What’s with the Weird Name?
The blog’s name comes from a sixteenth-century tract entitled A Most Strange and Wonderful Herring Taken Neere Drenton by Jan van Doetecum. Freak members of the family Clupidae were once interpreted as portents of the End of All Things.
What Is the Purpose of Strange Herring?
To horrify and enthrall, shock and disquiet, inspire and demoralize, entertain and confound. And then they’ll be cake.
Who Are You?
I am a native New Yorker; graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts; baptized, confirmed, and currently Lutheran; and the managing editor for ISI Books — also the former managing editor, online editor, copy editor, production editor, humor
editor, proofreader, writer, and indexer for a wide variety of magazines, newspapers, book publishers, and websites, including Discover, Biography, Reader’s Digest, Men’s Fitness, First Things, Commentary, PC Magazine, Beliefnet.com, the Wall Street Journal, Individual Investor, and the HistoryChannel.com. And I came this close (my thumb and forefinger are a quarter-inch apart) to getting on the original David Letterman writing staff back in 1981.
Oh, and I have Neil Simon’s autograph. And Joe Franklin unwittingly dubbed me “the middle guy.” And Sylvester Stallone once told me to rethink my review of M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village.
More important, I am the husband of a wonderful woman, Denise, a teacher. Ten years and she’s not sick of me yet. Yet.
What Do You Want?
For everyone within the sound of my voice to send me $11.
How Many Unique Visitors Does Strange Herring Receive Each Day?
Each and every one of my visitors is unique; some in ways appealing, others in ways appalling. As for round, measurable numbers, I’m afraid I don’t understand the question—you must speak louder.
Who Are Strange Herring’s Honorary Patrons?
and
Sol Frieder, who famously said, “Of course, when something hurts herring, it hurts me.”
What Is Your Anthem?
“Let’s Hit Hitler Where He Lives.”
Will There Ever Be a Strange Herring Movie?
We are efforting that at the moment. We lack only financing, a cast, a crew, a script, a studio, a distributor, film, and anything resembling public interest. Oh, and a camera thingee.
Are You on Twitter?
Fine, fine, I relent: @strangeherring. But I draw the line at Friendface or Sourpuss or whatever that kid billionaire calls his Big Brother of a social-networking apparatus. If I’m going to have my every movement tracked, better to be stalked by the usual suspects: the FBI, the Communist Party, and the Queensborough Public Library.
