[712] "Getting A Rug Delivered"
Another installment in the life of Donald Fein. Still trying to strike the right chords of unlikeable but worth rooting for anyway, because we all have a little bit of Donald in us.
Here's my crit.
This is hot off the presses, so, as usual, don't hold back. I think I've got some talking head syndrome going on. That said, a few questions:
- what would you say Donald wants?
- but what does he really need?
- What is getting in the way of him getting what he needs?
- Or, are you not able to answer these questions?
Here's a link to the google doc.
Posted Dec 19, 2021, 8:13 PM UTC · edited
811
Getting A Rug Delivered
Said no one to no one.
Why not over the sink?
Why not by the door?
Why not, watching the scene reflected in the mirror?
Married lover.
Why are you sending me away to look up words for you?
Catch Me If You Can
Why am I looking this up for you?
Why is she not being kicked out?
A WHAT???
Light with intent???
What kind of juice???
Yeah, it's brightest midday and darker toward morning and night nd if there are clouds, it is darker when they occult the sun.
That's how everybody has it.
Both are falsely accused of being rivers.
Who accuses rivers of being dirty or dirtier than any other? Rivers ate inanimate.
That's because it doesn't make sense.
Why doesn't he continue flossing by the futon?
Why doesn't he assume she was being sarcastic?
It's a common sarcastic phrase.
What?
Why is it confusing? She is using his laptop.
Her paramour, sex partner, isn't into fun???
Why?
We call that making an about-face.
You step your left foot across you left foot, and then use the muscles that spread your legs to rotate; and it is done with the left toe and the ball of the right foot.
It is not done with the heels.
I cannot see how to do this on the heels.
Why? Is the chase movie not fun?
So he turned around, intending to go back into the bathroom, but instead began urinating?
Flushed what?
Is he dressed or no?
Nothing.
Said no one to no one.
What episode?
What the Hell does that mean?
Why is there a newline break?
I am stopping here.
I have no interest in anything presented here and what is described makes very little sense.
Just throw this person who just broke into your diary out of your home.
For the obvious record I am not the OP.
I don’t know if this segment of Donald’s story works for me either. This whole scene reminds me of an old movie (Fish Called Wanda) where John Cleese trimming his toenails is juxtaposed to Kevin Kline and Jamie Lee Curtis having sexy time. It sets Donald as so painful obtuse I am surprised she even bother trying to engage him in anything. He screams DOA dud.
However your comments seem in direct contrast to what I did like which might be an even bigger problem with this scene (if two widely different readings both felt meh to miffed for completely different reasons then what is working?).
So I with no skin in the game (this shiksa kicked all the NY Donalds out of their life), but I am really curious about some of the points made since in some of my writing I make similar choices/errors.
Is this objectionable because it is movie dialogue being played in the background? or because we don’t have the actors’ names?
Personally, like an epigraph gimmick, this movie dialogue primes the idea of Donald being the work on Christmas Eve type with no personality. I did not know the film, but got that it was from a film playing on the laptop fairly quickly.
So we know that it is on a laptop later that he could not really view while in the bathroom. My objection to the mirror is that the blocking could be better. The stage feels under utilized. Was this what you were getting at?
Paramore was a fairly big pop band with their last album being on a quite a few end of year lists. Not really my thing (their sound), but the word paramour isn’t really that obtuse or highbrow. It also does not mean just married lover, but a lover-love affair kept secret. MY objection is that nothing about this scene reads like a secret affair, but like a bunch of married folks with five kids and 30+ years of monogamy. Flossing is great to do, but not in front of someone trying to keep the romance, anticipation, secret alive. Nothing about her reads paramour. There is zero on the passion scale here. This isn’t ghost pepper--this is pickled green bell pepper.
I don’t have a problem not knowing the film title. It being known or not does not seem to bother me or seem to really change the dynamic of the scene. Have you ever tried to read say Umberto Eco to Ellis? Do you look up all the references or just let them slide? I ask because I drop references like crazy in my style and have noticed how polarizing it can be. Or in other words, what specific to this two level structure of the film and dialogue seems to be off?
This had me laughing because I was wondering WhyTF she hasn’t just left. If both sides are head scratching, something is really off or unbelievable.
I had no issue with this. It felt a little purple, but in Chicago right now there are these sunny days where it is still miserably cold with 25mph gusts. The sun beam hits the glass but doesn’t warm up anything. Even the dog or cat doesn’t lay in its path. I get the idea of this with the sunlight fighting. If anything, this might read a little overdone and trite given how often the idea of sunlight fighting to warm up a place, break through clouds, gets blocked by tall buildings...yada yada...has been done before? In a lit-fic kind of thing, this seems appropriate.
I might be off the mark, but this is just US slang here for energy. Kind of Gen X dated maybe? But still gets used from electrical (give it more juice) to steroids. The light beam personified is trying, but it's low on energy.
What time of day did this read? I thought it was midday and the sun light was permanently dimmed by the surrounding buildings. Either way this dimmer/switch isn’t landing.
Which river is dirtier debates is such a NYC thing, I could easily picture Scorsese and Lee getting physically agitated. I really did not understand the objection to this. And the answer is the Hudson is the filthiest.
In US English and I think UK there is an expression “spun on [his] heels” meaning an immediate about face. “So and so walked in on their parents arguing and spun on their heels before getting dragged into the fray.” It’s a common enough expression, but one I honestly do think of as East Coast. Similar to “right as rain” or “five by five” it doesn’t really make sense, but it is a known expression.
Similar to spun on his heels, this is an expression in US English playing off the “a woman never tells.” Are these expressions too antiquated? IDK. I didn’t blink at them. But might be good for the op to see how they are losing readers, right?
And this is the crux. I don’t believe she would be with such a disinterested apathetic lover unless she felt optionless and it was necessary to be with someone OR if she is just bored and rolling along.
u/DavidK1818 asked us to think about what does Donald need and want. Both of us read this relationship as either unbelievable or at the breaking point. He does not seem to want to be her lover, but doesn’t want to be without someone filling a box. He enjoys talking to strangers and seems like the type who struggles being by himself. Anxiety? Maybe GAD or depression or just not loving himself. He seems like that overly sensitive guy who does not realize he is so self absorbed he treats everyone around him with zero empathy and does not fully grasp others as individuals distinct from his own egocentric constructs.
IDK. u/zerooskul and I have fairly different takes, but still both did not really get how this scene ever came about or was allowed for these two to continue. Nothing about this reads paramours afternoon delight. It reads like leberwurst on pumpernickel. Maybe in the construct of the whole if we had more? But right now, she reads to me false in 2021 unless there is a history unknown/ungiven here.
I’m just an idiot so don’t really take anything I say as having any merit.
Who is speaking?
To whom are they speaking?
A quote attributed to nobody is not a quote.
"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble, it's what you know for certain that just ain't so."
"Ooh!" JoJo said, "I like this one line from that one 19th Century writer!"
"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble, it's what you know for certain that just ain't so." ~Mark Twain
Hmm. Fair enough. If it's music in the background, I have read it both in quotes and italicized.
I got loyalty, got loyalty inside my DNA NPR-Bro loved Kendrick for leg-day.
"I see a window and I want it painted black," the radio droned.
The quotes do seem to require the radio, but I don't know about the italics. They do require a quick establish line.
The fix here you seem to be suggesting then is:
"....Eve, Carl?" Leo DiCaprio asked through the laptop speakers.
IDK the movie. Is it Hanks?
You saw it quoted in italics or just quoted but not without quotes.
The refrain "I want to Paint It Black" is the title of the song.
So we know Paint It Black by the 'Stones is playing on the radio.
Also if you go back to the copyright page you will find: "Lyrics from Paint It Black by the Rolling Stones, (c) 1966 used with permission of Decca Records.
Tom Hank's is Carl Hanratty having to work over the holidays to hunt this great imposter.
Yes, it is exactly as obtuse as assignation.
"lover, especially the illicit partner of a married person."
"Para" beside or other than "Amour" love.
How did you get my password?
But he's distracted by the surprise and is confused.
They have had sex and now after sex he is flossing.
???
I realky don't know what else to say about it.
I already knew the title I have the novel on my shelf but there is no reason to pretend it is just that movie with Tom Hank's and Leonardo diCaprio.
But it quotes nobody in quotes as an unattributed quote.
No and I can't find a reference to what you mean in a search.
Do you have any more keywords?
I look up all references so that I can actually gather the story.
I am not some reader, I am an editor.
Quote quotations as quoted.
Quote quotations as quoted or else don't quote them.
What voice says the line?
What do you hear?
What do you see?
The sunlight is not cold.
The wind blows energized air away making it cold.
The overnight temperatures are much colder than daytime temperatures because sunlight is hot.
Yes. But what has that got to do with the sun?
But what does it have to do with the amount of energy output by the Sun?
That is the same colloquial American "Juice".
Energy, stamina, strength.
What energy is it low on?
How?
I got late afternoon.
There is no indication, as written, that any building's shadow falls over his apartment, but that's not dimming, that is occultation and blocking out.
Why would they get agitated about which was dirtier?
What is their personal view about it to each other?
It makes a broad claim about accusing inanimate objects of guilt, and that seems completely nonsensical.
The question is: who is accusing the rivers?
Not: who is making claims about rivers?
Not: who knows which is dirtier?
Who is accusing rivers?
I stared at my foot and decided, and checked, and it is: it can only be done on one heel.
The saying is: HE spun on HIS [SINGULAR] heel.
Or
THEY spun on THEIR heelS.
I prefer: turned-hide, it's quicker and shows the whole rotation of the body.
No, relative to breaking-in to his laptop and logging-on to his playlist, what ways does a lady have?
The saying is: A lady never tells HER AGE.
I just wouldn't want to spend time with these people, so I saw no reason in delving deeper, so I quit.
Laughed throughout, sorry if that's not what you intended.