Idle Tuesday night thoughts

[tahnan]

I think John Callahan, quadriplegic ex-alcoholic cartoonist, would be extremely amused that his obituary in today's New York Times gets billing below that of a football player best known for a tackle that turned an opponent into a quadriplegic.

Also, because the thought's been rattling around in my head since being unimpressed by last night's Colbert interview with Hephzibah Anderson, author of Chastened: The Unexpected Story Of My Year Without Sex: I really want A.J. Jacobs to write a scathing review called Chasing: The Wholly Expected Story Of My Year Not Having Sex With Hephzibah Anderson.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I'm trying to decide whether it's bizarre to spend so much space in an obituary describing cartoons or whether it says more than other text might.
I'm sorry to hear he's gone. Reading his autobiography was the first inkling I had about how goofy the benefits/reimbursement system is in this country - at the time he wrote it, he didn't make enough from his cartoons to support himself and pay for his home care aide, but earning more money would have put him above the income threshold for government assistance. As far as I know, such a Catch-22 is still present.

[in_parentheses]

Chasing: The Wholly Expected Story Of My Year Not Having Sex With Hephzibah Anderson

I would read that.

[lunacow]

I like your review idea. I didn't watch Colbert, but I saw the intro at the end of The Daily Show, and I thought, "Why is that interesting? Plenty of people go a year or more without sex when they're between relationships." Reading descriptions of the book, I see the title should actually be Chastened: The Story of My Year Forgoing the Sex I Totally, Totally Could Have Been Having. Which is only marginally more interesting.

[tahnan]

Well, and part of it (I gather, from reading something online) is that she decided to stop doing the "well, it's the third date, I guess sex is expected" thing. Which, not to be judgmental or anything, made me think the title should have included the phrase...well, you get the idea. Hence the A.J. Jacobs line—Jacobs does interesting experiments with his life.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for passing on your disdain for that Hephzibah-person's book--I found her and her premises *so* annoying. For one thing, I find it so weird that so many people call it "sex" only when there's intercourse involved. Talk about not thinking outside the box....

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, and I didn't mean to be anonymous there. This is Uncanny.