Feb

12

Around The World And Back Again.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

February 12, 2008 | 1 Comment

I have a confession to make: I’m a Travel Channel addict. Lately it’s been the first channel I go to when I turn on the television, but even if it weren’t I’d be drawn there by the new series Michael Palin’s New Europe. While all the members of the Monty Python troupe (except, sadly, Graham [...]

Feb

11

Book ‘Em: Feed Your Soul.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

February 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Although I’ve worried about its demise in the past, the short story is alive and well, thanks to practitioners like Reginald McKnight. His book The Kind of Light That Shines On Texas moves from an odd, almost allegorical short story about writer’s block, The Homonculus: A Novel In One Chapter to the biographical in the [...]

Feb

9

Word Of The Week: February 9th, 2008

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

February 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment

This week’s word is the adjective frangible. You may recognize this one if you watch Mythbusters. Often when the guys are testing the force of an impact (usually from a high building or inside a car they’ve rigged up with remote control) their crash-test dummy Buster will include frangible bones.
 
Frangible means “breakable or capable [...]

Feb

8

Steal This Blog! (Part 1)

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

February 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment

“If you steal from one author, it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many, it’s research.”–Wilson Mizner
A college professor of mine used to tell the story of how he caught a student plagiarizing. The student had been failing the class for most of the semester and was offered a one-shot chance to escape with a passing grade. He [...]

Feb

6

Inspired.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

February 6, 2008 | 1 Comment

In a recent interview with NPR, Merle Haggard quoted his musical hero, the Western swing legend Bob Wills who said, “You know, I never did sweat out a song.” Haggard himself said he is the same way, and he finds that inspiration comes to him at inopportune times, such as when he’s been walking [...]

Feb

4

Book ‘Em: Still Watching.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

February 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment

In college I took a class on modern American literature. One of the books we were assigned was, the professor told us, so important he’d buy a copy for anyone who couldn’t afford one. This was late in the semester and, being college students, none of us were really good at managing our money, even [...]

Feb

2

Word Of The Week: February 2nd, 2008

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

February 2, 2008 | 3 Comments

This week’s word of the week: epexegesis.
Epexegesis means the addition of a word or words to clarify the implied meaning or the intention of a preceding word or sentence. It’s derived from two Greek words meaning “to explain” and “in addition to”.
In his short story The Great Automatic Grammatisator, about a young man who builds [...]

Feb

1

More Than A Shadow.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

February 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment

This Groundhog Day if you live in the Southeastern United States, think about waking up early (between 6:00am and 7:00am local time) to see a beautiful astronomical event: Jupiter and Venus, two of the brightest objects in the night sky, close together, almost in conjunction, near the crescent Moon. They’ll be visible in the Southwest, [...]

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