Black & White/ Color

strange stuff! love it. sort of a david lynch version of goldilocks and the wizard of oz. ***

James, you are the best! Love the winning combo of Lynch and Oz! Thanks a ton, so great to be back.

I love the dreamy free-association to both of these. You slide right through them, beautiful.

Magda, thanks so much! Your comments are so generous!

Great draft of this piece. The deadpan voice works so well here.

TIna, so grateful that you read and commented. Really nice to have that interaction with you my friend. Means a lot to me.

Love, love this one, Robert. Much tighter and cleaner than the last version I saw. Really nice. Spooky and odd at turns. Fav part-the father handing over the coat-WOW!

This is not bad. Some of it seems lazy, which I recognize from my own lesser work. "...dungeon", "forever", "bare hands","nubs", "skyscraper", comparison to a dog's spinning while on a spiral stair, "just hope to see you when I get there" like a movie poster tagline. Just needs a little cleaning up, IMO. But that's just me.

A wonderful form, Robert. Great voice - "Color: the cornfield is mowed down to nubs and stretches in all directions as far as I can see. I'm heading toward the stairway. Now, after beginning to climb, each step feels like a skyscraper. And it doesn't help that they're circular. So, I'm turning around like my dog, Paprika might, before settling in with her fleas."

Yes. Really like this. *

Rachel, you are so sweet! Thanks a ton! xoxo

S. H.,

I appreciate your honesty! It is in workshop form, so I will take a great look into your comments. Thanks so much!

Sam,

So nice to have your opinion once again! I have missed our interaction incredibly, and your writing too. I really appreciate you.

My tastes run to the margins, so take that into account. I see problems where others see none and vice versa. Just observing a piece by an acknowledged master of the form. Thx for keeping an open mind!

love the use of form and imagery in this, very much.

Julie, you da bomb, kitty! Thanks a ton.

I particularly like the second section, Robert. You have an excellent ability to add the perfect, telling detail and pathos without blinking. Your sense of riding just this side of the absurd is spot-on. Nice to see you here on the board again.*

Thanks, JP! I can't tell you how much this means to me, your comments as well as being back on board. Feels like home. xo

Wacky and wonderful. You've done it again. Where's the dwarf?

LOVE THIS, Robert!!! So great! *****

Andrea, you are the best! xoxo Dwarf is coming next, piece #3 in this series! You know me so well.

Meg, I adore you! Thanks for reading and the comments. LOVE you back! xoxo

The other-worldly aspect of these two pieces are so effective against the solid backdrop of concrete imagery. Also I noticed on first read that the Black & White section had all the colorful references and the Color section was mostly black and white. Knowing you, this is intentional. It's the kind of piece I want to read a thousand times.

Wow, Theo, thanks for all of your insightful comments. Very kind of you!

Awesome dreaming, marvelous return to reality at the end. *

Beate, so thrilled to be back and return to comments like this. I have missed you and your writing tremendously. Thanks so, so much.

Surreal stroll through suburban memory.
*

This gives the reader a lot of choices about where to embrace it. For me, that was the edge between "losing" his parents and entering the shredded outer world.

A wild ride, more powerful for the understated voice. Great work!

Gary, thanks so much...I really appreciate your comments! Suburban is it, indeed!

Barry, I am blown away by your astute reaction to this piece. Thanks for your wonderful comments, and the generous reaction to the writing.

Fabulous! An instafave...love the movement, staccato & buoyant almost, a great counterpoint to that dungeon swim and trudge back to the world. I also like your choice of tags, which make no sense before the read, but provide something like an alphabetical abstract map of it after. Very well done! *

Sina, thanks for your enthusiasm! I am so appreciate of your comments. Of course, when writing these shorties, we never know how they will be received. But I am very grateful, and humbled by all these gracious words.

Whoa. This is a thought provoking, innovative piece. Black and White/Color. Good structure and I like the lost guy lost in the houses and then the lost lives in the next. Not sure I know the ultimate meaning, but not sure I care.

A lovely, sad dreamscape/familyscape. * for RV

I like the odd form you've gone with here, Robert. I particularly like that the two parts are visually divided by the unknown--scattered and surreal, which, as you know, I'm a fan of. ;)

Love the juxtaposition of imagery in these; someone above mentioned the David Lynch connection. Yes.

Gay,

You're on to something with the 'not sure I know the ultimate meaning.' Me either! I am really appreciate of your honesty and thanks for reading and commenting.

CA, you know me better than most. So nice to connect with you here and your support is dreamy.

****

David, your influences are always present in my work! Thanks for pushing my own boundaries, and thwarting my desires toward abstraction! A fan of yours I am!

Jeffrey,

So nice to see you here and thanks for the David Lynch reference! I've been listening to his music lately, so who knows? Maybe it filtered into this piece, too.

Larissa, right back at you: ****! Thanks a ton for this.

"if you can't leave your lights on for wayfarers, then you deserve to be ignored"

That right there made me stop dead in my tracks. Whoa, what a fucking line! It's like something shot out of a cannon leveling a brick wall.

Couldn't get anough of the part with the searching for chex-mix or a ripe avacado either, and Jesus, swimming under the foundation and winding up in a dungeon...

What a beautifully surreal little trip this is. Of course, the way it ends, Not a clue where I'm going. Just hope to see you when I get there." could be a bumper sticker on all the steam rollers in the Dreamworld.

Bud, thanks for your generous and thoughtful remaks. I am really grateful, and so thrilled you exist at FN! Great to have you here, and sharing work.

Congratulations on the publication. Good work.

Matthew, thanks a lot. I appreciate the support.

Good to see your work again, Robert.

James, so nice to be back. Thanks for your support.

Robert, Holy Crap! Now THIS is my kind of stuff! This is fabulous. I truly love it, my friend.

Eryk, thanks a ton! So nice of you to comment and with such generous words. I am a huge fan of yours, as you already know.

Dreamy and really trippy! I love him stalking the houses in the Black and White section. I also love words such as butterscotcheroos!

thanks so much, Timothy! Glad you liked this one.

Eerie, scary, completely convincing. S.H. Gall is probably right but it's still very impressive as is (and that stuff is an easy fix....)and I am just so relieved to know that I'm not the only one having these dreams.

Sally, thanks so much for your generous comments. I really appreciate them, and you!

Love the form and the wild imagery of this. *

Christian, it is so nice to interact with you again! Thanks for your generous comments. I appreciate them!

cool combo.

Thanks, Penny!

oops, on my daughter's laptop & cursor keeps jumping... loved these *

Hahaha! I know how trying to comment on other's equipment is. Much appreciation for the love.

Compelling narrative voice, absurd yet convincing. *

J. Mykell, your words are a salve to me. I appreciate your generosity my friend!

Compelling and unusual prose poetry. I'm not sure I really comprehend what is happening, but perhaps that is your point? Either way, love this experimentation.

One of the best executed works of yours I've read in the last six or seven months, from concept to structure to specificity to form to theme. This shines, hoss. Like a new penny. It's one I'll go back and read again later today if I get stuck on the book, for the sheer reminder that good writing is possible.

Good piece, Robert.
(Messaging you.)
*

Wallace, thanks for the nice comments. As I said above, I'm unsure whether or not I get this piece, too. So happy that you like the abstraction in this.

Sheldon,

I am blown away by your generous and heartwarming comments. How kind! You're the best, little joe, you really are. Thanks a ton for this!

Hi Bill,

Thanks a lot, and I look forward to your message.

loved this piece, this dream told in two parts. really great.

Pat, thanks so much for the read and comments.

Dream sequences are so difficult to get down with such visual acumen! Robert this is really fine. I absolutely believe each of the worlds of the dreams. Wonderful.

Philip,

Thanks a ton for your salient comments. I appreciate them so much.

Everyone has pretty much said it. Sometimes dreams are color, sometime b&w, and sometime we can't remember. I'm glad you remembered these.*

Yea I don't know what goes on in workshops and how much a piece is killed (that's my opinion, sue me, I ain't got shit for money); I'd say this doesn't need to go through the gauntlet of opinions; this stands as is, and as it is, it's wonderful. I was taken to a great, parallel world reading this. These types of short pieces cannot be fucked with too much before they fall apart; these pieces are like punk songs: urgent, short, sharp. If you start molding and re-molding them in workshop settings, you lose the passion, the dynamic. That's my three cents...'cause that's all I got to my name.

John, I appreciate your comments and support. Thanks!

Alex,

You are too funny! Love your opinions, and can't wait to mix them up, mash them in person over martini's (boston? before?) Needless to say, this means the moon coming from you. And you can keep your three cents, my friend.

Welcome back prodigal son! This is a dream within a dream, floaty (is that a word?) and beyond temporal boundaries. Some of it makes me want to laugh, except that it's also heartbreaking at the same time. Interesting for me to see a piece "published" after I've seen some of it in draft form. "I knew him when...." Bit of a giddy ride on the surrealist spinning teacups of your imagination. Love the play of language and imagery. It works....and it's gonna be published! Oh yeah ~ holla! *

MGM, thanks for this! And for the welcome back, my friend. Seems like a lifetime! Your comments on the piece are so kind, I appreciate them all. So grateful for your previous comments as well, when we studied for three weeks or more.

I can't wait to write, and experience, laugh and grow more with you!

Inventive and interesting writing that is full of wonderful surprises.

Darryl, thanks a ton, buddy. So thoughtful of you to leave these words.

Some amazing stuff, Robert. I love how in the color section, where we'd expect things to be a bit more cheerful, we get a woman who electrocutes herself with her hair rollers, and the missing mother, and the mowed down cornfield, are great.

Seems Black is also having a bad color day, swimming under foundations.

Love the surrealism of this. Reminds me of the best stuff on Elimae. Cheers!

David, thanks a lot! I really appreciate your generous comments and the comparison to work at Elimae, one of my favorite magazines! I appreciate this so much.

Welcome back, Robert! It's a lovely piece.

Gessy, thanks so much, great to be back!

shades of martin cruz smith, the best parts (i'm reading him now) some relentless driving through thoughts here and wonderfully associative without falling apart, like the best part of all the dreams.

Marcus, I am so pleased by your comparison to martin cruz smith, and your generous comments. I really appreciate the support!

This is such a wild trip, Robert. It reminds me of a Fellini flick, with psychedelics thrown in. Just a tad. What I love about the first piece is the narrator loses his glasses and everything is a smudge, but everything that comes after clear as crystal. Congrats on the pub. Peace *

Linda, what a great comment! Can't thank you enough for the Fellini reference! Your clarity of perception is really amazing. Wow! Peace, indeed.

Full of dreamy beautiful sadness like awakening from a dream with a lump in your throat.

What a lovely comment, Gloria, thanks so much!

Love, love, love this!!!!! Surreal, strange and so wonderful at the same time. One of my favorites by you Robert. This will stay with me for a long time. Wow!

PS- If I could fave this 5 million times I would. That is how much I loved this! *****

Love it, Robert. Yes, as everyone has said, this is oddly fabulous and fabulously odd. And I mean that in the best possible way. It's also incredibly sad and hopeful and visual and strong. Yeah, *.

Gloria, thanks a ton for your generous comments. Wow, you blew me away! I can't thank you enough my sweet supportive friend and extra-ordinary editor!

Jen, you are so kind, I really appreciate your comments and support.

Love *

Thanks a ton, Marcelle!

Beautifully enigmatic. Some really fantastic lines and imagery here.

Thanks so much, Collin!