Look around you, all you see are sympathetic eyes

[austin_dern]

At the risk of sounding like I'm complaining about fame -- at least, the very special, limited, restricted sort of fame going along with the finalist status in the humor contest -- I have got a curious little chore I'm not quite sure how to do. The society asked for information to be used in the event I'm one of the top four finalists, in particular, a short biographic sketch which they would prefer to be humorous and then a list of some local newspapers which would be interested in my placing -- if I should place -- on the grounds that I'm local to them and therefore interesting.

Even the second half of that is a challenge: I just don't read any local newspapers. Partly that's because no matter when I get up my parents have tossed today's paper in the recycle bin so it's easiest not to worry about it. Also, even if they hadn't done that, the only good comics page locally is The Star-Ledger, which my parents stopped getting because the delivery person couldn't be bothered to reliably deliver it. The Star-Ledger at least has pretensions to covering the entire state, so whether they'd find (say) my fourth-place finish in a small essay contest interesting is a mighty good question. Are there more local papers? I dunno, I never see them. Maybe the Straits Times would be interested for the perverseness of it. (Come to think of it, Today, the free daily tabloid, has printed stuff from my blog before; perhaps they would like to know.)

But the biographical sketch is no less challenging. I know I can fill about 450 words a day with anecdotes, but that mostly covers up that my actual life is really, really dull: I went to school, went to graduate school, got a degree in an obscure intersection of mathematical fields, taught in Singapore for four years, and I want an academic job. There's not much to make that interesting. And the request to be humorous if possible ... well, there's not a lot of ways to make a short biographical sketch funny, and most of those which exist were done really very well by figures like Robert Benchley himself. If they want it, there's nothing honorable to do but provide, I suppose, but it would be so much easier if I could just be dull about it rather than try to dress myself up.

Trivia: The last Portuguese fishing ship to work the Grand Banks without engine power was the Anna Maria, which sank in a storm in 1958. Source: Cod: A Biography Of The Fish That Changed The World, Mark Kurlansky.

Currently Reading: The Final Circle of Paradise, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.

Comments

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Although I refuse to assent to the claim that your life is really, really dull, I certainly can see that writing a humorous but truthful biography would be difficult, and it would have been much kinder of them to let you write a serious one.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Well, I have fun anecdotes -- I'd be well-placed for explaining my existence as a Jeopardy! contestant for a quite respectable run -- it's just that the overall narrative of my life is amazingly linear. ``He went to school, then went to school, then went to school, then taught at a school, and now wants to get back to a school.'' Oh, and has one-and-a-half school books written.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

I think if any biography could include the word 'coatimundi' as well as sufficient context, it'd rapidly escape from seeming bland. Because there's a fairly high sufficiency of necessary context.

There's also more to say beyond 'I went to school'. Avoiding those parts of 'I attended classes' of that section, being the critical part, I should think.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

You know, if I could only focus on my whole buying pants/meeting the President of Singapore/booger thing I'd be in good shape.

[nsingman.livejournal.com]

Four years in Singapore could make for a book in itself.

Your trivia item reminded me that this year's trip to Newfoundland is only four weeks away!

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

If I had started this Livejournal when I first set up there, in March 2003, I would have a great book because that was the SARS epidemic. Not only was the nation odd in its natural ways, and earnest as ever, but it was also facing something truly peculiar. Remind me to talk about the face masks sometime.

Or you could go for your VR

[reptilemammal.livejournal.com]

I mean that is certainly full of humour and although it is not phsycially about you it is metaphysically and spiritually about you.

Re: Or you could go for your VR

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Hm. That's a possibility, and would allow at least for a truly confusing biography.