{"id":597,"date":"2010-01-23T23:30:33","date_gmt":"2010-01-24T06:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thepulp.net\/PulpBlogs\/YellowedPerils_test\/?p=597"},"modified":"2010-01-23T23:30:33","modified_gmt":"2010-01-24T06:30:33","slug":"variety-is-the-spicys-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/2010\/01\/23\/variety-is-the-spicys-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Variety is the Spicys of life*"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A former sections editor of mine used to have a \u201chappy drawer\u201d in our department that was filled with candy. You could grab a piece whenever you needed a boost. The drawer was always full following Halloween, when everyone would bring in their leftovers.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_599\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-599\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-599\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/files\/2010\/08\/nerds-candy.jpg?resize=150%2C195&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Nerds Candy\" width=\"150\" height=\"195\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-599\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nerds Candy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>One year, I got in a routine of pulling out a box of Nerds every day about mid-afternoon. You know, those little pebble-shaped sugar candies. After more than a week of Nerds, my teeth started hurting after the second or third mouthful of the candy. That was it. I couldn\u2019t eat any more, even though I thought they were delicious.<\/p>\n<p>The same applies to pulp stories. After a string of, say, <strong>Captain Future<\/strong> or <strong>Doc Savage<\/strong> stories, I reach a point where say, \u201cThat\u2019s it. I can\u2019t read another one.\u201d This goes on with any pulp series.<\/p>\n<p>You begin to notice how formulaic and predictable the stories are. You start noticing repetitive descriptions of the series\u2019 characters. You\u2019re reading them for pleasure, but they begin to stop being a pleasure to read.<\/p>\n<p>Back when the pulps were being published, it might have been a month between issues, or longer if the series you were reading didn\u2019t have its own magazine. After a month or six months or even a year, when the new story came out, you were eager for it.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s certainly not that the stories aren\u2019t worth reading. But like with Nerds, you want to stop before they start hurting your teeth, and switch to another treat.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 William<\/p>\n<p>* Sorry, but there\u2019s no mention of <em>Spicy<\/em> magazines in this entry. I just couldn\u2019t resist the punning headline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A former sections editor of mine used to have a \u201chappy drawer\u201d in our department that was filled with candy. You could grab a piece whenever you needed a boost. The drawer was always full following Halloween, when everyone would bring in their leftovers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_has_post_settings":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[8,11],"tags":[],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","category-pulps"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2qgXO-9D","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}