Pudding!
In Thornton Wilder's 1954 four-act farce, The Matchmaker, which Hollywood bastardized into Hello Dolly!, there are two clerks, Cornelius and Barnaby. The boys are out of their element when they leave Yonkers and go to New York City for a day of "adventure." Being only 17 and openly naive and ignorant, Barnaby doesn't understand the difference between adventure and trouble.
The boys get into a fix at Mrs. Molloy's hat shop when their employer, a sly, gruff penny-pincher named Horace Vandergelder, shows up to court Mrs. Molloy. Well, the boys have blown up tomato cans back at his dry goods store so they could get away to New York, and they don't want to get caught in the city or they'll lose their jobs. Cornelius explains to Barnaby that sometimes what seems like a real mess is actually an adventure. But Barnaby wants more help, so he asks Cornelius to let him know when they're having an adventure by using a code word: pudding.
Later in the story, Barnaby gets kissed and he identifies the adventure by calling, "Pudding. Pudding. Pudding!"
Sometimes my life-experiences are a real mess. But sometimes, usually in glorious, safe hindsight, I can see an event or even a moment for what it is: fodder. Fodder is the raw material, albeit, inferior resource material for artistic creation. And I just have to sift through the muddy goo of the ordinary (what I call the "mudder") to find it. (You folks in New York, don't get riled; fodder and mudder has nothing to do with your ma and pa, okay?)
But I've found a better way than hindsight. It's called foresight. What a concept. If I recognize an adventure in the middle of a mess, or a great moment in my life, or an enlightening event while I'm in it, I can retain the immediacy of my experience greater than in hindsight.
As a writer, knowing I have to use my experiences to feed that organic creative machine in my skull, I've become hypersensitive to looking for the pudding. Looking for it whenever I'm just experiencing life, and especially when I'm experiencing trouble.
Okay, you're probably saying, "Make up your mind! What is it? Fodder or Pudding?" It's both. But fodder comes from hindsight and pudding is that sweet, delicious stuff that comes to me in the moment.
When I was a teen, I was writing stories. Back then, life was just what happened to me. But even back then, there were moments when I knew I was swimming in a bowl of pudding. The night I showed up at my senior prom with the homecoming queen from the year before, who had graduated already, and every guy in the place stopped to look at her when I walked in: that was a pudding moment. And I knew it. I remember telling myself: "Don't forget this. It won't ever happen again." And I can tell you what she wore (long, light blue gown with a low-cut sequined border), how her hair was coiffed (permed and curly to her shoulders), and how she smelled of orange blossoms. And how I sneezed all night from the boutonniere I wore and my nose ran and I had to keep using my hanky--it was a disaster. I remember stressing all night about kissing her goodnight and leaving behind a sticky smear of snot. I remember there was a party afterwards and we drove all over looking for it, until I realized that the guy who'd told me where it was didn't really like me, and I decided he'd misled me to keep me from finding it. So we went to Bob's Big Boy and were waited on by a car hop (showing my age) who asked me if we just came from a prom and I said, "No, we always dress formally when we come to Bob's Big Boy." And Michelle, my date, actually laughed and put her hand on my shoulder and told me I was the funniest boy she ever knew.
Pudding.
I'm crazy about pudding. And throughout my day, I look for it. No, not in the dessert aisle at Von's, but in my experiences. Even things I've done repeatedly in my life, I try to find the pudding for future stories.
Last week I was conducting a surveillance on a woman in Los Angeles and followed her to a dog obedience class at a park near Century City and the Fox Studios. I placed myself several yards away among some pine trees and began shooting video evidence. After 35 years, I've done this a million times. But on this day, I activated my mind: where's a story? It was one of those times I probably should have been paying more attention to my work. Because after a minute or two, I stopped and looked to my right. Two women with dogs were standing in the parking lot staring at me.
So I moved off to a picnic area and sat down in the dark shade to set up and keep shooting. But then a man from a different obedience school working nearby in the same park came running up to me demanding that I stop videotaping them. I went into Big Fat Liar mode. First, I told him I was videotaping the golfers on the course running right beside the park, that I was videotaping everything, that I was from out of town just getting video for my family to see Los Angeles. He believed me, but he told me that his class included some very famous actresses and that someone had told them that I was videotaping them and they were worried I was paparazzi. So I walked over to his group and stood watching them to dispel any fears they may have, while still keeping an eye on my Subject across the park with her group.
Standing there I noticed two obedience school participants putting their Australian sheep dogs through some exercises. I recognized their faces--the actresses, not the dogs--but I couldn't place in what TV shows or movies I'd seen them. But it didn't matter. Because I saw this for what it was: pudding. It was just an incident, but it was one with a host of ideas swimming around it. I will use this experience as pudding for my future writing. Perhaps a short story. Or a scene in a longer piece.
Viewing my life in this way is like zooming out. During an experience, I'm zoomed in on the details. I'm probably too close for my creative mind to begin working. But if I just pull back the camera and see the bigger picture, I will see story ideas. I will see characters. I will see themes. I will understand what is the ordinary mess in my life and, like Barnaby, what is obviously pudding.
Posted by Tom Eubanks at 5/25/2010 9:10 AM 
Categories: Inspiration and Perspiration, On Writing
Tags: Vital Resource Essay Inspiration
Categories: Inspiration and Perspiration, On Writing
Tags: Vital Resource Essay Inspiration
I love pudding! Both types. This is good info for still photographers as well. I use pudding when I pre- visualize a photo shoot. Visual moments. I have to admit, sometimes when people are talking to me I "zoom" back and see a scene or lighting that I would like to reproduce later. Rude but effective. I have found that looking at store window displays is a great source. Some of them are genius and everyone just walks by. Good post Tom!
Reply to this
I like store window displays, too. Especially the ones where the female mannequins are still naked. Is that wrong?
Reply to this
I'm hereby yellin' pudding! retroactively in honor of the time you and I got into trouble for having a sword fight in the church bathroom while singing Popeye the Sailor Man at the top of our lungs.
That HAD to be an adventure, though our moms seem to tell it otherwise.
Reply to this
I'd forgotten about that incident in the bathroom. So it was a pudding moment for YOU. I must've either lost the sword fight, gotten my butt whipped, or you just remember things that happen with other boys in the bathroom. It doesn't matter. It all comes back to me now.
Reply to this
What could possibly be wrong with that? Just don't say pudding audibly.
Reply to this
Sign language!
Reply to this
Who was your straight man last year?
Reply to this