Remember the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, when Bob Dylan blew the eardrums of his die-hard fans by plugging in his electric guitar? Of course not; you weren’t alive — or if you were, you probably weren’t listening to Bob Dylan (yet). In that now-legendary move, Dylan began a decades-long career defined by chronic self-reinvention. And [...]
Writer’s block is as much a part of being a writer as banging your head against the wall in frustration when publisher’s don’t return your calls. I jest, but seriously — it doesn’t matter how successful you are or what kind of writing you do; if you’re a writer, you’ve been stuck. Not anymore, if [...]
There are perfumes inspired by flowers, spring rain, and even sex. Well, maybe not sex, but you can buy pheromones in a bottle, to be spritzed on like Chanel No. 5 on a Saturday night. Add “freshly printed books” to the list of come-hither scents available for purchase at Macy’s. (Disclaimer: I haven’t confirmed that [...]
Here is an example of something I do in my classroom, room 209, when conflict arises, which it inevitably does when almost thirty teenagers remain in a room with four walls, one of which is less than functional as a wall, for ninety minute periods. This is the scenario: A student thinks that she should [...]
There is a moment in Louis Malle’s excellent 1981 film My Dinner With Andre that has stuck with me since I first saw the movie almost 20 years ago. Wallace Shawn, playing himself, is on his way to meet Andre Gregory for dinner at a fancy restaurant in Midtown Manhattan. He takes the subway, a [...]
It wasn’t the great science fiction novels, “Fahrenheit 451” or “The Martian Chronicles,” that most reflected Ray Bradbury’s life, but a play he wrote—”Something Wicked This Way Comes”— “It’s a metaphor for all of life,” Bradbury said of his play, which you may know better as a 1983 movie starring Jonathan Pryce, Jason Robards and [...]
Mitt Romney has declared one of his first promises as a would-be president, to provide children the opportunity to attend any public school in the state in which they live without additional cost. This means, theoretically, that a kid in one district could go to school in another one, provided there’s room for him there. [...]
Leave it to David Carr to let us know what’s what. Yesterday’s New York Times featured a classic Carr piece (no pun intended, honestly) about Atavist, a new Web-publishing platform that allows publishers to “seamlessly weave together their text, video, audio, photos, maps, interactive graphics, and timelines” in a multimedia “environment.” Atavist also produces its [...]
When I was a kid, Where the Wild Things Are was my favorite book. It was also my mother’s favorite book to read to my brother and me. My niece Anya, now three, has loved it since she was old enough to understand narratives. Last I checked, it was her favorite book, too. Every time [...]
NPR ran a story last week suggesting that contrary to popular belief, millennials — those early 20-somethings who can send a text faster than you can speed-dial your best friend from a cordless phone — actually read newspapers. Not “newspapers” in digital format; newspapers — on paper. Of course, the number isn’t high enough to [...]
“The Art of Fielding” by Chad Harbach Back Bay Books, 2012 Henry Skrimshander is a fairly unremarkable young man in most aspects– arriving at his first day of college he is undeniably scrawny, has brought with him only one book, and possesses neither the intelligence nor the charm necessary to earn the attention of his [...]
The day my short story collection Surrounded by Water became available for pre-order, I saw an unusual body along the highway. Not banded like a raccoon or delicate like a cat. This was large, like a dog, but with feetish black things, and an eye-catching chocolate brown coat. I had to u-turn around to look [...]
Here is a truth about ghostwriting that I never knew until now: You can write about practically anything in the first-person — except death. One week ago today, an old friend died after fighting cancer for three and a half years. He was just 51 and had a wife, two young children, and countless friends [...]
I’ve come around. No longer do I wish to disparage apps and technology in favor of books and reading by kerosene. To be fair, I’ve never done the latter, but I do own a lot of books and I don’t plan on getting rid of them. One thing I don’t own, still, is an iPad [...]