Frozen Toothpaste

Norman Mailer died two weeks ago, and so I’m slow on the uptake. But I’d rather quote something interesting and out-of-date that timely and uninteresting. So on today’s “Other People’s Words,” what Norman Mailer told Charlie Rose about his country in 1998.
You know, I think we live in the most exceptional country ever for a […]

I’d planned on writing something today, but when, on rising, I was greeted by four inches of accumulated snow my resolve to do so quickly cracked and eventually crumbled. Already somewhat interested in making Thanksgiving (it’s tomorrow in United States) an extended break, I was unable to do any serious thinking.
So, Americans (and perhaps non-Americans […]

I can’t avoid the feeling that writing on this blog is an incredibly egoistic activity. I want to tell you about myself. About my opinions. About a story I dreamt up. All of it’s about me.
Now I can, and maybe should, concede that this is the nature of writing. That you can fundamentally only write […]

TimesOnline
With the Writers Guild of America still on strike, the absence of late-night commentary on politics has been missed. Though the quality of the commentary was rarely exceptionally high, late night comedians did provide a useful and informative diversion for those less tempted to read the papers (like myself, most of the times).
So while looking […]

Today’s “Other People’s Words” is a poem about, well, “The Necessary Brevity of Pleasures.” It’s by Samuel Hazo.
Prolonged, they slacken into pain
  or sadness in accordance with the law
  of apples.
          One apple satisfies.
Two apples cloy.
                  Three apples
  glut.
      Call it a tug-of-war between enough and more
  than enough, between sufficiency
  and greed, between the stay-at-homers
  and globe-trotting see-the-worlders.
Like lovers seeking heaven […]