Amazon Gives Bullet Points the Rope-a-Dope!

New Guidelines for Bullet Points on Amazon

Just when we thought it was safe to leave our tactfully-placed, detail page--optimized to within an inch of their life--bullet points alone, Amazon changes the rules of the game.

Fortunately, added limitations and "out of bounds" rulings may provide some sellers the much needed structure that's been missing in the goal of page supremacy.

Here's a run down of the basics to ensure retail-readiness by the deadline for implementation, September 15. (This also coincides with the guesstimated date for Prime Big Deal Days, but that's another blog.)

• Avoid special characters: Do not use symbols like *&^%$#@! or emojis.
• Limit promotional language: Avoid phrases like "free shipping," "best seller," or "limited time offer."
• Be concise: Each bullet point should ideally be one or two sentences long. Certainly under the 255 character-limit!
• Focus on key features and benefits: Highlight what makes your product unique and valuable to customers.
• Avoid redundancy: Don't repeat information that is already included in the product title or description.
• Use proper grammar and punctuation: Ensure your bullet points are well-written and easy to read.
• Don't include refund guarantees: This information should be in your return policy.
• Avoid excessive capitalization: Use capitalization only where appropriate (e.g., proper nouns).
• Use bullet points consistently: Maintain a consistent format throughout your listing.

Quite the list. But by adhering to these new rules, sellers can expect to improve listing visibility, simplify identification of benefits, and attract new customers. Until the next update!

Statement

 I am not dead. I was merely resting for the eventuality.

don't call it a comeback

The news out of New York Fashion Week is a return to the square toe.


The news out of Milan Fashion Week is a return to the plague, this time known as coronavirus. Everything Thomas Mann is new again.


The halls of this dormant account have not been darkened by literary shadow in say, over three years entirely through fault of my own. Can I still write? Do I have something to say? Is there enough oxygen in the room? Can you start and stop and start again?


As Dorothy Parker famously quipped, "someone was using the pencil." Or more accurately, to paraphrase Judy Garland, perhaps "I never left."


At some point telling the tale of not telling becomes the point; missed opportunities, missed vantage points, torn pages from a journal never to be recovered. Blame the inauspicious return on harrowing times as we head into a possible dystopian future that somehow needs accounting. The fall must be accounted. 


So here I sit cavalierly sipping coffee and ruminating on the Oxford comma when I should instead be actively following up on multiple digital applications in the corporate world far removed from the safe confines of these word-filled halls. Similarly, resumes quite like blogging are simple auditions; attempts at acceptance, connection, persuasion. Any role in the chorus will do.


It appears the royal "We" are here at this place again. I cannot promise to be faithful, a fear of commitment also extends to preventing bumper stickers on my car. But unlike the hermetically capped correspondence between Eudora Welty and William Maxwell, 'What There Is to Say We Have Said,' there is always another last word.

is this seat taken?

Not sure blogging is still a thing, whatever a 'thing' is. To skip four months of writing is to be remiss; to skip four years is simply to be missing. 

Much time has elapsed since my last entry and there aren't any guarantees we won't be revisiting this topic again in 2021.

However, do not post my milk carton obituary just yet. After all, a large segment of the population remains lactose-intolerant and won't see it anyway. 

Going forward, I shall endeavor to use this space in the manner to which it is accustomed, writing for the common good; joy, illumination, and insight. Every sentence on its page, every chair in its place.

obamacare, the city on seven million hills

Rome wasn't built in a day. It took 25 hours.


Actually, this sprawling, ancient Gotham, birthplace to Caesar and Da Vinci and Sinatra, was 750 years in the making and is a textbook example of a “work-in-progress.”


Speaking of ObamaCare.


Admittedly, there is no bigger fan than me of the much debated, litigated, legislated and re-litigated insurance industry reform bill passed by the current administration. If you weren't already sick to death of partisan bickering before hearing all the hoo-hah and hosannas about the sky falling from Republicans, you certainly are by now. Good thing pre-existing conditions won't exclude you from coverage.


So, yes my dears. As the early adopter that I am, I found myself marching to healthcare.gov on the first day of open enrollment only to find an error message telling me in unceremonious tones to come back later, no room at the inn.


Enduring a long history with Facebook and Twitter, I have built up an acceptance for the things I cannot control; refusal of service I believe it is commonly referred to.


I made a mental note to revisit the site at some other more opportune time and grab a drink in the interim to wait it out like any other sensible person.


Three weeks later, I'm still drinking.


Not that I've given up hope (or Change for that matter) but after four separate visits to the site I am still unable to even create an account let alone view specific plans or policies. Granted, I have been able to view preliminary rates and subsidies based on my household income and have to admit the pricing is extremely competitive, less than half what I currently pay.


With 7 million people still to register in the next six months, something akin to Noah loading the ark when it starts to sprinkle, I am cautiously optimistic that the internet gremlins and web snafus will dissipate with the autumn only to bear fruit in the spring.



If not, the next sound you hear may be violins playing while Rome burns.

boom.

If contractions were blog posts mine would be spaced eight months apart; not so much pregnant pauses as false labor.

I'm afraid it may take a shot of whiskey, clean towels, a midwife and forceps to pull out the next entry.

This is not due to a lack of material. Just the opposite.

What with Twitter and Facebook and Reddit and Friendster and MySpace -- scratch those last two -- I am overwhelmed by the opportunities to get my point across on multiple platforms. In the old days there was one soap box, now there are twelve.

Certainly you can see right through this ruse about writing about writing. I am merely marking time, dog-paddling, creating a digital placeholder to give the illusion that I am actually contributing something, anything, to my literary canon.

It is all smoke.

homestretch marks

I survived this election and all I got was defriended .

 Okay, so perhaps social media is not the best place to have spirited political discourse given the paltry 140 characters allotted to espouse views accrued over a lifetime. One might argue that Facebook and Twitter have become our generation's collective town square, the 60-watt bulb in that beacon on the hill, but many find it off-putting, intolerable, maddening when someone in their close-knit circle posts something out-of-step with their own reckoning.

 Keep typing the good type, I say.

 Isn't that precisely what distinguishes the United States from, say Saudi Arabia? Freedom of expression, even when it doesn't agree with your own circumscribed beliefs, is one of the most prized and valuable assets we possess. This is a country founded on both dissent and tolerance.

 It is the reason young men and women have bravely given their lives to fight far-flung wars to preserve our right to even criticize the very battles in which they are engaged. Remember Vietnam?

Now as we enter the final 30 days of this presidential election – which can't end soon enough, in my humble opinion – emotions have reached a fever pitch, as they always do. Trust me, the fever will break come November 7. Until then, bear with all the hand-wringing and commentary and second-guessing and prognostication and yes, defriending.

 Once this all over we can go back to complaining about that Facebook timeline thingy again.

literary laryngitis

Writers do not lose their voice, they merely misplace it.

Like an errant punctuation mark, or missing set of car keys, some things simply get laid in the wrong place. This happens to people all the time, but that is an entirely different subject matter and one not discussed in polite company.

As one who crafts advertising copy the way others bake bread or mop floors or grind sausage, I have lost the discipline to be long-winded, to string multiple thoughts together just so. After years of writing to fit prescribed spaces, my capacity to elongate has been truncated; chopped at the bit, as it were.

There is no literary Viagra to combat this malady.

One cannot conjure Faulkner or Hemingway while selling light bulbs. Why, even dear Sherwood Anderson would have a difficult time hawking eggs.

Not much good can ever come from a paragraph meant to elicit compulsion in a reader; that he must throw on slippers and a housecoat and run to the nearest corner store to purchase some totem of marketing that would be otherwise intolerable to live without.

F. Scott Fitzgerald once claimed that advertising “is a racket, like the movies and the brokerage business. You cannot be honest without admitting that its constructive contribution to humanity is exactly minus zero.”

There are no words.

who bares it best?

Another typical January in Texas; the lukewarm pablum of mid-70's and partly-cloudy skies ahead of the Manitoban winds which will invariably whip down from Canada reminding us why it is still, technically, winter. The sweater box is not far from hand. But today is a perfect day for tattersall and Didionesque complex sentences requiring no less than four or five commas, appositives, semicolons and other meaningful punctuation marks which make English teachers salivate.

We are in the season of unseasonableness. Weather and politics can turn on a dime, and if last night's South Carolina primary shows us anything, it's that the inevitable can quickly become the evitable in just one short 24-hour news cycle.

Like with Rick Santorum's much vaunted sweater vests, one day you're in and the next you're out. (Heidi Klum's marriage notwithstanding.)

Politics and fashion are strange bedfellows that rely on the fickleness of a shopping electorate who find themselves continually shopping for candidates. Take, for example, the liberal left. The conservative right. The Tea Party. The Libertarians, the Greens, the Occupiers. There also seems to be, if the news is to be trusted, a wide swath down the middle of Undecideds with whom I have never had any truck. They remind me of the people who can't make up their minds where to eat and end up choosing some establishment out of gustatory convenience, all the while complaining about the choice with a fork to their lips as if it were a gun to their heads.

Who constitutes these small percentages that aren't able to decisively lock down one candidate when Gallup calls, or who can go into voting booth not knowing who they will pull the lever for or darken the oval? Have the contrasts blurred so much that one choice seems as good as another?

Bare arms, my friends. The choices should be as clear as the weather. Or at least as easy as shopping for clothes hanging side-by-side on a rack. As with the Texas climate, change is something you can always believe in, and acrylic will never substitute for cashmere.

Never.

bride & true.

To whom it may concern.

In the event of my absence please notify the appropriate authorities and have them check the floor of the international mail room at the Dublin General Post Office. I fear I may have fallen out of the envelope. If I do not turn up there, I can most likely be found on Bridge Street at The Brazen Head. I fear I may have fallen off the wagon.

If neither happens to be the case, my trusty literary executrix (point to self) has been given a copy of this ransom note to be read via proxy to the bride, groom, all assembled, and dissembled.

My friends, and no small amount of bill collectors, refer to me as Brian ...

Brian Carr. But if you happen to bump into me after the reception, I will gladly answer to Brian "can I get you another drink?"

Today, however, is not about hydration, rather it is a day we join together in celebration to honor the bond between Renee and Sunil; a bond that has spanned 3,900 miles, two continents, and a fairly minor puddle in between.

(For those of you having trouble with the conversion rate, it is 6,276 km).

It was precisely two decades ago when I first met Renee, give or take another decade. We met over a folding board at the Gap and became instant friends, attending the University of Texas together and eventually becoming roommates. If Renee ever needs a credit reference I can vouch that she always paid the rent on time.

Among her many talents, cooking has to be at the top of the list -- Renee certainly knows her way around a kitchen, especially the exits.

Once she learned to remove the cardboard insert from a frozen pizza before heating it in the oven, our calls to 911 were cut in half. I mention this factoid for purely selfish reasons, only as a logical segue into an applicable Joan Crawford quote: "Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down the house you can never tell."

Now, Sunil, don't let any of this scare you off. Any man who can capture the attention and love and praise of Miss Ryerson is that rare creature who so often eludes us. That you two have found each other is both heartening and restorative; it renews our faith that despite protestations to the contrary, we do often end up with the happiness that we deserve. You have married a girl we used to know with the kindest, gentlest and loving heart who became the woman who sits next to you today. It is a noble pairing that will continue to grow and thrive and shine as a beacon of light to all who know you.

I am parched.

With that, I propose a toast to the bride and groom, hopefully with crystal goblets. Much like with love, as Dorothy Parker once observed, "Styrofoam will not do."

42 minutes to save the world

It has been an extremely trying month, both days of it; a mensis horriblus in layman's terms. Everything is all mixed up. We are heading to hand in a hellbasket I tell you. Something must be done about something.
Thank the Founding Fathers for this well-deserved long July 4th weekend to help us forget about the trials and tribulations being trumpeted from the webtops. There's still that annoying oil spill in the Gulf that refuses to pause even as I put pencil to paper. And more troubling, last week's Supreme Court decision that allows every man, woman, and fetus the right to own a handgun upon conception. (In an apparent oversight, stem cells were left out of the ruling.) Couple that with last month's passage of a short-sighted and discriminatory illegal immigrant bill in Arizona, drug cartel murders along the Mexican border, Lindsay Lohan's imminent arrest on probation violations and a hurricane that nearly missed slamming into the Texas coast yesterday. The Haitains never had it so hard.

Here I sit with only 39 minutes left before logging off my computer and leaving work for a three-day bender. As an American, I have the distinct privilege of carrying on with a relatively care-free existence while occasionally pondering how to solve world hunger armed with just my iPhone, car keys, a paper-clip and a sense for what the modern man wears in a beachside resort after 8pm.
The advent of the 24 hour news cycle has exposed us to strife throughout the globe, condensed and captured within the confines of a 15” LCD screen. The world is at once smaller yet more treacherous. The charwoman in Leeds may as well be cleaning the house across the street for all we know, so much have our boundaries been erased. When I was a kid, all you had to do was buy the world a Coke, and smiling hippies in pre-Stella McCartney era peasant-skirts would be grasping hands swaying from the hilltops. The halcyon days are indeed in danger of extinction, so here are my ten recommendations to help start us on the path to singing in perfect harmony:

1) The BP “environmental catastrophe” in the gulf needs to be resolved. Plugging the oil well will only be the start in a decades-long cleanup. But it will be the end of the beginning at least. (Contrary to popular belief, BP does not now nor will it ever stand for "bitch, please.")

2) Apple needs to embrace Adobe Flash. Period. Why can't we all just get along?.

3) Congress must end Don't Ask Don't Tell immediately. Much like desegregating the troops in the 50's, gays in the military should be addressed as a civil rights issue, and it is.

4) Immigration reform must occur this year. We cannot deport 11 million people and conversely, we cannot sustain the current untenable path to citizenship. Si se puede.

5) Lady Gaga must perish from the earth, forever and ever, amen.

6) Replace high fructose corn syrup with sugar. In everything. In moderation.

7) People should be required to read at least one book a month, a paper one with pages that can be turned manually.

8) Watch more Wheel of Fortune and less Housewives of New Jersey.

9) Gays should gain the right to get married, in the eyes of the law and the Crate & Barrel gift registry.

10) And finally: End the wars. Iran, Afghanistan. Iron Chef.

With the two minutes I have left, I'd like to buy more time, Pat.

beg, borrow, still....

I do not condone begging, panhandling, imploring handouts, or any general anxiousness that infringes upon my person in general. There, I've said it. In my last writing assignment, I was accused of hiding the crux of my story in the closing graf. However, I gather here today to not bury my leads, but rather to praise them.

Today on my way to the coffeehouse I was accosted by no less than three vagrants who were essentially attempting to tax me with representation. There was the war veteran – I didn't ask which war and he didn't tell me -- who commenced to cleaning my front windshield with the expectation of some small gratuity in exchange for services rendered. Instead, I asked to see an operator's permit which he said he conveniently left at home. However, I seriously doubt that when pressed he would have been able to give said address of any domicile cardboard or otherwise.
Then there was the female amputee who stood at the corner of 51st and IH-35 unabashedly holding a sign that said “ON MY LAST LEG.” Now any advertiser worth their salt would know better than to neglect to include a call to action.
I was tempted to offer my freelance writing services to her, pro bono of course, with a 15% cut of the profits but thought better of it. She needed something more along the lines of “GENTLEMEN PREFER L'EGG, DONATE TO A GOOD FLAWS.” (The grammatical error was wholly intentional and added to elicit sympathy.)
I dissemble.
Lastly, there was an amiable enough fellow who appeared to want to throw his body in the path of my moving vehicle in order to secure payment from GEICO. As I approached the intersection and mouthed the words “no insurance,” so that he could clearly see my lips move he thought better of it and stepped back onto the median.

Times may be hard, but I find it difficult to wrap my brain around the notion that anyone would want to stand in the hot sun for 8 hours and degrade themselves by asking for a handout. I personally sit in a dark cubicle for 8 hours and degrade myself and ask for a handout every two weeks, but that is neither here nor there.
My mother was right: People are starving in Africa and might I add, closer to home.

After several unsuccessful attempts to ban public solicitation by the Austin City Council, it looks as if we are indeed headed down a slippery slope that leads to the Mumbai-ization of our fine city. This does not bode well for Austin, or San Francisco, or Peoria or Trenton for that matter. The ACLU would be better served fighting for the rights of the franchised if you ask me.

I am seriously tempted to scout the nearest intersection and solicit donations for that iPad that was just released today. You see, I am short of funds and can think of no other way to bridge the gap between my current lack of monetization and the object of my affection. All that I can offer are words, words and more words. And perhaps the occasional windshield cleaning or two.

writing to hear myself write

I have decided to put pen to paper and blog again. This has been no self-imposed exile. It has been imposed upon me. I am not staging a comeback, but merely reestablishing residency. Work obligations and necessary distractions have prevented me from fulfilling the duties for which a byline requires.

These opening sentences are not however the beginnings that justify the means. And this entry should not be taken as said attempt at blogging as I have not fully made up my mind what topic I want to use for my debut, my coming out, my Sweet 41.

I have been plagued by wrongthink and false starts, and the consequences have been reams of blank pages and unused kilobytes.
I have saved a tree but lost the forest. Etcetera, etc..

But fear not for I feel a blog coming on. Once I can get past this little music festival called SXSW (which will never catch on; I give it two years, tops) and that nagging little virus called spring fever, I have every confidence that I can put actions into words. I have utterly convinced myself of éclat and the fact that you have read this far means that I have convinced you as well.

I shall triumphantly return to the notepad with the weight of those before me like Maugham and Proust and Seuss squarely on my shoulders, helping me to forge my way back into literary society.
My cotillion begins right this very minute, and the band can strike up once I finish this sente....

histories of events yet to occur

A dollar will fetch 100 yen on the streets of Yamatotakada and $500 will grant you the deed to Park Place. Everything has a price.
The cost is not always readily apparent but the purchase is evident.
Every word, decision, action or lack thereof involves a trade, an unspoken exchange that may be monetary but oftentimes doesn't involve currency. The piper must be paid, and he may not accept VISA.
I am constantly admonished by friends and coworkers about my diet, with dire warnings of arterial atherosclerosis, ventricular hypertrophy and a host of other ailments and taints not uttered in polite company by those who would choose to eat organic quinoa claiming that it tastes just as good. The price to be paid for that triple cheeseburger is heart disease. I know it, and my doctor knows it although all of my recent vital signs point to the contrary.
A carnivore once promised his vegetarian friends that he would very much like to visit them in the hospital when they are dying from nothing. We all make choices in life and must live with the consequences. The proverbial bed is made.
An interesting theory put forth by the ancient teachings of The Kabbalah proffers a sort of pay it forward concept called the "Butterfly Effect." In essence, a butterfly's flapping wings, or a car door slamming in Brazil can disturb the airflow enough to create a gust of wind in Manhattan, or a hurricane in the gulf. Similarly, that off-handed remark made by your boss which caused you to gripe at a waiter at lunch who later went home and argued with his wife who consequently decided to leave him germinated that morning even before your first cup of coffee. In this sense, everything we do eventually comes back to us in one form or another. Viewed conversely, we are all interconnected, each one of us affecting the other whether in the next room, across the street, or a continent away.
Absorbing this knowledge and taking responsibility for the plight of our fellow man is more than just a slogan from Madison Avenue. It is merely the first step in a process that makes us more self aware of our linked destinies and shared futures, a religion of reciprocity, if you will.
There is much I have learned about human interaction these past few months, and much I have yet to learn. Much of it I would have gladly avoided in hindsight, and none of it would I have traded for not having experienced it. Much is written in books, but more is learned through the living. The expense for all of this knowledge is still to be determined, but the compensation must be made.
But first, let me digest that hamburger.

the Wintour of our content

Attempting to define style is much like trying to draw blood from a rolling vein. Physiologically, we know it's just under the skin but in the operating theater of reality, it can prove elusive. Fashion is triage, and there has been no greater reference book on female anatomy than Vogue.
Helmed by the indomitable Anna Wintour, she of the disproportionate sunglasses and precision-cut page boy, Vogue has become the go-to source for all things couture and coat rack for over 100 years, lending credence to the adage that beauty lies not in the eye of the beholder, rather in the eyeliner of the beholden.
If Anna says that blue is the new black, or that bouclé is so very last season, then it is. It simply is. Mortals can get no closer to God on earth, a fashion deity that deems something is so true that the apostles must purchase the monthly gospel while standing in checkout lines at the local A&P with a cart filled with a few groceries and dreams that would certainly put them over the 15-item limit; women who fantasize that with the right cloak, and cut, and powder and paint, that they too can emerge from the chrysalis as the next Sienna Miller, or Halle Berry, or heaven forbid something goes horribly wrong, Jennifer Aniston.

In R.J. Cutler's "The September Issue," a behind-the-scenes frockumentary on the publication of Vogue's largest issue ever, a behemoth that clocks in at 844 pages, online fashion director Candy Pratts Price makes a bold yet telling assessment when she proclaims that "September is the January of fashion."

The rules have been brought forth down from the Condé Nast publishing mountain, and much like the minor 26 second difference between the Gregorian Calendar and an actual solar year, we count seasons based on magazine covers and photo spreads rather than what we actually see roaming the streets on a day-to-day basis. Life imitates artifice.
When a woman purchases Vogue, she isn't purchasing reality, she is buying a lifestyle, a piece of a dream, an unattainable perfection documented twelve times a year at $5.95 a pop.
Who needs the definition of style when there it is staring back at us from the nearest coffee table, checkout stand, or waiting room at the doctor's office? Perhaps when it comes to phlebotomy we're a lot better off taking our chances with Anna.

clocks

Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. ~Ambrose Bierce

Once upon a time, there was time. Seconds and minutes and hours counted by hatch marks on the wrists of those now passing years in timeless cemeteries. It is a concept at once elusive and obvious, hurtling each of us toward a destiny that can only be recounted in hindsight.
I am constantly reminded of time whenever I look in the mirror. Or when I feel an ache that wasn't there the day before. Or when I see the children of friends who look exactly as I remember their parents looking just a few years prior. Or perhaps longer than that.
They say that time is what prevents everything from happening at once, and I am inclined to believe this. Time is not something that passes us by, rather it is static, a permanent sign post stuck in concrete. Time stays... we go.
Addresses change, lovers uncouple, hairlines recede but time remains constant. Sometimes I wish I could retrieve some of that constance and have back many of those wasted hours, a do-over if you will. I want to change my mind and do things differently, and take the other fork in the road and make a decision that leads to a different outcome. I want to miss that elevator and meet someone else on the stairwell, and find myself in a different city with different friends and a different house with another name on the mortgage. To go back and tell a loved one that they were indeed a loved one before it was too late. Or, make amends for something that hadn't happened yet.
These are the tricks of time. It is an illusory mechanism that calculates the distance between cause and effect. Whether I will fully understand my actions as measured by the clock is not for me to tell. The present is the moment that just passed, and the future waits in the next sentence.
Time won't give me time.

empty calories

If one stands on a paper plate long enough, he rightfully begins to fancy himself an entrée at a picnic. But whether that turns out to be barbecued chicken or potato salad is all a matter of conjecture. Personally, I prefer a tender rack of pork ribs seasoned just so with a tangy sauce and a hint of cinnamon but it's a lot of effort for very little meat.
Read into this what you will and I will write into it, wholly subscribing to the manifesto that the words will seek their own level and create meaning where a blank page, or screen existed mere moments before. I never met an empty space or jigger that couldn't be filled with something or other.
A friend just this minute after reading my lead paragraph commented that I am the kind of person who would design an outfit around a shoe or accessory or seek out an event in need of cause.
This in turn made me begin to ponder exactly how long I could get away with writing about nothing in particular, rambling on towards an illogical conclusion built upon a faulty premise that never existed in the first place. Was I becoming the literary equivalent of a Seinfeld episode; a box of Cracker-Jacks without the prize? Allow me to get 25 words in edgewise; there truly is a grain of substance in this shell of a story, but whether it will yield a pearl has yet to be determined.
While I was originally going to speak about personal virtues, and moral dilemmas, and intestinal fortitude I instead got sidetracked by the process rather than the subject matter.
True, much has happened since my last foray onto the fields of Gettys-blurb, and much will occur in the years four-score hence, but this is neither the time nor the consecrated ground to spill all the impertinent details of the day-to-day.
Life is indeed a buffet, a picnic, a portable feast I've heard it called.
Sometimes what you put on your plate is fulfilling. Sometimes it gives you indigestion. And yes, sometimes the menu flat out chooses you.
Seconds anyone?

sermonette

Better watch that first sentence, it's a doozy. Whoever said that the beginnings were easy to see, and that it was the endings that were difficult to decipher never had a case of blogger's block. Simply put, contrary to what they taught us in Journalism 301, it is the rare story that writes itself. Blogs, while shorter in form and residing in their own dusty, solitary box on the literary shelf are no different.
First there is the subject matter to consider. True, one can write on just about any topic under the sun, and by sun I do mean that intensely hot suppressive orb that has kept us in triple digits for almost two months straight without any rain, but that is a case for the meteorologists to sort out. Topics can range from fashion to travel to politics to well, writing. Just the other day I came across a lengthy piece expounding upon the direction of toilet paper, and whether the roll should pull over or under, and if so, was it correct etiquette to change the rotation or just wait until the roll had been used up. Heady topics, these.
Once this thematic hurdle has been jumped, there is always that elusive first sentence, one which every writer worth his sodium chloride has his own opinion about. Blame it on my advertising copywriting background, but I prefer a punchy statement that opens the door seeing that you have about three seconds to grab the buyer... er, reader's attention. This is just a personal preference, much like ketchup on eggs, but it works for me and seems to get people over the threshold, crossing into what could be considered your own cozy little blog cabin on the net.
So now here we are in the living room of the story; the part where the writer has his guests look around, see. If you have made it this far, it is a pretty safe bet that your company will allow you to take their coat and at least stay for awhile and perhaps have a refreshment or two. Myself, I like three, but then again, personal preference.
The story should now unfold with a clear direction of where you are headed and what you want the reader to leave with besides a small hangover the next morning. Make your points succinctly and prepare to tidy everything up in your closing and goodbyes.
Once again, I like a little punch in my final paragraph, as well as in my glass, something that ties-in with a point that was made earlier in the article; a Styrofoam cup for the road, so to speak.
While I have a certain feeling that I languish somewhere near the "mushy middle" in the pantheon of my contemporaries, I have malignant optimism in the writing skills of just about everyone with an email account. Once the blockages have been removed, distractions dissolved, focus regained, the disciplined writer should have no trouble at all constructing his house of syllables, vowels, and consonants, that's what it is after all.
The wrap up is neat and tidy and can only finish with the two words that bring elation and joy to the heart of every writer. Happy Hour.

let them eat steak

There are two sides to every nickel. This is both. You see, in a climate that is increasingly becoming more and more bolstered by the have-nots supporting the haves I find myself squarely in the middle, an observer and a participant, performer and spectator, Democrat and Republican. Oh... forget the latter analogy lest I get carried away in a straitjacket again.
Sit down kids and let Uncle Mame explain it all.
Recently while poring through some glossy magazine that mysteriously ended up in my mailbox I ran across an article touting a new breed of brohemian, a class of citizenry that is more familiar with descriptions of cashmere cardigans from the pages of a J. Crew catalog than it is quotations from the sermon on the mount, or the meaning of "Christ" in Christmas Sale 20% Off. I tell you, it is the societal equivalent of throwing the baby out with the Bathsheba; giving up the guise of the trappings of success by actually paying more for material goods that portray a, shall we say, shabbier cheek. In a quest for solidarity with the less fortunate a subculture has popped up of the plenties portraying the unplenties. A subculture that has understandably now been been forever deemed the Poorgeoisie.
Forget Generation "X." Forget Generation "Y." For all intents and purposes we have run out of letters, much like the early settlers who ran out of continent, or the National Weather Service who infrequently encounters more hurricanes than they have names for. Ladies and Gentlemen, we have now witnessed the birthing of a movement of young, unsettled recessionistas who pay huge sums of money to look the part of the dowager while brunching on Brie and Veuve Clicquot.
The populist outrage has effectively been anesthetized and neutered. Snipped at the quick.
Who could feel sorry for the evicted woman sitting on her front stoop in a pair of Tom Ford $950 jeans? Or the couple who live paycheck to paycheck but refuse fast food, instead opting only to eat $30 Ikura sake-marinated salmon roe at Uchi every weekend. Marie Antoinette's head rolled for far less, this much I tell you.
Most small business owners are clamoring to have the extra business and have come to call this new breed of young, under-the-table spendthrifts the Appreciatives. Roget calls them Disipators. I prefer to call them In Debt. Either way, this inconspicuous consumerism has become the heart of an economy on life support, and may indeed be a necessary evil. What else is one to do? Make less and spend more all the while pretending to have less than the next guy. Now that is a stimulus package we can all support even though we may look upon it later with eyeful of disdain.
And that, my friends, is the fine edge of the coin. A coin I'd like to have back when you're done looking at it, thank you.

polaroids from the edge

Back in the days before Maude, before digital photography, microwave ovens, ATM's and other forms of instant gratification, we had to wait for things.
You can place the blame squarely on the TV dinner.
Ever since the advent of Swanson's frozen salisbury steaks, we have demanded our convenience neatly packaged and available on demand, ready to eat in half an hour or less at 350 degrees.
We have become a nation of leisure seekers, enjoying the fruits without the labor, the gain without the pain.
This congenital impatience has been inherited and passed down freely into our daily lives as an acute inability to bide time. I want my MTV, and I want it yesterday.
Video killed the radio star, perhaps. But it is also the cause of the decline of true talent; the ability to hold a note without the aid of AutoTune. (I dare not single out a single recording artist, a term I use lightly with say, Lady GaGa, but there you have it.) Telegenics have spawned the worst case of vocal genocide since I don't know when.
But back to my point.
With all of this lack of patience, other things must surely suffer.
People expect expediency from their laptops, cellphones, and even their online hookups. Where did people meet before e-Harmony? Okay, bad example. Let's call it a fast-mood mentality that has spawned the drive-through relationship that allows the patron to order exactly what traits they desire in a potential spouse. All bread and meat, hold the vegetables. (That may be a bit of editorializing, but you get the picture.)
Basically, we get what we ask for in a neat little bleached paper bag, otherwise we complain or take it back. No hassles. No fuss. No dishes to wash.
But what is lost when we don't take the time to get to know a potential partner, when we place an inordinate amount of time on the "rush" factor and not enough getting to know the individual? Do we find ourselves going back around to the pickup window?
Love is a tricky enough proposition in itself and should not be forced or hurried.
It should be relished and savoured, especially when you get it right.
It may come at 20. or 45. Or 60. But it will come. It is gratification delayed, but gratification nonetheless.
Frozen dinners be damned.