scribble, scribble, scribble…

This, torn from a Barneys catalog, has been in my possession for a long time, but lack of a scanner kept me from digitizing and sharing it for posterity. Finally, though:

In July 2005, our dear friends Jon and Stephanie were wed, in Missouri. IN MISSOURI. IN JULY. It was hot. And at some point, our friend Harleigh suggested that attire along these lines—quickly dubbed the “shortsedo”—might have been more appropriate for the male members of the wedding party (I was one of these). We thought we were the only ones to imagine such a thing, and then—

(more…)

My post on Starship Troopers garnered twice as many pageviews (32,000+) as anything else I’ve written for io9, which speaks more to the subject matter and its placement up at the top of the page than to my writing ability, but still. That’s not me being unduly modest—the number of hits you get (at least on io9, although I’d bet good money it’s a blogosphere-wide phenomenon) really is more a function of what you write about than how you write it. Put Star Wars or Doctor Who or Avatar in the mildly provocative headline of your poorly constructed news article, and it’ll hit 10,000 views long before your thoughtful thinkpiece on the oeuvre of Thomas Disch.

But! I did not expect my essay on a Robert Heinlein book to so sharply outclass, readership-wise, my previous writings on subjects like Superman, Battlestar Galactica, and The Empire Strikes Back. Granted, some or much of this is no doubt due to the existence of the notorious movie version of Starship Troopers, and some is no doubt due to how io9′s readership has grown over the past year—but still. I’m considering it a nominal victory for dead trees everywhere.