California Alumni Association Logo
  Search the CAA Web site:

HomeAlumniStudentsCal News & LinksDiscounts & Services
     November 7, 2009

      
You are Here: Home >  California              

Past Issues

 


Spellfound
-- Dan Quayle's favorite movie.

Woods fail me
But my irons are o.k.
-- Nan Sparrow

Toy Storm
Christmas.
-- Marty Rosman '53

From the sacred to the propane
Barbecue after church.
-- Dan Lee '80

I Heard It Through the Gripevine
Letters to the editor.
-- Jim Blewer '41 Snit happens

Try not to tick off your wife.
--Dan Lee '80

Jest desserts
Taste funny.
-- Richard Rott, MLIS '81 HMM

Medical plan for skeptics.
-- Nan Sparrow

The Great Gall of China
Nuclear secrets? What nuclear secrets?
--John Todor '72 Citizen Kant

Builds philosophy empire, gets corrrupted, dies.
-- Marty Rosman '53

The Onsider
Football's desperation play.
-- Jim Blewer '41 Wheeler Mall

Privatization sweeps the campus.
-- Harold Brownstein, M.D. '45

Farty-Niners
Team stinks up Candlestick.
-- Brad Glanville '69 My pup runneth over.

When I calleth him.
-- Art Poulin '48

A Clean, Well-lighted Place for Kooks
Hoover Institution.
-- Joe Traynor '57 Remembrance of Things Fast

Marcel's reunion at Ridgemont High.
--Catherine Maclay, M.J. '81

Beauty and the Boast
The Trumps at home.
-- Marty Rosman '53

Rather Knows Best
Promo for CBS News.
-- Joe Traynor '57

Bush comes to shove
George W. challenges Jesse Ventura.
-- Richard Rott, MLIS '81 Cogito ergo bum

College dropout.
-- Michael Schott '77

Let there be fight
Go Bears!
-- Doug Raymond '65 The chickens came home to roast

But none lived to tell about it.
-- Joe Traynor '57

Will work for Ford
Autoworker seeks employment.
-- Dan Lee '80 The Rolling Scones

Mick Jagger's breakfast.
-- Lewis Leader '70

Trench Impressionists
Like a narrow roomÉwallsÉclosing in on me.
-- Joe Traynor '57 Marx had a little lamb

Kindergarten in Leningrad.
-- David Saperstein '89

Virginia is for Losers
Failed state slogan.
-- Dan Lee '80 Annie Doesn't Give Here Any More

Try her at her office.
-- Gene Smith '34

Hokemon
Another shallow, market-driven kiddie fad.
-- Karl Smith '73 Footers

Specialty club features tight-fitting sandals.
-- Joe Traynor '57

Forrest Bump
Tom Hanks denied an airplane seat.
-- Dan Lee '80 Mental floss

Prevents dum disease.
-- David Peterzell

Shaken, not starred
Sean Connery passed over for coveted role.
-- Jim Blewer '41 Batman and Rodin

The odd couple.
-- Nan Sparrow

Inspector Gidget
Sally Field plays a ditzy crimefighter.
-- Dan Lee '80 Grace under sire

Maidservant succumbs to master's wiles.
-- Jim Blewer '41

Fareplay
Tickling a cab driver under the chin with a $20 bill
--Joe Traynor '57 Nothing but bet

If Pete Rose had played basketball.
-- Art Poulin '48

Publish or parish
Prof considers the priesthood.
-- Dan Lee '80




Twisted minds have long wanted to know more about the Head Twister, Joe Traynor '57. Our crack investigative reporting team found out, by asking him, that Joe Traynor is an Aggie, meaning both a 1957 graduate of UC Davis and since then an agri-businessman, the last quarter century as head of a consulting firm, Scientific Agriculture Company, in Bakersfield. He grew up in Berkeley, the son of former California Chief Justice Roger Traynor '23, and wanted to get away from Cal (where he spent one summer studying) and from the law. Joe is fairly guarded--or unconscious--about his twisted talent; he thinks me might be a twisted idiot savant.

When asked for his favorite Twisted Title, he remembers one by Jim Blewer '41 and says, "Wish I'd thought of it." Does he laugh out loud at some of his more bizarre entries? "Sometimes. I do try to see how close to the edge I can get," he says, possibly referring to those we can't print in this magazine, like this one from his current batch: "Ipso Fucto."

Walk up to the edge and shove your titles (of a movie, book, play, or whatever, changing one letter only and adding a snappy underline) to Twisted Titles, California Monthly, Alumni House, Berkeley 94270.

Articles

The man from HOPE
Managing the Sirkus
Four Steps to Murder
Just Do It
Q&A with Daniel Boyarin
Cover Page

Departments

Alumni Almanac
A Personal Essay
Calendar
CalZone
In Memoriam
Keeping in Touch
Letters
Recalling Cal
Talk of the Gown
Twisted Titles


    About CAA   Contact Us    Update your Address

    CAA Career Opportunities   Privacy Policy
©2009 California Alumni Association. All Rights Reserved
For questions about CAA: info@alumni.berkeley.edu
Technical inquiries: web@alumni.berkeley.edu
emdesign studio Site design by:
emdesign studio
M&I Technology Consulting Site construction by:
M&I Technology Consulting

Alumni House
Berkeley, CA 94720-7520
Toll-Free: (888) CAL-ALUM
Phone: (510) 642-7026
Fax: (510) 642-6252