Thanks for all the ideas people have offered for "How To" stories. Given that I need to get a talk ready for a presentation in New York later this week, I suspect I will not end up doing anything. If you miss a week, you can e-mail it later or can bring it to class the following week to be read and workshopped by the class on the spot.
When I looked to my bookshelf for inspiration, I realized the only book I have that begins with "How To" was How To Speak Minnesotan. I believe this is a book that I borrowed from someone and never returned, although I can't remember why I ever would have wanted to borrow How To Speak Minnesotan. In any event, I am not one of the zillions of attempted and actual Ph.D.'s who owns that book How To Write Your Dissertation In Fifteen Minutes A Day. I did entertain the latter as a story premise, however, especially since I couldn't figure out what would happen in a short short shory called "How to Speak Minnesotan."
My favorite Minnesota band, btw, is the Gear Daddies, especially their songs "Cut Me Off" and "Stupid Boy."*
* Wow, this sentence contains perhaps the most stupefying cognitive lapse of my entire blogging career. See comments.
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5 comments:
When I was college-searching as a high school senior, I visited U of M, and attended a mildly entertaining dinner show called "How To Speak Minnesotan."
Basically, saying "dontcha know" is important, I think.
My Famous Workshop Prof's Most Famous Work was a book of short stories written entirely in how-to. I troed doing it myself, and I found it really difficult. Maybe that's just me, though.
a Minnesota band better than The Replacements?
Oops, no, duh, I'm not sure what I was thinking when I wrote that.
My old cowpunk band in Madison used to cover "Cut Me Off".
We generally stank it up pretty good but there were times when I think we were not, uh, insulting. The bass line is fun and dumb, which good baselines often are.
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