If this semester you were to write a story about a place a
la Vowell, what would it be and why? The only
restriction is that the place must actually be accessible to
you. Please respond no later than Wednesday, midnight.
This piece actually reminded me of something I wrote last fall in a creative writing class for a creative nonfiction assignment about a place of our choice. I wrote about my dance studio from when I was really little and lived in Pennsylvania. I attended dance lessons there and below it, in the same building, was an ice cream parlor called the Purple Cow. I think I was most drawn to write about it because I know that it is still there if I ever wanted to go back to visit it but it would be very different from how I remember it from my childhood. Also, like the Disneyland story, there are lots of metaphors that can be woven in an out of a place like this making connections from the past to the present. It may just be an ice cream shop and a dance studio, but what makes it special are the people who come and go and the stories and memories that are created. That's what makes it unique. Disneyland is a place that millions of people walk through every day creating their own experiences. Everyone comes away from this one place with their own story. So that makes millions of stories about one place. All completely different. That's why I chose the dance studio and the Purple Cow. Although it was a very local, home-town kind of place, there were still probably hundreds of people who walked through those doors each day, yet I knew my story would be something that people might want to read because of that fact specifically. When the assignment was given, it was the only thing that came to my mind.
I think anyone could write a story about anywhere if they had the right motivation, feeling and attitude about it. You have to draw from something you are passionate about--something you can sit there and think about for days until you get the words just right so that they will come as close as possible to conveying what is in your head.
My story was actually one of about 20 that was published in SUNY New Paltz's literary journal, Stonesthrow Review 2013 edition if anyone would care to read it.
I would write about the Woodbury Common outlets, which is where I work. I have actually been wanting to write a piece about this place for a while, since, like Disney, it is a fascinating display of human behavior. In fact, the Woodbury Common is the second largest tourist attraction in New York State (after NYC) and many people say it attracts as many tourists as Disney (though I can't find anything that confirms this). It is a bit unsettling to see entire families plan a vacation around filling a suitcase with designer "bargains". I have had grown women burst into tears because they planned a trip from Brazil with the sole purpose of buying designer jeans, and nothing fits them. I have seen fights between customers over the last teeshirt, and I have seen many people get arrested for shoplifting. There are endless possibilities for a literary analysis of this attraction, and I believe many people would find it fascinating if they have not experienced it to the depths that I have. There are also many unsettling details of this place that I would like to expose, mainly the poor treatment of the employees. I am definitely excited about the possibility of writing this piece.
My summer 2009 visit to St Barth in the French Caribbean is definitely something I would like to revisit through my writing.
We were in Guadeloupe (where my Mother is from) on vacation, and the opportunity arose for us to visit St Barth (my uncle was posted their by the Electric Department of France E.D.F). The 45 minute flight was an experience in itself. (1)The plane was so small (2)It was shaking a lot (3) Because of the absence of toilets, my uncle peed in a bottle (4) The runway was so miniature that I thought we were gonna crash into the sea.
The week spent on the island was interesting,completely different from what I've ever experienced. The population consisted mostly of well off Russian ex-patriots and French citizens. The roads were so narrow everyone had mini-jeeps and there were more shops than houses.
Reflecting on it at the age of 23, I realize that St Barth was like a commercial resort, we basically just went there to relax on the beaches and buy stuff. The lack of an indigenous population also gave it an artificial feel.
I don't think I ever visited a place as surreal as St Barth, and that's why writing about it would be interesting.
If I were to write about a place that is similar to the story we read by Vowell, I think it would occur at my first job at a Pharmacy in my semi-small town. It was a very tiny, typical hometown type shop. I worked there for 4 years from the end of middle school to the end of high school, a short few weeks before I entered my first year of college. I was always so enthralled by the customers as well as my co-workers, whom half of happened to be my family. Listening to my boss’ rather interesting stories and my next youngest co-worker besides me (who was about 35 years old) discuss the difficulties of this “white-picked fence” lifestyle that she longed for but how untrue this ideal had become. I saw over time that I slowly began to grow less interested in the background noise of the gossip that came with my workers and what began to peak my curiosity was the customers and their journeys. How each one of them had their own different entrance and exit when coming to the store, their individual relationships with each one of us and how throughout the years some would pass on or the hopefuls who were determined to persevere through their illnesses. I chose this job to maintain some type of income but instead it possessed this impact on my life. I’d very much like to divulge this chapter of my life, being that it was with me for such a majority of my teenage years.
If I was to write about a place a la Vowell I would write about a particular trip I took when I was traveling during my stay in Rajasthan, India. I traveled to Amritsar in Punjab which is bordering Pakistan, right below Kashmir. Myself and my only other fellow-American friend Claire took a 17-hour train ride from where we were staying in Jaipur. Taking a train in India on the "second class" (which is how we mostly always traveled) pretty much guaranteed that you'd wake up in the middle of the night with an Indian family sitting at your bed side. It meant you'd have to go to the bathroom squatting through a hole that opened up onto the train tracks, and it meant you'd eat really delicious, questionable train food. When we arrived at Amritsar we stayed at the Golden Temple, the Sikh shrine where over 100,000 people visit daily for worship. The temple featured a massive open kitchen where volunteers in an assembly-line fashion served us endless amounts of daal lentils, curry, chapati bread and rice pudding. Although there was such a sense of unity and sanctity throughout the temple's grounds, us foreigners or "white people" were placed in a smaller, more private hostel compared to Indian locals. Nonetheless there was still bed bugs and urine on the floor, but still, it was such a paragon of the separation of classes in the country as a hole. Claire and I wound up staying at the temple for 4 days for a suggested donation of 100 rupees at the end of our stay. This converted to $2.00 USD. The trip as a whole was full of contradictions as it incorporated such spirituality and deep beauty, yet highlighted social stratifications. The entire trip we were asked to take photos with Indian men and their children, as they viewed us as celebrities essentially for being white. Perhaps the most profound part of the trip occurred when we went to a ceremony that Punjab puts on with their enemy nation, Pakistan, at the border's line. We were able to get in without a problem since we were westerners, while Indian locals waited on lines in hopes to make it in. When we would try to argue and insist to wait on line, we were pretty much forced to comply. At the ceremony, there are celebrations and dances on both side of the boarder, leading up to a line of soldiers from each side approaching their adversaries on the other side and shaking their hands. I found this so touching. Ultimately, that trip was filled with frustrating elements such as con artists trying to trick us into paying them, guards urinating on our hostel's floor, etc. but it was juxtaposed with so much beauty and unity at the same time. The sense of communal living brought about by the cafeteria was so incredible and allowed me to socialize with locals or those on a pilgrimage to worship, getting a glimpse into their lives in India.
I would write about my recent deployment to Afghanistan. Specifically my stay at Bagram Airfield. I've given this a lot of thought over the last couple of months, but it wasn't until our discussion Monday on procedural stories that I figured out how I would try to attempt this. My story would be the simple task of driving from my hut to my work center (another hut) across base. Bagram is the culmination of over 12 years of shipping containers, jersey barriers, and constant construction set against the back drop of the Hindu Kush Mountains. As the forward operating bases close down, more and more people are shuffled to the base making it extremely overcrowded. My story would be a commentary on my observations as I made the short, frustrating "commute" across base. It would be a comment on life and the "garrisonification" of a war zone. I have a specific ride in mind to write about. Through my memory and journal I think I could accurately recount the story in more than enough detail to be entertaining.
If I were to write a story about a place a la Vowell I would write about Emerald Isle, North Carolina. I’ve been going there once a year since I was 15 and each year I go I find that more and more tourists are drawn to the area. The relaxed hippie/bohemian stores have gradually turned into tourist shops with loud pop music and neon-colored clothing. Biking around and hanging out at the pier at night I’ve run into interesting people and situations. I’m really drawn to the place because even though I may not like the changes, the vacation atmosphere remains the same. I go with my friend and her family every year, who treat me like one of their own, possibly even more so than my blood relatives. As we grow up each year our own personalities continue to develop and the parents and uncles and grandparents always comment on how much we’ve changed or how different we look. I usually find that we end up doing things completely out of the ordinary just because we’re on vacation in a place where no one knows us. I’m not entirely sure what direction I would take if I were to seriously write about it, but I’m sure I could come up with something because I feel I have a lot to say as it’s an important place in my life.
A la Vowell, Jimmy John's is my dirty, drunken anti-Disney.
I live on Ulsterville, which crosses Old Burlingham to create the intersection my house shares with a country bar, Jimmy John's. It is a southern looking place where people sing loudly to Tim McGraw songs, and usually take their chances with driving drunk.
My parents (and the bootlegged Disney movies my dad would bring home from work every week) tried to raise me with conventional values. They'd been denied these in their childhoods (stories reveal that my Mom's dad built their entire basement bar out of cans of beer my grandfather himself had consumed; while my Dad's parents had to buy new china after every weekend fight).
But here I am: a liberal, neurotic, quasi-atheist smug daughter that supports marijuana legalization and can never remember to shut the bathroom light off when she's done. A different type of unsavory than the frequenters of Jimmy John's, sure, but equally as disappointing, and much more foreign to my conservative Catholic parents. Maybe they blame the bar.
Across the street, 'failing' lives flowered in front of my eyes. As a kid I'd listen at the windows on sticky summer nights to hear a woman on Cronan's porch repeatedly reassure her boyfriend that he was a "fucking asshole," while he too reminded her that she "slept with [his] motherfucking brother" and that he couldn't believe he'd "double dipped such a goddamn whore." I'd get out my Dad's hunting binoculars and watch, transfixed, for an hour or more.
Having recently acquired a fake (for prop purpose only, of course), I’ve been waiting for the right time to walk into the place I’ve studied from the outside since childhood. I have a lot of un-thought thoughts about the energy and meaning of the place. I'm so well acquainted with the bar, but I've never truly experienced it as one.
Like in the Crane piece, I spectated on the going-ons of the place for years, but never really treated it as real, or related to the people I saw. And as for Vowell's piece -- it is almost exactly, give or take the frightening interactions with Disney characters, the type of thing I want to produce as a writer. My own piece would probably be written in that style.
I know it's only a walk across the street, but I think there might be something in the journey inside of Jimmy John's that will be worth (or not worth, but worth it for that) finding.
My trip to Paris would be the place that I could write about most similarly to Vowell’s trip. It was the summer after senior year of high school and my parents decided to give me an extremely generous gift. It was a round-trip plane ticket to visit some of my friends in Paris. I had never left the country, and they were letting me go alone. I was excited and kind of nervous, but most of all I wanted to see for myself if all the stereotypes about French people were true. Kind of a weird thing to be looking forward to but it highly interested me.
Most of the stereotypes that I expected to be true really were true, and the ones that I thought were ridiculous were not true at all. French people HATE Americans. Even worse, they hate when Americans attempt to speak French. Even worse than that, they hate it when Americans who are speaking in English approach them. So there was no winning basically. The women do actually shave their body hair despite what television tries to tell me. And all of those romantic looking places are there, but the romantic aspect is what you make of it.
This experience would be cool to write about because my only knowledge of the place was what I could pick up from what I hear and see on television and what I read in books. Things are a lot different than how they are explained and the only way to find out is for you to see for yourself. The world is a lot bigger than most realize. Even if someone has already visited Paris, they could relate to my experience and possibly see something that they might have missed. Also, this trip really helped me develop into someone more capable of respecting and accepting different cultures because at the time I was a pretty simple-minded 18-year-old. Detailing how the trip did that would be very pleasing for me to write.
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This piece actually reminded me of something I wrote last fall in a creative writing class for a creative nonfiction assignment about a place of our choice. I wrote about my dance studio from when I was really little and lived in Pennsylvania. I attended dance lessons there and below it, in the same building, was an ice cream parlor called the Purple Cow. I think I was most drawn to write about it because I know that it is still there if I ever wanted to go back to visit it but it would be very different from how I remember it from my childhood. Also, like the Disneyland story, there are lots of metaphors that can be woven in an out of a place like this making connections from the past to the present. It may just be an ice cream shop and a dance studio, but what makes it special are the people who come and go and the stories and memories that are created. That's what makes it unique. Disneyland is a place that millions of people walk through every day creating their own experiences. Everyone comes away from this one place with their own story. So that makes millions of stories about one place. All completely different. That's why I chose the dance studio and the Purple Cow. Although it was a very local, home-town kind of place, there were still probably hundreds of people who walked through those doors each day, yet I knew my story would be something that people might want to read because of that fact specifically. When the assignment was given, it was the only thing that came to my mind.
I think anyone could write a story about anywhere if they had the right motivation, feeling and attitude about it. You have to draw from something you are passionate about--something you can sit there and think about for days until you get the words just right so that they will come as close as possible to conveying what is in your head.
My story was actually one of about 20 that was published in SUNY New Paltz's literary journal, Stonesthrow Review 2013 edition if anyone would care to read it.
I would write about the Woodbury Common outlets, which is where I work. I have actually been wanting to write a piece about this place for a while, since, like Disney, it is a fascinating display of human behavior. In fact, the Woodbury Common is the second largest tourist attraction in New York State (after NYC) and many people say it attracts as many tourists as Disney (though I can't find anything that confirms this). It is a bit unsettling to see entire families plan a vacation around filling a suitcase with designer "bargains". I have had grown women burst into tears because they planned a trip from Brazil with the sole purpose of buying designer jeans, and nothing fits them. I have seen fights between customers over the last teeshirt, and I have seen many people get arrested for shoplifting. There are endless possibilities for a literary analysis of this attraction, and I believe many people would find it fascinating if they have not experienced it to the depths that I have. There are also many unsettling details of this place that I would like to expose, mainly the poor treatment of the employees. I am definitely excited about the possibility of writing this piece.
My summer 2009 visit to St Barth in the French Caribbean is definitely something I would like to revisit through my writing.
We were in Guadeloupe (where my Mother is from) on vacation, and the opportunity arose for us to visit St Barth (my uncle was posted their by the Electric Department of France E.D.F). The 45 minute flight was an experience in itself. (1)The plane was so small (2)It was shaking a lot (3) Because of the absence of toilets, my uncle peed in a bottle (4) The runway was so miniature that I thought we were gonna crash into the sea.
The week spent on the island was interesting,completely different from what I've ever experienced. The population consisted mostly of well off Russian ex-patriots and French citizens. The roads were so narrow everyone had mini-jeeps and there were more shops than houses.
Reflecting on it at the age of 23, I realize that St Barth was like a commercial resort, we basically just went there to relax on the beaches and buy stuff. The lack of an indigenous population also gave it an artificial feel.
I don't think I ever visited a place as surreal as St Barth, and that's why writing about it would be interesting.
If I were to write about a place that is similar to the story we read by Vowell, I think it would occur at my first job at a Pharmacy in my semi-small town. It was a very tiny, typical hometown type shop. I worked there for 4 years from the end of middle school to the end of high school, a short few weeks before I entered my first year of college. I was always so enthralled by the customers as well as my co-workers, whom half of happened to be my family. Listening to my boss’ rather interesting stories and my next youngest co-worker besides me (who was about 35 years old) discuss the difficulties of this “white-picked fence” lifestyle that she longed for but how untrue this ideal had become. I saw over time that I slowly began to grow less interested in the background noise of the gossip that came with my workers and what began to peak my curiosity was the customers and their journeys. How each one of them had their own different entrance and exit when coming to the store, their individual relationships with each one of us and how throughout the years some would pass on or the hopefuls who were determined to persevere through their illnesses. I chose this job to maintain some type of income but instead it possessed this impact on my life. I’d very much like to divulge this chapter of my life, being that it was with me for such a majority of my teenage years.
If I was to write about a place a la Vowell I would write about a particular trip I took when I was traveling during my stay in Rajasthan, India. I traveled to Amritsar in Punjab which is bordering Pakistan, right below Kashmir. Myself and my only other fellow-American friend Claire took a 17-hour train ride from where we were staying in Jaipur. Taking a train in India on the "second class" (which is how we mostly always traveled) pretty much guaranteed that you'd wake up in the middle of the night with an Indian family sitting at your bed side. It meant you'd have to go to the bathroom squatting through a hole that opened up onto the train tracks, and it meant you'd eat really delicious, questionable train food. When we arrived at Amritsar we stayed at the Golden Temple, the Sikh shrine where over 100,000 people visit daily for worship. The temple featured a massive open kitchen where volunteers in an assembly-line fashion served us endless amounts of daal lentils, curry, chapati bread and rice pudding. Although there was such a sense of unity and sanctity throughout the temple's grounds, us foreigners or "white people" were placed in a smaller, more private hostel compared to Indian locals. Nonetheless there was still bed bugs and urine on the floor, but still, it was such a paragon of the separation of classes in the country as a hole.
Claire and I wound up staying at the temple for 4 days for a suggested donation of 100 rupees at the end of our stay. This converted to $2.00 USD. The trip as a whole was full of contradictions as it incorporated such spirituality and deep beauty, yet highlighted social stratifications. The entire trip we were asked to take photos with Indian men and their children, as they viewed us as celebrities essentially for being white. Perhaps the most profound part of the trip occurred when we went to a ceremony that Punjab puts on with their enemy nation, Pakistan, at the border's line. We were able to get in without a problem since we were westerners, while Indian locals waited on lines in hopes to make it in. When we would try to argue and insist to wait on line, we were pretty much forced to comply. At the ceremony, there are celebrations and dances on both side of the boarder, leading up to a line of soldiers from each side approaching their adversaries on the other side and shaking their hands. I found this so touching. Ultimately, that trip was filled with frustrating elements such as con artists trying to trick us into paying them, guards urinating on our hostel's floor, etc. but it was juxtaposed with so much beauty and unity at the same time. The sense of communal living brought about by the cafeteria was so incredible and allowed me to socialize with locals or those on a pilgrimage to worship, getting a glimpse into their lives in India.
I would write about my recent deployment to Afghanistan. Specifically my stay at Bagram Airfield. I've given this a lot of thought over the last couple of months, but it wasn't until our discussion Monday on procedural stories that I figured out how I would try to attempt this. My story would be the simple task of driving from my hut to my work center (another hut) across base. Bagram is the culmination of over 12 years of shipping containers, jersey barriers, and constant construction set against the back drop of the Hindu Kush Mountains. As the forward operating bases close down, more and more people are shuffled to the base making it extremely overcrowded. My story would be a commentary on my observations as I made the short, frustrating "commute" across base. It would be a comment on life and the "garrisonification" of a war zone. I have a specific ride in mind to write about. Through my memory and journal I think I could accurately recount the story in more than enough detail to be entertaining.
If I were to write a story about a place a la Vowell I would write about Emerald Isle, North Carolina. I’ve been going there once a year since I was 15 and each year I go I find that more and more tourists are drawn to the area. The relaxed hippie/bohemian stores have gradually turned into tourist shops with loud pop music and neon-colored clothing. Biking around and hanging out at the pier at night I’ve run into interesting people and situations. I’m really drawn to the place because even though I may not like the changes, the vacation atmosphere remains the same. I go with my friend and her family every year, who treat me like one of their own, possibly even more so than my blood relatives. As we grow up each year our own personalities continue to develop and the parents and uncles and grandparents always comment on how much we’ve changed or how different we look. I usually find that we end up doing things completely out of the ordinary just because we’re on vacation in a place where no one knows us. I’m not entirely sure what direction I would take if I were to seriously write about it, but I’m sure I could come up with something because I feel I have a lot to say as it’s an important place in my life.
A la Vowell, Jimmy John's is my dirty, drunken anti-Disney.
I live on Ulsterville, which crosses Old Burlingham to create the intersection my house shares with a country bar, Jimmy John's. It is a southern looking place where people sing loudly to Tim McGraw songs, and usually take their chances with driving drunk.
My parents (and the bootlegged Disney movies my dad would bring home from work every week) tried to raise me with conventional values. They'd been denied these in their childhoods (stories reveal that my Mom's dad built their entire basement bar out of cans of beer my grandfather himself had consumed; while my Dad's parents had to buy new china after every weekend fight).
But here I am: a liberal, neurotic, quasi-atheist smug daughter that supports marijuana legalization and can never remember to shut the bathroom light off when she's done. A different type of unsavory than the frequenters of Jimmy John's, sure, but equally as disappointing, and much more foreign to my conservative Catholic parents. Maybe they blame the bar.
Across the street, 'failing' lives flowered in front of my eyes. As a kid I'd listen at the windows on sticky summer nights to hear a woman on Cronan's porch repeatedly reassure her boyfriend that he was a "fucking asshole," while he too reminded her that she "slept with [his] motherfucking brother" and that he couldn't believe he'd "double dipped such a goddamn whore." I'd get out my Dad's hunting binoculars and watch, transfixed, for an hour or more.
Having recently acquired a fake (for prop purpose only, of course), I’ve been waiting for the right time to walk into the place I’ve studied from the outside since childhood. I have a lot of un-thought thoughts about the energy and meaning of the place. I'm so well acquainted with the bar, but I've never truly experienced it as one.
Like in the Crane piece, I spectated on the going-ons of the place for years, but never really treated it as real, or related to the people I saw. And as for Vowell's piece -- it is almost exactly, give or take the frightening interactions with Disney characters, the type of thing I want to produce as a writer. My own piece would probably be written in that style.
I know it's only a walk across the street, but I think there might be something in the journey inside of Jimmy John's that will be worth (or not worth, but worth it for that) finding.
My trip to Paris would be the place that I could write about most similarly to Vowell’s trip. It was the summer after senior year of high school and my parents decided to give me an extremely generous gift. It was a round-trip plane ticket to visit some of my friends in Paris. I had never left the country, and they were letting me go alone. I was excited and kind of nervous, but most of all I wanted to see for myself if all the stereotypes about French people were true. Kind of a weird thing to be looking forward to but it highly interested me.
Most of the stereotypes that I expected to be true really were true, and the ones that I thought were ridiculous were not true at all. French people HATE Americans. Even worse, they hate when Americans attempt to speak French. Even worse than that, they hate it when Americans who are speaking in English approach them. So there was no winning basically. The women do actually shave their body hair despite what television tries to tell me. And all of those romantic looking places are there, but the romantic aspect is what you make of it.
This experience would be cool to write about because my only knowledge of the place was what I could pick up from what I hear and see on television and what I read in books. Things are a lot different than how they are explained and the only way to find out is for you to see for yourself. The world is a lot bigger than most realize. Even if someone has already visited Paris, they could relate to my experience and possibly see something that they might have missed. Also, this trip really helped me develop into someone more capable of respecting and accepting different cultures because at the time I was a pretty simple-minded 18-year-old. Detailing how the trip did that would be very pleasing for me to write.
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