Last night my family and I went to the new Disney movie Jungle Book directed by John Favreau. It was the movie version I have been waiting for all my life.
The amazing thing about this movie is the way it took the book and layered its themes and central idea on top of the classic 60’s Disney cartoon. The music is still there and intact, though mostly moved to the end credits. The kid is still cute and mostly vulnerable, at least until the conclusion. And they have still given the Disneyesque comedic touch to the character of Baloo the bear, voiced by comedian Bill Murray in the this incarnation. But this is a live action movie and the kid-friendly Bowdlerization of the original story is a thing no longer.
A classic book illustration by E.J. Detmold
Fortunately for the young actor, Neel Sethi, they don’t require him to play the entire movie naked as would be required by a strictly by-the-book approach. They allow him the Disney-dignity of the cartoon red loin cover. But the sense of a human child facing the violence of the jungle naked, armed only with his creature-appropriate natural defenses, has been put back into the story. This version literally has teeth and claws. We see the boy’s body wounded and scarred during the course of his life in the jungle. And at a time of crucial confrontation, Mowgli takes the defense stolen from man village, a torch of the feared red flower, and throws it away into the water, facing the terrible tiger with only his wits and the abilities of his fangless, clawless human body. Thus, an essential theme I loved about the book when I was twelve is restored. Man has a place in the natural world even without the protections of civilization.
The story-telling is rich and nuanced, with multiple minor characters added. Gray Brother has been restored to Mowgli’s family. The fierce power of Mowgli’s wolf mother has been written back into the screenplay. And the character of Akela is given far more importance in the story than the cartoon could even contemplate. Although his role in aiding Mowgli to kill the tiger Shere Khan has been taken away from him, Akels’s death becomes the central motivation bringing Mowgli and Shere Khan together for the final inevitable confrontation. And this movie does not shy away from the reality of death as the cartoon did, resurrecting Baloo at the end and Kaa’s attempts to eat Mowgli being turned into a joke (though I would like to note if you have never read the book, Kaa is not supposed to be a villain. He was Mowgli’s wise and powerful friend in the book). Even the tiger survives in the cartoon version. This is no longer a cute cartoon story with a Disney sugared-up ending.
I will always treasure the 1960’s cartoon version. I saw it at the Cecil Theater in Mason City, Iowa when I was ten. I saw it with my mother and father and sisters and little brother. It was my favorite Disney movie of all time at that point in my life. I read and loved the book two years after that, a paperback copy that I bought with my own money from Scholastic book club back in 1968, in Mrs. Reitz’s sixth grade classroom. That copy is dog-eared, but still in my library. But this movie is the best thing that could possibly happen to bring all of that love of the story together and package it in a stunning visual experience.
Here;s something undeniably true; Astrology is NOT science.
That being true, it is also true that there is a certain untestable validity to the ideas of someone gifted with a semi-accurate intuitive foresight I find Nostradamus endlessly fascinating. But I don’t rely on any of his so-called predictions. It is uncanny that his quatrains can be interpreted as having come true after the fact. I remember Orson Welles narrating a documentary on old Nosty back in the 1980’s offering a possible prediction for the near future. in which the third antichrist arises in the Middle East and sends destruction through the air to the New City.
Osama Bin Laden’s attack on the World Trade Center Towers in 2001 is a scary coincidence. But it is no more of a useful prediction of the future than Nosty’s predictions of the first and second antichrists, Napoleon and Hitler. Did anyone know about any of these three predictions at a time when they would’ve benefitted anybody?
The Coming End of the World
My most recent Christian faith system was, unfortunately, the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They are an eschatological faith that believes Jehovah God will soon destroy “This wicked system of things” and the bad people will all be done away with before all the newly “perfect people” take over and turn this world into a paradise. I am doomed. I have knocked on doors and shared the “Good News from God’s Word the Bible” with all the potential “other sheep.” But that’s not good enough to punch my ticket to paradise. I don’t keep the right words in my heart.
But my wife and other Witnesses are now eagerly waiting for “tribulation” to wipe out the rest of us so that the good times can begin. Wow. Jehovah can wipe you out just for touching the Ark of the Covenant with the wrong hands. He’s a rather angry, vindictive sort of God.
And yet, the world does seem to be ending. Actual climate scientists are presenting evidence in their latest report that it is a problem that will overwhelm us faster than I am ready for. And corruption in the world governments, prompted by the fossil fuels industry, continue to ignore the problem in favor of short-term profits. Talk about “having the wrong words written on their hearts!”
It does actually look like we are all gonna die. Not an A+ outcome.
Predictions and Solutions
So, what predictions does an amateur wizard like Mickey of the Goofy Grin have to offer about living under unlucky stars?
Well, here’s one I know will very likely prove true; If the world is ending tomorrow, I will be among the first to die. Seriously, my health is poor enough that a hot wind can easily blow out my candle. When the zombie apocalypse begins, I have warned my children to make good use of the time they gain to get away while the zombies are picnicking on my gray matter. I believe my brain should be pretty tasty.
But even though I and many many other people just like me will fold up and die at the beginning of the coming dark times, that doesn’t mean everyone is doomed. Humanity has shown remarkable resilience against war, famine, disease and that boney guy on the fourth horse. They may yet come up with a magic-bullet solution that allows life on earth to continue. Even if it becomes the planet of the cockroaches. And probably lawyers. I’m sure there is a legal maneuver that gets around not having air to breathe. From a God’s-eye perspective, there is still an entire universe to play with. We could go get reincarnated somewhere else in the galaxy. Maybe there are people out there who are smarter than us. There are ways to heal the ecosphere if we just have the will to do it.
It’s been two weeks, and no spider sense or webbing shooting out of my wrists has happened yet.
My beard glows in the dark (if I use the flashlight properly.)
But no verifiable stuff that might get me an invitation to join the Avengers.
How do I know that it was a spider bite that has caused two weeks worth of painful spider-wound? Well, this is the second time I have been bitten by a brown recluse spider in Texas. The previous time was in 1982 in South Texas. I had to go to the doctor with a temperature of 103 degrees, a necrotic wound in my right armpit. And I needed sulfa drugs to keep from getting worse and possibly dying.
This time around I didn’t go to the doctor. Not only was it a much smaller wound, only causing a slight fever and a moderate wound infection, but going to the doctor brings with it an added chance of catching and dying from the Covid Delta variant. I am vaccinated. But I also have three of the serious conditions that have caused the only Delta deaths among the vaccinated people with breakthrough infections.
I bought myself a new Moana doll from Walmart to make myself feel better about being bit by a spider with no resultant super powers. But it is a reminder too that my mother, the doll-maker, is dying.
The spider that bit me this time around must’ve been a smaller one than the one that bit me in South Texas. That one caused a wound that was larger than a quarter. This time it was smaller than a penny. The wound itself is caused because the spider’s venom dissolves flesh into a juice the spider can suck out of the victim. The biggest danger it causes is an infection that turns into gangrene. I avoided that outcome by repeatedly cleaning the wound with soap and water.
So, this spider bite is not going to kill me. It is sore, but not deadly. Like the first time, I never felt the bite happen, nor saw the little spider. But I have no desire to be bit a third time in my life.
And, unfortunately, I do not get to be Glowbeard the newest Avenger.
The A&W drive-in in Belle City was the place to go after a game, especially if you lost and needed consoling. The A&W, known for its root beer in frosty mugs, had once had car-hops on roller skates, and delivered the food to your car on trays they hung on your window. But too many trays got spilled, definitely too many spilled into the window of the car directly on the customers, and a few unfortunate falls, and a couple of broken legs, had eventually transformed the place into a sit-down fast-food restaurant on the model of McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King.
When Grandpa Butch invited the whole family to go there, he specifically extended the invitation to Mike and Blueberry as well. Not the usual thing. And it required two cars to get everybody there. But Grandpa was paying, and so it was up to him. Dad and Mom and Bobby and Shane went in the Niland minivan while Grandpa drove Mike and Blueberry in his red Toyota pickup.
They were fortunate to find a booth with room for four and a smaller table with chairs next to it, so that it was kinda like they were seated all together in a fairly crowded Saturday evening gathering place.
“Now, Mike, we don’t want you to hold back on ordering what you and your pretty girlfriend need to eat,” said Grandpa Butch. “We know the legends about the appetites of the Murphy boys, and we have actually watched Danny eat before. That was an amazing spectacle at the Wright County fair when he must’ve had at least ten chili dogs in a row. And we have enough money to cover anything your amazing Murphy appetite can inhale.”
Grandpa was joking and exaggerating like he always did. And Mike and Blue both knew it. But the ten-chili-dog thing was actually true, which made the comment all the funnier.
“Why did you want to bring Blue and me here, anyway?” Mike asked/
“Well, we really wanted to thank the two of you for the way you stood up for Bobby after the game. It takes a special kind of friend to defend someone from bullies that way,” said Dad with a smile.
“Oh, he woulda done it no matter what, Mr. Niland,” said Blueberry. “Bobby is my good friend. And Mike does everything he can to please me. And he looks after all the Pirates the same way.”
“Yes, we know he does. He’s practically the leader of the Pirates,” said Mom, also smiling.
“Oh, no! Tim Kellogg is the leader of the Pirates. I am more like his Sir Lancelot, doing all the sword-fighting and stuff,” said Mike, sounding a little upset.
“Yes, we know about the Pirates’ fearless leader,” said Dad. “He’s like a sort of Genghis Kahn or Attila the Hun sort of leader. In my day, when Brent Clarke was the leader of the Pirates, we thought of him as being a sort of King Arthur. A ruler, but not one that ever cut anybody’s head off.”
“Oh, Tim is like King Arthur more than Shmengis Kone or Atlas the Hunter,” said Blueberry. “He’s Mike’s best friend.”
“Grandpa Butch laughed. “Yes, I’m sure you truly believe that, dear. And Tim probably thinks it too.”
“But, Blueberry, honey, he wasn’t very nice to you over your little gender problem, was he?” Bobby’s mom was putting it delicately. Everybody in Norwall knew that Blueberry had been born a boy with boy parts, but was a girl in her mind from the very start. And they all knew it because Tim found out and spread the girl’s personal information everywhere.
“Tim knows I’m a girl now, though…” Blueberry frowned at the table in front of her. “The doctors x-rayed and scanned me, and they found my ovaries on the inside. My problem was just like a birth defect on the outside.
Bobby didn’t like his parents bringing this thing up when Blueberry and Mike were his guests. Blue was definitely a girl. And it wasn’t right to bring up the old scandal thing. Bobby and Mike didn’t want to hear about it all over again. And it was embarrassing to Blue, Bobby thought.
“She’s definitely all girl,” said Mike, apparently willing to talk about it more. “Mom knew it even before the doctor revealed the whole x-ray thing.”
“Yes, and if your mother, Mary Murphy herself, believes it’s so, then it most certainly is,” said Grandpa Butch. “Even I am afraid to ever argue with her about God’s truth about anything.”
Everyone laughed, and then the topic was apparently forgotten. And that made Bobby even more happy.
“Bobby was telling Mike and me about Horatio T. Dogg’s war with the barn rats,” said Blueberry as Grandpa started a list of what everyone wanted to order. Mike had him put down three chili-dogs, two for him and one for Blue. Mike was not in Danny Murphy’s hot-dog-eating league by any means.
“That’s what his grandpa was telling us too,” said Dad. “Apparently Horatio can talk now, and solve rat-crimes like a dog version of Sherlock Holmes.”
“Well, of course he can,” said Blue. “If Bobby said it, it has to be true.”
“Did you ever hear Horatio talk with your own two ears?” asked Shane, looking somewhat sly.
Grandpa wrote down burgers for himself, Dad, Mom, and Shane.
“But I want a chili-dog like Mike and Blue,” said Bobby.
“Sure thing. And root beer for everybody?”
Everyone nodded, and Grandpa took the order to the counter.
“We all know Horatio is a very smart dog. And it can almost seem like he’s smart enough to talk,” said Dad.
“But he does talk! It’s just that only I can hear him.”
“Bobby, you actually thought that you and Blueberry had turned the music teacher into a swan!” said Mike.
“Yes, and we both turned ourselves into young swans and went flying to Belle City to find her and remove the curse,” said Blueberry earnestly.
“No, Blue, you and Brainiac Bobby just got carried away with imaginary stuff during Miss Morgan’s lessons for that Hobbit novel we were reading in her class. It was all idiot-imagining,” said Mike, distaste for the subject plainly showing on his face.
“You saw the fairies too, didn’t you? And the magic spells?” Bobby was trying hard to make Mike remember what he clearly saw when everybody else saw it.
“I saw the drawings Blue made about it. I heard the stories. And I did the lessons. But Tim was lying about there being little people everywhere. And you two did not fly to Belle City in winter wearing only feathers! You both made that up and fixed your imaginations on it too much.”
“Mike has a point,” said Mom. “You know you get carried away with imagination.”
Bobby, looked at the table downhearted. He almost felt like crying. That moment of flight through the crisp, cold winter air was so bracing. And flying above the snow-covered farms had seemed so real. How could he ever accept that it was not a real thing?
“Sometimes, imagination is a good thing. It can solve problems that you couldn’t figure out any other way. And besides, daydreaming and a creative imagination are a sign of intelligence,” said Dad as Grandpa sat the food down on the table in front of him.
“I always thought of imagination like this, it’s the sum of things I can use my mind to take control of,” said Grandpa Butch. “I mean, the things I most need to happen, the conclusions and solutions I need to come to… well, I use the bowl of electrified noodles in my old head to stir up an answer I create for myself. The things I need to happen, I make happen with my imagination. Now, the things that fail, the things I don’t control… well, that’s the universe using its facts and reality to make happen what it needs to happen. I can’t control that. Except maybe later I can use my imagination again to rewrite what really happened so I have memories of it that I can live with.”
“Yeah, that’s the way to look it. Imagination is a good thing if you never use it for evil,” said Dad.
Well, everybody seemed to accept that as the end of the discussion. Mike wrinkled his nose up like he didn’t understand, or maybe wanted to argue more. But the food was there. And Bobby was almost certain that the chili dogs were what kept Mike from saying anything more. After all, you can’t eat and talk at the same time.
Yes, I know this is supposed to be a Saturday Art Day Post, but you can make art in many different ways. That can include pictures made with a camera while I play with dolls… er… action figures and try horrifically to be funny. There is an art to that, right? Maybe?
I was a comic book nut from a very early age. I started collecting comics in 1966 when I was ten years old. Almost as soon as I started collecting them, I began copying the drawings, copying Spiderman, Hawkeye, Captain America, Avengers, and Batman. I am a comic book lover, and I am also a comic book plagiarist. But I promise to use my own artwork and photographs to illustrate this blog post. After all, I am illustrating being a copy cat.
Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad in the style of artist Curt Swan in 1962.
My parents didn’t approve of kids with comic books. I desperately wanted Spiderman comic books and Avengers comic books, like the ones I read in the barbershop every time I was waiting for a haircut. But they had gotten wind of Frederic Wertham’s campaign against comic books two years before I was even born. The learned psychiatrist insisted that comic books corrupted children with sexual images hidden in the artwork (oh, gawd, look where Saturn Girl’s hands are… close anyway), Batman and Robin were homosexuals trying to influence young boys to be gay, Wonder Woman was a lesbian who was into bondage. This he said in 1954, but it didn’t really reach my parents’ ears in rural Iowa for another 12 years. The result was severe limits on my comic book ownership possibilities. But Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes were acceptable, as were Casper the Friendly Ghost and Scrooge McDuck.
So, my copy above of Curt Swan’s work is from the Legion of Superheroes. Superman was boy-scout enough to qualify too. I could get by with Tarzan even though he was a mostly naked guy running around the jungles. And time and money solve a lot of problems. I was allowed to subscribe to Avengers and X-men and the Amazing Spiderman once I had field-work money to put towards it. I drew lots of comic book heroes from that point onwards.
I learned how to draw men with unhealthy amounts of muscles, women with waists that would break in two with the amount of breastly boobage a teenage boy would pack on top, and numerous people who actually seemed to think capes made sense as a fashion statement. I also learned how to do shading in pen and ink and foreshortening from master artists like John Romita Jr. and George Perez and Barry Windsor-Smith. And I would be remiss if I didn’t give proper credit to Murphy Anderson and Jack “King” Kirby. I know you don’t know who those people are because you are not the comic book nut I am… nobody is. But believe me, they are masters of an American Art form. And I will never be one of them, because even though I am almost as good as some of them, I chose to be a teacher instead of being a comic book artist, a thing I could’ve so easily succeeded at back in the 1980’s. You should know this too… I have never regretted making that choice.
I know the last thing you would ever consider doing is to take up writing essays like these. What kind of a moronic bingo-boingo clown wants to take everything he or she knows, put it in a high-speed blender and turn it all into idea milkshakes?
But I was a writing teacher for many years. And now, being retired and having no students to yell at when my blood pressure gets high, the urge to teach it again is overwhelming.
So, here goes…
Once you have picked the silly, pointless, or semi-obnoxious idea you want to shape the essay around, you have to write a lead. A lead is the attention-grabbing device or booby-trap for readers that will draw them into your essay. In a Mickian essay, whose purpose is to entertain, or possibly bore you in a mildly amusing manner, or cause you enough brain damage to make you want to send me money (this last possibility never seems to work, but I thought I’d throw it in there just in case), the lead is usually a “surpriser”, something so amazingly dumb or off-the-wall crazy that you just have to read, at least a little bit, to find out if this writer is really that insane or what. The rest of the intro paragraph that is not part of the lead may be used to draw things together to suggest the essay is not simply a chaotic mass of silly words in random order. It can point the reader down the jungle path that he or she can take to come out of the other end of the essay alive.
Once started on this insane quest to build an essay that will strangle the senses and mix up the mind of the reader, you have to carry out the plan in three or four body paragraphs. This is where you have to use those bricks of brainiac bull-puckie that you have saved up to be the concrete details in the framework of the main rooms of the little idea-house you are constructing. If you were to number or label these main rooms, this one you are reading now would, for example, be Room #2, or B, or “the second body paragraph”. And as you read this paragraph, you should be thinking in the voice of your favorite English teacher of all time. The three main rooms in this example idea house are beginning, middle, and end. You could also call them introduction, body, and conclusion. These are the rooms of your idea house that the reader will live in during his or her brief stay (assuming they don’t run out of the house screaming after seeing the clutter in the entryway).
The last thing you have to do is the concluding paragraph. (Of course, you have to realize that we are not actually there yet in this essay. This is Room C in the smelly chickenhouse of this essay, the third body paragraph.) The escape hatch on the essay that may potentially explode into fireworks of thoughts, daydreams, or plans for something better to do with your life than a read an essay written by an insane former middle school English teacher at any moment, is a necessary part of the whole process. This is where you have to remind them of what the essay is basically about, and leave them with the thought that you want to haunt them in their nightmares later. The last thing that you say in the essay is the thing they are the most likely to remember. So you need to save the best for last.
So, here, finally, is the exit door to this masterfully mixed-up Mickian Essay. It is a simple, and straightforward structure. The introduction containing the lead is followed by three or four body paragraphs that develop the idea and end in a conclusion that summarizes or simply restates the overall main idea. And now you know why all of my former students either know how to construct an essay, or have several years left in therapy sessions with a psychiatrist.
Mike and Blueberry sat next to the hero of the bottom of the first, happier than Bobby had seen them in a long time. And what was even better, he knew he was himself the reason. The Pirates led three to nothing. But Tim got out on the next fly ball, popping it to Delwyn of all people. And, wouldn’t you know it, this time Delwyn didn’t drop it.
It was, like all 4-H softball games, a five-inning game. And being the home team, the Pirates only had to hold on to the lead until the top of the fifth inning was over. And Mike was on his usual game. That fastball, even though it was underhanded and using a ball that floated through the air like a watermelon, burned holes through the Lincoln township bats and Tim Kellogg’s catcher’s mitt for good measure. Three more strike-outs in each of the second, and third innings.
But Clarion’s blond Apollo wasn’t going to stay shook up for a whole game either. And he could also windmill in a scorching-hot fastball. He matched Mike strikeout after strikeout.
In the fourth inning, both teams got a couple of runners on base. But the Leaders scored two runs when Watson hit a double with runners on base. And the Pirate’s fourth had two men on base, one of whom was a girl, but Bobby struck out instead of driving them in, and Tim made the last out again after him.
So, it all came down to the final inning, and the Pirates with only a one-run lead.
Bobby, of course, spoke directly to the Big Guy in the Sky. “Don’t let them hit it to me. Whatever you do, don’t make that ball come to me.”
The first batter up was Leroy Watson. And wouldn’t you know it, the gol darn Apollo hit a ball to deep left field that Billy Martin could only get to on the bounce. Billy’s arm was good enough to wing it into the home plate to hold Watson to a triple. Still, the tying run was on third base.
Mike on the mound had to really bear down and throw hard strikes for the rest of the inning. The next two Leaders struck out. But you could see the strain on Mike’s face. In fact, you could see it all the way from deep right field. “Please, don’t let that ball come to me. Hit it to Billy. He’s good at catching fly balls. He’ll win the game for us.”
But it didn’t get hit out to any field. In fact, the bats didn’t get near the ball for two more batters. Mike pitched eight consecutive balls outside the strike zone.
“It’s okay, Mike. Let your fielders help you. Your arm is getting tired of throwing it so hard,” Coach Kellogg said in a wise old voice that made Bobby’s heart drop down from the middle of his chest, down into his behind, and eventually down his right leg and all the way out through the bottom of his right shoe.
And Bobby knew where it was coming. Delwyn Marmoody was up to bat. And Bobby’s heart was tunnelling down into the grass somewhere beneath him.
“Be on your toes, fielders!” cried Tim from his position at catcher.
“You can do this, Bobby!” cried Blueberry from the bench.
Why did she have to yell that? She put the curse on him! He wished he could turn into a swan once again and fly away.
Two strikes and two balls later, Delwyn swung. The bat went, “TUNK!” And the ball was flying through the air… Directly at Bobby in right field.
“Gotta get under it”
“You can do it, Bobby!”
“Shut up, Blue!”
And then it settled into Bobby’s open glove.
And he was about to lift it high in the air in triumph…
When it rolled out again and hit the ground, somewhere on top of Bobby’s buried heart.
“AW, NO!!!” cried the Norwall crowd in unison.
The runners were going with the crack of the bat, so two of them had already crossed the plate when Billy came scrambling into right field, got the ball and cannoned it to home plate to keep them only one run behind. The runner trying for a third score was out at the plate.
*****
There was a shallow hope in the bottom of the fifth inning. Two runs would win the game. One run would tie it and give them an extra inning.
But Johnny Miller struck out.
And when Dilsey Murphy got up, she hit a double to right field. And there was a glimmer of hope with one out.
Then Mike got up. Mike was the most dangerous hitter the Pirates had. Watson intentionally walked him.
“It’s gonna be hero time again for you, Bobby,” Blueberry whispered in his ear.
Frosty Anderson got up to the plate with his meanest game-face sneering away at the Clarion Apollo. He banged the heavy bat Mike had used on the plate to show how much business he actually meant.
“Hit it out, Frosty!” hollered Tim Kellogg. “Or you-know-who is up next!”
Bobby did know who. And there went his heart again, headed for the depths of the dirt in the dugout.
The pitch swished in at just about the perfect spot for Frosty to hit it, and he swung with all the might of Hercules. He topped the ball to the third baseman who stepped on the bag and zipped to first for the double play.
Frosty Anderson came barrelling over to the Pirate bench with so much anger that fire was blazing up out of his ears and lighting his blond hair on fire.
“You know who really lost us the game, don’t you?” he screamed directly at Bobby. Suddenly he was directly in front of Bobby, pushing him with two hands. Bobby went backwards over the bench and landed on his back in the sand.
Mike grabbed Frosty from behind, whirled him around, and presented him with a cocked right fist, ready to knock the angry boy’s block off just like in the Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots commercials.
“You need to blame somebody, hero? Who hit into the double play at the end? Bobby’s on our team. And he’s the one who drove in three runs to put us ahead.”
“Okay, okay… Sorry, Bobby. But he did drop the game-ending out.”
“Whatta you think, Bobby? Should I hit him?”
“No, please don’t. He’s a Pirate too.”
“Good boy, Bob. That’s the way we hold a team together,” said Coach Kellogg as he picked Bobby up off the ground and set him back on his own feet again.
The whole group said that it wasn’t Bobby’s fault that they lost, mostly because Coach Kellogg asked them to, but not all of them meant it.
“We almost won,” said Blueberry.
“No, we didn’t,” Bobby said quietly so only Blue could hear, “But thanks for thinking so. You have a good heart.”
Catch a Falling Star 
How To Write A Mickian Essay
I know the last thing you would ever consider doing is to take up writing essays like these. What kind of a moronic bingo-boingo clown wants to take everything he or she knows, put it in a high-speed blender and turn it all into idea milkshakes?
But I was a writing teacher for many years. And now, being retired and having no students to yell at when my blood pressure gets high, the urge to teach it again is overwhelming.
So, here goes…
Once you have picked the silly, pointless, or semi-obnoxious idea you want to shape the essay around, you have to write a lead. A lead is the attention-grabbing device or booby-trap for readers that will draw them into your essay. In a Mickian essay, whose purpose is to entertain, or possibly bore you in a mildly amusing manner, or cause you enough brain damage to make you want to send me money (this last possibility never seems to work, but I thought I’d throw it in there just in case), the lead is usually a “surpriser”, something so amazingly dumb or off-the-wall crazy that you just have to read, at least a little bit, to find out if this writer is really that insane or what. The rest of the intro paragraph that is not part of the lead may be used to draw things together to suggest the essay is not simply a chaotic mass of silly words in random order. It can point the reader down the jungle path that he or she can take to come out of the other end of the essay alive.
Once started on this insane quest to build an essay that will strangle the senses and mix up the mind of the reader, you have to carry out the plan in three or four body paragraphs. This is where you have to use those bricks of brainiac bull-puckie that you have saved up to be the concrete details in the framework of the main rooms of the little idea-house you are constructing. If you were to number or label these main rooms, this one you are reading now would, for example, be Room #2, or B, or “the second body paragraph”. And as you read this paragraph, you should be thinking in the voice of your favorite English teacher of all time. The three main rooms in this example idea house are beginning, middle, and end. You could also call them introduction, body, and conclusion. These are the rooms of your idea house that the reader will live in during his or her brief stay (assuming they don’t run out of the house screaming after seeing the clutter in the entryway).
The last thing you have to do is the concluding paragraph. (Of course, you have to realize that we are not actually there yet in this essay. This is Room C in the smelly chickenhouse of this essay, the third body paragraph.) The escape hatch on the essay that may potentially explode into fireworks of thoughts, daydreams, or plans for something better to do with your life than a read an essay written by an insane former middle school English teacher at any moment, is a necessary part of the whole process. This is where you have to remind them of what the essay is basically about, and leave them with the thought that you want to haunt them in their nightmares later. The last thing that you say in the essay is the thing they are the most likely to remember. So you need to save the best for last.
So, here, finally, is the exit door to this masterfully mixed-up Mickian Essay. It is a simple, and straightforward structure. The introduction containing the lead is followed by three or four body paragraphs that develop the idea and end in a conclusion that summarizes or simply restates the overall main idea. And now you know why all of my former students either know how to construct an essay, or have several years left in therapy sessions with a psychiatrist.
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