Archive for November 2024
Honing in on the haphazard homonym
by David Benjamin “When a person has a poor ear for music he will flat and sharp right along without knowing it. He keeps near the tune, but is not the tune. When a person has a poor ear for words, the result is a literary flatting and sharping; you perceive what he is intending…
Read MoreThe magic of “narrative transportation”
by David Benjamin “No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly……
Read MoreOur so-what majority
by David Benjamin “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” —Pogo MADISON, Wis.—It might not seem evident to the naked psyche, but the MAGA army is in retreat. Its soldiers are, after all, a cult whose god is now a lame duck. The Capitol Hill vandals have one last tantrum to throw—call it…
Read MoreMovies to warm your cockles by
by David Benjamin “Sun don’t shine on the same dog’s ass everyday, but, mister, you ain’t seen a ray of light since you got here.” — Opal Fleener MADISON, Wis.— America is a nation of front-runners. There’s ample evidence of this in the fact that, for example, the most-bought baseball cap every year since before…
Read More“Style” is not fashion
You can call it copy editing or nitpicking. But the exhaustive application of “style” rules, in grammar and punctuation are a basic necessity to the discipline and reputation of a serious writer. by David Benjamin “The mind travels faster than the pen; consequently, writing becomes a question of learning to make occasional wing shots, bringing……
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