The Infinite Monkey Theorem says: Given enough time, a hypothetical monkey typing at random will almost surely produce all of Shakespeare’s plays.
Wikipedia says: The probability of a monkey exactly typing a complete work such as Shakespeare’s Hamlet is so tiny that the chance of it occurring during a period of time even a hundred thousand orders of magnitude longer than the age of the universe is extremely low, but not actually zero.
Not. Actually. Zero. I haven’t had a drink in over thirty years. Longshots are what this particular monkey does best. Welcome to my monkey brain.
A search for simplicity, sobriety, compassion & the right choices.
Or at least not another as many wrong ones.
Jodi Sh. Doff is a New York-based writer. Her work frequently includes autobiographical elements of drug-use, alcoholism, and the strip clubs and nightlife of New York City’s Times Square. As part of the harm-reduction/street-outreach movement, she educated and advocated for active addicts and street prostitutes, while working towards the decriminalization of prostitution. Chicago Now declared her stories about “the underworld of drugs, sex and violence in the 80s” to be “heartbreaking” and the New York Times Book Review compared her prose to that of Henry Miller.
Her stories have appeared in O, the Oprah Magazine; drafthorse literary journal, The Fix, xoJane, Penthouse, Playgirl, Cosmopolitan, and Bust Magazine, and have been anthologized alongside Margaret Atwood and Joyce Carol Oates in the anthology Bearing Life–Women’s Writings On Childlessness. Other anthologies include Best American Erotica; The Bust Guide To A New Girl Order; the awkwardly titled Hos, Hookers, Callgirls & Rentboys and its equally awkwardly titled sequel, Johns, Marks, Tricks & Chickenhawks.
She was a Tin House Summer 2016 Workshop participant; made regular appearances as part of the Sex Worker Literati Reading Series; appeared back on stage, albeit fully-clothed, in New York’s first Sex Worker Cabaret at the infamous Slipper Room; been a featured guest on Sex and Politics (Brooklyn College radio); the KGB Radio Hour with Ratso Sloman and Mark Jacobson; In Bed with Susie Bright (audible.com); Minx on Pseudo.com, and was profiled–as alter-ego Scarlett Fever–by author Lily Burana in her book, Strip City.
She has studied with the late Spalding Gray, Virginia Woolf scholar Louise DeSalvo, playwright Gretchen Cryer, author and Rumpus founder Stephen Elliott, and graduated summa cum laude from Hunter College with a B.A. in English in one hand and a Phi Beta Kappa key in the other. Jodi has been a mentor with the PEN America Prison Writing Program, and was awarded an M.F.A in Creative Writing from Lesley University where she currently advises a graduate seminar in the art of memoir.
Her memoir is currently seeking representation.
NYC 1975: So, a nice Jewish girl walks into a topless bar—152 cases of vodka, 147 men, 10 years, 2 dead bodies & 1 broken heart later, she walks out.
WHAT I DID FOR LOVE looks at the lies we tell ourselves in order to be in the world–a coming-of-age story about the search for truth, love, and family in the go-go bars of Times Square at the height of its bottom, the 70s and 80s. Sometimes, the outsider subculture of Times Square would provide the community and safety I craved. Sometimes, dissociation, denial, and vodka were all I needed to get through a life where I was concurrently visible & invisible, singular & replaceable.
Contact: onlythejodi@gmail.com
