And Another Thing About Nuns...

Seemingly can't get enough about nuns. J.D. Salinger once wrote: "Everybody is a nun." Contemplate among your various selves while you watch the snow pile up.

Due To The Weather...

...and these updates just in to add to our list of closings and cancellations:

Every charter school with an exotic, seemingly sham-name within a two hundred mile radius, the Gompers ski club 35th year reunion, Mindy's tier 1 client massages, the semi-formal bonfire at Frank's, the Miserable This, Forbes rally at Public Square, the Hey David wine and cheese, any book club not scheduled to discuss a Nicholas Sparks book, the orgy in Room 1217 at the Randall Park Howard Johnson's, Alanis Morissette's comeback, the Welcome Back Russell Branyan spaghetti dinner underneath the Hope Memorial Bridge, Ruth's mea culpa, spring, LeBron James's pending free agency, all fair-haired and -skinned people's sunburns, George, the This Is Not Your Forebear's Druidic Club's Annual Dance Around the Snow-Making Machine Pot-Luck Rite at Boston Mills, any and all downtown development (wait a minute, that one's left over from the Blizzard of '02), the Browns' Super Bowl Victory Parade, Fitz's nightly walk, #385's RGIS, publication of J.D. Salinger's latest novel, Emily's shelving cart, the check in the mail, the Operate Your Own Cryonics Business Out of the Comfort of Your Own Home informational seminar at the Airport Ritz-Carlton, Otis Lloyd Floyd's resurrection (delayed two hours), the Tammy Faye Bakker Memorial Make-up-In at Southgate U.S.A., coffee with Pat, the expectorateyourchaw blog, the ptooeyyourfingernail blog, the spitoutyourgum blog, th-

Pavement-Here

Lucille Clifton, RIP

I was saddened when I read the other day that the poet Lucille Clifton died nearly two weeks ago. I discovered her poetry about ten years ago, and I always voraciously read any of her volumes I can find. When I was asked to participate in an African-American Literature Read-In a few years ago, Lucille Clifton was the first writer I thought of to read. Her poems are like poetic shots of whiskey--concise, straight-forward, explosive. She wrote mostly from personal experience, and her poems are deceptively simple, like great prayers. They embrace celebration, perseverance, humor, pain, memory, dignity. When you read her, you feel in the presence of a friend. A wise, tough, compassionate, twinkling friend.

Lucille Clifton-Cruelty

Lucille Clifton-yes Lord, he was born...

Does This Bookmark Make Me Look Fat? (Book Club Discussion Questions In Search Of A Novel To Be Applied To)

Congratulations! You've finished the book (or at least are going to try to bluff your way through another book club get-together). The following questions should help you and your fellow book club members enjoy a spirited discussion of the book in your hands, help you gain insights into the book you may have been too distracted (or just too damn ignorant) to have picked up on in the first place, and most important, keep your book club discussion focused on the book rather than drifting into inane gossip and bad-mouthing the two members who have just missed their third discussion in a row.

1. Nobody's judging here, we're all friends, did you finish the book? Make it halfway through? Read the cover? Do you ever read any of the books Alex picks?
2. Who was supposed to bring the wine this time?
3. Just asking, does anybody, um, can't stand reading?
4. Did this book make you cry?
5. If no, would you still recommend it?
6. Did anybody else think the main character was, like, an animal until about page 75?
7. Does anybody else hate coming to book club at Shelly's house?
8. What's that smell?
9. How you do feel about the choice of font?
10. On page 38, when Mario makes the pass at Julie, was that just like middle school or something or what?
11. Did anyone else have erotic dreams about Mario's mechanic, Floyd, who appears briefly on pages 89 and 93 and then is like totally forgotten by the author?
12. Can one plausibly make the case that the whole Mario, laid off, whispering to horses and suddenly wearing kilts episode is an allegory for the passion of Christ?
13. Is it just my imagination, or does anyone find it highly probable that the author, the ambiguously named Terry Flugle, underwent a sex change operation during the course of writing this book? Oh yeah, just check out the passage from pages 147-151, beginning, "With the ease of a lazy kite, Mario strolled onto the veranda," and ending "...unless of course Claudette was the plumber's helper."
14. Does anyone know what the word "mien" on page 179, toward the bottom, means?
15. Who forgot to flush?
16. Given a Marxist-Feminist reading, could you argue that Mario's attempted murder of the Bingo game operator is not only justified but goddamn necessary?
17. The part where Mario talks to the waitress about roofing and lesions, and there's all that description of the butter pads, what the hell's going on there?
18. Would Mario make a good lifeguard? Show your work.
19. Deus ex machina: the dolphin piloting the helicopter off the grounds of the rehab center?
20. Does Nicholas Sparks have a new one out?

Little Willie John-Talk To Me, Talk To Me

Comment: The Sun Sucks

It's not as if I rack them up like Cleveland does mentions on dubious lists, but I treasure each and every one of the Comments I receive after (some) of my posts. It's the feedback from and interaction with my legions of fans that make this electronic scribbling so worthwhile. A few posts ago I mentioned something about working on my sunburn (a definite fantasy in Cleveland in February) and I received the following comment from "Bill":

Bill said...



It is always best to avoid sunburn if at all possible! However, I have a very light complexion and struggle with sunburns a lot. Fortunately, I found an all-natural product called Regen. It took the pain out of the sunburn and stopped the blistering and peeling! Turns that burn into a great tan! It has saved many a vacation for my family and does not even sting if it gets into your eyes. You should see this: http://blog.oli-co.com/?p=561. You do not have to let sunburn get you down. By the way, if you are already blistering, use it anyway because it keeps your skin from itching! If you are not satisfied, they even give your money back!

Now I have no idea who Bill is. He could be a phishing shill for the sunblock industry, for all I know. But I appreciate his input. Alas, I am no stranger to sunburn and the joys of slopping on gallons of gooey stuff all summer long. There's nothing quite like the wake-up call of a sweaty glob of sunscreen in your eye. I know it might be heresy to say, especially around these sun-abandoned parts this time of year, but I hate the sun. I realize I'm on record as saying yellow is my favorite color, but when it comes to climate hues, I much prefer gray. Anyway, all of this got me nostalgic for a poem I wrote years and years ago, fully explaining my feelings toward our dear, life-providing Sun. Hit the jump link below and bask in some non-cancer causing verbosity.

This Is Misery?

I've been thinking more about the Forbes magazine people putting Cleveland at the top of their list for most miserable U.S. cities. My initial gut reaction is to say that after years of hawking magazines, I haven't seen a whole lot of people buying Forbes, and those who do seem to me to be about the most miserable lot this side of those who buy All About Beer magazine (let's face it, if you have to read about beer, you're missing the point by a mile). My next thought is good, let outsiders think Cleveland is so miserable. That way they stay away and leave all of us here with enough elbow room to enjoy all the great things about the place.

Turns out the "misery index" these Forbes nabobs used included such trite, been-there-done-that items as crime, government corruption, housing foreclosures, unemployment, etc. Significant issues, sure, but hardly the be all and end all of daily life in the used-to-be-quite-big-but-dwindling-yearly city of Cleveland. So I started compiling my own anti-misery index, a list of various amenities that make living quite nice and serve as quite a powerful antidote, especially when considered en masse, to any perceived misery lurking in the environs.
A small but significant sampling of my anti-misery list (a list I'm sure any sentient person would agree is pretty universal and one in which Cleveland scores pretty high across the board, I might add) should go a long way to convincing the Cleveland put-downers they wouldn't know a knackwurst from a bratwurst if one or the other gave them gas for a week. See how many of the questions posed below your city can honestly answer a resounding YES to, as Cleveland easily does each and every one.

• Can you find five bars within a ten minute drive where they serve Guinness on tap and know how to pour one?
• Does a good percentage of the population know what a pierogi is?
• Can you get a good pierogi within a fifteen minute drive?
• Within ten minutes can you drive your landlord to the emergency room at dawn on a Sunday and be welcomed by the staff of the Cleveland Clinic, one of the greatest hospitals in the world, as I did this morning?
• Does your community have its own year-round collective catharsis entity (aka Cleveland professional sports teams) that acts as universal scapegoat, whipping boy, and repository for everyone's private miseries?
• Can you get anywhere worth getting to in your metropolitan area within thirty minutes, regardless of the time of day or night?
• Are you basically free from any catastrophic natural disaster, other than a measly blizzard every once in a while (okay, including April, but what's a baseball home opener without snowballs to throw at the opposing bullpen?)?
• Do the vast majority of your licensed drivers actually know how to drive in snow?
• Does your city's collective inferiority complex help to lessen your own individual one (I mean, how many New Yorkers or Parisians probably beat themselves up all the time, thinking, "I'm not worthy of my city"? That doesn't happen in Cleveland.)?

Michael Stanley Band-This Town

Location, Location, Location

According to Forbes, Cleveland is the most miserable U.S. city.

We're No. 1! We're No. 1! We're No. 1!

And, well, the Beatitudes kick ass.

Pere Ubu-Misery Goats