John Wiswell on the Web

Their most popular beer is 'ichiban,' which is Japanese for "number one," I guess because once you've had an atomic bo...

-After I figured out most of my writing assignments in second grade could be about X-Men and Swampthing. -After my third reading of The Adve...

Even though this one has a better soundtrack and more star-power, we've all seen this movie before. It's rare that a film hits theat...

There is a cult in the east that expounds on a plane of existence above our own, which is populated exclusively by the spirits of weapons an...

The government sealed the audiotapes for years, just because these seemed like the sort of thing they were supposed to seal for years. Theol...

I don't care if you're gay. I never have cared. I'll care if you're lonely, I'll care if you two just broke up, and I...

Everyone talks about that million-to-one odds business. Like they studied probability beyond what was necessary to pass Math in high school....

Yes, Fantasy is make-believe. But you know what? Make-believe is no worse than real-doesn't-care-if-you-believe. And your so-called real...

"Sexist?" This word intrigues me. Is it like "typist" and "novelist?" Does it suggest that this is my trade? T...

I still remember Mrs. Cronenberg harping in fifth grade about how all paragraphs were at least eight sentences long. I never got an eight-se...

It's one of the most terrifying places in the world of the supernatural. So many have died here that fiends no longer believe it's r...

"What really got me about the story of Eden was everything else in there. The birds, the bugs, even the trees are on the earth as well ...

"But if women found out how to reproduce with artificial genetic material, men were done for. But we couldn't destroy the technolog...

John was begat by Erma Bombeck, Douglas Adams, Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift, but please don't hold it against him; the son is never gre...

Lo's first weapon was a jintachi, a sword with a long blade and curved handle designed for horseback fighting. He was a slave, so of cou...

-Intro to Cloud Gazing -Traditional Bread Crumb Reading -Egg-Nog Smithery (belt sanders required; on sale in bookstore) -Advanced Tree Re-Fu...

Yes, ghosts do watch you. If you’re curious, their view of us is best-likened to our view of celebrity news. The dead spend most of their ti...

Rumors that the governor's wife had a troubled labor and lost the child bring people from all over the county to the mansion the next mo...

Safari having reminded him what he loved about politics, Theodore Roosevelt returned to the United States figuring the Republicans would mak...

During the Ting Period, strategist philosophers enjoyed many games, both solitary efforts and competitions between teams, which taught them ...

"I mean, I could have walked in on her going down on -- no wait, that happened. Well, it could have been my brother she was -- no wait....

-“Epic” now means, “long.” -“This is a smart comedy,” now means, “It isn’t funny.” -“Fiery” has always meant, “bitchy.” -“Upcoming bio-pic” ...

When Maurine Ellington stopped by Clarice James's yard sale, she couldn't have known she was going to walk away with a piece of hist...

Theodicy is, of course, the greatest work of poetry in any language and follows the rise of the Thousand Year Republic. Its central theme i...

Yusef was a very wealthy man. He was born into money, grew up in money, went to college to learn how to make even more money, and the summer...

“You can fireproof it, keeping flame from scorching the interior; you can waterproof it, keeping storms from ruining the wood paneling; you ...

Puck: There is a way that things are supposed to be, and then there is the way that things usually are. I expect that you sometimes create a...

No author has more implausible or unexplained plot twists; no author relishes in so much violence; no author switches focus so often; no aut...

1. (n) One of a series of short fiction or essay pieces written for general amusement and casual enlightenment, which were so much funnier o...

Common law in New York states that if a man and a woman from different families live in an apartment together for fifteen years or longer, t...