Where the name of the blog comes from:
Said the Duke of Gloucester to Edward Gibbon upon the publication of his Decline and Fall: “Another damned fat book, eh, Mr. Gibbon? Scribble, scribble, scribble, eh, Mr. Gibbon?”
—Understanding Media
Chapter 1, “The Medium Is the Message”
Also, I start and stop and restart a lot of blogs.
I am a writer who lives in Madison, Wisconsin. I have a son and a cat/personal assistant (above) named Priscilla Pufferson. I grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, and have lived in Lincoln, Nebraska (got a BJ there); Nevada County, California; and New York City. Back in the day, I used to be a waiter; famous people I have served include national championship–winning college football coach Tom Osborne (average tipper), onetime Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns (testy), playwright Neil Simon (grouchy), Academy Award nominee Melanie Griffith (timid), Warren Beatty and Annette Bening (puckish and nonchalant, and congenial but a little anxious, respectively), and Raven-Symoné (very Raven). I also played with the Harlem Globetrotters when I was about six. (We won!)
I mostly write about the jewelry business for a couple trade magazines called Instore and Indesign. You can also sometimes find me in Madison’s Isthmus alt weekly. It’s been awhile, but I write about Hugo Award–winning novels for science-fiction site io9. And I used to be the copy editor at the sadly no-longer-being-printed-on-paper Spin magazine.
I’m a member of First Congregational Church here in Madison, but I don’t go as often as I should. I’m an irredeemable U2 fan. If I had to pick, I’d say my favorite novel was Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny; for nonfiction, it’s Understanding Media, by Marshall McLuhan, whose work I’ve had an amateur interest in for about fifteen years now.
Oh, I wrote an internet law once, by accident, which impressed Roger Ebert:
To people who say “Just enjoy! Don’t analyze!” This speaks eloquently for me: http://j.mp/4XAkBR
— Roger Ebert (@ebertchicago) December 22, 2009
This blog is just a place to write about things that interest me. It should go without saying that, unless they’re specifically attributed to someone else, all of the opinions posted here are mine and may not reflect the feelings of my various employers.
The blog uses deep links by way of the WordPress Emphasis plugin. That means you can link directly to a particular paragraph within a post, not just the post page itself. To get the links, tap your shift key twice on any page. Then right-click on the little pilcrow (¶) or paragraph mark that appears to the left of the paragraph to copy the link. It should work.
More to come as I remember more things about myself and the blog. If there’s anything else you want to know (for what reason, I cannot possibly imagine), feel free to frequently ask questions by way of the comment box below.