It starts with his last name
In the J.R.R. Tolkien novels and Peter Jackson films of The Lord of the Rings, Gríma Wormtongue is portrayed as a devious, sniveling bad guy, with greasy dark hair and an all-around bad attitude.
By far, he’s my favorite character.
I find it easy to sympathize with him. Let’s start…
Forgoing acorns, they bite the Big Apple
Squirrels have quickly gone from our country’s most unusual airline service animal to the biggest menace to society since murder hornets.
In the Queens, NY neighborhood of Rego Park, they have been attacking residents and, rudely, biting them. Even if these people had…
Behind curtain #1 is a devilish math test
Monty Hall, the late host of “Let’s Make a Deal,” may not be the first person who comes to mind as someone associated with complicated probability theory. …
Pigeonholed, a musician tries to evolve
At first Lou Reed admired Visconti; later, he loved him. Only Visconti could give him the courage to challenge La Scala’s oppressive and conservative approach to bel canto, an approach he would later eviscerate, to his regret, in his 1973 surprise hit, “Walk on the Wild Side.”
Callas, though still…
As long as there was Tab Cola, the decade wasn’t over.
I can still hear the jingle in my head.
“Tab, Tab Cola, what a beautiful drink. Tab, Tab Cola, for beautiful people. Tab, you’re beautiful to me. Real cola taste, just one calorie.”
In the commercial, a beautiful bikini-clad woman walks towards camera from the water, wet from the sea…
When snowflakes fall in Buffalo, so do prices at Anderson’s Custard.
When I was visiting my family in Buffalo this March, I stopped by Anderson’s Custard to grab a cone—a chocolate-vanilla twist, to be specific. For someone who no longer lives in the area, it is a difficult place to offhandedly drive by. Not only do they serve an excellent roast…
In 2020, the grizzly lifestyle is more appealing than ever.
There’s nothing wrong with being a human, but other species have a better lifestyle. Like Ursus horribilis, the grizzly bear, whose concentration on eating and sleeping give us much to envy and even aspire to. Especially the bears of Katmai National Park in Alaska.
The biggest and baddest of the…
Who can resist a church pie sale?
There are moments in life that leave you flabbergasted at your ridiculous good fortune.
Finding a twenty in an old pair of pants.
Reading Where the Wild Things Are to your kid for the first, or hundredth, time.
The sound of hard rain on an awning, as you sit underneath…
The Better Business Bureau’s “Do’s and Don’ts in Advertising Copy” Binder
No one considers the 1950’s a golden age in advertising, except perhaps for the salaries (if you were the right gender, religion, and color to work in the industry). …
A British TV show has a fix for everything.
It’s the office we’d all like to go to. In an historic, thatched-roof barn in bucolic West Sussex, England, a team of expert restorers fixes beloved family heirlooms. Is their work appreciated? Typically, the customers burst into tears when they see the restorations.
The sounds of a music box, unheard…
Jim Nolan
Jim’s writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Funny Times, HumorOutcasts.com, McSweeneys Internet Tendency, and on WBFO public radio.
