Update: The Restaurant Pho Keene Won!
Sometimes, I’ll Look at the Comments on a news site’s story that I use as a source for a True story. Not very often, since most news comments are a vast wasteland, but the comments on one of the Pho Keene stories I read caught my eye. The top comment was, “Who knew that Keene lacked a sense of humor?” And there was one response: “Anyone that lives here.” Let’s start with the story, from True’s first issue of 2019:
While Driving Across southern New Mexico this morning, I rolled my eyes a bit at a warning sign: “Dust Storms May Exist”. Well yeah, so might space aliens bent on beaming someone up from the desert. Reminds me of the one I see farther north: “Icy Conditions May Exist”. Are lawyers writing road signs now? Maybe charging by the letter?
Two readers (so far) don’t “get” a tagline from this week’s issue, so I thought I would explain the joke — even though I do understand “Explaining the joke makes it not funny.” Well, they don’t think it’s funny anyway, so let’s get to it. First, the story, from the 5 November 2017 issue:
Very Often, Readers Submit Stories that are most definitely, without a doubt, weird. But sometimes I still can’t use them because despite being weird (one definition: unusual), they’re …well… not unusual.
MSgt USAF (retired) Joseph in Ohio inquires, “As a multi-decade reader I find readers’ comments almost as entertaining as the stories. This brings me to my question. Being an English major I would like to know what the collective is for ‘obliviot’?”
I ran a story in this week’s issue in part to provoke — and even though I didn’t post it here, there was a lot of thoughtful comment. So OK, I’ll post it here to help facilitate the discourse. First, the story, from the 19 June 2011 issue:
A friend of mine asked me for some advice last week. He’s preparing to leave the military, and thought writing might be his next career. Did I have any pearls of wisdom?
I gave him two main pieces of advice. The second one: he must understand that there’s no such thing as “writer’s block.”
Sometimes there’s a story that I “have” to publish, even though I know it just won’t make it past the spam filters, so I “can’t” put it in the email newsletter.
There was a phrase in the previous blog entry on the 6-year-old kid, where I imagined the school staff: “Run in circles! Pull out your hair! Scream like a little girl!”
Today Nancy in Illinois complained that was “sexist language.” She writes:
This story is what got me started on remembering Herb Caen — it’s from True’s 17 May 2009 issue:
Important Update Below
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Sundays are writing day around here: it’s the day I write This is True each week. This week, I had the usual line-up of stories about stupid people doing stupid things (or, as the case may be, smart people doing stupid things!) when I came across the story of Mark Rimkufski from the weirdest state in the union, which is of course Florida.
Episode #28: “You Think Your State is Weird?” From True’s 14 December 2008 issue.
Episode #18: “Testing — Testing 1-2-3”. From True’s 5 October 2008 issue.
Episode #14: The Clbuttic Mistake. From True’s 7 August 2008 issue.
There’s a group of friends I hang out with online, all of us online entrepreneurs. One sent a URL around urging us all to “take 8 minutes to watch the video,” adding “if you care about such things, please consider blogging about it and/or passing it on.” What things? Our kids. Or, more accurately, the education of our kids. The world is a very, very different place than it was when we were kids.
Do the ! and ? in the title above, in relation to the quotation marks, bother you? Vindicate you? Make you wonder? Maybe you’ll enjoy this little debate, which opened in the 22 January 2006 issue.
I Became Aware of the Beaver Problem when researching the 18 June 2000 issue. People really enjoyed the resulting story. Pay particular attention to the second half:
See 2006 Update, Below
Many readers enjoyed these two stories that appeared in the 16 February 2003 issue, as they showed how different — and how similar — Australians and Americans are:
See Updates Below!
I showed a friend the story below from the 3 October 1999 issue, and she found it way too hard to believe.
It’s really hard to coin a word. I tried it in the 17 July 1994 issue:
Continue ReadingJohn Bobbitt:
Immortalized Through Verbification