On methods. While working through assignment, the class was tasked with choosing and imitating one piece of Bernard's work. I chose The Biggest, Most Beautiful Balcony in the World. I attempted to recreate the same chronological transitions, where Bernard begins by regaling us with a tale of his nieces development, in a list-like fashion incorporate a game that builds a frame of background for getting to what culminated in a wistful longing for better times. I also tried to keep detailing to my closest approximation of his work.
     He begins by creating a scene, "A lone balcony jutting out from a stucco apartment building. It over looked an alley and paring lot, the pavement potholed, lumpy and littered, flanked by trash bins painted a flaking industrial green and caution orange, like large bonded barges." I tried to use descriptive detailing describing an old swimming pool that my younger brother almost drowned in. "They had one of those large above ground swimming pools, the painted metallic sides and the slick polyurethane floor. A blanket of bright blue bubble wrap covered the shimmering thalassic basin, casting dancing patterns of sunlight off the cool metal railings." It was a peaceful scene, but the next second my brother fell in, while the lining was covering the water. I panicked, frozen, my neighbor who was a year older than I jumped in and saved him. That entire process took maybe one minute, but in my mind time warped, it took an eternity.
     Bernard's work typically follow some type of narrative arc, with a beginning, climax, and resolution. I've seen works by other writers that don't seem to have any concrete or definitive "end." It's easier to just leave a piece unresolved, a true master can make a complete work. Bernard does this. I will work to do this.