paracosm/bibliocosm/cinecosm etc.

http://victorybriefsdaily.com/2009/01/05/2009-vbt-results/

a paracosm/bibliocosm/cinecosm:

a high school, the student body of which contains modern versions of

females--good characters:

Viola (main character) (Robin Gudenov)

Dorothea Brooks (Cecilia Mansfield)

Beatrice (Mary Long)

Celia Brooks Claire Woodward

Miranda Anne Bellotti

Cher from Clueless Linda Durham

the female romantic lead from American Graffiti Barbara Murphy

Wendy from Wendy and Lucy Pixie Garafolo

the lead in Happy Go Lucky Molly Williams

Helen Bonham Carter Angela Sharpton

Beyonce DeQuana Quintana

Lady Gaga Ali MacSweeney

Anne Elliot Gail Delafield

Dionne Warwick LeShane Martinez

female--neutral characters:

the Anita Ekberg character from La Dolce Vita

the Catherine DeNeuve character from La Belle de Jour

Gwyneth Paltrow

Joni Mitchell

Fanny Price

Mary Garth

Daisy Miller

Molly Farren

female--bad characters:

Madame Merle

Lady Macbeth

Miss Bingley

Mrs. Hurst

Elizabeth Elliot

Mary Crawford

Rosamonde Vincy (neutral?)

the Wife of Bath

male--good characters

Gawain (of Gawain and the Green Knight)

Huckleberry Finn

Darcy

Bingley

Silas Marner

male--neutral characters

Winterbourne

Eugenio

Tom Sawyer

Fred Vincy

Hotspur

Godfrey Cass

Jim (from Huckleberry Finn)

Malcolm X

male--bad characters

Prince Hal

Osmond

Henry Crawford

Casaubon

Malvolio

Iago

William Dane

Dunstan Cass

the Pardoner

the Summoner

Typical Work Day

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Japanese_high_school_classroom.jpg

My cell phone signals six o'clock.

I taste toast, tea.

My Honda hurries past houses,

a lake, tree leaves, a traffic light.

My daughter and I discuss drama department drama.

Ninth graders, a nest of nuthatches, natter.

Their clamor calms me. I call the roll.

Too much talking. Take this test.

We wonder about weird world views.

"After reading Rimbaud's rant, write . . ."

Juniors! Monsters to mold into meritorious minds,

angels asking acute questions,

congeries of consciousnesses to cajole.

Lunch. If I'm lucky I'll locate a close colleague, continue

tenaciously to train ourselves to teach.

I read students' writing, render a rubric-based reckoning.

I answer emails,

discuss delinquents,

gossip gleefully,

head home.

heaven story idea 1

http://www.thenewtribe.zoomshare.com/8.html

Lily said, "I don't want to take nap. I'm not five years old!" and she threw herself toward the floor. Before she reached the floor she was on a street corner. The street sign was charming, but she couldn't figure out why. Along came a girl her age. Lily felt that to be her friend would be the most fun thing in the world. She loved everything about her: her nose, her red, ringleted hair, her dirty knees.

"Excuse me," Lily called. The girl stopped. Was she glowing with a sense of fun and mischief, or was that Lily's imagination? "Can you please tell me where I am? I seem to be lost."

"Oh sure, you're on the corner of Vineyard Lane and Plexiglass Place."

"May I stay with you?" Lily asked.

"I'm so glad you want to! Want to go visit some puppy Boxer dogs with me?"

They walked together, holding hands.

At the next corner, a pumpkin-colored cat said, "Hello Lily, hello Frankie."

"Ponder!" Frankie said, scratching Ponder behind the ears.

"I'm sorry to interrupt your journey," said the cat, "but I have to ask you a question, Lily."

It was the most beautiful cat Lily had ever seen.

"You want to ask--me? A question?"

"Yes please," said Ponder. It is so lovely having you here. But Ihave to be quick. Your "nap" is about to end; your mother is on her way to wake you up."

"My mother?"

"Sorry to hurry you. Do you want to stay here with us longer? If you do, your family will worry. They will worry very much. But you'll get to stay here. Or you can go back to earth in the next few seconds."

Lily looked at Frankie, back at Ponder, back at Frankie.

"I have to go back," Lily said.

Frankie kissed her on the cheek. "Good choice. I hope I see you again."

Lily's mother shook her and said, "Silly Lily, you fell asleep on the floor!"

Lily said, "Mom, I don't think I was asleep."

First line of a story

http://curtislakehouse.com/tennis_court.html

My shot dribbled out of bounds. I had gotten a little wood on it, that was all. We looked at each other. She ran toward the net and hurdled over it. "Good game," I said.

The Summer of the Silly Bandz

http://www.averysplace.com/sillybandz.htm

"Do you know why you're doing this?" he asked.

And then the wheel of sensation spun, and the summer was over.

A Relationship

http://www.postersguide.com/posters/the-passing-of-king-arthur-illustration-from-idylls-of-the-king-by-alfred-tennyson-40

Minnie wore sneakers

Winnie wore boats

Minnie loved otters

Winnie loved stoats

Minnie's voice

made the stars sing

Winnie's notes

each had a sting

They decided to part

They decided to stay

What their life was about

they couldn't say

exercise in using the same letters

1. A maple alpaca came to the palace.

2. The cat teases and cheats. His chest aches.

3. In a cage, in a cottage,/a cat plays a toccata.

Brief Autobiography in Eight Parts

http://www.dianeslinoleumprints.com/The%20Gallery.htm

At six weeks old my family moved from New Orleans to a suburb of New York City, where my parents reunited. In my In my twenties, I discovered their correspondence from this time.

I made up an imaginary baseball team, based on my friends, and had them play baseball games in an imaginary league

In college I wrote a poem and someone criticized it and I didn't write another for three years or so.

I got divorced. Fortunately, we didn't have children--that would have complicated things.

My daughter jumped on our bed, asking questions about God. She was three years old. It was eleven p.m.

I started working at C____ and in one class we made up an imaginary world, including its government and its religious rituals.

I spent the weekend writing about Acute Aesthetic Response Syndrome.

I periodically imagine myself as a rock near a forest path. My wife is a nearby tree. One child is a close-by brook. Another is another close-by tree.

A Garden and a Toad at Dusk

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/marianne_moore/photo

Back from a walk with Dawn, the daylight was just going.

Dawn stopped to pick a couple of weeds.

A tiny frog or toad hopped oh twenty times its length in front of me,

one more hop and it was in the barberry bush.

I thought, and muttered “poetry consists of ‘imaginary gardens with real toads in them,’”

so that Dawn said, “What?”

Did Marianne Moore say that, or did William Butler Yeats,

or was one quoting the other?

Was this garden at dusk a real or imaginary garden?

Had that tiny toad been real or a dream?

Was this entire moment any more than a dream?

When young, one gets the potential validity of the idea

of the butterfly who dreamed he was a philosopher dreaming of being a butterfly,

but I find in my advanced years that no, I really feel as if I can’t tell

if I am philosopher or butterfly or what.

Then we went inside and made love and after that watched half of a movie.

Life as a Sixteenth Century Italian Painting

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/301704-art-trivia-of-the-day-march-may

On a walk, the sky and tree leaves were those of a sixteenth century Italian painting,

it was soquiet that the sound of the lively breeze (yet it was hot and humid) bounced

through my ear canals

In an eerie way, as if my life were an arty movie, like La Jette.

Crossing route 16 I almost caused an accident because a car stopped for me, as was

proper,

but the car behind that one had to swerve dramatically, I jumped back!

Ben, working on the garden in the front, quoted a line from a graduation speech

that had become mythical in his family for its silliness:

“a hole is a question, which when filled with facts is held together with meaning.”

Then Susie came out and by the time we’d finished talking I had made an important

decision,

to get a divorce, as it were, from our singing group (I had been a charter member, and for

seventeen years).

So then I wanted to tell Kate, and she and John were on their patio reading the Sunday

Times.

The air, the light on the leaves, the blossoming trees.

Then I was back home.