Michael Northrop

Man, the world is stuffed to bursting with weird wonders lately. First a new shrew, and now scientists in Utah have discovered the fossils of two previously unknown dinosaurs, both closely related to the ever-awesome triceratops. The first has been named [wait for it...] Utahceratops! Well, technically it’s Utahceratops gettyi, but that’s still pretty sweet. It’s got a state right in its name, like Indiana Jones. The Utahceratops should really consider a write-in campaign, either for senate or at least mascot.

The second is the Kosmoceratops richardsoni [above]. It had 31 skull ornamentations and 15 horns, making it “the most ornate-headed dinosaur known”—and, of course, the horniest.

Hey, look what they just discovered in Kenya: It’s a new shrew! (And now I have that Shmoo song stuck in my head: “It’s the New Shmoo, the incredible New Shmoo… likes you!”) At least they think it is. They’re bringin’ the little guy in for tests (this is not going to be a good day, little dude). They’re pretty sure this is a new variety of elephant shrew, so named because of their trunk-like noses, and I think so too. I mean, I’ve never seen an elephant shrew quite like this one before. I saw a rat with a weird nose in Central Park once, but that’s not really the same thing. (Unless… could it be… the elusive elephant rat?) Anyway, welcome to the world li’l shrew. Sorry about the needles, but the world is a curious place.

Photo by the Kenyan Wildlife Service

The latest video from OK Go is just as cool as their others but with, like, 1000 percent more canine amazingness. Well done, guys (and dogs; and that one goat).

Even cooler, most of the dogs in the video are rescues. You can find out more by clicking here.

I think it’s fair to say that most people would not have picked up the folded sheet of notebook paper I found on 77th Street. For one thing, no one had yet, and for another, it had footprints on it. But I am a novelist, own hand sanitizer, and consider the minutiae of other people’s lives part of my job. It’s like when you’re driving in the country late at night and see a single light on in a farmhouse. What’s going on in there? It’s the sense of lives happening on the periphery of your own, the little details that you can glimpse and whatever meaning you can glean from them. There’s a poem by Mark Strand that I consider sort of definitive on the subject.

In real life, the list doesn’t levitate like this . . .

In any case, here is the list I found on that piece of paper. I’ve separated the columns with line breaks and recreated the cross-outs. If this is your list, fill your prescriptions, buy some cereal, and for God’s Sake, do not probe your cousin. You’re welcome.

Time Warner (Thurs 11-2)
Pay Parking Ticket
Fill Prescriptions
Doctors Prestictions More
Pay $25 Dentist
Pay Powerbill
Fed Ex?

$
Grandpa Sunday
Skate Wheels
Cuz Steven (Probe)
Golf Bag
Calendar
Board for Jim

Food

Dogfood
Garbage Bags
Cereal
Sandwich Meat
Cheese

Veggies
Dish Soap
Eggs
Sausage
Meat?

Research

MTG Jobs
Passions
Trends
NYC
Dept Labor
Look at companies I like

Two things happened today: I crossed the 50,000-word mark in my Work in Progress, and I split my pants. I’d like to think the two are unrelated, but you don’t write 50K words without many weeks of intense sitting. And snacking. Here is a gritty crime-scene photo:

As you can see, it’s a fairly gruesome case of khakicide. Even worse, the evidence has been Dockered.

I have always been a big fan of superheroes, but have always had somewhat offbeat taste about it. Part of this was probably being a younger brother (we were both avid comic book readers) and feeling the need to stake out my own territory. And part of it was just the fact that I am weird. In any case, one of my favorite heroes was Mon-El, member in good standing of The Legion of Super-Heroes.

He was, admittedly, a Superman knock-off. There were some small differences: He was from Daxan (a Daxamite!) rather than Krypton, and instead of Kryptonite he was vulnerable to, well, lead. That is not a great thing to be allergic to as a superhero—or even as a cop—but Brainiac 5 cured him, so problem solved.

Thankfully, no Luger.

Apart from that, he had the same powers as Superman, which, let’s be honest, are the powers to have. According to Wikipedia, he sometimes served “as a substitute for the better-known character.” Whatever, they’re just jello. Their favorite character probably needed the Legion Flight Ring to get around . . .

That’s right: Mitch is Matter-Eater Lad.

Anyway, if Superman represents strength and virtue—the superhero as truly superhuman (remember that great Keith Carradine ramble in Kill Bill?)—then Mon-El represents something else: the close second, the valid alternative. The fact that I preferred the Daxamite to the Kryptonian allows me to look at the Fitzgerald fan who prefers Tender Is the Night to Gatsby, the kid whose favorite dinosaur is that weird herbivore with the mace on its tail, or the die-hard Mets fan in New York City and say, ‘Damn straight. You tell ‘em.’ And getting a Red Sox fan to see eye to eye with a Mets fan? That’s a power that even Superman can’t match.

I went to the Brooklyn Book Festival on Sunday, where book blogger extraordinaire Edward Champion (a.k.a. Bat Segundo) interviewed me about the One Story flash mob. It was a blast. I really like the Cool Kat mascot, too.

Mi amigo Aris y yo were walking along E. 82nd Street when we caught sight of this monster roach climbing up a wall. We could see it plainly from like 20 feet away. It was like we were walking two wide and then passed this bad boy and were suddenly walking three wide.

The angle isn’t ideal—believe it or not, there is some foreshortening going on—but the thing was at least 2/3 the length of my index finger. Nine more like him and you could make a movie: Edward Cockroach-Hands. And who wouldn’t want to see that? Actually, I think it was a water bug rather than a cockroach, but I’m no expert and it wasn’t saying.

There was a big spider web along the wall and this thing just rolled through it like a tank through a clothesline. If I were Bear Grylls, I would have eaten it. I’m not, though, so I put my hand there for Aris to take a picture and then went and got Taco King.

Here at Michael Northrop, we hand out more short stories before 9 a.m. than most people hand out all day. At least we did today. I got up at 5:45 to shower, shave disastrously, and make my way out to the far-off Eastern Parkway subway stop in Brooklyn, where I handed out three stacks of One Story issues as part of their One Story One Borough event.

One Story is a super-cool literary magazine that sends out one bound short story every three weeks (or via Kindle). I’ve been a fan for a long time, and I was totally on board for this. (Exhibit A: 5:45.) It wasn’t easy, though. For the first half hour, I was stationed by the entrance that took people farther out into Brooklyn. It was essentially deserted. The Manhattan-bound side was much more popular with humans, but people are always trying to give something to you/take something from you in New York, and the inhabitants have developed advanced, Death Star–level defenses.

So I was all like, “Would you like a free short story? For your subway ride? To read?”

And they were all like, “No thanks” or “Nah” or (often) “[silence; avoidance of eye contact].” Sometimes a big group of them would approach the subway entrance at once, bristling with frowns and stuffed with earbuds, and I’d be like:

“Would you like a story? Or to not punch me?”

But a lot of them—many!—were like “Sure” or “OK” and took one. Hooray! Some of them even smiled and said “Thanks.” One even said, “Oh! I love these!” I don’t know if she meant short stories or issues of One Story, but it was a highlight, either way.

The three issues I was giving out were all by Brooklyn authors, and I sort of tried to give people the one I thought they’d like best. The one in these pictures is “The Puppet” by Rief Larsen (my own copy). I thought it would be the best one for guys, because it’s about war correspondents, but it’s pink, so I also thought it was the worst one to try to give guys. Which is to say: My system was based on crude stereotyping and broke down almost immediately. And the one guy wearing a pink shirt—the ultimate target demographic for that story!—totally blew me off. WTF, dude: What the fiction?

Still, it was a lot more fun than not, and across the borough, volunteers gave out 2,000 issues of this awesome little magazine. I was done with my part just before 9 and back home, caffeinated, and writing by 10:30—about half an hour earlier than usual. If the whole thing were a short story, its title would be “Win Win.” (And it would be given away for free on the subway.)

This is the view from the deck of my friend Lane’s new West Village penthouse. (That blue thing there? That is the Hudson River.) I guess I should be more specific: This is the view from the third floor of the penthouse, because there is also a deck on the second floor of the place.

Lane is the managing director of a hedge fund. And I was thinking just about the same thing on Saturday, sitting on his deck sipping single-malt whisky, as I’m thinking now, sitting in my rented apartment in a neighborhood I sort of loathe eating hot dogs I got on sale and then overcooked, as a precaution: Good thing I became an author. Yep, that was some rock-solid financial planning right there.

Still, it’s probably not a coincidence that I’ve written 3,500 words in the two days since then. I’m not going to buy the place directly to the south of Lane’s—the one formerly owned by Giselle—by just sitting around and eating questionable hot dogs. And I’ll take my motivation with a nice view and a good scotch any day.