A Funny Sylvia Plath story
Dec. 29th, 2005 10:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
figmoThis is one of those things that, as my Grandmom put it, "is funny ten years from now." In this story "now" was closer to 30 years ago (eegs -- that long!).
I was attending college at Hofstra University and decided to take a creative writing class during intersession. One of the guys in the class was a drama major friend of mine named Larry. Another was a guy named Dave, also a friend of mine. Note that these guys were not mutual friends.
Dave wrote incredible free form poetry. If I ever were to come across a poetry book with his name on it as the author I'd snatch it up in a heartbeat and recommend everyone reading this do so as well. Despite this, our teacher was adamant we dabble in every type of writing on her list. One of those items was standard, rhyming metered poetry. Dave hated that kind of poetry and found writing it about as much fun as being castrated (not that he'd have known about that firsthand, but you get the idea...).
When the teacher told Dave outright she was going to flunk him because he had refused to write "a rhyming poem," Dave finally obliged. What he cranked out was every bit as brilliant as his free-form poetry, but in a different way.
We always sat in a circle. Dave sat to my right that day in class; Larry to my left. What Dave had written was a parody of Sylvia Plath's "Daddy," complete with the Nazi Germany references, only with some of the worst rhymes in history. I "got" what Dave was up to and was choking back from laughing hysterically. This poem was a brilliant example of the "so bad it's funny" genre, and what made it even funnier to me was our teacher didn't "get" it. When Dave read the couplet:
While I was reading Shakespeare
You were drinking Schlitz beer
The class went from creative writing to WWF. Larry, who was normally a jovial and easygoing guy, lunged over me to Dave's chair and tried to beat him up. Actually, Larry was kind of big, so the attempted pummelling was going on in my lap. Several of the guys in the class had to pry Larry off us.
Years later I ran into Dave at Columbia, where he was a very clean cut-looking graduate student in English. He said, "Don't tell anyone about my past."
I replied, "Are you kidding? Nobody would ever believe me anyway."
I was attending college at Hofstra University and decided to take a creative writing class during intersession. One of the guys in the class was a drama major friend of mine named Larry. Another was a guy named Dave, also a friend of mine. Note that these guys were not mutual friends.
Dave wrote incredible free form poetry. If I ever were to come across a poetry book with his name on it as the author I'd snatch it up in a heartbeat and recommend everyone reading this do so as well. Despite this, our teacher was adamant we dabble in every type of writing on her list. One of those items was standard, rhyming metered poetry. Dave hated that kind of poetry and found writing it about as much fun as being castrated (not that he'd have known about that firsthand, but you get the idea...).
When the teacher told Dave outright she was going to flunk him because he had refused to write "a rhyming poem," Dave finally obliged. What he cranked out was every bit as brilliant as his free-form poetry, but in a different way.
We always sat in a circle. Dave sat to my right that day in class; Larry to my left. What Dave had written was a parody of Sylvia Plath's "Daddy," complete with the Nazi Germany references, only with some of the worst rhymes in history. I "got" what Dave was up to and was choking back from laughing hysterically. This poem was a brilliant example of the "so bad it's funny" genre, and what made it even funnier to me was our teacher didn't "get" it. When Dave read the couplet:
While I was reading Shakespeare
You were drinking Schlitz beer
The class went from creative writing to WWF. Larry, who was normally a jovial and easygoing guy, lunged over me to Dave's chair and tried to beat him up. Actually, Larry was kind of big, so the attempted pummelling was going on in my lap. Several of the guys in the class had to pry Larry off us.
Years later I ran into Dave at Columbia, where he was a very clean cut-looking graduate student in English. He said, "Don't tell anyone about my past."
I replied, "Are you kidding? Nobody would ever believe me anyway."
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-29 10:16 pm (UTC)As div head, he was the advisor for all the seniors. I'd had him for Comm 12 back in sophomore year, and I'd gotten a B in the class - the only non-A I had. It was a well deserved low grade - my project in that class sucked so bad I was embarrassed to put my name on it and wasn't sure it deserved the C it got. When I walked in for my senior advising session, he was reading my file, looked up, and said "You never told me I gave you the only B you ever got. I'm really sorry I ruined your GPA." And he meant it. And I told him in no uncertain terms that my project sucked so hard that year that any higher grade would have been a travesty. I think we were both surprised. And maybe my obvious disinterest in unfair favoritism is why we never dealt in those terms.
He proceeded to push my ass into the most insanely stressful position at HTV - producing the main news show. To this day I'm not sure whether it was a favor or an act of hate. I cut my teeth on a story about a kid that jumped off the top of Tower A to commit suicide that September.
The only time he really offended me was when he went on a rant about how ugly our anchor's new hairdo was. (The rest of us loved it.)
no subject
Date: 2005-12-29 10:30 pm (UTC)Renn was in charge of the TV track when I was there, and for my sophomore and junior years he was (yuck) acting department head; Dr. Gordon had been dept. head but was taking a two-year sabbatical to start up a communications department at another school.
I got a D in Comm 12 even though I never got less than a B on any of the written tests; my project partner got an A. Renn disliked me from day 1 and went out of his way to try to push me out of the department. He was very superficial back then and didn't like gals who didn't look a lot like Farrah Fawcett.
Renn begrudgingly acknowledged and used folks like you. We had a gal named Virginia whose temperament was a lot like yours who kicked ass. Virginia worked her ass off behind the scenes and finally got noticed. Meanwhile, he recruited a "talented" gal from the print journalism track to do broadcast news ("talented" meaning she had the look he liked).
I took a TV production class one intersession to make up for the D in Comm 12. He split us up into teams. My team was going to do a documentary on the school dorms. We were going to interview the guy in charge of them, and since I was the only resident student of us, was already well acquainted with the guy, and was the only "newsie" of our crowd, we all decided I'd do the interview.
The morning of the interview Renn took aside the rest of my team and ordered them to have another gal in our team (who wasn't really qualified to do the interview but, to her dismay, had The Look He Wanted) do the interview because "Lynn's too ugly." That stuck with me for years.
I spent most of my time hanging around WVHC, where I was much more welcomed and given the opportunity to learn. He was always floored when he saw how many hours I put in there (heh - some things never change). Jeff Kraus (was he there when you were there?) had me pegged to do radio comedy, but I was too dense to figure that out.