Wes Phillips

Unabashedly liberal; unrepenitently literary. <I>Pogo</I> will always be <I>my</I> candidate for best comic strip ever. An appreciation from the <I>WaPo</I>.

I almost called Christopher Moore the funniest writer you've never heard of, but his sales indicate that an awful lot of people have not only heard of him, but have bought his books. He's not perzackly a household name, but I'd put him in the company of Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman, and Carl Hiiassen&mdash;you know, writers whose books you save for when you <I>need</I> a can't-fail pick-me-up.

But Damon Krukowski, drummer for Galaxie 500, has turned his back on the touring life to teach expository writing at Harvard. But that's just his day job&mdash;he still performs music around town with his wife as Damon & Naomi.

Thanks to Fred Manteghian.

I guess I never really thought about the uniqueness of sand, no matter how many times I heard that expression. <I>Microscopy</I> made me think about it&mdash;and the corollary notion that every beach and sandpit is unique as well.

The way I figure it, the least <I>Popular Science</I> can do is publish articles like this about jet-packs. If I recall correctly, it predicted we'd <I>all</I> have one in the Twenty-First Century.

My favorite: "I will not have Henry throwing tomatoes at a spinning fan blade whilst yelling at Montjoy."