San Francisco News Blog

Punctuation maven Jeff Rubin bakes up a questionable cake

​This week, Jeff Rubin wants you to bake a cake in the shape of a colon.

Yes, you read that right. The Pinole resident is the brains behind National Punctuation Day -- mark your calendars friends, it's Thursday -- which the former New York Post and New York Daily News reporter and editor inaugurated six years ago for the noblest of reasons: "I'm an ex-journalist who is just fed up with all the mistakes I see in newspapers, magazines, and now even books. I think language skills are eroding."

So, combine that with a desire to have folks send him samples of their punctuation-shaped baking endeavors and you've got a holiday. Rubin's special day is listed in McGraw-Hill's Chase's Calendar of Events -- the holy grail for folks starting up obscure holidays -- and is even included in the supplemental Chase's teachers' guide. As a result, Rubin has received hundreds of photos of adorable schoolkids from around the nation dressed up as their favorite bit of punctuation. 
But not from around here. Not only has he not broken into any Bay Area classrooms, Rubin bemoans that Bay Area papers have given him the cold shoulder. "It's almost as if it's more newsworthy if you're from out of town," he laments. (The punctuation we'd use to address that claim is a question mark; it isn't as if local newspapers are trolling for items about offbeat folks from far away).

But even if he's not getting the ink he'd like, Rubin is happy he can finally make a difference in ensuring the ink others commit to paper will be properly punctuated.

"I used to sit around with a red Sharpie and mark up the paper every day," he says. "I'd scream and curse and I decided I had to do something."

Finally, yes, Victor Borge is something of a personal hero for Rubin.