Archive for August 2025
The pen is scarier than the laptop
by David Benjamin “… With computers, students can type as fast as I speak and strive for verbatim transcripts, but there is almost no mental processing of the class’s content. Conversely, virtually no one can hand write 125 words per minute for 90 minutes. Thus, handwritten notes require simultaneous mental processing to determine the important…
Read MoreDown on your heels, up on your toes
by David Benjamin “We’ve always thought knowledge was naught. We should be taught to dance! Right here in Tait, we’re up-to-date. We teach a great new dance! Don’t think that I brag. I speak of the drag!” —June Allyson MADISON, Wis.—Hollywood musicals, particularly the classics, croon to me a Siren’s song but, after the finale,…
Read MoreThe name game
by David Benjamin “There are women named Faith, Hope, Joy, and Prudence. Why not Despair, Guilt, Rage, and Grief? It seems only right. ‘Tom, I’d like you to meet the girl of my dreams, Tragedy.’ These days, Trajedi.” ―George Carlin MADISON, Wis.—When I was in fourth grade, drafting my first novel, I dedicated a fat……
Read MoreThe devil you know
by David Benjamin “How low can you go?” —Chubby Checker WASHINGTON D.C.—Smedley, who has been my undercover informant in the nation’s capital since Nancy Reagan’s astrologer, is nervous now because he has, somewhat reluctantly, come in from the cold. He has an actual salaried job in the second reich of Donald Trump and even an…
Read MoreThe element of no surprise
by David Benjamin “Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland. You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men,…
Read MoreThe dialog paradox
by David Benjamin MADISON, Wis.—At age eight, in my first stab at storytelling, I was drawn—perhaps almost instinctively—to dialog. My two protagonists, twin toddlers named Stanley and Peggy, spoke volubly to each other in a cute, infantile dialect, rendered phonetically, in which they turned each letter “L” into a “W”. In high school, my love……
Read MoreGoofing past the graveyard
by David Benjamin “No more ashes, no more sackcloth, and an armband made of black cloth Will someday never more adorn a sleeve, For if the Bomb that drops on you gets your friends and neighbors, too. There’ll be nobody left behind to grieve, And we will all go together when we go … ”…
Read More