Saturday, May 11, 2013
Reportage Week One
Three rooms where language classes are held in both Italian and English are filled with eight Americans chewing pizza squares and picking at their cuticles. One unwraps a orange sucker and sticks it in his mouth, an avoidance of Italian. Five Italians stare out the window and attempt to speak English with me. I look to my left at MacKenzie, eyes plead save me. The only word I can pick up is Roma, and my brain scrambles for molto bene and bellissimo amidst Spanish. The man with the embroidered F.C on his shirt stands behind the counter of liquor and food speaks a mix of Italian and English. He conducts like the self proclaimed host, pouring more Prosecco and starting conversations with everyone in the room. The real hostess stands off to the side, a glow of pink pride halos around her head. Rain begins to pour outside, two boys dip out to light up a tobacco stick and die slowly. One of the boys, lost earlier today on Monteluco, but found his way back to the land of birra e pane, and the phrase "now you should write about it." After a knuckle kiss from F.C, water drops on my head and I hike past the Indian restaurant and a store that sells Barbie dolls to Tebro and home.
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Mi bambina,
ReplyDeleteI cannot fully express how proud I am of you and all the hard work and dedication. The improvement from the last workshop piece, Stateside, I read finals week and now…impressive. Extremely.
Foundationally, the language continues to peak. You have some really great imagery and language, here. I particularly love the phrases “pouring more Prosecco and starting conversations,” “a knuckle kiss,” and “a store that sells Barbie dolls to Tebro and home”—all of which I’m totally jealous.
A few revision suggestions, though (if you think of revisiting this draft in the future): (1) pick a particular site for the draft—one that makes sure to root the draft in a specific location or moment; (2) flesh out a subject (remember Hugo? Where is the trigger and in what way(s) will the triggering subject or “town” help propel the draft/provide it with more interesting tensions or binaries otherwise lost to familiarity?); and (3) characters: as of right now they are almost anonymous or flat, which is totally fine and normal for a first entry—however, for a revision, you would want to give definition to your characters (not necessarily all of them, per se, though), get your hands dirty and chisel them out.
On the whole, I think you’re doing wonderfully, of course. Keep it up, kid. You’re a rock-star!