Minty Breath

I discovered the following on my laptop today. I don't actually remember writing this, but I'm pretty sure that I am the author, as it incorporates the four main themes of my life: Bob Dylan, blueberries, renaming myself, and Wikipedia en español. I kinda like it, so I decided to post it here. The full title, unfortunately, did not fit in the Blogger title field. Instead, the title appears immediately below.

A Group Of Words Which Might Resemble A Bubble Released Into Water By The Exhalation Of A Diver With Minty Breath: Less Substantial Than That Which Surrounds It, But With A Slightly Different Scent

Whenever I meet a prospective student on grounds, which, fortunately for the University, does not occur often, I tell them not only to not attend UVa, but not to go to college at all. When met with questioning looks, I explain that I plan to drop out as soon as possible and get to work on fulfilling my great goal in life: becoming Bob Dylan.

After many years of thought, I have developed and patented the three-step plan to become Bob Dylan:

1. Learn to play guitar (and harmonica)
2. Sing
3. Change your Jewish last name to something that sounds cool

The last step is clearly the most difficult. If I had to change my first name, I would adopt the name José faster than a small rodent would flee from a hungry owl. But change of this name segment is not part of the plan. Deviance from the plan will not be tolerated. Apparently, Dylan named himself after one of his favorite poets, Dylan Thomas. Or, as Spanish wikipedia puts it, "Es en este momento en el que cambia su nombre por el de Bob Dylan, para lo que, según algunos, se inspiró en el poeta Dylan Thomas, aunque el propio Bob Dylan siempre ha negado este particular." I would follow this path in rechristening myself, but, I'm not gonna lie, I don't really read much poetry. Now some of you might have a problem with this last sentence. Wasn't Dylan famed for his poetical lyrics? How can someone with that type of attitude towards poetry become Bob Dylan? But you are focusing on the wrong part of that sentence above. Wasn't Dylan also famed for the honesty of his lyrics? Maybe not, but you can at least pretend so until you finish reading this something. When viewed in light of the fact that you are currently pretending to be true, the sentence in question shows how fit I am to become Dylan. Not only does it show that I can become Dylan, it also shows how the only possible course in my life is to become Dylan, that I have no choice in this endeavor. Which means that I must choose a name.

Bob Dylan liked poets and I like ninjas. Therefore I should name myself after a ninja. But I like other things besides ninjas. How do I know that I should name myself after a ninja, and not after, say, a blueberry pie? I like blueberries a lot because of their magical properties. After countless observations, I have discovered that blueberries can disappear. You can verify this fact yourself with the following simple experiment:

1. Put a blueberry on the ground
2. Walk about 30 yards away from the blueberry
3. Look at where the blueberry once was

You will find that you can no longer see the blueberry. Because of this disappearing property of blueberries, I can only assume that the "dark matter" that physicists say makes up the majority of our Universe is actually large numbers of invisible blueberries. (It would require about one octodecillion of blueberries to account for all the dark matter in the observable universe. And octodecillion is actually a real word.) I have reason to believe that Bob Dylan was also aware of the berry-ific nature of our Universe. Examine the following lyric:

The only thing I knew how to do
Was to keep on keepin' on like a bird that flew,
Tangled up in blue.

The "bird that flew" is clearly an interstellar space craft "tangled up in [a cluster of deep space] blue[berries]." It's true. Do you know what else is true? I still don't know what to name myself. Suggestions are welcome. Conclusions are not.