The voice of the assistant professor with the...
The voice of the assistant professor with the steel-rimmed glasses and the bony scientist's face laps fuzzily at his ear
Gentlemen, I would like you to consider the phenomenon of the kelpNereocystis lütkeana, macrocystis pyrifera, pelagophycus porra, he writes on the blackboardThey are a very distinctive form of marine life, consider this: they have no roots, no leaves, they receive no light from the sunUnder the water the giant kelp form veritable jungles of plant life where they live without movement, absorbing their nutrition from the ocean medium
The bourgeois of the plant species, the student next to him murmurs, and Hearn is awake, startled by the chord of recognition, of excitementHe has almost phrased it himself
It is only in storms, the professor says, that they are washed ashore; normally we must think of them as living in the dense tangle of marine jungles, stationary, absorbed in their own new chanel bags nutrimentThese species had to remain behind when other aquatic plants moved onto landTheir brown color, which is an advantage in the murky under-seas jungles, would be fatal in the intense illumination of landThe professor holds up a withered brown frond with a ropelike stalk
A student holds up his handSir, what is their main use?
Oh, they have been used many waysEssentially they are fertilizerPotash deposits can be extracted
But the moments like that come too seldomHe is empty and hungering for knowledge, the vessel that must be filled

Slowly he gets around, meets a few people, starts going to placesIn the spring of his freshman year he goes out of curiosity to a meeting of the Harvard Dramatic ClubThe president is ambitious and the discussion of plans is elaborate
It's completely absurd when you stop to think of itIt's absolutely ridiculous having us bat out these silly musical jangles, we've got to chanel earrings logo broaden our scope
I know a Radcliffe girl who's studied Stanislavsky, someone drawlsIf we had a decent program we could get her in, and have some decent training in the methodOh, lovely, let's do Chekhov
A slim youth with horn-rimmed glasses is on his feet, demanding to be heardIf we're going to shed the chrysalis, then I demand, I just demand that we do The Ascent of F-6It's just kicking around, and it's not even being put onI mean it's ridiculous when you stop to think of it, what a barrel of kudos it'll mean to us
I can't agree with you about Auden and Isherwood, Ted, someone answers
A dark-haired student, heavy set, with a deep important voice, is talkingI think we ought to do Odets, he's the only playwright in America who's doing anything serious, at least he has his feet in the frustrations and aspirations of the common people
Boooooh, someone yells
O'Neill or Eliot are the only ones
Eliot silver handbags doesn't belong in the same bed with O'Neill(Laughter)
They argue for an hour and Hearn listens to the namesA few are familiar to him, Ibsen and Shaw and Galsworthy, but he has never heard of Strindberg, Hauptmann, Marlowe, Lope De Vega, Webster, PirandelloThe names go on, and he tells himself desperately that he must read

He makes a start in the late spring of his first year, rediscovers the volume of Housman that nourished him in prep school, but to it he adds poets like Rilke and Blake and Stephen SpenderBy the time he goes home for the summer he has switched his major to English, and he deserts the beach many afternoons, the Sally Tendeckers and her replacements, spends the nights writing short stories
They are poor enough, but there is a temporary focus of excitement, a qualified successWhen he returns to Harvard, he makes one of the literary magazines in the fall competitions, glares drunkenly into the miu miu coffer spotlight at the initiation, and comes off without making too big a fool of himself
The changes come slowly at first, then quicklyHe reads everything, spends a lot of time at Fogg, goes to the symphony on Friday afternoons, absorbs the pleasant connotative smell of old furniture and old prints and the malty odor of empty beer cans in the aged rooms of the magazineIn the spring he wanders through the burgeoning streets of Cambridge, strolls along the Charles, or stands talking outside his house entry while the evening comes, and there is all the magic of freedom
Several times he goes out on drunks to Scollay Square with a friend or twoIt is a self-conscious business with old clothing, an undeviating tour of all the bars and dives
Practice for finding the sawdust saloons on Third Avenue
If there is puke on the floor, they are delighted; they are fraternity men dancing with movie starsBut the moods all chanel pearls chan