The Magic Box exercise

Posted on June 30, 2005

This is our first assignment for the creative writing class. (FYI: We will spend two weeks on poetry, two weeks on a short story, and two weeks on a screenplay.) There is no class tonight, so the assignment is done online through Oncourse.

The assignment is to take an imaginary box – a magic box – and pull things out of it. We make a list of 20 – 25 items we pull from the box. We are supposed to note and common threads or themes, stuff like that. From the list we are supposed to make a poem 8 – 10 lines long using items from the list. The poem doesn’t have to rhyme or even make sense. From what I understand, the assignment is just the list and the poem. I’m not sure if we are supposed to turn in notes regarding the themes, etc. Hopefully, I’ll find out when I go on Oncourse later tonight.

Anyway, here is what I pulled from the magic box:

I actually made two poems. I would have made a few more, but I ran out of time before going to work.

Scenes from an age

By the light of a hissing lantern
The bullfrog jumps over a keychain
while the salamander scurries away.
A pair of grass stained jeans
tossed next to some canvas sneakers.
A young boy sleeps on the floor,
curled up in a blanket and bored with Dick Clark.

Things found in my room, circa 1975

Bunk beds loom over a toy racecar track.
Unmade beds with a bumper sticker exhorting
“Pike’s Peak or Bust”.
A fort made from a blanket, comic books nearby.
A wad of chewing gum stuck to some sneakers
Construction paper, paste, crayons ground into the carpet,
implements of artwork strewn about the floor,
like so many faded memories.

Those are the first attempts. We’re supposed to revise them, but I kind of like them the way they are. We’ll see.

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Some stuff

Posted on June 30, 2005

A couple of things:

First of all, I added a new category – Writing. I really should cleanup the categories, but probably won’t. Anyway, it will mostly be for school, but I’ve done some other stuff that would probably fit in this category as well. It will be for poems, short stories, etc. – miscellaneous creative writing. I’ll be adding something here later tonight.

Secondly, it was hot today! hot hot hot hot hot. I went to weather.com which said the temperature was 93 out, but felt like 103. We had some rain yesterday and while it didn’t last long, it dumped hard, so today was humid and muggy. If there was ever a day I really wanted to be back in Colorado, today was it. Still, I walked home… in the heat. I stopped off and got a root beer and some ice cream on the way home. I’m drinking the root beer now and saving the ice cream for later. I thought about a root beer float, but I’m slacking and relaxing in the A/C right now, so no float.

Tips on getting cool: when you get home – strip (being a bachelor has it’s advantages). Crank the air conditioning. Get a washcloth and run it under cool water in the sink, then wipe the sweat off your head. Find the coolest spot fo the A/C and stand there. In my apartment, there is a vent in the kitchen ceiling that is like a waterfall of cool air – perfect for a day like today.

Filed Under Journal, School, Weather, Writing | 1 Comment

First Night

Posted on June 28, 2005

The first class for Creative Writing was pretty normal. There are about 17 students in the class, most of them are either in education, or fulfilling an English requirement. The first few weeks of class will concentrate on poetry, so we already have a couple of assignments. The class on Thursday will just be held online, because the instructor has a conflict.

One of the assigments is to pick an activity (I picked bicycling) and create a list each of verbs, nouns, and adjectives associated with the activity, then use those words in a poem that is a metaphor for something else. We did an in-class exercise like this where we came up with verbs, nouns, and adjectives for writing, then used them in a poem as a metaphor for life. It was interesting. That exercise, and the others we did concentrated more on free-verse. They don’t necessarily have to rhyme or even make sense, but various words put together might evoke some deeper meaning or emotion.

The daily journal idea is a strong suggestion, I guess. It’s mainly for ourselves and not for grade. I’ll make an effort at it, most likely through the blog here, but I don’t know about every day. I am a slacker blogger, but I will at least try to make a go of blogging every day. OTOH, if I don’t blog something, I might still write something, but keep it for myself (blog sacrilege, I know).

Still haven’t got the pictures scanned, but maybe Thursday.

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Back to School

Posted on June 27, 2005

I’m going to make this fairly quick, because we are supposed to have scattered thunderstorms tonight, and I hear thunder off in the distance. Plus, I’m tired.

My Intro to Creative Writing class starts tomorrow night, and I’m looking forward to it. I checked out the syllabus online, which was kind of nice in that it had what we are supposed to do each class session. We start out doing poetry, then do a short story, and finish with a short screenplay, so it all sounds interesting. I’m not too sure about the poetry, though. I’m fond of haikus and limericks, because they are short and to the point, and in the case of limericks, they are often funny :D Anyway, I’ll give it a shot and see what comes of it.

One thing that was strongly suggested was to write two hours for every hour of class, so twelve hours of writing every week. I also saw something about a daily journal, but I’m not sure if that is an assignment, or a suggestion. The point was the teacher wants us to write every day. I wonder if writing in my blog would count for any of that.

I also got the impression that she wants us to actually write – like in a book. I have often said that word processors were made for people like me. My penmanship is awful. I work in a doctor’s office, and you know if a doctor criticizes your handwriting, there is a problem. Of course, I tell them they don’t have much room to talk ;-) Anyway, I will bring a notebook (as “required”) and my laptop. I prefer to do all my writing in the laptop or on my PC at home, and since I have one of those USB pen drives, I can transfer files from one to the other with ease (a/k/a Sneakernet 2005).

I’ll post again later this week or on the weekend about how the class went, plus I hope to have some of the photos scanned in so I can post them to the gallery.

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Concours Grand Prix

Posted on June 18, 2005

This morning I went to the Indianapolis Concours Grand Prix on the Circle. For those who might not know, a Concours show is an auto show of (typically) older cars in orginal condition, or close to original condition. While there are more famous Concours D’Elegance shows, they aren’t within walking distance of my apartment. On Friday afternoon/evening, there was a similar show held by the Ferrari Club of America which featured mostly ferraris, with a few other sports cars as well.

The Concours and the Ferrari show were held in conjunction with the US Grand Prix being held here in Indy this weekend. A good chance for car lovers and race fans to see some beautiful cars.

The show officially started at 10:00 am, but I showed up a little early and some cars were still arriving. The featured brand was Stutz automobile, which was originally made here in Indy. They had probably a dozen or more Stutzes of various types on display, in addition to the other marquees. Chrysler was the main corpoate sponsor, and they had some nice cars on display, mainly concept cars.

I loved their Phaeton. Currently, VW makes a car called Phaeton (their top-of-the-line), but the Chrysler Phaeton definitely drew its inspiration from the original dual-cowl phaetons of old (1930′s and earlier). I would love to see this car produced, but as with most concept cars, it will remain in the realm of the unique.

The morning started nice. It was sunny (and I have the sunburn to prove it), but the clouds started moving in before long. I took about 40 – 50 pictures, and dropped off the film. I still have part of a roll to finish, but I’ll try to get the photos posted here in the next week or two. The photos were taken with a medium-format Pentax 645, which means the film has to be sent out, and will be back probably next Friday. I didn’t get all the pictures I wanted because the crowds became too much, but I grabbed what I could, so we’ll see.

It’s kind of strange. I must have a love/hate relationship with cars. I don’t own one. Don’t care to own one because everything I need is within walking distance. I think people drive too much, such as driving a block to the store to get Pepsi from the conveniece store. They scream bloody murder about rising gas prices, but the idea of walking would never occur to them, but I digress. While I might not like cars as transportation, I love them as works of art. All of the cars at this show were beautiful. Some were restored to original condition, while others had always been taken care of and were still in beautful unrestored condition. One gentleman had an old Hudson from the 1950′s with the original interior. He had some painting done on the exterior, but overall, it was unrestored, just cleaned up. Another guy had a late 50′s/early 60′s Mercury station wagon that was very clean and unrestored.

Overall, I think there were fewer cars this year than last year. It might be because I showed up early, but I left around 11:00, so I don’t know if more cars showed up later. For the cars that were there, I was very impressed. When I left, I noticed an old British Double Decker bus parking on a side-street. I don’t know if they were part of the show or not. I’m think not, but It would have made for an interesting addition. I grabbed a picture of that, too, althoug it is on the roll I still have to finish.

If you get a chance to visit a Concours vehicle show, I highly recommend it. I should have some photos posted in the next couple of weeks.

Filed Under Journal, Photography, Weather | 2 Comments

It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity

Posted on June 11, 2005

For the past few weeks we’ve been having a bit of a heat wave here in Indy, with temps in the 80′s and 90′s, but for awhile we didn’t have any rain, so the heat was starting to remind me of Colorado – dry. In humid areas, if you leave an air conditioned building and step out into 90 degree weather, you immediately start to sweat (I do, at least). In a dry heat, you go outside, you feel the heat, but don’t feel sticky right away. It isn’t as oppressive or brutal. It’s like opening an oven. You feel engulfed by it, but not sapped. So, the dry heat made it hot outside, but it wasn’t quite so bad.

The lack of rain even caused the city water department to recommend/ask people to use voluntary water restrictions. I should have known something was up earlier this week when I walked by a local pizza place and their sprinklers weren’t on. Every morning on my way to work, I walk by this shop, and they have a little strip of grass in front, and when I walk by in the morning – every morning – they have their sprinklers going, usually dousing me a bit. I didn’t realize it at first until I read the article in the paper. I thought it was funny, because people out here have likely never heard of xeriscaping and would probably have the heads of the city’s polititians if they implemented mandatory water restrictions. They’ve never lived in drought sticken areas or in the desert, though I wonder if some of the elderly might remember the Dust Bowl days.

So for the people out here in Indy, here are some tips for water conservation: water your lawn once or twice a week, no more; water your lawn in the evening, which will let more of the water seep into the ground, rather than evaporate under the sun; better still is to plant grass or plants that don’t require as much water in the first place. Despite the humidty, the rains will allow people to water their lawns less often, so I suppose that’s a good thing.

Filed Under Miscellaneous, Weather | 2 Comments

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