Monday, February 8, 2010
WW5 - Linus, Margo, Sammy
My heart pounded and my mind raced as I filed through names of famous, “interesting” people. The edges of my mouth twitched as I thought about how I wished I could meet “The Most Interesting Man In the World.” The gray-haired, bearded man whose accent is unplaceable. The man I’d seen on a television commercial. Who wouldn’t want to meet the man who “never says something tastes like chicken… not even chicken?” But I thought better of using this man, a man who was promoting dos equis beer. I thought of my first answer but I stalled a few seconds longer to try and carefully chose my next two people. No one came to me band I had observed the empty breakfast bar in the hotel lobby behind my interviewer long enough. The first person I could think of would certainly be the number one answer if I were asked this question on the family feud game show. “I would really like to meet Barack Obama,” I said.
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This piece has so much in it that could be expanded upon, and that's a good thing. It's so easy to relate to because all of us have had at least a similar experience, if not the exact same one. Mentioning the college interviewer as the first thing is sure to give anyone familiar with the experience an immediate reaction.
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of being "The Most Interesting Man In The World" and how you keep this idea prevalent throughout the piece, but I want more connections to it. I think you could assess each of the people you talk about to see whether or not they really would be interesting people to meet. Maybe you could go through a conversation with each of them and then decide before returning to the present interview.
The ending is awesome. My only problem with it is that it brings a whole new dimension to the piece, at the very end. I think if you were to include the idea of how do you determine how "interesting" a person is earlier, this statement would work even better. But it definitely ends the piece with a nice bit of voice and an interesting, lasting idea that makes the reader think.
I like the mix of enthusiasm mixed with a little bit of wry humour (and maybe a tad of nervosity?) that characterizes the piece. I could "See myself in the characters shoes" for a good part of the piece. There were a couple confusing sentences that had more to do with word choice (ex: "The edges of my mouth twitched as I thought about how I wished I could meet him") but i like the piece as a whole.
ReplyDeleteI really liked that this was easy to relate to and it made me think of similar experiences that I have had. I really wanted some of the piece developed more and wanted more information about the scene. For example, what does the interviewer look like and talk like?
ReplyDeleteI would have liked to see more of the actual dialogue instead of references to the dialogue. I think that by turning it into more of a story than a past reflection on an experience, it will really add to the strength of the piece.
Finally, I loved the reference to the most interesting man in the world. I would like to see this in the very, very beginning of the piece to help hook the reader in. I love the sentence "who wouldn't want to meet the man who never says something tastes..." and think this might be a great first sentence for the whole story.