Many people come up to me and ask what tips I have for them when they are doing a kung fu photoshoot in a suit in the middle of Times Square. Until Saturday I didn't know quite what to tell them except to say that my brother is on the police force and they should leave me alone.

But thanks to The Times of London and their wonderful photographer, Shahar Azram, I now have some advice.

First it is very important when performing flying kicks in a suit that you wear the knee-length dress socks. Sure, they are less comfortable, but no one wants to see your pasty white calves. Second, always apply a little hair gel. It gets windy out there on Broadway and 44th, especially if your flying kicks are, like mine, fast as lightning. Third, unbotton the top botton. Otherwise the suit bunches up and it makes it look like you've got a gut.

Hope that helps.

Posted by Matthew Polly at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Most people in NY publishing consider Powell's in Portland to be one of the best, most innovative independent bookstores in the country. Frankly, I have to agree, because they wrote a wonderful review of my book and made it one of their staff picks.

Gerry and Michal: you are innovative; you are the best. I hope you'll invite me to read at your amazing store.

Posted by Matthew Polly at 07:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Steve Ersinghaus finds the conversation wonderful and the dialogue "planted" with irony. Thank you, Steve.

Posted by Matthew Polly at 07:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

As I continue my baby steps into the wild world of writing for free, I continue to hold onto the crutch of making my posts about other blogs that have mentioned "American Shaolin." (Narcissism is a terrible disease.)

In that spirit, this one is a shout-out to werethylacine, who is the first blogger to use a quote from my book as an epigram. She also referred to it as "very-worth-reading." That along with the fact that she goes to art school and plays D&D makes her the trifecta.

May her "lot of like" with the boy in her life turn into love.

Posted by Matthew Polly at 06:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Part of my recent conversion to the joys of blogging has come from the warm reaction my book, American Shaolin (you knew I had a book, right?), has received. Below are links to two of them.

Jeff Gabbard has done one of the most thorough reviews of American Shaolin on the web or in print, which you can read here. While this is no doubt due to his interest in martial arts literature, it is still rare in the MA community to find someone who can write as well as he can.

Riffing off Jeff's review is forsythferret, who says memorably of American Shaolin that it is "made up of several parts awesome." If only I could get The New York Times to say the same.

Posted by Matthew Polly at 10:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

It has been noted by several of my friends that I may in fact be the single worst blogger on the world wide web. Having allowed over three months between my first entry and now this my second, I am clearly having trouble adjusting to the new order. When I was young, the goal of every aspiring writer was to move from working for free to getting a gig that paid by the word. So it is with more than a little discomfort that I find myself torturing over the phrasing of this blog entry for free. I know, I know, I know, I'm getting old.

Also, I'd like to say before I stop complaining that editors perform a highly underated function. They protect writers from their worst instincts. They catch egregious mistakes. They prevent us from publishing some alienating screed late at night that might end our careers. While it is amusing to imagine some of the boozy diatribes Hemingway, Faulkner, or Fitzgerald had locked up inside them, it was better for them that they never had access to a blog during their darker moments.

But me thinks I doth protest too much.

So onward and upward into the brave new world of publishing.

Posted by Matthew Polly at 09:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)