First of all, never look him directly in the eye. No, wait, wrong guy. He’s very nice. And he taught me about professionalism. — When Guilford College asked me to interview Steve Martin on stage, I said “yes” faster than I wondered where Guilford College is. Not only would I get to talk to Steve Martin, but I would get paid for doing nothing but saying, “really?”, “go on” and “I wish Martin Short…

Finally Getting Covid-19 in June 2022 is Totally Unsexy — Ithink I got Covid while getting a root canal. Which seemed unfair since you’re not supposed to have something else awful happen during a root canal. The root canal is supposed to be the awful thing. No one says, “My wife walked in the room and told me she wanted…

Fans cosplay, drink, sing, drink, stage readings, and drink about James Joyce’s Ulysses. Why aren’t they writing about it? — People celebrate lots of fictional events: May the 4th parties; storming the Capitol because of stolen votes; all the holidays of all the religions that aren’t yours. But none are as great as Bloomsday. You can’t spend May 4th using the force to defeat Sith lords, or Hanukkah making candles…

Hopwood DePree, author of Downtown Shabby, is repairing the 50,000-square-foot, 600-year-old Hopwood Hall — It was never my dream to inherit a castle. It was, however, my dream that a friend would inherit a castle and let me visit whenever I want. So I was pretty excited when my friend Hopwood DePree called me. I met Hopwood in 2002 on the Girls Gone Wild…

Jordan Peterson Said A Plus-Size Model Was “Not Beautiful.” The Data Says He’s Wrong. — Though there are ever new ways to get yelled at on Twitter, author Jordan Peterson proved his conservative bona fides by going with one so dated The Simpsons stopped making fun of it in 1997: No fat chicks. Last week Peterson tweeted a photo of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue…

His terrific new book says puzzles will save the world. I tell him to calm down — There are many things that I’m not nearly as good at as I think I am, none of which you need to ask my wife about. But the most surprising one is puzzles. After many months of trying, I finally solved the Rubik’s Cube by figuring out that I could…

With the help of data scrientist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, author of the brilliant new book Don’t Trust Your Gut — I have long suspected that I was doing everything wrong. This is partly because people keep saying, “You’re doing everything wrong.” But it’s also because I have no data about how to live. I’m guessing at every decision. I have no algorithm. Data scientist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz has solved my problems…

If you want to. I sure don’t. — By writing for Medium, I now have my own business. I’m a publicist, promoting my columns on social media. I’m in customer relations, responding to readers’ comments. I’m a marketer, collecting a subscriber email list that I can use to sell my inevitable writing seminar. …

Your Step Into the Metaverse Is Adding to Our Loneliness — My iPhone wants to update your contact information to include your Memoji. When you send me a Snap, I see your Bitmoji. Both look a little like you, if there were only 200 people in the world, and all of them were thin, under 40 and maniacally excited about everything. …