excess

How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #47: Excess (Revisited)

An update from our forty-seventh Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, October 29th Excess: more than necessary—exaggeration, extravagance, exuberance, abundance, unnecessary, overload, overkill, surplus, luxuriance, improvisation, unrestraint, ridiculous To kick off this week’s workshop, we began with four artworks—Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Dulle Griet, Peter Paul Rubens’ The Garden of Love, Jackson Pollock’s Convergence, and the Sistene Chapel—all of which illustrated, in one way or another, the theme of excess. While we technically defined “excess” as “more than necessary,” the purpose of this workshop was to show how sometimes excess is necessary in order to create the feeling of being overwhelmed or overpowered or repulsed, an idea perhaps best encapsulated in the work of Peter Paul Rubens: he emphasized movement, color, and sensuality. We explored two more of Rubens’s paintings: Daniel in the Lion’s Den and The Tiger Hunt. Once we finished looking at these paintings, we looked at the art of contemporary Australian sculptor Ron Mueck. We looked at a few of his hyperrealistic, larger than life works in order to demonstrate how something almost “too real” becomes grotesque. Following our discussion of Mueck, we looked at examples of Baroque architecture, a style associated with ornamental excess as is the case with St Peter’s Basilica and La Sagrada Familia. We also discussed a piece of Postmodern architecture, the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas, a “non-functional” building more characteristic of a dream or a work of science fiction than reality. The last section of the Writing Workshop was devoted to examples of excess in writing as we looked at an excerpt from Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox (exaggeration, hyperbole), Lewis Carroll’s The Jabberwocky (pleasure in its own silly sound making), and, finally, an excerpt from Cormac McCarthy (functional resistance to grammar, repetition of the word “and”). The Challenge: Write as much as you can, as fast you can, without worrying about making sense; write excessively. The Participants: Benedetta, Savi, Anushka, Ella, Tate, Robert, Samantha, Alice, Russell, Josh

How Stories Work-Writing Workshop #7: Excess

An update from our seventh Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday May 29, plus some of the output published below Excess: more than necessary—exaggeration, extravagance, exuberance, abundance, unnecessary, overload, overkill, surplus, luxuriance, improvisation, unrestraint, ridiculous To kick off this week’s workshop, we began with four artworks—Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Dulle Griet, Peter Paul Rubens’ The Garden of Love, Jackson Pollock’s Convergence, and the Sistene Chapel—all of which illustrated, in one way or another, the theme of excess. While we technically defined “excess” as “more than necessary,” the purpose of this workshop was to show how sometimes excess is necessary in order to create the feeling of being overwhelmed or overpowered or repulsed, an idea perhaps best encapsulated in the work of contemporary Australian sculptor Ron Mueck. We looked at a few of his hyperrealistic, larger than life works in order to demonstrate how something almost “too real” becomes grotesque. Following our discussion of Mueck, we looked at examples of Baroque architecture, a style associated with ornamental excess as is the case with St Peter’s Basilica and La Sagrada Familia. We also discussed a piece of Postmodern architecture, the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas, a “non-functional” building more characteristic of a dream or a work of science fiction than reality. We then discussed excess in music, something popularized in the Rock n’ Roll music of the 70’s and 80’s (think Kiss, David Bowie, and Queen), and best exemplified by Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which we listened to. The last section of the Writing Workshop were devoted to examples of excess in writing as we looked at an excerpt from Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox (exaggeration), Lewis Carroll’s The Jabberwocky (pleasure in its own silly sound making), and, finally, an excerpt from Cormac McCarthy (functional resistance to grammar, repetition of the word “and”). The Challenge: Write as much as you can, as fast you can, without worrying about making sense; write excessively. The Participants: Emma, Simran, Svitra, Liam, Sena, Zhilin, Noa, Georgia, Helen, Aditi, Sinan, Olivia, Harine, Alice, Julia, Audrey, Josh, Isolde, Samantha Emma Hoff, 9Bronx, NY CRACKED Emma Hoff, 9 The ceiling hates me because it is cracked and imperfect and unloved and unfixed and nobody pays attention to it anyways, because they don’t care. Well, I care, but that doesn’t really matter because it hates me the most because I am loved and my life is good and I am not cracked or broken or crumbling and as far as I know, I will not fall and squash somebody and I can move around and I play sports and I write and I read and I draw and I play, but the ceiling isn’t able to do any of that because it is inanimate and cannot move. And I like looking at things, but I think I understand how boring it would be to see the same thing over and over again, my family walking down the hallway, maybe carrying something, maybe stomping, frowning, happy, sad. If the ceiling is inanimate, do you think it can see things? If it can’t it still somehow hates me, which seems impossible, but for now, I’ll say it’s possible and stop the fight and also the confusion, because you probably can’t understand a thing I’m saying, but that might be okay. Georgia Marshall, 12 How Olive Hendrix Broke Her Leg Georgia Marshall, 12 It is a hot day, but I’m not that hot. In fact, I am able to pull a sweatshirt over my head and I am fine. Anna’s complaining about the sun making her hair get all frazzled, so I explain to her that the only one frazzling anyone’s hair is Anna herself. She rolls her eyes at me and pulls out her sketchbook as we wait for the chipped yellow bus to roll up with its paint sizzling off like the skin of a sausage. Anna likes anime, which I hate, so I ignore her asking me if Ponyo or Lu over the Wall is better. Instead, I focus on the bees that are buzzing beside Anna’s ear, which I think are having a fight but are also very polite and don’t want to sting her. I wish they would. That would shut her up. I hate Anna. But she is my best friend, so I guess I shouldn’t hate her. But Olive at soccer practice is a lot better than her, which is unfortunate because Olive is in the hospital and probably dying. Well, no, Olive broke her leg and can’t do soccer and I don’t know where she lives and I am now stuck with Anna on the sidelines talking to Trini Deboever and ignoring me in midfield. I jam my earbuds into my ear and play a blasting rock and roll song that my dad would probably like. I don’t know why I am listening to this. All of a sudden the school bus pulls up on the side of the road and I spring up and claim my seat by the window. I glare at the shrubs in Mrs Porter’s yard as Anna walks right by me and sits next to Trini, who is staring at her phone. She looks up when Anna comes over, and her face glows like a lantern. I’m not kidding. It turns yellow and full of light. Okay, maybe she just smiles and acts all surprised, but I can see through it. I bet her mom is a murderer or something, and she has a knife in her backpack. I want Anna to get away from her as soon as possible but I also hate Anna and wish she didn’t exist. The school bus begins its journey down the road. I wish I had a T-shirt under my purple sweatshirt with skeletons on it because now I am slightly-sort-of-kind-of-maybe-a-teensy-bit hot and I will probably die in a few minutes. Well, no I won’t, but if I did then maybe Anna would