When I sit down to write, I often am gripped by “monomania.” Let me tell everything I can about this one narrow subject. Movie lines. Redheads. Being a Scorpio. I clearly need to develop my writing abilities to allow for some weaving in and around more than one topic. Show that my powers of expression [...]

Bennett Madison is the author of the indispensable I Hate Valentine’s Day as well as the novels Lulu Dark Can See Through Walls and Lulu Dark and the Summer of the Fox. I spoke to him about his first book in 2005.
This year I definitely count the Valentine’s Day card I get from my mom [...]

I have finally recognized that my preteen obsession with Barbra Streisand is the key to understanding why I am such a regular guy.
Like all boys, I wanted to be just like my mother. But the Oedipal overtones were too much, so I transferred this natural inclination onto someone famous with a ballpark resemblance to my [...]

The huge black SUV in Las Vegas had a vanity plate: DLBRKR. I stared for a few seconds. What does it mean? It was like “Wheel of Fortune”—guess the vowels, win big money. “Come on, big money!”
Ohhh! DLBRKR=Dealbreaker. I think I get it.
I don’t like the hypocrisy that attends the disqualifying of a [...]

My father used to tell me that the reason African Americans often had such mindblowingly original names was because many of them were materially poor, and so parents wanted to give their kids something priceless.
He turns out to be exactly right. I picked up a book on African American baby names (I couldn’t resist!) [...]

Francesca “Kitten” Natividad was born in Juarez, Mexico, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. Her start in Hollywood came when she was a teen, working in a domestic capacity for another kitten, Miss Stella Stevens. It was in the Stevens household that Kitten decided she wanted to be in movies, too. She [...]

A child of Icelanders who was born in Winnepeg, Manitoba, director Guy Maddin has taken his place as a living jewel in Canada’s cultural crown. Luckily, he is also respected in the rest of the world for his cinematic feats.
His life and film work represent a unique and lonely path, centered on his obsessions with [...]