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October 9th, 2009
- Shoney’s “Employee of the Month” award, July 1979 (awarded on July 12, 1979)
- 1983 Clark County Pie-Eating Contest (Required ratio of boysenberry/cherry disputed)
- Academy Award, Best Supporting Actor, 1997 (for brief cameo in Gone Fishin’)
- MLK Elementary “Perfect Attendance” Award, 1969 (on three occasions simply recorded “present”)
- Grammy Award, Best R&B Song, 1998 (”I Believe I Can Fly” actually recorded by R. Kelly)
- Capitol Tavern “Kinky Quizzo” Semifinalist, January 2005 (seen using his Blackberry during a question)
- Moose Lodge “Perfect Package” Wet Underwear Contest champion, March 2009 (alleged to have employed a Jeff Stryker-model artificial dong)
- Miss Hawaii 1980 (Where’s the birth certificate???)
September 29th, 2009
This past Thursday and Friday, armed riot police invaded the University of Pittsburgh’s main campus. Ostensibly defending the visiting G-20 delegates meeting several miles away, these police in no way confined themselves to breaking up disruptions or protests. They attacked and arrested students who were making casual use of campus facilities including the student union and the residence halls. They trapped students between locked doors and police barricades and gassed or attacked them when they “refused to disperse.” They arrested student journalists and legal observers. They even invaded student housing, going to far as to arrest students for “refusal to disperse” within their own dorm rooms.
How has the University responded? With outrage at the treatment of students making typical use of University and public property? With warnings about overreaching police power and questions about closing an entire city to its residents because of a handful of visiting foreign nationals? Not exactly.
Continue reading Ashamed of my alma mater
September 23rd, 2009
Chuck at the Guide to Literary Agents blog reposted an article from author Debra Darvick (phew, that’s a lot of attribution), Ten Hidden Gifts of Rejection Letters. Not a bit too soon. For the past week or so rejection letters are all the mail I seem to receive. No worries though. I figure rejection happens quickly, but an offer will take a while.
Thought I’d share a story and a few photos from my Labor Day weekend backpacking trip to the Catskill Mountains. My friend Liz and I hauled our asses over the Burroughs Range Trail (AKA the Wittenberg-Cornell-Slide or WCS Trail) on Saturday, camped below the summit of Terrace Mountain, and returned on the Phoenicia-East Branch Trail on Sunday.
First things first. The folks at the NY/NJ Trial Conference who authored our guide maps have a talent for understatement. For those of you who may also be using these maps, be advised that “steep” in many cases means “near vertical,” and “challenging” means “soul crushing.”
 That is not a rock wall behind her. That is in fact the trail. Continue reading Rejection Letters / Backpacking the Catskills
September 18th, 2009
Recent posts by Kristin Nelson and Josh Olson (via Janet Reid) got me thinking about this.
At age 15 my writing abilities were far above those of my peers. Any essay I turned in, no matter how vapid, met universal praise. Many teachers assured me that this would one day be my career. It was very encouraging, but as a result I got lazy. I rarely did assigned reading, and when it came time for the book report I just churned out some flowery praise and waited for my A. No one ever seemed to notice that the pretty words said essentially nothing.
I participated in John Hopkins University’s “CTY” program four years in a row. It was one of the most important experiences of my life, socially much more than academically. In fact the social aspect of the program is probably why, when we were assigned a report on Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” I didn’t bother reading the book. I think I spent the assigned homework time writing some fiction of my own instead.
I turned in the usual tripe, one page front and back, and expected the usual praise. Instead, scrawled in red pen across the top of the page, I got this:
“Chris:
This paper would have been better used if you’d folded it into a paper airplane and thrown it out the window.”
It was Dr. Phil Boshoff who gave me that review. I was shocked at first, but even at that age I think I appreciated it. He didn’t coddle me because I was smart for my age. He saw that I hadn’t done the work, he knew I was capable of more, and he called me on it. In no unclear terms.
I kept that sheet for a while, but over the years I think it got lost. I wish I still had it. I would frame it and hang it over my writing desk.
September 17th, 2009
The new Flaming Lips album Embryonic, is streaming in its entirety over on Colbert Nation. I’ve been listening to it all day at work. This is a good day.
I’m currently “reading” Neil Stephenson’s The Diamond Age. I use the quotes because I am experiencing the novel on audiobook, as I do most of the novels I read. I walk half an hour each direction to and from work every day and usually walk for forty-five minutes on my lunch break, and it’s damned difficult (not to mention unsafe) to thumb a paperback while walking the busy streets of Center City Philadelphia. But it’s annoying to say “I’m listening to a book” and get odd looks from people, so I say “reading.” Anyway, I digress.
In this morning’s passage there was a line where one of the main characters, John Percival Hackworth, experiences relief “like a puff of opium smoke.” Or something very much like that – forgive me, it’s hard to look up quotes on an iPod. It called to my attention a little-discussed writing technique.
In writing classes you’re generally taught that there are three ways to reveal character to your reader. How the narrator describes the character, how other characters perceive the character, and how the character perceives herself. There is another way, tied in with point of view, and that is how that character perceives her world.
Continue reading Writing techniques: revealing character
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