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Rick Soisson

07.15.2008

Rick Soisson is a writer, poet and cartoonist who teaches writing and literature at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. Previously he was director of patient relations at Medical College of Philadelphia for 15 years. He lives in East Falls with his wife and daughter.

For a list of articles by this author, click here.

More articles by Rick Soisson, newest first

‘You lie!’ and the art of insult	September 14 2009
South Carolina’s Congressman Joe Wilson has drawn both condemnation and praise for shouting, “You lie!” during President Obama’s recent speech about health care. But Wilson is an amateur next to members of Britain’s Parliament.
On being a Twit	June 25 2009
In barely three years, Twitter has attracted 30 million users. And why not? Who wouldn’t embrace a remarkable new technology that allows you to make a fool of yourself on a public stage, just like Shaquille O'Neal and Terrell Owens?
Romero, baseball and the ‘unnatural’	January 10 2009
Phillies pitcher J.C. Romero has been suspended for talking a legal over-the-counter weight-training drug. Major League Baseball explains that it wants to keep the game and its players “natural.” But is there anything more unnatural than a game of baseball?
Satirizing a black president	November 11 2008
With Obama’s election, satirists must grapple with the unique problem of walking the tightrope between humor and racism. We all need some practice— not in recognizing satire, but in sorting it out from racism in satire’s clothing.
Nicole Atkins on the cusp	August 16 2008
Nicole Atkins writes her own material, and her best compositions are ambitious and demanding in terms of range. But given the absurdly fragmented, modern music scene, she’s in danger of being lost in the shuffle.
Obama as a literary figure	August 05 2008
In the New York Times, Maureen Dowd recently equated Barack Obama with Jane Austen’s prideful Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. A careful parsing of Dowd’s column suggests that the Democratic candidate is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.
Jim Thompson’s ‘Golden Gizmo’	August 02 2008
The pulp novelist Jim Thompson is largely forgotten for two reasons: He’s a genre writer, and he really never wrote about anybody whom anyone would want to know personally. But he always manages the transformation from cliché to human being in a surprising way. The Golden Gizmo. By Jim Thompson. 192 pages, 1954. Vintage edition, 1998. www.amazon.com.
Political satire and the New Yorker's cover	July 20 2008
What’s the real meaning of that satirical New Yorker cover depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as closet Muslim terrorists? Here’s a better question: What hope is there for satire in a post-literate society?
New York’s baseball/money conundrum	July 12 2008
Oh, for the sporting life in New York. When the going gets tough there, the toughest baseball executives….. find excuses.