The Great American Novel
It takes very little to overwhelm my fragile psyche these days, so I should add: I've received one suggestion to author a book, by a very kind reader whom I suspect wants me to quit wasting broadband.
It would be a stretch, to be sure. My method, such as it is, is to craft a finely worded opening paragraph, beat it into the ground for a few more paragraphs, and when I lose interest in the topic, bring the post to an abrupt halt, hoping that readers will misinterpret my short attention span for irony. This is probably not an effective method for writing a full length novel.
I'm also hampered by having nothing much to say once I've finished whining about those nasty lawyers, and even that gets old after awhile.
My favorite paragraph was the one about the zen of Yogi Berra. What a great idea for a book, I said to myself; I bet no one else has ever thought of that one.
I assembled my reading list for this project:
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
- The Compleat Idiot's Guide to Zen and Other Weird Mystical Stuff.
- The Tao of Pooh. I almost dropped this from the list after I read about the author's sequel, The Te of Piglet which was universally condemned as a "mean-spirited neoLuddite polemic against everything Western".
- Any three books written by Thomas Merton during the last ten years of his life.
- The Tao Te Ching, of course.
- And finally, When You Come To a Fork in The Road, Take It by the Great One himself, Yogi Berra.
Impulsively, as I was ordering all this stuff on amazon.com, I entered "Yogi Berra Zen" in the search function and was bitterly disappointed to see that the book has already been written. I ordered it anyway. If the book is shabby I'll write my own version of it, and put in some medical lingo to give it a distinctive style.
Otherwise I'll write Zen and the Art of Colonoscopy. That I know almost nothing about zen won't be a problem. In our culture, if you say something kindly and compassionately that doesn't make a bit of sense, that's close enough. The subject of colonoscopy contains enough scatological allusions to keep me going for weeks.
I'm losing interest fast. May the cecum of your soul seek it's sole grounding in the grinding of the succus entericus.
posted by Andrew Bailey, M.D. | 1:01 PM
7 Comments:
I heard the analogous statement from the point of view of an orthopod:
"The heart is an organ whose purpose is to pump Ancef to the bones."
John
If you ever do write a book, even with a title Zen and the Art of Colonoscopy i'll be the first non family member to buy it! I just love your style of writing and i especially enjoyed your post Rocking the Bridge. I was laughing out loud at funny parts.
Thanx for stopping by at my humble blog and for birthday wishes!
You're welcome, Urska! You don't look a day over 25, by the way.
You need to post. Some of us like reading your blog to procrastinate. Love, Younger Daughter
I'll post sooner or later.
Congratulations on the harp recital!
"My method, such as it is..."
Sounds like a perfectly good method to me. ;)
It works for me. And the "Yogi Berra and Zen" book is pretty lame.
Oprah Winfrey, here I come!
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