My favorite moment in all of the Rocky movies is when, before his second fight with Rocky, when the announcer asks Clubber Lang (Mr T) for a prediction, he says simply, "PAIN." Well, an older Mr T just fared about the same with a hockey puck - one win, one loss. He of course makes the same prediction at the 1:40 mark.
I PITY THE FOOL! Original Airdate: Tuesday March 26, 2013 EXTRA TAGS: Sidney Crosby Alexander Ovechkin Patrick Kane Jonathan Toews Anaheim Ducks Chicago Blackhawks Boston Bruins Carolina Hurricanes Calgary Flames Columbus Blue Jackets Buffalo Sabres New Jersey Devils Colorado Avalanche Dallas Stars Florida Panthers New York Islanders Edmonton Oilers Detroit Red Wings Montreal Canadiens New York Rangers Los Angeles Kings Minnesota Wild Ottawa Senators Philadelphia Flyers Phoenix Coyotes Nashville Predators Tampa Bay Lightning Pittsburgh Penguins San Jose Sharks St.
I hope this doesn't come off the wrong way, but "I Was Young When I Left Home" is my favorite piece I've ever written. Here are some things I like about it:
Original Defunct Headshot
I discovered 3eanuts, perhaps the greatest use anyone's yet found for Tumblr, when it was roughly three months old, and have been following it since. The concept is simple: as put by its founder Daniel Leonard:
Charles Schulz's Peanuts comics often conceal the existential despair of their world with a closing joke at the characters' expense. With the last panel omitted, despair pervades all.
I found today's "biversary" (is that really a word?) especially serendipitous since I reference the site on my essay "How to Tell a Good Joke," which will be published on DIAGRAM in April. So get yourself addicted to Schulz-Minus-One in the meantime, if you're not already.
I have a new thing to listen to whenever it comes out (seems like every other month or so) - Five Things, out of Austin, TX! The banter is wonderful, and this month's edition, on Liz Taylor's husbands, features as the third guest my friend Tatiana Ryckman, as her normal, abnormal self. Notice all the uncontrollable laughs while she reads.
I have to admit I'm somewhat heartened by David Cameron's recent piece in The Review Review in which he conducts an experiment, taking a story published in The New Yorker, changing the name, and blanket-submitting it to "a slew of literary journals." Not one of the journals to which he submitted accepted the story, including The New Yorker itself.
I'm heartened not necessarily (OK, maybe a little bit) by what this ostensibly says about The New Yorker, but rather what it says about the reliability of first reads in determining literary worth and publishability. It hurts to be rejected in any sphere, much more in those spheres we consider ours, and it's easy to take those rejections personally. I've had a pretty good year of publications, which means I've only gotten an average of six rejections for every acceptance. And every rejection hurts, perhaps even more so when it seems like the reader didn't even read my piece past the first page.
But, having been an editor at Hunger Mountain Journal of the Arts for a couple years now, I know that many editorial decisions are made not necessarily or entirely on the merits of the worth, but on how the piece fits within the edition and/or aesthetic I'm currently working on, and I'm also aware of (and thankful for!) the fact that any piece I'm looking at has been vetted by one of our small army of slush-pile readers, each of whom has his or her own viewpoints and predilections on what makes a piece of writing publishable.
This is all to say that, yes, Cameron's piece is funny, because yes, it's true.
For more info on Kris's novel, go to Kris's website or his Amazon page.
In case you need a reality check on your March Madness dreams, Eric Hague has a wonderful piece up on The New Yorker. He consulted me on a couple of particulars, so you know who to blame if you don't think Kansas is the favorite.
New Resident Dad post up on A Child Grows in Brooklyn! This one chronicles the evolution of my homemade spaghetti sauce, from my apprenticeship with my mom to my obsession with The Godfather to growing my own tomatoes. Enjoy!
...I had today with my 3-year-old daughter, who is home with pink eye:
HER: "...And toys that hurt you are not toys."
ME: "No, they're not."
HER: "And crabs that pinch you are not toys."
ME: "No, those are real crabs."
ME: "I'll be back by dinnertime."
HER: <running into the room> "I didn't hear you."
ME: "What?"
HER: "I didn't hear you say you'll be back by dinner."
ME: "How'd you know I said it then?"
HER: <singing, while running out of the room> "Your name is dinnertiiiiiiime..."
In the first of my monthly series on parks and playgrounds for my Resident Dad column on A Child Grows in Brooklyn, I describe my experiences with the wonderful Jane's Carousel at Brooklyn Bridge Park, including its brush with the ocean during Hurricane Sandy. Enjoy!
Funny how by now I've written so much that the keystrokes of pretty much every word come naturally - then a word comes along that I don't type much AND most of its letters are on opposing sides of the keyboard, so I spell it wrong each and every time I use it. That word for me right now is "carousel."
I just added an "About" section to my website, and made it the homepage. And yes, I'm working on getting the title and headings *below* the photo - I'm much better with words than I am with images.
This morning on my way to the train I found a used copy of Infinite Jest, which I've been thinking should be my next long book to read, on the street. Then, rereading Virginia Woolf's "Street Haunting" on the train, I came across this:
"Second-hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack. Besides, in this random miscellaneous company we may rub against a complete stranger who will, with luck, turn into the best friend we have in the world."
I love these serendipitous meetings of thought and occurrence. They remind me of my place as a little pebble of the endless stream of time and consciousness. I also read this line from Goethe, along with quotes from Ulysses, Ovid, Jung, and Mother Goose, in the tiles lining the long, dank underground walkway that snakes between the F and the 7 trains under Bryant Park:
“The unnatural—that too is natural.”
The tiles that surround the quotations, with mosaics and designs of tree roots and rock, make the whole corridor seem as much a part of the underground ecosystem as a well or an underground stream. The rush-hour flow of variant life-forms in the subway can sweep a soul along like a poor blue crab in flood tide, but at 6:00 this morning I still had time to tip the accordion player a buck, even listen to a whole song before getting to the 7.
The movement of New York City—24/7 public transit, city blocks that rarely look the same from year to year with new buildings going up, businesses closing and others springing forth eternally from the human breast—is simply an intensification of the cycle of birth, death, decomposition, and rebirth one can observe in the larger world. And anyone with a shred of perspective knows that death is itself a natural process—as long as it’s followed by regeneration, the process by which a species or a city carries on its strain after the death of individual organisms or organizations within it. If an environment becomes unsustainable for the organisms inhabiting it, though, death is in fact the end.
Not inclining toward any particular spiritual doctrine, I sometimes am bent over beneath the weight of my limited time among the living. My family gives me comfort at home, but my time on the train, walking the city streets, intensifies this sense of my own small place in the cycles of time and space. Finding a small book—or in the case of Infinite Jest a large book—with a familiar cover but an unknown interior is just as gratifying a pleasure as seeing a familiar face, in that it reminds me that I'm not alone on these streets, carried along by the pull of time and the tides of routine.
OK, back to work.
New post up on A Child Grows in Brooklyn, this one on my continually evolving Dancing Kiddos playlist on iTunes. For this post I focus on the subgenre of "Songs About Chickens."
In January 2013, I became "Resident Dad" for A Child Grows in Brooklyn, an online home for Brooklyn parents. I'm writing about my adventures with food, park-going, music-listening, and general anecdotes and information from my experience as a father of two girls, one three years old and the other a baby, to whom I refer affectionately in the column as Stringbean and Butterbean.
One of the primary homes my writing has found is with Numero Cinq, which founder/editor Douglas Glover calls "a warm place on a cruel web." As a writer, editor, and mentor, Doug has been one of my great influences. Almost every piece he published on NC went through extensive editorial back-and-forth before he accepted it for publication, and all of them are better for it.
The site will be changing and developing (hopefully) fairly rapidly over the next couple of months as I get my past and present work up and loaded, so do check back frequently!
Friends, I hope you'll use this site to keep in touch and see what I'm up to. Strangers, I want to know you! And I want you to know me. That's why I write.