An awesome poem.
Don’t Let Your Mouth Write a Check Your Butt Can’t Cash
We should all be
so sure the check’s in the mail & the cash in the bank & the bank
in the black—forgive me the promises I took back:
For I could not keep you, lover, entertained—I would give you the circus
but when we walked past, carnies pulled up their stakes & down the tent
came—to stubs in the dirt, crushed papercups, one blue sequin stuck
to your boot heel...
From the pages of the New York Times is this interactive USA map of the 2010 Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index:
This, my friends, is the greatest breakfast cereal in the history of breakfast cereals:
On Poetry Daily, Alan Michael Parker has a devastating poem about lost children and ghosts and shame. Here's a quote: "Once when was son was young/I drove off without him..."
Hey, I've published a very short story in the latest issue of The Stranger. It's about grasshoppers.
These National Geographic DNA tests have already shown how closely related all of us are, but they will shock the hell out of you if you do it. You're definitely going to learn that your ancestors kept biological secrets...
Yes, I am also confused that I am in agreement with a writer for Forbes. It is long past time that online retailers begin paying the same state and local taxes that physical retailers must pay.
So The New Yorker has a very sad and amusing story about wealthy political donors and how needy they are for attention from President Obama. He, true to his political and personal nature, barely participates in that courtship dance, while Republican politicians seem to be quite, um, promiscuous with their donors. And it seems that Obama's reluctance to smooch babies-diapered-with-cash has hurt his reelection campaign fundraising because his previous donors are miffed that he hasn't paid enough attention to them (not surprisingly, President Clinton is a master of flattering billionaires).
Though their marketing efforts might not make it clear (come on, IndieBound, get a little louder about these things), independent bookstores do sell e-books and have ebook reading apps for Android and Apple.
I am obsessed with lists. Well, since I am medicated for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, I guess that means that I'm officially obsessed with lists. Here is a Top Ten List of the Most Horrifying Moments in the Bible.
Ron Padgett is one of my very favorite poets. He's so funny and wise and moves in such unexpected directions. Here's a great one:
photo by Andrey Armyagov used by Shutterstock license
The Drink
I am always interested in the people in films who have just had a drink thrown in their faces. Sometimes they react with uncontrollable rage, but sometimes-my favorites-they do not change their expressions at all...
My friend, Jess Walter, has seen his novel, Beautiful Ruins, rise to #12 on The New York Times Bestseller List.
You know, this one time, I saw SpongeBob at the Wellpinit Powwow, and he was Chicken Dancing...
So NPR ran an online reader's survey to determine the Top 100 Teen Books and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian finished 31st, between Tuck Everlasting and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
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Patton Oswalt, one of our greatest comedians, gave the keynote speech at the Montreal Just for Laughs Festival this year and it's revelatory.
The fundamental changes in the comedy world mirror the fundamental changes in the literary world.
And Oswalt's challenges to artists and Hollywood are fascinating...
The late Grant McLennan, solo and with The Go-Betweens, was a songwriting genius. Here's my favorite song of his:
