Don’t know how I missed it, but if you’re looking for another outlet-centric blog, Emily Gordon’s blog, Emdashes, is New Yorker-centric and also offers a monthly column about writers named Jonathan entitled “Jonathans Are Illuminated.”

There’s now a rumor being floated around that Apple has a Video iPod in the works for September.

I have two words on why such a device will completely and utterly fail: Video Walkman.

Actor Jude Law has expressed “sincere regret” for allowing his penis to take over his body and consummate its desires for nanny Daisy Wright while he was engaged to actress Sienna Miller.

Law issued a statement shortly after his publicists were in the dark about how to spin this, before coming up with an eleventh-hour forthright apology.

“I just want to say that I am deeply ashamed of my manhood. I should have controlled my penis. It should not have controlled me. As I try and weather the storm with Sienna, it is quite likely that I will be having an exclusive hands-on relationship with my penis. For this, I am truly sorry,” said Law.

“There is no defence for any actions that my penis has taken.”

Shortly after this sentence, in a rare appearance, Jude Law’s Penis emerged from Mr. Law’s trousers and begin to speak to reporters.

“She was only caring for one children,” rebutted Jude Law’s Penis. “Surely there was enough time on her hands for two. And frankly, I was getting sick of Jude and Sienna’s hands. The time had come to mix things up.”

Mad Max Perkins has departed the blogosphere, wizard hat and all.

It isn’t easy for me to make this next confession. After all, we’re talking about a medium that has kept me excited, enthused and alive for damn near my entire life. But if the point of this blog is to chronicle the truth, then I have very little choice in the matter.

Anyhow, the confession is this: I have very little desire to go to the movies anymore.

It’s not the obnoxious people. I can handle their cell phones and their terrible cellophane wrappers and their talking through a movie. Years of constant moviegoing has inured me to the rudeness of the American public.

It’s not the prices. Ten bucks isn’t really all that much more than eight bucks. And besides, even at that price, you can at least get a theatrical experience that deafens your eardrums.

What it is, I think, is the fact that the people who produce these movies probably don’t know who John Cassavetes or Federico Fellini were. I get the strong sense that they do not read, let alone live. I get the sense that they no longer have the ability to reduce me to some silent and lifeless hunk of flesh, completely in awe of what has just transpired. Because what it is all about these days is pure profit. It’s about taking something that might have been special to me once (e.g., The Fantastic Four) and reducing the magic to utter idiocy.

I have no desire to patronize their crapola. The last film I paid for was Land of the Dead, and that was only because I inherently trust George Romero.

I am probably the only human being in the world who has not seen The War of the Worlds. Probably because I liked the H.G. Wells novel just fine and I don’t want my fun memories of George Pal’s version to be sullied.

Every time I go to the movies, I see trailers that mean absolutely nothing to me. They fail to delight, to suggest, or to play with my imagination. I presume that this is because I don’t fall within their demographic anymore. And I am forced to conclude that I am either too old or too demanding of my fantasies. Either that or I’d like to think that something is terribly wrong with Hollywood.

But whatever the case, aside from the new Terry Gilliam film, there is not a single film coming out in the next few months that silently demands, “See me.” There is not an upcoming release that I believe will sufficiently take the wind out of my lungs and transport me so completely into its world. Instead, I have had to rely upon DVDs of older films made by people who know and intuitively feel that this is what the cinematic medium is about.

And for this, I am very sad. Because I know the power of the medium. I know that it is a place that can produce something that matters. I know that it is a realm that can demand an intense vicariousness. And it is my hope against all possible hopes that one day, it will do so again.

If there’s any moral to this story (and this subsequent response), it’s this: if you can’t handle people under your employ being more interesting than you are, then perhaps the unlived life is not worth examining, let alone selling it to the Gray Lady for opportunistic payola.

The SFist has the big-time local scoop on the current war between the Media Workers Guild and the San Francisco Chronicle. Needless to say, Chronicle management wants to limit the MWG’s ability to strike in solidarity. They are also calling for major wage cuts in the area of 2% to 24% and even a wage freeze through the end of the year. Needless to say, with these kinds of “negotiations,” a strike looks very likely in the cards.

Some months ago, we promised nonstop Jonathan Ames coverage. Now we lapsed badly on that score. In fact, we lapsed so badly that not even the Unitarian Universalist Church will take us in.

But hopefully we can provide penance by informing you that Jonathan Ames is on another book tour — this time, for the paperback release of Wake Up, Sir!, which is not only a very funny book but a loving homage to P.G. Wodehouse’s Worcester-Jeeves novels. (Yes, kids, before Ask Jeeves blasphemized the canon, there were many funny books written about a butler named Jeeves.) Fortunately, Ames has taken Jeeves back.

You can find Ames at the following places over the next few weeks:

Tuesday, July 19, 7PM: Booksmith, 1644 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA.

Friday, July 22, 7:30PM: Skylight Books, 1818 North Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA (the Los Feliz neighborhood).

Friday, July 29, 7PM: Barnes & Noble, Astor Place, New York City, NY.

If you’re in the San Francisco area, the incomparable Tito Perez and I will be at the Booksmith. Feel free to stop by and say hello.

You may not realize this, but I’ve spent the past five years writing a novel in code. The novel in question features a good deal of sex between an alcoholic Jesuit and a recovering politician, several fingers that are accidentally cut off in a shredder and sold for a stunning amount on eBay, and a lengthy section describing how to make the best chili con carne. The novel is entitled “:)” and while I don’t have $14,000 to offer, for anyone who can decode the text, I will buy them a beer.

The text follows:

”
!-?
(o)(o)
===|>
:(?
!!!!

Okay, so given that last post, it’s clear that we’re too hostile to blog. So to combine the best of both worlds (one being benign cuteness, the other being a decidedly perverted sensibility), we conclude this week with unicorn porn, where a young girl’s sunny bedroom decor walks hand-in-hand with an adolescent male’s worst fantasies. Enjoy!

See you on Sunday with the Brownie Watch.

On yesterday’s Radio Open Source show, Steve Wasserman (the former editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review) said the following:

The best reading experience is to occupy your time with the worthy dead rather than the ambitious living.

So if I am to understand the Wasserman logic correctly:

If you’re Richard Powers, William T. Vollmann, or Nadeem Aslam — if you’re an author hoping to break outside of the so-called “fun and fast-paced” mould (a descriptive phrase that is perhaps better applied to a rollercoaster or a mercy fuck), sorry, kids! No consolation prize for you! You’re too ambitious, too “dense” and too challenging for today’s readers. You say you’ve got a novel that breaks outside the middle-aged, upper middle-class Caucasian male midlife crisis mode? Tough shit, honey. Because the publishing marketplace is all about the next Harry Potter or Dan Brown — or the next book you can wolf down in one evening. And even then, you’re no better than anyone else until the maggots are on you like a Las Vegas buffet, and some member of the hoary-haired literati offers the obligatory reconsideration article for Harper’s. And that’s assuming you can beat the odds and turn out a steady body of work.

It’s small wonder that with this kind of fey dichotomy, which must pass in Wasserman’s microcephalic headspace as sine qua non wit, the LATBR turned into a travesty and left Wasserman storming out of the gate. What right does Wasserman have to talk about ambition, when his very capitulation demosntrated how unwilling he was to compromise with top brass and maintain some semblance of a weekly book review section? His very actions proved to the world that he was anything but ambitious. This was a man who refused to fight, or grew tired of fighting, or just wanted a more comfortable role than the buffer between his audience and the men behind the curtain.

But never mind this.

Wasserman’s statement is preposterous because the very form of the novel has evolved precisely because of efforts from the ambitious living. Readers have long supped upon the fruits of ambition and writers themsleves have developed as a result of it. If we go back to the eighteenth century, a period in which the novel developed as a seminal art form, we find Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740) as the first novel that attempted to merge a narrative with manners and a widely influential epistolary novel. It proved to be both controversial (because of its voyeurism and sentimentalism) and a bestseller — you might call it The Da Vinci Code of its day. But its very ambition not only spawned imitators hoping to cash in, but Henry Fielding’s parodies Shamela and The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews. Fielding’s approach in these novels went beyond mere satire. His very ambition turned Joseph Andrews in a vibrant character and, in turn, led him to write The Life of Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great (1743), an ironic high point that was also a merciless attack on Walpole, and of course his masterpiece Tom Jones.

Or if that’s not enough, consider the influence of F. Scott Fitzgerald upon Ernest Hemingway. It would be difficult to argue that Fitzgerald, a man who could never within a then colossal $25,000 income, was anything less than ambitious. And it was Fitzgerald who gave pivotal input on The Sun Also Rises just before it was sent out to Maxwell Perkins. And given The Sun Also Rises‘ influence upon prose and modern behavior, introducing Paris and Pampolona in such a vivid way to millions of readers at the time. Would these audiences have experienced nearly the same locales had they frittered their time with the “worthy dead?” Or had not Fitzgerald’s ambition coaxed Hemingway to cut a chapter and a half (one of the more substantial changes in the book)?

If Wasserman genuinely believes that a night spent imbibing some dead Caucasian is the apex of reading achievement, then that’s his business. But no matter how far back you go, even these dead souls were inspired by the ambitions of their living peers. Competition was perhaps one motivation, but encouragement from people who gave a damn about literature (whether writers, editors, or audiences) was another. The point is that these authors cared enough to offer their very best, to sustain an environment where literature evolves, and to in turn inspire other authors and readers alike.

In Wasserman’s case, to discount ambition and influence with such a vapid statement, to appear contrarian through an unsuccessful bon mot that makes little sense and is not qualifiable, is not only contrary to the purpose of literature, but it’s ass-backwards when considering how people experience literature.

Because of this, I thank the heavens that this cuckoo is no longer editing a book review section for a major newspaper.

• Nicole Ritchie is becoming a novelist, drawing upon her own life experience for the book. That includes a particularly dark period as a drug addict. Says Ritchie: “I think sometimes when people think of the word drug addict they think the word dirty, under a bridge, like, really rock bottom. You don’t have to be that person to be an addict.” Of course! If you’re lucky enough, there’s always the sanctity and security of your family’s palatial estate during a withdrawal period. With butlers!
• Julian Barnes talks about his new book.
• Publishers are using fake websites to publicize books.
• Clive Barker forthcoming projects: two films and a 500-page book with naughty text and illustrations called The Scarlet Gospels about “a man with pins in his head.” Hmmm…shouldn’t Barker call this one Cockraiser instead?

The New York Times: “Now the popularity of yoga has left practitioners – 16.5 million in the United States alone, according to a 2005 Yoga Journal survey – with so many mats, and so much confusion. They come in cotton, synthetics and rubber. Some are thin, some are padded, and some are futon-thick.”

• L. Frank Baum
• J.G. Ballard
• Marion Zimmer Bradley
• William S. Burroughs
• L. Sprague de Camp
• Angela Carter
• Philip Jose Farmer
• M. John Harrison
• Ursula K. Le Guin
• Fritz Lieber
• Richard Matheson
• China Mieville
• Michael Moorcock
• Mervyn Peake
• Jack Vance
• Connie Willis
• Gene Wolfe
• Roger Zelazny

[UPDATE: And here are 18 more from Ms. Bond, who is more knowledgeable of this genre than I am. I too would add Kelly Link to the list, along with Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, George R.R. Martin, and Philip Pullman — to name but only a few.]

[UPDATE 2: A call from Matt Cheney for Harry Potter alternatives.]

So what exactly happened at the July 8, 2005 San Francisco G8 protests?

This Chronicle article reports that a bandana-masked attacker assaulted SFPD Officer Peter Shields. Shields and his partner, Michael Wolf, answered a call about anarchists, who were protesting G8, breaking windows. Someone tossed a mattress underneath their car and lit in on fire. Wolf tried to arrest someone who he thought lit the mattress. There was a chase and Shields was hit by someone from behind, suffering a fractured skull. Shields had no riot gear and backup was not called in time. These gruesome photos show Shields and suggest that the cops began swinging their batons at random protestors in retaliation. Because of all this, a no-confidence petition against Police Chief Heather Fong and Deputy Chief Greg Suhr. The latter was in charge of handling the protest.

The Mayor’s Office has issued a $10,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest of the assailant.

But that’s just one side of the story. This video suggests that the SFPD was reacting with the same uncool heads as the protestors. For one thing, the Chronicle article notes that police were randomly arresting people, associating them with the assault. If that was the mentality in place, then if the protestor depicted in this video was being as seriously choked as he looks to be, the onus also falls upon the SFPD for failing to coordinate and to react to the situation calmly. (Near the end of a video, we see the SFPD drawing guns on bystanders concerned about the choked protestor, ordering all to “Get back!” and to “Leave or you’re going to be fucking blasted!” — apparently, these are considered dependable ways to calm down a crowd.)

The protest was an uncontrolled one, as the Anarchist Action people themselves point out. Meanwhile, Suhr has been reassigned and the two protestors arrested have pleaded not guilty and there’s conflicting reports about whether or not there was a communications mishap.

Here are the questions that need to be asked:

• Was there or was there not a communication breakdown? What measures are in place to protect officers from unexpected assaults?
• Why did the officer depicted in the video place a chokehold on his assailant?
• What evidence do the SFPD have to implicate the three arrested suspects?
• Why did the SFPD draw guns and sling batons upon unwitting protestors? If the charges here were misdemanors, what motivates such a stunning response within police procedure? Further, is there hard evidence to back up some of the protestors’ claims?
• Has any disciplinary action been taken against the officers who attacked the protestors or Suhr?
• What was Suhr’s specific approach to handling protests? Does he have a history of using violence and intimidation to resolve conflicts (and encouraging officers to do the same)?

Interestingly enough, KRON’s Brian Shields (unrelated to Peter), a man who’s been trying to court Bay Area bloggers and who operates a blog, The Bay Area is Talking, wrote in the SF Indy Media thread (you have to click on one of the comments to access the dialogue), promising “to recognize that there is another source for information about events around the world, the source of citizens who have cameras and who report based on their own experiences.” At the time of this posting, the top post at The Bay Area is Talking is “What a night for baseball!” It’s good to see Brian Shields following up on the hard news stories. (Some of Brian Shields’ other Pultizer-worthy posts include “I Love the Fog,” “A More Practical Way to Connect with Women,” and “Gee I thought had a Crazy Weekend” [sic]. But at least he has one post up about the incident.)

Of course, if it were me, instead of just mining for links, I’d be using KRON’s resources to talk with the police officers, obtain police reports and the like, hunting down as many sides of the story as I could.

The San Francisco Chronicle: “Editor’s Note: Beginning today, a slightly shortened version of Mark Morford’s column will run in the Datebook section of the print edition of The Chronicle, every Wednesday and Friday. The full version, with active links, will continue to appear on SFGate.com.”

Salon: “But the new leading men on television have lost that battle, or never even bothered to fight it. They’re all solitary supermen. Lonesome savants who seem to know everything there is to know — except how, or even why, to talk to women. Why have these still young, handsome guys given up, when the less young, less handsome and more drunk Sipowicz didn’t? Is it a question of timing? Did Sipowicz just reflect the Clinton-era fascination with moral fallibility and self-improvement? Maybe the new TV hero is perfect for Bush America: He’s always right, and certain of his rightness, and sees his isolation as proof of that rightness. But then again, George Bush is hardly the staunch defender of rationality and science that the bug collectors are. And these guys have great fun at the expense of “believers” of all stripes. In fact, that’s their problem: their middle-aged skepticism knows no bounds, and extends to the defiantly irrational realm of human relationships.”

During the hours of 4PM-5PM Pacific Standard Time, we’ll be stuck in a windowless room with a speakerless computer and a rat scurrying about on the asbestos-ridden tile that we’ve nicknamed “Pinky” for company. (I named him “Pinky” because when I first said hello, he decided to bite my pinky and I spent several hours in the hospital getting a tetanus shot.)

But if you’re more fortunate than us and you’re free during that time, you can do no wrong by checking out this afternoon’s broadcast of Radio Open Source, which can be heard online. Mark Sarvas plans to oil up his chest and take LA Times Book Review editor Steve Wasserman into a five-match round that will involve lots of blood being strewn onto blank pages and perhaps more than a few angry tears. Kevin Smokler will also be there, presumably as the voice of reason.

As for us, like the Hag, we’ve been typecast as Lydon’s pariahs.

Hey, kids, want to make a quick buck and try and stop one of the most untalented men in show business in one go? Well, now you can. It seems that Pauly (Jury Duty) Shore has somehow conned TBS into giving him a television show called Minding the Store. If you keep a straight face and don’t laugh (too bad there’s no extra points for outright nausea), Pauly Shore will send you a dollar back.

Unfortunately, according to the rules, “NO MORE THAN 250,000 REQUESTS WILL BE HONORED AND THIS OFFER WILL END ON THE EARLIER OF 8/15/05 OR THE RECEIPT OF 250,000 REQUESTS.” Which means that they’ve budgeted the show to lose $250,000.

Here’s my question: why not more? If my calculations are correct, a three million dollar cap should send a clear and resounding message that Pauly Shore should not be hired under any circumstances.

The real question: Why doesn’t most television operate this way? I’m not sure if it would improve television, but if people demanded their money back, wouldn’t it send a real message to the networks that most of the shit they air is vapid?

• Robert “Hue-Happy Background” Birnbaum talks with crime fiction writer Richard Marnick. Marnick, as reported during our BEA coverage, has led an extraordinary life as an ex-cop, ex-con, and a union writer tunnel. And Marnick gives Birnbaum the goods on Boyos and more.
• Pope John Paul II approved of Harry Potter, but Ratzinger doesn’t. Pope Benedict XVI has also gone on record to state that ice cream cones and roller coasters are the work of the devil.
• I must say that this headline is wrong. It should read “Coffee shop offers no chance or tablespace for writers.”
• The SF Weekly offers a brief blurb for Michelle Tea, who would probably make a better modifier over the Warfield than the SF Weekly.
• Introducing BritLitBlogs, a consortium of six British literary blogs.
• If you thought the Patriot Act library and bookstore records battle was over, think again. Librarians are concerned with the Bush administration’s determination to make reinstating Section 215 a top priority this year.
• Mike West really doesn’t like Spin.
• Tayari Jones on going to Bible school while atheist. (via Maud)
• Rake has the goods on Cormac McCarthy from this month’s Vanity Fair.
• History textbooks aren’t just being diluted in American schools. Otawara, Japan has approved a book downplaying the Rape of Nanking, completely overlooking the sexual ensalvement of women.
• Back in the 1960s, San Quentin was one of the few prisons that attempted “bibliotherapy.” Because of this, prisoners became literate and several of them became writers. (And in fact, Eldridge Cleaver wrote and sold Soul on Ice while in San Quentin.) So it’s very good to see that new reading programs are being tried out at various Bay Area prisons. (And for a related story, check out Mark Sarvas’ account of teaching writing to at-risk juvenile offenders.)
• Terry McMillan’s latest homophobia: “He’s the one who is gay.” I didn’t realize that one’s sexual orientation mattered as much as one’s actions do in a messy divorce. So am I to conclude that not being gay means you’re not “a habitual liar” or “a sociopath”?

Tito alerts me to this article at the Voice that involves sharing absinthe and conversation with William T. Vollmann. There’s some fascinating revelations about what Vollmann thinks about post-9/11 politics and how Vollmann tries as hard as possible to live, as well as observe, the lives of others. But the most interesting remark is this:

“There are people dead as a result of [American] political and religious praxis,” he says. “Whether we owe those dead bodies a tight, middle, or panoramic gaze, we owe those dead bodies a story.”

(And for what it’s worth, long gestating in the Future Entries Department is my final entry on The Rainbow Stories for The Vollmann Club. I finished the book a month ago, but hope to go through it story-by-story.)

Kevin Smith now has a blog. What’s odd is that the man is determined to chronicle everything. He has a post up every day. Even more disturbing: the man casually reveals that he eats almost nothing but sausage and fesses up to “delicious little fuck sessions.”

(All criticisms of Mr. Smith’s public posturing aside, I should note that Jersey Girl was unfairly maligned, that the film dared to offer a visceral take on fatherhood and life choices when Smith acolytes expected more Jay and Silent Bob, and I hope that Mr. Smith continues to develop as a filmmaker.)

Rove: Now is the moment where Plame will pay
Made glorious by our gov’ment secured
And all the clouds that lowr’d upon the Left
Not nigh the bosom of state secrets buried.
Now are our brows bound with unilateral wreaths;
Our bruised reporters thrown in jail;
Our false alarums changed to random orange;
The dreadful bias squashed by delightful measures.
But I, that am not shap’d for Adonis tricks,
But made to court a haughty looking-glass;
I, that am rotundly stamp’d, declared an evil genius
To strut before a wanton bumbling Bush;
I, that will be pardoned before thrown away,
Eluding social justice, and bars which confine;
To set the hounds upon Prince Scott
My fingers fold for further plans;
Hark, reporters come!

Journalist #1: How now, odd Scott? What falsehoods hath thou wrought?
Journalist #2: In June the King did plege to purge, and now your hands are caught!
Scott: Do scratch thy pads. I’ll never ‘fess. The investigation’s on.
I’m well aware of what I said. Your questions do now con.
I’m glad to talk when an apt sun sets
Or our polls go up, or your appetite whets
If you’ll let me finish, I’ll aid and abet…
Did I say that? Shit, I’m toast.
Journalist #3: You’re not saying much.
Journalist #4: Where’s your Midas touch?
Journalist #2: It’s the same thing through and through.
Journalist #3: It’s a bad spot, Scott.
Journalist #1: Out out damned spot?
Journalist #2: I’d cop or you’ll be through.
Scott: Again, I’ve rejoined. You’re aware and I know.
You continue to ask. Let me breathe.
I appreciate questions and welcome suggestions
Will you titter when I go home and seethe?

Rove: They’ve unearthed my grand plans!
But I’m Bush’s brain. And they daren’t loosen my hold
If they fry me in jail or a scum pounds my tail
I’ll return, raging wolf in the fold

The Royal Shakespeare Company will perform every known piece of writing by Shakespare. Within one year.

That’s damn ambitious and damn cool.

Here are some more details:

• 18 British theatre companies are involved.
• Sir Ian McKellen will play King Lear.
• Dame Judi Dench will be in a musical adaptation of The Merry Wives of Windsor.
• Patrick Stewart to be in The Tempest.

Jimmy Beck points to this page listing writers and their preferred typewriters, which seems apropos to Ms. Frye’s Not-So-Tangerine Writing Implement Epic.

• Just when you thought it was safe to return to the bookstores, an author named Barbara Delinksy has actually revived the Peyton Place series. Is Peyton Place as scandalous as it once was? Can it hope to restore the same admixture of wonder and scandal that Grace Metalious used to enchant Eisenhower voters? Well, I have my doubts. Not because Delinsky’s written 70 books or because she was kind enough to write to us from the lake, but because she can’t spell “germane “.
• A Yeats album has fetched £72,000 at an auction. The album includes 18 letters from Yeats to his friend, Sir Sidney Cockerell, and the manuscript of his essay, “The Tragic Theatre.” There is also an original draft of one of Yeats’ poems that reads, “When you are old and grey and full of water,/And a WC cannot be found and you shall burst, scream for help.” But this work appears to have been abandoned.
• Gunter Grass is interviewed by Deutsche Welle during one of his regular visits to Gdnask. I wish I were making this up, but it looks like Grass was even asked to beat a tin drum. What next? Asking Grass to wear a dog suit or asking him to play cat and mouse?
• For the 100th anniversary of Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, Herkimer County hopes to commemorate the murder that inspired Dreiser. Police have been commissioned to prevent die-hard Dreiserites from going too far during the festivities.
• Pop quiz: Does the phrase “Thousands more are demanding ownership” come from an article on eminent domain or the Harry Potter hoopla. Here’s your answer.
• As widely reported, publisher Bryon Preiss has died.
• And bookmobiles may be dying in the States, but they’re thriving in Indonesia.

A hearty congratulations to Bud Parr, who celebrates two years of blogging at the always excellent Chekhov’s Mistress and can also be found contributing at 400 Windmills and the (nearly finished!) Sonnet Media.

It appears that the J in M.J. Rose’s name stands for “Julavits.”

Without naming names or citing any specific examples (or, for that matter, actually invoking an argument for why any of it is bad), M.J. Rose offers us yet another piece of flummery complaining about what she identifies as “whining” (and what the rest of us might call identifying and criticizing specific publishing issues so as to better understand them) on the blogosphere. Her ostensible point is “because there are over 195,000 books published a year and they can’t all get reviews in the NYTBR.”

Well, it’s clear that Ms. Rose fails to comprehend the argument. The amount of books being published is not the issue. It’s the substantive nature of how the current publishing industry is being covered and represented in print that the blogosphere is being taken to task. It’s not all bad. But as demonstrated here and at other places, it has been repeatedly shown that the NYTBR continues to give fiction (and specifically literary fiction) the shaft and maintain a balance of male-to-female book reviewers that is completely out of step with the current population (and, in particular, readers). (By the way, a Tanenhaus Brownie Watch is in the works for last Sunday.)

Second, what’s wrong with complaints anyway? Voicing grievances is often a good way to get a discussion going and it allows all of us to work together towards contemplating a solution. Plus, it serves as a catharsis for all involved. Publishing is a tough business, one that involves working on a book for years only to see a meager advance completely out of proportion with the labor expended. It’s enough to drive just about any stable person crazy.

But most importantly, there’s something important that needs to be said here. Why should anybody take an opinion seriously when the person who posits it continues to engage in a passive-aggressive approach to intellctualism without a specific example? I say this because Ms. Rose continues to perpetuate an image as a publishing wag, yet continuously refrains from stating her larger points, stopping at “You’ll notice I haven’t linked to any of the whining.” Either she’s afraid of offending or interested in getting out of her “arguments” when backed into a corner, presumably so that she can tell you in person, “Oh, I wasn’t really talking about you!”

If Ms. Rose has a beef with me or another blog, that’s fine. I’m not going to take offense. What I do take offense to is the idea of anyone presenting herself as an expert and then using their blog as some sort of reserved pulpit instead of contributing to the active discourse.

There have been many times where I’ve vehemently disagreed with many of the fine folks on the left, both publicly and privately. But I also respect them as adults — meaning that I know that they are grown up enough to engage in a conversation and not take some of my more exuberant views too much to heart (or vice versa). We’re all passionate about books and publishing, but that doesn’t mean we all think the same or can’t challenge each other.

So my question to Ms. Rose is this: Why not have the courage to say what you genuinely think so that some of us out here can actually understand your points? Or is that too much to expect from someone long in the habit of applying the hypocritical “etiquette” of Emily Post to the blogosphere?