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You've got to love people with too much spare time on their hands. At least, I love this.
Robert L. Jamieson, Jr. took a reader's dare to spend some time in Muslim countries and "see how they live over there." It didn't have the expected result.
Donald M. Murray died on Saturday, December 30. On Friday, he filed his last column. The Boston Globe ran his final column today.
Last week's column on writing was pretty fine, too.
Murray won a Pulitzer in 1954 and, as he pointed out in his December 26 column, kept turning down "promotions" to editor in order to remain a writer. In both newsrooms and classrooms, he taught the craft of writing.
From his obituary: "'What Don did was take the mystique and myth out of writing for so many in newsrooms and elsewhere who thought you just had to wait for inspiration to come,'…
Those closest to me know that I've been in a rut, musically speaking. I'm not talking about my hi-fi. The system sounds better than ever. Seriously. I press play and I just want to throw my hands up in the air and say "Fuuuuuuuuuudge." It simply sounds awesome. And I don't usually get so excited about such things, but the music consistently sets me back into my seat and makes me want to curse. I don't understand it, but there you go.
And I'm not talking about my library. As I write this, I'm listening to The Dears' Gang of Losers. I'm not yet familiar enough with…
Another breakthrough in mapping the brain. I'm thinking that one day we'll start to understand how it works, but at least now I know which part of my brain I'm thinking that with.
I like Adam Baratz's essay limning similarities between Robert Crumb and Frank Zappa.
I made a small noise.
"Sorry. What do you do for a living?" he asked, pressing his fingers into my gut.
"I'm an assistant editor for a magazine," I replied, taking a deep breath.
"Good. Now cough. What magazine?"
"Stereophile."
The doctor jumped back abruptly, tossed his arms into the air, made a jolly sound, and exclaimed, "Oh, you've made my day!"
What had he found? I wondered. "Oh?" I asked.
"I'm a fan, I'm a fan! Where are my magazines?" he asked, searching through a ragged stack of glossies hanging against the examination room…