I love television. Loves it! The only thing that is better than watching television is eating while watching television. I especially love what I call “helper television.” It’s vulgar entertainment with a psychology lesson—all rolled into one fun-filled half hour. Do you live in a filthy, dysfunctional, crap-clogged house? Then I guarantee one of your … Read more
Being brought up in a family with three doctors gives one an odd outlook on life. It was not just the anatomy textbooks, with their foggy monochrome photographs, that rubbed shoulders with the wildflower guides and J.B. Priestley novels in the family library. Nor was it only the medical advertisements that came in triplicate by … Read more
We’ve all done things we’re ashamed of—line dancing, acting innocent after unleashing something silent but deadly, heresy. If by chance you just thought to yourself, “Not me!” Well, the heck with you. Tell you what. Save yourself some time and page through to another article, because I think you’re lying. Twenty years ago, I had … Read more
Take a piece of paper and write on one side: “The statement on the other side of this page is untrue.” Then turn the piece of paper over and write the same thing on the other side. Then apply for a tenure-track position in a university philosophy department, where they will tell you that this … Read more
People will tell me anything. I have that kind of face. I got it from years of practice. When I was a waitress, I’d listen to people all day long and smile at nice folks and nitwits alike. My livelihood depended on my genial expression. In time, it bled over into my daily life. My … Read more
I have often thought that the Forty Martyrs of Sebasteia should be the patron saints of Minnesota. Never mind that they are most likely mythical; they can stand for all the other martyrs the Romans executed in the first three centuries A.D. And the myth is certainly appropriate to our chilly state. The Forty, it … Read more
When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up to be a lot of things. I wanted to be Carol Burnett. I wanted to be a trapeze artist, performing death-defying loop de loops high above the crowds while wearing a dazzling bikini made entirely of rubies and sapphires. I wanted to be a kindergarten … Read more
Heaven knows the European Community (or whatever they are calling it this week) fails to warm the cockles of the English heart. (How would you like life in Minnesota regulated in detail by a bloated bureaucracy, living on expense accounts in a foreign land?) But one of its pleasanter side effects has been a scheme … Read more
I just saw a television commercial for a self-parking car. I don’t know, folks, but it seems that if you just had one of these, you could add an automatic flushing toilet and a pre-mixed Smirnoff canned drink and Friday night would pretty much plan itself. If they could figure out how to apply the … Read more
After twelve happy years in Oxford, the happy year I spent in Cambridge was a far greater culture shock than (several years later) coming to Minnesota. The first thing I learned was that in Cambridge, it is not polite to be rude to people. If you say, “I read your book; what a lot of … Read more