The Convincing

He stood next to his piano. He looked down at the middle c key -white. He took his right hand from his khaki’d pocket, extended his first finger, and hovered a bit, then melted his digit into the ivory. Sensual, physical,…heard. His lesson would be similar to this. He was practicing. “Remember, White Men Can’t Jump? Where Wesley Snipes' character says ‘you might be listening to Hendrix, but you ain’t hearin’ Hendrix’? I’m here before you, asking you, yes you, if you are hearing you.” Would this get through to them he wondered. Students love a quiz, he remembered, but is this approach quizzical enough and what if it comes off as too didactic and void of emotion? And what should I do with my hands? What am I going to say with my body in space? How can I communicate with my body language that the space between notes is as important as the notes? Should I be like John Goodman in O Brother Where Art Thou and say “The last thing you want…is…AIR in the conversation?” Ok, focus. Follow the template. Personalize the template, that’s all. I’ve got 88 keys to work with here, an infinite number of melodies to choose from, I can make this work. He sat down, his feet aching a little bit. He didn’t need to practice without looking at the keys…he was a pro. He knew he could lecture and play at the same time but isn’t that showboating he thought, and not essential. He had memorized the bit “Essence, from the greek ‘ontos’ – that without which, a thing cannot exist” and thought it might come in handy for this.

“I am here before you today, in front of this piano, to convince you of something.” He had his back toward his audience, looking down at the piano, with no visible concern for those in the room. “To convince you that you are capable. Now, capable means having the ability to do a specific thing. Now what you don’t know is that being capable is the easy part. I reiterate… the easy part.” He turned around and looked at the audience now, “Did you hear me? I just told you why I am here today. This guy, who had less talent than you, less ability, fewer resources than you, is up on this stage, to convince, CONVINCE, YOU? of something! That you are capable!” He was practically shouting now, his voice a roar of confidence and inquisition. “Listen to this!” He quickly turned his back to them, sat down at the piano, and with the utmost agility and bravado began a run from Liszt’s Etude number 1 and just as he was finishing with the flourish, he quickly turned around and jumped from his bench to address the audience…not allowing them a chance to applaud… “Remember what I said?, convincing you that you are capable is the easy part!” He paused, scanned the audience from left to right and back again from right to left. He confidently nodded up and down as if he were agreeing with something.

“Let’s listen to something,” he said. “What you are going to hear is from 1928. About 14 seconds long. 14 seconds long, 86 years ago, before your great grandparents were born but 14 seconds that would change the way you, yes you, hear music and also the music you hear.” He turned toward the AV table off to the left and nodded. The intro from Louis Armstrong’s West End Blues catapulted from the speakers, lifting the entire gym off the floor. As the 14 seconds raised and lowered by in a sublime fruition of swing, children became fanatics, no context needed, no soft selling required, the notes sold all there was to sell, the timbre engulfed the children in a soft cloud of sound, reverberating for what seemed like an infinity off the gym walls. “How do you feel?” he asked them.” “My guess is you feel pretty spirited right about now; a little more pep in your step, a little more stride in our pride, huh. Now because this is so old you have no idea who played that. Now remember why I am here again: to convince you that you are capable. So the man that played that was born black and poor, grew up in poverty, his father abandoned his family and his mother had to become a prostitute. Now ask yourself, how did this man get from this predicament to the sublime music you just heard. Part of the answer lies in him,” now pointing to his temple, “thinking he is capable.” He looked at them and crossed his arms.

“How many people in here can walk? Raise your hands. Raise them so I can see them.” He was stalking the stage from left to right, shielding his eyes from the spotlight as he scanned for raised hands. “Looks like everyone in here can walk. Good. Now how many of you were born babies?” The kids all looked at each other and furled their eyebrows at the question, with some nervous chuckles following. “What, didn’t you understand the question?” he shouted. “I’ll ask again” he shouted, “how many of you were born babies?” Hands reluctantly went in the air as the kids looked at each other in disbelief. “Oh, I see, all of you were born babies too. Now we are getting somewhere.” He stopped stalking the stage, put his hand over his chin as if contemplating god and said “you know what, no one person, not your mother, not your father, no one no one no one had to convince you that you could walk. No speaker had to be brought into your home and give you a pep talk about walking; no one had to get down on the floor,” as he lowered himself down to the stage, head parallel to the floor, “and say oh widdel beebie, you can walkie, da widdel beebie can walkie!” The kids chuckled but the point had been taken. He was at the lip of the stage now, scanning again from left to right, eyeing the kids in the front row. “Now here I am, brought in to convince you that you are capable. Why?! What changed? What happened to you since that baby that wasn’t going to be stopped from walking? “You,” running a finger over all the kids, “all of you couldn’t be stopped. Could. Not. Be. Stopped. And now… and now you let things stop you.” He nodded his head in disapprovel.

“I’m going to flip the script on you,” turning over an invisible piece of paper in hand, “by asking you a question. Close your eyes now. Close em’!” he demanded, running a finger over the audience. He closed his eyes and put his two forefingers to his temples. “What is preventing you from achieving your goals?” Eyes closed. “What is preventing you from achieving your goals?” It looked as though he was now asking himself this very question, thinking about his own goals and what was in the way. “Open your eyes,” he said as he seemed to come out of a trance, his voice now soothing and warm. “Look at me. If you are honest with yourself there is only one answer you can give. Only one.” He was at once warm and forgiving and judgmental and critical. “You are preventing you from achieving your goals!” He was on fire again, pacing the stage, glaring at them. “But you’re wrong, so very very wrong about what it means. You think it’s negative but it isn’t, here me now,” he pleaded, almost in tears, his voice cracking with emotion, it is you who are in control and nothing is more empowering, you control you, you determine where you go, you seal your fate, you make your stand, you draw your line in the sand, you you you!” he shouted. He paused, let the room breathe, let it inhale again, stood in the center of the stage with all eyes and ears hanging on his words. Whispering, “I knew a guy once who told me that the scariest thing you will ever know, “scanning the room again, “is yourself. And he was right.” His voice even lower now, more vulnerable, more honest. “Without a doubt, he was right. Because if you determine your fate but don’t achieve your goals, it means you didn’t really want them.” Tears were flowing from his eyes now; choked up and fighting a whimper he asked them “What do you want?”

Write a monologue of at least three pages, in which the interruptions-pauses, gestures, description, etc.-all clearly and persuasively characterize, and the shifts from monologue to gesture and touches of setting (as when the character touches some object or glances out the window) all feel rhythmically right. Purpose: to learn ways of letting a character make a long speech that doesn’t seem boring or artificial.

Trini Pellandi

Bebop jazz tumbled from the speakers into the kitchen abuzz with culinary activities. He was prepping a skirt steak for the grill while she was busy with all the prep for salad with walnuts and goat cheese served with a raspberry vinaigrette. As their hips swayed and their toes tapped, aromas of vinegar, brown sugar, onions, red chili powder, and lime began to fill the kitchen as smoke from the charcoal grill began to breeze in through the screen door. The wine had been opened long ago: a steel barreled Chardonnay, and the glasses and their spirits were rising in harmony. They were serving cocktail shrimp to each other and giggling like honeymooners, toasting and touching their glasses, with very frequent wet kisses throughout.
                He was thinking about skipping dinner and getting right to the sex as all the kissing had gotten him going more than a little bit. He worried she might make him wait for dinner and then they might just fall asleep as they had a penchant for doing. She was enjoying the kissing and extended foreplay as opposed to the two minute usual but had her mind more on their unsuccessful attempts to get pregnant more than anything else. It had been close to six months now and she was beginning to worry that they might have to go see a professional and how this might lead to other concerns which might in turn cause her to reflect on past transgressions like all the weed she smoked in college and the abortion she’d had when she was 22, before she’d met Leo.
                Just then the doorbell cut through a number by Dizzy Gillespie and interrupted both their trains of thought. Leo said, I’ll get it. Who the hell could it be?” As he made his way toward the front door she began to once again think about getting pregnant, this time picturing a little baby girl in her arms. “Hey hon, there is a ‘Trini Pellandi’ here, says he is an old friend of yours.” Leo was walking with him toward the kitchen. She could hear the pairs of feet shuffling from the front door as panic filled her bloodstream and pounding drummed her ears and eyes.

Write the opening of a novel using the authorial-omniscient voice, making the authorial omniscience clear by going into the thoughts of one or more characters AFTER establishing the voice. As subject, use either a trip or the arrival of a stranger (some disruption of order-the usual novel beginning).

A Tale of Two Buildings

Another building downtown; another building in a long line of buildings that shared blocks with other buildings in a city choked full of buildings. Towering over, stubbing under, blocking right and left, killing down the middle and sneaking from behind. This building in front of him now, occupying space, resting on this city earth, shooting like an uppercut to the sky might as well be alive, might as well exhale, reflect sunlight off its windows down on to those senseless, unaware people below; people getting into their taxis, leaving the restaurant, checking their phones, holding hands… something might as well be alive. Why not this building? Give it hands to hold, give it arms to hug, give it feet to stand on. What does it lack, this building? The morning sun hits it, the air runs through it, people need it…Something might as well be alive. 

“I couldn’t live without the light in the morning” she chirped like an excited bird. She had been up an hour or so already, made coffee, made breakfast, a load of laundry, and was now staring out the window. They had a prime apartment in the greatest city in the world. Coming from good stock had its rewards. She held her coffee and smiled. “Architecture is taken for granted. I mean take this building here, this is a beautiful building, I mean heck this is a beautiful block of buildings. The way they seem to play off each other actually, how the lines flow into one another and how the contrast excites instead of disrupts, well done Mr. Architect! But this guy, this building here is my favorite! What would we do without the arch? The fact that it is at once functional and aesthetically pleasing is a marvel. Yes indeed, architecture is underrated. To throw that arch there with that detail of brickwork is pure delight. To think how many people pass by this beaut every day and never give it a second thought is a travesty. Just follow the lines with your eye, how they meander yet hold; the windows, reflecting and capturing…just gorgeous.” She was bouncing on her toes now, grinning ear to ear; she might as well have been floating.

Describe a building as seen by a man whose son has just been killed in a war. Do not mention the son, war, death, or the old man doing the seeing; then describe the same building, in the same weather and at the same time of day, as seen by a happy lover. Do not mention love or the loved one.

Your City

The bricks change color and edges figure ground from other edges as windows shoot reflections of other horizontal brick lines and vertical delineations up and down and side to side, building after building of brick and concrete and windows rising and dropping. Only the sky lacks figure in a cool irony as it serves as the navigation reference. Even the ground with its black concrete and yellow lines with umpteen masses in continual, bubbling, burping, stop-start, flow is just one changing form after another; the sky, the sky is the reference point, the guide, the circle around in a mass of formless undelineated brick and mortar, concrete and tar, steel and aluminum, yellow and black, grey and silver. The limitless blue sky is the starting point, the ending point. Your city is not, without the sky.

Describe a landscape as seen by a bird. Do not mention the bird.

The Lake

He was not typically a thoughtless man; he rendered himself a caring, sensitive person in the mode of other sensitive, caring, normal persons. And now, knelt at the edge of the lake he wondered about the limits of caring and sensitivity and “normal.” “Everyone has limits” he muttered into the air. “You can only push a man so far, what was I supposed to do?” As the events turned through his brain like flipped sketches in the corner of a notebook he caught himself, momentarily fazed by the staring of the lake. The lake that had provided him so much replenishment over the years was staring at him, questioning his taking. “What was I supposed to do?” he yelled at the lake. The lake did not respond, just sat there in its depth, cooler every inch down, resonating, reverberating from the bottom back up until everything around him formed a sense filled dome of questioning. He threw his hands into the air and yelled “what was I supposed to do?” The lake shot back a reflected sun beam into his eyes, sending him reeling back on his feet. He steadied himself and went to look back in shock and awe but now the lake was nothing but a mirror of sunlight into his eyes, judging him with reflection and heat. “Stop it, he squealed “what was I supposed to do?” He cowered from the lake as wind picked up and chops began to hit the shore loudly. Clouds suddenly filled the sky and the glassy lake was replaced by a black sheet as the chops continued to hit the shore, louder now, smacking the ground at his feet. He noticed the darkness and quickly peered into the sky as the now cold air made the hair on his forearms and neck stand up. “I had to” he shouted, “I had to.” A lone beam broke through the clouds and stalled a minute on his face, briefly warming his nose, then down his chest and legs to the water at his feet: He followed the beam like a carrot on a stick till staring down into the only sunlit portion of the lake, he saw his reflection.

Describe a lake as seen by a young man who has just committed murder. Do not mention the murder.