This guy called me up yesterday and asked me to put together a list of what I thought were the funniest novels of all time. This is the sort of thing that’s usually a piece of cake for me, and I responded with enthusiasm to the idea. I figured I could come up with the … Read more
Lackluster openers are disproportionately disappointing, particularly when watched indoors on the nicest day of the year so far. At times like these it would be wise for distraught Twins fans to keep in mind former Baltimore manager Earl Weaver’s famous quip: “This ain’t a football game. We do this every day.” Or at least pretty … Read more
We detect a recurring meme on the subject of product placement as an alternative to advertising. An article last week in the Times made it clear that the cost to place a product in a popular TV show or movie can be roughly the same as buying an equal amount of advertising, and the impact … Read more
Housman Horace Diffugere Nives by A. E. Housman Horace, Odes, iv, 7 The snows are fled away, leaves on the shaws And grasses in the mead renew their birth, The river to the river-bed withdraws, And altered is the fashion of the earth. The Nymphs and Graces three put off their fear And unapparelled in … Read more
This poor kid from the secondary division downstairs used to come up to my office all the time and ask me what it was all about. What the hell was I supposed to tell him? He thought he was going places. He thought he was doing something; he thought we all were. So I was … Read more
Early in my adolescence I played baseball one summer on a traveling team with this fat kid from a smaller town fifteen miles from the place where I grew up. I swear, this guy was the funniest, most bitterly cynical fourteen-year-old on the planet. He was also the best hitter I ever played with or … Read more
Before he died, the Holy Father admonished the anti-Christ by John Donne Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so, For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow, Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures … Read more
by Percy Bysshe Shelly SWIFTLY walk o’er the western wave, Spirit of Night! Out of the misty eastern cave,— Where, all the long and lone daylight, Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear Which make thee terrible and dear,— Swift be thy flight! Wrap thy form in a mantle grey, Star-inwrought! Blind with thine hair … Read more
Ken Auletta had a nice article in last week’s New Yorker asking the question we’ve been asking around here recently—does advertising work? The short answer, we think, is that advertising is just like any other “content.” If it’s good, it works. If it’s bad, it doesn’t. That doesn’t go very far in describing or explaining … Read more
—Dan Corrigan, “Eddie Potomac,” from the Ballroom Portraits, Rhinelander, Wisconsin. 1978. I worked side-by-side with this guy for seven years. Shooter Devaney. He’d been a hotshot basketball player back in high school, but something went wrong somewhere along the line, just like something went wrong for so many of the guys I grew up with, … Read more