Things Written in Margin of Notebook at Essay Workshop with Professor L at Fancy-Schmancy Writing Conference
Note examples of Professor L's old-style New York accent, with translations.
Neil Young Nation by Kevin Wong. Funny Canadian memoir.
Geniuses have always had the most persuasive demons.
Da Charactuh (The Character)
Yiddish as language of disgust, contempt, weariness (a hand gesture for each of these springs to mind, accompanied by eyeball rolls)
Home Country (potential title of earnest, politically correct book of essays I will never write)
Mawty (Marty)
Messs (mess)
"On Procrastination." My next essay title.
"Morning Pages." Writing exercise whereby you place a notebook next to bed before sleeping. Before exiting bed the next morning, before getting coffee or even peeing, write three pages nonstop.
Answehs (Answers)
Tummler. Comic. (Yid.). Professor L's term.
"I spent my childhood blowing my nose." Someone told me I should write an essay about this.
"Book of Days," essay by Emily Fox Gordon.
Choowklid. (Chocolate).
Tenduhnesss. (Tenderness).
Imp. Wastrel. Trammel. (Good words).
"There are always more deer." The advice of a workshopmate's father to her when she was learning to drive, occasioned by the appearance of a lone deer on the side of the road. E.g., where there is one deer, there may be more.
Do not start an essay by recounting a dream.
Solvitar ambulando. This means, "Solve a problem by walking around thinking (or not thinking) about it."
Neil Young Nation by Kevin Wong. Funny Canadian memoir.
Geniuses have always had the most persuasive demons.
Da Charactuh (The Character)
Yiddish as language of disgust, contempt, weariness (a hand gesture for each of these springs to mind, accompanied by eyeball rolls)
Home Country (potential title of earnest, politically correct book of essays I will never write)
Mawty (Marty)
Messs (mess)
"On Procrastination." My next essay title.
"Morning Pages." Writing exercise whereby you place a notebook next to bed before sleeping. Before exiting bed the next morning, before getting coffee or even peeing, write three pages nonstop.
Answehs (Answers)
Tummler. Comic. (Yid.). Professor L's term.
"I spent my childhood blowing my nose." Someone told me I should write an essay about this.
"Book of Days," essay by Emily Fox Gordon.
Choowklid. (Chocolate).
Tenduhnesss. (Tenderness).
Imp. Wastrel. Trammel. (Good words).
"There are always more deer." The advice of a workshopmate's father to her when she was learning to drive, occasioned by the appearance of a lone deer on the side of the road. E.g., where there is one deer, there may be more.
Do not start an essay by recounting a dream.
Solvitar ambulando. This means, "Solve a problem by walking around thinking (or not thinking) about it."
posted by Wanda Ball at 5:24 PM
7 Comments:
Whew. You live. Thank God. Are you gonna talk like that when you come home?
Tawk like whud?
Of course, if you write three pages nonstop when you first wake up ("morning pages"), aren't you pretty likely to start by recounting a dream?
Hey, beach comments. Beach facts. New entry.
Ha, good point, Anonymous. Different source, different advice.
I'm working my way up to the beach stuff, Chicky. I'm an artist, you know. Don't rush me. But I will say that I'm blogging from my parents' deck, the only place I can steal the neighbors' wireless. Moths are flying into my computer screen and an enormous fanged beetle is perched on the wall just above my head. If I don't come back from the beach, you'll know what ate me.
Actually "Solvitar Ambulando" is the Roman answer to the Greek paradox that if you walk half the distance to some point, then half of the remaining distance and then half of that remaining distance and so on, you can never traverse the full distance because there are an infinite number of half-distances for you traverse. "Solvitar Ambulando" means "it is solved by walking. In other words, pondering the philosophical question is stupid, because just getting up and walking gets you to your destination.
Ah, so that's what it means! Thanks for the tip.
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