Critique of "Charlton Heston"

I suppose I could critique his acting in "Planet of the Apes," but this story will have to do.

This is very clever. The use of a famous person from a time-gone-by as the main character. A cartoon eagle. Industrial Park Road. This is very much a story, and feels very much like a real story all the way until the end, when, in a matter of two sentences it unravels. I think. This is my judgment, and it could be wrong. The climax is cathartic and slow and both hilarious and tragic. Reminds me of the final scene from “Girl With Curious Hair.” About the unraveling. Maybe it’s the wrong word? I think, rather than unravel, what I mean is it cuts off, falls short. This is mimicked or represented in the text as Mr. Charlton Heston is ‘out of ideas’ after feeling very powerful. Was this all his imagination? I don’t think so.


Eddie is exactly as advertised: cartoonish, but with the edge that comes with being shown the shaft by those big wigs at the NRA and the T.V. stations. An adult swim edge, maybe. I think one thing to consider, or at least never forget, is that Eddie was created. Not only by you, the author, but in the world that this story takes place in, Eddie has a creator. Be it some creative loon at the NRA or a freelance animator, someone thought him up, drew him, gave him life. He obviously knows this…what does he think of it?  
I love—I’m impressed—the use of humor throughout. One-liners are placed well, and jokes are often set up and then followed through on. It’s nice to read an honest piece that doesn’t withhold from the reader those little satisfactions. (examples: ‘I’m a Simpson’s fan;’ ‘Charlton didn’t know a thing about trains;’ ‘Somebody get a vet’)


I question the use of the little dots. Are the scenes that the dots separate that different and unique to warrant their usage? You may say ‘Yes. Yes they are.’

A Text for Nothing

“Where would I go, if I could go, who would I be, if I could be, what would I say, if I had a voice, who says this, saying its me?” -Sam Beckett

Such is the question of authorship for the author, who creates and dictates, explores the unknown, wielding force of will, and for the work, the gift, the created essence.. But central to this ‘idea,’ no it is not an idea but an act, is that she creates. She brings from inexistence and into existence and renders, a key word, a dutiful word, renders a sufficient word renders an idea, a potentiality as an actuality. Nothing is consciousness, we are left with nothing we began with nothing. Come with us, see the spectacle that is, is not. But is it nothing, is the object of creation existent only when tended to by the creator? Surely not, the object is given life, a simple life perhaps, but still life. How ungrateful one may be if one seeks not to recognize this genesis. But the life may be complicated, does this matter? Life begins simply for all existent creatures, objects, beings, things, and moves, teleologically, to complex, yes, no, maybe. How do I work this? he asks. What is this life, for me, now speaking a piece of delimited fiction, an actor of prose. I am given life, but am I given freedom, do I deserve freedom, is this freedom mine to take, do I have anything to do with my freedom?

Critique of “Incident Report”

“Incident Report” is a multi-perspectival account of the same event. That is, multiple speakers give their story of ‘what happened.’ The differences in the accounts regard matters of ‘intent’ and details, as well as obvious voicings and voice shifts. The prose reflects the phonetic structure of the the speech employed by each respective speaker. However, only in one instance does the speaker’s phonetic structure deviate from the written, grammatical structure of the words on the page. I believe this is something consider upon revision. If one speaker’s voice is going to be represented phonetically, then they all should. If it is the case that the speakers’ whose voices match perfectly with written english, then wunderbar! But this is definitely something to consider.

The incident in question is the accidental (incidental?) death of Phillip during a violent collision in a football game. Each speaker has a different perspective on the incident, and that is where this piece really shines and has a lot of potential. The reports, I assume, are conducted through interviews. It would be vastly beneficial to seek out texts that make use of this medium or form and see how it has already been done. See what you like and what you don’t. See what stands out. Look at “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.” In this series of interviews, many different voices are used and played with. Play with your voices. See what these people are like, how they carry themselves. And let loose. Get as many perspectives as possible. Don’t even use them all. Just keep developing more. This could be a form of cubist literature. I’m not sure. is it?

Critique of “S.O.S"

The prose in “S.O.S” is very honest. It doesn’t attempt to deceive you with literary tricks or madness. It is, suffice to say, refreshing and clean. Rather, it gives honest, fruitful, and ordered accounts of one man’s experience on an island. It just happens that this man’s mind has been split and he doesn’t realize it. The prose alludes to this possibility early in the text, as Peter, the second man, claims that he knows someone else is out there, but he never sees this other person. The text is somewhat cheapened, in my opinion, by the twist ending. The text would be more fulfilling if this were either omitted or made clear at the beginning of the text, so that the focus of the text was not on this unknown of ‘who is this strange bastard that keeps messing with my stuff?’ and more of a case-study on this one guy’s situation and his unraveling. The text echoes Fight Club and Memento as it plays with memory, memory loss, and personality disorder.

Critique of “One Night: 750 words plus a few”

Very fast, this sprints running faster faster it catches up to itself, momentarily, and then off again it goes into distance. I believe, and I trust my belief, that author Ruby Rosa Brezinsky appears at least three times in the story. Is she the opening narrator? I believe the piece operates with the (potentially honest) reproduction of ‘real-life’ dialogue with authorial asides sprinkled throughout. Whether the dialogue is, in fact, transcribed from a real or factual event may be irrelevant. What is important, is that these are working for something or in some way. The dialogic nature of this piece gives fragmented snapshots into a world full of conflict and intrigue. Who’s getting who pregnant? What’s with all the drugs? I like that this does this. Rather than fully explicate each individual instance, we are given momentary life as it is: fragmented, unfulfilled, and full of thoughts and instances that end at their conception. How unlike anything else we normally read in fiction, right? The main question asked, is, why do we seek fulfillment in a moment or instance when there is none? Or, rather, why do we try to place or extrapolate meaning or order like that, when in fact there is only chaos?

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This is what I wanted to make the uniform resource locator:

This is not a blog

I, too, am glad it is being put to good use.