Tag Archives: writer

Standardized Jest

9 Dec

(An SAT test writer and his wife are sleeping in their bed. It is 2:30 AM.)

HUSBAND (suddenly): Uh, that’s such a great question.
WIFE (sleepy): Wha-t?
HUSBAND  (frenzied): I just thought of the perfect question. After all these years, I’ve got it.
WIFE: Honey, come back to bed. You can write it down in the morning.
HUSBAND: You don’t understand. This is the question we’ve been dreaming of forever – it seems easy enough when you first look at it but it’s actually impossible. Oh, there’s gonna be so many tears!
WIFE: Honey, that’s cruel. Now go to sleep.
HUSBAND: When Beethoven woke up with a symphony in mind did his wife tell him to go to sleep? She might have, but he couldn’t hear her. And the same goes for Van Gogh – he didn’t have an ear or a wife.
WIFE: You write standardized test questions. Relax.
HUSBAND (mad but meek): You don’t understand. This is the question to triumph all questions. All you need is ninth grade math, but still nobody can finish it!
WIFE: Whatever, just finish up and come back to sleep.
HUSBAND (frenzied): Go back to sleep? I have to call the guys! This is going to keep so many kids out of college. The bosses offered a promotion to whoever could increase the number of sobbing fits and this is just what the doctor ordered.
WIFE: Don’t you ever feel bad about all the stress these kids go through?
HUSBAND (defensive): I like to think we’re testing their academic aptitude and college readiness.
WIFE: Do you really want to make these kids upset? Think back to when you were this age.
HUSBAND (distressed): But, this is my crowning achievement. I did it.
WIFE: But you’ll know you didn’t make some adolescent girl cry on a Saturday morning. Now go to sleep.

(The man lays down and waits for his wife to sleep. He quietly stands up, writes down the question, and basks in its sadistic glow. The warm hug of power has finally overpowered him. Owning the moment, he stands up and declares “Man is the cruelest animal” as he manically cackles himself to sleep.)

 

 

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I Want to be a Paperback Typewriter (continued)

30 Jan

Paris is lovely mid-spring (I hear it’s kind of dumpy in autumn). The place was just oozing with inspiration. The narrow roads and lumpy cobblestones made my thighs ripple through my skinny jeans. The general populace glistened perpetually in a resin of lard and butter. Aside from the prostitutes and their syphilis, I could see why Benjamin Franklin came so often.

I had my caffeine passport stamped in all of the city’s most renowned cafes. Though the basic function of the establishments was the same, the difference between a coffee shop in New York and these was remarkable. Here, the coffee was Parisian. The attitude was Parisian. The people spoke Parisian. To the casual observer, it might have appeared as a similar situation as when a Midwestern tourist eats at an Applebee’s in Times Square because it’s much different from theirs back home. But to a connoisseur of places in which you sit around all day and think about writing like me, the difference was palpable.

Amidst the oohing and aahing and gawking, I finally remembered the purpose of my journey and spent some time with my typewriter. As I noisily churned through paper, I noticed that I was not the only writer in my coffee establishment du jour. But, instead of a typewriter, these people used a different device. The keys were recessed into an aluminum body, and the typebars were nowhere to be found. And there was no paper. The letters were struck into a dynamic electronic screen, which could then be adjusted as the user saw fit.

This thing was a miracle! One could write a piece, and make as many hard copies as he wished! He could backspace and move text around and look at funny cats while he worked. A dream come true!

I knew in that instant this newfangled machine would be the inspiration for my next work. So, wrested from the tedium of typewriter-dom and ushered into the space age, I packed up my computer and headed back home.

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