NOW look what you've done!

[captainsblog]

So you have to start with Joss, who takes you to her fellow fabulous author Laura Lippman, who's doing this meme on her website:

Jonathan Franzen is going to be on the cover of TIME. I had it on good authority that I was the other August author under consideration, but so it goes.

Now, many years ago, Nora Ephron -- man, how many times have I cited her on this blog -- had a killing parody of how to write a magazine cover story. Interestingly, the rules as she observed them do not seem to have changed much. This profile (an abridged version is online) begins with a comically strained scene involving 41 sea otters.

"One of the humans admiring them is Jonathan Franzen. Franzen is a member of another perennially threatened species, the American literary novelist. But he's not as cool about it as the otters. He's uneasy. He's a physically solid guy, 6 ft. 2 in., with significant shoulders, but his posture is not so much hunched as flinched. At 50 (he turns 51 on Aug. 17), Franzen is pleasantly boyish-looking, with permanently tousled hair. But his hair is now heavily salted, and there are crow's-feet behind his thick-framed nerd glasses."

 

So here's the game: Cut and paste the above paragraph into the comment section and rewrite to describe yourself.

You really need to click above to get to hers, and the numerous variations on it that her readers posted, but here's mine- or rather, mostly, yours. I took your MadLibs suggestions from earlier, reserving a few for myself, and came up with this:



"One of the humans admiring them is captainsblog.  captainsblog is a member of another perennially threatened species, the American literary TALK SHOW HOST. But he's not as USEFUL about it as the otters. He's YELLOW. He's a physically HIRSUTE guy, 6 ft., with significant THUMBS, but his posture is not so much hunched as POLITICAL. At 50 (he turns 51 on NOV. 9, MAKING HIM ALMOST THE SAME AGE AS thanatos_kalos'S MOTHER, DEPRESSING HIM GREATLY), captainsblog is BARELY HUMAN-LOOKING, with permanently FRIZZY hair. But his PORK is now heavily salted, and there are JOWLS UNDER HIS thick-framed NOSE HAIR,  BUT THAT'S AN OTTER STORY."