December 12, 2012

• didn't he ramble ramble

  I haven't written for a while, and now the end of the world is looming.  Scheiße.  To be honest, I am running out of things to say.  Each time I review my past blog posts I wonder how I can possibly match them.  But I have to try.  My college friend Danielle advised me,

  If you have any hope of turning your bons mots into great literature, you will have to become more expansive.

  I assuredly do not hope to transform my mots into great literature, Danielle.  I do hope, let us be clear, that I will not turn my mots into literature of any sort, be they mauvaises mots or bons mots.  As an editor, you are accustomed to meeting the nascent Hemingway types, right?  They have notes for the Great American Novel and the talent to write it.  I am not that guy.

  But Danielle, as a reporter, editor, and teacher, you are that guy.

  A year after this exchange, she had some great news to share.

  I have written my first novel, and it’s not in the form of blogs or footnotes.  You are in it. So is Qatar.  So is almost everybody I've ever known.  I wrote down everything I remember, and now it’s time to rewrite it as fiction—plus find an ending for it.  Writing it was a tremendous learning experience, something I should have done long before trying to teach writing to other people.  I discovered it’s a lot more fun to invent than to write a memoir.
  

  Hooray, I can't wait.  When it is published -- if the world doesn't end first -- I will let you know what it is called and how to obtain it.  But I am rambling. 

  And didn't he ramble, ramble,
  He rambled all around, in and out of town,
  And didn't he ramble, ramble,
  He rambled till the butcher cut him down.

  The English folk song is about a rambling ram.  Louis Armstrong's version of the same song is about a womanizing scoundrel. 

   

  ---

  You see,  I have never been instructed in the subject of composition.  I did once work for an Education outfit that graded high school and middle school standardized tests in writing and math.  In my first assignment, 2006, I graded essays in something called the New Jersey Grade Eight Assessment Test.  I learned a lot about composition from reading the essays. 

  Little did I know when I accepted the assignment among those seemingly normal employees, that . . . (Ha ha, the construction is known as foreshadowing.  It's a neat way to tie a story together.  Now you can use it in your own fiction.) 

  The "readers" (my job title) were not required to have any special training except for a four-year degree and the ability to write a coherent essay in an hour.  We received a good deal of on-the-job training specific to each test.  We had to practice and evaluate each test's "rubric." 

  For the eighth grade essays, the students were presented with a photograph and a prompt, something like: "Every picture tells a story. Use this photograph to create your own story that includes descriptions and a plot."  That is not exactly what the prompt said, but you get the gist.  In the photograph is an elegant red-carpeted hallway with busts, portraits, US and state flags, and tall oak doors.  There is a toddler walking alone in the hallway. 

  

  Most of the young essayists placed the story in the White House.  I am reproducing their clever essays to the best of my memory. 

  a) George Bush, under the burden of history, wishes that time would stop, giving him relief from daily responsibilities (yes, an eighth grader came up with this). He walks downstairs and – kazart – everyone is immobile, frozen in time. He walks across the street to a McDonalds, takes a couple of cheeseburgers, and doesn’t have to pay. He travels to other countries and punches foreign leaders in the face, and nobody stops him! Finally, after a couple of weeks of walking around in his underwear all day, he runs out of fresh food and fresh conversation, but soon history obligingly is re-animated, announcing its start by the cry of his baby nephew.

   

  b) George Bush, in a low approval rating, keeps a diary of the difficulties of the presidency. His chief of security is named Ben Dover. Ben’s wife is named Eileen. Anyway, one day there is a security breach within the white house. This turns out to be harmless. A toddler somehow wanders into one of the hallways and is apprehended. Before the Secret Service turns him over to child services, he is heard to shout, “I love you!” And George Bush writes, “At least somebody likes me.”

   

  c) A fellow grows up with an unusual disability. He falls down backwards every time he hears the words “Margaret Thatcher.” He meets a lady with a similar infirmity. She falls down whenever she hears the words “Ronald Reagan.” They meet and fall in love and have a child. Unfortunately, the kid is rebellious, and soon discovers he can get his way by shouting, “Ronald Reagan Maggie Thatcher Ronald Reagan Maggie Thatcher!” The man and woman eventually must separate themselves from the child. They simply move to Idaho. They live happily ever after.

   

  d) Domestic setting, a mother and a child. She shows a deep love and delight in the little tot, and she glows when she hears him say his first words. The first words are, “Be silent, ignorant earth woman. I am the spearhead of an invasion from Pluto, and you shall be my servant.” And after a struggle, the Pluto baby and his legions succeed in conquering planet earth.

   

   

  Happy Mayan Apocalypse Everybody! 

   

   

  • 4:06 pm
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