Paean to a place where nothing quite happened.

[leondacter]

I will attempt to draw you into this narrative moment: It’s incredibly warm today, a Kansas warmth, warmth that is almost airless. On the corner across from our building, the hirsute, nonverbal saxaphonist has taken up his usual place; he fills the street with his sort of ambient sacharine interpolations, playing familiar tunes with a dawdling

Comments

[ulyart]

I much prefer to see you writing in this vein. You've made more of an effort to establish the setting and to describe the characters and the action.

I've been meaning to comment more in your journal, especially given your explicit request for feedback when you posted a poem recently. But I've hesitated because there is something defensive about your stance.

Here you've characterized a woman with words like "feeble-minded", "stupidity" "dumb". And what was her crime? To say that she'll miss your friend. To have dyed blond hair? You criticize her for her false sympathy with regard to your friend's father's illness, but you (the narrator, at any rate) show very little sympathy for any suffering she may have gone through in her life. Am I supposed to prefer the narrator's mocking antipathy to her flawed sympathy

Game 1 of Harangue-man.

[leondacter]

Thank you for the comment; few people comment, and I don't necessarily blame them, because you are right, my stance has become somewhat defensive

Re: Game 1 of Harangue-man.

[ulyart]

Thanks for your responses.

She makes lewd comments at random intervals. She told my former roommate P.J. (who Brandon and I got a job at the hotel) that she would warm up his balls one cold Saturday morning. She loses her keys every other day, fucks up nearly every room service order she's ever taken, and gets angry at others for doing their own job and neglecting to do hers as well.This is the kind of detail I felt was missing from the initial post. These few simple sentences are very helpful. You say you have no desire to explore Brenda as a character, but the fact is the entire post was centered on her. You kept mentioning this Brenda and how stupid she was so at one point, the reader wonders, "who is Brenda, anyway? And what makes you think she's stupid

Game 2 of Harangue-man.

[leondacter]

One example: Chris Moore, a cook in our restaurant, recently had his father pass away. It was unexpected, and from what I understand Chris was with him at the time of his (what I think was an) heart attack, but could do little to save his father, who was fairly young. I've talked to Chris about his childhood, about what he was like as a kid, and he has a certain latent philosophy about karma that actually, I thought, said a lot about him. He's had a tough life, I think, and he talked to me about stealing other kids' backpacks in grade school when they were lined up outside of the gymnasium. He talked about his family, his sister, and various turns of bad luck. I empathize. I think Chris has a deep past, as most of us do, and I will always respect that, but I won't treat it as if it justifies him presently treating someone like an asshole. I will always try to consider his words with the weight they should carry, but he has no "free pass" with me. I think it is infinitely more honest and credible to live this way than to bring yourself