Does This Story Make Me Look Fat?
Molly Larson Cook and...
...her thoughts, comments, ideas, hellraising, some of her writing, and maybe an occasional epiphany.
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Pop Quiz for May!
Oh, no, those dreaded words.
"I hope you studied this chapter and were taking notes.
Now, close your books and take out a piece of paper."
Groan...
Oh, but you promised you were going to read more, and now comes the moment of truth. Do your best. Neatness counts. If you are caught looking at your neighbor's computer, you will be unplugged. And no peeking on Google until you've given it your best shot.
1. What was the name of Dante's lovely lady?
2. What was the real name of the wonderful short story writer known as Saki?
3. In which poem does Billy Collins speak in the voice of a deceased dog?
4. In "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," the narrator asks himself what he might dare to do including eating a piece of fruit. Name that fruit.
5. John Steinbeck, Annie Proulx, Cormac McCarthy, Ivan Doig and Larry McMurtry are all known for writing about the west. Which of them were born in the west and which were born elsewhere? Where were the non-westerners born?
6. In a well-known early environmental tale, a young girl protects a large, beautiful bird in its natural setting. Name the story and the author.
Please be sure your name is on your paper.
Have a good weekend.
AND BODKINS
"If we suppress our wackiness, we'll seal off the source of some of our most truing impulses. Our potential will dwindle. We'll no longer feel the sweet daze and speed of the push of it."
--David Greenhood,
The Writer on His Own
Things I am not making up...
**There is a newly discovered sea slug that can produce chlorophyll and looks like a leaf. Really. I saw a picture of one today in the paper. When I see a zinnia bloom, I'll be convinced. A Star Trekkie friend wrote me that this proves all those Star Trek fantasies were correct, and the green alien women were probably growing chlorophyll and tasted like brussels sprouts.
**I went to high school in Walla Walla, Washington. Yes, the city they liked so well, they named it twice. This was back in the dark ages before Walla Walla became a tourist destination for wine drinkers. The people who drank wine back then mostly drank it out of paper bags down on Lower Main where the more or less legal houses of you-know-what were also located. I'm not sure how much of Walla Walla's colorful past is being passed on to the tourists, but believe me, some of it was very colorful.
**You can visit Maine and also visit, without a passport, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, New Sweden, China and Mexico. The first time a neighbor in Maine told me she was going to Denmark to visit her parents, I asked how long she'd be gone. When she told me she'd be back the next day, I was impressed. Maybe Stephen King will write a Scandinavian novel one of these days with overtones of China and Mexico for the fun of it. There is a Misery, Maine, and he did write about that.
