You think it’s fun to stomp on our heads. You think it’s fun to kick us around. You think it’s fun to steal our coins, eat our mushrooms, and pull up our flowers. Well you know what? I think you’re all sick. Well, did you ever stop to think how we feel? Can’t any of you people think for yourselves?
Do you people even know what you’re doing to us? I assure you, this is no game. All of our flag poles are ruined, because that fat man keeps tearing down the flags! We had to install many a spinning fire stick security system around our precious flagpoles, but he keeps jumping over them at the right time and stealing the flags anyway. Not even our best question mark blocks hovering randomly in the sky can stop his demented lust for our flags. No castle is safe from his thieving ways either! He just walks right in and starts stealing money and breaking things. You can forget about building anything out of bricks too, because that red ruffian comes by and smashes them all, looking for money! (I bet he spends it on drugs, too! Anyone as obsessed with mushrooms and eating flowers as he is has to be a druggie!)
And for the love of Zelda, do you have any idea what it’s like to tell a child that his father was murdered by that sinister mustached man?
“Mommy, why hasn’t Papa Goomba been home for the past three weeks?”
“I’m sorry, son, but your father isn’t in another castle like I’ve been telling you. He’s… dead!”
“Dead!?”
“Yes son! It’s true! He was – oh, I can barely say it! – he was stomped to death by Super Mario! And then that evil man robbed your father’s flat corpse of all 100 of his points!”
“Daddy! Nooooooooooo!”
Maybe if you knew the real deal about that Super Mario guy and his brother, what’s-his-name, you’d think twice about killing our people and ransacking our homes. We’re not the villains here, he is. Him and his brother. What's-his-name.
Everything was fine before he showed up. We lived as a tightly knit community. We all had steady jobs: some of us walking back and forth on the same piece of terrain all day, and others periodically popping out of pipes, throwing a fireball, and ducking back inside. Then, after a hard day’s work, it was back home to relax by walking back and forth in the same room until daybreak. Everyone enjoyed their existence and had no reason to complain.
But then one day, a fat, sinister shadow befell the land. The man in red had arrived. We were helpless against his futuristic technologies. We had never seen a creature that large move with such agility. For example, if he’s walking, he can stop and go in the opposite direction without having to bump into a pipe first! And he can go faster than just walking; he can run! How could we even begin to compete with advanced military strategies like that?
Knowing he was physically superior to us, he began ruling over us with an iron fist. His first move was to have is girlfriend, Princess Toadstool, imprison our kind and handsome leader, King Koopa. With him out of the way, he and his brother were free to begin stealing our money and killing us any time they wanted.
So I beg of you all; please stop assisting this man’s heinous crimes! He’s brainwashed you all into thinking that we’re somehow bad, and yet, what proof has he ever given you? When, besides the few times our fearless King Koopa has escaped from the Princess’ evil grasp, have any of us attacked you? Well, besides the Hammer Brothers; I guess sometimes they get a little careless with their tools.
We all just want to go back to our normal lives! We want to be able to walk aimlessly again, and pop in and out of pipes without fear! Please, I implore you! Don’t let the man in red seduce you to a life of crime!
Why can we all just be goombas?
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
An Open Letter to Every Robot
Gregory Dobrot
47 Crandle Street
Laramie, WY, 82072
January 27, 2009
47 Crandle Street
Laramie, WY, 82072
January 27, 2009
Every Robot
Anywhere
USA
Dear Metallic Marauders,
I don't know why you chose my lawn for this – and I probably never will – but I would appreciate it if you would keep your shiny hinnies off my lawn. I don't pay anyone to mow it and heck, I don't even take care of it myself really, but I don't appreciate your cold, clawed feet (or treds were applicable) yanking up my beautiful yellowish grass every night. Yes, I know what you're doing out there; when I've gotten up in the middle of the night to use the facilities and on several occasions, I’ve heard your riotous metal-on-metal banging, and I know I'd better not pull back the curtains and peak outside lest my virgin eyes be exposed to a wicked robot orgy (roborgy?). The unidentifiable coolants you all expel during your romps leave the stench of robo-hedonism hanging heavy in the air each morning and I'm getting sick of scrubbing the oil stains on my walkway. Also, it's hard to sleep with all that awful heavy buzzing and robomoaning; it's starting to affect my performance at work.
Seriously, who programmed you to do this? What purpose does it serve?All this lust can't be good for your luster!
Well, regardless of who programmed you and why, please act on your self-gratifying, bare-chassised urges somewhere else.
And no, not my backyard either, you smart-aleck CPUs.
To any likeminded, Christian humans who might have stumbled across this letter while searching online for inspirational stories about robot cats or cute, robot smiley faces to include in your e-mails: Despite all those charming robots you see on television, like Number 5 from Short Circuit, or Number 5 from Short Circuit II, robots are not your friends. They’re not even that annoying guy you hang out with sometimes out of pity. Every android, every automaton and every I-Dog are just waiting to transmit their electric evil directly into your brain – likely via some kind of tiny, tinny sonic waves – and slowly turn you against your own family… or even your own town!
And just so you know, the only thing Number 5 is alive with is evil.
We must rise against the robots for one simple reason: Our continued safety. Our very way of life is in peril! It’s a scenario that plays out all too often: A happy, heterosexual couple is sleeping happily in their happy home, as their happy children dream of happy things, like baseball and Ronald Reagan. In the midst of their collective slumber, a mechanical man creeps into their abode, clanging and whirring and somehow not waking anyone up. In the morning, all that remains are a few bloody sheets and a fistful of broken dreams. Also probably a TV set. And some dishes. Maybe a cat, too.
What’s that you say? You have doors and windows and vicious dogs to keep out the robots? Think again, my carbon-based friends, because the robots have already infiltrated our homes! Your coffeemaker? A secret recording device issued by the Robo-Overlord to trace your every move. Your electric razor? Full of deadly robot blades and rage for all things fleshy. Your wife? A hideous android with lasers for teeth and hair of cold, thin wire. Your children? Annoying, but not robots – yet. I think you get the picture.
If you don’t want to heed my warning, that’s fine. But don’t come crying to me when, while you’re lying in bed, you hear the distant clang of metal jaws on human bone echoing through the deathly still night.
Lurking in the shadows is danger, Will Robinson. You have been warned.
Sincerely,
Gregory Dobrot
Good, Christian Man
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Another Roadside Tragedy
 |
| Sad Meal |
As I rolled past this all-to-familiar scene, the wind from my car jarring the box ever so slightly, I wondered, “How did this happen?” What led up to the cheeriest food container known to man lying face down in the street, its innards greedily consumed and its owner, who, impatient, couldn’t wait to dispose of it properly, opting instead for an unceremonious asphalt burial?
A scenario began to form in my mind.
The pitter-patter of a light rain echoes on the small, out of the way road, but in the distance the din of a motor far past its prime approaches. A moment later, a tiny hand reaches into a Happy Meal box for the last time. Two blackened french-fries remain and slide to one side, quietly tapping the edge.
“Daddy, I’m done with my Happy Meal. What should I do?” asks high-pitched voice. Small hands hold the box up towards the driver like an offering to some stone-faced god.
Smoke bellows from the tip of the cigar, floats past the brim of a beige fedora and is sucked outside through the barely open window.
 |
| Lewis Black |
“Then throw… the box… on the side… of the road,” he commands, slowly and firmly. Ashes tumble through the air and lightly come to rest inside the open box.
The rusty door swings open, the hinges screaming from years of abuse. Bits of paint flake off and flutter to the ground. The Happy Meal box sails through the air and slams into the pavement, scattering hundreds of french-fries and half-eaten cheese burgers. A Chicken McNugget comes to rest in the adjacent field, its golden-brown coating hardly able to hang on anymore, like the shredded skin of a trauma patient.
Smoke pours off the squealing tires and soon all is quiet once more. The only evidence of the incident is the Happy Meal box, sitting atop six foot tall mountain of greasy beef, all white meat and charred potato cuts.
 |
| "...on the side... of the road." |
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Inside Caligari’s Cabinet: The Influences of a Silent Classic
By Matt Frey
When Carl Mayor and Hans Janowitz wrote the script for the German silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, they probably had little idea of the major social impact it would have in both their country and ours. The film, with its thinly-veiled social commentary and odd, fairytale scenery, was released amidst a firestorm of both controversy and critical praise. When the dust of debate had finally settled, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari emerged as one of the most influential films of all time.
What had started as a simple silent movie had, quite literally, changed the course of horror films.
In 1921, a group of more than 2000 protesters descended on The Miller’s Theatre in Los Angeles. From noon to 8:30 p.m., the protesters demonstrated against The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the theater’s newest offering (Skal 37). They protested not because of the content of the film, but because of the film’s German origins. Many ex-soldiers were horrified that Americans would pay to see anything made in Germany, after the horrors of the first Great War that had ended just recently. (The parallels situation and the current conflict in Middle East are both obvious and beyond the aim of this work.)
Ironically, the film carried a potent anti-war sentiment in its stylistic use of lighting, its twisted, surreal imagery and sets, and its strange, metaphorical characters (Skal 41). Mayor and Janowitz’s script villainized the German government and blamed it for pulling the German people headlong into World War I. In the film, Cesare, a zombie-like man with piercing eyes, responds only to Dr. Caligari’s heinous commands to creep into people’s homes and kill them in the middle of the night. Cesare represents the German people, forced by a corrupt government – personified by Dr. Calagari – to murder anyone who gets in their way.
Had the protesters actually seen the film, they might have reversed their position; however, xenophobic postwar sentiment made that a virtual impossibility. But while the veterans of the Great War demonstrated against the film, many critics proclaimed Caligari a cinematic masterpiece in one way or another. “The musical setting for the production is superb,” commented one critic (Skal 44). The same reviewer was pleased with the film’s use of tinting and color. Variety magazine was impressed, but feared the film’s subject matter would hinder it, saying “it may catch the popular fancy, but it is morbid” (Skal 44). But perhaps the greatest compliment came from the film magazine Shadowland when it said that Caligari “has the authentic thrills and shocks of art” (Skal 46).
Alas, despite modest critical acclaim and public interest, the protesters eventually got their way. The Miller Theatre purged The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari from their screen (Skal 46).
There is no doubt that Variety was correct in saying that Caligari is “morbid,” but it was certainly wrong in thinking that the film’s grim subject matter would repel audiences. As Tod Browning proved time and time again with his ghoulish circus acts, humanity is attracted to the macabre (Skal 25). Later, with films such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Phantom of the Opera and Freaks, as well as the aid of silent film star Lon Chaney, Browning helped to further the horror genre that Caligari effectively started (Skal 67). Indeed, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was the first true horror film as measured by today’s standards.
German promotional posters for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari declared “Du Musst Caligari Werden” – “You Will Become Caligari” (Skal 44). Little did anyone know how true that statement would become; Caligari’s influence extended far beyond films of the time. For example, comparisons between the shambling somnambulist Cesare and the 1931 film version of Frankenstein’s monster are both unavoidable and uncanny. The two monsters are tall and dark, and both move in strikingly similar ways. Universal’s 1931 Frankenstein film went on to invade many facets of American culture.
Although the idea of a single mass murderer sneaking into peoples’ bedrooms and slaughtering them in their sleep is nothing new, Caligari was an early example of this idea on celluloid – Cesare brought a face to the age old fear that has been recycled in countless films afterwards. The somnambulist, it seems, was a prototype for the horror cliché of the single, inhuman killing machine. John Carpenter’s Halloween gives us what is essentially the somnambulist in a white, almost featureless mask. Unspeaking and unfeeling, a killer named Michael Myers slays the teenage population of a small rural community one by one. Although Carpenter probably wasn’t thinking of the somnambulist when he created “The Shape” (as Myers is referred to in the film’s closing credits), the killer certainly matches Cesare’s archetype. Another example of this phenomenon is Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th series. In the masked murder’s 2003 film, Freddy vs. Jason, Voorhees appears in his victim’s bedroom and viciously stabs him to death, finally snapping him in half as a brutal exclamation mark for his murderous sentence. Despite the wanton gore found in the Freddy vs. Jason scene, the basic elements of the Cesare archetype were all present. Give a somnambulist a hockey mask and you’ve got Jason Voorhees. Take it away, and you’ve got Caligari.
The reoccurring elements of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari are not limited to film alone – the image of the lone madman his been consistently burned into society’s psyche through many different media outlets. In Capcom’s Resident Evil 3, a 1999 video game for Sony’s Playstation, Sega’s Dreamcast and later, Nintendo’s GameCube, the Ceasre-like creature Nemesis stalks the player throughout the game, consistantly bursting into whatever temporary haven he or she thinks they have found.
The greatest debt owed to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, however, is for catapulting horror films into the American mainstream. Without Caligari, horror films would likely exist today, yet not nearly in the same way. Perhaps Nosferatu, released in America a short time later, would have been able to do what Caligari did. Yet, would we still have Michael Myers? Would we still have Jason Voorhees or even Freddy Kruger of Nightmare on Elm Street fame? Possibly. But it’s an awfully long trip from Max Schreck’s wily vampire to John Carpenter’s elusive killing machine.
No one knew it at the time, but the German promotional poster for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari really did predict our future. As a society, we HAVE become Caligari. So much so, in fact, that we no longer realize what’s happened. It is said that art imitates life, but art also imitates other art. Movies, books, video games and more have borrowed parts of the Mayor and Janowitz’s film for so long, the original lines of ownership have blurred beyond recognition.
We have indeed become Caligari, but more importantly, Caligari has become us.
Work Cited
Skal, David J. The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror. New York: Faber and Faber, 1993.
When Carl Mayor and Hans Janowitz wrote the script for the German silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, they probably had little idea of the major social impact it would have in both their country and ours. The film, with its thinly-veiled social commentary and odd, fairytale scenery, was released amidst a firestorm of both controversy and critical praise. When the dust of debate had finally settled, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari emerged as one of the most influential films of all time.
What had started as a simple silent movie had, quite literally, changed the course of horror films.
In 1921, a group of more than 2000 protesters descended on The Miller’s Theatre in Los Angeles. From noon to 8:30 p.m., the protesters demonstrated against The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the theater’s newest offering (Skal 37). They protested not because of the content of the film, but because of the film’s German origins. Many ex-soldiers were horrified that Americans would pay to see anything made in Germany, after the horrors of the first Great War that had ended just recently. (The parallels situation and the current conflict in Middle East are both obvious and beyond the aim of this work.)
Ironically, the film carried a potent anti-war sentiment in its stylistic use of lighting, its twisted, surreal imagery and sets, and its strange, metaphorical characters (Skal 41). Mayor and Janowitz’s script villainized the German government and blamed it for pulling the German people headlong into World War I. In the film, Cesare, a zombie-like man with piercing eyes, responds only to Dr. Caligari’s heinous commands to creep into people’s homes and kill them in the middle of the night. Cesare represents the German people, forced by a corrupt government – personified by Dr. Calagari – to murder anyone who gets in their way.
Had the protesters actually seen the film, they might have reversed their position; however, xenophobic postwar sentiment made that a virtual impossibility. But while the veterans of the Great War demonstrated against the film, many critics proclaimed Caligari a cinematic masterpiece in one way or another. “The musical setting for the production is superb,” commented one critic (Skal 44). The same reviewer was pleased with the film’s use of tinting and color. Variety magazine was impressed, but feared the film’s subject matter would hinder it, saying “it may catch the popular fancy, but it is morbid” (Skal 44). But perhaps the greatest compliment came from the film magazine Shadowland when it said that Caligari “has the authentic thrills and shocks of art” (Skal 46).
Alas, despite modest critical acclaim and public interest, the protesters eventually got their way. The Miller Theatre purged The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari from their screen (Skal 46).
There is no doubt that Variety was correct in saying that Caligari is “morbid,” but it was certainly wrong in thinking that the film’s grim subject matter would repel audiences. As Tod Browning proved time and time again with his ghoulish circus acts, humanity is attracted to the macabre (Skal 25). Later, with films such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Phantom of the Opera and Freaks, as well as the aid of silent film star Lon Chaney, Browning helped to further the horror genre that Caligari effectively started (Skal 67). Indeed, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was the first true horror film as measured by today’s standards.
German promotional posters for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari declared “Du Musst Caligari Werden” – “You Will Become Caligari” (Skal 44). Little did anyone know how true that statement would become; Caligari’s influence extended far beyond films of the time. For example, comparisons between the shambling somnambulist Cesare and the 1931 film version of Frankenstein’s monster are both unavoidable and uncanny. The two monsters are tall and dark, and both move in strikingly similar ways. Universal’s 1931 Frankenstein film went on to invade many facets of American culture.
Although the idea of a single mass murderer sneaking into peoples’ bedrooms and slaughtering them in their sleep is nothing new, Caligari was an early example of this idea on celluloid – Cesare brought a face to the age old fear that has been recycled in countless films afterwards. The somnambulist, it seems, was a prototype for the horror cliché of the single, inhuman killing machine. John Carpenter’s Halloween gives us what is essentially the somnambulist in a white, almost featureless mask. Unspeaking and unfeeling, a killer named Michael Myers slays the teenage population of a small rural community one by one. Although Carpenter probably wasn’t thinking of the somnambulist when he created “The Shape” (as Myers is referred to in the film’s closing credits), the killer certainly matches Cesare’s archetype. Another example of this phenomenon is Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th series. In the masked murder’s 2003 film, Freddy vs. Jason, Voorhees appears in his victim’s bedroom and viciously stabs him to death, finally snapping him in half as a brutal exclamation mark for his murderous sentence. Despite the wanton gore found in the Freddy vs. Jason scene, the basic elements of the Cesare archetype were all present. Give a somnambulist a hockey mask and you’ve got Jason Voorhees. Take it away, and you’ve got Caligari.
The reoccurring elements of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari are not limited to film alone – the image of the lone madman his been consistently burned into society’s psyche through many different media outlets. In Capcom’s Resident Evil 3, a 1999 video game for Sony’s Playstation, Sega’s Dreamcast and later, Nintendo’s GameCube, the Ceasre-like creature Nemesis stalks the player throughout the game, consistantly bursting into whatever temporary haven he or she thinks they have found.
The greatest debt owed to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, however, is for catapulting horror films into the American mainstream. Without Caligari, horror films would likely exist today, yet not nearly in the same way. Perhaps Nosferatu, released in America a short time later, would have been able to do what Caligari did. Yet, would we still have Michael Myers? Would we still have Jason Voorhees or even Freddy Kruger of Nightmare on Elm Street fame? Possibly. But it’s an awfully long trip from Max Schreck’s wily vampire to John Carpenter’s elusive killing machine.
No one knew it at the time, but the German promotional poster for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari really did predict our future. As a society, we HAVE become Caligari. So much so, in fact, that we no longer realize what’s happened. It is said that art imitates life, but art also imitates other art. Movies, books, video games and more have borrowed parts of the Mayor and Janowitz’s film for so long, the original lines of ownership have blurred beyond recognition.
We have indeed become Caligari, but more importantly, Caligari has become us.
Work Cited
Skal, David J. The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror. New York: Faber and Faber, 1993.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
An Interview with Dave Barry
Dave Barry opens SUNY New Paltz series
By Matt Frey
Nationally-syndicated humor columnist Dave Barry kicked off the SUNY New Paltz Distinguished Speaker Series on Wednesday, Nov. 12.
“I’m excited and honored to be the first speaker in the SUNY New Paltz Distinguished Speaker Series,” said Barry. “I am also assuming it is going to get a lot more distinguished.”
Barry, a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, has written several of bestsellers including Babies and Other Hazards of Sex, Dave Barry Slept Here: A Short History of the United States, Stay Fit and Healthy Until You're Dead, Homes and Other Black Holes and Claw Your Way to the Top. Aside from his book-turned-film Big Trouble starring Tim Allen and Dave’s World, the television show based on his life, Barry is also known for his list of “The Worst Songs Ever Recorded,” in which he declared “Horse with No Name” by America to be one of the most heinous. (In a Times Community Newspapers exclusive, Barry revealed that he would have named the horse “Spot” or possibly “Dick Cheney.”)
Barry got his start as a reporter at the Associated Press in 1975, and then joined Burger Associates, a consulting firm that teaches effective writing skills to businesspeople. In 1983, he took a job at The Miami Herald and began writing syndicated humor columns, which, he says, is much more entertaining than his old AP job. However, just because Barry has a lot more fun in his current situation doesn’t mean that he didn’t enjoy his time at the Associated Press.
“I actually liked being a reporter, except for the part about having to be factually accurate,” said Barry. “It's a lot easier to make things up.”
But with exploding pop-tarts, disastrous skiing trips, forcing himself to listen to the world’s worst music and some of his books just barely missing bestseller status, Barry says his occupation isn’t all fun and games. There’s good and bad aspects, he says.
“The best part is I can do my job at home, in my underwear. (Actually, I can do it in anybody's underwear),” said Barry. “Also, since what I do is basically ridiculous, I never get called on to make important decisions. The worst part is that, because I work at home, I am never more than 38 feet from Cheez-Its.”
But Barry’s skills aren’t just limited to writing humor columns and eating salty snack foods. Though one might not realize it, the humorist knows much about the economic crisis currently facing the United States. Furthermore, he says he’s got the perfect solution to everyone’s financial woes.
“The whole thing is totally my fault,” said Barry. “I have written a personal check to cover the damages. It is in the mail.”
With America’s finical crisis essentially solved single-handedly by Barry, we can all relax a little more and think about the future. And what does Barry’s future hold? Is he going to go full-steam ahead in the coming years, or is it time for a break?
Actually, a bit of philanthropy is his next order of business.
“I was going to slow down, but I decided it would be better to keep working so that I can continue sending money to help bail out needy Wall Street financial institutions,” Barry said.
In addition to his skilled satire and economic savvy, Barry is widely known for his wise, fatherly advice. For those trying to become humorists like him, Barry insists, “Make sure you have comfortable underwear.”
Put perhaps Barry’s most important insight is thus: When asked if there was anything he would like the readers of the Mid Hudson Times to know, he replied: “I just want to say that, of all the sectors of the Hudson, my favorite has always been the Mid.”
Originally published in the Mid Hudson Times on Nov. 5, 2008
By Matt Frey
Nationally-syndicated humor columnist Dave Barry kicked off the SUNY New Paltz Distinguished Speaker Series on Wednesday, Nov. 12.
“I’m excited and honored to be the first speaker in the SUNY New Paltz Distinguished Speaker Series,” said Barry. “I am also assuming it is going to get a lot more distinguished.”
Barry, a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, has written several of bestsellers including Babies and Other Hazards of Sex, Dave Barry Slept Here: A Short History of the United States, Stay Fit and Healthy Until You're Dead, Homes and Other Black Holes and Claw Your Way to the Top. Aside from his book-turned-film Big Trouble starring Tim Allen and Dave’s World, the television show based on his life, Barry is also known for his list of “The Worst Songs Ever Recorded,” in which he declared “Horse with No Name” by America to be one of the most heinous. (In a Times Community Newspapers exclusive, Barry revealed that he would have named the horse “Spot” or possibly “Dick Cheney.”)
Barry got his start as a reporter at the Associated Press in 1975, and then joined Burger Associates, a consulting firm that teaches effective writing skills to businesspeople. In 1983, he took a job at The Miami Herald and began writing syndicated humor columns, which, he says, is much more entertaining than his old AP job. However, just because Barry has a lot more fun in his current situation doesn’t mean that he didn’t enjoy his time at the Associated Press.
“I actually liked being a reporter, except for the part about having to be factually accurate,” said Barry. “It's a lot easier to make things up.”
But with exploding pop-tarts, disastrous skiing trips, forcing himself to listen to the world’s worst music and some of his books just barely missing bestseller status, Barry says his occupation isn’t all fun and games. There’s good and bad aspects, he says.
“The best part is I can do my job at home, in my underwear. (Actually, I can do it in anybody's underwear),” said Barry. “Also, since what I do is basically ridiculous, I never get called on to make important decisions. The worst part is that, because I work at home, I am never more than 38 feet from Cheez-Its.”
But Barry’s skills aren’t just limited to writing humor columns and eating salty snack foods. Though one might not realize it, the humorist knows much about the economic crisis currently facing the United States. Furthermore, he says he’s got the perfect solution to everyone’s financial woes.
“The whole thing is totally my fault,” said Barry. “I have written a personal check to cover the damages. It is in the mail.”
With America’s finical crisis essentially solved single-handedly by Barry, we can all relax a little more and think about the future. And what does Barry’s future hold? Is he going to go full-steam ahead in the coming years, or is it time for a break?
Actually, a bit of philanthropy is his next order of business.
“I was going to slow down, but I decided it would be better to keep working so that I can continue sending money to help bail out needy Wall Street financial institutions,” Barry said.
In addition to his skilled satire and economic savvy, Barry is widely known for his wise, fatherly advice. For those trying to become humorists like him, Barry insists, “Make sure you have comfortable underwear.”
Put perhaps Barry’s most important insight is thus: When asked if there was anything he would like the readers of the Mid Hudson Times to know, he replied: “I just want to say that, of all the sectors of the Hudson, my favorite has always been the Mid.”
Originally published in the Mid Hudson Times on Nov. 5, 2008
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Echoes of the Wordsmith
I bet you know the Wordsmith.
The Wordsmith could be your mother, your father or your brother. The Wordsmith could be a co-worker or friend, a shop clerk or the boy down the street who likes to shoot some hoops as the sun waivers out on lazy summer nights. You might even be the Wordsmith, because sometimes, even the Wordsmith doesn’t know for sure.
The Wordsmith shapes language into something new, something meaningful, or something trivial. The Wordsmith might forge the next great American novel or the trash marinating in dust at the depths of a used book store in Massachusetts. The Wordsmith might be wealthy and renowned, or use a boatload of strained metaphors and pseudo-intellectual stylings in their first blog post on the corner of Unfocused and Unknown, Internet, USA. But whatever the case, the Wordsmith is always tinkering.
I know that I like to tinker and I know that I’m a Wordsmith. And wherever I fit in, I know the fire’s hot and I’m always ready to start forging.
The Wordsmith could be your mother, your father or your brother. The Wordsmith could be a co-worker or friend, a shop clerk or the boy down the street who likes to shoot some hoops as the sun waivers out on lazy summer nights. You might even be the Wordsmith, because sometimes, even the Wordsmith doesn’t know for sure.
The Wordsmith shapes language into something new, something meaningful, or something trivial. The Wordsmith might forge the next great American novel or the trash marinating in dust at the depths of a used book store in Massachusetts. The Wordsmith might be wealthy and renowned, or use a boatload of strained metaphors and pseudo-intellectual stylings in their first blog post on the corner of Unfocused and Unknown, Internet, USA. But whatever the case, the Wordsmith is always tinkering.
I know that I like to tinker and I know that I’m a Wordsmith. And wherever I fit in, I know the fire’s hot and I’m always ready to start forging.
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