Pinot Grij vs. Pie - OPEN FOR VOTES

[Adonis]

Winter Topical II: Quarter Finals


SUMMARY OF RULES:

Verses are due FEB. 1st
MONDAY at 11:59 P.M. Pacific/West Coast or TUESDAY Jan. 2nd 3:00 AM Eastern / 6:00 AM TUESDAY JAN. 2nd Central European/London
There are NO extensions.

Verses MUST be a minimum 10 lines or a maximum of 48 lines (or 650 words).

Votes are due Thursday at 4:00 p.m. Western / or Thursday 7:00 PM Eastern / 1:00 AM Friday Central European/London Failure to vote will result in NEGATIVE VOTES if you advance to the next round.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? You can technically start a match down three votes by failing to log a single vote the previous week.

so....

All competitors must vote on THREE battles

Read the full rules here! (http://www.netcees.org/showthread.php?t=122320)

Topic: "Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see"

G/Luck
Pinot Grij PiE

[Pinot Grij]

Curt is sputtering blood. Mutters and grunts. Barely clinging to life.
The streetlamp’s glow glints off a knife from a hand at the fringe of its light.
Curt’s body shape, oddly splayed, shudders with the trace of his winnowed breath
As the blaze of a cigarette hovers about the face of his assailant’s silhouette
Its gaze, a chilling threat. Its ill intent beset to finish this violent crime
As Curt’s mind flashes behind his eyelashes – perhaps for a final time.

Could it be the sugar-sweet Debbie? Curt’s bubbly wife?
Truthfully, these have been troubling times with the love of his life
She’d grown distant and cold. Her listlessness shown in subtle gestures
A marriage under pressure.. what once was tender crushed to embers
Her meddling mother. So testy and smug with her idle chatter:
How Curt could have a higher stature if he’d commit to climb the ladder
Her grumpy father. Such a bother. He called his daughter, so impassioned
He had wished very bad for her to marry Chad. The college rowing captain.
And so it happened. Their love eroded fast without warning
Debbie would “go out with her friends” and didn’t come back til the morning.
Those texts on her phone. Sent from Unknown:
No quaint conversation. Just dates, times and places.
Did Curt not see it coming? Her running away with an old love?
But was that added twist the catalyst for her to kill him in cold blood?

Or had it been his estranged pal, Steve. They had been great colleagues.
Listened to the same tracks from way back. Played in the same baseball league
But one night at a family dinner, Curt had wanted some answers
Steve was locked in the bathroom with his teen daughter, Samantha
Curt started and stammered, “Y-Y-You should be locked in the slammer!”
And beat his fist on the wall so hard he knocked off the plaster
Samantha screamed, “Dad, I’m seventeen, and I don’t need a lecture!
I’ll be in love with Steve forever! We were meant to be together!”
Curt was mean as ever as he told Steve, “Don’t fuck with my kids!”
Steve left, but not before he said, “You’ll pay for this, you son of a bitch!”

But what about Hector? The local rector. He couldn’t be ruled out.
Curt saw him in close range as his son Joe changed in the pool house.
He watched in perverted, silent glee as he lurked behind a tree
Curt emerged stridently and screamed, “Haven’t you heard of privacy!”
Hector cried wildly, “I’m just watching his children, since Christ isn’t here.
But if you insinuate impropriety unjustifiably, I can wave goodbye to my career!
Not in your wildest dreams is this what it seems! You may as well spit in my face!
Don’t play foolish games - I’ll know who to blame if this reaches my parishioner base!”
“Just leave,” Curt plainly demanded. So Hector escaped like a bandit.
But could this secret cause a priest to break the most sacred Commandment?

————————————————————

In the chill of the night. Curt was choking on blood. No hope was enough.
His murderer’s knife had stabbed a final jab - the coldest of thrusts.
Standing clearly in the streetlight - the assailant’s hood, he hurled it backwards
Now his identity was surely answered, it was fucking Bernie Sanders!
Sanders supports breaking up families and decreasing the age of consent
He sympathizes with NAMBLA and thinks boys should have relations with men
All these issues affected Curt, and so he grew spiteful and raucous
And had it known that he’d cast his vote for Clinton at the Iowa caucus!
So Sanders had offed him. Don't trust a socialist with truly ruthless methods.
I’m Hillary Clinton. Your next president. And I approve this message.

[PiE]

Shadows of Reality

The snooze button didn't do nothing to stop this alarm.
I roll over and I'm socked really hard, nostrils are scared.
My husband's breath has unbuttoned death, it's probably SARS
or a bad, ferocious case of halitosis that's gotten to Mark.
Eyes watering leaves my vision's blurred, but widened awake.
I look at Mark, but he looks like Al Bundy's alive in his place.
Trying to shake that vision off with a smile on my face.
Imagine me as Peggy, but even that life I'd embrace.
Our children are still lying in place, snore sounds of tommy-guns blasting.
Then Devan looks at me with crooked teeth like a zombie on acid.
Acting it too, he attacks me like food; I'm bitten, struck on my breast.
He's punched in the head, the other hits me once on the leg.
A Charlie horse follows, they start throwing bottles, I use their pillows as shields.
Only eleven, but Tony and Devan will have blood spilled as they're killed.
Then Mark grabs me and spanks them badly like it's the easiest task,
but Mark's Stan, Tony's Steve and Devan's Haily dressed in drag
from American Dad. I giggle a bit while making their lunches.
I'm going crazy or something in the left side of my brain has malfunctioned.
I make these assumptions, while drinking coffee to refreshen my mind
because Family Matters, but then that massive nerd is stressed through my eyes.
Carl and Eddie Winslow with Urkle next to his side.
They're extra surprised as I laugh loudly like the devil's inside.
It's settled, I'm right. Urkle trips and of course his movement's dramatic.
The whole table falls, plates hit the wall on some, "Did I do that?" shit!
Annoyed and confused, my boys are some fools, but this pattern's insane.
Not just graphics displayed, they're matching the ways and what characters say.
They see me upset, quickly clean up the mess before I get nasty and fight,
but you take the good, you take the bad, that's the facts of my life.
Tragedy strikes with magical sights and my laughter combined
from costumes that's on my guys, Charmed witches have been supplied.
No more scratching my eyelids, but I go take the remote.
Maybe I can put them on channels for my favorite shows.
Then again I should escape all these roles taking place in my home.
I turn off the TV, I'm who's the boss in 3D, just hating the throne.
Breakfasts, lunches, dinners, work and meetings after school.
Running after two funky, hungry, jumpy asses that drool.
Having twins with savage grins, watching a sponge act a fool.
I shouldn't be surprised, they're demonized from the fun of cartoons.
Reality sucks and sometime we all need to imagine some stuff.
Cast in the sun from the creation of shadows dreamed up.
Within the darkness, there's no reflection to laugh, love and hug.
Which acts as a drug; a happiness blunt, without that we're all fucked.

Topic: Everything we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.

[e11even]

Pinot- I read this verse second by mistake... and fucking loved it. I was expecting my kind of twist, but quickly realized this is Pinot's shit lol. I loved that fucked up ending and I was on edge the whole time. Your rhyming didn't come off as forced and though some of the usage was shaky, this was an overall solid piece. I enjoyed this and would probably read this again after the tournament just to remind myself of the 'oh shit' factor I got from it upon finishing. Good job.

Pie- My guess is this is either Halloween-themed, or the protagonist daydreams to escape home-mom misery. I haven't truly decided, but I appreciate this passage simply for the rarity of the concept IMO. I haven't read much from a mom's perspective and it's pretty cool to see someone doing that with decent anecdotal flare. This was interesting, especially because many people have those family members imitate pop culture material to entertain friends(i.e. me) and that's cool. The rhyming was pretty good and the story kind of didn't have a real flow, due to the nature of it. It just kind of 'was'. As I said, I appreciate it and hope to read more of you.

I believe both competitors wrote decent pieces and matched well against each other. I do believe, however, that one competitor utilized the art of storytelling in a more dynamic and exciting light. MVGT Pinot.

[Cimmerian]

Quick thoughts:

Pinot - You wrote a whodunit verse with the reveal to be out of left field . I felt that the Bernie Sanders twist, while perhaps timely because of the primaries, was perhaps a little too far out of left field. Sure, mystery authors like Agatha Christie, often will have the left likely suspect be the culprit. But I would emphasize the word suspect. Bernie just seemed to be an afterthought. And then, I guess the second twist is that it's a Hillary Clinton ad that's made the whole story up to mudsling during the campaign. The writing was good.

PiE - I originally thought that the narrator was a female insomniac. After reading the verse a couple times I'm now leaning that the verse is more of a critique of television and how its consumed reality. Bad art imitating life, life imitating bad art. If so, I thought this was a dope idea. From an execution perspective, I thought it could have been a little cleaner. But there were some good thoughts here.

Overall: I enjoyed PiE's concept more, but I thought Pinot executed his topic better. Tough choice. I vote Pinot.

Cimm.

[Diode]

grij:

rhyme schemes/flow on point as usual, though a little sing-songy and repetitive in some spots. i'll start with the story before the "twist" - a murder mystery is an interesting take on things, though the ridiculousness of some of the phrasing/concepts was extremely distracting. i know you're a polarizing figure in these tournaments because of this style of yours, but i have appreciated it when you've been "on". in this case, i'd prefer something a little more grounded, especially with it being juxtaposed against your (now expected) absurdist ending. speaking of, it got a chuckle @ the closer, but was crossed the border into wacky for the sake of wacky for me. you usually have a better tie in than what you did here, summarizing the motives as all things the bern would be in favor of (as per hillary), so it didn't land nearly as well as the ultimate warrior did in the prior round. enjoyable verse and wicked flow nonetheless. it did tie into the topic in an unusual fashion as per your legacy, so you also have that going for you.

pie:

i think you meant for your nostrils to be scarred, not scared ;). agree w/ cimm on where i thought you were going with this and the end result. i think the concept was extremely clever but executed very poorly. there wasn't much cohesiveness as it got towards the middle and became random sitcom name dropping. i get what you were trying to do in critiquing the tv-induced zombie escapism effect. unfortunately, it was clumsily handled and some of the word choice/rhymes were a bit bizarre. the piece was a bit all over the place.

v/ pinot

[Pinot Grij]

Would be nice to get more than 3 votes. Razah Pent uP Mr. J Vividlyvague

[Mr. J]

Pinot from the beginning of your verse Im already impressed by the use of the word fringe
rarely an opportunity arises when someone takes an uncommonly used word & adds it to their writtens
as we continue on I enjoy the flow of the piece it stays consistent with each line building to its boiling point
but then I get to....bubbly wife...I cringed but the rhyme that followed was worth the slip up
I really cant enjoy it fully though because it feels odd to me...perhaps if you said voluptuous?
perhaps you were talking about her personality? either way I feel like you kept me long enough to finish....
thats what she said.....either way I thought your verse showcased your ability to control your technique
you played with some nice concepts & made the plot work itself out, the ending wraps it up nicely as well
nice work here.

Pie, perhaps you should calm yourself with the ingredients due to your nose being scared.
I really like the flow of your piece as well you keep the rhymes stacking on top of each other
allowing your characters to become part of the fun in the picture you painted in your nostrils fear sweat
I fear I didnt enjoy the SARS mark up but once I see how you were playing with each concept I was like ohhhh
regardless I feel like some lines worked and some lines felt kind of stretched with the route you were taking
for instance this eddie & carl winslow line I thought that could be omitted from what you had going for you.
you had a few redeeming lines that push stuff like that to the back of the mind, the zombie on acid was cool.
nice work here..


v/First I would like to congratulate both writers for making it this far it has been a interesting couple of weeks
I enjoyed the performances that the both of you brought to the table upon reaching this level
I bow my head in respect.......with that being said I am leaning for Pinot on this match
Pie came with a slick verse but I feel he had more slip ups compared to Pinots verse
it also seemed like a safer route compared to what could have been brought to the table in his previous weeks
Pinot had a crisp verse with a larger amount of multis & the plot of his story left me wanting a longer verse
Pie did work though, I feel if he took the opportunity to write a stronger array of rhymes he may have evened this battle out.



v/Pinot

[Certain]

Pinot Grij: This was not your most compelling piece because the three-anecdote format can be a little staid and disconnected. Yours were probably each two or four lines too long, too, though your writing remains crisp and charismatic. You overdid it with the rhymes, too, which is not to say that you forced them as much as they were distracting because they were so voluminous. But the final stanza revealed a very funny premise to the verse that definitely validated anything trite about the first three.

PiE: You are a good writer, but you are sloppy. You have good ideas, but you try to do too much with them. This verse shows your immense potential, and I really hope you stick around. But you needed to narrow the focus and reference points and clarify the narrative. There were good social commentaries to be had on which you never quite put your finger. The cadence on the first eight lines was tremendous, but your lines got a bit cluttered after that point. Proper nouns often require emphasis, so stacking lines with as many as you did can be a problem for cadence. The ending veered dangerously close to an all-a-dream twist, though I think yours had good intentions.

Vote: Pinot Grij