Thank Your Readers And The Critics Who

There Is Harlan Ellison The Human Being, Who Takes A Crap A Couple Of Times A Day, And Who Farts, And Who Eats Chicken Croquettes, If I Can Find Them. And Then There Is The Writer, This Writer-person, Who Is A Much Finer Person Than I. Much More Orderly, Much More Meaningful. Worthier, Than I [am].

Y Is For Yggdrasil. The Legendary Nordic Ash Tree With Its Three Roots Extending Into The Lands Of Mortals, Giants, And Niflheim, The Land Of Mist, Grows In Wisconsin. Legend Has It That When The Tree Falls, The Universe Will Fall. Next Wednesday, The State Highway Commission Comes Through That Empty Pasture With A Freeway.

I Have But Nothing To Say To Young Girls. They're Fine To Look At, In The Way I Would Look At A Case Filled With Shang Dynasty Glazes, But Expecting To Carry On A Conversation With The Average Teen-aged Young Lady Is Akin To Reading Voltaire To A Cage Filled With Chimpanzees. I'm Certain They Would Feel The Same Alienation For Me. I Can Live With That Knowledge.

Entertain, Yes. That Goes Without Saying. But A Good Writer Does That Automatically, It's Built Into The Machine. Telling A Thumpingly Good, Mesmerizing Story Is What One Does Without Question. But Beyond That, Any Writer Worth His/her Hire Knows That All Writing, One Way Or Another, Is Subversive. It Is Guerrilla Warfare Against The Status Quo.

I Will Use Big Words From Time To Time, The Meanings Of Which I May Only Vaguely Perceive, In Hopes Such Cupidity Will Send You Scampering To Your Dictionary: I Will Call Such Behavior 'public Service'.