paul harding wins pulitzer

Paul Harding, Wrtiers' Workshop classmate, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction today for his novel, Tinkers. Hooray!

plymouth, part two

When my friend Bubba lived in the Yoop, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, he liked to talk about one day making Munising a "Bohemian Utopia." Having spent time in Munising during summers growing up, I thought it was kind of a stretch. It's located on the south shore of Lake Superior, with the famed Pictured Rocks nearby, but otherwise, there's not much really to work with.

Plymouth, Wisconsin, on the other hand, is ripe for a hipster invasion.

Downtown is filled with under-utilized buildings that with equal parts imagination, hard work and money, could really shine with quirky, unprofitable businesses. Just to the north, is a vast neighborhood of homes in various states of repair, but most with good bones, stately trees and owners who probably could be bought out of big city life. Plus, it's rural Wisconsin, so it's chock full of ironic delights, including a county fairground with a dirt car race track, a river named after a bad haircut, and an iconic Holstein to greet your return from the three-storey Kohler design center in Kohler.

I guess there are two types of bohemians in the world — those who travel and those who create destinations. So come and build your dream. I'll make sure to come by and visit. Eventually.

plymouth, wi part one

I went for a walk on Good Friday. Between my father's apartment and the Mullet river — no lie — there's a small graveyard. I cut through it, pleased that so many of the century-old cement plank markers hadn't been vandalized and mended, carefully avoided those standing at sites because of the holiday.

In the corner overlooking the middle school and the river, I stumbled upon an area reserved for children. It was the saddest piece of real estate I've ever walked. Some of the markers only had year listed, some only a day. One didn't even offer a name: "INFANT SON OF S.L. LUECK."

Another marker had the dates 1903–1920. Two images crossed my mind: one of a patient young lady who liked to baby sit and another of a sullen girl forced to dine the children's table during Thanksgiving.

I wonder if there was solace for the parents in sharing. See? It is not uncommon. A dozen others here, and this the small town's smallest cemetery. I doubt it was any comfort, and hope to never know.

oh, detroit

If you don’t listen to This American Life, I urge you to check out the episode covering the history of the Toyota-GM factory in California — NUMMI. Listen to all the loving details of how Japan shared its assembly system and how GM learned to build high-quality cars, then didn’t implement the knowledge company-wide for over 15 years.

spring!

Yesterday, while driving from Detroit to Wisconsin to visit my father, I saw wind surfers on Lake Michigan. It was 83 degrees out, with strong winds and, holy smokes, were those guys flying. It was on that marshy stretch between the Gary smokestacks and the big Skyway bridge. You think between the refinery and Chicago, the water there would be so polluted you could roller skate across it, but I’ve seen folks fishing in there in the summer.

vision thing

A couple of months ago, I asked my friends on Facebook if I would be a traitor to fellow writers if I bought an ebook reader, such as a Kindle or Nook. Fact is, my eyes had been killing me and I was very attracted to the idea of making type larger. I was hoping for some heated opinions on the question — I was willing to follow the crowd if the trend said to go for it, or lay off if it went the other way. 

Only one person bothered to respond (thanks, Antoine!). 

So I either have a bunch of unopinionated friends, or friends who don’t read my posts. Without someone telling me what to do, and being a cheapass by nature, I decided not to get a reader.

I’m glad I didn’t. 

I lost my job about a month ago. In my last year at the agency that foolishly let me go, I did a tremendous amount of writing in Photoshop (for emails), which if you know anything about page layout, it’s the equivalent of writing in handcuffs on a window facing the morning sun. The program isn’t made for intensive copy, which didn’t seem to concern anyone except the people who actually create the documents. 

I do not like programmers, no I don’t. 

Since being let go, my vision has improved noticeably. This, at a time when I’m reading considerably more. I’m never going to write like that for a living again. Unless I’m overpaid. Then, of course, any way you want it, sir or madam. 

RELATED: The New York Times has an article on book covers and free advertising in the digital age. 

david brooks = william satire

As a child, I was abandoned by my parents and lived with a colony of ants. We didn’t have much in the way of material possession, but we did have each other and the ability to carry far more than our own body weights.

David Brooks, 29 August 2008 Op-Ed, New York Times

a former elven wizard expresses his condolences

Nice obit on Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons. I began playing in 1980, and didn't stop for a time longer than I'm willing to admit publicly. I didn't realize his involvement in TSR, the company he created to sell the game, ended in 1985, nor that he was a big proponent of the role playing aspect of the game. Reading, and rereading the rules, one had the sense Gary just was the dice and chart guy.

(For the counterpoint of Gygax's legacy, check out the Gygax obit on Slate. Be sure to check out readers' reactions to the story. Cogent + Geeky = No wonder you didn't get laid until the Internet company you founded issued its IPO.)

Of interest in the photo -- not me, by the way; google image seach -- is the purple dice bag. Seen it before? Course you have! It's a Crown Royal velvet baggy thingy. Much coveted in the high school geek world. The pointed ears, not so much.

arbuckle

In 1978, Jim Davis began a newspaper comic strip called Garfield. For almost thirty years, this strip has endured, primarily because its inoffensive, storyless humour is immediately accessible. It is, if not quite the Lowest Common Denominator of the comic world, at least as close to it as one can get without being obviously mediocre.

The comic changes dramatically when one removes the thought bubbles.

Garfield changes from being a comic about a sassy, corpulent feline, and becomes a compelling picture of a lonely, pathetic, delusional man who talks to his pets. Consider that Jon, according to Garfield canon, cannot hear his cat's thoughts. This is the world as he sees it. This is his story.

"i was attracted to permanency"

Excellent profile in the NY Times on Manny Vega. I love reading and hearing artists talk shop. The slide show is the real treasure, though: the woefully titled, Manny Vega and His ‘Hip Hop Byzantine’ Art. Great work and insight. The printed article does have its merits, however.

“Everybody wants instant art,” he said. “This is old school. A good design, some good materials, and shut up and do the work. There is no shortcut.”

photo id required, pointless

From the New York Times slideshow coverage of the recent national elections in Pakistan. Note the woman on the left; now that's my kind of modesty!

And, yes! Semicolons are fun!

don't call it a comeback because it never left

One of the school system’s most notorious graduates, David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam serial killer who taunted police and the press with rambling handwritten notes, was, as the columnist Jimmy Breslin wrote, the only murderer he ever encountered who could wield a semicolon just as well as a revolver.

Celebrating the Semicolon in a Most Unlikely Location, New York Times.

if you're reading this, you don't need to be reading this

The problem is not just the things we do not know (consider the one in five American adults who, according to the National Science Foundation, thinks the sun revolves around the Earth); it's the alarming number of Americans who have smugly concluded that they do not need to know such things in the first place.

Susan Jacoby, 02-17-08 op-ed, Washington Post. The NYT reviews her book here, The Age of American Unreason.

best book i've read since the interloper

My friend, Antoine, kept bugging me until I finally read, Then We Came To The End. I wouldn't call it dead on in terms of what it's like to work in an advertising agency, but the characters and story are rich and wonderful and human. I can't recommend this book highly enough. Read it.

lisa can see you, now

The ticklish buzz of clippers on your neck, the chimpanzee satisfaction of being groomed. 

belated book plug, just in time for holiday shopping

Antoine Wilson, ’00 classmate and great friend, released his first book this year, The Interloper, — a concise, chilling and darkly comic novel of revenge and the human heart. And you don’t just have my word for it. Others have written glowingly of the book and its plot (link includes reviews from Publishers Weekly, The New Yorker, Booklist). What I would add regards A’s growing skill as a writer. Rereading it again, I was struck by the relentlessness and deftness of each line; every word matters, but none seemingly more so than any other, all to a powerful affect. Frankly, I’m jealous.

For those of you who’ve wondered what it’s like to do a book tour, you can find an interesting account of Antoine’s appearances at his blog, Wot-What.

poetic justice

My one-time pal GM Quinte has been impersonated. You can almost catch the eurostink of Nat Shermans and Valfraise wafting off the thrift-store shirt. Bravo, rogue actor! I almost thought it was you who still owed me money. Dry cleaning ain't socialized in this country, bub. Reagan saw to that.

what is the proper emotional response?

A car directly in front of me at a red light had a bumper sticker that read, "Someone I loved was killed by a drunk driver. I'm MADD." When the light changed, the car didn't move until I beeped. That's when I noticed the driver was talking on a cell phone. Being drunk isn't like being on the phone, but being on the phone isn't like not being on the phone.

ha ha ha

i'm a big boy, now

A tour of the Little League record books shows that, for an American team, success is found by riding on the coattails of a hypertrophic hulk-child.

Thanks: Slate!