Well folks, we made it through the week. It was a weird one - one of my former coworkers had major surgery, and another one almost got knifed on a train?!1 I thought the eclipse craziness was supposed to be over last week, but alas, here we are. I thankfully l didn’t have anything super insane happen to me this week: I just rearranged all the furniture in my house.
I did start teaching a new course this week, and thought I’d share some insights. This class is focused on the foundations of storytelling, aka getting back to basics. It never hurts to be reminded of the fundamentals - knowing the rules means you can then break them, after all! Finding texts for class is always a challenge: I can’t assume people will have time to read anything ahead of time. So, I like short, sweet and to the point. We need time to read and discuss. A Story About the Body by Robert Hass2 does just that - and is masterful at it.
There’s so much that I like here - the blending of genres, the sparse prose, how short it is. It’s a complete story, and yet we don’t even have character names. We don’t have a defined setting, but we do have specific details that help us understand the story and leave us with an emotional impact at the end. It’s a good reminder that no matter what you think a story *is*, you can be more experimental about it and don’t have to adhere to any rules.
After all, the first rule of writing is there is no rules. The second rule of writing is whatever you do has to work.3
As a reward for our labors, I give you the Weekly Friday Roundup.
What I’m reading:
Voltaique, by Ousmane Sembène. Translated as Tribal Scars4 in English, this book is a collection of short stories by the Senegalese author. The story ‘Tribal Scars’ is apparently the most renowned one, but it’s also the last one in the collection so I haven’t gotten there yet. I’m reading this in French, and it has been kicking my butt, vocabulary wise. I do try to read from across the Francophone world, but when you have to look up every 4th word because it’s a regional word or slang…it means it’s slow going. Now that I’ve gotten a bit more into it, I’m hoping the reading will be easier and quicker.
What I’m writing:
This newsletter! I’m working on an essay of sorts for Tuesday’s post, about my ‘favorite’ book5, why that’s a misnomer, and how a more contemporary adaptation gave me a new view on it.
What I’m listening to:
I’ve never been the biggest John Mayer fan, and this song is old, but I recently discovered it this week in a House fan edit video on YouTube (don’t judge me), and have been playing it non stop. Yes, I am one of those terrible people who can listen to a song on repeat for hours on end. No, I regret nothing. It matches the melancholy vibes of losing sunlight.
Mug Moment of the Week:
Behold, a Starbucks cup with smudged lipstick. The Writing Center where I work has been having all sorts of temperature issues this week - Wednesday it was 79 in the room, Thursday 60. So I was freezing and needed something warm and sadly the campus Starbucks does not have mugs. So this will have to do. Drink of choice is a Chai Latte. My Yeti is lurking in the background, because hydration is important.
They also might both be reading this so if they are, hi guys, I’m glad you’re ok.
I could not figure out for the life of me how to embed this, so the link to access it is here: https://genius.com/Robert-hass-a-story-about-the-body-annotated
Copyrighted to me, 2023. Wisdom I have compiled over the years.
I hate linking to Amazon, but I can’t find anywhere else that the English version is sold.
If you guess it, you get a prize.