The VERB - September '08

WHAT'S ON YOUR DESK?

AMY BLOOM

On my desk where I do everything but write seriously:

My Mac laptop, a stapler, a tube of arnica montana tablets from when I whacked my forehead so hard with a steel bar, I had two black eyes (it was an accident), a teapot full of pencils and pens, a small bottle marked Change, with change in it, a telephone, a printer, Strada Facendo, my college Italian textbook from when we were in Italy a few weeks ago, a coaster, a ramekin of paper clips.

On the walls around me: Roz Chast's poster of Bad Mom Cards, a gift from my kids, several years ago (my favorite: #17, Gloria B.: Promised to take daughter to mall after school and then didn't.), a poster of Frog and Toad are Friends, a gift from my best friend, a poster of Oscar Wilde as a handsome, contemplative young man in satin breeches, which I have owned since I was 20, and some family photos and a list of all family birthdays (from Norah turning 5 to Murray turning 92) on the bulletin board.

On my desk where I write seriously: my Mac desktop, a tin of Altoids and some notebooks and pens.

Amy is author of two novels, including the bestselling Away and two collections
of short stories. She was a nominee for both the National Book Award and the National
Book Critics Circle Award. She lives in Connecticut and teaches at Yale University.

SAY WHAT? Misused Words

Historic - having importance in or influence on history.
"The historic gun belonged to John Wilkes Booth, who had used it to assassinate Abraham Lincoln."

Historical - of, relating to, or having the character of history.
"And even if he chances to take an historical subject, he is none the less a poet; for there is no reason why some events that have actually happened should not conform to the law of the probable..."

Finding Forrester
(2000)

Written by:
Mike Rich

Starring:
Sean Connery
Rob Brown
F. Murray Abraham
Anna Paquin

An inner city basketball player
dreams of becoming a writer, and
finds his mentor in a reclusive
bestselling author.

A MOMENT IN THE HISTORY OF WRITING

In 1949, a young short story writer was out walking on the sidewalk in Los Angeles, talking to a friend about books. Suddenly a police officer pulled up and asked what they were doing.

"Putting one foot in front of the other," snapped the young writer.

The police officer crawled out of the car to investigate the pair, certain they were burglars casing nearby buildings.

"You don't understand," said the writer. "A burglar wouldn't be walking anywhere. This is a car society. Why would we call attention to ourselves by walking?"

The officer thought about it, and finally let them go with a warning: Don't walk in that neighborhood again.

"Yes, officer," replied the author. "I'll never walk again."

The encounter so irked the writer, he decided to write a story about it. He set it in a city in the future where no one walks and robot police cars roam the streets. The lead character is arrested for being a pedestrian and the authorities carry him off for "psychiatric reorganization."

Much as the writer liked what he'd written, the story kept calling him. A week later, he went down to the typing room at the UCLA library, put a dime in the slot under the typewriter and typed like crazy for half an hour. Soon his lead character went for another walk. But this time, he turned a corner and came face-to-face with a girl who sniffed him, and said, "Kerosene. You must be the fireman. The man who starts fires rather than puts them out, and burns books."

The writer ran upstairs to get more dimes.

Over the course of nine days, he wound up spending $9.80 for the use of the typewriter. But when he finished, Ray Bradbury held the sizzling Fahrenheit 451 in his bare hands.

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