Posts by David Benjamin
A lifetime of introductions
by David Benjamin “Call any vegetable. Call it by name, and the chances are good that a vegetable will respond to you.” —Frank Zappa MADISON, Wis.—I studied to become a teacher. I got a degree and everything. I racked up a whole semester of classroom experience at Edgerton (Wis.) High School. There, I stared into……
Read MoreMy big sister’s radio
by David Benjamin “If you don’t like rock ’n’ roll./ Think what you’ve been missin’./ But if you like to bop and stroll,/ Come on down and listen./ Let’s all start to have a ball./ Everybody rock ’n’ roll!/ Oh, baby, rock … ” —Danny and the Juniors MADISON, Wis.—With the possible exception of the…
Read MoreThe illiterate lion of literary literacy
by David Benjamin “It became necessary for me to choose whether, using only the existing means, agencies, and processes which Congress had provided, I should let the Government fall at once into ruin or whether, availing myself of the broader powers conferred by the Constitution in cases of insurrection, I would make an effort to…
Read MoreOn becoming
by David Benjamin “You are absolutely a beginner—every day. You have no right to assume that you’ll be able to write because you could write yesterday.” ―Hilary Mantel MADISON, Wis.—When I was in high school, circulating my adolescent prose and scripting ironic skits for pep rallies, my most haunting aspiration was to be able to……
Read MoreThe 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 More