stick to the number of characters in the original.
Manipulate the characters. Reverse their roles, if you wish. Play with nationalities.
Will the cat be a cat in the rain or a completely different animal in the sun? Your decision.
Manipulate the conflict. Make it more emotional, if you wish, depending on your characters and your setting.
Importantly, make us chortle.
You have as many words as Hemingway needed for his story.
WRITERS
Milena
Reviewed by Danail, Daniela, Galina, Zlatina
Mariyana
Reviewed by Tzvetomila, Antonia, Maria, Ani
Snezhana
Reviewed by Emo, Evgeniya, Madlen, Aglika
Tzvetelina
Reviewed by Yolanda, Irina, Alex, Kiril
I am not certain whether Hristina, Nataliya, Zlatko and Karamfil are planning to quit. That’s why I didn’t put them on the list of reviewers. If you’re still on, pls write to me and try to adopt a more responsible attitude to your assignments.
CAT IN THE RAIN
————————
FIRST PRINTED IN
IN OUR TIME
1924
————————
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
There were only two Americans stopping at the hotel. They did not know any of the people they passed on the stairs on their way to and from their room. Their room was on the second floor facing the sea. It also faced the public garden and war monument. There were big palms and green benches in the public garden. In the good weather there was always an artist with his easel. Artists liked the way the palms grew and the bright colors of the hotels facing the sea. Italians came from a long way off to look up at the war monument. It was made of bronze and glistened in the rain. It was raining. The rain dripped from the palm trees. Water stood in pools on the gravel paths. The sea broke in a long line in the rain. The motor cars were gone from the square by the war monument. Across the square in the doorway of the cafe a waiter stood looking out at the empty square.
The American wife stood at the window looking out. Outside right under their window a cat was crouched under one of the dripping green tables. The cat was trying to make herself so compact that she would not be dripped on.
“I’m going down and get that kitty,” the American wife said.
“I’ll do it,” her husband offered from the bed.
“No, I’ll get it. The poor kitty is out trying to keep dry under the table.”
The husband went on reading, lying propped up with the two pillows at the foot of the bed.
“Don’t get wet,” he said.
The wife went downstairs and the hotel owner stood up and bowed to her as she passed the office. His desk was at the far end of the office. He was an old man and very tall.
“Il piove,” the wife said. She liked the hotelkeeper.
“Si, si, Signora, brutto tempo. It is very bad weather.”
He stood behind his desk in the far end of the dim room. The wife liked him. She liked the way he wanted to serve her. She liked the way he felt about being a hotel-keeper. She liked his old, heavy face and big hands.
Liking him she opened the door and looked out. It was raining harder. A man in a rubber cape was crossing the empty square to the cafe. The cat would be around to the right. Perhaps she could go along to the eaves. As she stood in the doorway an umbrella opened behind her. It was the maid who looked after their room.
“You must not get wet,” she smiled, speaking Italian. Of course, the hotel-keeper had sent her.
With the maid holding the umbrella over her, she walked along the gravel path until she was under their window. The table was there, washed bright green in the rain, but the cat was gone. She was suddenly disappointed. The maid looked up at her.
“Ha perduto qualque cosa, Signora?”
“There was a cat,” said the American girl.
“A cat?”
“Si, il gatto.”
“A cat?” the maid laughed. “A cat in the rain?”
“Yes,” she said, “under the table.” Then, “Oh, I wanted it so much. I wanted a kitty.”
When she talked English the maid’s face tightened.
“Come, Signora,” she said. “We must get back inside. You will be wet.”
“I suppose so,” said the American girl.
They went back along the gravel path and passed in the door. The maid stayed outside to close the umbrella. As the American girl passed the office, the padrone bowed from his desk. Something felt very small and tight inside the girl. The padrone made her feel very small and at the same time really important. She had a momentary feeling of being of supreme importance. She went on up the stairs. She opened the door of the room. George was on the bed reading.
“Did you get the cat?” he asked, putting the book down.
“It was gone.”
“Wonder where it went to,” he said, resting his eyes from reading. She sat down on the bed.
“I wanted it so much,” she said. “I don’t know why I wanted it so much. I wanted that poor kitty. It isn’t any fun to be a poor kitty out in the rain.”
George was reading again.
She went over and sat in front of the mirror of the dressing table looking at herself with the hand glass. She studied her profile, first one side and then the other. Then she studied the back of her head and her neck.
“Don’t you think it would be a good idea if I let my hair grow out?” she asked, looking at her profile again.
George looked up and saw the back of her neck, clipped close like a boy’s.
“I like it the way it is.”
“I get so tired of it,” she said. “I get so tired of looking like a boy.”
George shifted his position in the bed. He hadn’t looked away from her since she started to speak.
“You look pretty darn nice,” he said.
She laid the mirror down on the dresser and went over to the window and looked out. It was getting dark.
“I want to pull my hair back tight and smooth and make a big knot at the back that I can feel,” she said. “I want to have a kitty to sit on my lap and purr when I stroke her.”
“Yeah?” George said from the bed.
“And I want to eat at a table with my own silver and I want candles. And I want it to be spring and I want to brush my hair out in front of a mirror and I want a kitty and I want some new clothes.”
“Oh, shut up and get something to read,” George said. He was reading again.
His wife was looking out of the window. It was quite dark now and still raining in the palm trees.
“Anyway, I want a cat,” she said, “I want a cat. I want a cat now. If I can’t have long hair or any fun, I can have a cat.”
George was not listening. He was reading his book. His wife looked out of the window where the light had come on in the square.
Someone knocked at the door.
“Avanti,” George said. He looked up from his book. In the doorway stood the maid. She held a big tortoise-shell cat pressed tight against her and swung down against her body.
“Excuse me,” she said, “the padrone asked me to bring this for the Signora.”
Ernest Hemingway
1925
Tuesday 1 December 2009
Task 7 - "A Conversation at the Gallery" by Emo
A Conversation at the Gallery
Behold the Gallery. Boundless. Enormous. Very, very large. Standing outside the material Universe, it is just as well that it is where it is, for the Gallery is the repository of all Art in Time and Space (and a few other dimensions highly deserving of a capital letter).
Right in its center, in the air, among a throng of others, a picture hung. In front of it two men floated.
"Will it stand up to time?" asked the first. He was small, bright-eyed and ageless. His eyebrows shone like oiled sunlight. He turned his head to his companion.
In the mist-shot darkness under his long violet robe, its color and shape tapering thornlike to black towards the hood, the second one seemed to have accommodated all the ages the first one lacked.
"TIME SHALL TELL."
Driven by a cosmic resonance, the TELLTELLTELLTELL carried in a wide powerful tremolo across the vast expanses of the book-steppes, fluttering pages like windblown grass. The word disturbed two scavenging Huginn-ravens, which took to the air amid panic-shed feathers and the flicker of ink upon paper.
Almost immediately they calmed – having been by now used to the sound of reverberating, if somewhat dubious omniscience – and perched back atop a Holy Book, bound in the red and goldsilver hide of some obscure starbeast and written by the Race of Concrete Shoe-Horns, encapsulating the wisdom of two billion years of sentience and culture. Back in the Universe, the complete Book wasn't due for another two billion and one years. One of the Huginn-ravens took a bite out of it, thereby decreasing the chances of the Concrete Shoe-Horns' ever achieving sentience by one page.
While eating books might seem like a barbarous thing to do, even by a bird, the Hugginn-ravens are more than simple-minded scavengers. Some have written books themselves (if only by using their droppings to paste pages from other books together), and the appellation "scavenger" is technically incorrect, applied to a creature that eats things which, for the most part, haven't even been created yet, whenever "yet" might be in a place like the Gallery. What Hugginn-ravens actually do is to pare down the sum of all Art in the Gallery to control the amount of clutter and cliches in Life in the Universe, thus instinctively enforcing a fundamentally Universal Law – "Art is pretty big thing." In the case of a book as central and powerful to the existence of a race as the Shoe-horn Holy Book was, its destruction in precreation could obviate the development of the entire species. Which, in the case of a species called "The Race of Concrete Shoe-horns", was probably for the better.
"Tell! Tell! Tell! Tell!" squawked the other raven, and received a critical look from his cousin, who had a single eye like blue glass.
"Shut up and eat your binding."
"Tell?"
The blue-eyed Huginn-raven ignored the question with a sigh. It had of course been rhetorical, as would be every question from a creature so daft.
Meanwhile the echo had traveled the Gallery's whole circumference.
As mentioned, the Gallery is technically boundless, but the echo was produced by a voice equally boundless (technically). It seems the laws of simple mathematics hold even outside the boundaries of Space and Time, which is probably a mystery even greater than the existence of the Gallery itself, but the Gallery is generally more fun to look into, so the laws of mathematics and their effect shall, contrary to what the length of that paragraph suggests, not receive any more attention than the two Huginn-ravens have accorded them. Suffice to say the echo, having completed its rounds, returned back into the black hood from whence it came and there it sank but did not cease, proving without the shadow of a doubt something murky yet profound about the nature of probably Everything.
The small bright man screwed up the side of his mouth and flashed a sceptical eyebrow.
"Time will tell. Right... No, actually, you are. Now, what is it? Looks like Earth-art to me."
"YOUR..."
"Don't you go all endless on me."
From the bottomless depths of the robe came a soft sound, like a galaxy clearing its throat.
"Your skills are growing greater – Earth-civilization has seven billion billion and three twin-cultures in the entirety of existence. Yes, it is from Earth. Or it will be. Or it has been. Or..."
"French?"
"Why, yes."
"Twentieth century?"
"Yes..."
"1961, from the look of it. Jean Dubuffet's work? Looks a bit like Paris, Montparnasee, what he's painted."
The hood turned toward the small man. He turned from the painting, drawn from his analytical contemplation by an invisible gaze and something he perceived as a singularly strange combinations of smells. Although the tall, robed one did not speak, he radiated a rank endlessness, along with a confusion just as endless, which was a much more satisfying aroma.
"What?"
"...," the hooded man failed to say.
"I googled it. It's a thing you use to find things out. Powerful. Not as much as you, but it's getting there."
"Maybe I should stop it then. Shall it prove a mighty adversary?"
"Most mighty. But you may find something in common. Lack of substance, for one. Now, is that going to stand up to time?"
"Unlikely. It's power is too great."
"How does that make it unlikely? Is going to be destroyed at some point in time? Or it never gets painted?
"I have traveled far and wide..."
"No, you haven't. You don't go out in the Universe".
"My substance has traveled..."
"You don't have one. Or is that where it went?"
Again that unpleasant smell. Like roses expelled from the bowels of a dead fish, if incontinence was a viable issue for a dead fish.
"I HAVE TRAVELED far and wide upon the viewless wings of Art, and have seen its capacity for creation in the minds of countless species, in the mesh of the elements themselves, ordering Chaos, bringing beginnings and ends, reordering the laws of the Universe itself..."
"So?"
"Are you familiar with the Race of The Yellow-Bellied Worms of Gnuu'lt'bz'tz.Tz??"
"I'm happy that I'm not."
"So your Google can't travel among the stars?" asked the Endless (But Not Now) One with a smirk.
"It's getting there. What about the worms?"
"Among the Yellow-Bellied Worms of Gnuu'lt'bz'tz. Tz? there lived a great artist, who shall remain unnamed – so great was his power, so nonsensical his name. He could use his art to alter reality, to conjure up the past and the future."
"And what did he do with it?" The small man was impressed.
"Once he realized his power, he painted himself tons upon tons of dirt and for a short time became the richest worm on the planet."
"For a short time?"
"He was crushed to death in a landslide during an inspection of his coffers. His spirit and his power, however, remained and roamed the Universe. They found a home on Earth."
"No!"
"Yes."
"Jean Dubuffet is a worm?"
"He has the creative power of one, yes."
"And what does that mean for the Earth?"
"It could mean it's DESTRUCTION."
The hooded man paused until the word returned to his hood. His companion weathered the smell. For a sublime critic of art, The Endless One had little enough creative flair, so even that piece of slightly worn-out dramatic flourish was appreciated. He went on:
"The power of the worm has manifested fully in this picture. It represents a consummate if unwitting imitation of a style that by the twentieth century has been extinct for more than three hundred centuries – the artistic style of humanity's ancestors, their real history and their great battles against humanity's greatest foe obscured by time."
"They had a greatest foe that wasn't themselves? Who?"
"The Bunrabids."
"Never heard of them."
"A mighty race, also indigenous to Earth. Much was lost by both races in the course of the war, but at the end humans prevailed and completely obliterated the Bunrabids, effacing them even from their art and left only scarce and ambiguous traces of their enemy's existence.
What Jean Dubuffet has done is to reach back in time by the sublimity of his imitation, and begin a cycle of reversion for Earth's reality. First the dodo bird will appear again. Then the Arabian gazelle and the bulldog rat; the stuttering lion and the woolly slug; the saber-tooth tiger and the mammoth; and then the Bunrabid. And there will be carnage.
"But the twentieth-century human has devastating weapons."
"None shall avail him against the Bunrabid."
"Allright then, how about the prehistoric human. Won't he appear too?"
"It is possible, but not likely. The biological niche is full. Either way, there shall be a bitter struggle."
The small man glowed with a hungry fire.
"When does it start?"
"The cycle's speed is unpredictable. It might begin and end in a day, or in a thousand years. But it must be observed. Such a large-scale effect of art is well-nigh a cosmic impossibility. The consequences of this event may extend far beyond the reaches of the Earth's cosmos."
The Endless One said a number of other things, but were all greatly diminished in importance by the fact that the small man had eagerly vanished and so didn't hear them, and so there would be little point in repeating them to the reader. All of them save the last, probably.
"CAN'T BELIEVE HE BOUGHT IT," The Endless One said and chuckled quietly, the sound like that of a company of galaxies sharing a joke.
Behold the Gallery. Boundless. Enormous. Very, very large. Standing outside the material Universe, it is just as well that it is where it is, for the Gallery is the repository of all Art in Time and Space (and a few other dimensions highly deserving of a capital letter).
Right in its center, in the air, among a throng of others, a picture hung. In front of it two men floated.
"Will it stand up to time?" asked the first. He was small, bright-eyed and ageless. His eyebrows shone like oiled sunlight. He turned his head to his companion.
In the mist-shot darkness under his long violet robe, its color and shape tapering thornlike to black towards the hood, the second one seemed to have accommodated all the ages the first one lacked.
"TIME SHALL TELL."
Driven by a cosmic resonance, the TELLTELLTELLTELL carried in a wide powerful tremolo across the vast expanses of the book-steppes, fluttering pages like windblown grass. The word disturbed two scavenging Huginn-ravens, which took to the air amid panic-shed feathers and the flicker of ink upon paper.
Almost immediately they calmed – having been by now used to the sound of reverberating, if somewhat dubious omniscience – and perched back atop a Holy Book, bound in the red and goldsilver hide of some obscure starbeast and written by the Race of Concrete Shoe-Horns, encapsulating the wisdom of two billion years of sentience and culture. Back in the Universe, the complete Book wasn't due for another two billion and one years. One of the Huginn-ravens took a bite out of it, thereby decreasing the chances of the Concrete Shoe-Horns' ever achieving sentience by one page.
While eating books might seem like a barbarous thing to do, even by a bird, the Hugginn-ravens are more than simple-minded scavengers. Some have written books themselves (if only by using their droppings to paste pages from other books together), and the appellation "scavenger" is technically incorrect, applied to a creature that eats things which, for the most part, haven't even been created yet, whenever "yet" might be in a place like the Gallery. What Hugginn-ravens actually do is to pare down the sum of all Art in the Gallery to control the amount of clutter and cliches in Life in the Universe, thus instinctively enforcing a fundamentally Universal Law – "Art is pretty big thing." In the case of a book as central and powerful to the existence of a race as the Shoe-horn Holy Book was, its destruction in precreation could obviate the development of the entire species. Which, in the case of a species called "The Race of Concrete Shoe-horns", was probably for the better.
"Tell! Tell! Tell! Tell!" squawked the other raven, and received a critical look from his cousin, who had a single eye like blue glass.
"Shut up and eat your binding."
"Tell?"
The blue-eyed Huginn-raven ignored the question with a sigh. It had of course been rhetorical, as would be every question from a creature so daft.
Meanwhile the echo had traveled the Gallery's whole circumference.
As mentioned, the Gallery is technically boundless, but the echo was produced by a voice equally boundless (technically). It seems the laws of simple mathematics hold even outside the boundaries of Space and Time, which is probably a mystery even greater than the existence of the Gallery itself, but the Gallery is generally more fun to look into, so the laws of mathematics and their effect shall, contrary to what the length of that paragraph suggests, not receive any more attention than the two Huginn-ravens have accorded them. Suffice to say the echo, having completed its rounds, returned back into the black hood from whence it came and there it sank but did not cease, proving without the shadow of a doubt something murky yet profound about the nature of probably Everything.
The small bright man screwed up the side of his mouth and flashed a sceptical eyebrow.
"Time will tell. Right... No, actually, you are. Now, what is it? Looks like Earth-art to me."
"YOUR..."
"Don't you go all endless on me."
From the bottomless depths of the robe came a soft sound, like a galaxy clearing its throat.
"Your skills are growing greater – Earth-civilization has seven billion billion and three twin-cultures in the entirety of existence. Yes, it is from Earth. Or it will be. Or it has been. Or..."
"French?"
"Why, yes."
"Twentieth century?"
"Yes..."
"1961, from the look of it. Jean Dubuffet's work? Looks a bit like Paris, Montparnasee, what he's painted."
The hood turned toward the small man. He turned from the painting, drawn from his analytical contemplation by an invisible gaze and something he perceived as a singularly strange combinations of smells. Although the tall, robed one did not speak, he radiated a rank endlessness, along with a confusion just as endless, which was a much more satisfying aroma.
"What?"
"...," the hooded man failed to say.
"I googled it. It's a thing you use to find things out. Powerful. Not as much as you, but it's getting there."
"Maybe I should stop it then. Shall it prove a mighty adversary?"
"Most mighty. But you may find something in common. Lack of substance, for one. Now, is that going to stand up to time?"
"Unlikely. It's power is too great."
"How does that make it unlikely? Is going to be destroyed at some point in time? Or it never gets painted?
"I have traveled far and wide..."
"No, you haven't. You don't go out in the Universe".
"My substance has traveled..."
"You don't have one. Or is that where it went?"
Again that unpleasant smell. Like roses expelled from the bowels of a dead fish, if incontinence was a viable issue for a dead fish.
"I HAVE TRAVELED far and wide upon the viewless wings of Art, and have seen its capacity for creation in the minds of countless species, in the mesh of the elements themselves, ordering Chaos, bringing beginnings and ends, reordering the laws of the Universe itself..."
"So?"
"Are you familiar with the Race of The Yellow-Bellied Worms of Gnuu'lt'bz'tz.Tz??"
"I'm happy that I'm not."
"So your Google can't travel among the stars?" asked the Endless (But Not Now) One with a smirk.
"It's getting there. What about the worms?"
"Among the Yellow-Bellied Worms of Gnuu'lt'bz'tz. Tz? there lived a great artist, who shall remain unnamed – so great was his power, so nonsensical his name. He could use his art to alter reality, to conjure up the past and the future."
"And what did he do with it?" The small man was impressed.
"Once he realized his power, he painted himself tons upon tons of dirt and for a short time became the richest worm on the planet."
"For a short time?"
"He was crushed to death in a landslide during an inspection of his coffers. His spirit and his power, however, remained and roamed the Universe. They found a home on Earth."
"No!"
"Yes."
"Jean Dubuffet is a worm?"
"He has the creative power of one, yes."
"And what does that mean for the Earth?"
"It could mean it's DESTRUCTION."
The hooded man paused until the word returned to his hood. His companion weathered the smell. For a sublime critic of art, The Endless One had little enough creative flair, so even that piece of slightly worn-out dramatic flourish was appreciated. He went on:
"The power of the worm has manifested fully in this picture. It represents a consummate if unwitting imitation of a style that by the twentieth century has been extinct for more than three hundred centuries – the artistic style of humanity's ancestors, their real history and their great battles against humanity's greatest foe obscured by time."
"They had a greatest foe that wasn't themselves? Who?"
"The Bunrabids."
"Never heard of them."
"A mighty race, also indigenous to Earth. Much was lost by both races in the course of the war, but at the end humans prevailed and completely obliterated the Bunrabids, effacing them even from their art and left only scarce and ambiguous traces of their enemy's existence.
What Jean Dubuffet has done is to reach back in time by the sublimity of his imitation, and begin a cycle of reversion for Earth's reality. First the dodo bird will appear again. Then the Arabian gazelle and the bulldog rat; the stuttering lion and the woolly slug; the saber-tooth tiger and the mammoth; and then the Bunrabid. And there will be carnage.
"But the twentieth-century human has devastating weapons."
"None shall avail him against the Bunrabid."
"Allright then, how about the prehistoric human. Won't he appear too?"
"It is possible, but not likely. The biological niche is full. Either way, there shall be a bitter struggle."
The small man glowed with a hungry fire.
"When does it start?"
"The cycle's speed is unpredictable. It might begin and end in a day, or in a thousand years. But it must be observed. Such a large-scale effect of art is well-nigh a cosmic impossibility. The consequences of this event may extend far beyond the reaches of the Earth's cosmos."
The Endless One said a number of other things, but were all greatly diminished in importance by the fact that the small man had eagerly vanished and so didn't hear them, and so there would be little point in repeating them to the reader. All of them save the last, probably.
"CAN'T BELIEVE HE BOUGHT IT," The Endless One said and chuckled quietly, the sound like that of a company of galaxies sharing a joke.
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