What's your villain origin story?
What's your villain origin story?
When did you turn evil? + editorial offerings!
For me, it was Chandler Magnet Elementary School, Worcester, MA, 1993. Sometime around the school year’s end, when it was warm enough to crank the rectangular windows open and to catch the scent of the janitor mowing the lawn (still one of my favorite madeleines to bite into), we kids would sit for the entrance test to the Gifted + Talented program. I remember it involved creative writing prompts designed by some developmental psychologist who had never met a human child.
Come September, that rarified group of scholars would be summoned over the intercom to gather in the auditorium for their Very Special Meeting, where they would do some kind of mysterious enrichment activity and occasionally get sprung for the day to take filed trips to places such as the Kennedy Library in that far off kingdom of Boston, 39 miles down the Pike which might as well have been across mountains and oceans.
What else were they up to? I DON’T KNOW BECAUSE I NEVER GOT IN!
“Members of G&T, please report to the auditorium,” the school secretary would snarl over the PA system.
“If you’re Gifted and Talented, get outta heah,” my teacher said.
“If you’re Stupid and Retahded, stay heah!”
That is an honest-to-goddess verbatim quote. He was kidding (I think?). I would pay an obscene amount of money to hidden-camera spy on tweens in brownstone Brooklyn in 2024 being spoken to the way kids in 1990s Worcester were.
Then and there, dear readers, is when I became evil.
I recounted this story not too long ago when I was moderating a panel and got question along the lines of “Why did you become a writer?” and I can connect the dots back to that moment of exclusion and the boulder-sized chip on my shoulder it created and the need to prove I’m “smart.” And of course I love books blah blah blah.
Given the chance again, I think I’d opt to stay in “Stupid and Retahded.” The long-term outcomes for those deemed G&T haven’t bode well; I often receive a DM on Facebook from one of them asking if I’m interested in a lucrative business opportunity to achieve financial independence through selling Rodan & Field skincare or LuLaRoe leggings. I would not be surprised at some of their whereabouts on January 6, 2021. And yet! And yet! And yet! That announcement on the PA system will forever be gamma radiation.
So I’d love to know: What is YOUR villain origin story? When and where and whomst were the motherfuckers who have forevermore powered your neurotic drives? What was the moment? Tell me!
AND I wanted to let you know that this here villain has finally sent her manuscript to copy editing, so I have some time to take on a few writing projects. If you have a book proposal or memoir or a screed you’d like help with, let’s talk. Email me at elogangreenwood [at] gmail dot com.
I might not be able to sell you stinky leggings or Stop the Steal, but I can provide a keen eye and a partner with whom to think.
As we descend into our dark cocoons might I recommend:
A crucial component of our weekday morning routine in my house is watching music videos, and because Truman is a big New Wave fan (ask him to sing “Take on Me” and let that be your hero story), we recently watched the video for Morrisey’s “Suedehead,” in which he conjures the ghost of James Dean, drives a tractor in the snow, and plays the bongos for a herd of cattle. 10/10
This episode of Esther Perel and Brené Brown in conversation.
Kenoza Hall is a hidden gem, maybe the best breakfast I’ve maybe ever had?
Little Children. Suburban angst, Patrick Wilson at his foinest, Todd Field Todd Fieldin’!
I’ve seen Bridget Everett perform a half dozen times and I’m just getting started, but you haven’t lived till you’ve seen her with your mom!
(I look quite evil here because I was excited and my Botox had yet to settle)
Catherine O’Hara on Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s podcast, reminiscing about how they were often cast as “the wife” and “the waitress” in SCTV and SNL, can you believe?!
Revisiting “Forty-One False Starts” by my baby mother Janet Malcom, one who is truly both gifted AND talented.
I’m reading a sneak peek of Casey Johnston’s memoir A Physical Education and am ready to start hoisting heavy things aloft, preorder here!