Here’s a fascinating review of John Warner’s Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities. While I don’t agree with everything in the piece, I’m not about to miss yet another opportunity to remind y’all that, as reviewer Phil Christman says, “Writing…is hard, and has always been so.” He goes on:

It is recursive: at every level of achievement, the same difficulties reassert themselves. It is an activity in which renegotiating the rules as you play is part of the game itself. We not only expect wildly different things from different writers, depending on the situation, audience, genre, and era, but we read in the hope that a writer will flout our expectations in a clever way, or give us new expectations we’d never thought to have. There can be no “mastery” under these circumstances.

Read the rest of Christman’s review. It’s damning and infuriating – and a hot mess when you get to the obligatory “capitalism is the root of all evils” section – but thought-provoking throughout.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: the writing life  |  make a comment

In the small towns of eastern Tuscany—where I recently spent the better part of a week—a cappuccino can be had for €1,20. That’s $1.32 at today’s exchange rate, or a third of what we typically pay in the U.S., according to USA Today.

And that cappuccino is amazing. Honestly, I’ve never had coffee so good.

The thing is, Italians seem to have a workmanlike approach to their coffee. There’s no fuss, no fanfare, no unnecessary flourish. It’s made quickly and it’s served at the proper temperature for drinking, which means you can either toss it back and continue on to your train platform or linger over it while you enjoy a cigarette.

I know comparing America to European countries is a tedious thing, but contrast that approach with the way we do things here. At a coffee shop in Mission Viejo a couple of weeks ago, I watched as the kid behind the counter spent a good ten minutes weighing the grounds, attempting some milk foam artwork—I say “attempted” because he ultimately overfilled the cup and had to do everything over—and finally delivering a tarry-tasting concoction that cost me $4.50. And the poor guy worked so hard at it that I felt obligated to tip him.

Did I mention that tips aren’t expected—or accepted—in Italy? At least they weren’t where I was staying.

It’s funny how we Americans just can’t leave well enough alone. A cappuccino—equal parts espresso, steamed milk, and milk foam—really can’t be improved upon, yet in our zeal to differentiate ourselves or to outdo the competition or to loudly proclaim our individuality, we mess it up.

Oh, and another thing: I have no idea where the coffee beans in Italy came from. I’d see the occasional Lavazza or Illycaffé logo, but that’s about it. Walk into a coffee shop in America, though, and you’re assaulted on all sides by self-righteous messaging about how what you’re about to drink is fair trade, organic, shade-grown, responsibly farmed, and hand-crafted by Certified Oppressed Peoples™. That’s cool, I guess. But I just want a cup of joe.

Yeah, I know there’s more to Italy and America than coffee. But man, what a stark difference in how the two countries approach something so simple. And as far as cultural signifiers go, it’s a pretty big difference.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

Just got back from a glorious two-week vacation, during which time the missus and I drove more than 3,000 miles, camped, hiked, flew to Italy for our son’s wedding, had In-N-Out for breakfast, watched the sun set over the Pacific Ocean, and made pilgrimages to a couple of filming sites—one for the 1960s Batman TV show, the other for the film Stand By Me.

What can I say? We take our time off very seriously.

It feels good to be home, though—back to a regular schedule and a normal diet and walks with the dog and the usual chores and responsibilities. Plus, after spending even a little time in a foreign country (more on that later this week), it’s…comforting to know that some things back home will never change.

Like, say, mysterious cattle mutilations. No entry wounds, no bullets, no major lightning storms in the area, no outward signs of a struggle, no scattered hoof prints, no strangulation marks, no blood. “The bulls, said a rancher, “look like they simply fell over and died”—except for the missing tongues and genitalia, of course.

My money’s on aliens (obviously), but I wouldn’t rule out murderous cults—in which case it might be a good idea to resurrect the Satanic Panic. You know, just in case.

Either way, it sure is good to be home.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

As a kid, I didn’t just look like Charlie Brown—I was Charlie Brown: loser, misfit, blockhead. Probably why I loved reading Peanuts so much.

It’s also why I enjoyed Bruce Handy’s essay on the “absurd precocity” of Charles Schulz’s nihilistic comic strip, adapted from The Peanuts Papers: Writers and Cartoonists on Charlie Brown, Snoopy & the Gang, and the Meaning of Life.

“On some level,” Handy writes, “Charlie Brown’s relentless suffering comforted me, a lightning rod, I think, for my own anxieties about my place in the world—Peanuts as catharsis, as worst-case scenario, with the awaited thunderclap of laughter substituting for the reassurance of a fairy-tale happily-ever-after.”

If I were a better writer, I could have written that sentence myself. But here’s where I part company with Mr. Handy. Sure, Peanuts taught me that life is cruel and people are terrible (lessons borne out pretty much every day, it seems), but it also reminded me that there’s beauty in the world. And beauty, wrote Dostoevsky, will change the world.

Like Charlie Brown, I’m still hoping.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

Earlier this week, a 41-year-old man died seven minutes into a taco eating contest. “We are not ruling a cause of death yet,” said the sheriff’s department, “but we have an idea.”

Not to make light of an unfortunate situation, but I think there’s a lesson to be learned here: pace yourself. According to spectator Matthew Boylan, the deceased was noticeably faster than the other competitors. “It was like he’d never eaten before,” he told the Fresno Bee. “He was just shoving the tacos down his mouth without chewing.”

As it happens, I know a little something about taco eating contests. Thirty years ago, I was part of a four-man team representing the EWU Marching Band against the KZZU Breakfast Boys at the now-defunct Taco Time in downtown Cheney. There was one simple rule: Eat as many “crisp tacos” as you can in one hour.

The first 59 minutes went about as you’d expect: a feeding frenzy for the first 10 followed by a 49-minute descent into sweaty torpidity. As the seconds ticked down and the scoreboard showed a tie, I looked across the room at the KZZU deejays and sensed weakness. I turned to rally my teammates, but it was too late. One stared off into the distance, a piece of iceberg lettuce dangling from his lower lip; another was slumped forward in his seat, one hand clutching his belly in pain while the other held onto the edge of the table for support; the third appeared to be mumbling to himself, but it turns out he was just praying for deliverance.

It was up to me, then. With 8 seconds remaining, I grabbed the nearest taco and jammed it into my mouth, chewing and swallowing simultaneously as pieces of shell and bits of meat cascaded down my chin and onto my sweat-stained shirt. I resisted a sudden urge to vomit—an urge that persisted for the next several hours. My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim, as it were, and I had a vision of my dead great-grandmother.

“Nana?” I asked. “Is that you?”

The timer went off. It was over. The judges approached the two tables, examined each of the contestants’ mouths, and huddled briefly before rendering their verdict: EWU Marching Band by half a taco.

I don’t want to toot my own horn or anything, but I was responsible not only for that crucial final half taco, but also for 27 whole ones during the hour-long contest. That’s nowhere near Joey Chestnut’s world record of 126 in eight minutes, but still—not bad for an amateur.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

In the seventh in a series of columns on public philosophy by Agnes Callard at The Point, she writes that “[t]he plurality of aesthetic points of view is a product of the genuine diversity between human beings, and the fact that they are free to judge for themselves what appeals to them. It should occasion respect, not contempt.”

But, she hastens to add – you knew there was a but, right? – “there is a fine line between respecting others’ right to their bad taste, and opting to participate in it.”

True, I suppose…to a point. Whether you agree with her or not, though, Callard’s always worth reading.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

“We’re inundated with media stories about how we’re not getting enough sleep, not spending enough time with our families and whiling away our days glued to screens. There’s just no time to stop and think any more. But is that true?” Probably not.

The feel-good story of the week comes to us courtesy of the New Yorker: “How Mosquitos Changed Everything: They slaughtered our ancestors and derailed our history. And they’re not finished with us yet.”

“How and why has the left changed? When did it adopt so many attitudes – identitarianism, censoriousness, puritanism, a propensity for moral panics – traditionally associated with the conservative right?” A libertarian millennial’s new book aims to answer some important questions.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment