[stylist] Romance and Appeal of faraway Places

Mon Jul 20 20:35:28 UTC 2015

Berkley has a great MFA writing program.

Bridgit

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of William L
Houts via stylist
Sent: Monday, July 20, 2015 6:20 AM
To: stylist at nfbnet.org
Cc: William L Houts
Subject: Re: [stylist] Romance and Appeal of faraway Places

As you obviously know, I went to Reed, though I didn't graduate there.  
But next on my list of favored schools would have been UC Berkeley.  Any
other Berkeleyans or would-be Berkeleyans out there?

--Bill

On 7/19/2015 9:58 PM, Chelsea Cook via stylist wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> The recent discussion surrounding bill's "Reed college" poem has caused me
to share something I've been thinking about for awhile. Maybe this is a
writers' thing, or a youthful thing, or a sense of adventure thing. I'm not
sure, but here it goes:
>
> What causes the romance and appeal of different places for people? Bridgit
mentioned Portland, and I'm vicariously living through my friends in Seattle
and San Francisco until I can get out there myself. For me, the magnetism of
the West Coast has nothing to do with fame and fortune, as it has for almost
all other Americans in past and present, but everything to do with
technology and innovation and late-night geeky conversations that can take
interesting intellectual turns. In short, the environment sounds wonderful
to me, but I'm probably being way too romantic and way less realistic. The
phrase of Bill's poem, "Scholar's haven" resonated with me, but I'm sure in
a different way than it was originally intended.
>
> So all you people with way more West coast experience than I do, prove me
wrong. but before you do, here is a little something I wrote for a fiction
class exercise that I think captures my feelings pretty well:
>
> Our aim was this: California.  Me, an East Coast person all my days; you,
a landlocked Midwesterner.  The rough, sparkling Pacific would be ours to
respect and slightly tame.  The beaches for weekends, shorts and
short-sleeves all year round.
>
> Or would it be this? The beach parties on Friday nights, living in the
Valley of the semiconductor the rest of the time? Why not? Everyone knows
the best schools are down there, and the mountains not far away.  Why not
buy one of those grand, poolside houses with nothing but enough electrical
outlets to solar-power all our gadgetry?  The smile comes now as we build
and code the future together.
>
> So why not jump on a jet right now? After all, everyone knows good things
come out of the Silicon.  They are like us.  Not the movie-star glamour, but
the other end, where circuits make the work easier, harder, but way more
rewarding and worth it.  Hey LA, we're going right past you.  All the way to
the planets beyond.  Just you and me: A perfect team.  They won't know what
hit them, and isn't that just the way we like it?
>
> Chelsea
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-- 

"Oh, Sophie!  Whyfore have you eated all de cheeldren?"

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