Skewl Dayz

One might've thought Slate's decision to hold "College Week" more reasonable around Labor Day, or even at the end of May, when collegial activities are beginning or ending, though I suppose right before Thanksgiving is as good a time as any, as many college students are wishing they could forget about classes and simply begin the holidays now. Either way, the toast of internet webzines' piece on the favorite college books of a variety of influential minds is both wonderful and depressing. Wonderful, because it is almost always amusing to see the world's public ponderers turn inward and literary, and depressing because it reconfirms how despairingly poor of letters I am. Combine this with over-mentioned-on-this-site blogger Ross's recent list of books he hasn't read, and the overall effect is that of being shown a golden boulder and told you can have it -- provided you can carry it home.

The competition for the best entry award is easy, with Bill Simmons's post on Raymond Carver:

During the summer after my freshman year in college, I bought a collection of Raymond Carver's short stories—Where I'm Calling From—that ended up impacting me more than anything I ever read. At that point in my life, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to attend law school or become a writer, and that book literally made the decision for me. I can't even tell you how many times I read it—in fact, I have the exact same copy from college, only it looks like somebody pounded it with a bloody baseball bat or something. I don't know what's holding it together. Aside from the obvious classics ("Cathedral," "A Small Good Thing"), my favorite Carver story was "The Calm"—structurally perfect, layers to everything, quirky as hell—which had one of those classic Carver endings that made you just shake your head and think, "I will never be as good of a writer as that guy." Not only did he inspire the hell out of me in college, he completely discouraged me in every way. Now that is an influential book.

To be a young creative type with impossible aspirations is to continually live those final sentences; the best writers or filmmakers aren't just great -- they're impossibly great. They tell stories you never could've dreamed up and do it with far more dazzle and integrity. Reading these books and watching these movies opens up an entire new world of what is possible, and yet similarly reminds us of how much further we have to go ourselves.

An honorable mention goes to College Humor editor Ricky Van Veen's entry, which pretty much captures the flavor (minus a thick marbling of profanity, of course) of every conversation I have ever had with my college roommate:

High Concept: Don Simpson and the Hollywood Culture of Excess by Charles Fleming. This glimpse into the ridiculous world of Hollywood pushed me in the "entertainment-career-after-college" direction more than any guidance counselor or computerized survey ever could. I'd find myself stopping every few pages and reading passages aloud to my roommate. "Wait, he paid a hooker just to watch TV with him?" "Yeah, dude."