Doug Lang at the Rodin Museum in Paris, 1996. Photo by Sandra Rottmann
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Lang’s Special Fortune Cookies
Nothing special is coming your way.
Your luck will not change today.
Your sense of humor is of no use to you.
No one is thinking of you this evening.
Your determination has gotten you where you are today.
You will always be surrounded.
If you see someone, why not have doubts?
You have no sense and you don’t know what time it is.
Nothing in this one.
Please ignore the music. it is not for you.
If you stop looking for what you want, you will be sure to find it and lose interest in it.
Everything will now come your way and go right past you.
You do not need to be patient anymore: do not think, do not listen, do not heed signs.
You should regard delays and setbacks as normal.
Versatility is beyond your reach.
A good home is too expensive.
You are unable to show your true self to others. You have no true self.
You will conquer all obstacles and achieve world domination, but first you must shave your mustache.
You will notice that nothing has changed in the near future.
You are capable of repeating everything endlessly.
Don’t put your egg in one basket.
A true friend always walks away when you start whining.
A small house will not hold as much as a big one. This should not be a problem for you.
You have a superficial understanding of the arts and music.
You will never forget a friend who owes you.
You will go a long way.
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Doug Lang was from Swansea in Wales. He came to Washington DC in 1973, the year that his novel, Freaks, was published by New English Library. He ran a now legendary reading series at Folio Books in Dupont Circle from January 1976 to June 1978. His erudite command of literature, cinema, music, and visual art, along with his wit, intellectual generosity, and good will, made him the most popular professor at the Corcoran College of Art and Design, where he taught writing for 37 years. His most recent book is In the Works, Selected Poems 1973–2013, from DC’s Edge Books. An earlier collection, dérangé, was published by Primary Writing in DC in 2013. For more of Doug’s poems, see the Beltway Poetry Quarterly. For his 2008 post on the poetry of the 1970s, click here. His film blog from 2007 is also worth checking out. For a multi-part, six-hour conversation between Terence Winch and Doug Lang, visit PennSound. The Doug Lang Papers are held by the Burns Library at Boston College. [editor’s note: Doug passed away on 22 November 2022. Today, April 11, 2023, would have been his 82nd birthday. This post first appeared in October of 2020.]
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Doug Lang with Blaise Cendrars book in Paris, 1996. Photo by Sandra Rottmann.
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Author: Terence Winch
