The 'John Irving' Tag Archive

Below you'll find all my writing tagged with the word John Irving. The posts are listed in chronological order. Click the post title to read more.

November 11th, 2009

Worth $30 just to hear Owen Meany’s voice

As we stood in line waiting to get into the venue housing last night’s John Irving reading, Sister #2 set out a few ground rules. “One,” she said. “There will be no hugging. ” There was more on the list, but I was too distracted by a nine-year-old wearing heavy makeup, falling off what can [...]

October 1st, 2009

Answering the Googlers Questions XI: All Dawson’s all the time

Here’s what I’ve learned looking at this month’s logs, a lot of people are really concerned about what to wear to a Journey concert. Also, I could turn I Will Dare into a Dawson’s Creek blog and people would be happy (and so would I, for about 20 minutes) How many kids does Marie Osmond [...]

September 30th, 2009

Spazzing out

Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit! HOLY SHIT! John Irving is going to be reading in Minneapolis on November 9th. JOHN FUCKING IRVING. Longtime darling ones will understand the absolute joy this moment has inspired in me. I’m so excited that I have lost all sense of decency and decorum and spent 10 minutes babbling [...]

August 31st, 2009

Answering the Googlers’ Questions X: The return of a fan favorite

Since it’s been awhile. . . this is a feature on I Will Dare where we answer the questions that brought inquiring Googlers to our doorstep. Is the road to hell is paved with adverbs? Yes, yes it is. It’s also paved with that shitty Chuck Klosterman novel. What should I wear to a Journey [...]

May 11th, 2008

Funny fiction part I

Ask, and you shall receive. So here’s a list of books that I found funny. I am only covering fiction here, which is hard because I find that not a lot of fiction books are funny, at least not funny on purpose. As for non-fiction if you can’t find the funny in David Sedaris or [...]

May 4th, 2008

The Vonnegut of my dreams

There was a great flood. I think that maybe the Minnesota River had overflown its banks and flooded most of Shakopee. I had to jump from a plane with a parachute to get anywhere. When I got home, Kurt Vonnegut was sitting at the dining room table in Supergenius HQ. He was using my old [...]

July 7th, 2007

John Irving in the Times

John Irving reviews Gunter Grass’ memoir for the Times.

March 2nd, 2006

on this, the holiest of days, i give thanks for John Irving

today should probably a holy day. i should probably spend my time on my knees at the altar called my bookcase, light a few candles and pray. for today, is John Irving’s birthday. people say you never forget your first love, and i think when it comes to literary love John Irving is my first. [...]

August 7th, 2005

please, shut up about your penis already

based on the length (820 pages, i think), heft (800 pages weigh a lot), and the sheer number of times we hear about penises, i think John Irving’s new novel Until I Find You is an hommage to his own johnson. it is as though he wants to make it abundantly clear that he has [...]

August 1st, 2005

the will to carry on

somebody i know was up until 3 a.m. reading John Irving’s Until I Find You, making her incredibly sleepy and super bitchy today. rampant hormones are totally not helping them atter at all. and though i’m totally not really digging the book all that much, i still cannot seem to put it down. damn you [...]

July 30th, 2005

sometimes i’m a little ashamed of myself

laziness is definitely my strong suit, but today, today i was so lazy that i feel a little ashamed. here was my schedule. 9:30 – 10:30: wake up, check e-mail, listen to NPR 10:30 – 11:30: lay in bed reading john irving, practice 11:30 – 12:30: check e-mail, read ask metafilter, eat lunch, fill out [...]

July 29th, 2005

i couldn’t wait around, i couldn’t wait another second

it’s official. i have hit the wall. i’m washed up and out. i think it’s the past three weeks of 50-60 hour work weeks combined with not-relaxing weekends. i’m done. i need to crawl into bed and sleep for 100 years and then be awakened by a kiss from prince charming. i can’t wait to [...]

July 13th, 2005

anticipating Irving

to keep my mind off the bitching/thinking/busyness of this week (and probably the next two), i’ve decided to focus all non-work braincells and energy on hoping that the new John Irving book Until I Find You doesn’t suck ass. as i’ve said about 942 times, i love John Irving. his book A Prayer for Owen [...]

July 11th, 2005

a sly declaration of new classic status slipped into a list of old safe ones

late last week, Kelly laid down a challenge: “What do you consider to be the most ass kicking top, say, 11 books written, and here’s the challenge, in the last 20 years?” this was not an easy task. not easy at all. i had to cull through all my books, look at copyright dates, try [...]

June 4th, 2005

mmm, a saturday morning book meme to get the weekend back on track

kelly has asked me to take part in a fun little book meme. fun! how many books do you own? gee, by my best guess right now i have about 400 on the bookshelves. you can look at old pictures of my shelves from 2 years ago. plus theres the 100+ Sweet Valley High Books [...]