A post by Maynard
In the bad old days, Galileo got in big trouble with the Authorities (that is, the Church) by floating the politically incorrect notion that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and not the other way around. Facing an unpleasant situation (arrest and the Inquisition), he recanted. Legend has it that he muttered under his breath, “E pur si muove!” (“Nevertheless it [the Earth] moves”). Truth trumps dogma.
Your grandmother, who didn’t get past the second grade and lived on a hog farm, understood the “Men are from Mars / Women are from Venus” thing. A modern grad student will likely learn that men and women are pretty much the same, and any apparent differences are culturally induced. Harvard president Lawrence Summers (a Democrat associated with the Clinton administration, by the way) got in big trouble for failing to renounce grandma’s quaint notion.
We’ve got nifty new tools, but we’re still the same dogmatic creatures.
Never mind all that nasty stuff. This is just an excuse to trot out this fun little essay. It’s an exercise in “tandem writing”, and nobody can say for sure if it’s real or just an amusing creation (Snopes doesn’t know).
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Rebecca [last name deleted] and Gary [last name deleted]
English 44A
Creative Writing
Prof Miller
Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. One of you will then write the first paragraph of a short story. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back and forth. Remember to reread what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached.
At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.
Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over
He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of
Little did she know, but she has less than
This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic, semi-literate adolescent.
Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium.
You total $*&.
Stupid %$!.
Yeah, I’m tired of tryin to convince myself that men and women are the same. We’re not. What’s really weird is that I identify as a masculine woman…and I still know that I’m not a man…and I have no desire to be…
Boy, I’m gonna lose my Women’s Studies friends…
Hilarious. I hope it’s true.
But in the service of male/female literature, I will admit to visiting Ann Bronte’s grave a mere two days ago. It’s in the churchyard, on the cliffs high above Scarborough, England.
I loved this story. Its obvious to see the tit-for-tat in the writing. Two different imaginations struggling to have their own story line prevail. Simply hilarious.
I love this. Fundamentally we cannot change the fact that we are coming from two different spectrums. And I don’t mind!! Not one bit. This is just a great little exercise that points those differences out in so few paragraphs.
but… You forgot to tell us who wrote which parts!
Follow up to Heather Nauert cutting off Tammy because “the girls were having a snit or some snarky crap like that” then she cut off Tammy….pissed me off and I’ve been writing the producers of the 1/2 hour before the Special Report with Brit Hume….it really pissed me of when she interviewed former Congressman Jim Leach from Iowa and couldn’t think of anything derogatory to pummel him with when he (Leach) came out for Barak Obama…however you spell that name….So I know I’m doing the right thing…she’d got to be pissing off more than just me…..we’ll see if Heather Nauert gets the (((((BUMP))))) from the suits….we shall see….
She’s not capable of hosting the show before Brit Hume and the way she treated our Tammy pissed me off….Anyone else want to comment upon Heather Nauert’s inabilities…please join in…. [email protected]
Christina Hoff Summers wrote a couple of excellent books dealing with this very subject. Well, guess who trashed her writings? Feminazis and the wonderful world of Academia. It seems it’s just too hot a subject for their closed book minds.
BTW, wasn’t a Harvard Professor forced out of his postition a few years ago by daring to suggest that women have different skills and abilities in the field of mathamatics and other sciences?