Skip to content

Monthly Archives: September 2008

The New Cliché, Part Two

Monday, September 22, 2008

This is the last time I’ll be doing any kind of entry and labeling it “Part One” or “Part Two.” It’s becoming a new cliché of its own. Doesn’t it just mean I was too lazy to finish a blog entry in one sitting? Here are some more things you need to stop writing, saying, [...]

Filed in Writing | Tagged , , | Comments (9)

Hope at Starbucks

Friday, September 19, 2008

This morning I pulled into the Starbucks parking lot, thinking, “Why has that pick-up truck so callously taken my usual parking space?” Next to the truck was a man, early 40s, a permanent ruggedness and film of light grime on him as if he worked in construction or carpentry. He was talking to a teenager, [...]

Filed in Writing | | Comments (0)

We Know Nothing About David Foster Wallace

Monday, September 15, 2008

Let’s call the average U.S. lonely person Joe Briefcase. Joe Briefcase fears and loathes the strain of the special self-consciousness which seems to afflict him only when other real human beings are around, staring, their human sense-antennae abristle. Joe B. fears how he might appear, come across, to watchers. He chooses to sit out the [...]

Filed in Writing | Tagged | Comments (2)

My Date with Amy Hempel

Monday, September 1, 2008

I run a nonprofit writing center, Word Street, that provides free tutoring and writing instruction to kids, and one thing I like to do to raise money is get writers to come to lovely downtown Pittsfield, Massachusetts to read for the people. This year it was Lydia Davis and Amy Hempel on April 17. These [...]

Filed in Writing | Tagged , , | Comments (8)