Just for Fun Friday: When She Broke English

Yesterday, a wonderful and awful thing happened: this piece of overwrought high middle school scribbling was published over at Thought Catalog. It's not just that it's bad -- it's that it is so terrible that one has to wonder if it's actually satirical commentary on the state of American education. A sample:

When she closed her eyes sometimes she could smell him, his pungent body odor, the way she possessed it when their blushing bodies rubbed together in awkward embrace, her soft fleshy thigh against his, his flushed chest against her beating breast. She remembered most the heavy weight of his naked body when he shuddered against her, relaxed his muscles, and eased into her torso, those rare moments where the whole world fell away and they became nothing more than each other, an ugly fleshy mass of hair and limbs that was her primal perfection. Then they would sit for hours, nude, absorbed in nothingness, and those were the moments she loved best. She would feed him cheese on crackers and he would turn to her with an expression of complete surprise; it was in those moments that it seemed like he had only just laid his eyes on her for the first time, and while he was momentarily absorbed in a rapt wonderment she would gorge herself on his love.

The unintended consequences of abstinence only sex ed: torso sex. With cheese and crackers.

I could go on for hours, but you really should just read it in its entirety. Additionally, I highly recommend the dramatic reading of this literary monstrosity, as performed by Ms. Emily Crockett:



Remember kids: don't play Mad Libs with a thesaurus. It's not a toy.

Have a good weekend!

bellum medicamenti delenda est

Just for Fun Thursday

Man, sometimes the Onion just hits a little too close to home.


I'm Only Really Happy When I'm Writing, Or When I'm Having Lots Of Fun With My Friends And Family

Ouch.

Just for Fun Friday

"Reasons to Date Writers" as critiqued by a writer.

Also, for those of you less amused by writer's humor, the latest internet sensation:

Every Little Step with Mike Tyson & Wayne Brady from Mike Tyson

I Published!

So I finally published another piece. It's a lighthearted riff on baseball. You can find it over at Wunderkammer Magazine.

Where I've Been

I am acutely aware of my recent blogging drought. It isn't for lack of desire or material, believe me. Rather, I have been making a concerted effort to focus my research and, consequently, my writing on a narrower range of topics. (I was also on vacation.) This will never be a simple, one or two topic blog, but my writing has been inconsistent and, at times, too reactionary. The insta-comment is inherent to the nature of blogging, but I've noticed that my reaction and desire to get a comment out right away has compromised my analysis, even in the short term. Part of this process of focus has also forced me to reevaluate my writing style and the aims of this blog.

As far as I know, I have two primary audiences that read this blog with any regularity. The first was my primary intended audience when I started this blog back in 2007: the everyday "real" American that is too busy being a productive member of society to pay attention to much of what goes on in Washington and, probably, someone who doesn't have a sophisticated or fully flushed-out political ideology. (Perhaps a preconceived and probably right-leaning political allegiance, but without the ability to distinguish Burke from Rousseau.)

The second audience is a small number of colleagues and counterparts in the DC area: wonks, for lack of a better term.

Most of what I have written on this blog is of little interest to wonks: they know it already. My analysis, whether one agrees with it or not, tends to be simple-to-digest and more concerned with principle than  nuanced policy argument. As I try to make my transition into the established DC wonkatariat, I need to address issues that make them think, instead of making them simply nod or roll their eyes.

Thus, going forward, the intent of this blog is to integrate more nuanced policy arguments into my writing without getting too far into wonkspeak and talking beyond the people from whom this blog--and my original column at the IDS that shared its name--was originally intended. I know that, at times, I will fail one audience in favor of the other, but I hope to minimize those failures and develop my own voice that bridges the large divide between the place I come from and the place I am today.

Comments always welcome.

JPB

NB: I don't necessarily at all stand behind some of what I wrote when I was at the IDS. The transition from life-long Republican to small "L" libertarian was a process that was in its infant stages the year I was at the paper.

Hey Joe! Where You Goin with That Pen in Your Hand?

As I noted in my last post, I hadn't published in awhile. Sure, I've been writing on this blog for over a year now and in a couple other places under assumed names or ghostwriting, but I'd been having difficulty finding my voice when I immerse myself in the writing of so many brilliant, talented, and entertaining journos and authors that I am lucky enough to count among my friends. It's pretty intimidating, to be honest.

Anyway, I enjoyed reading this today in the NYT, describing why "Joe the Plumber" shouldn't be published:

Most of the writers I know work every day, in obscurity and close to poverty, trying to say one thing well and true. Day in, day out, they labor to find their voice, to learn their trade, to understand nuance and pace. And then, facing a sea of rejections, they hear about something like Barbara Bush’s dog getting a book deal.

Writing is hard, even for the best wordsmiths. Ernest Hemingway said the most frightening thing he ever encountered was “a blank sheet of paper.” And Winston Churchill called the act of writing a book “a horrible, exhaustive struggle, like a long bout of painful illness.”

When I heard J.T.P. had a book, I thought of that Chris Farley skit from “Saturday Night Live.” He’s a motivational counselor, trying to keep some slacker youths from living in a van down by the river, just like him. One kid tells him he wants to write.

“La-di-frickin’-da!” Farley says. “We got ourselves a writer here!”

If Joe really wants to write, he should keep his day job and spend his evenings reading Rick Reilly’s sports columns, Peggy Noonan’s speeches, or Jess Walter’s fiction. He should open Dostoevsky or Norman Maclean — for osmosis, if nothing else. He should study Frank McCourt on teaching or Annie Dillard on writing.

The idea that someone who stumbled into a sound bite can be published, and charge $24.95 for said words, makes so many real writers think the world is unfair.

In fact the world is unfair, but his point is well-taken.

However, I think my favorite part of the piece was the last line: Maureen Dowd is off today.

Headline reference: