Acknowledgements
20 September 2007 Filed in:
Literature
No cyclopedia entry is written in a
vacuum, and thus there are many people I have to thank, except that
this particular entry actually was written in a vacuum, so the only
people I need to thank are the dedicated staff of technicians from
NASA, and Debbie from over at Electrolux, who made this astounding
breakthrough possible.
When I first started this acknowledgments column, it was 1975, and my advisors called me "mad" to attempt it. Dedications had been common, of course, and although acknowledgments were not unheard of, my people feared that such a far-out move might harm my reputation.
But I insisted. "After all," I said, "no entry is written in a vacuum." Little did I suspect how those words would haunt me, lo these sixty years later, when, like so many David Blaines, I would find myself alone, unable to breath, and--but I get ahead of myself.
My first draft of the "Acknowledgments" started off with, what I must say, was some of my snappiest writing to date: "I'd like to thank my family for their understanding." Wow! My editor literally called it "hot stuff," and my publisher insisted on toning it down! Call me a sell-out, but I agreed.
And yet, every subsequent draft was somehow...less. As an artist, I truly felt that thanking my family represented a large part of what this acknowledgments piece needed to be. I tried and tried again, but found myself running up against the metaphorical brick wall that I'd had built the summer before to keep the neighbor's dog from pooping, metaphorically, on our lawn.
I complained to Eddie (my aptly named editor) and Pubby (his brother, my publisher) that the acknowledgments was going nowhere, and they suggested just scrapping the whole idea. And that's where things stood when Remembery, a young nephew from Toronto, remembered my casual comment in that summer of long ago: no newsletter is written in a vacuum.
An electric thrill ran through the room.
"Surely," said Logicky, a visiting cousin, "you can avoid thanking your family--or having to thank anyone--by actually writing your Acknowledgements IN A VACUUM.
Part of me feels that I should thank my creative team for developing the idea. A guilty part of me feels that I still should thank my family, especially after the unfortunate deaths of Timmy, Sarah, Elizabeth, and Rob, when they ventured (against house rules!) into the Vacuum Unit. Still, they really had nothing to do with this actual entry. So a tip of the hat to Debbie at Electrolux, and, of course, dear reader, to you.
HOW IT CAME TO PASS
When I first started this acknowledgments column, it was 1975, and my advisors called me "mad" to attempt it. Dedications had been common, of course, and although acknowledgments were not unheard of, my people feared that such a far-out move might harm my reputation.
But I insisted. "After all," I said, "no entry is written in a vacuum." Little did I suspect how those words would haunt me, lo these sixty years later, when, like so many David Blaines, I would find myself alone, unable to breath, and--but I get ahead of myself.
My first draft of the "Acknowledgments" started off with, what I must say, was some of my snappiest writing to date: "I'd like to thank my family for their understanding." Wow! My editor literally called it "hot stuff," and my publisher insisted on toning it down! Call me a sell-out, but I agreed.
And yet, every subsequent draft was somehow...less. As an artist, I truly felt that thanking my family represented a large part of what this acknowledgments piece needed to be. I tried and tried again, but found myself running up against the metaphorical brick wall that I'd had built the summer before to keep the neighbor's dog from pooping, metaphorically, on our lawn.
I complained to Eddie (my aptly named editor) and Pubby (his brother, my publisher) that the acknowledgments was going nowhere, and they suggested just scrapping the whole idea. And that's where things stood when Remembery, a young nephew from Toronto, remembered my casual comment in that summer of long ago: no newsletter is written in a vacuum.
An electric thrill ran through the room.
"Surely," said Logicky, a visiting cousin, "you can avoid thanking your family--or having to thank anyone--by actually writing your Acknowledgements IN A VACUUM.
Part of me feels that I should thank my creative team for developing the idea. A guilty part of me feels that I still should thank my family, especially after the unfortunate deaths of Timmy, Sarah, Elizabeth, and Rob, when they ventured (against house rules!) into the Vacuum Unit. Still, they really had nothing to do with this actual entry. So a tip of the hat to Debbie at Electrolux, and, of course, dear reader, to you.