Small metal cups, dented and scratched from use, clink into place beneath the firm grip of an espresso maker.
A hiss, the machine sputters out the remaining coffee from it's molten hot spout.
Clank, the sound of the cup hitting the tiled floor after an unaware hand grabs the molten hot handle.
Then the spill!
A clank from the mop bucket.
"Ave Maria!"
The bar stools are occupied by veterans of Versailles, a cigar lodged between their pudgy fingers and talking amongst each other," por que la cosas en Cuba no son buena". We take are usual breakfast seats by the window, I take my position on the East end of the table, taking a full dose of sun to the face. Before the menus touch the tables, our server is scribbling into her notepad.
"Dos cafecitos, dos tostadas, una orden de croquetas y dos pastellitos de guayaba."
Anything else, she asks. We shake our heads no.
"Gracias"
Works Cited
Bruno World. Vintage Car. N.d. Photograph. Miami Beach. Bruno World. Web.Versailles. Croquetas. 2013. Photograph. Miami. Https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=632857213412309&set=a.268050753226292.70580.114215478609821&type=1&theater. 16 Sept. 2013. Web.
The beauty of Miami lies in its untouched history. The cars, the Cuban-American culture, and the vivacity of the city have perpetuated through time and it is beautiful. The same cars that you imagine during the peak of Art Deco Miami still sit outside famous modern landmarks on Miami Beach. My creative goal in this post was to juxtapose the old and the new and show how even today they live in harmony. Growing up, my Abuelita sang this exact song to me while we played dominoes and danced at family parties. Play this song in Miami and watch as the young and the old swing their hips and mouth the words to her music.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading/looking at your blog. At first I didn’t really understand why you spotlighted the words at the beginning (clink, splatter, clunk), but as I continued reading I noticed that they came up again in your story. Very creative!
ReplyDeleteTo start off, I think the image of the car and your background blog image do a pretty good job of portraying the ‘historical’ side of Miami. I would have like to have seen contrasting images; maybe not both of cars, seeing as you don’t talk much about cars in your blog (well, not yet at least).
You do a really great job of setting the scene! I really felt like I was there drinking coffee, listening to the sounds of the café. You also did a wonderful job describing Miami. My one main critique was the separation with “Ave Maria”. I’m still a little confused as to how that fits in with the narrative (maybe I missed it in the song?), but I didn’t see how it connected. I did, however, like the placement of the Celia Cruz song and I think your choice really encapsulates Miami as a whole.
After reading your explanation, I understand what you were going for. I didn’t see much of cars or much of the city being mentioned, but I did see Miami’s Spanish culture. You mention the juxtaposition of young and old and aside from the Celia Cruz song being danced to by all ages, I didn’t see that either.
I know it seems like I’m “critiquing” a lot, but I really did enjoy reading your blog and I’m excited to see what’s next, so thank you!
I really did enjoy your blog. taking such a simple experience and turning it into something very enjoyable to read a job well done. I love all of the visuals you used in the blog from the background to the foreground. all of you links bring together your text and translate very well. i love the use of miami especially because i grew up there a very good location to continue your story. the picture use also i forgot to mention is very good and how you wrapped the text around it makes the text visually pleasant to look at. My only critique on this blog is to maybe incorporate some hyperlinks into the text of some images. Other than that i do think you did a very good job and I hope to read more of your blog as it continues.
ReplyDeleteI found the blog experience to be a fun hands-on way to study the daunting theory of intertextuality and made the subject something personally tangible for students. Often times when professors refer to Rhizomes, issues in text, surrealism, unconventional text, etc. students, myself included, get lost amidst the dense twenty page PDF files and the experimental novels. This blog project was our own execution of playing with textually and it truly helped with my understanding of the course’s purpose and intention.
ReplyDeleteAt the start of the blog project I understood the task to be “start something and see where it takes you” and that’s how I wrote my first post. I set the stage for whatever acts were to follow, or to be Aristotelian I created the container for the contained things, and awaited the curveballs presented with interacting with other blogs. By the end of the project it was interesting to see how students interpreted their peers and later how we all incorporated aspects from several authors into our growing sole piece. Looking back, I wish I would’ve taken into consideration how many blog posts the project consisted of so I therefore could better pace my story. It was also fun to see how each blogger took on the challenge of experimental writing in their blogs which in turn pushed me to be more creative, or more experimental, with my own posts.
I chose this critical text, Deleuze and Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus "Introduction: Rhizome", for one of my previous blog posts and I will refer to it again because I believe it most directly relates to the project. The term rhizome “describes theory and research that allows for multiple, non-hierarchical entry and exit points in data representation and interpretation.” The word was chosen to reflect the botanical rhizome (roots). Our blogs represented this series of data representations, several ideas and stories from individual authors simultaneously crossing the plane of similarity being that we are all blogging and responding to one another. Our posts were the epitome of what intertextuality is. Our posts shaped and became shaped by each other’s words, images, videos, and formats.
The project was refreshing as it embraced my generation’s digital addiction and effectively installed a tangible knowledge of intertextuality.