Albert Goering, The Gestapo Chief’s Good Brother
From now till September I'll be profiling some of the historical personages and places you'll meet in my next novel, Summer Of Long Knives. I wanted to start on the…
Win A Signed Manuscript Copy of Summer of Long Knives
First off, there were no winners for So Over It #22. The answer is N. Sheffield Avenue in Chicago. The rooftops overlook Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs. The…
8 Signs That You Are A Conspiracy Theorist
THEY made me write this. Just kidding. No one made me write this. Or did they? All right, enough. We can all recognize the conspiracy theorist. Sometimes we've ended up…
Paul F. Tompkins Nails Our Gift For Self-Justification
Tompkins's insanely funny bit on the Chick-fil-a controversy (infants, ask your parents) reveals just what mad skills smart people have at spinning bullshit reasons to justify whatever they want to…
The Ten Opening Lines That Are Dearest to Me in Prose Fiction
In no particular order: This is the only story of mine whose moral I know. I don't think it's a marvelous moral; I simply happen to know what it is:…
Does Summer of Long Knives Pass the Page 99 Test?
The page 99 test arises from a quote from Ford Madox Ford, author of The Good Soldier, and one of the most important forces in early 20th century literary modernism: "Open the…
I’d Like To See Some Better Written Spam Please
Every so often I have take a small amount of time out of my day to delete the spam comments. And I have one request for the spammers. If you…
Peter Cook’s Short but Extremely Boring Story
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofUZNynYXzM&w=420&h=315]
So Over It Contest #22: No Clues This Time Edition
No winner for #21. The answer is the Debbie Reynolds Theater in North Hollywood. It was there in 1995 that I met stage and screen legend Debbie Reynolds. I…
How Did I Spend My Weekend? Wondering about Gallagher.
Because one of Venice's friends has a daughter who's recently gotten into tool-facilitated-vegetable-demolition, we started a conversation about the comedian Gallagher. Gallagher, for those who don't remember much about mid-1980s…