Hey, kids!

TRY THIS AT HOME! It really works! Fool your friends! Send secret messages! Got something to say, but want to keep it private? Forget texting, and go invisible ink! That’s right—or should we say, that’s write—you know, the stuff that flows out of a pen? Only you can’t see it: it vanishes before your eyes! Shhhh … don’t tell anyone, but once you know the trick, you can see it! (We’ll get to that part in a minute.) First, you make the ink yourself, by following an ancient, home recipe, passed down from kid to kid to kid, from goodness knows how long ago. You can do this in your own kitchen, using a few common ingredients—just don’t get caught! Ready? Here’s what you do. T-ke a—e on a-d - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"A book in hand is worth two on the shelf." 

pu-n,c!tu?a—t“i”on ... [p;an/d(e)mon'i:um].

What a morning!

Exclamation Mark barges into my office, red-faced and hyper, and starts stomping everything in sight! I tell it to go back where it came from, that I have little use for hysterics, and to not return, either alone or accompanied (particularly accompanied!!) unless summoned. Know what it does? Crashes my computer and jumps from the window! Just as Question Mark peers inside, puzzled. “What the—!?” asks Q. “This isn’t the chiropractor?” “That would be two doors down,” I say. “And if I were you, I’d keep away from Ex.” “Ex?” “Yeah, a minute ago—”

Em Dash dashes in (naturally), interrupting, and declares it’s through with people mistaking it for its un-better half—Hyphen. Speaking of which, in pops Hyphen (followed quietly by En Dash), self-important, saying that this nine-to-five thing is not sufficient for all the work it must do, and that, according to its owner’s manual, specifically pages 34–36 (“Hey,” says En, in a credit-where-credit’s-due sort of way, “that’s me.”) it has the widest range of usage in the entire grammar group, hence, has value, compounds things, connects well, maintains relationships ...

Ah, here we have Ellipsis, pogo-sticking in and leaving a dot-to-dot on the floor ... pogo-sticking out again ... and until I connect the dots, I won’t know quite what's going on.

And heeeere’s Apostrophe, drifting in to settle between an empty bottle from last night’s party and a lone gold cuff link. Right on its tail come two weeks’ worth of Apostrophes, murmuring, “Don’t mind us—‘twas neither a sin of omission nor commission on your part. We’re just doin’ our duty, tidyin' things up.”

“Take care of the broken glass,” I say.

“Will do.”

I’m hearing voices, and Quotation Marks flutter into the place, humming, buzzing, droning; one pair is singing The Coasters’ hit, “Yakety Yak.” I identify two types: couples and singles. Now and then they rake the air with their “fingers.” One pair joins up with a single, and together they announce, “Comma’s coming! ‘In the room the Comma comes and goes, talking of—‘”

Comma indeed trips in, singing—not the “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”—but Bob Marley. Comma pauses, then with a nod of its head, leaves a breakfast croissant on my desk, smiles, exits, comes back, frowns, removes the croissant, pauses once more, says, “Shucks, I’ve got plenty,” puts it back, and exits. (It will return. Again, and again, and again.)

Parentheses slides through the door (both of them, and I do a double-take: They’re identical twins) and assumes a position on either side of the room, saying in stereo, “Don’t mind us—we’re grammatical sociopaths. And one of us,” they continue, “(though we won’t say who), is half a smiley face.”

I smile. But my amusement is short-lived: Colon has arrived, slogging stiffly by, going straight for my file cabinet, rummaging around. I pull a bottle from the bottom drawer of my desk, and say, “Is this what you’re after?” Colon stares: It’s my emergency milk of magnesia. “Give me till 12:30,” Colon declares, “and I’ll be good to go.” I knew it: That explains all things Colon; it even explains Semicolon, now limping across my carpet, listing to one side like some worried serial comma, which it can be at times; it could be Comma’s cousin. ("[I'm] not so sure about that," says Semicolon.")

Brackets—two of them—marching in with postures so straight I could balance Merriam-Websters on their flattops. “You’re so square,” I say, but I don’t think they get it. Or maybe they do, but they're not laughing. I think I’ll put them right there [emphasis mine], where I had set aside my old office chair/bookshelf/catch-all.

The Slash. It strikes suddenly. Everything is B/W with The Slash, either/or, no gray areas. But not to give it short shrift, The Slash’s use is not so terse / when parting running lines of verse. The Slash leaves as abruptly as it came.

And last but not least, Period struts in, puffing a Punch Double Corona and speaking one-liners, like, “So,” “Now,” “Enough.” Taking a hard look at the sentence I’m writing (with pen and paper, since Ex Mark crashed my computer), it asks me if there’s anything more, do I think it’s run its course, and whether it should be brought to a final point, so I say, “I’m done,” and Period snuffs out its cigar on the end of it.

Pooh, Revisited

  

In Which Pooh Finds Out About Facebook, with Misgivings 

When Pooh (Winnie-Ther, otherwise known as Edward Bear ... THAT Pooh)—when he and I were talking the other day, I said casually, "People on Facebook like you." Pooh looked at me as if I'd said, "I enjoy eating onions." (Which I don't. Unless they're surrounded by something—like lettuce, tomato, hamburger, mayonnaise, and a sesame bun. Or soup. Or ... "Breath mints," whispers Pooh. "Exactly," I say.)

"What?" said Pooh.

"What, what?" I said. "The onions?"

"What onions?" said Pooh, looking around. "Are there onions?"

"No," I said. "There aren't. Unless you want some, of course."

"But if there aren't any onions, how could I want some?"

"Dear Pooh, how do you want honey when there isn't any?"

"That's quite a different sort of want."

"So it is," I said. "Now where were we?"

(Pooh whispers, "We were where you said something about people Liking me." He says it with a Most Humble Expression, which is easy for a Bear of Little Brain. "But difficult for People," whispers Bear, "with Big Brains. Write that down too, please, or people will think I'm Rabbit, or Owl, or somebody Important. Which I'm not." So I write that down. "Otherwise," he goes on, "they might NOT like me." Then he fidgets, and says, "But don't write that down, bother." So I don't. "But you have," he whispers hoarsely. "It's right there." "So it is," I say. "People will just have to ignore that part. That's why I've put parentheses around it. See?" He nods and says, "Ah.")

“About people Liking me ..." said Pooh.

"Yes, " I said. " They do. Very much."

Pooh looked very much pleased. Then he said, "How can you tell?”

“See what it says, right here?” So he saw what it said right here, and it said, “Like.” “When people click that,” I explained, “it means they like you.”

Bear scratched his ear, and said somberly, “I thought when somebody liked you they shook your paw or smiled or gave you something ... something sweet, perhaps ... sweet and—”

“But they can smile at you, Pooh. A smile on Facebook looks like this : )”

“Hm,” he said. “Two of those dot things.” 

“Those are eyes,” I said.

“And half a paren-thing, what you called it just now,” he said.

“Parenthesis. That’s the smile.”

 “Hm,” he said. “Two buttons you push.”

“Well, yes," I said. "Three, actually.”

He had Misgivings. It was easy to tell.

(Pooh is nudging me. “What’s Misgivings?” “Misgivings,” I explain, “is when you’re not sure about something.”)

“You push three buttons,” he said.

“That’s right.”

“To smile,” he said.

Then I was having Misgivings.

 

 

(Pooh is nudging me again. “Mr. Howell, it’s all right. I quite understand. Misgivings is like onions, only it doesn’t sound the same.” “Pooh!” I say, admiringly. “And as long as we’re surrounded by smiles” he says, “—these paren-things you call them—I don’t mind.” I give him the best smile I can. The real kind.)

“I’d still rather have honey,” he said.

A Dime a Dozen

I’m occasionally asked where my ideas come from, and I usually give a vague answer. Most writers do. After all, we don’t want to make it too easy. And if everyone took up writing, who'd be left to feed us? But I also believe in sharing. It’s just smart business. And today, I’m in a sharing mode. So, here goes.

I get my ideas from a discreet mail order company. Yeah, nothing spectacular. Maybe that’s why so few people know about it. You’d expect ideas to come from some cosmic, parallel-world place. But, nope.

You can’t find the company on the Web, so don’t bother. They’ve been around for a long, long time, and prefer anonymity. They use the old hand-delivery method, and you place your order by mail. I usually order a great amount, because the ideas are about a dime a dozen—literally—and most of them are small. There are four basic packages:

GrandCentral—1000 ideas for $99.95

Centumplex—100 for $9.99

60-Watt—60 for $6

Starter-Pak—20 for $2

(Shipping and handling determined by your location.)

I usually order a few of the Centumplexes, or a GrandCentral, because the bigger the order, the higher your chances of getting a big idea. The company knows this and that’s how they make a profit. They maintain that the selection process is random. They use a hand scoop, a snow shovel, or a bucket loader, depending on the size of your order. Once you place your order, a plainly wrapped box with a modest label is delivered to your door. It takes two to seven days, depending on where you live. You’re required to sign for the package.

It’s always a thrill for me to open the box. I immediately look for a big idea. Most of the ideas are like pebbles, or Jelly Bellies. I use a magnifying glass to read the small print. Some of the ideas are crazy, and act like Mexican jumping beans. Remove any ideas that seem rotten, or you run the risk of others rotting, too. The bad ones are usually rip-offs of something profound. Once I found a cheap imitation of Milton Glaser’s I♥NY and complained to customer service it had little connection with writing, and they explained that now and then ideas from another division (in this case Marketing) get misplaced. Many of the ideas are dull, but you will see a few bright ones, and that’s always a treat. And if you’re lucky, there’ll be a big one, even two or three. The big ones have a more interesting shape and a deep patina, and can be read with your unaided eye.

The company also offers inklings and notions, which are dirt cheap and recyclable. If you don’t see any you can develop further, just return the lot within the 10-day period and get your money back, minus the S&H. It sounds like a bargain, but I’ve never seen anything I could really use. I think it’s basically stuff they sweep off the floor.

There you have it. The secret is out. (Not entirely, of course: Notice I haven’t given any contact information. I believe every writer must discover that for himself.)

By the way, the idea for this article came from an order I received last week. It was one of the smaller ideas, but it was bright, and it works.

Whether we believe in the significance of fiction or not, we experience it every night within the drama of our dreams.

literary legends & other luminaries : the lightbulb jokes

( probably a bad idea )

How many Winnie-the-Poohs does it take to change a lightbulb?
We can’t change it, bother, because Christopher Robin says, “Never mind that, let’s go exploring.” So we do.

How many Jimi Hendrixes does it take to change a light bulb?
A thousand: one to finger the socket, nine hundred ninety-nine to trip the light fantastic.

How many Dr. Seusses does it take to change a lightbulb?
There’s one who is perched on the middle-most spot on the back of the sniveling snitch, who sits with his head slumped over the bed, that fills the bright-as-night niche. So that’s one, only one—now wasn’t that fun?

How many Yoko Onos does it take to change a lightbulb?
Five: one to publicize the event, one to paint the bulb black, one to climb the ladder and install it, one to sit and scream, and one to capture it all on camera.

How many James Joyces does it take to change a lightbulb?
Several, and it takes us 24 hours, rambling and wondering as we do the whole time yes we do yes yes yes.

How many Edgar Allan Poes does it take to change a light bulb?
None—he prefers the dark.

How many Mark Twains does it take to change a lightbulb?
A lightbulb is one of those useful inventions that requires little maintenance, a lot of appreciation, and one individual to replace when necessary. I am that individual, when it comes to the appreciation.

How many Charles Dickenses does it take to change a lightbulb? 
It was time to remove the old bulb, it was time to install the new. It was the age of the incandescent phase-out, it was the age of the CFL. There was one Dickens who protested, there was one Dickens who approved. It was the latter who changed the bulb, the latter who looked to the light, the latter who was going direct to Heaven. The former was going direct the other way.

How many Pablo Picassos does it take to change a lightbulb?
One. Or is it two? It’s hard to tell by the face… But however many there are, the bulb is crooked.

How many William Shakespeares does it take to change a lightbulb?
Three—let us count them: one to set the stage, one to proclaim the plight, the same to tell its history, and one to restore the light.

How many Michaelangelos does it take to change a lightbulb?
A crew of them to construct the scaffolding, one to change the bulb, and one to paint the origin of light across the ceiling.

© 2012 Troy Howell