Writing Exercise # 2
Use these 10 words:
ivy, squat, mizzenmast, iguana, rivulet, muzzle, xerography, twosome, foyer, decibel
Extra credit for using all ten in the order given, and/or for creating a piece which uses all ten words in 75 words or less. 1,200 words max.
Dear Yale alumni,
Ivy League Schools can squat down and kiss my state-college beanbag. I don’t care if your forefathers rode proudly on the mizzenmast of the Mayflower; my dad crossed the border from Mexico by riding in a wooden crate along with a hacking and evidently horny iguana. Think your granddaddy was special for wearing a big belt-buckle and wooden shoes? Mi papi had to endure a rivulet of salamander semen on his journey.
Go ahead, muzzle me, you oligarchs. There are others like me ready to preach the truth. Get rid of one of us, and another two will reproduce: the xerography of social justice, I call it. You are portrayed as wholesome, but your desires don’t stop with a twosome; fucking people, all people not you, is a genomic trait. It’s in your over-privileged DNA.
By the way, Eli, you run this country like I get the runs from mole sauce: predictably and with the end result of everything going down the shitter. Is this what $40,000 a year tuition got you?
I concede I am not a refined person. What you call I foyer, I call a hallway. But what you call leadership, I call “can’t lead for shit”. Tune me out, if you want. Have your symphonies and espresso makers drown me out. Just remember, what ever you do, I’ll amp things up one more decibel
Better invest in a hearing aid company, because when I get through, I’ll have burst out your damn eardrums.
Si Se Puede,
John Radcliff Smythington
Amherst, MFA, ‘94
7 comments:
Phil Ivy couldn’t win squat. But his mizzenmast unfurled when the girl sat in. Iguana hold your hand," he said. "Is your name is rivulet?”
“No,” she said, “it’s Nicolette.”
“You’ve got a muzzle on you that’d launch a 1,000 ships. God threw away the xerography machine when he made you. What a twosome we’d make!”
“Foyer information, I don’t think your decibel count is high enough.” And she got up and left.
(73 words? But I cheated, albeit, with tongue in cheek.)
foyer....brilliant Bert!
I rise to the challenge of Bert Bananas! Here is my second draft.
I am all of these things: ivy, squat, mizzenmast, iguana, rivulet, muzzle, xerography, twosome, foyer, decibel.
16 words
Yes, Artie, but mine says something new. We already knew -- or guessed -- all that about you.
Ivy leave you don’t know squat about sailing. You don’t even know what a mizzenmast is. Iguana tell on you and the rivulet dry up.
Muzzle the giraffe; xerox the twosome in the foyer and put the decibel in the right place when you carry the four.
I admit it doesn't make any sense, and I left out xerography because I don't know what it means, but the exercise was one in futility if you ask me.
"put the decibel in the right place when you carry the four."
I live for discoveries such as this!!
Aw, bert, you really know how to make a girl feel good...my attempt was nothin' compared to yours. I even stole the iguana reference, with a slight alteration. You gave me my start and I borrowed liberally, or Lazthestically, however you want to look at it. I liked the part about the rivulet dry up -- but nothing comes up to "his mizzenmast unfurled when the girl sat in." And I agree with steakbellie about foyer information.
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