I think James Lileks is one of the finest writers in the country, but I never read his Star Tribune column The Quirk. It was too short and topics too domesticized to make it a destination site. The Star Tribune's unremitting, shrill partisan bent long ago chased me away from delving into its pages and randomly stumbling on it. So I kind of forgot about it.
Today was his final installment of the Quirk and I get the sense I might have been missing something the past few years.
I love this place, and I always wanted to be a Star Tribune humorist. It's a narrow goal, like wanting to be the President's barber -- great objective, but not exactly a career bursting with openings. But I set my mind to it; I had a plan, and after years of patient work I perfected my set of Uncle Al Sicherman facial protheses. They found out. But they admired my pluck. Charges were dropped. Years later, I was hired, and I've been honored to converse with you here ever since.
It's not like I'm entering a witness-protection program. Everything you liked about the Quirk can be found at lileks.com, where I write a famously interminable daily column called the Bleat. But newspapers are special, I know. Nothing will take the place of this.
Just in case you're curious: My Quirk allotment was always 300 words. It was always a point of professional pride to hit 300 words on the nose. Hmm: almost there. Very well, then:
Child says hello. And from me: Goodbye. And thanks!
How can the people who nixed him not feel lousy after that? That's the kind of revenge only a talented writer can pull off. Reassign me, will you? Prepare to experience melancholy regret!
A class act all the way too. Contrast that with editorial page deputy editor Jim Boyd's pathetic lashing out with his final breaths and you see what character is. If only Boyd would have been limited to 300 daily words on shopping at Target and Lileks could have ran the editorial page, that might have been a paper worth reading. Ah, what might have been.
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