Masked & Anonymous

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

I am a self-conscious actor, yet I sometimes work at it half-heartedly. Now and again. Half-hearted and hesitant—I blush easily, which makes radio the perfect venue for the experiment (and if you write for that type of character, a blushing, stammering sort, I’m your man).
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Today in History: April 27

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Rocky Marciano fought 49 times between March 17, 1947, and September 21, 1955. He won each of the 49 fights. In his final six fights, he successfully defended his world heavyweight title. All told, he won 43 of his 49 victories by knockout. Sixty years ago today, at age 32, Marciano did the unexpected and announced his retirement from boxing. He remains the only undefeated heavyweight champion. A video from the 50th anniversary in 2006 (below the fold), which is worth watching for the historic footage and for the quotes from the late Bert Sugar:
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Oh! The Places You Won’t Go

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Mistakes suck. Errors do, too.

Adverbs will never go hungry for a lack of work in many writers’ drafts, including mine, but that part of speech demands erasure whenever one encounters it. Adverbs are the empty calories of the English language: They are tasty, and they appear to be helpful when we want to bend a verb to do our verbal bidding and guide our eager reader(s) to share our thought-patterns, when context and the verb itself are capable of handling the task just fine on their own. They are potato chips and cotton candy blended into a linguistic smoothie.

All of the personal errors in my history can be described with an adverb, colorfully. Merely an adverb minus a verb or other details, so no personal stuff, no self-incriminating or embarrassing information might be revealed: complacently, awkwardly, abruptly, vigorously, languorously, braggingly, disgustingly, violently, wrongly. Timidly. Brazenly. Very. Many “verys” in there.
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