Fuck Giraffes

Alan was my lit teacher, writing teacher, and advisor, after David Cavitch retired my sophomore year. These are three very different ways to know a professor. In Hemingway & Faulkner, he taught me to read properly and his encouragement to write papers with no thesis statement was a revelation. I argued with many of my, uh, post-modern peers about it, it drove them crazy, but I really loved it and it made a lot of sense to me. As they were just 10 page papers, you didn't really have that much time to get going anyway. I'm not sure I won any of the arguments, but I tried, I really did. That class was one of my favorites. As I work in publishing now and, I'm happy to report, I still read actively (I can't imagine I'll keep it up for much longer - have you tried out the X-Box 360, Alan?) - I'm seeing how these classes stay with you, even if their affects only come into effect when you're lying in bed or riding on the bus. I still do things creatively from time to time, so the fiction class resonates. I was able to get into Alan's class because I took a class with Jonathan Strong. The way I simplified taking fiction classes with Jonathan and Alan is that Jonathan acts a bit like your therapist and Alan acts a little bit like your hitting coach. One of my favorite moments was when Alan excitedly encouraged me, in front of the class, to have a character wear a T-shirt that said "Fuck Giraffes." My friend Scott Trudell and I now refer to this sort of thing as "Lebowitz advice." If I send Scott something to read and want feedback he'll be giving normal feedback andthen say "Well, for some Lebowitz advice, I'd lose the last three pages, and give the protagonist blue hair." Then there was Alan as advisor. This was the funniest in a way. I would leave office hours thrilled that I had avoided another bureaucratic loophole. I really thought I could identify BS better an anyone I knew, but Alan, it was clear, was a true master in this regard. He made initial attempts to justify the University's protocols and paperwork and deadlines until he realized I was a lost cause. I hate to say it, but the ability to identify and avoid BS might be more important than reading or writing, but who knows. I'd be remiss not to mention his support after I was off the books - after graduation, I wrote some bad therapeutic fiction that I sent to a few people, including Alan. The gist of it was "I'm crazy." He responded faster than a lot of my friends and that meant a lot. Also, I strongly recommend buying Ploughshares Summer 1973 issue to read his story "Marvin Gardens' Revenge." They used to have it online but they don't anymore. It's one of the funniest stories I've ever read. That's all I have to say for now. I like to think Alan and I would have been friends if we were the same age and reading this site and looking at these pictures make me think this more so. I think that's a weird thing to think about someone who could be your grandfather, but there you go. I'll always be very proud to have been one of the last of the mohicans. See you later.

Jeremy Wang-Iverson ('02)