Yours For a Song
It had been several years since my last physical, so the nurse had a number of questions to ask before the doctor saw me last week. Was I taking any medication? Was I allergic to […]
Author: Con Chapman
I'm a Boston-area writer, author of The Year of the Gerbil, a history of the 1978 Red Sox-Yankees pennant race, and 50 books of humor including "Scooter & Skipper Blow Things Up!" by HumorOutcasts Press. My work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Christian Science Monitor and The Boston Globe among print outlets. "Rabbit's Blues," my biography of Johnny Hodges, Duke Ellington's long-time alto sax player, was published by Oxford University Press in 2019, and was named Book of the Year by Hot Club de France. My young adult novel, "Kimiko Chou, Girl Samurai," was published by Atmosphere Press in 2021.
Suicide Hot Lines Find Teen Girls Make Best Volunteers
BOURNE, Mass. Like many high school juniors, Cyndi Cahill faces long odds as she looks ahead to next year, demographically one of the toughest in American history in terms of college admissions. “My guidance counselor […]
How to Cheer Up a Sad Poem
It is one of the most difficult problems of aesthetic philosophy: What do we mean when we say that a song or poem is sad? I’ve read Aristotle, Kant, Croce–Benedetto, not Jim–all the big names. […]
Upfaked Out of My Love Shoes
It was a New Year’s Eve in the ’90′s and I was at loose ends. I decided to skip the midnight show and go to a party with friends. After the obligatory dance with my […]
Me and J.D. Salinger at Burger King
Newly-discovered correspondence reveals that reclusive author J.D. Salinger thought Burger King’s hamburgers were superior to those of other fast-food chains. Associated Press Fine–have it your way. I’m sitting in the Burger King on Route […]
The Year in Blogging: More Than Just Sonny Tufts
As I look back on 2014 and prepare the Gerbil Interactive Media Group (Gerbil News Network, Gerbil Sports Network, Gerbil Entertainment!) for a public offering in the white-hot stock market of 2015, it is appropriate […]
At the Post-Christmas Sponging House
It’s the week after Christmas, too soon for the dreaded envelope containing the credit card bill for ill-fitting and ill-advised purchases that have already been forgotten or broken, but which have yet to be paid for. […]
As New Year Nears, Young Scientists Baffled By Lack of Dates
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts. When New Year’s Eve was still a month away, Massachusetts Institute of Technology sophomore Jeremy Klotkin took steps to make sure he didn’t spend the night when many unattached men hope to “get […]
Did the Godfather of Soul Broker Richard Nixon’s Pardon?
It’s been eight years since the near-simultaneous deaths of James Brown, the singer who rose from humble origins to become “The Godfather of Soul,” and Gerald Ford, the only unelected President of the United States. Nixon and Brown: “I […]
The Most Wonderfullest Christmas Ever
I was a young man on the verge of getting old (at least in my mind) back then, in the mid-eighties. It was Christmas time, which made the passing of youth that much more painful; […]