The transition from nice guy to insufferable bastard has been proceeding quite well. But I would be remiss if I didn’t stop in and mention Safe for Work Porn, a collection of photos that is pure genius. Particular standouts are the water sports and the man standing behind the couch with the receding hairline. Okay, back to the cocoon, sans Don Ameche. (via Weirdsmobile)

A few people have been pointing out to me during the past two weeks that I’ve been too nice. A sweetheart, in fact. Just the other day, a friend of mine threatened to disown me when I dared to buy her lunch. “What the hell are you doing, Ed?” she said. “Only kind and extraordinary people do that sort of thing.”

Not only have I had email volleys that have been pleasant, thoughtful and without incident, but the tone and demeanor of these communiques have been too kind and considerate. The cheery level of conversation and socializing has kept me swapping book recommendations and shooting the breeze over literature with equally kind and keen people.

I was getting a little worried about all this. So, tonight, I went to an attitude specialist. Even he had to confess that I was being just too damn friendly to people. The cause of this sudden joy and commiseration, and the reason why I was spending all this time thinking about other people, apparently had something to do with breathing in too much oxygen. A combination of preternaturally beautiful California weather and extra lung capacity garnered from a post-bronchitis state.

Well, frankly, I was astonished by this news. I didn’t realize that there was a limit to being nice. And I certainly didn’t realize that it had anything to do with oxygen. But the attitude specialist, a gaunt thirtysomething man with bushy hair fond of Hawaiian print shirts, showed me his “Attitude Specialist Certificate.” When I saw that the certificate had been notarized by the proprietor of the corner delicatessen (with the notary associated with “the state of Freedonia”), well I was immediately convinced of his qualifications.

So to anyone I’ve cheered up, to anyone I’ve given inspiration to, and to anyone who cried on my shoulder, I apologize. I blame the oxygen. The simple truth is that I’ve been far too nice lately. I promise to be a mean bastard from now on and to call you names. I’ll make your children cry, I’ll steal your wallets, and I’ll be sure to cop a feel from your spouses. The last thing the world needs is more kindness. So I’m going to try and scourge myself up until further notice.

This probably means I won’t be posting anything here until Monday.

Really, I’m going to hunt this demon down, this hideous beast that’s too kind to be cruel, and I’m going to put this scarabic fucker back into my soul.

And I’m going to breathe less oxygen. If I can modify my life so that my blood pressure will go up, then I guarantee that you will reap the benefits of my cruelty.

Maybe I can take some lessons from Jack Shafer, who clearly needs a hug from Denton.

Tim Robbins has written a play called Embedded. In These Times has an excerpt. And it demonstrates what happens when a well-intentioned writer goes crazy with the preaching:

Dick I’d like to call this meeting of the Office of Special Plans to order.

Gondola Here, here.

Dick War in Gomorrah progress report.

Gondola War in Gomorrah progress report.

Dick Rum Rum, how does it look?

Rum Rum We are currently sufficiently deployed, locked and loaded, cocked and ready, chompin’ at the bit, poised for engagement, steady ready Freddy.

Dick Excellent. How’s the coalition building?

Rum Rum Slow, but good news. Luxembourg is in. As to the rest of them—Germany, France, Russia—I say, fuck ‘em.

Pearly White Double fuck France.

Well, double fuck me.

Tim Robbins has written and directed some compelling movies. Bob Roberts is pointed in its comic targets, Dead Man Walking is gripping as hell, and the finale of Cradle Will Rock is really something special. But there’s a reason why Stolen Kisses stands the test of time, and Woodstock (also made around 1968) doesn’t. And I’m not sure that Tim Robbins knows it.

Here’s a few hints, Tim: All Quiet on the Western Front, Paths of Glory, Grand Illusion.

(via Greencine)

The Son of Kingsley doesn’t have a U.S. publisher. To my mind, Martin Amis has made several mistakes. Here’s how he can make a comeback.

1. He needs to lose the 1970s high-collar shirts.
2. He needs to realize that a bad boy image is more applicable to Russell Crowe than a guy who’s starting to look like Keith Richards.
3. He needs to understand that an author’s hubris is deflated when the books turned out are dreadful. Talk the talk when you can walk the walk, Marty.
4. As near as I can figure it, Marty can make a last-ditch effort by playing the sympathy angle along the lines of Time’s Arrow.
5. He needs to buy someone off at the Booker Committee.
6. He needs to know that most people scorn privileged sons of great literary figures, regardless of their talent.

(First scouted at Moorish Girl, who I hope is recovering from her terrible flu.)

Since it appears that Poynter will continue publishing the Book Babes, inspired by Ron, I’ve begun a Book Babes Watch. Hopefully, drawing attention to the aspects that most of us have found infuriating will help Margo and Ellen improve their work, or Poynter to make the right decision.

This week, the big surprise is Ellen’s honesty with regard to criticism: “What’s a reviewer to do? Well, maybe the right answer is: Do NOT defend the status quo. We may be so inside the Book Beltway that we’re part of the problem instead of the solution. We write too much about marginal books that enhance book publishing’s precious image, and too little about the form and substance of fiction that catches the popular imagination. This becomes a problem for publishers of any size.”

Well, hell, Ellen, this is what we’ve been saying all along! I’d like to think that the floodgate of comments which greeted last week’s column may have helped Ellen to start asking some solid questions. But I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and suggest that it was the close proximity of other book critics that initiate this brainstorm. I will note that mentioning Richard Flanagan’s underrated Gould’s Book of Fish is sexy by just about any standard, and a good way to live up to the “book babe” label. And in trying to determine the critic’s role in relation to the reader and the publishing industry (specifically how wide the swath is), Ellen has helped start a potential upturn in future columns.

Unfortunately, after Ellen posed an interesting Charles Taylor quote to Margo, Margo responded with yet another tired popular/literary dichotomy. Worse still, Margo fails completely to address Ellen’s issue. In light of the regime change over at the NYTBR, it’s criminal to ignore the importance of what a critic should cover or to speculate upon recent developments. Do coverage decisions enhance or alter what may influence a reading public (or the uninformed dullards like Stuart Applebaum, who base their tastes on reviews without reading the books)? Margo never addresses this and concludes that the publishing industry is one happy umbrella in which everybody is passionate about books and, presumably, all the wild animals dance together.

Margo also fails to understand the “industry” part of “publishing industry.” As unpredictable as the publishing industry is, some people go into the biz to make a profit. It is extremely naive to believe that a publisher isn’t hoping for that breakout hit like The Time Traveler’s Wife or Cold Mountain, and that they are publishing books merely out of their kindness of their purty li’l hearts.

Ellen responds to this and, rather smartly, returns to the Taylor quote unaddressed by Margo. Plus, she uses “jump the shark” and points out the hypocrisy regarding The Da Vinci Code

CONCLUSION:

Much as Comrades Mark and Ron (among others) have noted, it is the opinion of this Court that the Book Babes are improving, but that ultimately Ellen is the more thoughtful of the two. She also seems to listen. This Court urges the 32-member jury to modify its petition and Dump Only One of the Book Babes. The concept of a dialogue between two bookish ladies is a good one, but a proper dialogue involves two people offering their take on topics, and Margo can’t even understand the concept of call and response.

In 1958, Ray Kroc said the following to the McDonald brothers:

“We have found out, as you have, that we cannot trust some people who are nonconformists. We will make conformists out of them in a hurry. Even personal friends who we know have the best intentions may not conform. They have a difference of opinion as to various processing and certain qualities of product….You cannot give them an inch. The organization cannot trust the individual; the individual must trust the organization [or] he shouldn’t go into this kind of business.”

And that’s just what Kroc that of his franchise operators. His customers (meaning you) are another story.

Found in John Love’s McDonald’s: Behind the Arches, New York: Bantam, 1986.

David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas has been called “even better than the best sex that you could possibly have” by Time Out, “a novel that will take over your life and prepare you to stalk Mitchell” by the Times Literary Supplement, and “tastier than all the food I ate during my formative years” by the Spectator. But it won’t be getting coverage from the Telegraph. Harry Mount, a critic who has actually been paid to review every Dick & Jane book ever published and the author of a 800-page piece of literary criticism entitled The Deep, Deep World of Paddington Bear, has declared Cloud Atlas “unreadable.”

Mount’s impatience recalls Jack Green’s polemic, Fire the Bastards!, which took umbrage over similar boasts made by critics who dealt with William Gaddis’s The Recognitions in 1955. Needless to say, if newspapers can find the time to cover Rising Up and Rising Down, then they should provide the same circumspect coverage to “difficult” books. To cop out with the “unreadable” excuse is a bit like damning The Passion of the Christ without having seen it. And besides, some books take a little longer to read. The real question here is whether Mount’s ever heard about this nifty concept called note taking. (via Literary Saloon)

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My sources tell me that Sam Tanenhaus is the next NYTBR editor. Publishers Weekly has more. Tanenhaus has authored bios of Whittaker Chambers and Louis Armstrong (and has an upcoming one on William Buckley), contributes to The New Republic and is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair. He is a writer primarily known for nonfiction bouncing between politics, biography and literature, which is what Keller was looking for. Here’s Tanenhaus on Updike.

[UPDATE: Maud found the link to the memo.]

Charles has dug up some fascinating info about Bailey’s. Apparently, the creamy liquor is preserved through the whiskey. And it can last as long as two years. However, Bailey’s suggests that you drink it within six months. Charles, however, was able to detect a suitable creamy taste after a year and a half. Presumably, in sharing this information, the company isn’t considering its profits at all. It has only its customers’ best interests at heart.

But all this talk of alcohol preservation has me contemplating the future of liquor, should Bush be elected to a second term.

After the Super Size recall and Ashcroft’s hijinks, I genuinely suspect that we’re going to see bottles that are modified for each individual. A tiny blade will extract a blood sample from each individual purveyor at a liquor store and decide in an instant just how much liquor is good for them. The blood sample will be compared against a database (specifically DUIs and D&D charges), as well as that individual’s tolerance for alcohol.

This will be necessary. Because the state remains convinced that people cannot be responsible for their own lives and, with states bereft of funds, there aren’t any additional funds to educate people. (Plus, parents and people in general are offended too easily. To introduce anything beyond the limited parameters of the No Child Left Behind Act will cause too much trouble.)

Beyond preserving the national supply of Bailey’s, this new bottle technology will raise the price of alcohol (and expand profits and consumer confidence; good for everyone, yo). But, more importantly, it will prevent auto collisions. And the state, in extracting a liberty, will be able to look upon this declining statistic and proudly proclaim its progress. Forget the people thrown in prison on trivial charges or the suspected terrorists hied away to closed military tribunals. Or for that matter the individual’s ability to decide how much alcohol s/he can drink.

Meanwhile, the drugs that harm no one and that do not cause a single fatality will remain criminalized. And the street peddlers susurrating “green bud” will be arrested by a renewed police force. Never mind that these small-time merchants have the same preservationist interests at heart and are probably just as ruthless in their dealings as R & A Bailey & Co.

The important result here is that liquor will be preserved. And people will no longer be sauced on a Saturday night. They will stare like lucid does into the headlights of that steamroller about to mow them down and, with stupid uncritical eyes, not understand that their spirits have been diluted.

The happy Pullman train doesn’t stop with Chabon. The Archbishop of Canterbury notes that despite Phillip Pullman’s “anti-Christian” stance, he finds the trilogy a near miraculous triumph. The Left Behind books, meanwhile, remain miraculous only in dramatically underestimating how many readers are willing to defer to guilt and paranoia.

Dame Muriel Spark, best known for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, is 86 and still writing, despite arthritis, failing eyesight and an inveterate biscuit addiction. She’s just published her 23rd novel.

Harvey Pekar has nabbed a three-book deal with Ballantine. The first will be a followup to American Splendor, dealing with the making of the film, and the next two will be biographies rather than autobiographies. Pekar’s wife, Joyce Brabner, noted that, “We can at last afford to add protein to our diet.”

Judy Blume must be trying to avoid soup kitchens these days. She’s just signed away her books to Disney. Whether Deenie‘s infamous masturbation will be addressed on screen (preferably with Donald Duck involved) remains to be seen.

Online reference sites have cut into the encyclopedia. If there’s any boon to this sad news, it means less encyclopedia salesmen hectoring you at the door. However, Jehovah’s witnesses, hoping to take advantage of this downturn, plan to step up their efforts.

Liverpool has come up with a unique way to celebrate its writers: a beer mat. Some of the initial ideas included a commemorative toilet brush, collectible maxis, and an Alan Bleasdale nose hair trimmer. Fortunately, the Liverpool lads settled on the beer mat. Declasse, yes. But truer to the Liverpool spirit.

The PEN/Faulkner nominees have been announced:

Elroy Nights by Frederick Barthelme
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by Z.Z. Packer
A Distant Shore by Caryl Phillips
The Early Stories by John Updike
Old School by Tobias Wolff

The winner will receive $15,000. The other finalists will nab $5,000. Between the endless New Yorker pieces and the backlist lucre, I’d say Updike’s due a tax audit right about now.

A version of Sam Shepard’s True West playing at the Baruch College Theater turned the sisters into brothers. Shepard was not amused and ordered the play shut down through his agent. The play’s fate is up in the air. (Also in the article: David Talbot has hired Sidney Blumenthal as Salon’s Washington bureau chief. Between this and The Clinton Wars, does this sound like a man whose reputation was completely decimated by Matt Drudge?)

The Hollywood Reporter does the math. Mel will get about $115 million from The Passion. Which means he’ll never have to work again. Let’s hope not.

First, the Age gets intimidated by Coetzee. Now it’s frightened by Sara Nelson? Two different writers, same newspaper. What’s the matter with journalists at the Age? Are they terrified of all interview subjects? Someone Down Under needs a hug. (via Sarah)

Maud: “She and my stepdad and all the other mourners except my sister and Mr. Maud went to their cars. They were all wringing their hands and shaking their heads, clearly mortified at our behavior. People just don’t watch the lowering of the casket in Baptist cemeteries in Bumcombe County, I guess.”

Christopher Farah’s second Salon book review has a low-concept spiteful approach that seems perfect for one of those free liberal weekly rags that you pick up at a cafe and read on the crapper. Farah is a critic incapable of enjoying science fiction (apparently, this is how he categorizes any novel involving magical realism), let alone putting aside genre distinctions for the sake of enjoying a book. Farah is a needlessly bitter and angry worm who cannot put aside a goofy premise for the sake of a good read.

Or is he? The review shifts near the end and suddenly plays nice.

Salon wants us to whip out our credit cards for this?

Of course, in a free weekly, the reviewer’s name would be subject to ridicule — and the review would be trite, overly ad hominen and shallow. Perhaps with a touch of genuine passion, but ultimately unprintable in any place publishing serious criticism. Instead, Christopher Farrah’s review purports to be a serious work of criticism, housed in an online outlet that believes itself to be PBS, with the ads functioning as surrogate pledge breaks. It is a review written with too many clauses and lots of bitter modifers, presumably with the hope that this will transform what is obviously an out-to-lunch attack piece (or at least half an attack) into an essay that doesn’t even understand the basics of speculative fiction.

Imagine a thirtysomething critic that you hope to get a reasonable opinion from on a book. But instead, he pulls down his pants and moons you. Then he calls you an idiot for daring to find something positive about the piece of turd coming out of his ass. And then he turns around and kisses you on the lips.

That is Christopher Farah in a nutshell. No subtlety, no wit. Strange flip-flops (several of them in fact) inside paragraphs. Not even a hint of reason. Just a man going after the strangest targets with unjustified piss and vinegar. It recalls the French revolution in 1789. But instead of crazed mobs calling for “liberty, equality and brotherhood,” Christopher Farah calls for the anonybloggers to reveal themselves and books to clarify their literatary categorization. I could be wrong, but there might be more pressing issues of our time.

And now the Tivoli review which, at its essence, is neither a love story, a hate piece, nor fantasy or science fiction. One would hope that its unchecked fire and its cross-spectrum fulminating represents something satirical. But, no, it appears he’s serious. What’s really odd is how Farah, after spending paragraphs bemoaning the “gimmick,” then turns around to call the book “an excellent read.”

Either Farah is a schizophrenic writer, or he’s unintentionally amusing us. You make the call.

(Hat tip: Beatrice.)

“I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.” — Booker Washington

“Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.” — Peter T. McIntyre

“Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.” — Will Durant

“One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.” — Rita Mae Brown

“The opposite of love is not hate, the opposite of love is ignorance.” — Brian Hwang

“If the person you are talking to doesn’t appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.” — A.A. Milne

“Those who are convinced they have a monopoly on The Truth always feel that they are only saving the world when they slaughter the heretics.” — Arthur M. Schlesinger

“Beware the fury of the patient man.” — John Dryden

“When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living.” — James Baldwin

He may not be as hunky or as lucrative as Nick Laird, but Boris Starling is cadaver-crazy. Not only are his novels filled with corpses, but he also appeared as one on television. “I’ve already started making plans for how my own corpse will look like,” said Starling. “My family has a proud tradition of being buried in open caskets.” Clearly, Jim Crace has nothing on this guy.

Alex Beam calls Charles Portis “the greatest writer you’ve never heard of.” Ron Rosenbaum’s also crazy about him. So is Tin House‘s Cassandra Cleghorn. Portis is having four of his books reisused by the Overlook Press. And if you can’t wait, the Atlantic has one of his stories available online.

[UPDATE: Ron points to this helpful Ed Park profile. Today, I read the first four pages of The Dog of the South and laughed my head off. It looks like Portis may live up to the hype.]

Carol Shields’ stories are have been adapted for Canadian television. Sarah Polley makes her directing debut with one story. John Doyle suggests this might be the way to market dramatic television to Canadians.

Speaking of television, for those (like me), who don’t have cable or (unlike Peter Sellers) don’t watch, here’s the edited highlights of a conversation with John Updike. Updike writes 1,000 words every morning and says the great secret is “sitting ability.” Nothing new under the sun.

Inspired by Sarah’s repeated hosannas, the search for Rankin’s early Rebus novels continues. No results yet, but on the way home last night, I did find two perfectly good, barely touched Jane Smiley hardcovers left in a box on the street. (The box had been recently put out. Despite bearing a preponderance of chick lit, several people dug into it right after me with telling avarice.) It’s amazing what kind of gems people will discard on the streets or at garage sales. It’s also fascinating how a particular book you’re looking for will crop up when you least expect it.

In the case of Rankin, oh sure, I could have ordered the book through Alibris. But that would be too easy. I enjoy the hunts through used bookstores, the conversations with the proprietors and tome-happy, toe-tapping and criminally underpaid clerks, and the tips other people offer on books. Of course, if I don’t find the Rankin book by the end of the month, then I’ll go the Alibris route. But I think there’s some serendipitous discovery being lost when we order a book online. The spine sticking out adjacent to another book, the different editions, the strange cover art. There’s something magical in the way our brains index all this visual intake and retain unexpected authors, which in turn lead us to unexpected books. We may not remember every title, but we are capable of noticing a recherche edition on the stacks that we haven’t seen elsewhere.

The online book buying experience doesn’t offer anything close. You can’t reach for a dusty book at the top of a shelf, or climb to the top of a ladder while impersonating Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face. It doesn’t offer anything close to the silent “A-ha” whisper when you enter these sanctums santorum with fellow book freaks. The obscure author, part of this pleasant tomb for the unknown titles, signaled with a protruding finger and a deep assurance that you must read him.

The used bookstore may take time away from one’s life. Time away from reading or writing or loving. But it does offer a way for one to amalgamate the reading experience with living. Or possibly the illusion of it. The books, as usual, come first.

Jay Griffith’s A Sideways Look at Time has won the 2003 Discover Award for Non-Fiction. The award, sponsored by Barnes & Noble, grants Griffith $10,000 and heavy promotion in B&N stores. There’s just one problem. The people at B&N can’t keep track of publishing dates. Griffith’s book came out in 1999.

Michael Chabon on Philip Pullham.

The 2004 Northern California Book Award nominees have been announced:

Best Novel:

L’Affaire by Diane Johnson
Dream of the Blue Room by Michelle Richmond
And Now You Can Go by Vendela Vida
Daughter’s Keeper by Ayelet Waldman
Old School by Tobias Wolff

Short Story Collections:

Red Ant House by Ann Cummins
Denny Smith by Robert Gluck
How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by Z.Z. Packer

Poetry:

Life Watch by Willis Barnstone
The Starry Messenger by George Keithley
Notes from a Divided Country by Suji Kwock Kim
Apprehend by Elizabeth Robinson
The Room Where I Was Born by Briane Teare

Non-Fiction:

The Chinese in America: A Narrative History by Iris Chang
Her Husband: Hughes and Plath, a Marriage by Diane Middlebrook
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West by Rebecca Solnit

Children’s Literature:

The City of Ember by Jeanne DePrau
Oh No! Gotta Go! by Susan Middleton Elya
Just A Minute: a Trickster Tale and Counting Book by Yuyi Morales
The Day the Babies Crawled Away by Peggy Rathmann
Vampire High by Douglas Rees

Special Award: Translation: TBA

Lifetime Achievement: Philip Levine

The winners will be announced on March 24, 2004, and since the event is local, I may just be covering it.

And if there’s any lesson to be learned from this deal, it’s to keep your relationship with a best-selling author and take advantage of the nepotism. Nick Laird has won a six-figure deal for two books. The first one is titled Utterly Monkey. Kyle Smith is no doubt steaming after passing on a date with Z.Z. Packer. (via Maud, who I will never refer to as diminuitive)

The X-rays and dental records match up. Spalding Gray is dead. The world is lesser because of it.

Rasputin: “Trust me on this one. Rich people will be okay. I am officially giving you permission to not give a rat’s ass about them. When a person achieves a certain amount of wealth, they become permanently okay forever. In fact, the only thing that can ever unseat them from this vaunted status is their own grotesque stupidity. Now, you don’t feel bad when poor people manage to get themselves fucking killed, why should you feel bad when rich stupid people get themselves thrown in jail or rendered poor?”

Sarah Jessica Parker: “Part of me is happy that people who could not afford HBO will now have the opportunity to meet the four women whose love lives were chronicled on the show.”

Who are these people, Sarah? Okies wandering the Midwest? Crazed gypsies? Hobos? The rabble? The great unwashed? With invitations like yours, I’m sure these people that we shall not identify, probably smart enough to do other things than sit on their asses watching HBO all day, will love strutting into your vapid world of shoes and affluence.

I saw the first season of Sex and the City shortly after reading Bushnell’s book. I haven’t seen a single episode since. Beyond my DVD rental and reading mistakes, I regret nothing.

(via Beatrice)

Mark gives Rose/Birnbaum a run for their money and interviews Dan Rhodes. While there aren’t any Elton John-like confessions, the interview’s a good read. I hope other literary blogs will start taking it to the next level and start interviewing authors who come through their respective towns.

Marty Beckerman claims that he was misquoted by Rebecca Traister. This isn’t the first time Traister’s been accused of overeager journalism, though, to Beckerman’s credit, he never demands a brawl with David Talbot. (via Bookslut)

Spalding Gray’s body may have been found. An autopsy is underway to determine identification.

And a London librarian claims that nursery rhymes are naughty. Of course. We all know that the spider sitting on Little Miss Muffet’s tuffet is really a horny dude with eight dicks. The curds and whey are clearly graveside bukkake. We all know that the grandma-eating Big Bad Wolf represents a guy with an older woman fetish and a closet subscription to MILF Monthly. And we all know that Sleeping Beauty was the princess that the rabble couldn’t chat up and take back to the inn. Nursery rhymes are indecent! It is my fervent hope that the Bush Administration will prevent this filth from corrupting the minds of our children.

If you don’t believe me, one hard look at “Georgie Porgie” should obviate all innocence:

Georgie Porgie, puddin’ and pie

[Clearly, the elided G illustrates that the rhyme is not about “pudding,” but about “putting it in.” Centuries before the naughtiness of American Pie, “Georgie Porgie” establishes in its first line a distinct pastryphilia. The implication of “Poor G” after “Georgie” implies a guilt for the events about to happen. Furthermore, like Nostradamus predicting the threat of Saddam Hussein, the basis for Georgie is not George IV, but George Michael and his infamous bathroom incident.]

Kissed the girls and made them cry.

[If Georgie Porgie intended merely to kiss the girls, then his behavior would be relatively harmless. But the fact that the girls are crying suggests one of two possibilities: (1) either Georgie Porgie has halitosis (unlikely) or (2) Georgie Porgie is a closet rapist, causing untold grief. Note how easy it is to replace the line with “Screwed the girls and made them cry.”]

When the boys came out to play.

[Not content with forced debauchery, Georgie Porgie expands his horizons and illustrates to his peers that he swings both ways.]

Georgie Porgie ran away.

[Again, by anticipating the furor over same-sex marriages, the nursery rhyme proves to be well ahead of its time. Instead of coming to terms with his polymorphously perverse nature or indeed atoning for his sins as a rampant rapist, Georgie Porgie decides to run away and return to his cave. The subconscious message being fed to children is that not only is it okay to “make girls cry,” but that one’s true deviant nature must be kept from the populace, ideally in an isolationist environment, much like the Catholics.]

A Welsh booklist has been considered too highbrow to be relevant. The Welsh have insisted that booklists aren’t for them. A spokesman for the Eisteddfod Preservation Society said that they’d rather spend all day complaining about the weather than caring about contemporary culture. “Besides,” said the spokesman. “We were telling stories long before Chaucer.”

T.C. Boyle has no hope whatsoever. Beyond that, there’s the question of why T.C. Boyle remains hit-or-miss with the literati. The Chronicle doesn’t get many answers, but they do get some quirky quotes from Boyle. His National Book Award-nominated novel, Drop City, hit paperback not long ago. He’s currently on tour. If you pick up this month’s Harper’s, you’ll find a Boyle story. There’s also another great story called “Chicxulub” (referenced in the Chronicle piece) in the March 1, 2004 New Yorker.

Meanwhile, NPR has some fun audio clips up of T.C. Boyle’s old band (including T.C. singing “I Put a Spell on You”).

If you haven’t read Boyle, and you’ve failed to perceive my mad gushing for the man, some good titles to start with are The Road to Wellville and World’s End.

Sara Paretsky has a new V.I. Warshawski novel out. (And I’m curious as to why everyone’s favorite mystery blogger has remained so silent on Paretsky, beyond an enigmatic high school connection which nobody need talk about.)

While Yardley dismisses Studs Lonigan, Roger Ebert, of all people, digs up an evening he spent in 1968 with James Farrell. There’s some interesting tidbits, including Farrell deliberately avoiding sleep so that he can write 20 hours at a stretch, four of Farrell’s novels burned in a fire (and thus unpublishable in the days before computers), and Farrell’s personally penned obituary. Even James Brown, having met Farrell early in his career, had to concede “the hardest working man in show business” title to Farrell after discovering his working habits. However, when Farrell died in 1979, the title was officially restored to Brown.

Intersting statistic: Michael Moore sold 1.1 million copies of Stupid White Men in Germany. Probably because the title of Bill O’Reilly’s latest book was mistakenly printed up as Are the Crazy American Conservatives Looking Out for You Now? Run Away! They Get Very Angry on Television!

The New Yorker: “[Christian historian Elaine] Pagels explained that the four gospel writers of the New Testament probably wrote between 70 and 100 A.D. These were the years following the Roman defeat of the Jews, which left the Temple and the center of Jerusalem in ruins. Acts of sedition by the Jews against their conquerors were met with swift execution. As a result, Pagels said, the Gospels, which were intended not as history but as preaching, as religious propaganda to win followers for the teachings of Christ, portrayed the conflict of the Passion as one between Jesus and the Jewish people, led by Caiaphas. And, though it was the Roman occupiers, under Pontius Pilate, who possessed ultimate political and judicial power in Judea, they are described in the Gospels—and, more starkly, in Gibson’s film–as relatively benign.”

Frank Rich: “Thus we see the gospel according to Mel. If you criticize his film and the Jew-baiting by which he promoted it, you are persecuting him — all the way to the bank. If he says that he wants you killed, he wants your intestines ‘on a stick’ and he wants to kill your dog — such was his fatwa against me in September — not only is there nothing personal about it but it’s an act of love. And that is indeed the message of his film. ‘The Passion’ is far more in love with putting Jesus’ intestines on a stick than with dramatizing his godly teachings, which are relegated to a few brief, cryptic flashbacks.”

The Washington Post: “The District school system is investigating allegations that a teacher at a Southeast elementary school showed sixth-grade students excerpts of the R-rated movie ‘The Passion of the Christ.'”

The Miami Herald: A man in Jacksonville sold out of all Passion-related merchandise.

Reuters: Passion still #1, moves past $200 million mark.

After much writing, revising, and a particularly nasty stomach ache (which may have had something to do with my recent dietary transition to more substantial viands), I went through my back issues of The New Yorker, a stack so severely vertiginous that it threatened to ransack me in the night shortly after transmuting into a carnivorous, vengeful, buckram-bound collected periodical requiring all attentions.

I discovered an exceptionally well-written profile of Lyle Lovett. The profile was written by Alec Wilkinson. At the age of 24, Wilkinson was fortunate enough to befriend the late William Maxwell. (In fact, Wilkinson wrote a memoir about this entitled My Mentor: A Young Man’s Friendship with William Maxwell. Here’s an excerpt.)

I’m not much of a Lovett fan, but Wilkinson is such an incredible, omnivorous observer that I found myself completely submerged into the story. Here’s Wilkinson describing nearly every nicety within Lovett’s house:

The house is furnished sparely. In the parlor, the principal adornments are two saddles, each in a corner on a sawhorse. A plaque on the kitchen wall that says “Beware of Bull” commemorates an encounter Lovett and his uncle Calvin had two years ago with a bull in the pasture behind the house. They had delivered a check to a bulldozer operator who was digging a ditch. Walking back across the field, they discussed a pecan tree that had no leaves when it should have and whether it had to come out. The bull walked slowly toward them. Lovett had found the bull in the pasture as a day-old calf. The calf had followed him as he walked through the herd looking for its mother, and when no cow acknowledged it Lovett decided to raise it on a bottle. Once the bull turned two, Lovett stayed out of its way, since it was playful and was big enough to hurt someone without meaning to. Klein, who is sixty-nine, has worked with cattle all his life, so Lovett felt, as the bull approached, that if there was any reason to be worried Klein would tell him. “Usually, you throw a hat down on the ground or slap your leg,” Klein says, “and a bull will stop long enough for you to leave.”

I won’t dare reveal what happened to Klein, Lovett, and the bull. You’ll have to read the whole thing yourself. But this is the kind of descriptive detail segueing into gripping tale that is the mark of a top-notch writer. Wilkinson certainly picked up a lot from Maxwell. And I was so impressed by his prose that I’m going to try and track down everything the man’s ever written. Anybody interested in creative nonfiction needs to check this guy out.

“What is more, in all three cases, the more demanding the form of [church] involvement — actual attendance as compared to formal membership, for example — the greater the decline. In effect, the classic institution of American civic life, both religious and secular, have been ‘hollowed out.’ Seen from without, the institutional edifice appears virtually intact — little decline in professions of faith, formal membership down just a bit, and so on. When examined more closely, however, it seems clear that decay has consumed the load-bearing beams of our civic infrastructure.” — Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone

Why isn’t there a church for atheists and agnostics? Here we are living in a nation that purports to celebrate the freedom of religion, and yet those who decide to abstain from religion altogether are denied a public place of worship (or, rather, non-worship). We all know that churches actually front as places to meet people (provided, of course, that any given church, as most are, is open to newcomers). And yet while churches have become “tolerant” in opening up their doors to all walks of life, the church concept has failed to take a cue from Flannery O’Connor and whip up a Church Without Christ.

Where are the Churches Without Religion? True, Universal Unitarians come close. But I’m talking about a public hall that isn’t hell-bent on serving up insufferable hymns and slack Sunday morning service. A place that ultimately functions as a nexus point for decent people, without the required commitment to a deity.

Then again, who am I to generalize on the subject? Perhaps there is some comparative basis here. Likewise, the nature of social networks within these inner halls are ripe for examination.

These ruminations stem from some major thinking over the last several weeks on the subject and another long-term project that will replace Miguel Cohen’s Sunday rantings with something more observed and interesting. The idea, to give credit where credit is due, came from my sister. More to come.

Okay, I’m breaking the embargo again and then I shall again deactivate the Internet and return to the hard and happy world of revision.

Here in San Francisco, Spanganga Theater is putting on live recreations of Twilight Zone episodes. They’ll be performing two every weekend. (It started this week.) Upcoming productions include the paranoid Shatner romp “Nightmare on 20,000 Feet” and another great episode involving moral deterioration, “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” SF Weekly has more. Each episode is being staged by a different director and slate of actors. And there are multiple Rod Serlings. This looks like a lot of fun.