You think it's easy to write this stuff every week – trying not to be distracted and making up something funny?
It's not.
I rack my brain, thumb through the papers and magazines, and click my way around the internet to come up with ideas, but sometimes I just draw a blank. There is nothing funny going on!
When that happens, I often fall back on the convenience of a rant, make fun of conservatives in the US or bogus religious ideas, but – let's face it – that stuff is lame and facile. You can be almost legally brain dead and still take on Republicans effectively these days.
Like all this stuff about Romney's wife not working a day in her life... but wait... I wasn't going to get into that today.
What I need is a muse, some source of inspiration for writing. A writing fairy would be just perfect. Those are in short supply, however, so I cast about for something more readily available. How about alcohol?
I wondered about the creative effects of liquor on the writing process and, lo and behold, very quickly discovered that the use of alcohol to loosen the fingers if not the tongue is a well-honored tradition. If it was good enough for the likes of Edgar Allan Poe and Ernest Hemingway, might not I follow in their cups with good results as well?
Not so fast!
As any scientist will tell you, correlation does not equal causation. The fact that many ignorant people watch Fox news does not mean necessarily that it is Fox News that makes them that way. Right? Right?
These famous writers, however, lived before there was a lot of research into the effects of alcohol on creativity and intelligence.
(But just in case, as I write this, I am imbibing a dry Spanish Cava Brut Rosé by CU4TRO (light, strawberry fruit with tart hints of rhubarb and citron, fine mist of bubbles, but a surprising sweetness in the finish with a kiss of sea air.)
Clearly, before I could really start throwing back the moonshine, I needed to find out if I was heading down the path to destruction or up the ladder to a world of inspired prose.
Hello internet.
What I found is that there IS a link between creativity and booze ... yes, yes... I should restrain myself... but even the Wall Street Journal, a pig-wallow of conservative blather (except in this case), reports that people can be more creative while indulging.
Is that cool or what? The Wall Street Journal? Whoa!
So, of course I don't trust them, and need to find a reliable source for information, right? So further investigation reveals that men are smarter under the influence than not!
(All you women out there can JUST SHUT UP!! We guys don't want to hear any eye-rolling about alcohol making us smarter.)
So... getting back to the topic, we can conclude that, in fact, alcohol consumption can not only make people more creative but that in the case of the male of the species, actually increase our intelligence.* (You will have noticed that among the top 15 alcoholic writers, there is only one woman.) There is evidence as well that tippling will particularly bring out the best in writers.
If so, then clearly the next step is to find out if all boozes are equal muses, so to speak (I have moved on to the "tradionnelle" sparkling wine of the same company: crisp and dry, redolent of chalky soil, light fruit with whispers of grapefruit and lime, fine bubbles, and delightful finish with a lingering lick of Toledo steel).
Unfortunately, it seems that famous writers were an eclectic lot. But we writer wannabes cannot afford to take chances, especially those at my age. Looking at the list below, we have three writers whose favorite drink was the gin martini, three who favored wine and two who favored whiskey (though there is some doubt about Edgar Allan Poe).
(in alphabetical order)
Truman Capote – double gin Martini (before lunch!)
William Faulkner – Mint Julep (bourbon)
F. Scott Fitzgerald – gin Martini
Ernest Hemingway – "Pour one jigger of absinthe into a champagne glass. Add iced champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly," or also Mojito (rum)
Aldous Huxley – wine
James Joyce – wine
John Keats – wine
Jack Kerouac – Margarita (tequila)
Jack London – gin Martini
Carson McCullers (another woman!) – Long Island Iced Tea (covered all the bases with gin, vodka, tequila, rum and Cointreau in equal portions)
Edgar Allan Poe – whiskey (but buried with half a bottle of cognac)
Dylan Thomas – whiskey, beer
So in conclusion, my instinct to start with wine for this article was a good one, but perhaps next time I should switch to the gin Martini! Alternating between these two inspirational, literary fairies might finally put me over the top.... one way or the other.
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* It does not, however, make us more coordinated.
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