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Whitman College |
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- [The next October was filled with craziness, a non-stop parade of unbelievable occurrences: Uncle Jerry took his pants off in public; my girlfriend Rhonda showed me her man-parts; my heart stopped after five lines of cocaine; my TV attacked me; my dog--the little son of a bitch who I named Fluffy--jumped me and swallowed my leg like Fat Albert at a Thanksgiving dinner. [Chris Miller]
- [At the poignant climax of "Tigger's Stripes" in the "Winnie the Pooh Adventures" series Disney unleashes a furious torrent of heartwarming lessons about self-esteem, an all-out barrage of family values; Tigger learns he's still Tigger without his stripes; the kids at home learn it's what's inside that counts; we all learn about the true meaning of friendship; older children are given something to think about in their relationships at school; younger children are entertained by the cloyingly upbeat song Tigger sings; parents--who have by now memorized all the dialogue against their will--are thankful that at least the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers don't show up. [Amy Mihelich]
- [During the hour we sat at "Pegasus Pizza and Pasta" Seattle presented a delightful evening of sunsets and people-watching, an all-out spectacle of all kinds: convertibles parade by; glasses empty; first dates sprout into the future; delicious platters of pizza tantalize joggers on the sidewalk; sunbathers competing on the beach frolic and play in the glowing sun; frustrated tourists struggle to find parking by the water; the sky--majestic looking firmament--blurs slightly and then explodes outward into brilliance like a star on a stage. --Kelly Pointer]
- [I have a chair in front of my window and I sit with my feet up--toes curled over the sill--and watch the alley, with all the comings and goings from the backdoors; the afternoon sun streams in, warming me, my bare feet, the upholstery of the chair. [Amy Marie Mihelich]
[Jerry and I went running at lunch--approximately one hour--and we ran casually into Bill at the BP, from here we saw farmland and its dwindling crops of corn and strawberries; mist drizzling down cast joy into me, my legs, my heart. --Kelly Pointer] [Nice sentence, but does corn ripen at the same time strawberries do?]
- [I have always been amazed with love, longing for it, hating it--well, it is confusing--but beyond that there is the feeling of being alone and of not yet discovering the love you desire, passionate love, intense love. --Tanya Hudson]
- [I was always bonkers about Seattle, possessive of it, frightened of it-- well, it is scary--but beyond that there was the pressure of being alternative and of not yet having the funds for an apartment, a cool apartment, a Bell- Town apartment. [Jennifer McIntosh]
- [I was always crazy about Kool-Aid, dependent on it, addicted to it-- well, it [was] sugary--but beyond that there was the pressure of being thirsty and of not yet attaining what you really liked to drink, beer, wine.--Joe Howard]
- [I turned around quickly to see my world rearrange, Uncle Charly melting into nothingness before he could give me his trademark wedgie with his manly arms, an old lady exploding behind him, the bleak landscape collapsing behind them both, dark spirals overtaking the once beautiful statues of Pocatello, ripping apart my once unshaken view of my hometown. --[Chris Miller]
- [I turned around to see Griffey return the bat to his shoulder, the fans on the upper deck hanging their "The Good-bye Kid" signs from railings, he raising his arm to them, the big electronic screen towering over all, the electronic pixels forming the number thirty two and a moose, turning the half-crazed fans' attention to home plate. --Cam Scott]
- [I glance over to see Dad cheer for me, Mom standing beside him yelling, "PASS THAT GIRL BEFORE THE TOP OF THE HILL!" in her loudest Mom voice, he wiggling in his shoes, the whole crowd wiggling in their shoes, the retaining rope straining to keep them back, cutting into exposed skin. --Molly Gerber]
- [You can tell how much they enjoyed the performance when the little girls came flying down the stairs from the stage, their golden skirts flipping like butterflies, their little hearts beating fast, their eyes sparkling; running towards their parents as excited as though they were still in the show. --Xia Xin]
- [I have seen the same loftiness of insecure women who stride into the Peacock at Corvallis, their nails freshly painted, their hair high, their hot cars polished; taking in the typical Saturday scene in bored anticipation as though they were embarking on an HBO movie script. --Kelly Pointer]
- [I have seen the same wariness in old Browns who cruise the main pools of the Little Prickly Pear at Wolf Creek Canyon, their jaws hooked, their tails frayed, their spots faded; holding in the blue pockets of water alone as though they were still straining against the current on their way upstream to spawn. --Joe Howard]
- [He usually didn't bother showing up for class or when he did he sat in the back drawing pictures or writing profane notes to throw at us in the front row or carving gouges in the side of the desk or setting rubber cement on fire or his shirt on fire or his pen on fire or his arm on fire or making grotesque noises or breaking pencils or picking his nose or telling anybody who cared how stoned he got last night or some other night in broken English or whatever language it was that he tried to speak or very rarely he would raise his hand and ask something so mind-blowingly stupid no one could breathe for a second afterward or he would just complain quietly to himself about what a waste of time it all was anyway. Jesse Hancock was forty-sixth in my graduating class of seventy-two, and I always wondered about the twenty-six people behind him. [Amy Marie Mihelich]
- [He napped or studied Physics or cleaned his room or formatted disks or cut his toenails or shampooed his hair or cut out articles from the newspaper or phoned his parents or napped or studied Chemistry or cleaned his oven or sewed on buttons or dusted between the keys of his keyboard or searched through old National Geographics or backed up is hard drive or napped or studied Linear Algebra or wrote in his journal or went on long walks alone to "find himself" or preferred to eat alone or watch movies alone or nap alone or study alone. He was my friend, but he didn't have time for me. --Molly Gerber] [This one's nice because it keeps the form but doesn't stick so rigidly to the repetitions of "more" in the original.]
- [But Willy is not the only American to eat a gallon of squid eyeballs in under fourteen minutes, and today the list has reached 24: Bob Lililuck, Wally Shephard, Antonio Fapaglio, and Wilson Phillips are the Washington delegation; Tony Warlock and his lover Glibly both did it in September of last year; Don St. Andrewson, who died tragically in a Shasta boating accident, as well as his cousin John Smith; Joe-Don Boodleton, of Chugiak, and Wesley Wharton of Fairbanks; town idiot Earnest Loughlin, who also holds the record for most squid eyeballs eaten over a span of 14 days; such celebrities as Bill William Williams, Danny Daniel Daniels, and Johnny John Johnson, not to mention Andy Andrew Anderson; such non-celebrities as Orson Paglia and Nelson ElHardlio; as well as 3 Bill Whites, 2 Al Greens, and 1 anonymous fool. [Chris Miller]
- [But now I think the lives of my high school classmates would make riveting television and I'm starting to try to recall their names and stories: Trevor, who proclaimed he was the Antichrist, but only on Tuesdays and Thursdays; Barry, who would set himself on fire upon request; Jesse, who would set anything on fire; Christopher, who wanted more than anything to live life in a Salvador Dali painting; Audrey, who did acid and was obsessed with sheep; Dave, who slept on buses and one morning woke up in Colorado with no idea how he got there; Greg and Ryan, who had contests to see who looked more like Jesus; Andy, who made incriminating video tapes of our teachers; Marcus, who thought the FBI was after him because he had secret powers of teleportation; Delila, my best friend, a Scottish- Jewish nymphomaniac; Jo, who shoved a ball-point pen through the palm of her hand one night by accident; Alison, who graduated second in the class and is still bitter. [Amy Mihelich]
- [Of course when you get down to it, the best wrestlers and rappers have always had the silliest names: Rick Rude, Slick Rick, Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake, Method Man, "Macho Man" Randy Savage, who changed his name to "Mach King" and then back; Marly Marl, Melly Mell, LL, Lex Lugar, Lex Diamonds, and Diamond Daryl Page, who is from the Deep South; Doink the Clown, Greg "The Hammer" Valentine, MC Hammer, Big John Stud, Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, Tito Santana, Hill Billy Jim, MC Ren, Captain Lou Albano, and Flava Flav who went to jail; Andre the Giant, Dr. Dre, Ted "Million Dollar Man" Diabiase, D-Nice, Nikoli Volkof, Hacksaw Jim Dugan, and Hollywood Hogan, who used to be Hulk; Nas, AZ, Iron Sheik, Iron Man, and Sergeant Slaughter, a member of G.I. Joe; RZA, GZA, and Ol' Dirty Bastard, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Salt-n-Peppa, Bushwachers, Midnight Express, Nice and Smooth, Hawk and Animal, all good tag-team groups; Jimmy Hart, Mr. Fugee, the Fugees, Dusty Rhodes, 2Pac, 2Short, the Honky Tonk Man, Scarface, Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat, George "the Animal" Steele, the Von Erichs, Ultimate Warrior, and Fresh Prince, a hit in Hollywood; Four Horsemen, Undertaker, Gravediggaz and King Kong Bundy and Biggie Smalls, both deceased; Rex the Moondog, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Junkyard Dog, The Dogg Pound, the British Bulldogs, Mitilda the Dog, Ice T, Ice Cube, Vanilla Ice and various other dogs, doggs, and ices. [Ben Cassady] [In the wonderful, long tradition of name lists]
- [But looking at his shelves of books was always the best part, never had I seen such great juxtapositions before: Basho, the Tao Te Ching, Ed Abbey and Ed Albee; Jean Paul Sartre, Samuel Beckett, Albert Camus, Shel Silverstein; Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Charles Bukowski, and St. Augustine; books on deep ecology, long division, golfing, and Consumer Reviews; Richard Brautigan, Jim Morrison, Leonard Cohen, and Jane Austen. J.D. Salinger, John Steinbeck, John Dunne, John Ashberry, John Berryman, Jon [sic] Wolfgang Von Goethe, a whole list of John's; Volumes of History, Theology, Asytrology, Microbiology; Plato, Hegel, Thucydides, Nietzsche, and that guy who wrote the `Celestial Prophesy'; books on life after death, life after marriage, life before marriage, life in between marriages, which was all very funny because as far as I know the guy has been single all his life. How else do you think he could have read so much? [Justin Gardiner] [In the wonderful, long tradition of book lists.]