Sublime

You too will be able to take a subject, any subject, and hype it to the point where it bears no resemblance to reality. Whomever you write about will never be able to live up to what you write about him, but never mind. The important thing is that people will talk about YOUR STORY. They will talk about it for years.

It has a happy ending, but that’s because I insist on happy endings; I would insist on happy beginnings, too, but that’s not necessary because all beginnings are intrinsically happy, in my opinion. What about middles, you may ask. Middles are a problem. Middles are perhaps the major problem of contemporary life.

the kreplach joke

Nora Ephron, “The Best Journalism Teacher I Ever Had,” Northwest Scholastic Press, June 18, 2013, www.nwscholasticpress.org/2013/06/18/the-best-journalism-teacher-i-ever-had/#sthash.ZFtUBv50.dpbs; also written about by Ephron in her essay “Getting to the Point,” in Those Who Can … Teach! Celebrating Teachers Who Make a Difference, by Lorraine Glenn

here’s how you make it: Take 6 cups defrosted lima beans, 6 pears peeled and cut into slices, ½ cup molasses, ½ cup chicken stock, ½ onion chopped, put into a heavy casserole, cover and bake 12 hours at 200°. That’s the sort of food she loved to serve, something that looked like plain old baked beans and then turned out to have pears up its sleeve.