Luke Writes

I don’t know that anyone really cares about him any more, but Gene Fowler was a journalist and Hollywood writer in the 1930’s and 40’s who was famous for his wit. The other day I was trying to remember a poem he wrote about himself becoming rich. I couldn’t find a copy of it online, so I took it upon myself to transcribe it.

It’s found in H. Allen Smith’s book Lost in the Horse Latitudes. I present it here with Smith’s introduction.

The poem that follows is about Gene Fowler and was written by Gene Fowler and it treats of the attitude of Mr. Fowler’s friends on learning that he had hit the Hollywood jackpot. It was written some years ago just after Mr. Fowler had gone to work for Darryl Zanuck. Mr. Zanuck got it in the mail one day just as it is here:

HOLLYWOOD HORST WESSEL

The boys are not speaking to Fowler
Since he’s been the wine of the rich;
The boys are not speaking to Fowler–
That plutocrat son of a bitch.

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My parents are starting to look for a car to replace their trusty CR-V. While I was visiting home I looked through the stack of pamphlets they’ve brought home from dealerships and was absolutely astounded to see that Honda has finally listened to what its customers need and want, designing the Honda Fit to accommodate the needs of those who want to transport alpacas inside their subcompact.

Here’s to hoping that the Llama community doesn’t feel slighted.

It was a few days after Lunar New Year and Charles and I were on the 88th floor observation deck of what at that time was Shanghai’s tallest building–the Jin Mao tower. It was warm and sunny on the observation deck, and our sleeves were rolled up – a novelty after three months of freezing in Changchun.

Apart from offering amazing views of the Yalu river and some of Shanghai’s concessions, the Skywalk observation deck has a number of its own kitschy attractions: the highest post office in the world, a vertigo-inducing windows through the ceiling of the Grand Hyatt’s atrium, one of Yao Ming’s shoes.

The windows in front of the elevators gave the best view of the Bund, and like every other elevator full of tourists we’d gone directly from the elevator to them.

So there we were. Clear sky, a view of Shanghai as far as the eye could see, sunlight reflecting off the Yalu river. A family with a little boy came over to look out the window with us and as soon as they were next to us at the windows the boy pointed and shouted, “Look at how hairy (毛子) that foreigner’s arms are!”

We all had a good laugh at how hairy I am and I kept my sleeves rolled up. If I’d been able to speak better Chinese I’d have said, “If you like my arms you’ll love my back.” But I didn’t know the vocabulary.

For teachers considering working in China choosing a school can be a frustrating (and daunting) task. Private language schools have a reputation for being rip-off artists, and horror stories about them are easy to find. Even public schools have their fair share of horror stories.
Because of this it can be a sort of nervous, ulcer-inducing experience to find a “good” school–here are some tips (things I did and wish I’d done) to ease the process.

1. Talk to as many foreigners at the school as you can. Ideally the school will have a foreign manager or someone else who serves as a liaison between the foreign faculty and the Chinese staff/administration. Talk to that person to get a feel for what the school’s like.
Ask for e-mail addresses of teachers that are currently employed by the school. If they’re not willing to let you talk to current employees, stay away. [Read more →]