May 10th, 2021 - Balloons

Dear TNY,

Boy howdy what a fucking long Monday this has been and it’s not yet evening and I just got to “Balloons”.

And, meh. 

I appreciate that it’s not one of your typical meandering stories in which nothing really happens. 

But, what’s to say about it?  It’s got some dumbass, O. Henry twist.  The character I wanted to explore most, Joan, was barely in this story, giving us, instead, the beige doctor and our highfalutin boy, Roger.  And it’s just not that fucking original.  I say that knowing that all the stories we could tell have already been told (and that our job as artists is to tell those same stories in new, fresh ways such that our humanity is both recorded in time & place and carried forth, set to inspire future generations of artists to do the same).  But this story is neither original nor fresh.  Same shit, different day.  Hell, same shit, same day. 

It’s… fucking meh.  Like I said.

So I’ve got nothing. 

Later.

Nick