MoodyTunes

I’ve seen a lot of “artisan” goods lately. Artisan cheese. Artisan bread. Artisan beer. I haven’t thought about the term “artisan” much, but my impression is that artisan products/wares/foods are marketed as such because they are hand-crafted with loving care by actual humans, as opposed to mass-produced by soulless machines. Makes sense. There’s Wonder Bread, [...]

Though I was born in Minnesota, I didn’t hang around long enough to learn to accept snow as a fact of life. It still feels special. A day off from school, maybe, or simply a day or two a year with magical flakes falling from the sky. That might be happening today in Nashville…rumor has [...]

I wrote about nasty new Twizzlers last week, and also mentioned Steve Almond’s book “Candyfreak,” and now I’ve found a clip of him reading from the book. What does he talk about? Hating Twizzlers! I understand hating new sour Twizzlers, but come on, Steve…there are worse candies out there. Candy corn. Mary Janes. Boston Baked [...]

You could say I’m obsessed with hand sanitizer…
And you would be correct.
That short piece was inspired by, you guessed it, jugs of “Endure” hand sanitizer in my classroom.
Endure. Endure. I’m fascinated by that product name. What names didn’t make the cut?
Prevail.
Succeed.
Defer.
Equivocate.
Congeal.
Reply.
Rationalize.
I have two water pistols loaded with antibacterial gel and I squirt people if [...]

I apologize for the lack of posts lately. I’m writing a lot of other things — critiques of student stories, critiques of fellow MFAs’ stories, my own nonfiction and fiction, random e-mails — and it’s more and more difficult to think of blog-worthy ideas. I may be swamped for a few weeks, so I will [...]

Pearl Jam’s latest album “Backspacer” hit stores today so you should probably go buy it. Despite past anti-corporation leanings, idealistic populism, what-have-you, the band chose Target and iTunes for the initial distribution. So it goes… I’ve said to several people, after listening to the album a few times, that I think it accurately represents where [...]

I rarely step inside an antique store — I’m allergic to both dust and buying furniture — but when I do, I like to find the shelves of old books. A ratty book is like a time machine. I assume the role of a book or journal’s intended reader. Student in 1924. Literary journal subscriber [...]

A couple sites you might find interesting:
American Short Fiction’s blog. What they do (and I don’t) is update regularly…with interesting stuff! An amazing concept. I think blogs are the way of the future.
Wordnik. A wacky new all-in-one dictionary thingie that tells you everything about a word. Definitions, synonyms, antonyms, etc. etc. but also fun stuff [...]