• Details on the Save Segundo Plan will be put up here very soon. With the exception of Saturday’s much-needed musical fiesta, I’ve spent the weekend working. My research suggests that the way out is possible, although it will certainly not be easy. More TK.
• Adam Thirlwell’s The Delighted States is a very odd book: an idiosyncratic volume of literary criticism that you’d think the American litblogosphere would get behind simply because it speaks of literature in a giddy, informed, and near intoxicated manner. But aside from a few grafs at Bluestalking Reader, Maitresse, and Nancy Rommelmann, I’ve seen very little on Thirlwell aside from a few links. I’m hoping to offer something lengthy and intelligible when I can. But the sense I’m getting so far is that Thirlwell is one of us: brash and impetuous, taken with silly generalizations, but also insightful. It was absolutely predictable when Michael Dirda went off on Thirlwell with the same needless energies that he expended on litbloggers. But what I didn’t anticipate was the near silence from the litblogosphere. Care to fess up why, folks?
• To offer ripe bananas to the monkeys of our world, Dave Itzkoff’s inability to entirely understand Moorcock isn’t nearly as bad as one might think. And it was far from the dumbest article that appeared in yesterday’s Times. That honor goes to three articles. I’ll only mention two. The author of the third article has been mentioned here too many times and I have no wish to comment upon his continued inadequacies. He is beyond hope and best left unmentioned. There is the vague possibility that the other two might learn to use their noggins. But, of course, that last sentence was typed by an oft foolhardy optimist.
• Stupefaciant Article the First: Margo Rabb’s remarkably snobbish pity party. Considering the current economy, Rabb should be grateful to have her novel published, but she feels the need to bitch and moan about how her po’ li’l nwovel was categorized as YA. Please pass the Kleenex. Of course, Rabb doesn’t seem to understand that agents and publishers are in the business of selling books, not stroking authors’s egos (well, mostly). And if the publishers feel that packaging Rabb’s novel as a YA book will sell more units, well then, what’s the harm? Oh yeah. It’s Rabb’s suggestion that walking into another section of a bookstore — whether it be science fiction, mystery, YA, chick lit, romance, or anything else — is the literary equivalent of talking with those brown-skinned people in the barrio, all of whom will presumably mug her. Apparently, YA is the new chick lit, which also explains why Curtis Sittenfeld — wisely avoiding the genre trash-talking that Rabb and the NYTBR were clearly pining for — was also dragged into the article. Unfortunately, many otherwise smart authors utter some rather foolish conclusions about the incurious nature of adults. But here’s the good news: maybe these authors might not slag off genre as they once did. Then again, never underestimate literary hubris.
• Stupefacient Article the Second: I think it’s safe to say that when a writer writes an article beginning with the sentence, “I am stumped by how to excerpt the language on message boards and blogs,” the writer — in this case, Virginia Heffernan — can be sufficiently labeled an incurious and joyless badaud. Countless journalists before Ms. Heffernan have found ways to transpose flagrant misspellings into articles, including those who work at the Times, and these gaffes often result in verbal innovation. Consider, for example, a linguistic trend originating in Boston around 1838-9, in which various acronyms of deliberately misspelled words (“K.G.” for “Know Go,” “K.Y.” for “Know Yuse”) led to the emergence of “OK” for “all correct.” It seems to me that it would behoove the journalist not to correct the language so that some of what is being typed at a frenetic pace might be preserved for future linguists, in case any of these marvelous manglings mutate into new coinages. After all, the Wayback Machine only goes so far. Let the humorless grammarians who bang out these cranky castigations for the Times resort to sic impulses if they must. But there’s a significant difference between the President of the United States mispronouncing “nuclear” and some kid banging out an impulsive IM or misspelled comment on the fly. The former is merely embarrassing. The latter may be innovating and not know it.

• The time has come to pity the rich. $10 million doesn’t go nearly as far as it once did in New York. And the situation appears so dire that the rich can afford nothing more than a futon and IKEA accessories for living room furniture. Perhaps the children can be entrusted to lodge the appropriate protests against these oppressive conditions. (Second link via Books, Inq.)
• The Supreme Court’s decision on Thursday didn’t particularly surprise me. The Second Amendment will always be valued and upheld more vigorously than the Fourth Amendment. Nevertheless, one must single out Obama’s eggshell-walking remark — that the ruling “will provide much-needed guidance to local jurisdictions across the country” — and compare it against the moral outrage of his peers. It was Feingold and Dodd who led the filibuster against the FISA bill, ensuring that it would not be considered until after the July recess. Not Obama. A few days ago, Jon Stewart began mocking some of Obama’s recent duplicities, assuring his audience that it was okay to laugh. I suspect the diffidence had less to do with Stewart betraying his liberal audience, and more to do with the dawning realization that Obama prefers opportunistic audacity to illusory hope.
• The Rake has gone ga-ga over George Saunders’s latest piece. Me? I wondered if Saunders was cribbing a bit from Andi Watson’s Love Fights.
• Are the Pet Shop Boys closet literary geeks?
• Rather amazingly, the Library of Congress is now attempting to restore and reassemble Jefferson’s library. More here. (via Bibiliophile Bullpen)
• Starship Sofa has interviewed Michael Moorcock — part of the interview takes place close to the Eiffel Tower: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three. Why they needed two guys to grill Moorcock is beyond me, but there’s some interesting discussion. (via Enter the Octopus)
• Ken Doctor examines how the recent Yahoo-Google ad partnership could provide a few problems for newspapers. You see, 40% of US dailies signed up for Yahoo’s forthcoming AMP platform. But with major execs bolting from Yahoo, Doctor believes that this could hinder AMP development. It’s an interesting speculation, one that I’m not entirely willing to buy into, but Doctor does raise some good questions.
• Thank goodness that newspaper have kept all the chicks and just about anyone who isn’t Caucasian out of their sports sections. Some other interesting survey findings: A sports columnist is twenty times more likely to be the newspaper staffer with the smallest penis and fifty times more likely to answer a spam advertisement for a penis pump.
• Popmatters interviews Robert Silverberg.
• And although it’s been linked from a number of places, don’t miss Jenny Diski’s essay on South Africa.

• In college, I had a friend named Kurt. A lot of people know someone like Kurt in college. In fact, an old college buddy named Kurt is always a good excuse to avoid talking about a book. So let’s talk about Kurt. Because I love Kurt more than this book. And my therapist insists that talking about Kurt instead of a book is fair game. Particularly because it prevents me from another night with a pint of bourbon and youthful memories that cause bitter tears. (via a guy named Mark, who now inhabits the first paragraph of the first draft of any essay I turn in)
• I understand from the StorySouth people that there is now a Battle Royale-style showdown for the Top Ten Stories of 2007. The writers left on the island will begin shooting each other, and all this will be arranged by Jason Sanford. The winner’s blood-soaked visage will emerge from the melee, only to fight Takeshi Kitano.
• Plagiarist.com’s Top 50 Most Viewed Poems. A veritable resource for academics hoping to unleash mad thrashings upon MFAs who lack the apposite assiduity. (via Messr. Junker)
• The Tomorrow Museum: a fantastic blog that I’m now addicted to.
• I greatly enjoyed Rachel Shukert’s Have You No Shame?. In fact, she’s coming up on Segundo very soon. But in the meantime, check out coverage at The Publishing Spot.
• Hillel Italie interviewed by Smart Bitches. It’s a dangerous thing these days when a blogger converses with an AP reporter, particularly when a lolcat photo is involved.
• Does the world really need another Michael Moore book? Probably not, but it will sell anyway.
• I would like to see Glenn Beck’s purported bravado tested in a dive bar. If he learned so much from “books for boys,” then let us see if he rises to the challenge when he gets into a brawl with three roughnecks and gets the shit beaten out of him. More at Guys Lit Wire.
• All that production value, such a cheap climax. Why not two Eves? (via C-Monster)
• Ideas on a DIY literary scene, and it apparently involves sitting around in living rooms. Having some personal experience in the matter, as artistic innovation goes, this actually gets more accomplished than you might expect.
• Michael Dirda has a problem with Adam Thirlwell, I’d say. And like Phillip Hensher, whom I exchanged words with, I don’t think Dirda is giving Thirlwell an entirely fair shake. I hope to have more to say on this at length. (via Bluestalking Reader)
• So the NEA has awarded $2.8 million for this Big Read nonsense. And there are few books here that you won’t find on a high school curriculum. Getting more people to read The Call of the Wild or To Kill a Mockingbird is a noble endeavor. But how exactly does this prescriptive approach to reading get people excited about books? How exactly does this help to support contemporary writers or those who are attempting to encourage others? How does the Big Read program promote the reader’s sense of discovery? Are there really any tangible results? Because the NEA isn’t exactly fessing up here. Interesting in light of the hysteria generated by the Reading at Risk report. And why in the hell has Ford devoted a hybrid vehicle to this program? We are informed that the car’s “colorful design” will “inspire new readers.” Yeah, the same way that I might become a landscape painter while taking a crap. The Big Read program is now dodgy in the extreme. But then when you have a phony like David Kipen at the helm, is this really all that much of a surprise?

• Bryan Appleyard uses the occasion of Tim Russert’s passing to note the distinctions between American and British journalism. While it’s certainly true that many American television personalities are polite, the class that Appleyard describes frequently borders on sycophantism. If we can’t have someone like Dick Cavett return to the airwaves, I’d frankly rather see Jeremy Paxman in Charlie Rose’s slot. At least we have Bill Moyers. For now. But where are the Russerts in training on American television? Keith Olbermann channels Murrow. Jon Stewart plays to the crowd. Where are those who are interested in simply asking the best questions?
• Laura Miller has returned to the NYTBR after a mysterious two year absence. (She also had a piece appear in May.) The time has come to conjure conspiracies. Did Miller and Tanenhaus clash? And has Miller’s reappearance occurred because Dwight Garner is essentially running the ship now? Your theories and crazed conjectures are welcome in the comments.
• Seth Greenland contemplates the current state of author promotion. Also at the L.A. Times: discussion of Denis Johnson’s Playboy serial.
• Enter the Octopus: just discovered it and it’s a crazed depository worth your time.
• There will be no jokes within this roundup. It is not that matters have turned particularly serious, or that I have turned permanently or temporarily humorless. There will indeed be jocularity in the future. But I have a feeling that part of my current predicament, roundup-wise, has to do with a little experiment I’m conducting. I have been gradually watching the Woody Allen films that I have not seen, attempting to become a completist. This is not because I am a hard-core fan. I am simply attempting to determine where Woody Allen stopped being interesting as a filmmaker, or whether I have been judging his films based on the groupthink assumption that his latter films all suck. Certainly I’ve avoided about ten of the films that he’s made in the past two decades. I was burned badly by Curse of the Jade Scorpion when I paid to see it in the theater. And I stopped seeing his movies on opening weekend. I’ve seen pretty much everything up through Crimes and Misdemeanors and, after this, there are cavities. Which I’ve been trying to fill in. So far, I have seen portions of Alice and Another Woman, films I had not seen before. They are okay. But I cannot find myself particularly inspired to finish watching either of these films. Neither of them contain that visceral spark that is there, more or less, through Crimes and Misdemeanors, resurfacing for the brilliant Husbands and Wives, the cheery Everybody Says I Love You, and the underrated Deconstructing Harry. But back to Alice and Another Woman: While there is a certain technical polish to both films (I particularly like Alice‘s glossy photography and bourgeoisie production details), there is simply nothing in these films that particularly moves me. The magical premise of Alice is cute but it feels desperate. And uncomfortably close to Curse of the Jade Scorpion. Another Woman is another attempt at Interiors, which is brilliant, but it relies very heavily (so far, at least) on Gena Rowlands’s acting at the expense of entirely plausible psychology. Perhaps it is Mia Farrow that bugs me. She reminds me of one of my mother’s old friends, who was selfish, unkind, and very unconcerned with other people. Probably why my mother and she got along. I feel this way about the Brenda Vaccaro character from Supergirl, who also reminds me of one of my mother’s friends. These friends even resemble Mia Farrow and Brenda Vaccaro. Is it possible then that I am letting these close physical resemblances and characterizations get in the way of appreciating these films? And why does it take a particular period in Woody Allen’s career to get me thinking about this? Because these films are unfunny, do they have a way of making other people unfunny? Are these films on some modest level diminishing my instincts? Or is it simply just a little late? Well, what the hell, I’ll hit “Publish” for this post very soon. You may not realize this but there is a brief moment in which I contemplate hitting “Publish” for a blog post, only to arrive at some other passing fancy, which creates additional information, which creates additional comments, etcetera.
• Incidentally, the Woody Allen and “Publish” sections of the last bullet item avoid an altogether different question of empathy that I won’t share before the public.

• Best headline of the week: Incest dungeon teen wants to see ocean. Sunday afternoon picnics and long walks in the park are swell too.
• Amardeep Singh offers a report of Salman Rushdie at the New York Google audiences. Mr. Rushdie, who has refused interview requests for The Bat Segundo Show for his last two novels (no fault of the publicists here, I should note, but it’s safe to say that Mr. Rushdie will not be asked a third time; there are easily ten million more things that I would rather do than massage an author’s fragile ego), nevertheless believes in the Internet, which he used for his research. But he apparently doesn’t believe in the Internet enough to sign on for the Google Books project, which “could destroy the publishing industry.” Of course, he’s happy to sign on for Google Books if the authors are fairly compensated for their work. So the upshot is this: if the Internet (or anything for that matter) serves Mr. Rushdie’s purpose, well then it’s all fine and dandy for Mr. Rushdie! For in Mr. Rushdie’s head, it’s all about Mr. Rushdie all the time! (And has Rushdie ever spared a thought for Hitoshi Igarashi, who was knifed to death for translating The Satanic Verses? Or the British taxpayers who paid his £10 million tax bill to provide security for him?) Is there a single brain cell in Mr. Rushdie’s noggin devoted to another person in the universe? Is his talent worth enduring his solipsism? I think not. There are cutthroat lawyers I know with more empathy.
• And speaking of the positive relationship between online access and book sales, what do we have here? (via Booksquare)
• Edward Albee at 80: still full of piss and vinegar. (via Books, Inq.)
• What the hell is going on at the Observer? It appears the paper has been filling up its pages with Livejournal entries written by cynical singles. What next? The print equivalent of live-blogging the season finale for some major television show? I’ve complained long and loud about the vapid articles within the New York Times Sunday Styles section, but the Observer now makes the Gray Lady look like a depository for Kenneth Tynan-style sophistication.
• Jeff observes that the Atlantic is also going downhill.
• Borges and Chesterton! A link to many other links, which will get you very pleasantly lost indeed.
• Here’s a 6,500 word essay that can best be summarized as follows: Goddam you, Giller Awards! (via Quill & Quire)
• Jamelah Earle offers an empirical reading survey, complete with hand-drawn graphs.
• Catherine Breillat + Jules-Amedee Barbey d’Aurevilly + Asia Argento. This could either be a really brilliant or a really terrible combination. And apparently, it was a troubled production.
• As Orthofer points out, the IMPAC winner will be announced sometime today.
• Benjamin Lytal on a BS Johnson reissue.
• Finally, last but not least, Maud Newton’s award-winning Narrative essay is now up, and it’s a brave and unflinching essay that may be one of the best short pieces I’ve read this year.

• While real gamers blow shit up in a first-person shooter that taps serious system resources or carjack hapless NPCs in Grand Theft Auto 4, Steven Spielberg has decided to offer the world a bunch of cutesy goddam animals for a video game he has “created,” which also appears to be something of a Jenga ripoff. If you ask me, this ridiculous game looks as fun as watching a Care Bears DVD through the shaky fog of a Saturday morning hangover. I’d beseech a dentist to perform a root canal on me rather than play a cowardly and ridiculous video game called Boom Blox.
• I have not yet seen the Lost season finale because I cannot stream the damn episode through the ABC website through a wi-fi connection. Now this is something that I can do with NBC’s The Office website, which doesn’t have a ridiculous interface that loads within your browser window. And I can’t download a torrent until I have DSL. The moral of the story? Learn to design a website right. Also, don’t move while a “major television event” has aired and everybody and his mother wants to ask you what you thought about it.
• Wendy Cope would like to take your poet laureate plaudit and stick it where the sun don’t shine. Never mind that this would make Cope the first female poet laureate in the UK. She don’t want it! Here is a list of honors that Wendy Cope does desire: professional dominatrix, leader of a world empire, short-order cook, and five-star general. But don’t make her a poet laureate! Just don’t! Cope will kick your ass if you even dare let loose the “luh” from your lips!
• Here’s a helpful hint to publishing executives: if you say you’re “at the tipping point,” a term that very few outside of burnouts in the marketing department take seriously, then chances are that you don’t know what you’re talking about. What is a tipping point these days but a confession that you don’t really have a business plan and you never really had one to begin with?
• So McSweeney’s is now applying its twee bullshit to poetry. I’m with Shane. I don’t give a damn either. But this stunt just makes them look silly.
• Jeff VanderMeer has uncovered a science fiction tribute to the infamous game that comes with Windows. Or he has something of possible substance to say.
• Now wait a minute. It’s Bill Clinton who’s calling other people “sleazy,” “dishonest,” “slimy” and a “scumbag?”
• Paul DiFilippo on J.G. Ballard.
• Another reason to love Peter Greenaway: the man wants to project genitalia onto “The Last Supper” in an effort to link “8,000 years of art and 112 years of cinema.” Greenaway also has plans to have cows take a dump upon the Mona Lisa in an effort to unite “8,000 years of art and two years of agriculture.”
• Ian McEwan unveiled an excerpt of his unfinished novel at the Hay literary festival, only to discover that he had unintentionally taken a bit from Douglas Adams.
• Who the hell do you think you are, Julie Buff? Waiting around for an editor? Yeah, it sucks. But you keep writing material and you keep sending things in. Do you know how many emails I’ve sent in the last month to editors that have gone unanswered? Probably around twenty. Do you think I let this stop me? So I feel your pain. But if you want to be a writer, you sit on your ass and write. You produce and you keep sending things out. If you don’t want to wait six months, then you send a note to the editor that you’re submitting the piece elsewhere. And you keep on doing this until you get published on a regular basis, or on some level that you feel is acceptable. And you don’t let anybody stop you. (via Slushpile)
• And, sweet Jesus, Sissy Spacek recorded a song protesting John and Yoko’s Two Virgins cover. Really, celebrities, if you’re going to record any protest songs along these lines, direct your energies to vapid musicians like Sting and Michael Bolton. These are the people you should sing about. These are the people who should be banned from every known recording studio in the world. (via Hey Dullblog)

• What follows is a generic roundup. Elaborate roundups will follow once I have a reliable Internet connection. In the meantime, sit back and enjoy the banal descriptions!
• HILLARY: PLEASE DROP OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH! NOBODY LIKES SORE LOSERS!
• Nigel Beale podcasts Frank Wilson.
• Hot tamale motherfucker! John Fox at BEA!
• Greg Johnson on Iain M. Banks’s Matter.
• OMG! Virtual bookshelf websitez! Wowzers! Who knews that theyz exizsted?
• Christ, Choire, why are you wasting your time with bimbos? You heard it from me first: Choire Sicha 2008 is Rex Reed 1968.
• Luc Sante’s got a library, motherfucker! (via Sarah)
• [Insert link here.] [Insert smarmy bastard response here.]
• Goddammit, where’s the DSL guy?

• Ah, the folly of youth! College journalist William Sindewald had the funny idea that attending a Chris Dodd rally would reveal a limitless avalanche of hot young women hanging onto the political blowhard’s every words. And why not? Chris Dodd even has a MySpace page! He’s gotta be hip! What Sindewald found instead was a boring speech and fewer girls there than a Rush concert. Here’s a hint to aspiring young lotharios on the political trail: The hippies were the ones who got laid during the 1960s, not the Leo Strauss acolytes. (via Feministe)
• Is this NYT Health article a legitimate piece of a journalism or a movie tie-in?
• Howard Junker reports that Alfred Kazin didn’t suffer fools gladly at Amherst. There’s much more about Kazin’s belligerence towards students in Richard Cook’s forthcoming biography.
• Conversational storytelling for all to strive for: “[H]e can make opening a window seem like the most exciting and naughty thing that has ever happened.” This comes with the news that 47% of Americans have Googled themselves.
• I’m saddened to report that I have no present need for an OhMiBod vibrator, however useful the device may be. If however, you need to rock out while you stretch out, SexyWhispers is giving them away if you tell them why. (via Smart Bitches)
• Can you trust any statute over thirty? While we’re on the subject, that Sherman Antitrust Act is a doddering old bastard and, quite frankly, I’m amazed that he’s still alive, even if his existence involves mostly sucking down Jello while important companies are prevented from near total market monopolization. But don’t worry. With the current government, I’m sure they’ll euthanize Old Man Sherman quite soon!
• Joshua Furst on Mailer: “He knew who he was and he neither allowed the threat of repercussions to silence him nor shirked them when they came. This, I believe, took courage. All of which is exactly why he was such an indispensable voice in American letters and the culture at large. If Mailer often willingly played the buffoon, he did so with the knowledge that this was a sure way for him to slip free of the tyranny of his own fame.”
• Once again, Jonathan Franzen mangles an interesting argumentative position. (via Maud)
• Is shit art? And, yes, this is a literal question. (via C-Monster)
• Sam Sacks on Marilynne Robinson. (via Scott)
• Longass Q&A with Andrew Wylie. (via Sarah)
• A Bookninja interview with Tom McCarthy. And related Tintin vs. Remainder comparison. (former link via Conadlamo)
• RIP Diane Middlebrook.
• Heather Mills is too focused on “charity work” to write a sex book. Insert Benny Hill-like insinuation here.
• Scott Timberg’s article on whether 2007 has been a bad book year has been widely linked and I may respond at length to Timberg’s claims in a future post.
• This NYT article points to the decline in investigative reporting. I should note that several stories I pitched this year as investigative pieces ended up getting turned into op-ed pieces. And I know this has been the case with other journalists. (via OUP Blog)

• Laura Huxley has died.
• Also, I missed this but Anthony Burgess’s widow died a few weeks ago.
• Speaking of Burgess, it appears that some Northwestern artists are having a laugh concerning Warhol’s Vinyl.
• Will Self makes a cameo appearance in today’s Los Angeles Times.
• Who knew that Kubrick was once interested in adapting Foucault’s Pendulum?
• Some recommended reading back to Dave Itzkoff: the collected works of John Clute, or, if that’s too dense, Science Fiction for Dummies.
• If you are a writer, you do indeed need other creative outlets. (And if you are a writer, you should probably never write about just one subject.) (via Callie)
• Yet another play-it-safe end-of-the-year books list.
• Are city planners to blame for the decimation of urban architecture? (via Paul Collins)
• Jonathan Rosenbaum on cinematic marketability and quality films denied release. (via James Tata)
• Yuko Kondo has redesigned Pynchon’s covers. (via eNotes Book Blog)
• Is Pullman unsubtle?
• On racing pigeon clubs. (via Jenny D)

• Diana West’s The Death of the Grown-Up, has received a handful of notices: William Grimes mocked it and The New Criterion‘s Stefan Beck was less dismissive, pointing to the Grimes Defense (“If an argument has been exaggerated a little bit for effect, we can throw it out—baby, bathwater, and even the soap scum of lingering doubt.”). Beck appears to be unaware that Grimes’s diluted form of reductio ad absurdum has existed long before Grimes. Indeed, it’s in use by many of today’s critics. And while many bemoan this rhetorical tactic, it is nevertheless a valid form of argumentative response. The problem with Grimes’s review in question isn’t his stance, but the flitting manner in which he declares West “Wrong. Totally wrong.” on the subject of Islam without citing specific textual examples. A good editor would have called Grimes on this and demanded that he strengthen his argument. Grimes really should have been permitted to write a 2,000 word essay instead of having his argumentative column inches diminished. Alas, the days where essays could be expanded to meet their argumentative requirements (as opposed to advertising demands) appear to be long over.
• Heidi McDonald observes that a new Speed Racer comic is forthcoming.
• Yes, I too am worried about David Schwimmer as feature film director, but with Simon Pegg and Dylan Moran on board, maybe — just maybe — there’s a chance.
• Keir Graff has more astonishing numbers about book critics and ethics.
• More demonstrative proof that Katie Couric has all the journalistic prowess of a Vegas cocktail waitress. The CJR‘s Curtis Brainard, however, thinks that such a limp line of questioning is fair game.
• Jonathan Lethem’s “The King of Sentences.”
• This year’s Orange Broadband Prize celebrity dunce jude? Lily Allen. Presumably, Allen will call at least one of the Orange Prize finalists a “cunt” and find a way to blame her slur on Amy Winehouse.
• Bloglines appears to be seriously messed up. I’ve noticed that many blogs have lost scores of subscribers overnight. Between this, the delayed text, and the recurrent appearances of the Bloglines Plumber, I think I’m switching over to Google Reader or something else.
• Alas, I was too swamped in deadlines to offer a few thoughts for this, but January Magazine has released its holiday gift guide.
• Is it possible that the grand horror film company Hammer is using MySpace to make a comeback? (They will be releasing Beyond the Rave, the first Hammer film in 30 years and Ingrid Pitt is in the cast.)
• The Sharp Side on Malcolm Lowry. (via Mark Thwaite)
• Wayne Koestenbaum on Elizabeth Hardwick.
• Joseph Duemer investigates a mystery involving copyright and Bruce Springsteen’s image.
• Normblog responds to Doris Lessing’s Nobel speech, pointing to five ways in which the Internet is beneficial to books. (via Maxine)
• The 100 Great Christmas Bummers. (via Pages Turned)
• Motoko Rich investigates how web work transforms into book sales. (Also related, albeit not particularly penetrating: the rise and fall of blogger book deals.)
• Nicolas Cage and Alex Proyas are teaming up. I thoroughly loathed Proyas’s cinematic bastardization of I, Robot and have hoped since then that the guy who gave us the startling and underrated Dark City isn’t washed up.
• It appears that the Cincinnati Post is dead in three weeks.
• Harold Pinter’s papers are being preserved.
• Also from the Guardian: DJ Taylor argues that authors have the right to say controversial things.

• Because of other deadlines and ancillary technological healing, I won’t be covering the New York Anime Festival today. But I will be there on Saturday and Sunday. In the meantime, Heidi McDonald has assembled a crazed journalistic army. So you can no doubt find coverage over at The Beat. Making sense of the daunting schedule does indeed require a strategy. So I have decided to simply throw myself on the floor with full gusto and see what happens. This always seems to be the best policy under such circumstances. Podcasts and reports are forthcoming.
• It’s that time of the year again when Congress devotes its energies issuing ridiculously draconian Internet policies instead of showing a little backbone in relation to larger matters of war and corruption. CNETs Declan McCullagh reports on a bill known as the SAFE Act — not to be confused with the efforts a few years ago to curtail the PATRIOT Act — that seeks to punish anyone running a Wi-Fi network with a $300,000 fine if they do not report on someone downloading an “obscene” image. And The Nation‘s Larisa Mann reports on a House Resolution that threatens to do away with a school’s federal funding in toto if the school allows even one illegally downloaded song. Democrats in large part supported both of these bills. In fact, for the first bill, the only two people who voted against it were Republicans — including Ron Paul. These two pieces of legislation suggest that the Democrats have special interests in mind more than the First Amendment. And if you want to do something about both of these bills, Public Knowledge has an action page for the school bill. Meanwhile, the SAFE Act has now been received by the Senate and is being referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. Contact the Senate Judiciary Committee and let them know that asking a wi-fi network operator to consistently be on the lookout for an image that is “obscene” or “lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value” (the bill as passed by the House specifies U.S.C. Section 1466A as well as child pornography) places an undue hardship on coffee shop owners trying to attract customers and runs contrary to the First Amendment.
• Three Percent lists the Best Translations of 2007.
• On a related note, Scott observes that the book he voted for — Enrique Vila-Mata’s Montano’s Malady — didn’t make the longlist. I likewise think this is disheartening. And as NBCC Board Member, I hope to draw greater attention to translated titles. It’s bad enough that newspapers frequently ignore non-English titles for review, but the time has come to draw greater attention to the fact that not all books are written in English and that there are translators regularly doing hard and often thankless work, sometimes denied even a mention in book reviews! (For instance, in all the celebration of Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives, how many of you are aware that Natasha Wimmer translated the book? Wimmer’s name isn’t even on the cover. Thankfully, Scott interviewed Wimmer a few months ago.) For more insights into translation, see the Segundo interviews with translators Betsy Wing and Jordan Stump. And I hope to feature more translators in future Segundo shows.
• Is Joshua Henkin a manly writer or not?
• Why isn’t there more hypertext fiction? (via Maud)
• Sign of the times? The Sacramento Bee has outsourced some of its advertising production work to India.
• $3 million for Karl Rove’s memoirs? (via Quill and Quire)

• A brief goose-step from deadline dancing for some afternoon discoveries.
• Due to considerable labor I needed to apply elsewhere, I had to bow out of the Litblog Co-Op. But I’m pleased to observe that they’re back in action this quarter, having selected Matthew Eck’s The Farther Shore as their Read This! pick.
• Scott Esposito has unleashed a brand new issue of The Quarterly Conversation.
• The magnificent Scarlett Thomas can be found at the Independent, chronicling how technology affects her writing. (via Bookslut)
• Sarah examines mysteries outside of America and Britain.
• Some great news for Vollmann fans. Vollmann and Madison Smartt Bell have both been awarded the Strauss Living Awards. They will both receive $50,000 a year over the next five years to devote themselves to writing. Hopefully, in Vollmann’s case, this will help him finish up the remaining three dreams left in his Seven Dreams cycle.

• It’s good to see Katie Haegele not only investigating how sites like LibraryThing have value in cataloging obscure printed zines, but discovering how academic librarians are using LT to keep track of small collections. I’ve been resistant to LT because of the 200 book cap. But perhaps someone might be interested in establishing a universal database tracking all known titles that have ever been put out. John Labovitz is certainly doing this for e-zines. But not every print zine went online. So why not the print catalog equivalent?
• A single page of a love story written by Napoleon Bonaparte has been sold for $35,400. Assuming that there are about 400 words on this page, Napoleon now writes at a rate of $88.5/word. I suspect Ted Kennedy’s on the phone with his agent right now wondering why he couldn’t get a better word rate for his memoirs.
• Why don’t the Brits love science fiction?
• Now here’s a use of public tax money that I have no problem with. Apparently, US and Russian astronauts have had sex in space for, ahem, research purposes. “The issue of sex in space is a serious one,” says Pierre Kohler. I quite agree. Until some enterprising inventor figures out a way to control discharges in zero-G, only a creatively deranged mind would look upon the slapstick comedy possibilities. Why then do I have an idea for a movie called There’s Something About Density?
• Someone recently suggested to me in a conversation that nobody cares about Guy de Maupassant anymore, but it appears, thankfully, that some people do indeed care.
• It looks like Putin now wants to censor Russian culture. Didn’t he learn anything from glasnost? Should I have bothered to ask that last question?
• Did editors corrupt Kerouac and Carver?
• A slim but welcome profile on Donald E. Westlake. (via Booksurfer)
• Pricing problems for newsprint production.
• If Erin O’Brien is the Pynchon of hack feature writing, does anyone have a shot at being the Nabokov of hack feature writing?
• The obligatory book tours are dead article. (via Book Glutton)

[UPDATE: Snopes says there were no sex experiments by NASA.]

• A University of Alberta researcher has discovered that men are more likely to enjoy a story if they know it’s fictional, whereas women are more likely to enjoy a story if they know it’s based on the truth. (via The Valve)
• Tao Lin on the levels of greatness a fiction writer can achieve in.
• Dubious music criticism from NPR.
• Some background on Mae West’s SEX.
• George R.R. Martin interviewed.
• OS: “I don’t want to get started on a rant over here, but why can’t male celebrities have the same freedom in describing their own same-sex dream romps?”
• Latest Maslin pearl of wisdom: “‘Diamonds, Gold and War’ is the work of an author who knows African history intimately. If this ambitious volume seems to follow too closely on the heels of ‘The Fate of Africa’ (2005), Mr. Meredith can draw on decades’ worth of earlier research and experience to give it authority.” Given that Meredith has indeed spent decades of his life to studying African history, it would seem patently obvious that he “knows African history intimately.” And who gives a damn over how fast Meredeith is pumping out his books? How is that a crime? And does Maslin even understand that The Fate of Africa deals with a different time period than Diamonds, Gold and War?
• Costs have risen big time in New York.
• The Progressive interviews Jane Smiley.
• Updike on Ha Jin.
• No apologies necessary. Finish the book!
• Support staff axed at the New York Times.
• 60% of America believes political coverage is politically biased. The other 40% have dates with Kool-Aid Man.
• No Swedish jaunts for Lessing.

• Regrettably, my Hound has not yet come to life. Nor has my mouth become lathered with her sap. But I’m on deadline right now, with an avidity that could come only from the Evil One. So cut me some slack.
• Awards season is far from over. Indeed, if a literary award did not exist, it would be necessary for Voltaire to create one. Never mind that he’s been dead for centuries. In any event, the NBCC blog has long, long, long lists for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. These lists represent books that received multiple votes from NBCC members and finalists. The most anachronistic choice: Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, which isn’t bad for a novel finished in 1869 that started off as a self-published title.
• Speaking of “self-published” authors, Sarah uncovers a remarkably austere attitude taken up by Lee “Anything Self-Published Must Be Fanfic” Goldberg and the Mystery Writers of America concerning Edgar Award submissions. Charles Ardai, one of the parties restricted by these rules, has offered several thoughtful comments. Imagine Tolstoy rebuffed because of these rules. But, alas, the trains must run on time.
• Motoko Rich reports that Senator Kennedy’s memoirs have been sold for $8 million to Twelve. Kennedy had hoped for $12 million. After all, $12MM at Twelve does have a golden circle quality about it. But an accountant used the wrong multiplier and, well, $8MM, it was. But Kennedy should be grateful that it wasn’t a mere $4MM.
• Jeff VanderMeer talks with Steve Erickson.
• The Los Angeles Times‘s Geoff Boucher looks into the Marvel online archive and points out that “it’s hard to assume that particular reading position with a desktop computer, just like it’s hard to roll up a laptop computer and jam it in your back pocket when you ride your bike.” Maybe this might be a rare scenario in which the Kindle is helpful. Alas, the likelihood of Amazon nixing the DRM is as slim as John Bonham returning from the grave for a Led Zeppelin reunion.
• CNET has an update on the Universal Digital Library. “You’re not going to find over 900,000 works in Chinese on Google,” says Michael Shamos, the UDL director of intellectual property. And he’s right. But you’re not going to find 900,000 works in Esperanto at the UDL either. So which online library should we be spilling our guts to a therapist over?
• An early review of the next Benjamin Black novel with this interesting observation: “Banville’s novels under his own name have mainly taken the form of monologues or confessions by the grieving or the guilty; Black’s characters are blocked from confessing, and the tension it brings to the form is palpable.”
• CAAF dredges up Henry James’s review of Louisa May Alcott’s first novel, Moods.
• Just overheard at my neighborhood cafe: “Boy, it feels naked here without art! I’ll hang my clothes on the wall if you don’t put up new paintings. I don’t care how cold it is outside!”
• Christ, True Grit was out of print? Thank goodness that’s been rectified. (via Maud)
• In the UK, it appears that the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4 have banded together for a joint on-demand service. Like Persona Non Data, I likewise find this surprising and intriguing. How long before bloodshed is carried out?
• Michael Ondaatje has received his fifth Governor General’s Award. The Canada Council for the Arts has responded by saying, “Okay, Mike, you’ve had your time. You’re the John Larroquette of the Canadian literary scene. If you think you’re getting a sixth award, then we’ll send Atwood down to kick your ass!”
• The Post-Intelligencer talks with Judith Thurman.
• This Recording recontextualizes American Psycho.
• Dolly Parton and Amy Sedaris! Does it get any better? (via Quiddity)