Archive for June 2023
The things you carry
by David Benjamin “Never meet your heroes.” —Leroy Jethroe Gibbs, Rule #73 MADISON, Wis.—“Do you have a pen?” This is a question to which I’ve never said, “No.” Pens are among the things I carry. To some degree, each of us is defined by the accessories we take along, wherever we go. Likewise, forgetting…
Read MoreThe author as housekeeper
“Housekeeping” isn’t just a matter of dusting windowsills and vacuuming the carpet. For an author, it’s an obligation, to protect readers from getting lost in the midst of a narrative full of characters, details and shifting locations. by David Benjamin My mother didn’t have time for housework. After forsaking an ill-fated teenage marriage, Mom……
Read MoreThe little boy who wanted all the suckers
by David Benjamin “If you’re playing a poker game and you look around the table and can’t tell who the sucker is, it’s you.” —Paul Newman FORT PIERCE, Fla. (November, 2023)—When the trial of ex-president Donald Trump took a strange twist here last month, eventually triggering a lengthy delay in the proceedings, one commentator…
Read MoreThe counterculture’s B side
by David Benjamin “… Every town must have a place where phony hippies meet/ Psychedelic dungeons popping up on every street …” —The Mothers of Invention MADISON, Wis.— The counterculture is back, but in a mirror image, everything in reverse. It’s been with us since 2015 but we’ve barely noticed, because of its dizzying…
Read MoreThe writer as reader
For a writer, more than for anyone in any other profession, you are what you have read. The story of your life, unless you’re Don Quixote or Captain Ahab, is not enough to captivate readers. by David Benjamin Dr. Seuss ruined my life. I was in first grade. My teacher led her class to……
Read MoreYabba dabba doo!
by David Benjamin “A little song, a little dance/ A little seltzer down your pants.” —Chuckles the Clown, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” MADISON, Wis.—Something has happened to TV situation comedies. Or is it me? For much of my life, I’ve been a sort of sitcom maven, not just watching and chuckling but analyzing…
Read MoreA body of work
by David Benjamin We remember one of the last century’s literary immortals, J.D. Salinger, by one great novel, The Catcher in the Rye, ten short stories and a few insignificant novellas. He apparently stopped writing anything 45 years before he died. It’s conceivable that, while living all that time in seclusion somewhere in New Hampshire,……
Read MoreOh, yeah? Who says?
by David Benjamin “”The Roman Pontiff, head of the college of bishops, enjoys this infallibility in virtue of his office, when, as supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful—who confirms his brethren in the faith he proclaims by a definitive act a doctrine pertaining to faith or morals.” —Catechism of the Catholic Church, Paragraph…
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