LOSING MY RELIGION
PORTLAND – I hereby renounce my own personal jesus: Roy Peter Clark.
He's one of the English language's finest writing coaches, dean of the august Poynter Institute. A strange choice for a deity, I know. But in these belabored, ungrammatical times, the spirit moves in mysterious ways.
I forgave Roy Peter for collecting his essays into a lean, green volume, then removing them from the internet, where my scattershot students could bow before His Great Wisdom. I indulged his whims – from teaching Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Writing Tools – The Musical. When flu stopped his miraculous apparition at the 2005 National Writers Workshop, I wished him a speedy recovery. Poor snuffly savior...
But Clark denied us His Presence again, we pilgrims in Portland.
That's me in the spotlight, trying to keep a view.
Look, Ax, you know and I know what he was doing instead of showing up at the conference.
ReplyDeleteThose films don't narrate themselves, now, do they?
"Boys and girls . . . "
I dunno, ERH. Haven't those ponderous "sexual health" films been eclipsed by after-school specials and teachers wielding bananas?
ReplyDeleteAfter hearing "Writing Tools – The Musical" I now suspect Roy Peter's anchoring an Orlando piano bar on the weekends...
Losing My Religion = 2nd best REM song of all time (after Nightswimming)
ReplyDelete