By Paul Ford
1 interval from 07 Mar 2001 (Drinkers Tanker)
3:20 pm
One good thing about fictional characters is that you get to know all their
secrets.
Scott is missing part of his foot after a motorcyle accident when he was 4. He grew up in the fucking sticks, and his father
was good for nothing. He may or may not have herpes, and he's afraid to get tested. He has a rough singing voice. He is a
terrific lay, totally unashamed, harsh, and powerful. He thinks P.J. Harvey is full of shit. He is a liar. He wants to be
a rockstar, and he wants to be the opposite of a rockstar. He has had a lot of bad girlfriends, and he has been their ultimate
bad boyfriend. This has influenced him enormously. He does not want to write a novel. He loves Paul Ford to a fault and can't
stand to see Paul spinning his wheels.
Alan is going on a date with Passerine Murray. He is cleaning his bathroom. He has been thinking too much lately. He is very
normal and it makes him extraordinarily sad to keep uncovering evidence of his normalcy. He likes but does not love. He explores
paths already explored. He is unphased by dark things. He reads novels without desiring to write any. He takes medication
to keep him balanced. Clonazapem. But he thinks, and thinks.
Passerine Murray is the image of beauty, and is possessed by artistic drive and deep emotion. But like many attractive women
she has been coddled by patronizing men, and has developed a false sense of suffering to compensate and motivate herself.
She is very cold.
All of them are from somewhere else, and their parents are nowhere, their brothers and sisters already married or still in
college. They form cultures and the cultures vanish just as fast.
PEEK
Ftrain.com is the website of Paul Ford and his pseudonyms. It is showing its age. I'm rewriting the code but it's taking some
time.
FACEBOOK
There is a Facebook group.
TWITTER
You will regret following me on Twitter here.
EMAIL
About the author: I've been running this website from 1997. For a living I write stories and essays, program computers, edit
things, and help people launch online publications. (LinkedIn). I wrote a novel. I was an editor at Harper's Magazine for five years; then I was a Contributing Editor; now I am a free agent. I was also on NPR's All Things Considered for a while. I still write for The Morning News, and some other places.
If you have any questions for me, I am very accessible by email. You can email me at ford@ftrain.com and ask me things and I will try to answer. Especially if you want to clarify something or write something critical. I am
glad to clarify things so that you can disagree more effectively.
POKE
Syndicate: RSS1.0, RSS2.0
Links: RSS1.0, RSS2.0
Contact
© 1974-2011 Paul Ford
Recent
@20, by Paul Ford.
Not any kind of eulogy, thanks. And no header image, either.
(October 15)
Recent Offsite Work: Code and Prose.
As a hobby I write.
(January 14)
Rotary Dial.
(August 21)
10 Timeframes.
(June 20)
Facebook and Instagram: When Your Favorite App Sells Out.
(April 10)
Why I Am Leaving the People of the Red Valley.
(April 7)
Welcome to the Company.
(September 21)
“Facebook and the Epiphanator: An End to Endings?”.
Forgot to tell you about this.
(July 20)
“The Age of Mechanical Reproduction”.
An essay for TheMorningNews.org.
(July 11)
Woods+.
People call me a lot and say: What is this new thing? You're a nerd. Explain it immediately.
(July 10)
Reading Tonight.
Reading!
(May 25)
Recorded Entertainment #2, by Paul Ford.
(May 18)
Recorded Entertainment #1, by Paul Ford.
(May 17)
Nanolaw with Daughter.
Why privacy mattered.
(May 16)
0h30m w/Photoshop, by Paul Ford.
It's immediately clear to me now that I'm writing again that I need to come up with some new forms in order to have fun here—so
that I can get a rhythm and know what I'm doing. One thing that works for me are time limits; pencils up, pencils down. So:
Fridays, write for 30 minutes; edit for 20 minutes max; and go whip up some images if necessary, like the big crappy hand
below that's all meaningful and evocative because it's retro and zoomed-in. Post it, and leave it alone. Can I do that every
Friday? Yes! Will I? Maybe! But I crave that simple continuity. For today, for absolutely no reason other than that it came
unbidden into my brain, the subject will be Photoshop. (Do we have a process? We have a process. It is 11:39 and...)
(May 13)
That Shaggy Feeling.
Soon, orphans.
(May 12)
Antilunchism, by Paul Ford.
Snack trams.
(May 11)
Tickler File Forever, by Paul Ford.
I'll have no one to blame but future me.
(May 10)
Time's Inverted Index, by Paul Ford.
(1) When robots write history we can get in trouble with our past selves. (2) Search-generated, "false" chrestomathies and
the historical fallacy.
(May 9)
Bantha Tracks.
(May 5)
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