That's All She Wrote

I'm currently sitting in my room and watching I Love the 90s with Edit...oh man do I miss the 90s. And right now, they're talking about Tamagachis. You had one. You know you did. And it died on Shabbos, always. Damn anti-Semites.

Anyway, we read a piece of a poem in class today that made me so happy:

"Imagine being the first to say: surveillance,"
the mouth taking in air like a swimmer, the tongue
light as an astronaur, gliding across the roof
of the mouth, the eyes burning like the eyes of Fleming
looking at mold and thinking: penicillin. --Michael Blumenthal, "Inventors"

I ALWAYS think about weird stuff like that. I mean really, how fascinating is to be there when words are first made up, to be the first to utter random syllables that will later hold meaning for all mankind? I kind of think it's over more interesting than inventing something, but invention is a whole different ball game, really. I couldn't really take away from penicillin or the light bulb, even if I wanted to. Just saying that with a word, you really have to be willing to put yourself out there and hope that people will take your nonsense syllables to mean something. With the light bulb - well hey, if it works, and it saves on candles, then it works.

I'm also fascinated by short stories. Not that we're reading any right now, but as I went to the Creative Writing Department to pick up my portfolio for the 90th time (still not there. Could not feel better about the fact that I gave Adam Soldofsky a bad review.) I was thinking about the short story I'd handed in and how I always write short stories about death. But really, what else would make a story interesting in only five pages? You can be one of those people who writes existentialist prose for five pages, and that will interest whoever it interests, but death really captures everyone; it's of universal interest, because it's a universal inevitable and eventual affliction. I wish I was one of those people who could put a really fascinating idea into just a few pages - something with a solid beginning and end. Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants", or something. You know, it's got substance, and it makes sense, but it's short. Gotta love Salinger, but I don't know what he's talking about. Ever.

Oh man, I really do love the 90s. Oh Lilith Fair...I really don't like chick rockers. Ooh, maybe my next list will be chick songs that don't suck. OK, coming up: chick songs that don't suck.