A thing’s wittiness or maybe just general humor level is in direct proportion to the distance across which your mind has to jump to make the proper association. I think that jump is from figurative to literal, and I think this all might have an inverse proportion to the amount of time this leap takes, [...]
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In a “Talk of the Town” piece from this week’s New Yorker, Richard Rayner writes that beloved historian Stephen Ambrose essentially lied about the access he was given to President Eisenhower: Is it possible that Ambrose met with Eisenhower outside office hours? [Son] John Eisenhower [said] that such meetings never happened: “Oh, God, no. Never. [...]
Construct a story such that each verb can be read in either the present or past tense. You can start with this sentence: “I set my keys noisily on the countertop and then spread my hands out over the cold surface.” Past? Present? There are probably like 5 such verbs in the language. Read, put [...]
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This is a thing now? According to NBC Must-See Thursday it is. First-up on the so-much-greater-than-last-season Parks and Recreation was, oh, the young intern girl in the office. The one who I think was in the latest Judd Apatow. The one with the boyfriend who himself has a boyfriend (hilarious). One of her talk-to-the-camera cutaways [...]
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I’m writing a course proposal for a class I’m unoriginally calling “Weird Stories”. So: stories that don’t do anything expected or familiar either in terms of form or content. Here are some texts I might use: Donald Barthelme, “On the Deck” Lydia Davis, “Marie Curie, So Honorable Woman” Franz Kafka, “The Country Doctor” Nikolai Gogol, [...]
Have you noticed? Pizza places have now decided, what? because of “the economy”?, to start tacking a delivery fee on to ordering a pizza. Here’s the breakdown: Papa John’s = $1.90 Domino’s = $1.75 Pizza Hut = $2.41 Is anyone else outraged? Do we still have to tip?
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For 2010, I hope to be moving onward, and the Nebraska State Fair will be doing the same. I to who knows where. The Fair to Grand Island. Maybe I’ll be in Grand Island in a year’s time, but it seems unlikely. We honor its passing from Lincoln the way we honored Pee Wee’s.
Because there’s kind of a house I want to buy. I don’t have a lot of cars, and surely not a Ferrari 250 GT Spyder California, but there’s all kinds of space to, safely, display some. It even comes with an answering machine that plays the most deliciously droll outgoing message to anyone who might [...]
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Can one of you explain what this is?
1. Break into our home while we’re gone. A friend of mine has a key. 2. Tear out the tree on the back patio, tear down the fence (it’s half falling down anyway), and expand the brick about five feet in both directions. 3. Center the table we have, or chuck it out and get [...]
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Look closely. S’s roommate is a very big baseball fan. Why is this interesting?
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This morning’s adventure. No, it’s no longer open to the public. Yes, the floor is filthy and unfinished. I want to work in there.
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Q: How did Jeanne Tripplehorn become famous? A (with spoilers): In 1967, Jeanne Tripplehorn was swinging on the swings at a playground in Rancho Cucamonga drinking a YooHoo when a casting agent walked by looking for a strategic place to park the stroller that held his infant son, the better to hit on the vicinity’s [...]
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I’ve now set up my domain such that I’ll get all emails sent to any username. Anything you can come up with. So no need to be beholden to “dave@”. Get creative. Or get cruel. Whichevs.
Back when I knew Zach and shared an office with him, he was a poet and teacher of writing. Now he’s a teacher of film at Portland State University and a filmmaker of his own at Vimeo. He’s actually pretty good.
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By now you’ve probably read David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech, and if you haven’t your life is lesser for it. If you, like, have been meaning to and but can’t find the time, I’ll try to grab the best part to give you a sense of how good it is: But most days, if you’re [...]
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HTMLGIANT is one of many writing-related blogs, this one like the bratty stepchild of the rest. Its posts, like all blogs’, are hit or miss. Today, a bull’s-eye: “The ecstasy of a faint outdoor wind: A photo essay by Philip Roth.” “Let me tell you something mother fuckers: it’s not easy writing all day. Sometimes [...]
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