[lit-ideas] Re: Sunday Twofer

Now just imagine we are looking through a hole-in-the-paper. It may not be as 
effective but it saves trees.

Donal
Who wonders whether for his birthday David would like a house, a tank, the 
opportunity to demolish a house with a tank, or that baseball cap somebody was 
wearing. 



________________________________
 From: Julie Krueger <juliereneb@xxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
Sent: Sunday, 13 May 2012, 20:03
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Sunday Twofer
 

I like very much the hole-in-the paper exercise.  I think I'll use it this week 
with some of my language & writing students.

Julie Krueger





On Sun, May 13, 2012 at 1:46 PM, David Ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

When "off" and "on" blur together, sometimes I wonder whether a well-defined 
job delivering the mail would be a fine thing.  And then I remember Charles 
Bukowski on the subject and my own experiences as a consumer.  For want of 
seven cents recently--there was a rise in price I missed--the post office 
confiscated my letter, held it ten days, returned it to my box.  By this time 
my brother-in-law's birthday was two days away, and since he lives half a world 
away and doesn't "do" e cards there wasn't much possibility that he'd be amused 
or cheered on the right day.  I thought of creating a fuss in my local post 
office, but when I got there a couple were having a loud argument in the 
parking lot, one fit for t.v. (which may have been where they learned the 
moves), and that was enough to put me off.  I paid the missing seven cents; 
they re-sent.  The card arrived in nine more days, which was first class. 
 Meanwhile, I ordered some nineteenth century
 books and an up-to-date, backlit reading device.  The first were to come by 
"media mail," the second was regular.  None arrived on time.  My current theory 
is that our guy leaves packages for his relief, allows them to cluster.  Why do 
all that heavy lifting when you have seniority?  Sure enough, these two 
packages and another all arrived on POET'S day, Friday, which is I believe when 
our guy goes fishing, or writes laconic stories.  (Piss Off Early, Tomorrow's 
Saturday).
>
>
>An exercise proposed by a candidate for a job teaching writing at our college 
>consisted of tearing a hole in a piece of paper to create a window on the 
>world, a point of view, a frame for observations.  We were asked to take a few 
>minutes then to write what we could see and what we thought about what we 
>could see.  Here's me, "My point of view is not still.  When I am god-like and 
>above the top of the frame I see stains and smudges on the table, marks, 
>variance in value.  These do not mean much to me.  What a crap pen this is. 
> Now I scrunch down.  Another of these crap pens comes into view, or rather 
>the black and round end is what I see, also about a quarter of an inch of 
>whiteness.  When I really get low, I see Arvie [African-American] eating his 
>lunch from a white, ceramic container.  None of this is accidental.  I choose 
>the point of view, and in that selection I refuse other possibilities.  So now 
>I wonder about connections.  I spy a
 white slip of paper, a white stain on the table, possibly left over from an 
attempt to use white-out.  Ah, in the distance, yet more white.  My points of 
view and what I see..., it's all really quite white.  He's asking us to put our 
pens down.  No more might for me, or this pen."
>
>David Ritchie,
>Portland, 
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