Response to "1-900"

The story was, for lack of a better word, unique. The caller seemed to be just a bit disturbed. Very disturbed actually. The story was told in an interesting format. As it was told entirely through dialogue, there wasn’t much detail about the characters and what they were doing other than what is during the long telephone conversation between the two. The lack of detail is covered in the dialogue, though mostly by the caller, John. You start out knowing next to nothing about the two but as the story opens up, little trickles out between the things said. The way details trickle out very slowly is neat but it isn’t something I’d use. The way the story is told makes one feel like they are just listening in on a phone conversation (of course in this case, that’s what it is). Though the lack of detail of the characters’ environments does little to keep one from getting into the story, it does create a feeling of detachment. It is hard to care about them because we know little more than what they explicitly say.

Response to "Emergency"

“Emergency” has a very surrealistic feel to it. It reminded me of Catch-22 in the way the characters responded to such the situations. They seemed very stoic in their response to the man (Terrence) who came into the ER with a very serious wound. They acted as though they did not feel the gravity of the situation, or they may not have even cared if they did.
This may go with a sort of drug trip kind of story  as the narrator speaks of how he feels after taking the pills Georgie gave him. The story moves frantically from one event to another after that. Each subsequent event following that seems to have no connection with the main story or with one another for that matter. This kind of gives the story a feeling of disconnect.
This feelings transfers over to the characters as well. Most characters in the story are not even named nor are they explored much. The character that is given the most depth (perhaps even more than the narrator) is the orderly Georgie. He is most likely given the most attention as he is the one that forces the story to push forward.
Disconnection is useful as it allows the reader to jump into a story without needing to know much about the characters that are being followed. This can also be a double edged sword as it doesn’t give the reader much of a reason to care about the character as he moves through the events of the story.

Static Memories (Short-Short)

Another lazy summer day. My friends and I all sit around the living room wondering what we should do. Light pours in through the window and the TV is on but no one is really paying any attention to it; it is just static noise to play in the background. It has become such a natural part of our lives to where we now feel uncomfortable in the silence without it.
We sit around making suggestions that someone is ultimately against. Everyone sighs and the cycle continues anew. I pause to take a quick glance at the TV screen. I think to myself that one day, these kind of lazy days will no longer be possible. My friends and I will grow up and apart from one another. These events will turn into wistful memories that some of us may leave behind.
But I don’t want to forget, so I choose to take this all in and record the memories that will one day be important even if they seem trivial now. I hold on to these memories, refusing to let them become much like the TV: static in the background.

Response to Lydia Davis's "Television

“Television” seems to be a reflection of sorts by the narrator about the effect television has on the lives of people. In the first part, the narrator explains how every person has a favorite show that pulls them to the television every evening. Her consensus seems to be that everyone is so sucked in by what’s on the screen that “if dead people walked outside our window we would be no more excited.” The second part is made up of smaller paragraphs that switch between the narrator’s perspective and what is playing on the television. The narrator then (in the third and final section) expresses a wish to get away from her life in a fashion akin to changing the channel on the television. This moves into a discussion of how she likes how “simple and easy to understand” a movie that is made for TV is. By the time she returns to herself, the day has come to an end and has slipped away from her. Throughout the story, the narrator uses a fair amount a imagery. This helps convey the emotions that she and most people feel while watching their favorite television show.  She describes one’s heart as beating slow then speeding up in response to either the moderate pace for the former speed to the more suspenseful pace for the latter. The way she crafts and describes how she feels connects very well with the reader. Emotions described throughout the work are very much like emotions anyone might feel when watching a certain program. The way she moves from paragraph to paragraph in part two I find particularly interesting. Though they may seem random, they are connected by subject matter. She moves from what is on the TV to what she thinks of it. This could also be used in a story to go between scenes that are happening simultaneously. It could help keep the story moving and prevent one scene from feeling monotonous.