Merrill Markoe's Blog, page 11

Its the 4th of July and I am still in the middle of a rewrite of this new book of essays.  I've been at it so long I am not sure if I am writing in English.

I was going through my notes and came to another piece that never made it out of the gate.  It was going to be about  my collection of obituaries.  I read them because I like seeing whole lives summed up in a couple of paragraphs.   Only about one in thirty has what it takes to get me to tear it out of the paper. But I just added one to...

Puppyboy Does the Proust Questionnaire

At the end of the nineteenth century, when Marcel Proust was still in his teens, he answered a questionnaire in an English-language confessional album belonging to his friend Antoinette, daughter of future President Felix Faure, as was the fad among English families . The one that the young Proust completed was entitled "An Album to Record Thoughts, Feelings, etc." and it has been studied and replicated many many times since then.Hoping to put a...

Puppyboy Does the Proust Questionnaire

At the end of the nineteenth century, when Marcel Proust was still in his teens, he answered a questionnaire in an English-language confessional album belonging to his friend Antoinette, daughter of future President Felix Faure, as was the fad among English families . The one that the young Proust completed was entitled "An Album to Record Thoughts, Feelings, etc." and it has been studied and replicated many many times since then.Hoping to put a...

Hi. I'm back.   I have been absent for a while because I have been very very absorbed by writing a new book of essays.  But now that I am in the re-write phase two things have happened.

1. I have more additional things to say and

2. I know that about half of the pieces I wrote will not be appearing in the book. Therefore I might as well begin to put them up here.  I thought I'd start with this one, which was written a few years ago.

Costco: A Love Story in Four Acts.

Not only have I never ...

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Here is what I did last night when I got sick of working on my re-write. My dogs join Britney Spears as we answer the musical question "You want a piece of meat?"

UPDATE: I got my ten names. That was fast. Oh well. You missed out. Unless we already had an exchange and you gave me your address. But may I encourage you to please buy a copy of my book in paperback? Because…uh…you need something funny to read and I have to earn a living.

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I say this at the risk of sounding like a radio station, but …the contest lines are now closed. I just finished giving away ten free copies of the paperback version of my...

I say this at the risk of sounding like a radio station, but …want a free copy of the paperback version of my most recent novel  "Nose Down Eyes Up?".

If you liked Walking in Circles Before Lying Down, you will probably like this one too.

Its got everything you have come to expect in a recent Merrill Markoe novel :  dogs who talk to people who also talk, bad behavior, too many contemporary references. And it just came out in paperback. A huge box of them arrived at my house and I don't even...

Apparently some residents of Guyana are trying to resurrect Jonestown as a tourist attraction, according to an article in today's New York Times.

Immediately I began to imagine visiting this place, since it is certainly the kind of thing I would pull off the road to see  if I were for some reason traveling between Venezuela and Brazil. 

Then I began to imagine the souvenirs that would be for sale. Would I buy the tee shirt? Probably.  Would I also want to buy a pen and a back scratcher? Almost ...