What’s What and What to do About It by Waldo Mellon
Waldo Mellon is the pen name of a frustrated screenwriter with a funny idea—a fake (and funny) column offering advice to the lifelorn on sexuality, self-image, human responsibility to the world, despair … What’s What and What to do About It is a sort of Socratic dialogue for today’s world by a writer who was raised (literally) in the house of Kurt Vonnegut. The influence shows. Answering a Dear Waldo letter from a guy fearing that he’s perceived as stupid, Waldo relates that as a college student on a blind date, he was asked about Flannery O’Connor. “I like him very much,” young Waldo replied to his date. And then he relates that we are all stupid in the face of the vast complexity of reality. Here’s a brilliant response to another fretting letter for help: “Every moment in life is both prose and poetry. Prose is what you are thinking. Poetry is what you are feeling.”
