Ten Brief Semi-Literate Notes

(1) Tonight (7pm-on) at Langan’s bar (47th just east of 7th) is the monthly social gathering called the Manhattans Project, where I imagine some of us will be chatting about the somewhat dopey topic of the Atlas Shrugged movie, but it’s not so far from the Algonquin Hotel, if that makes you feel more sophisticated.

(2) We won’t be hearing from planned guest of honor Bryan Harris about why college is a waste of time, since he had to go to Turkey on business.

(3) But hey, talking about Atlas is sort of a reminder that real education occurs outside of college anyway. 

(4) If that leaves you feeling the need to do something more nuanced and artsy-literary, though, you could wish libertarian-friendly novelist Katherine Taylor a happy birthday today.  You could send her money to buy a puppy, even.

(5) And here in NYC, I believe writer Alyssa Pelish moves back today [CORRECTION: Oops -- not quite yet].

(6) She wrote a piece about being a teacher of a class on comics and says some of the nerdy kids therein reminded her of me. 

(7) I am reminded of my friend Holly Caldwell’s reaction in college upon reading a page from an issue of Flaming Carrot Comics I had, full of phrases such as “a dreadnought of chicanery,” which was to say: “Now I understand why you talk like that.”

(8) But Alyssa is not here just for the sake of art: She’s taking the editor job at ACSH that I left almost exactly one year ago (there were a couple interim occupants since then), so she’s also serving science.  (I was at Fox most of the time since then but am now working on a couple ghostwriting projects – I can say no more.)

(9) Another cool science/writing combo is the series in Brooklyn called Story Collider, which gathers again in two days, featuring my friend Michele Carlo this time, among other monologuists talking about how science has affected their lives, a noble topic (I’ll be in the audience). 

(10) And speaking of literature, here’s a very funny lesson in how not to respond if you are a writer and receive public criticism (I should really send a gift to the highly literate person who pointed out this link to me).