Hiatus

The unofficial hiatus is now official. I haven't written anything of substance for this blog in a long time, and subsequently—and quite reasonably—readership has dropped. And I'm not feeling much that seems blog-worthy these days, and when I do, I don't have time to write it. So . . . it's time to give this thing a break. How long? Who knows? It's been fun, but it's time to take it off my list of things to think about for a while. If you want some good blog reading, this is the one that I've been enjoying lately. This one, too.

Line of the Week

"You know, when I drink alone,

I prefer to be by myself."

—George Thorogood

For a Good Time . . .

. . . check out the daily picture of the sunrise over Lake Michigan.

Love that lake! Miss that lake!

Dept. of Shameless Self Promotion

Sometimes a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do: toot his own horn. I have a short article on teaching a poem by Campbell McGrath in the new issue of Minnesota English Journal.

Line of the Week

"I wanted to make a dessert that would re-create the emotions Lionel Messi feels when he scores a goal."

—Jordi Roca, in Adam Gopnik's article, "Sweet Revolution," in the January 3, 2011 New Yorker

Three Novels I Did Not Finish Reading in 2010

• The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. by Robert Coover

• Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

• The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

The Complete List of Subjects Treated in the "Partial List of Subjects Treated" in Garry Wills' Translation of Martial's Epigrams

Adult Homosexuality

Artifacts

Baldness

Banqueting

Body Odor

Cunnilingus

Debt Delinquency

Fellatio

Legacy Hunting

Marital Fidelity

Marital Infidelity

Misogyny

Pederasty

The Simple Life

Tributes to Emperors

Tributes to Friends

Tributes to the Dead

Wine

The Writing Profession