From The Letters of E. B. White

"If an unhappy childhood is indispensable for a writer, I am ill-equipped: I missed out on all that and was neither deprived nor unloved. It would be inaccurate, however, to say that my childhood was untroubled. The normal fears and worries of every child were in me developed to a high degree; every day was an awesome prospect. I was uneasy about practically everything: the uncertainty of the future, the dark of the attic, the panoply and discipline of school, the transitoriness of life, the mystery of the church and of God, the frailty of the body, the sadness of afternoon, the shadow of sex, the distant challenge of love and marriage, the far-off problem of a livelihood. I brooded about them all, lived with them day by day."

Craig's List

Sometimes there are postings on Craig's List that just tug at my heart strings. Not that I can relate to this particular young lady, but she's so earnest and naïve that, in a way, her post is very sweet.

The image is very small, but if you click it, it will enlarge dramatically. It is, perhaps, not child appropriate.


I hope that she finds what she's looking for in all the wrong places.

And that the florist of her dreams remembers to remove the thorns.

From the Late, Great Art Buchwald's Posthumously Published Farewell Column in the Chicago Tribune

For some reason my mind keeps turning to food. I know I have not eaten all the éclairs I always wanted. In recent months, I have found it hard to go past the Cheesecake Factory without at least having one profiterole and a banana split.

I know it's a rather silly thing at this stage of the game to spend so much time on food. But then again, as life went on and there were fewer and fewer things I could eat, I am now punishing myself for having passed up so many good things earlier in the trip.

I think of a song lyric, "What's it all about, Alfie?" I don't know how well I've done while I was here, but I'd like to think some of my printed works will persevere--at least for three years.

I know it's very egocentric to believe that someone is put on earth for a reason. In my case, I like to think I was. And after this column appears in the paper following my passing, I would like to think it will either wind up on a cereal box top or be repeated every Thanksgiving Day.

So, "What's it all about, Alfie?" is my way of saying goodbye.

First Day Reflection

Today is the dreaded first day of a new semester. Predictably enough, I have shuffled my classes and changed them irrevocably because of petty and baseless superstitions and prejudices. I switched into a different narrative writing workshop because it was held on the third floor of the English Building and I still do not recognize the third floor as real or necessary. For a more extreme example, I dropped my much-anticipated film class because the professor emailed us an assignment before the semester started. It wasn't that it was a difficult assignment, or anything like that. I just cannot help but feel that it cannot bode well for a class that the professor cannot wait a week to start cutting into my free time. So I dropped it and I signed up for a class that fit neatly into the spot. Surely, I supposed, a class entitled 'Themes in Narrative' will be a simple enough literature class that I can both grasp these 'themes' and still enjoy myself. I was a little less enthusiastic when I discovered that the reading list was limited almost entirely to Latin American literature. One of the previously mentioned prejudices is against highly poetic literature. It gives me a headache. I like to write poetically. It's a gas. Readiing it, however, is cumbersome and dilutes the true meaning of the author's intention. Because I am a mild racist, I assume that people from any place with a higher median temperature than, say, Chicago, must write florid and romantic and poetic prose because they are all romantic and poetic people and I am not. I am sentimental and curt and as has been so aptly noted recently, blasé. And so it goes, I went into the classroom with nothing but the expectation that I would promptly drop it and beg my way back into my film class.

I sure was surprised. The novels still sound a little on the dull side and my classmates were a little quiet, but the professor is a knowledgable little stick of energy. She's intense and Marxist and looks like I expect Olga will at the age of 39. So she said a lot of cool things that blew my mind. Things like 'Slavery is bad for Capitalism.' You know, things that make you go-'whoa, what, why?' Then she explained it in one sentence. 'Slaves don't buy anything.' I was like, 'whoa...that's pretty fucking true, for the most part, I guess.' She's incisive and prejudiced and fun.

I also had Madonick's poetry workshop. Madonick's class cannot be bad and there are more obscentities than a Tarantino movie. At times, I wish that the people in that class were less familiar to me. In the end, however, it is very enjoyable to see so many people that I know enjoying themselves so thoroughly. His class was really a lovely way to begin the semester. It is fun and familiar and--oh, rollicking, I suppose. Something like that. He does bear an unfortunate resemblance to Rob Reiner. Unfortunate for Rob Reiner.

Right now, I am sitting in my Physics class. It is ri-goddamn-diculous. I just watched my professor pull a tablecloth out from under a pile of dishes, a glass of water, and a lit candle. She then informed us that we would be performing the same feat in our lab section later this week. Higher education? Or is it just a lesson in how little we actually need to know to be considered educated adults competent to enter the workforce? She then explained inertia by telling us that massive objects are harder to move. She demonstrated this with a lead brick and a student. No one was hurt. She is now seated on a cart and propelling herself across the front of the lecture hall with a fire extinguisher.

Thus far, not the worst first day ever, but I've got another class yet. Time Arts looks to be a goddamn waste of time, but I've been mistaken in the past (the cheese in the pocket incident, for one) and I will be mistaken in the future and maybe right now. It might just be the best class I'll ever take.

But really, very probably not.

From The Dream of a Ridiculous Man by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"I've always been ridiculous, and I think I've known it from the day of my birth. Perhaps I became fully aware of it at the age of seven. I studied at school, then at the university, and the more I studied, the more I realized I was ridiculous. For me, in the final analysis, higher learning amounted to explaining and proving my ridiculousness. And in life it was the same as in my studies: every year I became more consious that I looked ridiculous in every respect. Everyone has always laughed at me, but no one has ever suspected that the one person in the world who knew just how ridiculous I was was none other than myself. And that was what hurt me more than anything. But then, I had only myself to blame: I was proud, and I never wanted to admit it to anyone. And my pride kept growing with the years. If I had admitted to anyone that I knew I was ridiculous, I believe I'd have shattered my skull with a bullet that very night."

From A Clean Well-Lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway

"What did he fear? It was not fear or dread. It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y nada y pues nada. Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee. He smiled and stood before a bar with a shining steam pressure coffee machine.
'What's yours?' asked the barman.
'Nada.'
'Otro loco màs,'" said the barman and turned away.

From Molloy by Samuel Beckett

"The glorious, truly glorious weather would have gladdened any other heart than mine. But I have no reason to be gladdened by the sun and I take good care not to be. The Aegean, thirsting for heat and light, him I killed, he killed himself, early on, in me. The pale gloom of rainy days was better fitted to my taste, no, that's not it, to my humour, no, that's not it either, I had neither taste nor humour, I lost them early on. Perhaps what I mean is that pale gloom, etc., hid me better, without its being on that account particularly pleasing to me. Chameleon in spite of himself, there you have Molloy, viewed from a certain angle. And in winter, under my greatcoat, I wrappped myself in swathes of newspaper, and did not shed them until earth awoke, for good, in April. The Times Literary Supplement was admirably adapted to this purpose, of a neverfailing toughness and impermeability. Even farts made no impression on it. I can't help it, gas escapes from my fundament on the least pretext, it's hard not to mention it now and then, however great my distaste. One day I counted them. Three hundred and fifteen farts in nineteen hours, or an average of over sixteen farts an hour. After all it's not excessive. Four farts every fifteen minutes. It's nothing. Not even one fart every four minutes. It's unbelievable. Damn it, I hardly fart at all, I should never have mentioned it. Extraordinary how mathematics help you know yourself."

From The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham

"'D'you remember how Jesus was led into the wilderness and fasted forty days? Then, when he was a-hungered, the devil came to him and said: If thou be the son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But Jesus resisted the temptation. Then the devil set him on a pinnacle of the temple and said to him: If thou be the son of God, cast thyself down. For angels had charge of him and would bear him up. But again Jesus resisted. Then the devil took him into a high mountain and showed him the kingdoms of the world and said that he would give them to him if he would fall down and worship him. But Jesus said: Get thee hence, Satan. That's the end of the story according to the good simple Matthew. But it wasn't. The devil was sly and he came to Jesus once more and said: If thou wilt accept shame and disgrace, scourging, a crown of thorns and death on the cross thou shalt save the human race, for greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Jesus fell. The devil laughed until his sides ached, for he knew the evil men would commit in the name of their redeemer.'"

From Don't Get Too Comfortable by David Rakoff

"The time has come for me to follow my own, as well. The bliss of the quitter, the killjoy, the pill. I joined in at Jaime's urging because, like most people, I like to think of myself as being spontaneous, ready for anything, fun. This is the evening's second hard-won insight: I am neither spontaneous nor ready for anything. I suspect that others would probaby regard this news as about as momentous and surprising as when I decided to come out (which was about as momentous and surprising as if I had bravely announced to everyone that I had dark hair and opposable thumbs). I am no fun at all. In fact, I am anti-fun. Not as in anti-violence, but as in anti-matter. I am not so much against fun--although I suppose I kind of am--as I am the direct opposite of fun. I suck the fun out of a room. Or perhaps I'm just a different kind of fun; the kind that leaves one bereft of hope; the kind of fun that ends in tears."

Lewis Carroll Gives an Example of Human Perversity

"[Let] me take this opportunity of answering a question that has often been asked me, how to pronounce "slithy toves." The "i" in "slithy" is long, as in "writhe"; and "toves" is pronounced so as to rhyme with "groves." Again, the first "o" in "borogoves" is pronounced like the "o" in "borrow." I have heard people try to give it the sound of the "o" in "worry." Such is Human Perversity."