January 2011
15 posts
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Parentheticals
(Kevin cleaned out our second bedroom/office/storage unit so that I could sit here and write a story, so he will probably be very disappointed when he finds that I’ve taken a break to write this.)
(I’ve been superstitious about saying anything—once you say that something’s going to happen, nothing ever happens—but since it looks like it’s actually going to...
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“What I really do is take real plums and put them in an imaginary cake.”
– Mary McCarthy (via theparisreview)
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What the Giant Eagle in My Pittsburgh Neighborhood...
Rotisserie chickens being torn off the shelves. People in Steelers windbreakers running through the aisles with economy-sized bags of potato chips tucked under their arms. No 2-liter bottles of Diet Coke left. Every thirty seconds, someone comes over the intercom and hurriedly announces the time and a deal on pre-made buffalo wings, then shouts “GO STEELERS!” And I am tempted, too...
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“Ms. Portman can now claim what appears to be a unique distinction: She may be...”
– Important Realizations, via A.O. Scott.
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Team Aniston
I’m planning to write a story from the collective consciousness of Team Aniston. Does this sound like something you would want to read? Because you’re probably going to have to, once I’m famous. It will most likely be taught in schools.
Jennifer Aniston has not made a movie I have wanted to see in nine years (with the possible exception of Rumor Has It, because the trailers for...
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The Story Problem: 10 Thoughts on Academia’s Novel... →
Cathy Day has this really wonderful essay at The Millions today. You will like it if you are an MFA student, or if you are a person who likes reading well-written things.
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WatchSteve Martin and Gilda Radner, “Dancing in the Dark,” Saturday Night Live, 1978.
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"Natural," by Julie Draper →
In workshops with Julie Draper, I tend to underline most of her sentences and surround them with exclamation points and comments like “YOU’RE KILLING ME HERE, DRAPER.” This is Julie Draper’s first published story and I guarantee you that one day as a nation we’ll all be reading her novels and sighing and crying and writing “YOU’RE KILLING ME HERE,...
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“The worst of Bath was, the number of its plain women. He did not mean to say...”
– Persuasion, Jane Austen (via everythingiread)
Somewhere towards the end of 2010, I began to realize my own capacity for anger—not that I was angry all the time, or even particularly angry when I was, but rather how quickly I could become angry at things which did not really warrant my anger (I started to realize it once I started listening to my own internal monologue as I walked down a street, which usually went something like...
Happy New Year
As far as I know, Planned Parenthood is the only place in America where people will say a Hail Mary for you both as you enter and as you exit.
