The silence of the regulars

by David Benjamin “The fact is, I don’t know where my ideas come from. Nor does any writer. The only real answer is to drink way too much coffee and buy yourself a desk that doesn’t collapse when you beat your head against it.” ― Douglas Adams PARIS—The fat girl was asking after me. Hotlips…

Read More

“What will we tell the children?”

by David Benjamin “The objects of which Paris folks are fond– literature, art, medicine, and adultery.” — Mark Twain  MADISON, Wis.—During one of my Paris sojourns a few years ago, I was visibly perplexed (Hotlips said to me, “You look perplexed. What’s gong on?”) by a big demonstration in Paris over a proposed French law…

Read More

Jim Otis’ gun

by David Benjamin “He opened the passenger side. He flipped open the glovebox and gently withdrew his Colt .44, a gun he rarely heeled and never fired. Once in a while, he displayed it for effect. It looked pretty much like the gun that John Wayne and Clint Eastwood had used to blow the brains……

Read More

The man on Undecided Street

by David Benjamin “The election makes me think of a story of a man who was dying. He had only two minutes to live, so he sent for a clergyman and asked him, ‘Where is the best place to go to?’ He was undecided about it. So the minister told him that each place had…

Read More

Fact Check: Kamala Harris is alive. Honest!

by David Benjamin “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay? It’s, like, incredible.” — Donald Trump, 23 Jan. ‘16 It all started with a question from ABC News’ David Muir during the September 10 presidential debate. Muir asked ex-president Donald Trump his position…

Read More

The seven species of memory

by David Benjamin “Memory is, among the faculties of the human mind, that of which we make the most frequent use … Memory is the primary and fundamental power, without which there could be no other intellectual operation.” ―Samuel Johnson MADISON, Wis.—“There’s a holdup in the Bronx,/ Brooklyn’s broken out in fights … ” Ask……

Read More