Caltrops - Cabaret Voltron

Forum Overview :: Cabaret Voltron

by FABIO 02/20/2003, 4:24am PST

So I sign up for a course in "Reading and Writing Imaginary Literature" as an elective hoping that it'd give me at least an idea or two on how to become a better writer, but holy fuck. I mean...holy fuck.

First off is the fact that this class is one great big giant, weeping vagina. The vast majority of the class if female (not a single cute one either), the teacher (TA?) is a punk rock grrrl that looks younger than me, and every story/novel/poetry collection we study deals with motherhood, destroyed relationships, lost loves, and angst only a woman would fret over. Seriously, this class is the sloughed off uterine wall of Melissa Etheridge after her recent stint at the latest Lilith Fair. I feel like pulling a HSW and just start jacking it all over the classroom in a desperate attempt to inject some form of masculinity into the whole experience.

Even worse, and indeed the point of this entire post, is that every class we have to hand out samples of our writing and take home others' samples, critique them, and hand it back the next class. Do you see the problem forming here? EVERY single time you give high school to college age girls free reign to write whatever they want, it's always going to be some crappy poem or story (usually a poem) about their boyfriend dumping them or just heartbreak in general. Then there's the goth girl, who's stuff is pretty much the same only with themes of death and bleeding woven in. I'd also like to take this opportunity to include a third item that people LOVE to mention above themselves along with being from new york and not watching TV, Jap-o-philes. The people that are obsessed with everything Japanese. They will not shut up about how they've been to Japan, what the culture is like, the fact that they know the language (a handful of phrases from my experience), etc. This type of girl I had in another Lit. class of mine last semester and she tried to write about anime or magna in EVERY assignment, even the midterm and final papers, fucking give it a rest honey.

Anyways, I thought I'd share some of these abortions I've been getting. If I have to read another story about a girl contemplating suicide I'm going to burst. And before someone accuses me of it, no this isn't an attempt to get free critiques and do my assignment for me, I doubt I'd be able to get away with calling the authors wrinkled cunt rags anyways.

Everything here is written exactly as it appears

The Magician
by Sarah

On stage, men are sawed into tiny pieces and women are set on fire at temperatures so hot the blue flames billow in the atmosphere. Dozens of little people stack themselves upon each other, their bodies intermingling like worker ants piling into a heap while trying to cut the best piece of a treasured leaf. As the white doves fly across the televisioin screen, viewers see acrobats skillfully gliding to their stations, grasping for their handholds, causing the audience to hold its breath. Are these people real? How can a beautiful, genie contort her body into such a rubber, pretzel-like pose while riding an elephant? Some people may say all these extravagant acts are done with hard work and persistent practice since infancy. But, I say magic.

Magic was everywhere that night. It was playing on the stage, ruminating with the audience and intriguing the minds of all those who watched the magicians from a TV screen. Yet, there was one place where magic was held captive. During this televised magic show, I saw a very distinguished man walk onto an outside stage where a full audience waited in anticipation for his debut. THe bottom of the screen displayed his name in plain white letters, but there was nothing plain about Brett Daniels. His smoldering grey eyes looked at the crowd and the cameras as he introduced himself without the use of words. He simply directed his thick; muscle padded hands to a delicate white cloth, from which he pulled a long-stemmed rose. The older women gasped and whispered amongst themselves, "He so romantic!" as they watched this tender spectacle.

Adding to this romantic effect was the black and white/tinted film that the production crew used to make the esteemed Mr. Daniels look more old=fashioned and more tempting. This technique worked wonderfully in capturing his raven black hair, slightly parted to the side. The pouting, lips that rested above Brett's square jaw gave the female audience a delicious glimpse of the "perfect face". The thought of him drinking from a glass could make anyone want to transform into that liquid, and if they were lucky, the glass.

Of course, Brett looked more than just sensual. In his black suit, he depicted the "distinguised gentlemen" seen in many old films, especially the way his suit complimented his character down to every last stitch. His broad shoulders fit snuggly into his tuxedo jacket, while his wrists were covered with bright, pearly cufflinks. The blood red handkerchief that was crisply folded into Brett's left-breast pocket gave him a sophisticated, pulchritude one would only find in 1920's European gentry.

Back on stage, magic was causing mischief with Houdini apprentices who were being locked in tanks of water, while a frail princess lifted two elephantine men with the tips of her fingers. Even more interesting was the fire breathing, stilt walkers who wore human bones around their necks. Yet, when magic flittered near Brett Daniels' masculine stature, the audience was too captivated to even notice. When Brett wasn't entertaining the crowd with his witty tricks his charm, skill, and bold features shot like a cannon from his powerful body in a smoky trail that put all cannons and even rockets to a dismal shame. It's possible that some of the audience members and television viewers were interested in some of the other magicians, but they had to have been men or blind women because no other magician held Brett's charismatic stage presence. Magice helped other magicians pull rabbits from hats, but viewers that night were mesmerized by the most intriguing magician they could ever wish to see; and he only had to pull a long-stemmed rose from an empty cloth to captivate them.

Well Sarah, you might want to change into a dry pair of panties after writing that. So the opening paragraph tells us this is going to be about how magic shows are actually magical and not just rehersed routines, then never mentions that again until the closing paragraph. The entire body of the story is a romance novel introducing the main lead.

Here's a poem from the same person. I don't can't put faces to the names, but judging from this one I'm guessing she's the fat goth girl.

The Witch

She peers into her crystal ball and pricks a pink into her voodoo doll
All the while her ravens skwocking at her looming teacher and warlock
Oh what a thrill to hear the trill of neighbors talk
as she dances through the woods with the shock at a girl who wears a continence of I care
not!"
Running free with her black cloaks making eyes at all the young blokes
casting them under her spell
She burns with power that makes the women cower and devours the hours she spends
making men sour
But alone is what she will never feel, as that has never provoked any appeal
after all that is why she made the deal
The frenzied winds will never let her alone, not even when she is nothing but bones and they
live on stirring her, like them
the calm winds that once slowly blew now carring her in their tides through
not realizing the pace at which she would be but succumbing to what must now be
and on she must go
As unpredictable as the winds she finds water with a switch
and in that pool she sees a witch, a stick of pitch and such an inch
Rampaging through the world demanding what she craves is
by no means the end of what no one will miss
So let her dance through the woods and winds and stab with all the might
her dolls of voodoo
But be grateful in the night she is not you

I'm not sure if the random change in line size was intentional or she just ran out of room on her word processor and it just wrapped around to the next line. But christ girl, pick a rhyme scheme and stick with it.

Some other other horrible poem about "Baby you know without a doubt a kiss or two or three or four will always have me comin gback for more" entitled "Trampoline Lips", and some other...piece...about her grandfather dying and having to support everyone herself and her sister being suicidal and blah blah weep.

Some other girl's work was a short story that I guess was supposed to be like a chapter from a romance novel, a poem about not being to go on "without you", and another poem about waking up next to someone the morning after. What the fuck's with gals being so god damn codependent?

I have to submit something in March, and since we can write anything, I'm tempted to just toss in my SS2 review. Because one, I want to get as much a return on my 10 hour investment as possible, two, it'd mean I don't have to spend time writing something new, three, it'd be amusing to see people's reaction, and four, it's a class full of fuglies so I don't have to worry about seeming like a huge geek. "What fictional story did you write for us? A....review? Of a....computer game?.......".

Or maybe I should get HSW's permission and just submit "Top 10 worst thing I've jacked off to".