The 4-Minute Book

March 14, 2013

There’s a company out there that claims it can write a book on any subject in as little as 4 minutes – without any need for a human writer. How does it do it? One word. Algorithms. That’s how far we’ve come, folks. I’ve written about short-form auto-writing before, but this is obviously a horse [...]

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The Shortest Story Ever Written

March 6, 2013

“For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn.” That’s what Ernest Hemingway supposedly came up with, when challenged to write a story in as few words as possible. Pregnant with possibilities, you gotta admit his terse solution is pretty genius. I always approach each post I write for this blog as a short story – whether the [...]

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The Right Mindset

February 27, 2013

At the end of this here post , I asked the rather pointed question: “Who do you choose to be?” In a book called, My Stroke of Insight , neuroscientist, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, further bolsters the case that biology is not necessarily destiny and that, indeed, we have the ability to decide who we [...]

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Amazon’s Nazi Debacle

February 19, 2013

I tried. I really tried. I tried hard not to write about the recent news that Amazon was employing neo-Nazis to keep immigrant workers “under control” in its German warehouses. But it’s futile. I can’t restrain myself. So, here are my two Deutsche Marks on the whole sordid affair. And, I really don’t think I [...]

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Sade but True

February 12, 2013

How much is a depraved master work of literature worth? Before I answer that question, allow me to take a slight detour. There’s probably no country in the world that knows how to preserve its cultural heritage better than France. To a fault, I might add. I wrote about its overbearing language protectionism program before [...]

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If You See Kay

February 4, 2013

Unless you’re some kind of angel, I’m sure you’ve hurled a good insult or two at someone in your lifetime. Almost everyone has. And, although we can be consumed with guilt after the fact, for a fleeting moment it ranks as one of the most satisfying things one can possibly do. Of course, there’s a [...]

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Rise of the Sock Puppets

January 28, 2013

Apparently, there’s a 60-year old retired librarian in Atlanta, who’s posted 7 Amazon book reviews a day… for more than a decade. She’s up to 28,000+! What makes her significant – besides the fact that she’s one of the most prolific freakin’ reviewers in literary history – is that she’s at the heart of a [...]

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King of Ethics

January 21, 2013

Although today isn’t really Martin King Jr.’s birthday (it was January 15,) a federal holiday in his honor is observed on the 3rd Monday of January, each year. I’ll take that as my cue to write a few words about his formidable legacy. In a nation with a history full of consequential men and women, [...]

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Girl Gone Wild

January 14, 2013

I’ve got girls on my mind. No, not girls as in girls. But girls as in Girls – with a cap G. Sitting on my couch yesterday, feeling miserable while trying to fend off the flu, I decided to give Lena Dunham’s hit HBO series, Girls, a serious shot. I’d watched an episode before and [...]

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Lousy Book Covers

January 6, 2013

I once wrote something akin to the following, on this blog: The good news is that everyone can now publish what they write. The bad news is that everyone can now publish what they write. So, when I came across a website deliciously and bluntly titled, Lousy Book Covers – whose “about” section reads: “Just [...]

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