By Paul Ford
Ask an idiot a simple question, and see what happens.
“What is it like to live in Brooklyn?”
“I see a lot of dogs. Not so many cats, but they're there. They're watching. I have this fantasy that I'll see real big zoo
animals, that they'll be rhinos on Carroll Street and apes behind them. Talking rhinos. And I have this other thing where
I always check people to see if they have all their fingers. A lot of times they don't. There's a guy on a bike here with
a stump arm, he begs quarters. I think there's something hot about a woman with a fake finger, though. Not like The Piano, I liked it before that. But if she's still cool with herself and she's just missing one or two fingers. There were two girls
with missing fingers in my high school, but neither of them was really interesting to me. They weren't interested in me either, of course. But it took me months to realize they were missing fingers. And after that I always checked to see
if a woman had all her fingers, or extra fingers. Lots of people have six fingers. That happens a lot in certain ethnic groups.
I read that somewhere, but I don't think it's significant, it's just a thing like eye color. It's kind of a cool mutation.
I mean, obviously it must be dormant, you don't just hatch an extra finger, it's more of a genetic slip than anything else.
Your DNA says, hey, put another finger there.”
“I remember reading an article about it and they interviewed a woman about her six-fingered son and she said everyone called
him "sixpack." Anne Boleyn had six fingers and three breasts, and I guess that just made everyone crazy with lust. I think
they had a different approach to birth defects than we do. Like she was magical and touched by God and a witch. I like to
think about people with little fuckups. The woman with the lazy eye, or my friend Scott Rahin with his leg. I wonder if Henry
VIII got into that extra breast, if he bit the nipple while his thick hips shook with massive desire.”
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)
![[Top]](art/EndFleur_40x21.gif "Top"){kind=small}
