Clive Cussler has sued a production company over an unauthorized script. My hope is that he wins. Not because of the suit's merits (or lack thereof), mind you, but a quiet $10 million payoff may stop Cussler from writing novels. That would be a truly philanthropic act.
More on Rushdie. He's got a movie deal lined up. The Firebird's Nest is a romance between an older man and a younger gal (even starring Rushdie's girlfriend, a younger gal), but this is not -- repeat, not -- based on Rushdie's life. (via Bookslut)
Ken Kesey's 1967 jail journal will be published. It includes "two dozen color plates of collages Kesey made from ink drawings entwined with his handwritten reflections laid down in notebooks smuggled out by a buddy who got busted with him."
The Elegant Variation demolishes the 2 Blowhards' movie/book people argument (in fine satirical form, natch): "By the way, do you notice that (at least based on the movie people we know), he hasn’t really described your average movie person, but rather your average video store geek? And I’m willing to bet that if he’d been seated beside Tarantino at a dinner party before he’d made it big, he’d have found him an annoying little pest."
Nell Freudenberger has compelling words of wisdom: "But then, ignorance is no excuse. It’s obvious to me now that you can do a terrible thing by accident." Yes indeed. There are lots of things you can do by accident. Such as turning in a silly Yank-centric piece to Granta without so much as a major observation on Laotian culture, history or behavior. The essay, ironically enough, is part of Granta's "Over There: How Americans See the World" theme. But I'll take J. Robert Lennon's goofy piece over Freudenberger's any day. Paula Fox has a essay up too, but you'll have to pony up the clamshells for the hard copy.
And Rachel Greenwald believes that you can snag a husband with a push-up bra. But she fails to account for the fact that some men (myself included) assess the goods (if they can be called that or given a pronoun) naked and in private, conditions when said boobies are unhindered by faux, painful support, and that boobies, while spiffy, are a fringe benefit, rather than the chief draw. (via Sarah)
Posted by DrMabuse at January 16, 2004 07:16 AM