If you make your residence in a city then you never know who the strangers passing you by on any normal day might be. As you wait for the bus, you might not know it but you might be waiting and then riding with a well known artist. I play a game with myself where I watch people as if I am a sleuth and I try to remember the small details. I have noticed odd things doing this. One of the first things I noticed when I moved to a city was that it took me a while to realize that a fair number of the people who were out in the mornings waiting for the bus in the primarily gay neighborhood I lived in, were transsexuals. Once you notice something such as this, it becomes hard not to notice it after that.
I went to college at a school that has spawned several famous writers, artists, animators and musicians. I also went to a boarding arts high school where a fair number of students were the progeny of famous writers, actors, or musicians or ended up becoming famous later themselves. The twin daughters of a famous French electronic musician attended that school and my boyfriend at the time was halfway in love with them from afar partly because they were beautiful and partly because he admired their dad.
One of my teachers there was in fact one of the famous writers I got to be around. He was an odd man, not hugely famous, only somewhat famous and he was very enthusiastic about writing. This perked enthusiasm in his students of course, and it was why he was teaching he said. He wanted to inspire others like he had been inspired, but earlier because he had come to writing rather late in his twenties.
One day to show us how a person should have passion for everything they do, he came to class in his fishing clothes including a pair of thigh high waders and a hat stuck all over with small fishing lures. He was talking about love for an act and translating how he felt about fishing to how we should feel about writing. It was very entertaining and I never forgot it. It was an effective teaching method just because it was so out of the ordinary. I always felt lucky to have met this man and I kept touch with him after I finished school.
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