Crazy Stable

Housebloggers have been tagging one another to admit "5 things" we probably didn't know about them, and I have been tagged by fellow Brooklynite Brooklyn Row House.  Hm, I could start with, "I am a media whore," but as a blogger, this would be a tad redundant.  Here, then, are 5 media-whorish things you probably didn't know about the Crazy Stablemistress (unless you have the dubious honor of my personal acquaintance):

1. In my freshman year of college at Fordham University, as the drama critic for the Fordham Review, I gave Denzel Washington his first review, in his student performance of Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones.  I gave him a rave and said he had "star quality." He went on to become a famous actor; I went on to become an obscure journalist. (Fun fact: He and I were in the same acting class together, but he was so hot that I never worked up the nerve to speak to him, much less suggest we do a  scene study together. Like, oh, say, Desdemona and Othello.  This happened--or didn't happen--in 1975; still can't get over it.)

2. I am visible as a crowd extra in the movie Marathon Man, in the scene where a shouting woman in New York's diamond district is hit by a car; I even have a reaction shot.  (During this shoot, I cornered Laurence Olivier in the Gotham Book Mart and babbled worshipfully; he was very kind.)

3. I was a conservative intellectual wanna-be in the 1980s, with several features for The American Spectator including a cover profile of anti-abortion activist Bernard Nathanson. (Like Spy, TAS was really good for awhile back then; their website says that archives are "coming," so no link.)

4.  I co-authored a book  on heart health with a cardiologist for Rodale Press, Week by Week to a Strong Heart. You can still get copies on E-bay, although much of the book's content is outdated. There's a picture of my co-author on the cover--the authoritative, silver-haired Dr. Marvin Moser--but none of me; my eyes were too red from weeping when I saw my final royalties statement, so they couldn't take my picture.

5. The crowning glory: I was quoted on page 1 of the Sunday New York Times on April 28, 2002--above the fold, in the lead--in a story about the Catholic Church and the sex abuse scandal. I sounded like a blithering idiot, (the ironic use of slang looks awful in print, wouldn't a print journalist have known that?)--although fortunately my quote broke to an inside jump before they got to the part where I called the U.S. bishops "duplicitous weasels." (No link possible, since this gem is now buried in the pay-to-play "Times Select Archive.")

Now you see why it is easy for me to reveal on the Internet that we have yucky tub caulk, a hole in the roof, and interior squirrels. 

Late-breaking Media Whorish Update: I have a letter in the New York Times this morning, taking issue with David Brooks' column on marriage yesterday (no link yet). The Times clearly just cain't quit me, so why don't they break down and hire me as a columnist--Brain of Brooks, Soul of Quindlen, something like that?