Begin Portrait of Madness: on February 25th, THE LITERARY MAN turned one. We, the faithful writers, couldn’t be more proud of how far we’ve come (some of those early posts were really embarassing, er, not that there aren’t a few clunkers every now and then), and we’re extremely thankful to each of you for your comments, ideas, and loyal reading. From our many posts about the lovely Dolly Parton, to the countless Iconic Literary Men and Women we’ve profiled, to the epic poet’s cryptic stanzas, each visit to the site has brought literary randomness and adventure to you, our beloved readers. So now, an annual report detailing random fun facts about February 25th, and some fun facts about ourselves, of course…
Name: THE LITERARY MAN
Date of Birth: February 25, 2011
Total Hits: 34, 793
Chinese Zodiac Sign: FERRET
Astrological Sign: PISCES
What does it mean for The Literary Man to be a PISCES? According to Astrology Online, we demonstrate traits such as being imaginative, sensitive, and intuitive, as well as darker traits including being secretive (well we can’t let you know our true identities yet, can we?), and weak-willed (maybe that explains why we’ve ended up waking up on the Atlantic City boardwalk with empty pockets, mortally hungover, with cigarette burns on our shirtsleeves more times than we care to remember).

Most Popular Post: Top Ten Scariest Books of All Time by the one and only Esme Delacroix. It’s amazing how many people google “scariest books,” “scriest books,” or “scrrriest books” and somehow found this list. Way to go, Esme D!
Our Personal Favorite: this one has to be the Do You Need To Send a Dead Rat To Your Enemy story, faithfully submitted to the New Yorker, swiftly rejected, and, after a little correspondence with the author, prominently featured in the header of this blog (anonymously, for now).
Weirdest Thing Ever Googled That Led to Literary Man: “gorilla sex poetry.” Yeah. Seriously. What’s most disturbing is that someone out there is Googling this every week. We’ve probably gotten twenty or thirty hits, total, from these gorilla sex poets, whoever they might be. (Come to think of it: GORILLA SEX POETRY would be kind of an amazing band name. Might have to do a separate (lengthy) post about that.)
Official Charity of The Literary Man: If you think writing’s hard, take a look at the picture below, taken by the Literary Lady / Verbal Vixen on her philanthropic trip to Peru two summers ago. We posted this pic with the title “Support This Writer” and you can do exactly that at the charity established for Victor and the other kids who live at the children’s hospital in the Lima suburbs: www.crowdrise.com/helpthemhope

Most Googled Writer Who Brings People To The Literary Man: No surprise on this one. It’s Ernest Hemingway, owner of one of the best literary beards of all time.
Most Gratuitously Featured Hollywood Starlet: May the Odds Be Ever In Your Favor, literarians, cause we’re less than a month away from the opening of THE HUNGER GAMES. This means, of course, that we’ll have to include another picture of Katniss (aka Jennifer Lawrence).
Notable Shared Birthdays: Sally Jesse Raphael, Tea Leoni, Rashida Jones, Chelsea Handler, and our personal favorite, Julio Iglesias. Why Julio? We love the heartfelt ballad, “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before” in which he duets with one of our favorite Texans, Willie Nelson.
Famous Shared Birthdays with Other Literarians: After an extensive search, we can only find two authors with whom The Literary Man shares a birthday:


Embroidered Dolly Parton! We love you, Dolly!