There is nothing I want less than to read from a tablet -- the thought of doing so irritates me irrationally -- and I’ve begun to wonder if my attachment to the physical book has anything to do with an attachment to my father, or at least my memory of him.
All of this would suggest that I’m a boxing fan, one of those old-timey cigar-chewers eager to overlook the sport’s myriad problems and mainstream insignificance in order to enjoy its brutal purity. But despite boxing’s outsize presence in my reading, I’m not particularly interested in it.
I recently bought a DVD set for my six-year-old son that featured the following offenses: reckless gunplay, the detonation of high explosives, apparent vehicular homicide, assault with a baseball bat, plunges from great heights, electrocutions, jailbreaks, punches, slaps, kicks, and shoves into oncoming traffic. For good measure, there was also a healthy dose of cross-dressing.
Lupica not only made me want to become a writer; he made me want to be a persuasive and convincing one. He taught me the value of having a viewpoint and seeing it through.
It’s a tempting narrative, and one that fits with the Internet’s culture of simple solutions: If you’re having trouble with that short story, just put on some Brian Eno. Your latent genius will be unleashed.
To an 11-year-old desperate to inflict damage in the arms race of seventh-grade sexual obnoxiousness, “Big Johnson Erection Company” was a cotton nuclear bomb. “Big Johnson Erection Company” was more than a shirt. It was how I announced my regrettable eligibility as a viable sexual being.
Carver's distinctive style was established surprisingly early, as this recently-discovered story -- found among the yellowing papers of his third-grade teacher at Yakima Elementary School -- will attest.
I can think of no other time that my son will sit, his head propped on my shoulder, for a half an hour or more. That I can sense the drama popping in his mind as I read is an obvious added bonus. Reading storybooks has put us at the neat intersection of stillness and excitement.
Steely Dan was like nothing I’d ever heard, and not in an enticing way. It seemed to be the worst of jazz and the most boring of rock rolled into one mutant, bad-sex package. It sounded like what sad aliens might listen to when they got around to masturbating.
I’ve recently discovered that the polluted river of wicked picture books has been flowing as strongly as ever. A new crop of titles has until now escaped my benevolent gaze -- and in so doing, have tainted our tots with narratives of untold madness and perfidy.
I felt utterly rabbit-punched. It was the only book I’ve ever read that betrayed me in such a way — like finding that your cousin’s hilarious web video was directed by Adam McKay.
