Author archive

Simpletons and slow children now have their own E‑mail software    (2021.07.21)

The great Jason Fried of Basecamp, author of so many bestsellers on usability and the futility of meetings at the office, charges you a hundred bucks for the worst E‑mail software in three decades. Hey.com is the IBM PCjr of electronic mail

Shawn T. Smith is a hostile, untrustworthy men’s therapist    (2021.07.19)

Shawn “The T Is for Toxic” Smith is indeed toxic, hurtful, and destructive, and he is a danger to any man seeking his help

Sub-literate debate about decline in literature    (2021.07.01)

Lydia Perović (no relation) interviews Russell Smith, and gets everything wrong that could be gotten wrong, from facts to copy to mondegreens to ‘apostrophes and ‘quotation marks’

This just in: Publishing still moribund    (2021.06.20)

Helen Andrews’ Boomers shows the futility of the publishing oligopoly, which takes most of your money and still lets you get obvious facts wrong. But the alternate option – self-publishing without expert help – is also doomed to failure

Ryerson journalism blacklist    (2021.03.10)

Vizmin and/or transgender malcontents paying good money to learn how to rat out their bosses, i.e., RyeHigh journalism students, have published an 8,100-word manifesto denouncing their own faculty. Since they signed their names, the manifesto provides a convenient career-long blacklist. Do not hire these persons

David Shields’ writing desk    (2021.01.24)

David Shields has a more galactic-sized talent even than I had apprehended if he can produce Reality Hunger and a dozen other books from a trash heap like this

Not “Not ‘some people are better than others’ ”    (2021.01.24)

Fran Lebowitz: Some people aren’t better than others. Wrong

Hiatus (2020–); I quit (2023)    (2020.12.24)

2020 hiatus (read the Best articles). 2023: I quit

Book(s) of the year 2020    (2020.12.22)

Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire