2008 Woodie Awards
Why Write? Why the Hell Not?
Rich Knight
Issue date: 12/12/05 Section: Life & Leisure
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After reading Lionel Wynter's insightful piece, "Why Write?" in last week's issue, it got me to a thinkin'. "Hmmmm," I said aloud, and when I say I said "Hmmmm" aloud, I mean I actually said the letter "H," and then the letter "M" four times out loud to truly drive home the point that I was really going to contemplate this with all the might in my punitive, little monkey brain to finally get a suitable answer.
So after spending multiple hours in a chilly, loveless science lab-wearing a tattered white lab coat while holding steaming beakers of green goo -I had my answer! Sure, there were a series of explosions that led me back to the drawing board, and at times, the goggles on my face often weren't very useful ("Da goggles! Dey do nozing!") in preventing me from losing an eyebrow or two, but it was all worth it in the end because I finally came up with a conclusion to the stupefying question of "Why write?" And the answer? Well, why the hell NOT write?
I mean, what other form of expression (besides Jazz fusion and spirit fingers) can not only allow me to make shout-outs to people I just met on Facebook but also give me the ability to relive priceless incidents in my life that make me realize in retrospect that, "Great Caesar Salad's ghost, life sure was dandy! What the hell happened?"
Case in point: My main man Issa (A funny guy; he actually inspired me to write the Egg Nog story a couple weeks back) sauntered up to me the other day and asked me if I remembered the Tomogotchi's (those loveable, snugabble electronic pets that died or turned ugly on you if you didn't play games with them every 12.9 seconds). And of course I, the pundit of everything pointless, said "Well, sha."
And now look at me! I'm writing about Tomogotchi's and you're actually READING this! These are my thoughts, my dreams, my ambitions - yeesh, pretty much my life - and you're actually sitting there on the john READING this malarkey!
And you know what that makes me feel? That makes me feel like saying, "Wow....so THIS is what 'power' feels like."
Because that's what writing is to me: power. A form of almost mystifying voodoo magic that can make you believe in chimeras and cannibals if the writing is rich and creamy enough. And believe me, my writing can be pretty rich (and creamy!) sometimes, but only if I'm in the mood for it and feel like letting the wild things inside my pulsating cranium run rampant through the zoo that is my imagination.
So to all you power hungry, megalomaniac business/math/criminal justice/rocket science/pre-med majors out there, why not pick up a pen (Because we all know that the penis mightier, er, I mean that the pen is mightier than the sword) and just, you know, write? Because that's where the real power is in the long run. People will actually listen to you then.
And yes, even you, Zed in Finance. I'm sure we all would love to hear what you have to say.
Rich Knight is Life&Leisure editor and an NCAS journalism major.
So after spending multiple hours in a chilly, loveless science lab-wearing a tattered white lab coat while holding steaming beakers of green goo -I had my answer! Sure, there were a series of explosions that led me back to the drawing board, and at times, the goggles on my face often weren't very useful ("Da goggles! Dey do nozing!") in preventing me from losing an eyebrow or two, but it was all worth it in the end because I finally came up with a conclusion to the stupefying question of "Why write?" And the answer? Well, why the hell NOT write?
I mean, what other form of expression (besides Jazz fusion and spirit fingers) can not only allow me to make shout-outs to people I just met on Facebook but also give me the ability to relive priceless incidents in my life that make me realize in retrospect that, "Great Caesar Salad's ghost, life sure was dandy! What the hell happened?"
Case in point: My main man Issa (A funny guy; he actually inspired me to write the Egg Nog story a couple weeks back) sauntered up to me the other day and asked me if I remembered the Tomogotchi's (those loveable, snugabble electronic pets that died or turned ugly on you if you didn't play games with them every 12.9 seconds). And of course I, the pundit of everything pointless, said "Well, sha."
And now look at me! I'm writing about Tomogotchi's and you're actually READING this! These are my thoughts, my dreams, my ambitions - yeesh, pretty much my life - and you're actually sitting there on the john READING this malarkey!
And you know what that makes me feel? That makes me feel like saying, "Wow....so THIS is what 'power' feels like."
Because that's what writing is to me: power. A form of almost mystifying voodoo magic that can make you believe in chimeras and cannibals if the writing is rich and creamy enough. And believe me, my writing can be pretty rich (and creamy!) sometimes, but only if I'm in the mood for it and feel like letting the wild things inside my pulsating cranium run rampant through the zoo that is my imagination.
So to all you power hungry, megalomaniac business/math/criminal justice/rocket science/pre-med majors out there, why not pick up a pen (Because we all know that the penis mightier, er, I mean that the pen is mightier than the sword) and just, you know, write? Because that's where the real power is in the long run. People will actually listen to you then.
And yes, even you, Zed in Finance. I'm sure we all would love to hear what you have to say.
Rich Knight is Life&Leisure editor and an NCAS journalism major.