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September 28, 2006
And Now For Something Completely Different
I actually have more I want to say, about recent topics here, both movies and religion, together. But cleaning out a bunch of old notebooks the other day, I found this strange little thing, and just had to share. It's my attempt at an exercise I devised for my creative writing students several years ago. I gave them a list of common items and made them A) choose a specific example of that general class of thing and B) describe it in detail, and then if possible, C) explain how and why that thing was a metaphor for them. I did the exercise as well, and here are my answers. If anyone else wants to adopt this as a meme, I'd be flattered.
1. Dessert. Ice cream. Wait-- fudge upside down cake? No. Homemade ice cream from Aunt Hazel and Uncle Walter's freezer, like we would always have at family reunions. You can eat so much of it. (Well, I can eat so much of it.) Labor intensive. Rich. Both decadent and homey--after all, it's made by old Mormons and uses stuff you have on a farm. But it's rich and cold and again, labor intensive-- used to be seasonal-- How am I a big bowl of ice cream?
Or maybe hot Dr Pepper-- Eccentric-- goofy-- way too sugary-- bad for you-- not at all dignified. But I'm used to it
2. Article of clothing. A skirt-- no, a dress-- no, a skirt. I'm most comfortable in a dress or skirt--I like the freedom of movement-- plus pants never fit me. It doesn't have to be a girly girl skirt, but it can be-- but mostly I don't feel as comfortable in pants. I like how dressed float and flow
3. Kitchen implement. Knife. No--a dish. Why is a dish a metaphor or term for an attractive woman? Because she serves? Because you want to eat her up? Think more on this.
The dish ran away with the spoon.
4. TV character. Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Nerdy-- over-extended-- too accommodating-- in some ways bad at my job but in other ways really good at it. TIRED. Over-qualified.
5. Fruit. Pineapple--all prickly. Robust. A sign of hospitality. Expensive. Always a bit moldy at the stem-- how is that relevant? A small sign of rot? You have to squeeze it to see if it's ripe but you can never be sure. It has a crown. You can't eat one all by yourself but you have to peel it all at once-- well, that's not relevant; it takes longer than that to get to know me. SO ACIDIC! It will burn your mouth. And yet it's also very sweet.
6. Fairy tale character. Sleeping Beauty--except I'm like Insomnia Beauty. Someday a handsome prince will come along and make it OK to fall asleep. I'll prick my finger--or not--and fall into a deep, contented sleep that lasts eight hours-- practically forever. And then when I wake he'll be at my side and he'll make it OK to be awake and the process will repeat itself over and over and I will be the Sleeping Beauty from then on out.
Posted by Holly at September 28, 2006 12:16 AM
Comments
I love this! Especially that you're Giles - I LOVE Giles. Totally my favorite "Buffy" character. If I HAD to pick ONE. I took creative writing in college, and a playwright came to campus to do a workshop, so our professor had us go to that instead of class (the professor came as well). The playwright had us all write a really short play (like 2-4 pages) that included a bunch of specific things. The ones I remember are:
-the color chartreuse
-three hats
-a teenager
-the phrase "when did I make that wish?"
The plays were mostly pretty awesome, and no one used any of the specifics in remotely the same way. There is ABSOLUTELY NO POINT to this story. I just thought it was REALLY fun, and about writing, and this post is really fun, and about writing, so it's like, you know, related. Sort of.
Posted by: rebecca at September 28, 2006 7:43 PM