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Postcards from The Pug Bus

Lifting a satirical leg on pop culture since 2004

Persons in the Ether

Question of the Week

Clowns or Mimes?

Marjorie Finkelstein, 64, retired dental hygienist

318 Willow Street, Scranton, PA

Mimes. At least they have the decency to suffer in silence. A clown wants you to participate in his emotional problems while he honks a horn and falls down. I spent thirty-seven years looking into people's mouths. I have had enough forced entertainment.

Raymond Bickford, 51, commercial refrigeration technician

76 Chestnut Lane, Akron, OH

Clowns. You know where you stand with a clown. He has enormous shoes, a drinking problem, and a car full of accomplices. A mime pretends to be trapped in an invisible box and expects applause. My brother-in-law has been doing that at Thanksgiving for twenty years. Nobody pays him.

Sheila Lattimore, 47, assistant county tax assessor

142 Birch Road, Des Moines, IA

Mimes, provided they remain outdoors. I once hired a clown for my daughter's birthday party. He arrived forty minutes late, smelled like gasoline, and asked whether we had a ladder. The children still talk about it. My daughter is twenty-three.

A man arguing with a speaker just after reading his horoscope.

"When even your Bluetooth speaker thinks your playlist is a cry for help."

Blog

The Grammar Grump Fingers Three Who Misused Begs the Question

philmaggitti blog 15 years

Hello, boys and girls. The Grammar Grump has a treat for you today. Instead of our regular quiz designed to irritate you and to undermine… Read More

People sitting in a circle of folding chairs at a support group meeting while one person stands and speaks about the personal consequences of going viral online.

Going viral wasn't such a good idea after all.

Blog

The Grammar Grump Sticks It to The Neosecularist and ESPN

philmaggitti blog 15 years

While navigating the backwaters of the internet yesterday, I nearly ran aground on a website entitled The Neosecularist. What brought me up startled was this sentence:… Read More

Pensive astronaut surrounded by screens in spacecraft

Blog

The Grammar Grump Rides Hobson’s Choice to Victory

philmaggitti blog 15 years

While simultaneously watching The Hour on BBC America last night and reading Nina Burleigh’s The Fatal Gift of Beauty: The Trials of Amanda Knox, I heard one of… Read More

Reginald Oort, a weary middle-aged astrologer, pens nearly accurate horoscopes in a cluttered office.

"I'm going to tell them their lucky color is 'despair.'"

Blog

An Open Letter to Those Barenaked People in San Francisco

philmaggitti blog 15 years

Dear Hideous-Looking Tools:OK, you had your little nude-in last Saturday, now put your damn clothes on. Put ’em all on, every last bit you left at home… Read More

"White people having the privilege of line dancing to a Morgan Wallen tune."

Blog

Chapter 1: Divine Intervention Strikes Twice

philmaggitti blog 18 years

On a warm Sunday afternoon in April 1990, I was sitting on a hillside in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, watching a timber race, when god spoke… Read More

sommelier-style waiter pouring water tableside

Your water has a backstory, a birthplace, and unresolved tension with limestone.

Blog

Chapter 2: The Antimother

philmaggitti blog 21 years

I wouldn’t be writing this book if my wife Mary Ann had not decided that our first pug, Percy, needed another dog for companionship. The… Read More

Ophiuchus (Nov 31 – Feb 30) The thirteenth sign of the Zodiac. The cosmic asterisk. The footnote with delusions of grandeur.

Blog

At Preakness Time, a Pimlico Tale

philmaggitti blog, dog 21 years

BALTIMORE – The best stories in sports are about horse racing or boxing. That’s because the best characters in sports are in the gym or… Read More