Duel with a Wild-Eyed Moderate

DUEL WITH A WILD-EYED MODERATE (101,000 words) is a collection of essays and columns by Howard Denson, a former "flunky journalist" for several Southeastern U.S. newspapers and a long-time instructor of composition, literature, creative writing, and the humanities at what is now Florida State College at Jacksonville. He also has spent about a dozen years as president of a faculty union. In DUEL, he offers humor, "silly nonsense," and even serious advice for Jeffersonian Activists (i.e., those inspired by Saul Alinsky). For writers interested in astrology, he puts on his Occult Cap and conjures up monthly insights for ink-slingers. In "Is It Autophagia?" he explains how socially caged humans can, in despair, turn upon themselves. "Pee-Pee, Poo-Poo, Toot-Toot" discusses Hollywood's excremental vision in films designed for fifteen-year-olds. The collection opens with a piece supposedly written by an aged cowboy star, Brewster Barlow. From his retirement home in Mississippi, Barlow describes how he and the author were students at performing arts schools led by Bert Lahr and then Jimmy Durante. Barlow's tales are to be taken with a grain of salt and a jigger of Jack Daniels.