Saturday, February 19, 2011

Joe Posnanski on books and bookstores

The always marvelous Joe Posnanski , who writes about sports and wrote one of the best books I've ever read about Negro League star and baseball legend Buck O'Neil has a lovely piece up about bookstores, a part of modern life that seems to be fading away, and a part of modern life that I am inordinately, passionately fond of. Read it.




"Connection. That seems to be the thing that books can offer that is a little bit different from anything else ... a way to bridge that gap, a way to cut the space between us. Sometimes when I'm in a bookstore, I will see someone I don't know looking at a book I loved, and I want to run over and shout: "You don't know me but please buy that book! I don't know you, but if you are the kind of person I hope you will love it!"

Of course I don't ever do that. And nobody ever does that to me. Not even the person at the checkout counter."




100 Words: Obsessed by Twitter

This week, for Velvet Verbosity's 100 Word Challenge, I'm going a little different route. The word is "Obsession", and I searched Twitter for the word "Obsessed", and what follows is 100 Words of what people in the Twitterverse say they are obsessed with. This is going to skew young, and a little bit silly, of course, but I have curated and arranged it in a hopefully appealing way. All names are removed, of course. So what follows is a little capsule of this moment in time, inspired by Harper's magazine- 100 Words: Twitter is Obsessed With:









you
Justin Bieber
Phineas and Ferb
this dress
Jennifer Aniston
Taylor Swift
comparing football to baseball
the color red
the front seat of the car and the back seat of the bus
Ecco the Dolphin
ringtones for IPhone
avocados
babies
Jack's Mannequin t shirts
golden delicious apples
Twitter
Dancing On Ice
Randall nature videos
The Lion King
working out
fashion
money
extensions
boys
calling yourself the fat friend
their looks
quality of images
outlaw country
eBay
trucks
retweeting
eating crushed ice
guitar
straws
Sugarland
their phones
sneakers
Scott Pilgrim
the way he looks
the smell of new books
me


Thursday, February 17, 2011

Friday Flash: When The Music's Over

This week's 52/250 Flash theme is "The Money's Gone". My story is called "When The Music's Over", and it can be found here

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Surely there's some mistake

No, there's no mistake. And stop calling me Shirley.

The fine folks at 52/250 (52250flash.wordpress.com) graciously declined a story of mine- as is their right. It is their dojo, and I'm just a squirrel trying to get a nut. But so that it will live on, and not die in infamy, I will put the story here. The theme is "Broken Shells", and the title is "Won't Get Fooled Again".






I had missed her call- caught up in a basketball game, I had not heard my phone's silent summons. The message was incoherent- sobbing, broken up with an occasional clear word. He had hit her again. I was fumbling for my keys before the message had stopped playing, and I was already driving to her apartment when the message finally ended.

She had made me a key 3 weeks ago when I had to drive her home for the fourth time in one week. He never knew that I had it. I opened the door, hearing the TV blaring, David Caruso trying to solve another crime. She was laying on the couch, her head back, her eyes closed, utterly silent. She was beautiful- but she never let me call attention to her looks. I answered her calls because I liked her. And because I loved her, too.

She was naked, I noticed, under a fleece blanket. She wasn't making any of the sounds that sleeping people make- the snorts, the murmurs, the wheezes. On the table in front of her was a bottle of wine, three quarters empty, and a prescription bottle tipped on its side. There were empty halves of capsules on the table, along with traces of a white powder. I could see trails, like a finger had been dragged through the powder.

David Caruso spoke to us on the TV screen. "You don't have to pull the trigger to be the killer."

Monday, February 14, 2011

Four Balls For A Walk

The fine folks at You, Me, and Religion have published an interview with, well, me. Hard to imagine why, but it's there for your amusement and/or enlightenment.

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It's been featured here a number of times, but Velvet Verbosity hosts the 100 Word Challenge, which is fun, educational, and could restore free breathing as fast as 15 seconds. You should give it a shot. It's fun.

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I've told you Kelly is a force of nature to be reckoned with. Pieces like this prove my point.

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Pitchers and Catchers have reported. It is spring, everybody.