Wes Anderson Wrote Bad Undergraduate Stories Too, Thank Goodness

By Tom

Somehow it seems fitting that Wes Anderson would have literary juvenalia to unearth, just as his characters might. Via PWxyz, we heard that Analecta, the literary journal of the University of Texas, Anderson's alma mater, has unearthed "The Ballad of Reading Milton," a story by Anderson from their 1989 issue ("The year I was born!" says the current editor, a statement that depressed and terrified this member of the Class of '89) and published it on their blog.

For reasons I'm still working through, I was very pleased to see that the story, which revolves around a series of experimental spills of Dr. Pepper, is not very good. But you can glimpse pupal Wes in there, already meticulous and referential, with a main character named Max and a passing mention of Bjorn Borg. And this, easily the best line in the story:

A medium-close shot from the waist up would have created for an audience the illusion that he had forced open the door through the efforts of his mind alone.

My question though, for those Analecta editors: anything in your archives from Anderson's fellow UT English major, Owen Wilson? --Tom