The Plot Thickens: Interview

AN INTERVIEW with Novelist Douglas Anthony Cooper.

(This dialogue was published in Architecture magazine, which is no longer with us. The piece never appeared online.  I did not own a copy for years, but I recently stumbled over this transcript: the conversation looks a bit quaint, in this century, but it’s a nice time capsule.)

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The few architects we find in popular fiction are predictably likable.

Joy of Not Cooking

(Because I came clean regarding my fraudulence — a full disclosure, in their own magazine — Food & Wine decided they’d continue to let me write articles for them.)
 
I have never cooked a meal in my apartment. Okay, let’s be frank: I have never cooked a meal in my life. I have fried the occasional egg, toasted the odd bagel, boiled random pots of water, but this is lilydipping relative to the great canoe trip that is true cuisine.

The Liar In Chief, The Russian Tyrant, And The Electoral College

It is clear that most Republicans have decided to accept that their new president is a pathological liar. The attitude now seems to be along the lines of: “Yes, heh, he does tell amusing whoppers, doesn’t he? Such a character.”

Some have even decided that this characteristic is quaint enough to emulate. The new vice president, for instance, chose to endorse one of his boss’s most egregious lies: which is to say, chose to lie with cheerful abandon himself.

Russia Stole The Presidency. The Electoral College Can Take It Back.

We now know that the American election was stolen by a loose affiliation of Russian infiltrators, American white supremacists, and FBI enablers — with an assist from elected quislings like Mitch McConnell. Donald Trump, it turns out, is no more the duly elected president of the United States than I am the world’s most decorated ballerina. Luckily, this can be rectified.

David Frum Fired Again by Hallowed Think Tank

After writing for a second time that Obamacare represents a Republican “Waterloo,” conservative pundit David Frum has once again been ejected from the prestigious American Enterprise Institute.

The news, which surfaced on The Drudge Report, caught Frum by surprise: “But I was never rehired by AEI.”

A spokesman for the highly-esteemed conservative think tank, who requested anonymity, acknowledged this: “Yes, but we have decided to terminate his salary.”

It’s the End of the World: Have a Cigar Box Guitar

The Maya never predicted that 2012 would be the Year of the Cigar Box Guitar. They missed the most important story. The end of the world, which ought to be in a couple of hours, is not this year’s crucial event.

Should the world end, it won’t be remembered as vividly as Paul McCartney’s appearance with the surviving members of Nirvana: an incident that produced indifferent music, but introduced the world to the Next Big Thing — an instrument that will change the face of rock and roll.

Vicky Cristina Malia Oaxaca (What the President’s Daughter Was REALLY Doing in Mexico)

There are so many reasons to criticize President Obama’s decision to allow his daughter to spend her spring break down Mexico way in the city of Oaxaca. Some of these reasons are depressingly ignorant, but others are refreshingly stupid. Not knowing anything about Oaxaca is a good place to start.

I’m afraid Malia Obama was just not having a Jenna Bush-style spring break.

PETA’s Death Cult, Part 10: Wikipedia Cuts on the Bias

They say that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. What this quip fails to acknowledge, however, is just what an achievement the camel is. No mean feat to design one.

Wikipedia is a camel.

I’ve always been a fan of Wikipedia. Detractors argue that you have to double-check everything you encounter there. I see this as an argument in its favor: you should double-check any fact, encountered anywhere, but only Wikipedia comes with this useful caveat branded on its communal forehead. 

I’d Like to Apologize for Calling Rush Limbaugh a Sex Tourist

DEMOCRATS HAVE been disgracefully uncharitable to Rush Limbaugh. He has apologized for calling a perfectly decent woman a slut and a prostitute; he deserves generosity in return. The man’s fickle sponsors have been departing all weekend, like ships from a sinking rat, so I propose that Democrats demonstrate bipartisan moral support, by sponsoring Mr.

Should a Novelist Feel Bitter Losing to Stephen King? Not Really.

(THE NEW YORK TIMES, June 29, 2000. They wanted to know what it felt like to have Stephen King make a fortune on an idea which had originally been mine, and upon which I had famously not made a fortune. This piece ushers in my much-lauded period of faux self-effacement.)

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Stephen King, as I’m sure you know, made headlines — and a small fortune — when his e-novella, “Riding the Bullet,” was published online in March.

Democracy’s Best Barometer? Dead Cats.

THE CAMPAIGN MANAGER of a congressional candidate in Arkansas returns home to find his children’s cat bludgeoned to death. The creature’s skull is caved in. The word “liberal” has been scrawled on the corpse. Why should you care?

It is easy to dismiss this as a small crime, relative to the atrocities we read about daily.

The World’s Most Dangerous Hobby

I admit to sneering when I first encountered the vast international community of flashlight addicts. Who are these losers, I generously wondered. These “flashaholics.” Perhaps the nerd equivalent of, say, those neurally healthy folk who have sex with plush toys? Only less interesting?

That was a month ago.

Since then, I have spent an absurd sum on exotic lights, complex chargers, volt-ohm meters, and — the seductive bit — batteries whose energy density rivals TNT.