Hayseed Huck
04-09-2010, 07:17 PM
Each spring, as it comes 'ready or not,' and whether
I am ready or not ready to have spring come, I dig
from the clutter of a drawer the very document which
I post below.
I have handed out this document, maybe, thirty
times. Each time I read the handout to my Ameri-
can literature class I make my face as grave and
resolute as I can make my face-- which is difficult
in that my face is usually happily hidden between
the pages of The Great Gatsby--my favorite book
to hold and bury my face between.
What the handout says ...
Listen students,
We admire many. many writers, but we must make
decisions concering whom we will emulate-- as
emulation is good.
But ...
... one cannot equally emulate, at the same time,
Wallace Stevens and George Wallace; James Joyce
and Joyce Kilmer; Jonathan Swift and Jonathan
Livingston Seagull, or Robert Frost and Julia
Roberts; Walt Whitman and the Whitman Chocolate
Sampler, Carl Sandburg and George Carlin, Rob-
inson Jeffers and the Swiss Family Robinson;
Ted Hughes and Howard Hughes; Robert Penn War-
ren and Sean Penn, George Meredith and George
Clooney; Ben Franklin and the University of
Pennsylvania and the Franklin stove; Pearl Buck
and Pearl Bailey; Henry James and Buck Henry;
the novel V or the number five; Jack
London or Jack the Ripper, who lived in London;
J.D. or Pierre Salinger; Ayn Rand or a road map;
Dr Johnson or Arte Johnson or Ava Gardner's horn
blower, Artie Shaw; Nat King Cole or Merry O
King Cole; Alex Pope or Pope VI; William Shakes-
peare or Willian (Billy) the Kid; Ernest Heming-
way or the Importance of Being; Hart Crane or
Stephen Crane, who frequented the Bowry and
lived openly with a prostitute while many thought
he should have just lived openly in the Bowry and
merely frequented the prostitute; governor Arnold
S. or the Governess at Bly who missed out on her
only Turn to Screw, which the governor never has.
In short, I tell my class, the writer must choose
The handout says much the same ...
HH
I am ready or not ready to have spring come, I dig
from the clutter of a drawer the very document which
I post below.
I have handed out this document, maybe, thirty
times. Each time I read the handout to my Ameri-
can literature class I make my face as grave and
resolute as I can make my face-- which is difficult
in that my face is usually happily hidden between
the pages of The Great Gatsby--my favorite book
to hold and bury my face between.
What the handout says ...
Listen students,
We admire many. many writers, but we must make
decisions concering whom we will emulate-- as
emulation is good.
But ...
... one cannot equally emulate, at the same time,
Wallace Stevens and George Wallace; James Joyce
and Joyce Kilmer; Jonathan Swift and Jonathan
Livingston Seagull, or Robert Frost and Julia
Roberts; Walt Whitman and the Whitman Chocolate
Sampler, Carl Sandburg and George Carlin, Rob-
inson Jeffers and the Swiss Family Robinson;
Ted Hughes and Howard Hughes; Robert Penn War-
ren and Sean Penn, George Meredith and George
Clooney; Ben Franklin and the University of
Pennsylvania and the Franklin stove; Pearl Buck
and Pearl Bailey; Henry James and Buck Henry;
the novel V or the number five; Jack
London or Jack the Ripper, who lived in London;
J.D. or Pierre Salinger; Ayn Rand or a road map;
Dr Johnson or Arte Johnson or Ava Gardner's horn
blower, Artie Shaw; Nat King Cole or Merry O
King Cole; Alex Pope or Pope VI; William Shakes-
peare or Willian (Billy) the Kid; Ernest Heming-
way or the Importance of Being; Hart Crane or
Stephen Crane, who frequented the Bowry and
lived openly with a prostitute while many thought
he should have just lived openly in the Bowry and
merely frequented the prostitute; governor Arnold
S. or the Governess at Bly who missed out on her
only Turn to Screw, which the governor never has.
In short, I tell my class, the writer must choose
The handout says much the same ...
HH