It's not true that when you cry, you cry alone

I have often interviewed copy writers for employment. There are two things I always ask:

1. Who is your favorite writer?
2. Describe your relationship with words.

You'd be amazed (or perhaps not) at how many people interviewing for a writing job have no favorite writer and are obviously plucking names from recent memory that they think I might recognize. Some offer obscure favorites and some choose nonfiction writers (which has always surprised me, as most copy writers also write fiction and admire good fiction).

What are my answers?

1. Truman Capote. IMHO the greatest literary voice of the last century. Followed distantly but affectionately by Kurt Vonnegut and JD Salinger. (That is the only correct answer, BTW.)

2. Incestuous. Polygamous. Sinful. Rewarding. Painful. Glorious. Orgasmic. Addictive. Uncompromising. Neurotic. Psychotic. And peacefully slowly delightfully numbing, like a good stiff drink that soon wears off and must be enjoyed again.

In 7th grade, our teacher Miss Jane Emerson at Bethel Christian School gave us a fiction assignment, then read our short stories out loud, without revealing the authors' names.[1]

A pattern emerged very quickly: As Miss Emerson read each precocious story, she scanned the class vacantly, allowing pregnant pauses after especially bad sentences. Eventually the class began to interpret the pauses as punchlines.

Accordingly, the class laughed at each pause and looked around for sheepish downcast eyes so they might pin the bad writing on some mortified soul.

Finally my story rose to the top of the stack; I knew the laughter would stop, for this was serious work, and the smiles would evaporate as each in turn listened with rapt attention.

I still remember the first sentence: "The sound of falling trash cans filled the air."[2]

You already know where I'm going: They laughed even louder, so loudly that I'm sure they missed most of what followed, which as I recall involved a boy being chased through a dark alley, a flashing knife, and some blood.

I was so visually expectant, the class immediately knew I had written it, which made it all the funnier to them. I still remember Miss Emerson's gaze glancing off me ahead of a subdued grin. Gotcha. I was quite a handful in 7th grade and I think she enjoyed taking me down a notch.[3]

Little experiences like this have made me especially sensitive to others' public pain. I can't stand to watch a standup comic bomb, for example; I'll change the channel.

It's not true that when you cry, you cry alone, you just don't know who's crying with you. As long as the person is being honest with me and himself, I'm along for the ride.

English majors may remember Shelley's closing line to his Defense of Poetry: "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world."[4]

Conventional leaders adjust physical elements and the relationships between them (cash, buildings, people, transportation, etc).

Poets adjust our understanding and responses to those things and their relationships.

When my time ends in this world, I will have moved people far more with my words than my actions.

And those words will remain long after there is any apparent or behavioral influence left of me; they are, in many ways, more "me" than the me that talks and walks and shits and pisses and works and rests and moves mankind along another tiny step toward extinction, for that is the end of all things.[5]

[1]
Bethel Christian School at that time was still at 737 E 26th Street in Erie, PA; Miss Em's classroom was in the southeast corner, 2nd floor, overlooking Wayne Street.

[2]
When I was a child, all trash cans were metal and made a distinctive sound when banging into each other or falling over. You can still buy metal trash cans, of course, but plastic is more common.

[3]
I only remember one teacher in my life encouraging my writing. She taught 11th grade English at McDowell High School. She was very progressive for the day. Alongside The Red Badge of Courage and The Great Gatsby we read The Bridges at Toko-Ri, Dandelion Wine, and The Amityville Horror. (I disliked Dandelion Wine; Amityville Horror scared the pants off me).

Passing thought:
I am really enjoying listening to William Peter Blatty read The Exorcist. His sequel Legion is next on my list if I can find it. I've done a lot of audio book listening over the past couple years, and Blatty is easily the most gifted writer and narrator I've encountered so far.

Legion has gotten a lot of criticism for being too talky without enough chills. However, it is precisely those talky, introspective, "the hero is deciphering this" moments that appeal to me the most.

[4]
I remember reading that for the first time, with absolutely no knowledge it was coming. Those times when you discover something afresh in classic literature, as if it were written yesterday, are rare and magic moments.

[5]
The words that accompanied the most famous event in the last 2000 years were spoken by Neil Armstrong when he stepped on the moon. ("That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.") "Mankind" captures a sentiment in a way more gender-neutral language can't. Someday, when sentiments change, the distinction will be lost, but today it's very real. It's a shame powerful language is often dulled by political considerations.


Started: 2012-02-21