Slide 1: You must give a spread of grades.
Slide 2: You must explain on the reverse the salient attributes
of your group members, as follows:
Slide 3: For each, allude to at least one skill passed on to you.
Be specific. For example, not just “X can tickle fish,” but
Slide 4: “X taught me the following method to entrance a trout:
1. Abrade the tip of the pointer finger of one’s right hand
until blood peonies on the surface.
2. Tuck one’s skirt hem into one’s waistband and wade in.
3. Touch one’s bloody fingertip to the surface.
4. Think ‘rainbow, rainbow, rainbow’….”
Etc.
Slide 5: Not just “Y can prepare X’s trout midwinter
without pan or oil,” but
Slide 6: “According to Y, if you have landed X’s trout midwinter, but
have neither pan nor oil, you should:
1. Scoop a small hole in the snow with your hands.
2. Consider, one after another, people who have warmed
your existence. A mist will coalesce around you. Do not be alarmed;
it’s just snow, sublimating.
3. When you can see dead, damp grass at the bottom of the hole,
change your thoughts from those who merely warmed to hot, hot, hot.
George Clooney. David Bednarski. The grass will smoulder.
Slide 7: Very Important: FOCUS.
I.E., when considering how David always arrived at his locker
midmorning midweek, resist thinking how you can never
type “Wednesday” without first typing “Wend.”
Slide 8: Too late: you’re distracted. Quickly,
remember the evening that buff young priest told you
it’s a sin to harbour salacious thoughts, so you confessed.
Slide 9: Burning well now. The fish flopped its way back into the stream
minutes ago. The hole? Unchanged since you stopped scooping,
chunks of ice at the bottom. The air
clear as David’s eyes.
Slide 10. Curl upon yourself in the snow, muttering
like that garrulous neighbor who races from his house
to thrust on you yet another bag full of the bags his Gleaner comes in.
“To, you know, clean up. After T-Bear.”
The bags are always compromised—
perforated when he pulls in to his driveway,
back from coffee with the guys every morning.
Slide 10: Say “Thank you.”
Go home. Dry yourself off.
