As this is application season for American colleges and universities and as high school students are writing “essays” designed to win them favor at their school of choice and inasmuch as I’m a writer who teaches I think its only sporting to offer an essay of my own. Please notice my lack of excessive tenderness.
“Why You Should Admit Me to Your University: Part One”
I’d be nothing without you. I’m teetering on the brim of collapse for though I’ve read everyone from Montaigne to Zizek, and I know why Wilson’s “cloud chamber” produces contrary optical effects, my mind is nothing more than a prospective topiary hedge. In all honesty I need your faculty to clear out the grackles and sculpt me with scissors. As per my humanitarian qualifications, I’ve been pulling old ladies out of the streets for years. Not all of them like this. But I’ve always known I want to attend your school.
“Why You Should Admit Me to Your University: Part Two”
I’d be nothing without you. That being said, I have remarkable qualities. I can see through walls but I’m polite about it. I also have just enough irony to know why the Phrygians were only half right to build walls in the first place. As regards my emotional stability, I’m one of the .006% of the American populace under 18 who thinks Holden Caulfield is a shyte as they say in the United Kingdom. Did I mention I’ve been pulling old ladies out of the streets for years? Well, now I’ve taken to pulling them out of the streets in developing nations. You should see some of these streets.
“Why, etc. Part Three”
I was standing on my head when a bee flew in my ear. I knew enough to remain absolutely still.
“Simplicity, patience, compassion, these three are your great treasures” said Lao Tzu. I made a friend of that bee. Have you ever felt a bee clean all the wax from your ear while you hold your breath?
“Beyond Titles”
I’m a nerd but also athletic. Kind of like Jack Kerouac. But I haven’t killed anybody. Wait. Kerouac didn’t kill David Kammerer, he just helped hide the evidence. Well I wouldn’t do that. “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” I promise to think what you tell me. My promises have heraldic depth. I swear, I’m deep.
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Useful quotes for the college applicant to retain but not cite:
Oscar Wilde: “Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.”
Ian Rankin: “My father was a slave to capitalist ideology. He didn’t know what he was doing.” “You mean you went to an expensive school?”
W. H. Auden: “A professor is one who talks in someone else’s sleep.”
Planet of the Blind 