David Given Schwarm

A friend of mine, who is an EMT, says that people at restaurants choke more often than you’d imagine. According to him, the real danger isn’t choking, it’s the bathroom. Because the moment people get a chicken wing lodged in their throats, the do a curious thing: They use the last of their oxygen to…

So many of the things we take as a given in everyday life were actually the result of a bitter struggle between two opposing forces. Take, for example, the custom of saying “Hello?” when answering the phone. It seems like a natural extension of a face-to-face conversation, right? I telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell had…

Weird fact: Before Jerry Springer launched his brawling freak show on daytime TV, he was a serious progressive politician and highly respected mayor of Cincinnati. In his heyday, many Ohioans even saw him as a likely candidate for the U.S. presidency. As you begin worrying that you might be pushing the bounds of believability for…

One of the best ways to learn to do something is to emulate those whose work you admire. The treat (and task) for today is to drop by the bookstore and pick up a novel by an author whose voice you’ve always loved. Read the first few pages of you purchase before you start writing,…