Virtual T

The following were actually said during critiques at Rio Hondo, and thus make up the Rio Hondo Virtual T-Shirt. Thanks to Michaela Roessner and Nina Kiriki Hoffman for recording these.

*”I don’t have many problems with this, and I can’t pretend to.” Gavin

*”What you’ve got is two climaxes and a dying fall with a question in the middle of it.” Howard

*”The legitimate by-blows of the Cairo nuns.”

*”Give us more of Henry not being scattered before you scatter him.” Walter

*”I begin to get humor fatigue.” Walter

*”Does that butter pat not fly both ways?” Jay

*”There’s a real art to writing something that doesn’t make any sense. This doesn’t make any sense, and I can’t not notice that it doesn’t make any sense.” Daniel

*”That’s always been the big question about Hell. If you don’t have a physical body, how can you be tortured?” Carrie

*”A human being would be a much better devil than a devil would be.” Kelly

*”Having a guy’s spine ripped out again and again and again….there are ways that you could treat that as comedy.” Paolo

*”Anytime you use the word ‘somehow’ in fiction, it means you haven’t done your homework.” Howard

*”If this is 50s sf, she’s the dirt girl who’s living on the planet (Ohio) and wants to get to the stars (Cancun) and she gets there. If it’s an 80s sf story, she’s the dirt girl who wants to go to the stars and gets there, only to discover she’s killed everything she loves.” David

*”My sense of this story is that it’s a whack story, and it should get more whack at every opportunity.” Paolo

*”It’s very hard to take Tonio’s victims, when they’re truly miserable, or dead, or descending into drug hazes, as objects of fun.” Daniel

*”The probabilities now are just sizzling blood and bar scenes.” Ray

*”It felt like you’ve taken all your skills at circumlocution and hint-dropping and lined them up to deliver a big bang at the end, but then the bang didn’t happen.” David

*”My experience is you set out to be obscure, and you succeeded.” Paolo

*”I’ve got a severe case of outrage fatigue.” Carrie

*”I have a feeling of being manipulated, and my reaction to that is to become a wilfully stupid reader.” Carrie

*”What you’re aiming for is a false clarity — where what you’re showing is as clear as that window, but what’s beyond it, we can’t tell.” Walter

*Parenting is about “giving your kids good teeth and a good education and sending them out in the hopes that they won’t blow up the capitol someday and embarrass you.” Howard

*Give me enough information that “I can stop worrying about what’s going on and worry about what comes next.” Daniel

*”When the angel erupts, either he explodes or starts spewing things.” Walter

* The dog’s power arc worried me throughout.

*There are always more nuns.

*You need to have the cheese issue up front.

* I don’t think I’ve ever said this about a story before, and probably never will again in the future, but *please* — more telling, less showing. (Carrie)

* . . . or whether Dexter is just a complex dog with many facets to his personality.

* There *will* be some thematic resonance . . . and all that crap. (Walter)

* As far as Harry impregnating the maid Celia — that just seems like business as usual. Not that I condone that, or anything. (Ted)

* What you have with a story full of drooling morons is a maximum capacity issue. (Jay)

* I think you were trying to be obscure, and you’ve succeeded. (Paolo)

* If the aliens are so groovy, why didn’t they stop the flu? They’re so mean. (Ted)

* What are his pants made out of, kryptonite or something? (Howard)

* I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful. That’s why I’m flailing around being amusing. (Walter)

* *Green* guys as the bad guys? I could understand it if the *red* guys were the bad guys, but the *green* guys? (Ted)

* I feel used by your story. (Paolo)

* I find that even in a fantasy that I cannot believe in a City of Hoboken. (Walter)

* Fairly usable women weren’t put to waste. (Howard)

* All the concern about Merriweather Lewis is positively sexual. (Maureen)

* Less yelling; more bureaucracy. (David)

* Whales on stilts . . . why not? (David)