The village of Hollywood was planned according to the notion People in these parts have of heaven. In these parts They have come to the conclusion that God Requiring a heaven and a hell, didn’t need to Plan two establishments but Just the one: heaven. It Serves the unprosperous, unsuccessful As hell – Bertolt Brecht, [...]
First, for those of you not stuck in the pop culture tar pit, a definition. Hipster: a youngish person, comfortably middle-class, with a strong interest in current popular music and a defined set of tastes in fashion, food, and other cultural matters. Unlike some youth cultures, their look and tastes have been static for a [...]
Wrong number email and text messages are a joy. I’ve had email addresses with just a first name or simple word and received everything from a detailed thank your for a weekend-o-sex to a nauseating consumer complaint about a yeast infection remedy. Sometimes it’s just Kismet, though. Years ago I got a mistaken invitation to [...]
I’ll start by asking you as a personal favor to read this whole thing. I know that the Internet is TL;DR, but it’s important to me that everyone read this. Thanks. This is about my friend Peter Brayman. Pete grew up in a small rural town in New York. He was a New York State [...]
On further investigation, big chunks of the story about my father’s crib book and its effects were completely inaccurate. In particular, the meat of the thing is rotten: Fred’s life arc began with books and also with collecting, and he was all along a bibliophile. The original post has been edited to reflect this; please [...]
My father was a skilled and productive writer. He published many novels, including the recently reissued National Book Award nominee The Balloonist. There were a few non-fiction books as well: some early scholarly work about Italian literature, a book about solo sailing around the world, and a series of literature study guides for students with [...]
In the news today, an 800-year-old Easter Egg: Giotto sneaked the Devil into a painting of St. Francis of Assissi. They speculate that he was annoyed with someone. Took some guts to do that, too. Disney may get very angry at little jokes in their movies but they haven’t yet burned someone at the stake [...]
Five years ago I revealed that an unknown number of public figures were created as clones of the late great absurdist comedian Andy Kaufman. That article is linked here: Theory: We Are All Andy Now. This was a tremendous breakthrough. Without this knowledge, we would have been powerless against an army of Andys. It’s been [...]
I have had a Zazzle Store for quite a while and never really promoted it, but I have a total of TWO products. 1. The “Bob is Love” U.S. postal stamps, in a variety of denominations, featuring a touching and artistical black & white photo of Mr. Bob Trout, my best friend and an icon [...]