Man on Wire

Man on Wire is a very content driven documentary about the pursuit of passion. This documentary is interesting because it is told from a third person point of view. Unlike Time Indefinite, someone plans these interviews, digs up the archival footage, and recreates events. The film is a suspense of discovery; you know from the start of the film that Phillipe will succeed in his quest to walk a wire between the WTC towers, and the tension in the film comes from the discovery of how it came to be and all the obstacles overcome. Most of the film feels like a guy just talking about his passion for tightrope walking, but in a few spots it opens up to a more essayistic feel. in the middle Phillipe has a line something like: "To ease the pain i dove into my memories." He goes on to talk about some of his earlier walks and experiences. The basic formula of an essay. Again at the end he and his girlfriend talk about how he changed because of his walk and the fame that came with it. I found myself wanting more of the end throughout the movie. Everything felt honest, but in a way not truly genuine; in the way that Time Indefinite feels genuine. All the people interviewd have had over thirty years to think and stew about their experiences, which kind of draws the viewer out ovf the moment of the scene. it's an entertaining movie, but the difference in time seems to distract, at least for me. i don't have a really good way to get around that, but I think that issue of distance in this cse needs addressing.

I remember him and his . . .

I remember him and his would be skipping rock colliding with my neck. The lake was a sheet of ice: that much force wasn't necessary. I wasn't standing in front of him, really even vaguely near him, but my relative distance didn't matter. My brother couldn't hit the topside of a lake. My neck, the whole four by four inches of it, was obviously the easier mark. I smarted as I stomped to the car in utter disbelief. Not really possible.

Reporter excercise

Kelby Dierking, age 20 at the time of the following events, Grenoble, France--Five late teen early twenty-somethings walk three miles to their hostel, thinking that it would only be five minutes and a half mile. They reach the hostel, drop their bags, and go buy eight bottles of booze. They sit in a park and get smashed, do handstands. Caitlyn does cheerleading moves, blowing the crotch of her pants in the process. The kids finish five bottles and wander Grenoble. They ride bubbles to the top of some old ruins where preparations are being made for o performance of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The group doesn't realize what's goinon until they're a block away. The author wishes that they had stayed, even though they are all grossly over-dressed.
They walk around for two hours looking for dinner. They find an awesome litle place and are loud like typical drunkk Americans. The waiter tries to convince the group to go out with him in his broken but mostly intelligible English. They say no, leaving after dessert and going back to the hostel.
There are six beds beds for five people, but the author still makes one of the girls scoot over so that he can lie down. His reaoning for this action has not yet been verified, but he tells himself that he is drunk and that he doesn't intend anything to happen. He huddles in the heat of the hostel bunk, sleepiing like a rail on the edge of the bed to keep his distance. He left his girlfriend in West virginia just over a month ago. He left her there intending to return, or better, to have her join him in France. He nervously thinks about about his love as he lays in the hot bunk next to another girl. At the moment there are two empty bunks. He can't justify sharing. He misses the physical closeness of living across state lines rather than oceans. Rather than oceans he wants two sets of skin separating them.

Who do you want to touch?

You want to touch her. The girl in lane five. You want to drag fingertips across the rough softness of her suit over belly. you imagine what the skin underneath feels like. Probably soft like a baby mouse. you think this because of the mousy countenance that you can see from the west dside of the pool every couple of strokes. She's not a mouse, but a mouse is the first thing that somes to your mind. There's something about her stature, too. The way she sits, leaning a bit foreward, bending the back between narrow shoulder blades. She's not strong, not weak.

She is the child of true flower children. You like her because she lent you a dress and said you looked good. You only wear it the one time and never give it back. You slide your hand between your skin and the fabricof the dress, pretending that it is her skinunder your nervous palms. surely her skin must be softer, the gentle curve of her belly more pleasing as it meets with her legs and dives into forbidden waters. As she climbs out of the pool you want to hug her in congratulations on her third or fourth place finish, let the warm beads of water on her body soak into your t-shirt, making little wet spots of desire on your chet and stomach.

The Essay

Spontaneous, available, eager, curious. To put it more bluntly: sporadic and seemingly unguided. Sympathy for the lost soul is something that the essayist, through his rambling reflections and maze-like synapses strives to acquire. That's not to say he tries to lose the reader, just to convince the reader that he himself is lost in a beautiful country. At no time does a person depend on and accept another person more than when they are lost together. Once the essayist has convinced the reader that he is lost he can whip out the GPS and show that the winding way has lead precisely where he wanted. Then looking back the journey is more about the relationship itself and the journey itself than the destination. The essayist is the driver of a hopelessly lost car with a n empty tank, the doubting passenger watching the storm clouds and the obscured gas gauge is the reader. The essay is less the view out the window, or even the route, but the conversation bouncing around the cab. It twists, compiles, thickens, eventually reaching critical mass and exploding in some realization. The essay is lofty. short drives can be just as effective as cross country road trips assuming the conversation is good. Constructively lost: that's the ticket.

I remember very little

I remember eating a bug for the first time.
I remember meeting my first roomie in college
I remember when I came home one day and he was gone.

I remember selling my first pig.
I remember falling on a fence from a horse.
I remember sledding with her legs around my waist.
I remember him falling from the swing set.
I remember toasting graham crackers with a magnifying glass.
I remember finding out that I need glasses.
I remember fumbling in practice.
I remember coach D yelling "make a pile" from the side line.
I remember hitting my head on the deck of the pool.
I remember hitting the bottom of the pool.
I remember hitting the side of the pool.
I remember my first class III rapid.
I remember falling from the swing.
I remember being scared to ask her to dance.
I remember trying to play tenor to be closer to her.
I remember my first summer baling hay.
I remember the first book I read.

I remember my first pair of "cool pants"
I remember asking for directions.
I remember making a friend in another language.

I remember scoring in broomball.
I remember white russians on game night
.I remember playing signs.
I remember getting a job.

Amy Tan "Confessions"

"Confessions" brings up many interesting questions of memory reliability and perception. Tan gives us a memory of her Mother threatening her physically after her Dad dies. At the end of the essay, Tan confronts her Mother and her mother says that she had never been angry or hit Tan. For some reason The reader is inclined to believe this line from the mother even though it's second hand. Perhaps because it's second hand. Why does this memory exist if the event happened? And why is the word of the mother taken so easily? We learn that the Mother has alzheimer's but we still accept that line as true. maybe because Tan put it in the essay. partly because I don't want to believe that something so dark could happen and partly because memories get warped over time, I want to believe the last line of the essay, but maybe I shouldn't.

Moving Water, Tucson

In class we had a debate whether the kid riding the flood dies in the end or not. I personally think he dies, but I don't think it matters one way or the other. The essay seems to be more about the collective experience of watching this flood rather than the actions of this one kid. I like that Shumaker doesn't explicitly say one way or the other because if she came out and said, and then the waters receded and his broken body fell dead to the bed ,that ending thought would become the focus of the whole essay.The repetition does a lot of work in this essay. It creates a good mood and in ways also a good description of the physical aspects of the water. Waves waves waves, water water, water. For the kid on the board that's what he'd be seeing just waves. I like how those instances of repetition match.We akso discussed the "artist unglued on a scrap of glued wood" obit. I think that the artist unglued just means he's crazy. Because earlier everyone yelled at him to get out, so perhaps what he is doing is not the smartest thing. I like this essay I think it's concise, effective if a little on the mysterious side as far as a point to it goes.

Time Indefinite

Time Indefinite. Bummer, dude, bummer, I lost count of how many people died. I liked this documentary, the narration combined with the visual was very effective. I really liked the interview with the fireman. It had all the times of the original event present, and reflective present all in one scene. The rest of the documentary with the past and reflective narrative is good, but the extra point of view i s interesting. I like how the focus of the documentary is rarely on the narrator, enven though he is the one telling and showing the story.Having footage of all the events in the film gives the documentary credibility in a way that a writtern piece can't really have. the lack of filter and focus on selection is osomething that is foreign to writing. In written pieces there's always the interpretation of the author and reader on top of the selection of scene of the author, but in film, there is only the interpretation of the "reader" and selection of scene to think about. What that does exactly to credibility, I'm not entirely sure. The ilm gives a concreteness to the subject, even during the interviews, there's something concrete and indisputable about those accounts of events.

Scott Russell Sanders

“I choose to write about my experience not because it is mine, but because it seems to me a door through which others might pass.”
–Scott Russell Sanders

Is this to say that people can relate to the experiences or that he wants them to. In “Under the Influence” the point of view is relatable. We’ve all been ten years old and angry at something. I think most people at some point have issues with their parents. While Sander’s issues are perhaps a little more extreme than most, he does not ask for pity for himself. If he does as for pity, it’s for his father. The attractive thing about this essay is the sympathy given to the situation and the lack of pity being sought. My girlfriend’s dad in highs school was similar to Sanders’ father. He was a Kentucky mountain man who gathered wood to make moonshine as a boy. He is a strong man, a proud man, funny if you can hear through his briar mumble. He went by Dave, but that wasn’t his real name. I can’t remember his real name, but it was something silly like Melvin, maybe.
Why am I writing this? I don’t know. Like the real name of an ex-girlfriend’s dad, I can’t remember. I think I’m just jotting the only personal experience with someone suffering from alcoholism that I have. Why I’m doing that when we’re really writing about the “singular First Person” I don’t know. Am I passing through that door? Not directly, but with his flannel jacket and flaming pipe in pocket, Dave might be helping.
There is a ten year old boy telling me his life, but what can I share in return? Any wisdom or sympathy I have for him would be a decade or two too late. While I would think about my response, the ten-year-old in front of me would vanish to his room or to the back yard. I stand unsure how far I am to follow, or where he leads me.