Out of Focus

“I worry that our national nonstop focus on Trump is helping to usher America into a hole: a Trump obsession. The danger is that Trump sucks up all the oxygen, so that other issues don’t get adequate attention.

“In America today, it’s all Trump, all the time. We’re collectively addicted to him. The nonstop scandals and outrages suck us in; they amount to Trump porn.” 

—Nicholas Kristof, columnist, “Our Addiction to Trump,” The New York Times, May 5, 2018.

• Editorial Comment: That’s why so many thoughtful people walk around these days with fingers in their ears, crooning “Lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalala...”

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PeezPix

Kinetic Clown, Arcata, CA

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Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Lively Tom

“I think I was a lively newspaper writer, but that’s a long way from being a good writer.”  

—Tom Wolfe (1930-2018), a pretty good writer, interviewed by George Plimpton, “Tom Wolfe: The Art of Fiction, No. 123,” The Paris Review, 1991.

• Editorial Comment: Still, lively is always good.

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PeezPix

Sparkle the Horse, 2018 Kinetics Grand Championship, Arcata, CA

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Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Conscience and Football

“The National Football League has expanded its list of banned substances to include the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, the league confirmed on Wednesday.

“Although the N.F.L. has long banned substances such as anabolic steroids and growth hormones, the First Amendment is believed to be the only right guaranteed by the Constitution to be included on the list.

“Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the National Football League, said that, by adding the First Amendment to the list of banned substances, the N.F.L was establishing a ‘policy of zero tolerance on tolerance.’”

—Andy Borowitz, writer, “N.F.L. Adds First Amendment to List of Banned Substances,” The New Yorker, May 24, 2018.

• Editorial Comment: America’s Game.

Peezpix

Lupine in Bloom, Bald Hills

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Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Oh, Forget It!

“You know, one of my daughters teaches writing at a community college. She teaches kids how to put sentences together, and then make the sentences hang together so that they can express themselves in writing as well as they do in speaking. Anybody with a normal IQ can manage that. But saying anybody can be a writer is kind of like saying anybody can compose a sonata. Oh, forget it!”

 

—Ursula K. Le Guin (1928-2018), fantasy novelist, in Interview magazine, 2015.

 • Editorial Comment: As well as they can express themselves speaking? Have you tried to talk to those kids?

Peezpix

Fishies

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Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Prophetic Bill

“This act will pave the way for massive broadcast conglomerates to increasingly provide local viewers with nationalized cookie-cutter news and corporate propaganda that’s produced elsewhere.” 

—U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-FL, on Federal Communication Commission moves to allow more big players in media ownership, “Trump’s FCC paves way for media consolidation,” CNN, Nov. 16, 2017.

• Editorial Comment: The result: Sinclair’s robo-newscasts reach 72% of us. Thanks, FCC.

Peezpix

No Poop

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Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Wait for It

“[A] choreographer I know was creating a ballet. He was stuck, and he asked me to come help.

“I said, ‘How could I help you choreograph a ballet?’

“He said, ‘I’d like you to come and sit there while I’m doing it. You’re so judgmental I would find it helpful.’

“So I went to his studio several times while he was making the ballet. I saw the only job that was worse than writing. My idea of pure hell. The dancers sit there waiting for him to come up with something. It would be as if the letters were sitting there, or the words, smoking cigarettes, staring at you, as if to say, ‘Well? OK, come on.’” 

—Fran Lebowitz, humorist and writer, “A Humorist at Work,” The Paris Review, 1993. Image: Edgar Degas.

  • Editorial Comment: Finally, your sentence gets tired of waiting and goes into the kitchen to check the fridge

Peezpix

Eureka Slough

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Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Cat News

“One reason that cats are happier than people is that they have no newspapers.”  

―Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000), Pulitzer winner and U.S. Poet Laureate, “In the Mecca,” 1968.

 • Editorial Comment: But they watch a lot of daytime TV.

Peezpix

Sea Swirl

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Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

No Hoax

“Always take a trustworthy newspaper, and thus keep thoroughly posted in regard to the transactions of the world. He who is without a newspaper is cut off from his species.” 

—P.T. Barnum (1810-1891), the “greatest showman,” circus titan and celebrated hoaxster, from “The Life of P.T Barnum Written by Himself, 1888.

 • Editorial Comment: Like the latest in snakeoil.

Peezpix

Banana Slug

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Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Good Doggie

“My stories run up and bite me in the leg. I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.”

—Ray Bradbury (1920-2012), writer and frequent bite victim.

• Editorial Comment: I was once gently gummed by a limerick.

Peezpix

Still Life

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Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Bump in the Night

“It’s not optimal to have as president an authoritarian who denounces journalists as enemies of the people, but he has given us a sense of mission and a ‘Trump bump.’ Every time he denounces us we get more subscriptions.”

—Nicholas Kristof, columnist, “Our Addiction to Trump,” The New York Times, May 5, 2018.

• Editorial Comment: The whole freakin’ country has a wicked bad case of Trump Bumps. Is there a cure, I hope?

Peezpix

Nature Dog

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Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

A White Suit and Keen Eye

“His hyperbolic, stylized writing work was a gleeful fusillade of exclamation points, italics and improbable words. An ingenious phrase maker, he helped brand such expressions as ‘radical chic’ for rich liberals’ fascination with revolutionaries; and the ‘Me’ generation, defining the self-absorbed baby boomers of the 1970s.

“‘He was an incredible writer,’ [Gay] Talese told the AP on Tuesday. ‘And you couldn’t imitate him. When people tried it was a disaster. They should have gotten a job at a butcher’s shop.’”

—Hillel Italie, AP reporter, “Tom Wolfe, a Titan of Journalism, Has Died at 88,” Esquire, May 15, 2018.

• Editorial Comment: Gotta dig out my white suit and spats.
• NYT Obit

Peezpix

CA Poppies

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Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard