“Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book? It took me years to write. Will you take a look?”     —The Beatles "Unable to choose a fiction winner, Pulitzer Prize officials made a decision guaranteed to satisfy no one. They passed. For the first time in 35 years, no fiction award was given."     —Associated Press To the Board of Judges, Pulitzer Prize Committee: Hello, I’m writing today to request that you consider awarding my upcoming book a Pulitzer Prize. (I know you probably are not used to awarding Pulitzer Prizes pre-emptively, but I just thought we could get this whole thing settled and …

My friend Bob was feeling down recently. At first he thought it was just the Orioles. Then he said it was bad dreams about Mr. Boh’s stick body. The potato chip girl turned out to be a dominatrix. I thought maybe he needed some good, old-fashioned Baltimore shock therapy. “Try eating a whole box of Berger Cookies.” “I did—nothing—” he said. “Then I went to Gino’s, ‘cause—well, you know... Still nothing.” Bob tried everything, even watching the GOP presidential debates. But nothing could cheer him up. Finally Bob went to a therapist, who ruled out everything that wasn’t at the root of Bob’s …

Date: 20 September 2011 From: United States Office of Homeland Security To:   All Users Re:  Heightened Threat of “Cyber-Terrorist Attack” (Alert Level: Plaid) By now you have heard all the commercials selling certificate programs at America’s colleges and universities in the emerging field of “cyber-security.” When we found out what cyber-security was, we freaked out around here, frankly. This wasn’t anything like exploding underwear, poofy hairdos, swaddled babies, or a shampoo bottle filled with vodka. You couldn’t just wave a metal detector around people’s genitalia and be done with it. …

After the Grand Prix last week, many first-time tourists visited one of Baltimore’s most famous landmarks. Then, after not able to actually get into the old set of Homicide in Fells Point, they wandered out to Fort McHenry. There, on this day in 1814, the U.S. flag steadily flew while the British Navy attacked Baltimore harbor, as they had Washington three weeks before. For amateur poet Francis Scott Key on a British ship eight miles away, it was hard to see anything clearly—like tailgating at Ravens’ Stadium this past Sunday—but the point of the attack was clear. The British laid into …

Welcome to “Mysteries of Science—Revealed,” a new occasional feature exploring the latest mind-boggling phenomena, such as why it took ABC so long to cancel All My Children. With the start of the new school year, as a salute to students and teachers everywhere, we present “Science Fair Projects: Just the FAQs.” Q: For my project, could I ask a question like, “Who invented yogurt?” A: Good start! But that’s not so much a “who” question as a “how” question. Scientists believe yogurt was invented more than 2,000 years ago in the eastern Mediterranean after a coffee break when somebody left a …

This past week Mother Nature acted like my third-grade math teacher when she was in no mood to be trifled with. They both rattled the blinds and hurled stuff at your head. Except Sister Kevin had better aim. We kids played a game in those days called “Who would win?” I’d say, for example, “Superman, Frankenstein, or Mr. Mike (the school custodian)—who would win?” And you might say, “Superman, no contest.” Then you’d explain why he could beat Frankenstein and Mr. Mike in any test of strength. So Saturday I thought: “Earthquake, hurricane, or blizzard—who would win?” The midday earthquake last …

Labor Day weekend, Baltimore will zoom. Our first Grand Prix ever will turn the Inner Harbor west into a racetrack. If you’re unclear about it: the name derives from the French grand, meaning humongous, and prix, meaning collision. In an event made for Baltimore, a cadre of international pro drivers will imitate the average rush hour commuter on double espresso. Promoters estimate the event will bring $60 million to the city’s hotels, restaurants, stores, museums, souvenir kiosks, strip joints, and our own Formula One drivers: cabbies. While good for Baltimore business, it’s a little like …

All right, today we’re casting the sequel to The Great Escape, and somebody suggested using American presidents. First the leader, “Big X.” That’s gotta’ be you, Eisenhower. War leader, but kept the country happy in peacetime, with Elvis, Hula Hoops, and the Woodie. We like you, Ike. Next, we need a Steve-McQueen-charismatic type. Charm the Commandant out of his little black book. Okay, Kennedy, put your hand down. And tell your brother—no more Red Cross parcels from Victoria’s Secret. Who’ll be “The Scrounger”—make all the “back-o’-the-North-Latrine” deals? Okay, LBJ, you’re on this. Just …

Think competitive eating contests, housewives reality shows, and Congressional brinkmanship are bad? Here’s a glimpse of what’s really going to happen when the world ends. The earth stops spinning and orbiting the sun. In an instant, like Walmart at Christmas, everything slams into everything else. So it becomes virtually impossible to find your phone charger. The oceans boil off into space, prompting the 24-hour news channels to broadcast live from the dry ocean bottom. It’s mostly covered in sunken ships, glass empties, wedding rings, golf clubs, and lots of loose change. An animal Rapture …

Maybe I dreamed all of this, but I got a call from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), a nonpartisan agency in Washington. Nicknamed the congressional “watchdog”—I guess  because it won’t hunt—the GAO tracks how the federal government spends our taxes. (Ask nine out of ten Americans—even the people who hold down all the gardening and roadwork jobs—and they will probably say, “That would be a good idea.”) They called about an invoice I’d sent for painting the debt ceiling in Congress. Most people think painted ceilings look better than just plain, old, egg-shell white. Which …

Baltimore has a glorious past in stone monuments. That and glasphalt road re-surfacing. On an 1827 visit here, President John Quincy Adams, probably after several glasses of claret, dubbed our town “The Monumental City.” Baltimoreans, who screen paint but like curtains, kept the nickname. So near Monument Street you’ll find the nation’s second monument to the biological Father of Our Country, George Washington, completed in 1829. The nation’s very first Washington monument, completed in 1827, is near Boonsboro, Md. The builders probably thought locating it out in the woods honored Washington’…

Baltimore is legend for its gustatory prowess. Which is to say, we’re a town that loves to eat. Just check the parking lot at any Ravens game as fans in their festive purple and black muumuus fill two parking spaces on either side of each SUV with enough grilled meat to put the Army of the Potomac to shame. Step off Philadelphia, Chicago, and Milwaukee! We turned the Polish sausage into a cult. You can trace our gourmandism in part to some savvy Native Americans who discovered that the Chesapeake Bay was a true seafood smörgåsbord—even before the first Swedish-Americans arrived. The first …

Last week I was supposed to take up yoga. When we arrived at class, we were told we had the wrong night. I took this as a sign from God. I recalled the yogis I knew. There was the master of the inadvertent paradox, retired New York Yankees catcher, Yogi Berra, who famously said about baseball (and about life), “90% of the game is half mental.” And of course recall the patron of “pick-i-nick” baskets, Yogi Bear. But this involved a different kind of yogi altogether. I sensed I would need to get beyond some cultural stereotypes: turbans, incense, chutney, Jewish actor Sam Jaffe playing Gung Din…

I’ve been Irish Catholic for some years now, so I believe I’m authorized to talk about such things as Purgatory, circumnavigation, bull and oyster roasts, and one of everyone’s favorite topics, relics. At one time, relics were big business in the Catholic Church. Almost like the vintage baseball trading cards of the 13th century—everybody wanted a couple. After, thanks to the Lutherans, we found out that this was wrong, the Council of Trent in the mid-16th century put the kibosh on the whole deal by abolishing the sale of relics for “filthy lucre.” If you’ve ever sold, say, coffee mugs with …

Couple years ago, some of my family members declared that they had reached a saturation point. They did not want any more gifts for the holidays, preferring gifts in their name to charity. They were officially “People Who Had Everything.” I kind of knew what they meant. My house has filled up with stuff over the years, and I think of myself as someone who has at least one of everything. Not like the people on “Hoarding: Buried Alive,” of course, whose relatives walk into their homes and start openly weeping. But I do have, for example, a talking Napoleon Dynamite doll.  So what do people who …

Thank you for calling the National Tattoo Intervention Hotline. Para español presione el número uno. •  You have decided to get a visible tattoo, but you are still: a) uncertain about the tattoo’s location. To speak with someone who is really, really sorry she got a facial tattoo, press two. b) tentative about the tattoo’s size. To speak with a board-certified dermatologist about why even muriatic acid and grade #4 steel wool won’t remove a tattoo, press three. c) unsure about the tattoo’s content. To find somewhere to sober up, press four. •  What is your timeline for this tattoo? a. In time…

Growing up in North Baltimore, I could tell the time of day by the sound of bells. For example, we had to be home for dinner by 6:00 p.m. The rule was: If you’re late, God help you. He did. When the bells of St. Matthew’s tolled the Angelus at six, I knew it was dinnertime. For me, bells have always meant: “Stop, listen, reflect—and get home as fast as you can.” Bells are comforting, communal sounds. And bells have authority. At the end of the movie Witness, Amish farmers come running at the peal of a bell. They come to save the Lapp family, sure, but they’re also probably eager to stop …

In this great republic of ours, truly there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Unless you want to sit in some suburban steakhouse with a bunch of strangers listening to a financial planner for ninety minutes. In and around Baltimore, people put things out at curbside with signs that say, “free stuff.” Now we’re not talking here about the sad and all-too-commonplace sight of a household deposited on the street. (Which, in landlord school, is covered in the lesson: “What to do when turning off the utilities and changing the locks is misinterpreted.”) Nor should it be confused with the festive …

As a kid, I always wondered about that little gold-labeled jar in the family medicine cabinet. It appeared about the same time our Bohemian grandmother, Kitty O’Toole, came to live with us. Dr. Gordshell’s Salve, Baltimore Md. the label said. Iridescent, mysterious, more potion than unguent, to a kid it looked for all the world like, well, gopher guts. In 1858, 35-year-old Baltimore physician George W. Gordshell compounded his “All Healing Salve” for the treatment of “boils, carbuncles, gathered breasts, chilblains, and scald-head.” It must have worked at least partially because, as far as I …

At a stoplight outside the Beltway comes a Mini Cooper decorated like a box of fireworks. Atop the car is a giant pink and yellow Big Boyz Bail Bonds pen, looking at first like a guided missile. You imagine The Jolly Green Giant making bail: Big Boyz: “OK, Mr. Giant, just sign here.” Jolly Green Giant: “Ho, ho, ho!” Big Boyz: “No—not with that pen!” Look up the word “ubiquitous” in the dictionary and you’ll see a picture of the pink and yellow Big Boyz pen. Then you think: But why flood the world with a tchotchke promoting a service for such a small niche market? How many people in the …