Re: WILL DONKEY REVIEWED #2 "KEY CHARACTERS"

Faraway Star wrote:
 > On Saturday, November 18, 2023 at 11:59:03 PM UTC-5, Michael 
Pendragon wrote:
 >> On Monday, March 23, 2020 at 9:18:46 AM UTC-4, NancyGene wrote:
 >>> The Official Sunday Sampler List for March 22, 2020 - the topic was 
"Key or Keys" as chosen by Robert Burrows.
 >>>
 >>> **********
 >>>
 >>> Key Characters
 >>> by Will Dockery
 >>>
 >>> He tried to see himself
 >>> through the mediocrity.
 >>
 >> He tried to see himself through the mediocrity of... what?
 >>
 >> Was a fat mediocre person standing between him and the mirror?
 >>
 >>> Fullest memories
 >>> of moments of intuition.
 >>
 >> Huh?
 >>
 >> His most detailed memories pertain to moments of intuition about... 
some unspecified thing?
 >>
 >>> Unhelpful
 >>> perhaps
 >>> we both see.
 >>
 >> This is either two fragments and a sentence, or a single fragment 
and a sentence.
 >>
 >> Either way, when pasted together they don't add up to even that.
 >>
 >> Returning to the text, who is the "we"? The speaker and the mediocrity?
 >>
 >>> The incurable superintendent
 >>> he has prominence.
 >>
 >> Another fragment appended to a sentence. Neither makes any sense.
 >>
 >>> He walks around
 >>> and you probably fuck him.
 >>
 >> So... the mirror-blocking mediocrity probably fucks the prominent, 
incurable superintendent. Okay.
 >>
 >> Is this one of the speaker's oh-so-full memories of intuition?
 >>
 >>> Empty out your ashtrays
 >>> before he licks them.
 >>
 >> This is obviously one of your high school poems: it runs on and on, 
but lacks any focus, coherence, or sense.
 >>
 >>> You have designer jeans
 >>> and brand new teeth.
 >>
 >> She just got her adult teeth? That's awfully young to be fucking 
anybody, much less a prominent superintendent.
 >>
 >>> I noticed that your eyes are still
 >>> so very full and blue.
 >>
 >> Your high school poems also tend to use the same descriptive words 
over and over again ("full," "fullest").
 >>
 >>> Watching the money
 >>> collect on your bed.
 >>
 >> This is a sentence fragment.
 >>
 >> Who is watching the fat 8-year old mediocrity's money?
 >>
 >> Is she a prostitute?
 >>
 >>> There's a movie on the television
 >>> about Kansas City Jazz
 >>> in Technicolor
 >>> although the TV is black and white.
 >>
 >> The only such films I can find about Kansas City jazz date from 1996 
and 2011 -- both too recent for technicolor.
 >>
 >>> In the film
 >>> there is a woman on a balcony.
 >>> She has a pretty nose
 >>> but her eyes are not real
 >>> and neither is her mouth
 >>> she talks really funny
 >>> like imitation South.
 >>
 >> Is this tangent going anywhere?
 >>
 >>> I couldn't care less about her,
 >>> or you,
 >>> or anyone else who lies
 >>> about giving a damn.
 >>
 >> So you don't give a damn about anyone who gives a damn.
 >>
 >> Okay.
 >>
 >> So let's forget about the movie, and recap (we'll assume the speaker 
is Will Dockery):
 >>
 >> Will tries to see himself, but is blocked by an 8-year old 
mediocrity in designer jeans who picks up spending cash by turning 
tricks and who probably sleeps with an ashtray-licking superintendent 
(in their apartment building? at their school? or is this just some guy 
who acts like a superintendent?). There's a movie about Kansas City jazz 
on their black and white television; the actress is overly made up 
(possibly had plastic surgery); and Will doesn't give a damn about 
anyone who gives a damn.
 >>
 >> Story-wise, this is going nowhere.
 >>
 >> As a reader, I'm not interested.
 >>
 >> The characters are poorly defined, the situation isn't clearly 
defined, and the writing (a hodgepodge of run-on sentence fragments) 
lacks any skill whatsoever.
 >>
 >>> I'm there
 >>> going in
 >>> incredibly high.
 >>
 >> I've no idea where "there" is, but I certainly believe that you were 
incredibly high at the time this poem was written.
 >>
 >>> You gave me head
 >>> guaranteed for wandering.
 >>
 >> Let's hope that Miss Designer Jeans had just gotten her teeth capped 
(or got a set of false teeth). I remember your having said that “most 
kids from my era were getting it on by that age (13-14) or even earlier, 
myself included, but with each other, folks of a similar age… True, we 
do things somewhat differently down South,” but a girl who's just cut 
her grownup teeth is taking it too far even by "Southern" standards.
 >>
 >> And why does getting fellated guarantee that you're going to wander?
 >>
 >>> Standing alone
 >>> someone is there
 >>> a military man.
 >>
 >> A military man is standing there alone.
 >>
 >> Why chop it up and scramble the pieces?
 >>
 >> Is the military man the "incurable superintendent," or this Gloria 
Vanderbilt have a thing for authority figures?
 >>
 >>> Her husband of the stairs
 >>> lying
 >>> mending
 >>> stared apart from
 >>> the cracks in the sand.
 >>
 >> This is not a sentence. I don't know what to call it... but sentence 
is definitely not the word.
 >>
 >> Now that you're clean and sober, do you have any idea what that was 
supposed to mean?
 >>
 >>> Assure your heart
 >>> way downstairs
 >>> with its audience.
 >>
 >> Assure her heart of what? That her soldier husband loves her?
 >>
 >> Why is her heart downstairs? Did she accidentally digest it?
 >>
 >> How does her heart have an audience?
 >>
 >>> I thoughtlessly locked the door
 >>> then noticed
 >>> rather sadly
 >>> that I was out of keys.
 >>
 >> Out of keys? Are they disposable?
 >>
 >>> On the hill
 >>> evening is falling
 >>> and I'm crying.
 >>
 >> Buck up, man! It was only a disposable key.
 >>
 >>> Beyond Piedmont Park
 >>> I can see the tips
 >>> of multicolored lighted buildings
 >>> over there.
 >>
 >> I'm lost.
 >>
 >> Let's try to recap this into perspective again:
 >>
 >> Will tries to see himself, but is blocked by an 8-year old 
mediocrity in designer jeans who picks up spending cash by turning 
tricks and who probably sleeps with an ashtray-licking superintendent 
(in their apartment building? at their school? or is this just some guy 
who acts like a superintendent?). There's a movie about Kansas City jazz 
on their black and white television; the actress is overly made up 
(possibly had plastic surgery); and Will doesn't give a damn about 
anyone who gives a damn.
 >>
 >> Will is whacked out of his mind on drugs. His 8-year old prostitute 
girlfriend goes down on him... which triggers his urge to wander. Her 
soldier husband is watching from the stairs. Will tells her to go 
downstairs to the soldier because her heart belongs to him. In doing 
this, he has "locked the door" to his relationship with Pollyanna. He 
watches the sun set on the hills and cries.
 >>
 >> Suddenly, he notices the multicolored lights of the city.
 >>
 >>> Romance in the city
 >>> it seems so nice
 >>> as I sit in my room
 >>> in the boarding house
 >>> watching a movie about Kansas City.
 >>
 >> More run-on fragments.
 >>
 >>> You're with Mike Sherry
 >>> a nice Jewish kid
 >>> just out of college.
 >>
 >> She's now left the soldier (and the super) for a college grad?
 >>
 >>> While I've been shouted down
 >>> so worthless to you
 >>> that I've been
 >>> wished out of existence
 >>> forever.
 >>
 >> This seems to have all the parts of a sentence... and almost makes one.
 >>
 >> Someone has bad-mouthed Will. My guess is that it was the soldier 
who caught his 8-year old bride giving Will head.
 >>
 >>> Living in a boarding house
 >>> right out of some film noir
 >>> pulling the night shift
 >>> without a telephone.
 >>
 >> Two fragments do not add up to one sentence.
 >>
 >> Will lives in a boarding house and pretends that he's Mickey Spillane.
 >>
 >>> Suitcases standing in a sandy corner
 >>> a non-entity
 >>> exiled
 >>> within a city
 >>> filled with carbon monoxide, murder and fear.
 >>
 >> Another patchwork of fragments that almost resemble a sentence.
 >>
 >> I've no idea why the suitcases have been exiled to a sandy corner, 
or why Will has chosen to anthropomorphize them... but I'll write it off 
to the drugs.
 >>
 >>> For dinner
 >>> there's candy bars and beer.
 >>
 >> Yeah, that's what I would have guessed.
 >>
 >>> Isolation
 >>> is an irritation
 >>> to my eyes.
 >>
 >> So mover the damn suitcase back to the middle of the floor, already.
 >>
 >>> Fuck you forever
 >>> for causing me these tears.
 >>
 >> But you broke up with her for giving you head while her husband 
watched and waited on the stairs.
 >>
 >>> As the soundtrack blares
 >>> with drum machines
 >>> and synthesized elements.
 >>
 >> The movie's still going on? I thought this was months later.
 >>
 >> She'd left with the soldier, then left him for the Jewish kid, while 
someone poisoned her mind against you.
 >>
 >> Damn. Things... excuse me, Thangs happen fast down South.
 >>
 >> If this was one of you high school retreads, you'd have done better 
to have torn it up and forgotten it.
 >>
 >> This poem has absolutely nothing to recommend it. It's basically a 
petulant rant by some doped up kid whose girlfriend has just left him. 
The narrative makes no sense. The writing is appallingly inept. The 
characters are poorly defined.
 >>
 >> Is there any point to it? What did the speaker learn from his 
affair? That 8-year old girls are fickle?
 >
 > Nailed it!
 >
 >
 > I love digging up three month old posts, I miss Pendragon so much!
 >
 >
GUFFAW!