Sunday, February 7, 2010
Group 1 Weekend Writing 5 (Saints superbowl champs woooo)
It’s not that he enjoys torturing me in this fashion, nor that he likes basking in the radiant glow that comes off my face every time he mentions a sports team when the sweat is starting to bead off my forehead onto the piano keys. No, he merely enjoys showing me that there’s a way. Two quoted studies later (both about the impact shooting 10 free throws a day at the same time rather than 50 every five days will drastically improve your percentage with less effort) and we’re sitting on top of the elephant in the room. To categorize it as such might be a disservice to my inability (or unwillingness) to practice piano because it happens on such a frequent basis. Perhaps we are now sitting on top of the malnourished cat in the room.
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Go saints.
ReplyDeleteI liked this piece a lot and I can definitely relate to your unwillingness to practice for your piano lessons. Your description about the teacher's strategies is pretty successful. I really appreciate the humor in this piece and I would've liked to have seen a little more of it. Also, as I have never seen a "Crate and Barrel" catalog, I still can't really tell what the room looks like. Also, you could go into a bit more description about the pressure of sitting in silence in front of the piano.
I really like the piece overall. I think I like almost everything. Based on the 800 word minimum it's great, you did not try to do too much yet there is a lot going on. I think if it were expanded I would like to know a little more about the piano teacher. He seems a little like you and I would like to maybe go inside his thoughts to see what he thinks about this student who has, once again, not practiced much for the lesson.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading this piece, especially the way you play with cliche phrases and give them new interesting twists.
ReplyDeleteI would have liked this developed even further and wanted more of a description of your teacher. Additionally, I would have liked the paragraph that begins "its not that he enjoys.." to be made into more of a scene with direct dialogue instead of references to the dialogue.
Finally, I would have liked the ending developed a bit more. Maybe end with an image of playing the piano or the instructor sitting watching you play.
I think this piece uses the plays on cliches really well because you give a complete characterization in very few words. I agree with Margo about including more dialogue in that paragraph. You do a great job of getting us into your head and I think the piece would work better if it could be expanded by giving us more detail about such things as the dialogue and the room.
ReplyDeleteI really like Joe's suggestion about giving more background information about the teacher. I didn't originally see this parallel but after reading the comments it seems obvious. So if you do develop this further, I would definitely focus on the relationship between you and your teacher. You could even create an almost McPhee-like portrait of this guy if you wanted to.