The Bumsteads and Me

My latest piece in Mung Being was thirty years in the making. I think the first version was written in 1980. It was a brief, mannered piece, an homage to Walter Abish, a writer I was very fond of at the time. The piece came out of an informal writers workshop that as far as I can remember lasted for one meeting (or maybe it outlasted me). It was held at the apartment of Barry Marx, and also included Linda Svendsen, Bonnie ZoBell and Judy Lopatin (all alumni of the Columbia graduate writing program). As an assignment, Barry had presented us with a panel from a Blondie comic strip without any words. We were to use this as the basis for a story.

A few years later I decided to rewrite the piece, to flesh it out. Over the years I sent it out here and there to no avail, tinkering with it every time. I hadn't thought about it much lately until Mung Being's editor Mark Givens announced the upcoming Confidence Games issue. I thought this might fit, and I fiddled with it some more. Now the fiddler has fled and the story is etched in pixels.

Read "At Dagwood and Blondie's"