Wes Phillips

Roy Blount, one of my favorite writers, was just elected head of the Author's Guild, to which I belong. Yay us!

Chet Raymo has a nice essay rebutting Larry Dossey's screed about why science doesn't accept the wisdom of alternative medicine gurus such as Depak Chopra et al.

"At the rager the chicks come and go
Talking about art or something, I don’t know."

Heuristics—and Dan Goldstein—say not necessarily. A more pop-culturish explanation is presented on Goldstein's">http://www.dangoldstein.com/dsn/archives/2006/03/malcolm_gladwel_1.html… blog, where he shouts out to an excellent Malcolm Gladwell interview on ESPN.

Even with lobsters—or is it the blonde thing?

When I worked as a corporate speechwriter, my hardest job was weaning people off of their PP dependency and getting them to tell me what they did in conversational rhythms rather than bullet points. The people who downloaded the most data in pre-speechwriting interviews and delivered the best speeches at the events were the ones who'd never used that "gateway" program.

The biggest problem with many consumer products these days is that the people who make 'em never figured out what they needed to be. That's why I have an all-in-one printer/scanner/fax machine I have never figured out how to send a fax with. I could read the manual I suppose, if I ever figure out which pile of papers it's under.