Call For Submissions: Cartographie Curieux

Greetings Friends, Acquaintances, One-Night Stands, Frenemies, Editors, Classmates, Professors, Colleagues, and everyone else,

We are pleased to present a call for submissions from our new Web Journal: Cartographie Curieux. Cartographie Curieux is interested in the curious geographies that everyone must navigate as they travel through life. We are obsessed with finding ourselves and we are looking for some good maps to get us there. We think you may be (or know) one of the talented cartographers we are looking for: please send us submissions of any kind: poetry, fiction, nonfiction, interviews, and of course, images which engage with the idea of maps. Surprise us!

Check Out Our Nascent Website: ttp://www.cartographiecurieux.com

And LIKE us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CartographieCurieux

We review and publish submissions on a rolling basis and plan to publish our first work in April of 2012. Some maps we’d love to publish:

Fantasy, blueprints, schema, diagram, to buried treasure, to nowhere, home, the backyard, offices, alleys, migration patterns of Canadian Geese, birds-eye view, the body, heaven, hell, daytrips, the mind, maps best viewed with red-blue 3D glasses, your career, well-intentioned but inaccurate, our career, fog density patterns in San Francisco, dungeons and dragons, territories, a backpack, macro and micro economies, the ocean floor, the highest points in Iowa, cotton candy trade-routes, maps that require a QR Code reader, “Family Circus” style misadventures, sculptural, ideas, the internet, the blogosphere, outlines, maps that employ erasure, sunken cities, invisible cities, as-yet-unbored subway lines, bird houses, carpet stains, concentrations of all-you-can-eat buffets in Ohio, and geographies we can’t imagine without your help…

Send All Submissions here:

submissions @ cartographiecurieux.com

Thanks in advance for your support; we hope your work finds its way to us soon.

Best,

Ori Fienberg
Michael Allen Potter

P.S. And LIKE us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CartographieCurieux

The Uterus Fiasco

I haven't uttered a more hilarious phrase (recently) than the title of this post.

The Huffington Post has the comprehensive story, but really it's fairly simple. Representative Scott Randolph, D-Orlando, used the word "uterus" on the House floor, and was then reprimanded for referencing body parts, and later another GOP spokesperson suggested that "uterus" is "inappropriate for children."

To me, deeming "uterus" an inappropriate word borders on misogyny. While that's a broad problem, I an think of one way for politicians to realize how ridiculous it is to get wrapped up around a word, and because it's clear the primarily-male House of Representative is more comfortable with their own reproductive organs, I call on the House to engage in a bipartisan competition of "the penis game" to demonstrate just has silly it is to get hung up on body parts.

. . . Also, I wonder if "uterus" is in the Word Mole word list.

Scrabble Dick-tionary

Fellatio is in the Scrabble Dictionary, but Cunnilingus is not.

Word Mole for Blackberry

Nearly two years ago I was addicted to the game Word Challenge on Facebook. However, eventually I had to stop. Word Challenge word list was disappointingly, and inconsistently prude and also had questionable "words" on their list. I became frustrated and stopped. I'm reaching a similar point now with Word Mole for my Blackberry.

It's the only game I have on my phone, and after a year of not bothering to even try it, over the last week I've been playing it as constantly as my phone will allow (it's a horrible drain on the phone's battery. Like Word Challenge, Word Mole has done a little censoring. For instance, you can't make the word "fuck." But then there are other words that are mysteriously not on the Word Mole list, like fanged, snivel, and puce. This is especially frustrating when you're just a few points away from making it to the next level, or seconds from the game being over, only to discover that a perfectly good word like prattled isn't accepted. It's almost enough to make me want to quit playing, however my curiosity has been piqued. While I still yearn for an amazing score, I'm far more interested in seeing which words somehow didn't make the cut.

The following is a list of words that Word Mole doesn't accept (and I'm sure I'll find many more).

Hewn
Prattled
Roil
Peed
Cud
Pip
Shim
Twist
Quire
Dun
Fisted
Glam
Piddle
Linty
Fuck
Caul
Puce
Pock
Fanged
Toke
Toked
Snivel
Sot
Ibex
Minty
Ribaldry
Tusk
Scrotum
Snivel
Fatted

Book Review #9

Under the Dome by Stephen King

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is the first new Stephen King I've read since he completed his Dark Tower series, at which point I thought he was going to retire, and then we he didn't, I sort of retired him on my own. But I needed a page turner to open my winter break with and I remembered that some reviews were heralding this as "vintage" King, so I picked it up.

Let's be totally clear: Stephen King phoned it in for this book. None of the characters feel especially loved or fleshed out and they, along with several of the story threads feel like amalgamates of better, King books. Needful Things and Salem's Lot both come to mind. But to be fair, the situation is driving the book, not the characters. The main thread under the dome is an extreme rendition of the Stanford Prison Experiment: it's not so surprising, but it's very compelling.

What disappointed me most about the book was it's lack of a grand architecture. Stephen King's last book to top 1000 pages was The Stand in 1990. The Stand had the benefit of both a compelling situation and plenty of fascinating heroes and anti-heroes. Plus, it had a place in the over-arching mythology of The Dark Tower series, King's "uber-novel." The Stand is a masterpiece. UTD is a lark.

While it may not live up to the standard set by his past novels, it is King's most compulsive page turner since Wizard and Glass, and his most visceral horror novel since Desperation/The Regulators.



View all my reviews

Book Review #8

Little, Big by John Crowley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


My feelings about this book are deeply conflicted

For the first 260 or so pages I had difficulty reading this book. It had elements I liked: fantasy, mythology, realism, and a little magic (but not so much that it unfairly dominates). But at the same time it was excruciating. Long descriptions of muddled musings, excruciatingly oblique foreshadowing. I planned the biting 2 or perhaps 3 star review I would give, ultimately comparing it to Gormenghast. Like that one, this book broods. A great deal more happens than in Gormenghast, however the mood and attention to atmosphere feels far more important than anything that's happening to the characters, or that constitutes a plot.

The first 200+ pages were a struggle to read. I tried everything. I brought to work. I read an interlude on the T. I put it on my night side table, and then in the bathroom, trying to find the right setting, the right space, and maybe temperature to settle in. But I couldn't find it

I noticed the change around the start of "Book Four: The Wild Wood," though I'm sure it started a little before that. Gradually things started to happen that seemed to matter. Whereas the beginning of the book seems most concerned with the reader's understanding of a bizarrely complex architecture and genealogy [I kept returning to Grady Tripp in Wonder Boys, who writes 1000s of pages of a never ending novel and, for one chapter, writes only of the bloodlines of horses], the center of the book is a story of love and loss, which is simultaneously the same story you've read/experienced before, but with a special newness. There are many other stories interwoven, but for me this was the most important story, in fact, really the only story I cared about it.

And, while it's still excruciating and oblique at times, once the the machinery was set in motion the book moved much faster, and I even came to understand that without those first 200+ pages I would not have had the necessary pieces and momentum for book to ever reach a satisfying conclusion.

When I was a little boy I used to go across the street to where my 2nd grade teacher, Ms. Heemstra, lived with her cat, Radar. She and her cat were both very tolerant of the curiosity of little boys, they even encouraged it. Whenever I went I asked her to show me her cuckoo clock. She would dutifully wind it so that after a minute's wait the bird would pop out. I was very excited, while Radar was disinterested. Over time I came to have an understanding of how the clock worked. I realized that it was "clockwork," some intricate machinery, and not magic which propelled the bird forward for my amusement. But to me it was as good as magic. The older you become, the more you learn, the more things lose this sort of magic. But of course at the same time, other things gain it.

As I read this book I was continuously torn by two conflicting impulses: the desire for more magic and the desire for magic-less clarity. In a lesser a book I'd say this is a major flaw, but I think this conflict forms the heart of, and maybe genius, of Little, Big. In the presence of one, we want the other, but in fact in order for our stories to matter they need to marry both, and I think this book accomplishes this feat.

However, as with Ms. Heemstra's cuckoo-clock I tend to prefer smaller machinery, and I can certainly think of stories (for instance: "Vanishing Acts," by Kelly Link) that make me aware of the same things without requiring over 200 pages of winding.



View all my reviews

Scrabble Mania - part I

GAME 1.

Dash: 119, Ori: 212, Gage: 224.

Gage was in it to win it, making double digit point plays on all but one turn. Ori had the highest single play of the game with La/Fax/Ore/Axed for 55 points, however, when Rick played clean/it, he opened up the triple word score to Gage, who was "ice" cold on the way to his win.



Game 2.

The Jew a.k.a. Gage Norris: 222, Dr. King a.k.a. Frederick Dashiell: 114, The Laser a.k.a. Ori Fienberg: 242. The Jew put everyone in check when he played Queen for 48 points, but The Laser made it mate with Vibe/Cape.



GAME 3.

Freaknizzle a.k.a. Rick, Razor a.k.a. Ori, Sonic a.k.a. Damian.

Sadly, Freaknizzle had to bow out after his seventh play, doom. Sonic fought valiantly, but a combination of bad letters, and perhaps some anxiety about his impending (hopefully not doom) Math final exam kept him from really getting the ball rolling. The Razor took it with a score of 274 to 111.




Stay Tune For More Highly Competitive Scrabble Match Ups As The Foundation Year Writing Workshops Wind Down For The Year!

An Elegant Dinner

Pan-seared Calves Liver and Fig Balsamic Caramelized Onions, Shiitake Mushroom and Meyer Lemon Carolina Brown Rice, with Lightly Earl Gray Scented Green Beans.



Then: Hershey Kisses Filled with Caramel. Someday I'll learn how to make dessert.

Book Review #6

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


When I was a little boy I often asked my parents to tell me bedtime stories. My favorite was a series by mother called, "Sam and Jackson Monkey." Sam and Jackson Monkey were monkey-brothers who loved peanut butter and bananas on toast, just like me.



I haven't told many people about my mother's stories for a couple of reasons, but the most important is that I felt ownership over those stories. They were created just for me, and they represent something so good that I've wanted to keep them sacred and protect them. Simply, they were too perfect to share.



I feel that this is the only possible reason someone has not recommend this book to me until just a few weeks ago, five years after its publication. I think every reader must be a little scared that something so good exists and they must also feel that same fear to share, the feeling that this novel had been written just for them.



Simply put Jonathan Safran Foer has crafted an utter masterpiece, filled with love, anguish, beautiful stories, characters, and interesting experiments. It is the best art I have seen come out of the tragedy that occurred on September 11, 2001. It is nearly modern fantasy, and yet it rings miraculously true. It is an affirmation of the power of life, imagination, family, and writing in the most difficult of times. It is easily the greatest novel I have read published in the last ten years.



Part of me wants to clutch it to myself and not admit to anyone that I know it's out there. Of course it's a bestseller and many people have read it, but it's so deeply intimate that I feel as though it were written just for me.



But it's just too good. If you follow my reviews on Goodreads you know that they're infrequent. I read on average a few books a month, but I rarely feel compelled to review them unless they are very good or disappointing. This book is not very good, it is the best, and if you take one of my recommendations, this should be it.



It may not immediately become one of your favorite books, but I'm certain you'll have a thoughtful read with moments and ideas that will resonate for a long while.



View all my reviews

Endangered Internet Species

Who here remembers the Google Whack? There are many variations on the Google Whack, but the way I've always played is that you must enter two words, no proper nouns, without quotes, into the google search engine producing a search with 1 google hit. That's the purist form. Other variants allow proper nouns, and in another, the goal is to get as many hits as there are characters in the two words.

At its onset the Google Whack was an extremely rare phenomena, but you could do it, if you knew a handful of obscure words and some chemistry terms. But like the unicorn, the Google Whack is and was an endangered species. Sites emerged that collected them, and news outlets did stories on them, but of course once they were recorded that Whack ceased to exist. Other websites emerged that seemed to simply catalog vast swatches of words. Google Whacks are a web phenomena that may soon be extinct. If it's not already. I haven't thought about them in a while. In fact, the last I found was a few years ago. On 8/3/06 I found this gem:

popsicle triskaidecagon

The same google search today yields 19 hits. This is compared to

Methuselah bobbysocks

(yes, I know I broke my own rule and used a proper-noun) which was once a Google Whack and now inexplicably yields 448 Google hits.

Googlewhacks.com has what they claim to be an up-to-the-minute and unindexed Whack List, and yet I've tested several of them and not one of those supposedly fresh whacks is even below the century club, several have more than 1000 hits.

... Anyway, yesterday I was using Google image search to find illustrations of emotive monkeys. There are plenty of enraged, happy, sad, and even "sarcastic monkey" (with quotes in the search) yields 400 hits. But a search for "sardonic monkey" yielded a singular hit (not even of a monkey), it's own sort of Google Whack.

Honestly, I'm surprised, I suspected by now monkeys and monkey illustrators would have uploaded images with titles covering all possible monkey attitudes. However, without the quotes sardonic monkey yields over 10,000 hits.

If you're hunting a Google Whack I've found in the past that you should

1) avoid words that could be near each other in the dictionary
2) avoid common favorite words like defenestrate
3) pair two words from two radically different highly technical professions
4) pair something innocuous with a highly technical term
5) pair a word no longer in common usage with a highly technical term

Can you find any Google Whacks, traditional, or your own variation?

If you find a true google whack you can post it in the comment section with dashes between the letters so as to preserve the thrill for future Whackers. Honorable mentions for single digit returns, or for bizarre word combos that return far more hits than expected.

Happy Hunting!

Misadventures in Ad-copy #4

The latest misadventure comes from generic products, in particular this cereal, conveniently located next to Chex at Market Basket.



I suppose this is nominally better than some other options. They probably crossed out "Square Shaped Ground Corn Product" and "Puppy Chow Base Material." True, in the context of the cereal aisle it's clear what this product is, and I'm sure the sparse, possibly even terse name is all that's needed there. But out of context it doesn't quite get the message across. If someone asked me to "pick up some square shaped corn," I'd probably spend most of my time looking for it in the produce aisle. "Square Shaped Corn" lacks inspiration, unless the name is meant to be comically direct. But this feels like a missed opportunity. Dr. Pepper has spawned hoards of impostors who no doubt earned their advanced degrees at an online University. My favorite amongst them is Walmart's resident M.D., Dr. Thunder. If you want to find out about other doctors near you, take a look at Frenchboxing's website.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to check out the other offerings so I don't know if they also carry my personal favorite, Toroidal Oats.

War of Words

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Scooped: New NY Times All-Nighter Blog caused All-Nighter

For my Nonfiction M.F.A. thesis, written between 2007 and 2008, I put together a multi-genre piece called "The Insomniac's Almanac," which as it sounds, was meant to be a pamphlet styled as an almanac, but with articles, stories, and information that would be particularly interesting to insomniacs (such as myself). I figured I'd get to learn about a chronic ailment that had been affecting me for many years, as well as have a product that a publisher might be interested in. Almanac-style books such as John Hodgman's The Areas of My Expertise, Amy Krouse Rosenthal's Encyclopedia of a Modern Life, and Ben Schott's Schott's Miscellany were selling like hot cakes. At the same time pharmaceutical solutions for insomnia like Ambien and Lunesta were making tons of money. It seemed like the perfect combination.

My thesis, like many others, was both a success and failure in many ways. I learned over the course of writing it that I didn't have the design [or perhaps research]skills I needed to follow through on my idea in exactly the way I'd originally conceived.

I'm the sort of writer who loves computers. While most of my writing starts on tiny memo pads that fit in my back pocket, my handwriting is cramped and approaches sloth-like slowness. Without a keyboard I would get little done. But despite considering myself pretty savvy with some creative computer programs like ProTools and Adobe Audition, I'm just learning to use Adobe In-Design after years of becoming frustrated at not knowing how to turn off auto-functions (like numbering, or capitalization) in Microsoft Word. I still use the most basic word processor, Notepad, for most of my drafts and only put something into Word when I want to know how long something really is, or get spacing right.

Whenever I set out to make a graph for my thesis, or some other interesting and friendly presentation of information, I'd find myself thinking, "...maybe I can get the same message across by writing a story or a poem," and then, without wasting much more time that's what I did.

A friend sent me a link to a new NY Times online feature last night: All-Nighters.

I scrolled down to find out who was in charge of bringing these thoughts together and there it was: Ben Schott seems to have decided that an Almanac for Insomniac's is a pretty good idea too. But where as I wasn't ready, Schott has the experience and skills to pull this off beautifully.

I did have one sleepless night, or a all-nighter (har! har!) over this: if only idea known how to do a little bit more a little bit faster, if only my follow-through could have been better.

In fairness, I'm also excited: I look forward to seeing his (and my) idea unfold in his blog. The pieces in it are really quite thoughtful and interesting.

Meanwhile, I'm not throwing the baby out with the bathwater; I'm still pleased with the pieces in my thesis and many have been published. This has just made clear what I knew already: getting an M.F.A. isn't the pinnacle or capstone of a writer's creative journey. It's another clarifying step. At least this proves that I had a good idea, and fortunately, I think I've still have some pretty good ideas I've just begun to explore. There are skills I need to tend to if I want future ideas to be able to blossom properly, and I will.

Lolz!

I recently discovered that one of my friends with whom I often instant message is not always "laughing out loud" when he types the initialism "lol." In retrospect I know I shouldn't be surprised, but it always delighted me to imagine that the thing I'd typed moments before was so funny that he was unable to control himself, in fact so funny that he couldn't master the coordination to type anything but those two letters, conveniently located adjacent to each other. But this is not the case. This weekend, while he was on gchat I watched him type "lol" after a friend sent him a message that wasn't even remotely funny. Which filled me with doubt. Am I really not funny?

I have never typed "lol" myself when I have not just laughed out loud. Do I perhaps have a problem with being too literal? Almost certainly the latter. Clearly the "lol" is a symbolic meme. There are currently no published studies that determine just how many people are actually laughing out loud and I think it's safe to assume that the percentage is low. However if that's the case I don't know how "lol" overturn "haha."

"Haha" has the benefit of adaptability. An extra "ha" may be added at either end to convey more amusement, or reduced to a single "ha" to express a dryer and lighter sort of humor. Lol lacks that flexibility. Perhaps convenience is king: "L" and "o" touch each other on the keyboard while your fingers must travel to write "haha." Or maybe it's appealing because it's one pronounceable syllable. But neither consideration has impeded the popularity of other initialisms such as "lmao" and "lmfao." Furthermore those are clearly meant to be hyperbole for the sake of further amusement. But "lol" can be taken literally and thus using it so freely seems disengenous.

More about "LOL" here.

Misadventures in Adcopy #4

Today's misadventure in adcopy is found at GECKO sfx. Okay, so Geico's spokesgecko's more doe-eyed cousin wanted to start a graphic effects company. I have no problem with that as long as he's done his homework and goes full out.

A smaller graphic tells me,

WARNING! Creative Blast Area

I've always got my creative hard hat ready (it absorbs the impact of explosive ideas rather than deflecting them). However, this website is totally stactic. There's not even a single link. I don't feel like I'm in any sort of danger, really, I'd welcome slightly more danger.

But I'm having most difficulty with the adcopy:

Creating Myths and Making Dreams ComeTrue is Our Mission. Switch On Your Creativity. Abuse of it.

GECKO sfx seems a little confused about what they want to capitalize, and there's a space missing between "Come" and "True," but what really throws me for a loop is the imperative, Abuse of it. Any interpretations?

Maybe this is a direct result of fragmentation from the afformentioned creative blast area.

*The accompanying blog has not been updated since 2008, so this pretty clearly a ghost site. I wouldn't have been so interested except that I was googling Artifice Magazine and a site supposedly under construction by Gecko sfx was one of the top hits.

Misadventures in Adcopy #3

What comes to mind when you see this word:



Don't be shy. To be fair, this isn't so much a misadventure in adcopy as it is in brand-naming. The adcopy is fine. But I don't know how anyone could get from the brand-name to the product without the picture.



This is one case where I'd really appreciate the addition of a hyphen, Bump-its, or a bit of well-placed capitalization, BumpIts. Though lacking those things the packaging is much more funny.

A Space for Ideas to Meet

It's true, both the Modern Language Association (MLA) and the Chicago Manual of Style recommend using one space, though neither brands two spaces as wrong, merely out of date. In the days of letterpress and typewriters, which used monospaced fonts, two spaces were considered essential to create a visual break. However, with the advent of computers and proportional fonts this break is apparently unnecessary.

Maybe I'm just a bit claustrophobia, but I like the breathing room and feel that two spaces are still valuable. If I left just one space I'd be afraid that something would emerge from the narrows between sentences, and perhaps make off with my commas. We do one space after each word. Between paragraphs there's the remainder of the line from the paragraph before, and at least a tab mark. Some even use a full blank line in separation. Shouldn't we pay sentences a little more respect?

Sometimes I like a sentence so much that I feel I should leave three spaces after it. I generally resist because then I risk leaving prose convention behind and entering the realm of poetry. But maybe poetry is behind the appeal of leaving two spaces. It is the "white space" that gives extra import to the words on either side. Two spaces offer a compromise between an endless and rough sawtooth of words and uncontainable worship of meaningful statements.

PB&J - the story continues

I have always had an interest in food oddities. There's a recent move in our culture towards neurotic food awareness and a lot of it seems colored by contempt for the what middle-america eats. Yes, we're upset about deplorable conditions for animals and eating locally and so on, but we do that because we're privileged enough to be able to it. Meanwhile, millions of people are forced to rely on cheap processed food. We eat to the level we've been educated and then as well compared to that as we can afford. But I don't have contempt for processed foods. When I ran track in high school I used to run about 3.5 miles from the school to the Amherst Village Green. I rewarded myself by making utterly ridiculous impulse food purchases. I think it's safe to say that had PB&J been an option I would have bought it.

As is I would have never had the opportunity to experience it were it not for the GED classes that are run at the other end of my office. HFI Heartland Foods' "PB& J, the PEANUT BUTTER & JELLY Graham Cracker SANDWICH" is a "2.2 oz portion contains one grain-bread serving and 1.0 oz meat alternative for the school meal pattern requirements."

Here are the nutritional value as presented on the label:

Calories 318.09
Total Fat 18.07 grams 28%DV
Saturated Fat 2.69 grams 13%DV
Sodium 270.41 mg 11%DV
Carbohydrates 30.91 grams 10%DV
Dietary Fiber 1.14 grams 5%DV
Protein 11.71 grams
Calcium 2.8 mg, Iron 3.5 mg, 31%

That's right. The good nutritionists over at HFI have their nutritional content down to an absolute, exact science. Some companies would be satisfied to merely round up to 320 calories, but HFI has done their homework out to the second decimal. Really, if you think about it they're just setting a good example for the students eating it.

The origins of the PB&J are something of an enigma. According to the packaging these little bundles of meat alternative are made in scenic Moosic, Pennsylvania, however there's no reference to the factory in any account of Moosic I've been able to locate.

The HFI brand is currently owned by Preferred Meal Systems, Inc. Preferred by who, you might ask? I'd be hard pressed to tell you. PMS (they probably hate it when people call them that) also manages such brands as "Tasty Stuffed Delights" and "Kids Are People Too."

Perhaps the latter brand shows a little more respect for kids taste. Sadly, PB&J falls short, particularly on the "J." I've personally consumed close to a dozen of these, each time hoping against hope that this time I'd find the Jelly, because in truth, with a thin layer of Jelly these would be plenty tasty. But after thorough, scientific dissection the most I've ever been able to find is small purple smear on one of the Graham Crackers.

Recently the GED program has moved to bean burritos as their meat alternative, and while I'll miss PB&J conceptually, the burritos are a definite improvement in flavor.

Visit Scenic Moosic

At the turn of the century, 1,227 people lived in Moosic, ten years
later, 3,964 people lived in Moosic. Had they continued to grow at that rate for the rest of the century one could imagine Moosic to be a bustling small town with over 25,000 people. However, despite having a 20-screen movie theater and being the proud hometown of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre AAA Yankees, in 2000 the census total was 5,575. This means that in Lackawanna County Moosic lagged behind even fellow Borough, Dickson City, which had virtually nothing comparable to recommend it, unless you count the first Starbucks in Northeastern Pennsylvanian and a passing reference in The Office (set in Scranton). Moosic does however have a higher population than the Borough of Throop, home of the annual (for over 20 years) Summer Cow Flop.

Moosic is also home to an ABC news affiliate, the Shoppes at Montage (go to the website, but don't expect that you'll be given any indication of why "Shops" are spelled wrong), and even a PGA tournament golf course. According to Moosic Borough's website "the future horizon looms bright for the Borough of Moosic." Generally speaking I feel that things are more likely to loom ominously than to loom brightly, but then Moosic's situation is so good that it shines through common and idiomatic usage. And yet, despite all these fine attractions, I would never have heard of Moosic if it were not also the place where HFI Heartland Foods' PB& J, the PEANUT BUTTER & JELLY Graham Cracker SANDWICH is produced.

Tune in tomorrow for a full dissection of this food wonder.

Self-Promotion #3

Quoted on the same page as Milan Kundera, Margaret Atwood, and perhaps best of all, The Wonder Years.

http://zerite.net/literatti/love/

Scroll to the bottom of the page, and there I am.