THE BEST WAY TO LIVE IS TO EXPECT NOTHING

you can read this article in the new new yorker (why do I type that word twice) about creative writing programs, or you can pick your belly button lint. both are probably equally productive. I have been considering the question of "whether creative writing can be taught" for too long now and it's so obvious that MFA programs are worth it that I don't even care to make an argument. I only want to question the entire debate; it seems like a false question to me, since teaching creative writing is like teaching any other discipline. there will be students who memorize the knowledge they're handed, and then there will be the ones who possess creativity and reformulate ideas. I mean, I don't see how teaching creative writing is unlike teaching anything else; you can teach physics to a science student, but it will only be the creative original thinkers who go on to create real art (I would actually call science, esp. physics, an art). that is to say, creativity is creativity in any field; it doesn't magically become more subjective when it comes to writing.

what you should really read is the article about bruno schulz by david grossman (who wrote see under love which I recommend), which is extremely heartfelt and touching.

I don't recommend you see religulous, unless you are seventeen and just starting to come around to the fact that a majority of people hold magical beliefs and this just irks the hell out of you. bill maher seems like a very intelligent guy but man, did he come off like an idiot in this film, the entirety of which was spent pointing out that, regardless of modern science, people still believe in things like talking snakes and the apocalypse. nowhere in the film does bill maher seriously pose the question of why this is; nowhere does he acknowledge the basic function that religion serves in many lives. so basically, he's looking about as myopic and ignorant as the evangelicals he makes fun of. I'm not saying the evangelicals make any sense; but rather that maher's approach was seriously lacking in human identification. the only moment he tried to do anything besides ridicule, when he told the truckers off-handedly that "you're all smart people," came off as false and condescending. to me, this film just further proved my suspicion that americans must radically simplify everything to make it comprehensible. the two hours would have been better spent investigating in a less accusatory light what purpose these magical beliefs could possibly serve, which I think is maybe the most fascinating question there is.

reading stephen hero again; went to georgia, going to illinois soon.