2.
Devon once told me that the hardest thing about teaching young students to write fiction was getting them to conceptualize the world of their stories, to think through what they were writing about. An example: she said students always liked writing about characters who were grieving, or depressed, without thinking through how having a depressed, grieving character might impact the overall story. What do depressed people do? Not a whole lot, right? They watch TV, they stare vaguely into dark corners, and they can be limited in engaging in the conflict that drives most good stories. Devon said there was a way to get around this problem: to have a secondary or tertiary character drag the depressed protagonist out of their house and get them engaged in doing--something.
So, that day I was sort of depressed. Why? Well, I was living in Weirton, Kansas, and teaching at Southeast Kansas State University—two things right there big enough to depress almost anyone with a heart or a soul. But on that day, at that moment, I was sort of depressed because I was thinking about leaving Southeast Kansas, about getting another job at a different university. In fact, a few minutes before Tee stuck her head into my office, I’d hit the send button on a job application at Midwestern State, down in Wichita Falls—I’d applied for a job, and I immediately had a case of post-application remorse. I thought—I suddenly worried—What if I got the job? Because if I got the job I’d have to leave Weirton and SEKSU, places I truly hated, but I’d also have to leave Devon Shepherd.
What would I say to Devon?
So. Look at everything that happened after that day—look at the murders, the suicides, the ruined careers, the weird unexpected opportunities—look at it all this way: one day I was staring off into a corner, bummed, worried about what I might say to Devon, and then Tee stuck her head into my office and told me that Devon was missing. And after that everything changed.
Tee asked, “Tom? Are you busy right now?”
Yes. I was busy right then. I was busy being depressed. Busy staring into a corner.
I said, “Well, I have a class at two-ten.”
My class, a section of Introduction to Literature. We were covering A Streetcar Named Desire, coming up on the end, and I was planning to go over the text but also show the ending to the classic Marlon Brando film version, which has a different ending than the actual play. I was going to focus on the shot where Blanche collapses and the camera spins around and—Blanche is upside down. Destroyed. Her life is upside down. Then I was going to show a similar scene from the more-or-less recent Batman movie, The Dark Knight, where the Joker is suspended upside down, and then the camera suddenly spins around so that the Joker is right side up and the audience is upside down. Gotham—society—human existence—is upside down. I used those clips every semester, they’d become one of my favorite days of teaching, because when you were a member of the faculty at Southeast Kansas State University, your life was fucking topsy-turvy, out of kilter, upside down, lopsided, backwards, and inside out all at once.
You were in the Joker’s world.
Basically, you were fucked.
“We’ll be back in time for your class,” Tee said.
Devon once told me that the hardest thing about teaching young students to write fiction was getting them to conceptualize the world of their stories, to think through what they were writing about. An example: she said students always liked writing about characters who were grieving, or depressed, without thinking through how having a depressed, grieving character might impact the overall story. What do depressed people do? Not a whole lot, right? They watch TV, they stare vaguely into dark corners, and they can be limited in engaging in the conflict that drives most good stories. Devon said there was a way to get around this problem: to have a secondary or tertiary character drag the depressed protagonist out of their house and get them engaged in doing--something.
So, that day I was sort of depressed. Why? Well, I was living in Weirton, Kansas, and teaching at Southeast Kansas State University—two things right there big enough to depress almost anyone with a heart or a soul. But on that day, at that moment, I was sort of depressed because I was thinking about leaving Southeast Kansas, about getting another job at a different university. In fact, a few minutes before Tee stuck her head into my office, I’d hit the send button on a job application at Midwestern State, down in Wichita Falls—I’d applied for a job, and I immediately had a case of post-application remorse. I thought—I suddenly worried—What if I got the job? Because if I got the job I’d have to leave Weirton and SEKSU, places I truly hated, but I’d also have to leave Devon Shepherd.
What would I say to Devon?
So. Look at everything that happened after that day—look at the murders, the suicides, the ruined careers, the weird unexpected opportunities—look at it all this way: one day I was staring off into a corner, bummed, worried about what I might say to Devon, and then Tee stuck her head into my office and told me that Devon was missing. And after that everything changed.
Tee asked, “Tom? Are you busy right now?”
Yes. I was busy right then. I was busy being depressed. Busy staring into a corner.
I said, “Well, I have a class at two-ten.”
My class, a section of Introduction to Literature. We were covering A Streetcar Named Desire, coming up on the end, and I was planning to go over the text but also show the ending to the classic Marlon Brando film version, which has a different ending than the actual play. I was going to focus on the shot where Blanche collapses and the camera spins around and—Blanche is upside down. Destroyed. Her life is upside down. Then I was going to show a similar scene from the more-or-less recent Batman movie, The Dark Knight, where the Joker is suspended upside down, and then the camera suddenly spins around so that the Joker is right side up and the audience is upside down. Gotham—society—human existence—is upside down. I used those clips every semester, they’d become one of my favorite days of teaching, because when you were a member of the faculty at Southeast Kansas State University, your life was fucking topsy-turvy, out of kilter, upside down, lopsided, backwards, and inside out all at once.
You were in the Joker’s world.
Basically, you were fucked.
“We’ll be back in time for your class,” Tee said.
