Arts & Living
Brevity Have you heard about the social networking Web site Twitter? It's a popular new way to communicate, but you must limit your messa
To Article...No Comment It's too bad that most of the remaining newspapers in America have boring names like the Times, the Post, the Herald, the Times-Post, the Post-Herald & Times, etc. I miss the old eccentric types of newspaper names: the Bugle-Beeblers, the Chronicle-Complainers, etc.
To Article...Illiterature The ad on Craigslist was from an Oakton company called Zirdland.com. Zirdland claims it has developed a software system that can electronically analyze the quality and commercial viability of a work of fiction and prompt changes that will make it better.
To Article...Why Did the Moron Write Jokes? According to a recent study, people who tell bad jokes often are subjected to outright hostility from listeners. When a linguist at Washington University assigned dozens of her students to tell the same bad joke in different social environments, most reported back that they were ridiculed, cussed at, even punched.
To Article...Gene's Blues I am on the phone with Erica Archambault, a jeans-products spokeswoman for Levi Strauss & Co. I have been relishing this conversation for weeks. I've boned up for it. I am asking Erica, as an authority on human morphology, if she can explain the disturbing disappearance from the planet of men who are 5-foot-10 with a medium build. Does it have something to do with global warming?
To Article...How to Get Rich Writing The following is excerpted from my recent speech to a National Writers Workshop:
To Article...The Sky's the Limit Memo to: Spirit Airways
To Article...A Big Joke Big-time investigative journalists such as Bob Woodward and me often rely on secret tips from insiders. Without giving away Bob's sources, I can reveal that he gets his best stuff from Cabinet members, five-star generals, disgruntled first ladies, etc., and the resulting stories tend to put people in jail or bring cherished institutions to their knees. My secret sources tend to be winos and graffiti, and the resulting stories have disclosed facts such as that women, unlike men, flush public toilets with their feet.
To Article...Fatal Subtraction I am currently on hold for the scariest phone call of my life. I am calling my personal physician to ask him to describe, for the record, to be put in this column verbatim, with comparisons to the national norm, the size and dimensions of my private parts.
To Article...Y Men Cheat During our frequent public arguments about the hostilities between the sexes, one thing Gina Barreca and I have agreed on is the obvious, self-serving fraudulence of a certain stubborn male excuse for bad behavior: that the urge to philander is innate, hard-wired into our genes to better perpetuate the species. Thus, it was with a sense of extreme mutual tragic sadness that Gina and I recently learned ...
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