When a writer is emotionally uninvolved with his subject matter, I call that “distance”. The stretching of emotional distance de-emphasizes original motivation and emphasizes craft. This is considered by many to be the sign of a master. What the master lacks in emotional intensity he patches up with odds and ends of knowledge and scraps of imagery, snazzily sewn together into a pretty shawl of irrelevancy. In his poem “The Shirt” Robert Pinksy produces a poem containing nothing but vast empty territories of distance.

Jefferson Carter is a retired doctor of literature. Eight years ago he taught at a college where I was a janitor. One day on campus I introduced myself to him, and he blew me off like I was a door-to-door Mormon. I wrote a story about it recently which was published in a small magazine. Well, he got wind of it. He then claimed publicly that he had caught me masturbating in his office with a pair of tweezers.

Mr. Potato Head Votes for the First Time

Mr. Potato Head is wearing green glasses with blue shoes. He is wearing his obstruent nose, and his open eyes. Mr. Potato Head is arriving home from work. He worked a double-shift, dialing phone numbers to collect data for university institutions. Two hours of that time he spent offering haircuts to his coworkers while they were outside on their breaks smoking cigarettes. Mr. Potato Head is a hair-stylist and he maintains his tools inside his butt. If you speak to him for a bit too long, he will offer you a haircut. He will cut your hair. He will then ask you for ten dollars.