Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Roth vs. Wikipedia New Yorker Comment

My issue of New York magazine came today and after analyzing an interesting article on the Topland Etiquette Checker vs. a wife, I read the following in the Highbrow/Brilliant section of The Approval Matrix: Philip Roth vs. Wikipedia. Weirdly, they're both right. That entry lead me to read a very long Open Letter to Wikipedia by Roth posted on The New Yorker's website. But I found this comment left by batesdon1 even more interesting than Roth's issue with Wikipedia and his Open Letter:

Clearly, Roth's letter is an example of what Blaise Pascal said in Lettres provinciales, 1656-7, Number 16, written December 4, 1656: "Je n’ai fait /cette lettre-ci/ plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte." Roughly: "I made this letter so long (lit.: longer) only because I didn’t have the time to make it shorter." I would add -- or to edit it appropriately.

Lol...

And if you haven't read any of Roth's books, here's an excerpt from my next book The Allure of Nymphets, From Charlie Chaplin to Mark Sanchez, Man’s Fascination with Young Women:

In Philip Roth's The Breast, Professor David Kepesh said, “I want twelve- and thirteen-year-old girls. I want them three, four, five, and six at a time. I want them licking at my nipple all at once. I want them naked and giggling, stroking and sucking me for days on end.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

One Meal Per Day

After I read that some extremely focused individuals like Nikola Tesla and James Franco ate only one meal per day, I unsuccessfully tried to emulate their diets; however, I recently figured out a way to do it. It turns out that if one drinks immediately after eating, the drink causes a "valve" in the stomach to open that releases the food into the intestines before the body has time to extract the nutrients from the food; consequently, some physicians recommend that one should wait approximately fifteen minutes to eat after drinking and about thirty minutes to drink after eating (i.e. The 15/30 rule).

I discovered that if I followed the 15/30 rule, I could go for hours without having the urge to eat anything and more specifically, I found that I could write without taking a break every forty-five minutes to go to the refrigerator to look for a snack; thus, like Tesla and Franco, I was more focused.

Here's a general example of how I've been eating for the past two weeks and as you'll see, I'm not literally eating once per day, but eating one full meal per day.:


  • Seven small  dates for breakfast
  • At least thirty minutes later - a small coffee
  • A banana for lunch
  • At least thirty minutes later - water
  • An apple for a snack
  • At least thirty minutes later -water
  • Dinner including a salad
  • At least thirty minutes later - tea
  • Popcorn
  • At least thirty minutes later - herbal tea


Following one aspect of the 4-Hour Body Slow-Carb diet, I take every Friday as a "pig-out" day while maintaining the waiting time before and after eating and drinking. I believe that Telsa was in a more Csikszentmihalyi-like flow, and was not waiting thirty minutes to drink after eating, but until I can reach that level of focus, I will avoid alternating between eating and drinking during meals. Now I just need to figure out how to sleep only three hours per day without precariously falling asleep while standing on the subway and in class.

Update: There is one exception to this rule. It is acceptable to sip on a drink immediately after a meal. I would recommend that the drink be hot tea or coffee. That way you will not be tempted to gulp down your drink. Have you ever seen an elderly person order a soda with their lunch or dinner? I haven't. I usually see them order a coffee. Does that mean that if you're in the habit of ordering sodas with your lunch and dinner that you will not make it to old age?

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Scathing Book Review by Denise Matthews/Vanity

Denise Matthews (Vanity) in The Last Dragon

After my novel, 
Katie, was published, I sent an email to everyone in my address book, including Denise Matthews [Stage name: Vanity] who played Laura Charles in the cult classic film The Last Dragon (1985). (I had sent her an email about The Last Dragon some years prior. She didn't reply.) This is her scathing reply to my email announcing Katie's publication:

I AM COMMITTED TO JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD, AND THIS BOOK WOULD BE AN ENEMY TO THE CROSS, MY HOPE IS HAT[sic]U GET SAVED…DENISE

But she didn’t even read my book!

UPDATE: Matthews died on February 15, 2016 in Fremont, CA.