Aeons ago, when newspapers were printed on paper and was a young Bay Area boy, I used to open up the San Francisco Chronicle and read Herb Caen’s column.
Yes. I was an odd little boy.
I remember one column in particular, in which Herb talked about one of the local Chinese restaurants playing softball against the SFPD in a charity event. The restaurant had t-shirts printed up for its team players. On the shirts were some characters in Chinese script. When Herb asked them what the Chinese words meant, he was told they translated as “No effing butter!”
Though this went straight over my little pre-teen head (on several levels), I was still smart enough to recognize a punch line when I read one. So I showed it to my dad.
“What does ‘effing’ mean?” (more…)
In my years here on Earth, I have reached for the brass ring many times. Literally.
My recent reading has hammered it in: Backstory–a word my spellchecker hates (though it doesn’t have a problem with “spellchecker”)…I swear; it’s like being edited by a 6th grader with OCD–is absolutely crucial. I’ve known this for a long time, but I’m sort of obsessing about it, now, as I prepare for this new book. I see backstory everywhere in great writing, and it makes all the difference.
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 