Exploding stars
So there’s this book I heard about on the Brian Lehrer Show.
The Show I’ll Never Forget: 50 Writers Relive Their Most Blah Blah Blah Blah…
WHAT? I’m sorry, I just fell into a light to no coma. Then I crawled on my hands and knees to the kitchen so I could stab my eyes out, but both of my knives were in the sink, and I didn’t feel like washing them. When you do something dramatic like stabbing your eyes out, you don’t want bits of cheddar clinging to the blade.
Does the world need any more personal essay comps? No, it does not. Does it need any more “memoirs”? Again, I will answer for you, since I am your moral compass. No. The world does not need that. Does it need Sigrid Nunez on the radio using the word “youthquake” to refer to Woodstock? No, sir.
But then I heard a familiar voice.
Let me introduce…
Mr. David Gates
Yes, the brilliant writer, the Newsweeker, The Smartest Man in the Room. The Pulitzer Prize runner-upper. He Who Interviewed Dylan.
And.
The reason Pistol Whip and Left Hook exist.
Let me clarify. Pistol Whip and Left Hook would not exist were it not for David Gates, for they would not have met, or probably not.
Yes, it boggles the mind. Who would I be? Where would I be? Would I even exist? Such things are frightening to contemplate, yet they must be faced, even in the context of a coma-inducing collection of essays.
And due to his grace a legend was born, and much whiskey was drunk and French fries ingested. And the sound of merry cackling was heard across the land. And the people were happy, because it was good, or they weren’t happy, because they weren’t smart enough to understand it, in which case Fuck them. Losers.
One Response to “Exploding stars”
1 Pistol Whip 14 February 2007 @ 2:45 pm
That’s right, kids. DG is basically the God of Meta-Mirror. And actually, he told me that very story on a certain fateful night in late 2004. And I widened my eyes and said, “Really???” Back then I was just an anonymous co-ed. (Uh, sort of.) Just a girl like any other. BUT THAT NIGHT, I COULD FEEL SOMETHING CHANGING INSIDE. My molecules re-aligning themselves! My muscles tightening! My heart thumping out some sort of code I couldn’t yet understand!
I couldn’t sleep that night. I felt so… strange. “What is happening to me?” I asked myself. “Am I some sort of beautiful, powerful ANIMAL that hasn’t even been DISCOVERED yet? Or a MACHINE? Or perhaps some UNGODLY COMBINATION OF BOTH???”
Soon enough, it would all become clear.
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