Lovely lower purposes.

I found it easy to relate to this story, and the feeling Ian Frazier is trying to get at. I think everyone reminices about the carelessness of our childhoods. I actually have very vivid memories of stomping on the ice at the bus stop when I lived near Chicago, much like he discusses in the creeks.
His character himself is so distant though, from the narrative, that I felt like the memoir was almost forced rather than genuine. No one enjoys forced nostalgia. He uses such large vocabulary to describe such simple moments, I think that's my problem with it. "...the joke filled monotony of his synopsis went well with the soggy afternoon, the muddy water, the endless tangled brush...the woods were ideal for those trains of thought that involved tedium and brooding. Often when I went by myself I would climb a tree and just sit."

WORDS UNNECESSARY: "joke filled monotony", "synopsis", "the trains of thought that involved TEDIUM AND BROODING"

He didn't think like that when it was happening. He's so distant from his inner child, it doesn't capture the moment at all.
I would write it like this.

"His way of describing it went well with the sweaty afternoons, the muddy water, the brush that was more tangled than our hair. The woods were perfect for endless, pointless thinking. I would just climb a tree and sit."

Or something along those lines. Frazier was a little thesaurus happy.
Later on he uses phrases like "suprious nostalgia"
hmph.

two strengths of this though:
The description of the day he realized that he was too old to just sit in a tree and think, and goof off with not doing anything. I think everyone has had this epiphany. I remember one day my sister and I whipped out our massive lego collection and started building, and about half way through we kind of looked at eachother, lost. We felt out of place.
His Adam and Eve comparison? Clutch.
I also am a big fan of the part where he talks about taking his kids fishing. Because this part, I feel, is genuine. Not being a parent, it's a little harder for me to relate to, but you can tell this is the portion of the story that spawned the entire reflection itself. This is what got it started.

Bourbon St. is cool too.

To be honest the first story of the kids tap dancing really kind of freaked me out. It was very haunting. I've never been to New Orleans, but it's hard to believe sometimes that children need to dance on the street to make a living. Although I admire tap dancers, I know how difficult it can be.
I love Uncle Pat though.
The amazing thing about this writing style is how much it makes you feel at home. Rick Bragg really makes you feel like you are getting the inside scoop on this incredibly unique culture. The fact that in the second installment he refines his focus to a specific person and his role in the community really showcases Bragg's talent at that kind of literary intimacy.
"Uncle Pat, who lives on Matherne Street and ran a propeller shop for 30 years, knows almost everyone. He has only been the chief for for years, but he has been an observer of his community all his life. When there is a small breakdown in its character he knows which tiny shack or mobile home to call on."
WOW.
In those two sentences, buy establishing such detail as Uncle Pat's street, he makes you feel like this story is being told while rocking back and forth on a front porch with a cork pipe and a banjo. It doesn't hide the fact that the characters in this story are in poverty, but it showcases their strength and comradery.
We'll count this as half of my blog on this, I'll expand on this after my french test.
wish me luck.

Freewrite

I liked where I was going with this, so I decided to publish my freewrite from class the other day.

Somewhere out there, floating around the nation, is a manuscript about me. From what I've been told, it's almost 200 pages long. I come in on page eleven.
Ben Brownlow and I met twelve years ago, in the school library, I was in fourth grade, he was in fifth, and we were both taking advantage of the scholastic book sale.
We weren't really friends until after I moved. So six years later, when I was a freshman in highschool, now living in southern Indiana, I went to visit our long time mutual friend (and pen pal since I had moved) Amy back in Chicago. Ben came to her hourse and we hit it of. This is apparently where his book starts, and where this story will take off.
Ben was suspended/expelled from school for passing out innappropriate flyers of President Bush Jr., resulting in him having alot of free time. Amy had told him about her and my correspondence, inspired, he began to write me.
I don't recall the content, but I remember laughing alot. Ben was ridiculous, and very funny. Cynical. And he would take things too far everytime. Funnier. He told me about the flyers, and everything that went along with it.
Two years later he and I were still writing. Amy and I were not. Now Ben had immersed himself in the beats. Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassidy were his heroes. The details that he provided me with were vague, but he had made me aware of the fact that his home situation wasn't very functional. He was taking classes at a local community college and traveling constantly on the weekends. He wasn't happy, which was apparent. Phonecalls which were once few and far between and lighthearted, had turned into frequent depressed and overwhelming conversations. I worried about him alot, and always took a great amount of time to reassure him of the promise his future held for him if he kept his chin up.
But then I started getting post cards from all over the country. He had fled from home. I received short notes from Colorado, Oregon, all over. I'm not going to try and explain the essence of his and my friendship. I was one of his few sources of support, and the details of his life were vague, and few and far between. I knew his state of mind though, it was chaotic, confused, lost, depressed and misguided. I remember one conversation where he told me that he had been train hopping one night ...
this is too rough. Sorry.

Decoration done, pretty much.

And that's my apartment.