Author: Brad Zellar

  • An Old Thing, from Somewhere Else: Something Heavy Being Carried Away

    I WAS 38 YEARS OLD and washing dishes in a strip bar, forced to wear a ridiculous chef’s hat because the place clung to its delusions and had the audacity to serve food. The all-you-can-eat chili special was a big draw with the oil boys from the refinery across the highway. I’d punch out at…

  • Let Nothing You Dismay: Rock the Bells

    It’s strange to me that nobody seems to expect anything in the way of an explanation these days. Nothing in the world surprises anyone anymore, unless, you know, someone decides to go all Jerry Bruckheimer with their rage. I guess I’m not a person who can live without explanations or surprise. Does the ticking of…

  • A Yo Ivanhoe Holiday Tradition

    Let’s suppose you –the hypothetical, perhaps wholly imagined You– stumble in here to Yo Ivanhoe on an occasional, one-time, or even purely accidental basis (one of those Google mishaps, say), completely unaware that this little futility closet is in fact a mere, very minor adjunct to a giant media empire (Rake Media Worldwide), which produces…

  • Also Noted

    Regarding Fidel Castro: My Life: A Spoken Autobiography (available January 8)— we’re curious about what the old man has to say, and we’re hoping for wardrobe and grooming tips, along with colorful yarns about outlasting ten American presidents. Plus, how can you resist a two-colon title? … As long as we’re pimping atheists and communists,…

  • Tod Wodicka

    The history of literature—up to and including the stuff piled on the new arrivals tables at your local bookstore—is crammed with oddballs and anachronisms. That said, it’s still a rare novel that can take such raw materials and make something truly funny, compelling, and moving out of them. Based on the early reports, Tod Wodicka’s…

  • John Allen Paulos

    Hot on the heels of the birth of Christ comes yet another assault on religious belief. God knows, the godless have been on the pop culture offensive of late (see: Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Philip Pullman et al.), and if the other side of the barricades didn’t have such an overwhelming historical foothold, you could…