Monthly Archives: August 2007

Black sheep of the family

Discovered this book while doing a search online for the surname “Newmark”

21N7PZWBAJL._AA_SL160_.jpg

Why you may ask? There’s a character in the novel named “I.D. Newmark.” Not too surprising, since Victor Gold (a ‘Republican flack‘) is cousin to the late Dr. ID Newmark, who passed away 1 year prior to the book’s publication. Both of them are nephews of my great-grandfather Barney who I’ve spoken of before.

Most bios of Gold say he grew up in Louisiana, which is true, but he was born in East St. Louis. Despite my disagreement with his politics, it’s nice to see he ‘Tuckerized‘ a relative. I might have to buy the book. Since it is out of print, and I would be getting it used, none of my money would be going to Cheney, or Gold.

If I were really interested in torturing myself, I’d buy the autobiography of George HW that Vic helped out with Looking Foward; at least The Body Politic is fiction. Vic’s latest non-fiction, Invasion of the Party Snatchers suggests he might have some common sense.

And I must admit, I find the below funny:
whatdocustomersbuy.jpg

Literary test

Click on the below thumbnail and you can read a bio for Victor Hugo which appeared in the Classics Illustrated comic edition of his novel, The Man Who Laughs. There is a significant biographical error made within the text. See if you can spot it.

VHClassicsIllustratedBio.jpg

names

I’ve always had difficulty coming up with names for characters in fiction I write.

Some people advocate opening the phone book and picking names randomly.

Another source just occurred to me.
I’m probably not the first person to notice this.
But my spam box is filled with some great names.

So if you ever see a story written by me with the characters Exxon Mobils, or Jodie Vanncxvmh…you know where I got the names.

Go Cardinals!

Remember how I was saying back in July that the Cardinals don’t suck?. I should have added that anything can happen in the National League Central division. As we enter Chicago for a four game series, we’re now 2.5 games behind first place, and both the Brewers and Cubs are collapsing.

We could easily end up in the playoffs, even with the season we’ve had. Which is a testament to how bad our division really is. Not that I mind.