What ‘strange, literary rats’ had to say in 2023
The thing that annoys me the most about bots is that they’re funnier than I am. Back in June I wrote a piece titled “Newtown not CT’s first book flap.” It was not a humor column … until some bot republished it in New Mexico under the headline “Newtown CT’s first book doesn’t flap.”
That’s not even the best part. Among the many things lost in translation when some bot software swiped my work was the rewrite of my aside that my wife and I have so many books in our home.
“Strangers sometimes walk into our house and make it seem like we are the weird ones, pack rats of literature,” I wrote.
Which a bot translated to: “To be honest, strangers sometimes break into our house and it seems to us that we are strange, literary rats.”
At every year’s end, I traditionally dig into the virtual mailbag to review the previous 12 months of comments from readers. Collectively, it does at times feel like a clubhouse of “strange, literary rats” (in the best sense).
Here are some of the things you had to say:
OK, that is worthy of an exclamation point: On a spring day when I was scheduled to discuss why I hate exclamation points on Colin McEnroe’s live radio show, I was trapped dealing with an emergency and could not find what Hemingway called a “clean, well-lighted place” to talk to Colin on the air. So I showed up at the nearby door of another columnist, Joe Pisani.
After the show, I got an email from Becky Royston arguing that “there is one use of the ! that works so well as shorthand, which is as a substitute for ‘Can you believe that?’ or ‘Are you serious? etc. It works best between email writers who know each other well.”
She signed off with a P.S.: “Say hi to Joe Pisani who bought our house in 1985 …”
!
Wrong man: I came thisclose to writing an entire column about the wrong person. I was saved by readers I’d reached out to for background. The column was about a former Rowayton paperboy who held onto casual artwork from a customer who was an illustrator. Forty years on, he wanted to identify the artist and find out more about him. I proudly cracked the case in a matter of minutes. Then I nearly botched the whole thing by confusing two Connecticut artists and war veterans who shared the same name. The other John Fitzgerald taught at Greenwich High School and has a bench in his honor at Stamford’s Cove Island Park. I collected a column’s worth of memories about the teacher from some of his former colleagues … and
File photo
A New Haven Police Department mug shot of Jim Morrison from 1967.
couldn’t use any of them.
Dear Mr. Fantasy: When I wrote the column “If you could go to any CT concert in history,” many readers summoned their own suggestions (AC/DC at the Shaboo Inn in Windham was not on my list). Among them was a 1972 Billy Joel gig at the University of Bridgeport where an audience member blurted that Joel was just like Elton John, inspiring the Piano Man to break into his impersonation of the Rocket Man.
Another reader shared memories of attending Connecticut’s most notorious concert, where Doors singer Jim Morrison sparked a riot after getting arrested on a New Haven stage.
Orange resident Kevin Hannon shared that “I was a 17-yearold West Haven High School student on a first date at the New Haven Arena on that December evening in 1967 for Jim Morrison and the Doors. After her parents found out about the events of that evening, it was a last date as well.”
John Breunig/Hearst Connecticut Media The Avon Theatre in Stamford.
Does the theater have a lost and found?: One of my favorite reader responses was to a column about the history of Stamford’s Avon Theatre. The email was from a child of the original owners, who shared colorful vintage anecdotes. It would have made a fun sequel … if I hadn’t immediately lost the note.
Sticks and stones: The briefest notes I get are usually the ones that call me names: “You’re a moron!” (I know that exclamation point was intentional) …“Libturd” … “James O’Keefe is a journalist. You are a propagandist.”
They are also the ones that use an honorific while mangling my name (“Mr. Brewing” suggested they are fueled by something brewed).
Turning Facebook into a parking garage: Some readers want to stay as anonymous as Bob Woodward’s “Deep Throat,” so they avoid direct phone calls or emails. Strangely, they seem to think tracking me down on Facebook and using Messenger to send tips is the safest stealth avenue.
The secret club: Whenever I write about my son’s autism, I receive notes of encouragement from readers who share their own poignant anecdotes. One reader described a grandchild who had his own language and suffered “fears of drops of rain,” sparse words that are poetic, aching and worthy of a book title. Family members with children on the spectrum tend to be inviting, unflinching, empathic and yearn for a greater understanding of their world. It makes me feel like part of an all-too-secret club.
I hope they, and the rest of you, keep reading, and writing. If we’re not having a conversation, this is just a diary. We “strange, literary rats” need to band together. Otherwise the bots will get the last laugh.