DEPARTMENT OF ODD SOCKS IV – by Rob Lopresti The Christmas season is coming and my friend Peter Berryman has an early present for you. Peter co-writes with Lou Berryman (no relation) some of the world’s funniest songs. But this month his website features a complete rewrite of America’s most famous Christmas poem. Same stanza […]

BUDDY, CAN YOU SPARE A SHAMUS? by Melodie Johnson Howe The big three auto makers flew in on separate corporate Lear jets to ask for a bailout, and then in a theatre of the absurd moment returned to DC in their battery operated Volts, Bolts, or Watts and asked for even more money. Of course […]

REVISITING WOLPERTINGER by James Lincoln Warren It’s been a while since I dropped by to say hello to Mad Scientist Jakob Linnaeus Wolpertinger and his assistant Ivor. The last time we met, if you recall, he was trying to create a monster by revivifying dead prose and had come up with a species of jackalope. […]

TAIRY FAILS by Leigh Lundin Spoonerisms The Reverend William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930), a don at Oxford, was a homely, misshapen man, but he was held in great esteem and affection by both faculty and students. He was notoriously absent-minded and noted for mixing up concepts and words. He is particularly known for the eponymous spoonerisms, […]

OPENING VOLLEYS by John M. Floyd A month or so ago, my Criminal Brief colleague James Lincoln Warren did an interesting column on the “first lines” of stories, and whether they’re as important as we’re often told they are. I especially liked the examples he listed, from his own work. I’d like to revisit that […]

CRIME WITH A HITCH by Steve Steinbock The other day I picked up the latest issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine at the bookstore. It is a gem of an issue. From stem to stern, this issue was a treat well worth the sixty-four bits I paid out for it. (Full disclosure: As of this […]

WRITING ON THE WALL by Deborah Elliott-Upton When we started removing the wallpaper, I was surprised to see the markings the previous owners had made on the bare sheetrock beneath. When we’d moved into the house, the owners had put those square mirrors across one wall in the living room. One was butted against another […]