Boychik Lit Is Hipper Fratire

The new term fratire, or fraternity satire, was coined a year ago by Warren St. John of the New York Times, presumably because his editors did not approve of another term that rhymes with "chick lit."

But somehow, fratire just doesn't seem catchy enough. And that preoccupation with fraternity culture - is puking on your own shoes really all that interesting?

How about - boychik lit instead? Derived from the Yiddish word for a young man who has more chutzpah than brains? Boychik lit can be a counterpoint, alternative to, and parody of the hugely popular female-oriented fiction genre. Moreover, boychik lit defies the widely held notion that today's young men won't or can't read, presumably because they've been conquered, co-opted, and rendered brain-dead by the video game industry and excessive self-abuse.

As to the population at large, even if they are not rabid fans of chick lit, the woman-on-the-street and her cowlicked male companion will both know something of Bridget Jones's Diary and The Devil Wears Prada. An even larger audience of TV viewers will have eagerly anticipated episode after bodice-gripping episode of Sex and the City.

One need not stray beyond the lush pastures of HBO to find the demographic home of boychik lit. Entourage is a series about young men on the make in Hollywood. However predictably repetitive the subject of scoring in Babe-alon, not only young men but also men of a certain age who fantasize about being young never seem to tire of Entourage.

The godfather of boychik was Peter De Vries, longtime New Yorker editor and (today) the lamentably deceased and mostly unsung master of the male-centered comic novel. For example, never one to shy way from topics in questionable taste, De Vries wrote Slouching Towards Kalamazoo, about a confused young man who elopes with his teacher, and Forever Panting, about a struggling actor who divorces his wife to marry his mother-in-law.

To summarize, in the boychik-lit story:

• The male main character is looking for sex and is bewildered by emotional entanglements.
• He is a hacker and a slacker, clever and resourceful but chronically lazy.
• He's a dropout who can't hold a steady job.
• Far from being the hero with a single tragic flaw, the boychik is riddled with worrisome flaws, with one or two possibly redeeming qualities.
• The tone is observational and witty, sometimes sarcastic.
• The boychik tells his story in a confessional, first-person narrative.
• At the end of the novel, the hero has almost managed to undo the complicated mess he's made in the course of the story and thinks he has learned important lessons, which may or may not be valid.

Oh, and one more crucial distinction: The chick-lit novel is typically set in New York City, ironically where many people readily understand what a boychik is. The boychik novel is set in Los Angeles, where many people will mistakenly assume that boychiks wear wigs and stiletto heels and hang out in certain bars in West Hollywood. # # #

Read the author's blog where he discusses his own recent contribution to the genre, My Inflatable Friend: The Confessions of Rollo Hemphill.

Humor - Advice for Newlyweds

My granddaughter got married in Illinois so we hopped in the car and emptied our pocket book at a dozen or so service stations along the way.

I should say "gas" stations as there is no such thing as a service station since the man with the "star" turned in his badge—except in New Jersey and Oregon where it is still civilized.

Twice I decided to put my wife's handicap tag on the rear view mirror and look forlornly out the window—but nobody volunteered to pump gas for me—and nobody seemed to care that I had about ten zillion bugs on my windshield.

So I pumped my own gas and watched the pennies zip buy at the speed of light while the gallons moved as slowly as molasses in January in Nome located on the south coast of the Seward Peninsula which, if you haven't been there or have been there, is in Alaska.

Removing bugs squished on my windshield at 75.3 miles per hour is horrific. The speed quoted is the combined speed of my Sienna and the bugs, but that is only an estimate. Dragonflies, which make a big splat, could raise that to 75.35 or so.

God made bugs of mostly waterproof, instant-setting epoxy resin. I always carry a spade in my car for the tough spots. My wife says the scratches the spade makes are worse than the bugs. How could that be?

Having always had a persistence to study nature, I study each squished bug carefully to see if I can add a new species to my "life bug list" which I keep in my glove compartment next to my "life bird list" and my "life rock list."

We had stopped in the fossil hills of Wyoming to look at past squished critters and I saw that I had an extinct cousin of Dendroctonus ponderosae on my windshield— Dendroctonus ponderosae nowdeadacus—or ancient pine beetle.

I hoped to register this with The World Federation of Extinct Species so they could remove it from their list, but I realized that I would be accused of making the extinction of Dendroctonus ponderosae nowdeadacus final.

Anyway, I could not scrap the bug onto my sticking note, so they would not believe me anyway. Also, the photo I took of the bug was as blurry as the bug.

By the way, did you know that we are losing a number of species of farm animals every year? I read that at: http://www.fao.org/NEWS/2000/001201-e.htm

We got to Newton, Iowa where there was a pre-marriage reception for my granddaughter and the handsome quarterback she had landed. He is the twin of his wide receiver who was married last year and so got ahead of him.

Some of our old Iowa friends were at the reception and we exchanged lies and other success stories. It was very hot in the building and the caterers could hardly keep the punch bowls filled. It was not any cooler in Illinois on the banks of the Mighty Mississippi.

I always call the Mississippi, "Mighty." I wonder if I leaned that from Mark Twain who hung out on the river. Do you remember Indian Joe of Tom Sawyer fame? I think that Tom Sawyer was one of the first movies I ever saw. Indian Joe scared the daylights out of me. When I was birding with my Number 2 son on the bank of the river, I kept an eye out for that sneaky Indian Joe in the woods.

Well, my granddaughter and her man were married in the Nauvoo Temple as were her brother and older sister. It is the custom of we Mormons to get married forever so that is what they did.

Here is my advice to the new couple:

Keep Truckin'!

The End