I’d never seen The Nutcracker — or any other ballet for that matter. It turns out that ballet is just mime with better sets and costumes. Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
Reverse Performance Anxiety
My son had a very nice piano recital last weekend. He played the right notes, he played the quiet parts quiet and the loud parts loud . . . and yet he had never once, to my knowledge, practiced the piece at home without playing it too loud, too fast, and having a simulated nervous breakdown if anything was said to him about it. I’ve Googled this all day and I can’t figure it out . . . Read more →
My Favorite Xmas Songs
Links go to iTunes samples . . . Read more →
Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson was born on this date in 1830. Happy Birthday, Emily! I died for beauty, but was scarce Adjusted in the tomb, When one who died for truth was lain In an adjoining room. He questioned softly why I failed? “For beauty,” I replied. “And I for truth,—the two are one; We brethren are,” he said. And so, as kinsmen met a night, We talked between the rooms, Until the moss had reached our lips, And covered up our names. Let’s party! Read more →
Happy Birthday to Me
You say its your birthday? Its my birthday too, yeah! We’re gonna have a good time! I’m glad it’s your birthday! Happy birthday to you! We gonna party like it’s my birthday! We gonna sip Bacardi like it’s my birthday! I’m 45 today, probably a lot further from birth than death . . . what a hell of a note. More Bacardi, please! Read more →
Huh?
My son just said something to me that sounded like Meesa favo word yall dog homie thats a foul yo in yo face hippie homo bozo ooheehoohaahaah? I’m not going to respond to that . . . Read more →
An Evening at Home
I’m trying to listen to classical music with a 10-year-old who won’t stop pretending he’s an intergalactic space admiral: Chopin . . . great composer . . . he was from Earth, wasn’t he? Read more →
The Sanctity of Marriage
Marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman. Today’s decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court violates this important principle. — President Bush, on the Massachusetts Supreme Court’s decision that the state’s constitution guarantees same-sex couples a right to marry. Here’s what’s really undermining the sacredness of modern marriage: soap operas, wedding planning, longer work days, cuter secretaries, fights over money, reality TV, low-rise pants, mothers-in-law, boredom, Victoria’s Secret catalogs, going to bed mad, the billable hour, that stubborn 7 pounds, the Wiggles, Internet chat rooms, and selfishness. In fact we should start amending the Constitution to deal with the Wiggles immediately.” — Dahlia Lithwick, “Holy Matrimony” Read more →
How Family Traditions Get Started
At a family gathering a few years ago, a couple of my nieces were experimenting with makeup — including bright red lipstick — when one of the maiden aunts told them that girls with red lipstick look like whores. Well, that made quite an impression on these girls . . . now at any family get-together that the aunt attends, every girl — from high school seniors down to 5-year-olds — puts on the tawdriest shade of red lipstick they can find. At Thanksgiving this past week, one of the girls added some ghastly white face powder, for the total painted lady look . . . Read more →
Margaret Cho
My wife estimated the audience as 75 percent gay, which I think, if anything, was a little bit low. Read more →
A Damnable Doctrine
I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlasting punished. And this is a damnable doctrine. — The Autobiography of Charles Darwin Darwin’s The Origin of Species was published on this date in 1859. Read more →
A Visitor from the East
Have you ever had a house guest — an in-law, perhaps — who thought that your life would be a lot better if you ran your business the same way she does, lived where she does, managed your money the way she does, ate certain foods in certain portions because she does, put on a sweater when she gets cold, and so on? Well, I have . . . Read more →
Can You Hear Me Now?
Dead man’s phone rings inside coffin — Expatica Belgium I have instructed my family to bury a phone with me . . . then call it. If I answer, grab a shovel. Read more →
Men Are From Mars, Chickens Are From KFC
A man and a 10-year-old boy bring home the evening meal: 12 pieces of KFC for $9.99. “Get some plates,” his wife says. “We don’t need plates,” the man replies. “We’re men!” the boy explains. Wife: “You’re going to make a mess.” Man: “Of course we’re going to make a mess” Boy: “We’re men!” Read more →
Break a Leg
One of my nieces in Australia — she must be 11 or 12 by now — fell off the roof of her house and broke her leg. “What was she doing on the roof?” I ask my wife. “Her mom told her she couldn’t play in the house.” Nice. Or as they say in Australia, noyce. Read more →
Forgive Us Our Debts
I got an email today with the subject line “Even Christians have financial problems,” advertising “debt counseling from a Christian perspective.” Where did the idea come from that Christians should be immune from financial problems? Jesus had to walk at night because he couldn’t afford a pair of shoes. Talk about a guy with financial problems . . . Read more →
So Much Trash
On this date in 1851, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick was published. The book, considered by modern scholars to be one of the great American novels, was dismissed by Melville’s contemporaries and belittled by reviewers as “so much trash belonging to the worst school of Bedlam literature.” Melville took bad reviews pretty hard and gave up writing fiction a few years later. He died in New York on September 28, 1891, at the age of 72, almost completely forgotten. Read more →
Existentialism in the Cafeteria
HOLDINGFORD, MINN. — Millionaire dishwasher Kathy Welle seemed incredulous as she stared into the TV cameras and explained why sharing a $95.5 million Powerball jackpot with 15 fellow Holdingford schools cafeteria workers wasn’t reason enough to quit her $9-an-hour job. “And I don’t plan to quit my other job, driving a school bus for the district, either,” Welle said Tuesday. “What else would I do? What else would any of us do?” — “Powerball winners keep working in Holdingford schools,” Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune Read more →
Trick or Treat
In a last minute switcheroo, my wife decided to stay home and hand out candy while I went trick-or-treating with the kids. I had six kids in my group: four 10-year-old boys — a mummy (my kid), two ninjas, and an evil baseball catcher — plus a hyperactive 6-year-old cheerleader and a 5-year-old Blue’s Clues girl. The cheerleader was a dynamo — the first kid to every door — and if it wasn’t opened promptly, she’d run around looking in the windows to see what was the holdup. The evil baseball catcher — wearing a chest protector, shin guards and a skull mask — approached every house by taking a running start and sliding up to the door on his shin guards, scaring women, small children and pretty much everyone else, because no one expected him to do that, and because it looked like he’d fallen and given himself a… Read more →
Overheard
“I beat the traffic this morning. I got here an hour and a half early, but I only had to get up 45 minutes earlier.” “So you saved 45 minutes.” “I saved . . . let’s see . . . (looking thoughtfully skyward) . . . 45 minutes! Read more →