The Vicarious MFA

For Monday:
The Things They Carried by Tim Obrien
I Remember by Joe Brainard
Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste by Carl Wilson
(I’ve only just started this, but it is awesome. It’s a book that is all about Celine Dion’s album Let’s Talk About Love {the one with the Titanic song on it.} Some chapter titles: Let’s Talk About Schmatlz, Let’s Talk About Hate, Let’s Talk in French and Let’s Sing Really Loud. I am psyched to see Celine Dion burned at the stake of bad taste.)

For Tuesday:
Three Workshop Submissions (60 pages)
Turn-in second workshop piece

For Thursday:
In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin

For Friday:
More stuff I don’t understand for Psychology elective
(see the presentation I gave last week)

Incredibly abbreviated notes from 2 weeks of The First Book seminar are after the jump….

(2/12) Hunger of Memory: a sustained memoir-essay on learning and language by Richard Rodriguez. Conclusion: authentic/honest style, intersection of the personal & political, weirdly great structure.
(2/19) At The Bottom of the River: Jamaica Kincaid once said: “I didn’t want to be myself. I wanted to be a writer.” Even though the prose is mostly beautiful, I think I can feel her wanting to be a writer too much. Also, did you know that George Trow used to refer to her as “my black island friend” in his Talk of the Town pieces? The 70’s were weird.

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