This piece is insane :) I had the thought numerous times that the way you put certain images next to each other (the Chinese tourist who bent his knees like the car dealership man + his kissing the ground with the force of an elephant’s foot landing / the joy in the women’s eyes that was just as real as their fake lashes and double d breasts + immediately followed by the description of the dank air and danker smells) felt like associative poetry. I hadn’t realized it earlier on, but you were effective in making me experience the joyful yet unforgiving assault of competing sights and sounds and happenings.
The image of the bird kneaded into the pavement like a pressed flower was sad, gorgeous, and wretched.
“Faux neon and tits flash in the dark night” sounds like the opening of an Allen Ginsberg poem.
I love how you describe the reverence and respect at the boxing ring, and also feel like your exposition at the end about the city’s contradictory nature is spot-on and hits home. The “grimy glory of it all” could have been another possible closing sentence.
You know, I initially thought of ending with that alternate last sentence, and now, looking back at it, wish I did and don’t know why I didn’t. That was my first instinct.
This piece is insane :) I had the thought numerous times that the way you put certain images next to each other (the Chinese tourist who bent his knees like the car dealership man + his kissing the ground with the force of an elephant’s foot landing / the joy in the women’s eyes that was just as real as their fake lashes and double d breasts + immediately followed by the description of the dank air and danker smells) felt like associative poetry. I hadn’t realized it earlier on, but you were effective in making me experience the joyful yet unforgiving assault of competing sights and sounds and happenings.
The image of the bird kneaded into the pavement like a pressed flower was sad, gorgeous, and wretched.
“Faux neon and tits flash in the dark night” sounds like the opening of an Allen Ginsberg poem.
I love how you describe the reverence and respect at the boxing ring, and also feel like your exposition at the end about the city’s contradictory nature is spot-on and hits home. The “grimy glory of it all” could have been another possible closing sentence.
Really beautiful work.
You know, I initially thought of ending with that alternate last sentence, and now, looking back at it, wish I did and don’t know why I didn’t. That was my first instinct.
Fair. But luckily this page allows for you to write infinite more pieces with similar closing sentences for us gluttonous readers to gobble up ;)