Russell David Harper

Worried about how much omega-3 you or your child is getting? Don't worry. Einstein didn't, and he was far smarter than you or your baby. He didn't jog, either.

This sentence can take you to silly ideas or to the feedback page. This sentence will take you to the New York Times.

“Funny as all get-out, in a droll, self-deprecating way.”―Seattle Times

Misc.

The author is also hoping to one day be able to afford to buy a car. If he had millions of dollars to spare, he'd get a good one like a Subaru Impreza. Something that's designed for American highways. He'd avoid those big, high, bulky vehicles that can give you a false sense of security on pavement, where they handle relatively poorly. (Recall that cars designed to go more than 180 miles per hour need to be just inches off the ground; the higher the vehicle, the less roadworthy it is.)

ReZoom interview.

Books

You will find that some parts of two of the books mentioned below are available here as excerpts. Bald is available only as an actual book.

A CALORIE IS A CALORIE, subtitled "A Handbook for the American Glutton." This book needs a wide audience, in both senses of the word.

Disclaimer. My new book assumes that nobody is perfect and that most people past the age of twenty-five or so won't, barring a huge windfall, get all that much better with age.

We are the new "Romans of the Decadence." In a land that places few limits—cultural or economic or otherwise—on production and consumption, a majority of us have come to manifest with our bodies the consequences of our inability to rein in our appetites. Those of us who manage to remain thin, on the other hand, are all too aware of this status and invariably buy into the idea that death itself might be avoided by following the advice of experts in the fields of health and nutrition.

But we're more impressively heavy than our Roman antecedents. It's true. Obesity wasn't necessarily a problem even during the decline of the Roman Empire. But the Romans hadn't figured out how to fix nitrogen for fertilizers, nor did they have tractor trailers to deliver frozen fries to far-flung restaurants and beer to far-flung gas station convenience stores. America is a far mightier empire than Rome ever was, at least in terms of combustion and consumption.

An answer to self-help books. This new book is a quixotic call to arms, inciting heavy Americans to match their excessive consumption and many hours of driving with huge amounts of exercise, but it is also a meditation on the pitfalls of having a body in the age of information.

Be like Cleopatra. It's true: Cleopatra was a sexier, more dynamic person than any of us—without exercise equipment and without nutrition labels. In fact, historians believe that she didn't count calories.

Vegetarian? Good for you. If you don't eat meat, you're choosing to let the vultures, insects, bacteria, and other scavengers and predators eat animals before or after they die. In a word, you humans, with your guns and other machinery, are bowing out to the rest of the field in the animal kingdom, and that's just good old-fashioned fair play. All of this is noble. What's more, by sticking to vegetable matter, you're no doubt limiting your caloric intake. More kudos for you.

"Mr. Harper, are you a vegetarian?" No, but I love vegetarian foods and I tend to eat vegetarian meals in the presence of my vegetarian friends and relatives. Or at least I'll limit myself to chicken or turkey or something that's not so meaty looking.

A Calorie Is a Calorie. Please read the introduction and let me know what you think.

"Is BALD about hair loss or beer drinking?" Both—and it's also, though none of the few reviewers seemed to care, about the fear of death.

BALD, the book that wasn't supposed to get published. Publishers Weekly despised it ("intermittently charming"), and for good reason. It lacks the haunting prose, the sweeping narrative, the scope and depth of the sort of morally correct book that is de rigueur for the New Yorker set. (But, to be fair to that publication, they also appreciate things that are consummately hip, which in any case Bald is not.) The main reason the publisher agreed to publish it was through a series of misunderstandings. The author's excellent credentials within the world of book publishing—as a copy editor and writer known for taking on long, complex projects—misled people into thinking that his manuscript must itself be at the very least publishable and possibly even good. But, to be fair to those who were fooled, it is, after all, so difficult to determine what is good and what is not.

CUT, an unpublished series of loosely related vignettes. Don't worry: it's not as pompous as it sounds. And the author has decided, for now, not to seek publication for this collection. In the meantime, here's a sample vignette. If you like it—or if you do not—please write to the author and let him know.

The next project. "I plan to begin my next project in January 2007, when my current contract labor (editing and fact-checking a 350,000-word art history textbook) is done and over with." Or maybe not. It's always hard to tell with these things.

A word on the third person. The author of these words is relatively shy, so he hired me to write them for him. I am, of course, the author. I'm just having fun with the formality of the third person.

The next project (cont'd). January 2007 is here, and we have an update: "I have a few weeks off, so I decided to learn how to put together a website using some HTML (instead of relying entirely on sliced images, as satisfying as the results may have been) and get a domain name lined up and that sort of thing." And that's what this is all about. The next book-length project will probably be started soon. But the author isn't under contract or anything like that. And he has enough credit to live on for the next few months, though he may be compelled to accept another book to edit. Meanwhile, the plan is still to write a fourth book. This time the goal is to write something longer. The first three were done during a series of Saturday mornings. The author is a professionally trained typist (for God's sake) and has never considered that he might need to set aside extra time to write a book. Looking back over the first three projects, he realizes this was a mistake. So, he will just have to suck it up and take a month or two (or longer) and produce a real book. To help with this transition, he will add to the ideas section of this page, where he will continue to practice his favorite style of intermittent, unedited prose.

The next project (cont'd once again). January has come and gone, and my life has continued to ebb. I've been enjoying this process. It sort of takes the pressure off to know that you won't have to keep going for an eternity. Meanwhile, you may have noticed that I've been writing little articles and adding them to this site. I've also been busy with work. As for that "next project," this will be my last mention of it until I can offer some sort of proof that it exists.

The next project (cont'd, perhaps for the last time). A new January has come and gone, and there is no new project, unless you count work for hire. And unless you count notes taken for what might turn into a play. In order not to bore anyone, I won't talk anymore about any of that.