In “Plan B,” the pilot episode of Master of None, Aziz Ansari’s new, execrable half-hour comedy series, from Netflix, two quirky New York singles make a trip to the corner drugstore, to buy the eponymous pill. Both […]
Tag: Writing
The Strawberry Criterion: Sicario
Midway on her life’s journey, a woman finds herself in a dark wood, the right road lost. By no choice of her own, she finds herself in Juarez, a city where even heavily armed women can […]
A New BPoFD.com
In October, it will be five years since Carmen Petaccio founded Baby Pictures of Famous Dictators. It’s amazing to think what fruits of his invention persist from that first post until today: hysterical diatribes, wrathful pans, interviews both […]
To Bobette, Our New Dog, On The Day of Her Adoption
Dear Bobette, Like dogs, every human person is born with a heart. Human hearts beat in our chests as a dog heart beats in your little furry one, and the same applies to all mammals: hearts […]
The Strawberry Criterion: Go Set A Watchman
More than half a century separates the publication of Go Set A Watchman, Harper Lee’s intriguingly flawed second novel, from the release of To Kill a Mockingbird, its beloved predecessor, in July, 1960, and it will likely take an […]
I Rewrote and Edited That Entire Miles Teller Profile, Because Esquire Very Obviously Didn’t
Earlier this week, Esquire published a profile of the actor Miles Teller, the star of this summer’s Fantastic Four and last year’s Oscar-nominated Whiplash. Running over 2000 words, the piece reads, at best, like a botched hatchet job executed […]
The Strawberry Criterion: Purity
The first mention of birdwatching in Purity, the fifth novel from Jonathan Franzen, occurs less than five pages from the beginning, in a short aside about the title character’s mother. Then surprisingly, for nearly 500 pages, […]
The Strawberry Criterion: Chappie
Editor’s Note: The following review of Neill Blomkamp’s Chappie was written by the fictional robotic star of Chappie, Chappie. All opinions expressed are his own. The Strawberry Criterion: Chappie Chappie good movie, no? Chappie like. Chappie seen it. […]
Leave Jonathan Franzen Alone
The first sentence of “Father Away,” Jonathan Franzen’s essay about spreading the ashes of David Foster Wallace off the coast of Masafuera, ingeniously ends with the word “lobsters.” Over the course of seven clauses, Franzen semantically ferries […]
baby pictures of famous dictators 