Go to "The Baker"
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A WORD FROM BRUCE TAYLOR
REGARDING "THE BAKER"
"The inspiration? As with so many of my stories, it may have come from my work experience at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where you often see people stuck in all sorts of absolutely dreadful but unconscious rolls. Or, it's hard to say if this is even more dreadful, being stuck consciously in rolls and feeling totally powerless to change them, and, also unfortunately, how easy it is to go from feeling powerless to being and acting powerless.The Magic Realist element is simply taking the concept of rolls literally, metaphorically. The Baker is the personification of a culture which is very much into creating rolls because rolls can be so easily created and manipulated. But when rolls are challenged, well, it creates lots of anxiety, confusion and certainly can be dreadfully difficult for an economy that, in large part, depends on rolls to keep the economy moving.
What if the majority of women decided that just maybe having children wasn't such a great idea after all? Ooops. What kind of fallout is that going to have to all those industries that cater to that roll? What if men had a sudden conscousness raising that lead them to believe that to be a man meant watching ballet instead of football or playing contact sports? Or that drinking tea was much more masculine than drinking beer? Oooops.
So, in writing the story, rolls do not only get challanged but another absolutely dangerous concept is tossed in: what would happen if rolls got tossed completely? Who are we really? Who are we when we throw away our rolls? Indeed. Who are we?
Maybe in the end, the only rolls we really need . . . are the ones we eat." -- Bruce Taylor
Go to Bruce Taylor's story, "The Baker"
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