Monday, January 29, 2007
Eighty-nine Dollars
I wrote a diatribe today. In fact, I started it with "Welcome to my diatribe." I'm very tempted to print the whole thing here on the blog, but I'm afraid most of my readers (that means You!) will get upset at the length of it. I know that when I'm blog coasting, I don't always have time to read a long post, so I dare not do that to you. Suffice it to say, my diatribe is about a couple of field trips that the school has planned for two of our children. The total cost of both field trips is $89, a sum that we can't really afford at the moment, and on principle, don't want to afford. Let's just say that it's pretty shameful for a public school to divide children into separate classes based on income and that we didn't have any say in whether this field trip was necessary to our children's cultural development. If you want to read the whole essay, send me an email at sootch@gmail.com and I'll send you a copy. 'nuf said. Now, I'm gonna spend a little time working on my current story.
Labels: blog, children, class, culture, diatribe, essay, field trip, income, school, writing
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Mythologize
I got a chance to write today. Everyone was efficient about pitching in on housework today, so all the everything that had to be done got done and I had some free time. Natch! I'm working on a new short story. When I'm working on a story, I try not to divulge the details before I have it done - ideally. If, however, it takes a while for a story to work itself out of me, then I'll let pieces out to a handful of trusted souls. The story I'm working on is too new, so, sorry, nothing to report yet. I can tell you this much . . .
(What follows relates. Trust me on this.)
I'm interested in the concept of mythologizing people. This idea came to me while crossing the river bridge some time in the past six months. I've been studying the history of the county for the last ten years through my job and the sheer repetition of particular details helps things stick. This led to that and that led to this, and then this happened, which changed everything, but not really. As I was driving across the river bridge, it dawned on me that the town was mythological in some sense. Myth arises from forgetting. Tell the story, but leave out some details. As the story gets handed down through time, only the striking parts of the story are left. In essence, the myth.
I've started seeing myself through this mythological lens. The glossing over, which we're all guilty of if we're honest with ourselves, leads to the myth of ourselves. I've written an essay about myself in the third person and, wooha!, does that make me feel strange. But it was fun, too.
So, this story I'm working on . . . it's my attempt to mythologize another person. That's all I'll say for now.
(What follows relates. Trust me on this.)
I'm interested in the concept of mythologizing people. This idea came to me while crossing the river bridge some time in the past six months. I've been studying the history of the county for the last ten years through my job and the sheer repetition of particular details helps things stick. This led to that and that led to this, and then this happened, which changed everything, but not really. As I was driving across the river bridge, it dawned on me that the town was mythological in some sense. Myth arises from forgetting. Tell the story, but leave out some details. As the story gets handed down through time, only the striking parts of the story are left. In essence, the myth.
I've started seeing myself through this mythological lens. The glossing over, which we're all guilty of if we're honest with ourselves, leads to the myth of ourselves. I've written an essay about myself in the third person and, wooha!, does that make me feel strange. But it was fun, too.
So, this story I'm working on . . . it's my attempt to mythologize another person. That's all I'll say for now.
Labels: bridge, essay, myth, river, story, writing
