Chip Talks
Simons, Chip

>>CHIP: My name is Chip Simons. I've been reading and writing for a long time. I think usually what I look for when I read something is more the idea expressed in it; not necessarily great writing although that's always a plus. One of my favorite books is by a guy named Dan Millman, "Way of the Peaceful Warrior". Writing is not so great but the idea is fantastic. I like Voltaire, Salman Rushdie is probably my favorite writer overall; I die laughing when I read his stuff, he's brilliant. I guess what I really want to talk about is my illiteracy story. Last year I split up with my girlfriend, I had a lot of free time on my hands and so I got online and I looked up the hundred greatest novels and I thought I'd read some of these to get started. "The Great Gatsby" was the first one, that went nice and smooth. The next one was "Ulysses" by James Joyce; well I had it sitting there on my books shelf for a while before I started to read it and I pulled it out and started to read and I had to go get my dictionary, I hit a word a didn't know. So I put it back, I started reading again, boom, another one. I kept reading and reading and I barely got through the first section of the book without having my dictionary right there with me. So long story short, I pretty much decided to put that one off until later. I made me feel really stupid, I've always thought I was a pretty literate guy but now I know I'm not and have a long ways to go with some of these things. Anyway, that's all I've got.