Friday, November 23, 2007

Mysteries of the Universe

1. Is there a narrator in our dreams and if so, is it possible to have a dream in multiple point of view or are they all technically in first person ?

2. If there is indeed a narrator and the narrator is first person, does that make the narrator naive? Unreliable?

3. What would you do if you could not trust the reliability of the narrator in your own dreams?

4. Is there some lesson about narrative technique to be learned from the fact that dreams in fiction are more effective if they are not discussed in detail?

5. Come to think about it, is there any reason why you should take it as a done deal that your waking dreams are reliable?


6. You go around basing characters on people you know, assuming this is a perfectly natural state of process, and have frequently made more commercially oriented work interesting by giving schools, buildings, banks, and in one instance a drum and bugle corps the name of a person you know. Not to forget making the former chairman of your department a notorious spy in a Nick Carter novel.

7. Seeing a former student of yours at a recent faculty luncheon, you were reminded that he has on seven different occasions rendered you as a sergeant on the Bronx Police Department, wherein you solved murder mysteries and that indeed your detective self is merged with the Google reality of your accomplishments.

8. Just thinking about it caused you to order the chicken Parmesan instead of the Salisbury steak.

9. Suppose you are a better person in his novels than in your own life?

10. If baseball players have batting and fielding averages and basketball players have field goal and free throw percentages, should you have an average for saying something dumb at an inappropriate moment? An appropriate moment?

11. Did you learn to compare and contrast things as an undergraduate or in your tenure as editor at a scholarly publisher?

12. Compare and contrast saying something dumb at an inappropriate moment and an appropriate one.

13. Is it more likely that one will say something appropriate or inappropriate while making love?

14. What is it about making love that produces the likelihood of saying something inappropriate?

15. List five appropriate things Aristotle might have noticed about making love.

16. Is diet related to the incidence of saying inappropriate things?

17. Should all males over the age of twenty-five be required to learn how to make a roux?

18. What does it mean when you get letters from the Neptune Society, addressing you by your first name?

19. Does knowing how to diagram sentences reduce the likelihood of saying something inappropriate?

20. What should we do with people who use passive voice?

21. What should we do with people who are boring?


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

9. There is no chance that you're a better person in his novel than you are in your life.

13. Inappropriate.

lowenkopf said...

Liz: In his novels, I solve mysteries. In my life I contribute to mysteries.

Anonymous said...

That's for sure.

x said...

1. Am I addicted to your wild questions and if so, why did blogger erase four of my own in my last comment that disappeared?

2. Have you set up some sort of widget to erase all unworthy questions due to their lack of sufficient internal paradox and dream-logic?

3. What did the master writing teacher say to the beginner writing student before the student crossed the road to get the chicken on the other side?

4. Is there a detox facility available for Shelly-question-koan-addiction and if so, is it near that kosher deli where he gets those great hot pastrami sandwiches?

5. Has Shelly studied Talmud and if not now, when?

lowenkopf said...

TIV:

1. Wildness is only wild in the eyes of the beholder. Blogger's erasure is a vote cast for a universe that is not governed by any uber-laws.

2. My diet forbids the use of widgets. But I make up for it with kugle.

3. Mine said to me: Get as much of it down as you can.

4. I'm beginning to think this is my favorite form.

5. It has been a long time since I studied the Talmud, at the side of a man who lost his family in the you-know-what, you know when. You run, but it is as fast as you are, knows where you hide, sounds sometimes like your Uncle Leo, you know, the lawyer, whose favorite question was, What are you, some kind of wise guy?