The Elder Statesman

By BILL DUNCAN
The View From Here
Writers are funny people. Sometimes we even intend to be funny because, I think, we, as writers, are on the front lines of a world gone mad. We need that levity, least we go mad too.
It is a lonely world for us. We are usually locked in a room with the shades pulled and the drapes closed in order for us to create words that tell stories, or columns like this one. Art Sidenbaum, a writer I knew on the Los Angeles Times, once took a leave of absence to write a book. He said that he never thought going to the proctologist would be an exciting adventure, but it gave him a break from his writing and brought him into human contact.
We also occasionally entertain ourselves because no one else understands us. And so it is with a quarterly newsletter for writers I recently discovered called the “Creativity Connection.” It is produced by Marshall Cook, a liberal arts professor and writer, a member of the faculty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is the author of 24 books covering subjects from murder mysteries to baseball. One of his latest books even tells the reader how to handle worry.
He does an excellent job of handling worry in his quarterly newsletter by poking fun at seriousness. His masthead, a writer’s term for explaining who’s who and what’s what of a publication, says it all.
“Creative Connection offers information, encouragement and inspiration to writers of all sizes and shapes. CC is dedicated to the notion that writing is a terrific thing to do and need have no other redeeming social value unless the writer insists. CC accepts no advertising.”
The newsletter is copyrighted, but even Cook isn’t too serious about that, if I am reading his masthead blurb correctly. “Any reproduction or other use of this publication without the express consent of Major League Baseball is expressly prohibited (or something like that).”
He lists the ingredients as “nouns, verbs (transigent and intransigent), adjectives (artificial color), adverbs, pronouns, conouns, prepositions, suppositions, contradictions, eruditions, bloviation, articles, contractions, syntax, similes, silliness, metanoina, paranoia, random punctuation marks, trypos and trace metaphors.”
There are the warnings: “Void where prohibited. Your results may vary. Contents may shift during shipping. Subject to dealer participation. Side effects may include intermittent bursts of laughter and the occasional ideation and may be painful.”
The masthead has a disclaimer that “the editor of this publication is not now using, nor has he ever used, performance enhancing drugs.”
Cook is editor and coach. His staff includes Catcher of the Awry, Minister of Outreach, Minister of Homeland Security, Honorable Grammarian, and among others a list of Esteemed Columnists, but the one I liked most is the Maven of Marginalia.
The best part of the newsletter, in my opinion, is the marginalia on every page — except on the page of esteemed columnist Leah Carson who objected to marginalia on her page.
Cook names the Maven of Marginalia as Patricia Laux, but that may be just a pseudonym for Cook himself. Ever who collects the marginalia has the correct cynicism of a writer. For example in one issue I read the marginalia on page 8 was about life’s greatest lessons. The lead off item was:
“Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you get to the end, the faster it goes.”
There is some great advice in these short bits of wisdom:
“When you harbor bitterness, happiness docks at another pier.”
The one I like best:
“Keep your words soft and tender; tomorrow you may have to eat them.”
And from Cook the coach, those are edible words.
(Bill Duncan can be reached by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470. To contact Marshall Cook about his newsletter go to mcook@dcs.wisc.edu)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 18th, 2005 at 4:29 pm and is filed under Books, Column. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.