by Lawrence Bush on December 4, 2011
Calvin Trillin, “Deadline Poet” for The Nation and one of America’s finest humorists and memoirists, was born on this date in 1935. Trillin has been a staff writer for the New Yorker since 1963. His many books include An Education in Georgia, on racial integration; Barnett Frummer Is An Unbloomed Flower, a collection of short stories; About Alice, on his late wife, Alice Stewart, a writer and teacher who died in 2001; and Tepper Isn’t Going Out, a novel about parking on the streets of New York City. Trillin is also a well-known food writer.
“The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.” —Calvin Trillin
by Lou Charloff on August 21, 2011
Whenever I find myself sharing family stories with new friends, I find myself saying, “Let me tell you about my Aunt Bess”. Well — let me tell you about my Aunt Bess.
Aunt Bess was a pistol and you tried very hard not to irritate her because she had a rapier-like tongue. She spoke English with a heavy Yiddish accent, which was then proper for all good Jews, but her vocabulary was extensive and accurate. I can remember only one malapropism, when she announced that she was going to tell me an interesting “anagoat.” It is, therefore, fit and proper for me to tell you two interesting “anagoats.” [click to continue…]
by Lou Charloff on July 30, 2011
My return home from the army after World War II was not completely free of unpleasantness. For one thing, I learned that shoeshine boys had raised their price from ten cents to a quarter. Was this why we had fought against the evils of fascism? [click to continue…]
by Lou Charloff on June 26, 2011
The words nerd, geek and dweeb were probably created by somebody who knew me in high school.
All through elementary school and junior high, I was always one of the two shortest kids in the class. It was just about the time I entered high school that I enjoyed a sudden spurt of growth. I delighted in the added height but I didn’t gain any significant weight. The result was that I was skinny and gawky and clumsy. I learned to hate the word gangly.
Based on what was written in my yearbook, it’s clear that the other kids thought I was funny, but that didn’t make me popular. Being a very good student didn’t help either. Although nobody vilified me for having good grades, they were by no means a social asset. The fact remained that I was a year and a half younger than the girls in my class, and each of them was looking for a boy who was a year and a half older than she was. [click to continue…]
