(April 13, 2005) I am tempted to poll my pals and see how many of them get my title reference, and maybe I’ll even offer them a Blenheim’s hot gingerale if they say it with the right accent.
So happy birthday Samuel Beckett, Seamus Heaney, and Eudora Welty—three excellent writers born on the same day.
The following two quotes are from today’s Writer’s Almanac. Since I’m a writer who worked briefly in advertising and took many advertising classes, I understand Ms. Welty’s reaction completely (see below). Odd thing is, I was actually good at creating those headlines and highly manipulative ads, but am so anti-consumer / disgusted by conspicuous consumption that, the few times I created them, I felt so dirty, so like a traitor to the human race, that I began caling myself Poetry Killer (and promptly found another job).
Ms Welty:
It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass.
And after she tried working in advertising:
It was too much like sticking pins into people to make them buy things they didn't need or really want.
So she became a writer.
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Today a Senate subcommittee holds the first hearing this year on marriage between same-sex couples. Wonder how many witnesses are going to use the Bible as a weapon to justify denying equal rights to their fellow citizens in a democracy?
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Meanwhile, a woman reportly reported to me that she covets my creativity, so she decided to start eating with her left hand and see what developed. It's been a few weeks and she can now report that she succeeded in becoming more messy, but not more creative.
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