thedrifter
01-10-05, 06:30 AM
My Muse Is A Big Pile of Stuff
January 8, 2005
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by Burt Prelutsky
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A friend of mine asked me how I come up with my ideas. People who don’t write for a living are always asking writers about the source of their inspiration. When I’m in a particularly glib mood, I say my mortgage is my muse. But the truth is that it’s a very reasonable question. If, for instance, a person sits down to write a 900-page novel, one might very well ask him where he got his ideas -- starting with the goofy idea that anyone in his right mind might actually want to read a 900-page novel.
However, when someone puts that question to me, I get the notion he thinks I’m creating fiction of a sort and that I make up half the things I write about. What I actually do is jot down stuff I read in the newspaper or hear about on TV, and put it in a pile on my desk. When the pile threatens to topple over and bury me, I know it’s time I got to work.
Today, just as an experiment, I picked three items at random. Two are AP stories that appeared in the L.A. Times, the other is the result of an exchange I had with a reader who took exception to my attack on the ACLU, which I titled “The Most Obnoxious Group in America.”
Item one: The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the death sentence of a Texas killer because the jurors did not consider his learning disability when they determined LaRoyce Lathair Smith should be executed for killing 19-year-old Jennifer Soto. During the course of an armed robbery at a Taco Bell, he pistol-whipped, shot, and stabbed Ms. Soto with a butcher knife.
Understand, there is no question as to Smith’s guilt. The Supreme Court, in a 7-2 vote that found Justices Scalia and Thomas pitted against the loony majority, simply decided that the 12 Texans might well have considered Smith’s low IQ score “as a reason to impose a sentence more lenient than death” if only they’d been told he wasn’t any brighter than seven justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.
And just why, I have to ask, might the jurors have reconsidered their decision based on his IQ? They weren’t determining whether Mr. Smith was eligible for special ed classes, but whether he deserved to die for his crime. What am I missing? You don’t execute a man who viciously murdered an innocent young woman because on top of being evil, he’s also dumb? Since when did stupidity become a defense for murder? The second item was an e-mail from a guy who took me to task for denigrating the ACLU. In my original piece, I had essentially pointed out that things are so good in terms of civil liberties in America that, in order to stay in business, the ACLU has to scurry around turning molehills into mountains and intentionally misreading the First Amendment.
My angry reader, intent on putting me in my place, argued that the organization is absolutely right in its attempt to remove “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. The clincher, he said, was that those two offensive words were only added to the Pledge in the early 50’s, during the Cold War, in order to highlight the difference between god-fearing Americans and the atheistic Commie hordes of the Soviet Union.
Frankly, I find it remarkable how often during these past few years, I, who am not religious, have found myself defending the values and beliefs of those who are. I suppose what it comes down to is that I just like religious people more than I do the self- righteous atheists and agnostics who think they’re so much smarter and better than devout Christians and Jews.
Anyway, what I wrote in response to this goofball was that if the strongest case he could make against “under God” was the fact it had been added out of fear and hatred of the Reds, he should be prepared to toss out the Declaration of Independence because it had been written out of fear and hatred of the Redcoats.
The third item was a news clipping that reported that Diana Duyser, of Hollywood, Florida, is $28,000 richer because GoldenPalace.com, an online casino, out- bid the competition on EBay for half a 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich. Don’t go firing up the grill, my friends. This wasn’t just any old half a sandwich. What made this one worth the price of a new car is that, according to Ms. Duyser, it bears the image of the Virgin Mary. Now how she would know this -- there being no photos of the Virgin Mother -- I have no idea.
Even though someone had taken a bite out of this sandwich back in 1994, apparently it didn’t affect the price. But I’m just guessing. If I bought half a sandwich, I think I’d probably notice the bite mark even before I noticed anything else. But, that’s probably just me. I’m pretty finicky when it comes to food.
In any case, the seller claims she had kept her sandwich in a clear plastic box on her nightstand for 10 years, and that in all that time not a single spore of mold ever sprouted.
I guess that was just the miraculous element that clinched the deal for the GoldenPalace.com people. Now, I’m not suggesting they sound a lot more gullible than the guys who run the casinos in Vegas and Atlantic City, but I am wondering what they’d offer me for this meatloaf I’ve had in the refrigerator since 1975 that looks an awful lot like Ted Kennedy.
Burt Prelutsky
Ellie
January 8, 2005
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
by Burt Prelutsky
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A friend of mine asked me how I come up with my ideas. People who don’t write for a living are always asking writers about the source of their inspiration. When I’m in a particularly glib mood, I say my mortgage is my muse. But the truth is that it’s a very reasonable question. If, for instance, a person sits down to write a 900-page novel, one might very well ask him where he got his ideas -- starting with the goofy idea that anyone in his right mind might actually want to read a 900-page novel.
However, when someone puts that question to me, I get the notion he thinks I’m creating fiction of a sort and that I make up half the things I write about. What I actually do is jot down stuff I read in the newspaper or hear about on TV, and put it in a pile on my desk. When the pile threatens to topple over and bury me, I know it’s time I got to work.
Today, just as an experiment, I picked three items at random. Two are AP stories that appeared in the L.A. Times, the other is the result of an exchange I had with a reader who took exception to my attack on the ACLU, which I titled “The Most Obnoxious Group in America.”
Item one: The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the death sentence of a Texas killer because the jurors did not consider his learning disability when they determined LaRoyce Lathair Smith should be executed for killing 19-year-old Jennifer Soto. During the course of an armed robbery at a Taco Bell, he pistol-whipped, shot, and stabbed Ms. Soto with a butcher knife.
Understand, there is no question as to Smith’s guilt. The Supreme Court, in a 7-2 vote that found Justices Scalia and Thomas pitted against the loony majority, simply decided that the 12 Texans might well have considered Smith’s low IQ score “as a reason to impose a sentence more lenient than death” if only they’d been told he wasn’t any brighter than seven justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.
And just why, I have to ask, might the jurors have reconsidered their decision based on his IQ? They weren’t determining whether Mr. Smith was eligible for special ed classes, but whether he deserved to die for his crime. What am I missing? You don’t execute a man who viciously murdered an innocent young woman because on top of being evil, he’s also dumb? Since when did stupidity become a defense for murder? The second item was an e-mail from a guy who took me to task for denigrating the ACLU. In my original piece, I had essentially pointed out that things are so good in terms of civil liberties in America that, in order to stay in business, the ACLU has to scurry around turning molehills into mountains and intentionally misreading the First Amendment.
My angry reader, intent on putting me in my place, argued that the organization is absolutely right in its attempt to remove “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. The clincher, he said, was that those two offensive words were only added to the Pledge in the early 50’s, during the Cold War, in order to highlight the difference between god-fearing Americans and the atheistic Commie hordes of the Soviet Union.
Frankly, I find it remarkable how often during these past few years, I, who am not religious, have found myself defending the values and beliefs of those who are. I suppose what it comes down to is that I just like religious people more than I do the self- righteous atheists and agnostics who think they’re so much smarter and better than devout Christians and Jews.
Anyway, what I wrote in response to this goofball was that if the strongest case he could make against “under God” was the fact it had been added out of fear and hatred of the Reds, he should be prepared to toss out the Declaration of Independence because it had been written out of fear and hatred of the Redcoats.
The third item was a news clipping that reported that Diana Duyser, of Hollywood, Florida, is $28,000 richer because GoldenPalace.com, an online casino, out- bid the competition on EBay for half a 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich. Don’t go firing up the grill, my friends. This wasn’t just any old half a sandwich. What made this one worth the price of a new car is that, according to Ms. Duyser, it bears the image of the Virgin Mary. Now how she would know this -- there being no photos of the Virgin Mother -- I have no idea.
Even though someone had taken a bite out of this sandwich back in 1994, apparently it didn’t affect the price. But I’m just guessing. If I bought half a sandwich, I think I’d probably notice the bite mark even before I noticed anything else. But, that’s probably just me. I’m pretty finicky when it comes to food.
In any case, the seller claims she had kept her sandwich in a clear plastic box on her nightstand for 10 years, and that in all that time not a single spore of mold ever sprouted.
I guess that was just the miraculous element that clinched the deal for the GoldenPalace.com people. Now, I’m not suggesting they sound a lot more gullible than the guys who run the casinos in Vegas and Atlantic City, but I am wondering what they’d offer me for this meatloaf I’ve had in the refrigerator since 1975 that looks an awful lot like Ted Kennedy.
Burt Prelutsky
Ellie