Breaker. This is Humpin’ Harry. Just pullin’ into Vegas. Think I can find me a sweet little widow to haul my ashes? Be talkin’ to you later. Over and out.”
But, of course, the vitalists are right.3 Just think of what I’m doing now—not what I’m doing, but what the language is doing to me. Gee whiz! The flow of my creativity—the surprises—the twists and turns—the happy accidents—the vivid images—the unintended metaphors. Oh, the joy of it! Why didn’t someone tell me about this before? Alas, I was imprisoned by the tagmemic4 grid! It was my cell, and fool that I was, I didn’t know I wasn’t free! Lahd Amighty, free at last! I have overcome!
Image: my face staring blankly out from behind the grid, my hands clutching the vertical bars.
Oh, if I had the wings of an angel,
Straight out of this grid I would fly,
And I’d land in the arms of ___________5,
And there I’d be willing to die.
Oh my God! I just realized: the woman playing the slot machine wasn’t a California widow at all. She was ________. I should have recognized her sooner. The way she was pulling the handle—definitively, resolutely. The way she was inserting the quarters—reluctantly but resignedly. That scowl! Those practical walking shoes! And I can explain the perfume: she thinks it will attract some truck driver, lure him into a liaison, for, after all, this is her one and only fling, after which she will go back to her work of correcting freshman themes.
Vell, I vill tell you dis: dee only reason vye peoples gembles is dat dey sublimate dare libido. Yust tink of all dem dirty gemblings vords. Poker! Blackjack! Roulette! Craps! Keno! Slot machine! Dat filthy language make me turn blush.
But, of course, we need an explanation for ______’s obsession with the slot machine, and now we have it. None of our characters will be without plausible motive.
Yawn. Calistoga sparkling mineral water with natural orange flavor. Very refreshing.
Truckdriver Harry was in a casino—
Must have been in Vegas or Reno.
He was sippin’ his booze and playin’ his game
When his eyes lit on a lonely dame.
He finished his drink and picked up his chips,
And he eyed that gal from her chin to her hips.
She was pumpin’ a slot with all her might.
He knew that he could score that night.
He stood behind her and nuzzled her ear
And asked if she would like a beer.
She said that she was not a drinker—
Claimed to be a learned thinker.
She turned and looked him in the eye;
His hand crept slowly up her thigh.
What happened next? Please be specific.
To develop an answer, use a heuristic.
. The romantic theory that truth and beauty are in the individual, just waiting to be evoked by the proper instruction.
. The reader is invited to supply any name he or she chooses.
. The rest of the paragraph is, of course, an explanation of vitalism.
. An overdetermined method used by some English teachers to squeeze or wrench ideas from their students.
. The reader should here supply the name of any English teacher that he or she has suffered under. Unfortunately the teacher supplied must be female—not that only women wreak their havoc in composition classes.
Writing Theorists Writing: Life Studies
I
We encounter the Writer in her study. She is at her Underwood typewriter, bending forward, ready to pounce, much like a leopard about to fall on a fawn, or like the favored Polish pianist, claws poised above the keys, ready to leap into an etude. The study itself is stacked floor to ceiling with typescript, so closely packed that only a narrow path from door to typing table is clear. The air is, of course, somewhat fetid; the miasma of aging paper and decades of dust are colorlessly palpable in the close atmosphere.
Following our most recent insight regarding our subject (which is, of course, writing), we ask not “What are you writing?” but “What are you doing?”
The Writer is startled, so preoccupied was she with her pre-pouncing, and she drums her fingers on the typing table, annoyed at both the interruption and the obtuse question.
“I’m making meaning!” she says testily. “What do you think I’m doing?”
The interruption has, of course, temporarily short- circuited the process of meaning-making, and the Writer uses the lacuna to expatiate on her enterprise: “I’ve been making meaning for years—even you can see that, can’t you? In fact, I’ve made so much meaning that I’m going to have to enlarge my study to hold the meaning that I intend to make in the future. Let me ask you this, pal, ‘How much meaning have you made lately?’“
Not receiving an immediate reply, the Writer suspends herself again over her Underwood, claws poised, ready to make more meaning.
Realizing that our presence impedes the meaning-making, we retire from the Writer’s study, the smell of dust with us even as we step into the fresh air.
II
We encounter the writer in his study. A Camel dangles from his lips, the smoke curling upward, bringing tears to his eyes. He writes with a fat fountain pen, and his mode of inscribing somehow reminds us of a has-been pug, sparring around the gym, punching at shadows, remembering, perhaps, the big fight that should have, but didn’t, happen.
Following our most recent insight regarding our subject (which is, of course, writing), we ask not “What are you writing?” but “What are you doing?”
The Writer looks at us, and we notice for the first time that he appears somehow to be embalmed. With a whine that is nonetheless a challenge, velvet sandpaper, he says, “What else? What’s writing for? I’m creating myself. I’ve heard all this theory shit, and I’m gonna tell you right now, get off it!”
Timidly we interject, “But we think. . . . .”
“Come on, whatya mean by that horseshirt ‘think’? If ya can’t express yourself so people can understand ya, then ya oughta shut up. Listen, I’ve been through hell and back, and what I’m doing is creating the Multiple Me, and anyone who doesn’t want to do what I’m doing is a wimp, a wimp, man, see?”Intimidated, we retire from the gymnasium odor of the Writer’s study.
III
We encounter the writer in his study. His head is all inclined to the Right, or the Left; one of his Eyes turned inward, and the other directly up to the Zenith. His outward Garments are adorned with the Figures of Suns, Moons, and Stars, interwoven with those of Fiddles, Flutes, Harps, Trumpets, Harpsichords, and many more Instruments of Musick, unknown to us in Europe.
Our writer is sputtering away with a goose quill, ink flying and blotching over vellum. His hands are black with ink, and the end of his nose is India-ink-ebony.
Following our most recent insight regarding our subject (which is, of course, writing), we ask not “What are you writing?” but “What are you doing?”
He looks up at us (we think, though we can’t be sure) and says mildly, in a Christ-like