Week Five: Classmate Response to Josh's "Reportage 2"

Take metro line A from Rome Termini. Exit to the right at Ottaviano. Check that your Piccadilly journal hasn't been pick pocketed then check your day bag for holes. Up the stairs and left down Via Ottaviano. Pass seventeen tour guides who speak English and Italian. One will seem nice and give you a deal for being students. Her name is Sarah but don't trust her. The tickets cost eight Euro and the other twenty seven go in her pocket. Plus if you skip the line you won't meet the four Germans, two couples, who will worry about the wait with you. Next pass the many crippled, the one sitting on the skateboard with both feet clubbed, the one with no hands who sits on rug like he is performing the Salah and waves his stubs at you, the one who can barely lift his boiled face to you but taps his cane in patterns of four at the tourists, the many you can't count. Give seventy cents to one, a Euro to another and feel sorry for the rest. Pass through TSA grade security, your bag on the conveyor belt, and cover your shoulders. See The School of Athens, The Sistine Chapel, and enough rooms of art and antiques to feed the worlds hungry by selling a fifth.

                                                                                                                                    Josh Ray

Very cool, Josh. I think that, after this generative exercise, you can probably lose the second person. Though it functions well in this short reportage, it would likely become exhausting in a longer piece. I’m less interested in the way you wrote it and more interested in this theme of numbers/money that unfolds the further into the post. The obvious interpretation of this would be "traveling to/around Europe is very expensive but it gives money to countries that need it." Clearly, you can go deeper than that--what type of expensive is it, and what is the exchange that occurs? Not just money for product, but what else? What is the price of tourism, of being a tourist? Who does it tax more--the country or the person doing the touring? What is the difference in "price" (metaphorically) for a tourist vs a traveler vs a citizen of the toured country? What, exactly, is the exchange that is occurring, and where does it manifest? Is it beneficial or detrimental—to whom? You already have interesting moments, with the beggars and with the tour guide. Keep going.

Week Five - Response to Thomas's Week 4 Reportage 1

Josh, Tyler, Sydney, and I sit outside the small pub that promised loud parties, beer, and plenty of English. So far we had seen one other customer and a street vendor enter the Lion's Den. The bartender comes out and tells us we can't be outside with glasses this late and we walk back inside and to the back of the pub. In the back corner of the pub is a door that leads into the Lion's Fountain, it's filled with American college students. We all groan once we see we didn't move far enough back in the pub when we first entered. American music blasts from the speakers, drowning out all other noise. I start to think the place might be a bit too American as another group of sorority girls makes their way in, more orange skin and bleached hair. Sydney finds a sharpie and leaves our mark on the ceiling, UWG joins the hundreds of other messages that are plastered on the walls of the establishment.

                                                                                                                             Thomas Bowden

In your workshop, we talked about reflection. This is a piece that could really benefit from that. You begin to took on it--"the place might be a bit too American." Keep going, keep digging. Is this place more comfortable for you in the foreign space? Or is there something about being surrounded by Americans while in Italy that feels oddly disconcerting? Why? Also, what about that mark that Sydney leaves on the wall? How is that functioning--what, exactly, is she reclaiming for all of you in this space that has already been Americanized? Does it mark ITALY with your American signature, or does it just add to the mass of America pulsating only within this club? Does it affect the outside in any manner (both the graffiti and the existence of such a place, where groups of English-speaking sorority girls dance to American music)?  Why did you seek out a place that “promised English” in the first place and can you join it alongside a more typically Italian/European experience you had? It might be interesting to juggle this with something totally different—like going up the mountain in the bird cage, something like that—and see what connections you can draw from there.

Week Five: Junkyard Image 4

In the church that nestles another small, stone church, a man in jeans carries cardboard trays filled with votive candles out, each box stacked atop the last, swaying as he crosses the marble. His head, balding, a bare circle on his crown, like monks that came before him.

5385: Response to Gomorrah Part II

I was drawn to the second to last paragraph of the text, which begins with "I was born in the land of the Comorra, in the territory with the most homicides in Europe, where savagery is interwoven with commerce, where nothing has value except what generates power." It's likely my training in creative nonfiction that interests me in this selection. We talked a lot in class about the way that he presents his research--sometimes 'showing his hand' and making it very apparent that he is writing this (with awful, poet-y phrases like "pancrease of silence," to quote Megan's favorite passage) but, frequently, presenting the material as a distanced observer to the point that I thought he wasn't working for them at all, just collecting information. In this section, I see all of the mechanics of writing. His heavy use of anaphora ("I was born...where...where...where...") was the first indicator. The reflection, too, seems highly fore-fronted, where he makes connections to the world at large, where the Comorra is only a small piece that reflects the rest of global society, where he explains everything that living in the Comorra is not before explaining what it is. Then, he ends on a rather foreboding note, claiming that "the only necessity if you want to consider yourself worthy of breathing" is knowing and understanding. I wonder at the necessity for this. Why end the section with this advert claiming of his text as something crafted for the audience?

Week Five: Junkyards 1-3

A Muslim woman sits across from me on the train, her hair tied back by a brown and orange splotched scarf, a crust of red on her fleece sleeve. It is my first encounter with someone in Italy who is obviously not Catholic, like a quiet play of wind across my knuckles. On her purse--it melts into a pod of rough fabric--a keychain. Minnie mouse, followed by square, white beads, worn with grains of browned touch: Dunielu.

"I want to hate," he says, rolling up a leather belt of drawing pencils and ink at Bar Duelle. I ook at him and he says it again. "I want to hate," this time with a hand on his stomach. Eat. He wants to eat.

Later, across a table of fried food and peach tea, his finger hooked around mine. "You make me loathe." I stare, not because it is surprising, not because I am stuck by this bold and uncomfortable statement. No, it's because this sentence twines around her time together. It's because he knows better by now, after two weeks of brick pressed into my shoulder blades while I correct him. He squeeze his eyes shut. "Laugh." The word is like a bean bag in his mouth. "You make me laugh."

5385: Response to Part One of Gomorrah

I feel incapable of writing a response to this book. It's a book that, every time you turn the page, you are utterly shocked again--from ex-girlfriends executed in burning vehicles to Angelina Jolie's counterfeit Oscar dress. I'm struck every time by the truths that Saviano uncovers and displays for us (and his courage in putting it on the page in the first place). This is not a book you can pretend is fiction, that you can analyze without considering that these events were seen, experienced, and continue to occur in the country we  are studying in right now. Given that, I think it's apt to discuss the morals behind what he is doing and question blame/guilt. The text does a reasonably good job of describing horrendous acts in detail and still remaining fairly objective. He by no means pardons the men that murder and torture for product. However, the inclusion of their wire-tapped pleas to their loved ones to stay off the streets, or the nickname system (bringing you in on the lingo), or the way he never outright condemns what he says, plays at casting a full image of these people (the reader, of course, comes to like some of these characters, particularly Pasquale). The passion behind the book, the constant desire, is the journalistic drive to get more and more of the story put down. More than once, Saviano admits that he knows he should not be a X place at X time, but that it is necessary if he wants the truth, if he wants to be able to create a whole image. While the initial response probably would be to color them solely as monsters, he goes in to deep detail, deep enough that you might begin to understand their drive for more money, more territory, more product and success. This drive is something we, as Americans in a highly materialistic/capitalistic society, can easily understand on a basic level, minus the obscene violence. That said, what do we do with the "horrible" in this text? How do we read a scene in which he tells us of a phone call request to "dissolve two [people] in acid" and not feel instant, constant revulsion and separation?

More than that--how do we pardon Saviano? He stands watching this: "After a bit he started to sway, frothing lightly at the corners of his mouth. he fell to the ground, jerked around and then stretched out flat, closed his eyes, and went stiff. [...] He began pounding on the Visitor's chest with his boot: a violent cardiac massage. Next to him the girl was blithering something, the words hanging on her lips" (Saviano 71). I think we have to question his involvement in this. If you stand watching this (and hundreds of other incidents like this, things that he is privy to), aren't you in some way a component? In a way, he whitewashes the obvious blame from these men by not outright calling them monsters and holds the guilt out toward the reader, and maybe himself, to take a piece of. I think that is the question Saviano asks. If we are buying these products, are we consumers of this obscene violence?

Week 4: Response to Emily's "W4: Junkyard 3: -Mount Ignio in Gubbio-"

The mountain outside of Gubbio is called the red-hot mountain.  One night a year it glows with with light as mortals race up the trails curving around the mountainside to the basilica at the peak for a celebration of candles.  Everywhere, candles are the symbol of the small, mountain city inaccessible by train.  Candles, light, red-hot.

But the city is dark.  Inside the basilica, the only light streams through stained glass windows onto the mummified remains of a long dead mortal revered as a saint, but decomposing just like the rest of the city. The candles of prayer are electric bulbs lit by a coin; no smoke, moving flame, tell-tale soot, soothing heat, or glow of life in sight. 

Three giant wooden candles reaching almost to the ceiling stand against one of the walls of the basilica.  The wood is dark, the weight oppressive, and though they are candles, they do not glow. They do not burn as normal candles do. They merely stand, silent and tall, guarding in the darkness a long dead corpse that cannot escape its glass prison.

The red hot mountain over the city of candles is dark and forested, dotted by the stray basilica the size of a small house.  Birdcages on a system of pulleys haul travelers up the mountainside, gifting them with a view that is breathtaking in the sunlight.  But no light shines from the mountain, no red hot glow, no light at all.  The mountain of light outside the city of candles is dark, revered for the lit that it is forbidden to shine.  Light is left to the imagination.

Light is a myth. 

Emily, I'm impressed. I think this draft demonstrates some serious potential, both with what you have already employed and with its possibility for future drafts.

The end: "Light is myth." That statement is a bit baggy. It's abstract--both light and myth are more concept than they are concrete objects--and it's two abstracts connected by is (we generally run from "to be" verbs). That said, it might capture the point of this draft if you allowed yourself to show the "light is myth" idea more than telling us. You are already well on your way--the description of the dark and forested mountain, the image of people pulled up the mountain in birdcages, the "long dead corpse that cannot escape its glass prison." All of it lends itself to this idea of the mythic, the otherworldly.

I'd like to see more of that. You describe the mountain nicely. Now, go a step further--don't go so far as to make this a mythical location, but explore why you might see this particular location as "other worldy" in a way that is totally new. We typically default to, say, complaining about the plumbing or the language to illustrate our discomfort in a new setting, a new culture. This, I think, might get at that idea in a much, much more subtle way. I'm intrigued.

Also, consider molding it into a poem. This lends itself to that form very well and it will force you to put a little more pressure on each image. Mind your verbs, too. Don't use any to-be verbs (is, was, be, are, were, been, being.). Try to avoid "have," "do," "get"--verbs that do not show any particular action. We can really only use a verb like "run" in a very concrete manner. "Get," however, lends itself to a ton of nonspecific actions (get out of here, get a dress at the store, get in the car, I get to go home and pet my cat next week, etc.).

Brava, chica. Very imagistic.

Week Four: Memory

Right there, right there between the fountain curling toward the sky in bends of stone and a trashcan glistening with empty beer bottles, is where I said scusi for the first time and he didn't respond, just locked feet straight ahead--his desire, a Modern Love class taught me--and sloped his attention down, toward the German restaurant with Italian translations. Beside Zeppelin, where a woman slid my fifty cents across the counter grease, refusing my money, a man stood in Greek lettering, patterned by previous tourism. I bought that shirt, too, five years ago in a shop that looked up at the acropolis. Since, I've forgotten the translation. I thought, I should ask him, should bridge all of this together, but I speak English and he speaks Italian, and together how do we translate ancient Greek? We fall into squares here. The city slopes down, always down, and my writing sucks. I've got nothing. Why isn't this my triggering town? I like it too much. It's exactly what I expected, what I wanted. You can't widen roads in Rome. You're dealing with history. Italian is the vulgar in Latin picked out, split open, spliced back together with monuments and need. Let's go to Monteluco, at night, alone, and find Hell.

Week Four: Junkyard Images 1-4

The hotel lobby casts itself into antiquity, or tries to. It cinches the curtains--bound at the waist, Sharon Olds pricks my ear--with heavy tassels, hangs a fake Rembrandt-style on the wall, a girl with blunt bangs watching over her sleeping brother and us, gilded mirrors reflecting a stone, purposefully warn bust. They try to snap their lobby into place beside the history of their country, a wash of dull orange, beige. Beneath a fake marble table, red splinters into blue, pink, and green. Two birds puffed with the colors of the wild scream at each other from within their cage.

Outside the Duomo, a girl splits a path between cameras and backpacks with her bike. She is of another time, poised on the seat, hands curled around the bars, pixie cut, flowered skirt, and knee-high socks. Leading the way, a basket stuffed with six rolls of toilet paper.

At dinner, sitting on a porch overlooking pillars and metal gates drawn down over closed stores, everything stained with teenage rebellion and reclaiming in the form of spray painted names and lions, I have just finished three courses of cheese, pasta, beef, and one glass of red, the remains spread across the tablecloth. A woman with hair that barely brushes her ears leads three preschool-aged children to us, each marching to a different melody, one skipping. They stop at the head of our table and lift dessert menus over their heads to the sound of our laughter.

I am taken by the Duomo's kaleidoscope skin, the way it erupts, pulling terracotta toward the sun. On the back, though, someone has branded the scaffolding with a stylized flamingo, peach and fuchsia feathers, throat, toes. He is origami, this foreign bird, his neck twisted to peer up a the church.

Week Four: Reportage

It doesn't take long for routine to settle back in to the cracks you develop in a new culture. Every morning now, I wake up at 7am and get dressed, balanced on one food between the puddles on our bathroom floor. By 8, I deposit myself and my laptop in Vincenzo Art Cafe, greeted with a polite Buongiorno and half-eyes by Ishara, a mousy bartender with an asymmetrical haircut and a penchant for wandering past the cafe late at night while I a, perched on the ledge outside waiting for the only male bartender to close the building and wander late night Spoleto with me. In the morning, though, long before friction beneath a midnight bell, Ishara offers flat-faced cappuccino and the almond pastry I have learned the name for, a tiny moving circle on my tongue, twice already. Always the shooting steam sound of caffe and tea, strings of people held up on the counter only by the lip of their caffeine. Here, it is the same as anywhere else. Coffee and morning chatter, polite only because the ones behind the counter have offered you sanity. At these extreme hours, always the same people: the woman with the hair tips tinged teal; the elderly man in full, checkered suit, fedora over grey cropped hair, and a pocket watch. He watches the pigeons through the window.