Brad Zellar In the unsavoury annals of polyphagy, the worst glutton of all time was the Frenchman known as Tarrare. It is not known if Tarrare was his real name or a nickname, but it has survived in such expressions as “Bom-bom tarare!” and “Tarrare bom-de-ay!” referring to powerful explosions or fanfares and, by inference Tarrare’s own … Read more
Brave new world, but in actuality not terribly brave and hardly new. At any rate: welcome to my world. I’ve crawled into a new hole, a new little closet where I’ll play my out-of-tune piano for the wee beasties in the floor boards. And for you –whether you exist or not is really no sweat … Read more
One recent afternoon, I tried dialing up Fred Hribar, my old typewriter repairman. I got a busy signal, which I hoped for Fred’s sake was as promising as it was anachronistic. When I eventually managed to get him on the line I said, “How’s business?” “There ain’t none,” Fred said with a chuckle. You won’t … Read more
That afternoon, I remember, I’d attempted to perform back surgery on a dwarf who had gotten so stooped and hump-shouldered that she could barely walk. Neighborhood children had been throwing rocks at her for years. She was brilliant and very funny, but struggled with a terrible speech impediment, and was also cursed with a disastrous … Read more