Quotidiana

I want to recommend a great resource for you.

Quotidiana.org features public domain essays from many writers who are important in the essay tradition.

I'm trying to read one essay a day (most of them are very short), and I encourage you to join me.

I'm starting with Joseph Addison, who nicely describes a certain kind of friend as follows:

“I was last night visited by a friend of mine, who has an inexhaustible fund of discourse, and never fails to entertain his company with a variety of thoughts and hints that are altogether new and uncommon.”

I hope we all have people like this in our lives.

Quotidiana.org

Sing out!

Basic Questions for Workshop

1. What are the essays about?

2. No, really. What are they actually about?

3. What's most compelling in these pieces and why?

3b. What's confusing to you? What do you need to hear more about in order to understand?

4. Is there a writerly persona shining through? What can we say we know about each writer from this piece alone? Don't just think about content. Yes, we know that person x did thing y and has problem z, but is there something in his/her language that tells us about him/her, too, the inner life?

5. If these pieces needed to be extended, how would you suggest that the writers went about that? What kinds of memories could they include? Are there rich descriptions of people and places?

6. Do the writers ask themselves questions?

7. Does the writer assume that we know what's being talked about? How can we help him/her counteract that?

8. To what extent are scenes blending with commentary? Should there be more commentary about the scenes, or more scenes on which to comment? Is there inclusion of 1) a memory, 2) an account of how the writer felt THEN, 3) an account of how the writer feels NOW?

9. Does the writer show us how he/she feels or merely tell us?

10. Is there humor?

I remember

I remember hating PJ Barton when he played Go Fish with my first grade girlfriend at indoor recess. She later developed a drug problem. Do you have any eights?

I remember the dust motes of second grade, Dawn, LJ, the reading circle, talking to my dolls, spelling perfecktly.

I remember popsicles as penises in third grade. My Goody friends and I scolded by Mrs. Rampley (I remember her poof hair, thick-rimmed glasses; and her chubby son who meanly laughed at my squint).

I remember the lockers of fourth, the tough older kids; the failure of my sports teams (the Celtics) that year smells like cafeteria chop suey.

I remember the flower prints and sweaters of Mrs. Dimball, my fifth grade teacher, whose father, Mr. Card, built my house. She lived there briefly, my teacher, my dragon lady. Learned, maybe, something about teaching in her basement room (which is mine now), under the urinating mice.

I remember not knowing any dirty words in sixth grade.

I remember Seth Brockton's curly hair, his wife's--oh, I can't think of a good metaphor, but she had pretty, freckled, half-ruddy skin and hair the color of--well, it was light-brown, washed out. Betsy. Betty.

I remember banana day in eighth grade's health issues class. My best friend couldn't stop moving his leg, a nervous tic misunderstood by the giggling cool kids.

I remember running out to right field and the grace of it.

I remember my Nike hat. I wore it sophomore year to be cool and impress Emily Laugherman. She thought it was dirty, which it was. Titanic came out that year and I remember considering giving her a note that said 'Make it count.' Though mockable, I'm ever-grateful that I sometimes refrain from being even-more-mockable. I got rid of the hat, didn't just do it.