Frederic Madre was born on a Monday and instantly knew that he was French…
Sometimes I feel like a child baffled by his surroundings. I built this site to get more of an understanding of HTML, and keep it updated for no other reason than I’d like to be able to write well (believe me, I don’t harbour any illusions about my literary ‘talent’). So, I have a few spare moments, and I surf. And keep coming across sites and writing that make me wonder why I bother at all. The event that prompted this line of thinking was meeting a man called Frederic Madre last weekend. A couple of days later I delved into Google to see what might turn up, and was launched without warning into Frederic’s World, a startling and wondrous place indeed. This is a man who seems to have more amusing ideas and come up with more lateral humour than is natural for any human being. He even has great taste in music. Read some Frederic, and then find out a little more.
Another man I’ve been lucky enough to meet is David Hudson, who writes (it seems to me) without any effort it all. The words tumble onto the page in such a beautiful way that I wonder if I’ll ever come close to achieving a similar level of excellence. Apart from writing the the best piece on last year’s US election that I’ve read, David also authored the most irreverent yet astute history of the Internet to hit the shelves. These days you can keep up with Mr Hudson’s prose most often at The Industry Standard’s European Media Grok section.
My favourite of all is probably Greg Knauss, who is behind one of the few online columns that I absolutely have to devour every day. I usually check out An Entirely Other Day first thing in the morning, and inevitably return later in the day just to remind myself how good it was first time round. Knaus also writes for Suck, Teevee and Fray, but can be found elsewhere if you look hard enough. Here’s some background.
I really can’t compete – all of this makes me feel like an absolute amateur – but I’ll keep trying.