Archive for April 2010
Skin care gone awry
One of the greatest sources of amusement for me is the amount of product, money and time that women spend on skin care. In an effort to maintain clear skin, I know women who spend hundreds of dollars a year on skin care products, yet I do not have a single male friend with a…
Read MoreI don’t have a relationship with my electric toothbrush, but I still use it daily
I recently heard Alice Waters, well known restaurateur, explain to Bill Maher that she does not use a microwave because “I don’t have a relationship with that machine.” And Maher let that ridiculous, nonsensical statement go unchallenged. When experts begin to speak in drivel and mumbo-jumbo, ordinary folk need to call them on it. Bill…
Read MoreWho am I?
I have been invited to join the International Association of Crime Writers. I received the invitation via an email from the North American branch today. One problem: I’m not a crime writer. Yes, my first book contains certain elements tied to crime writing, but my second book, UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO, has nothing to do with crime. …
Read MoreTrash
I was getting my haircut last week. and the usually bustling salon was relatively empty. Just me, the woman cutting my hair (not my regular stylist) and a customer on the other side of the salon, sitting with tinfoil in her hair. Halfway through the haircut, the tinfoil lady, People magazine in hand, asked my…
Read MoreIf the word “common” is in the name…
If it’s so common (and it is) why is it in a zoo? I had just as much chance as seeing one of these birds in the tree beside the caged one.
Read MoreDueling with my literary agent
This morning I wrote the last words of CHICKEN SHACK, finishing the book in almost exactly one year. After getting up to pee and grab a cookie, I sat back down and began the revision process. My agent, Taryn, has read the first half of the book and sent me notes to consider during revision. …
Read MoreCan’t stand a snob
I learned today that the lack of applause between movements in a classical music performance is a 20th century convention, and it is the result of snobbery. In Beethoven, Mozart, or Bach’s day, applause between movements was standard and expected. But in the early 20th century, arrogant, elitist jackasses began withholding their applause in order…
Read MoreGreat moments in academia: #1
I had three great academic moments in college. The first: I majored in English while in college, with a concentration in creative writing. My focus was upon fiction, but during my senior year, professor Hank Lewis suggested that I take a poetry class in order to hone my use of sentence structure. So I did.…
Read MoreYou are probably not real
According to some researchers, there is at least a twenty percent chance that we are currently living in a computer simulation. In fact, if you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Oxford University’s Dr. Nick Bostrom’s, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation. “This simulation would be…
Read MoreInsecurity
I saw this Botero sculpture in the Time Warner Center in New York City earlier this week. “That’s quite a situation he has going on,” I said to my wife as we passed by. “Eh,” she said. “I’m not impressed. I actually don’t think that’s much of a situation at all.” I wasn’t sure if…
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