• A side question for library geeks: When it comes to research, are you more of a SIBL or a Central BPL advocate? I have my own thoughts on the pros and cons of each library, and I do indeed like each one in different ways. (Sadly, SIBL has replaced Lexis with Factiva. But there are still some worthwhile resources here.) The one thing that has truly astonished me since moving to New York is the remarkable protectiveness that university libraries have towards their collections. You can’t even walk into these places and just look at — not borrow — the books. Back in San Francisco, I could walk right into the J. Paul Leonard library and park my buttocks at a LEXIS Academic Universe carrel. I could also talk my way into the libraries at Cal, since they weren’t that hard-core about checking ID — or, at least, not with me. Such is not the case here in New York, which seems to fear the vox populi getting their grubby little fingers on an obscure tome. And that’s just inside the library. (Is seeking knowledge considered a terrorist act?) I suppose I can understand this sentiment in relation to private university libraries. But this student ID policy is also enacted at the CUNY libraries. And given that public tax money helps to sustain these libraries, I find it immensely hypocritical for a public university library to deny resources to the public. Even crazier, there’s a racket called the Metropolitan New York Library Council, in which you have to belong to an organization just to get access to one specific book that isn’t available elsewhere, and that you have to request special permission only for these books. I don’t think this is what the people who built these libraries had in mind. On the private university library front, sure, you can become a Friend of the Bobst Library, but it will cost you a minimum of $175/year if you want to access the NYU library more than three times a year. (And if you want year-round Lexis access, the best deal I’ve uncovered is the Queens College library, where a $50 minimum donation will get you in and get you borrowing privileges.) It seems that New York is very much predicated on the idea that knowledge belongs only to those who can pay for it. But I find this to be a repellent and decidedly antidemocratic notion.
• The identity of the man behind the New York Ghost was hardly that much of a secret, but it is good to see the Other Ed get some Gray Lady press.
• Another year, another dispute over Gene Wolfe. While I can understand Waggish’s frustrations about the Book of the New Sun series, I side with Richard in this case. The books can be enjoyed even if you don’t figure out all of the puzzles and even if Wolfe ain’t exactly forthcoming about such details as Severian’s sister. Waggish appears to be upset because Wolfe’s plots aren’t spoon-fed to him, thus presenting the suggestion in Waggish’s mind that the half-revealed details don’t add up to something. Well, that is his judgment, not Wolfe’s. He seems upset that Wolfe would rather write novels playing by his own rules. Which is a bit like a snotty undergraduate complaining that Ulysses is just too damn hard and that therefore it is James Joyce who has failed. When, in fact, the answer involves rereading the book again and again. Or moving onto other books. Or trying again years later when one is (hopefully) a bit smarter.
• National Geographic has recruited John Updike to write about dinosaurs. And I have to say that a very odd admixture.
• Emily Colette Wilkinson offers this consideration of Jeffrey Steingarten, who is indeed an enjoyable food writer.
• Scott Eric Kaufman nails what’s wrong with NYT blurbs. (via Tayari)
• Darby Dixon examines writing crap, which I would agree boils down to getting to the end of what you’ve written and giving yourself permission to write crap, so that you can fix it in revision.
• A bizarre David Mitchell interview. (via Conversational Reading)
• The Dylan press angle in I’m Not There.
• Indie presses in the Independent.

• If you’re anything like me, your dietary habits have gone straight to hell courtesy of Thursday’s gorging, and you’ve taken up casual fasting and desperate walks to restore your metabolism to more modest pre-Thanksgiving states of ingestion. Which isn’t to say that this regimen is entirely successful or that the wintry chill has made any sizable impact upon the tendency to hibernate. But it is, after all, the intentions that count, even when laziness threatens to lambada dance with your appetite, which remains mystified that you had not one, but two giant plates of dinner. Yes, Thanksgiving is indeed the American way. But fortunately, no loved ones were harmed or screamed at on this end.
• Temporal proximities being what they are, this means, of course, that toothless book lists, devoid of tomes that take chances or that make hard dips into genre, are par for the course. No doubt this ledger will be measured against better books in the days to come. But I must wonder what What is the What, published in October 2006, is doing on a list ostensibly celebrating 2007’s hot titles. Could this be a delicate stratagem to woo Eggers once again to the Review‘s page? A bargaining chip or a true sign that Tanenhaus is out of touch?
• End of the year lists aren’t so superficial, are they? Mr. Mitchelmore lists a few reasons why he likes them.
• This is why I slightly fear playing Guitar Hero 3. Bad enough that pounding power chords on an axe causes me to forget that I am not Yngwie. But when a trusty Stratocaster is replaced by fantastic plastic, there are considerably more ignoble maneuvers I will attempt in an effort to have fun.
• If you thought David Hasselhoff’s days were numbered, it appears he might be on board the Knight Rider revival. Personally, I’m hoping that he shouts something along these lines for full effect. (via Smart Bitches)
• I’m on the lookout for podcasts that don’t sound like FM radio (or people trying desperately to get on FM radio; thank you, Adam Curry, for spawning that plague upon this medium of possibilities), but that involve real people expressing their natural enthusiasm. Movies You Should See is a fun little podcast I’ve recently discovered. Not only does their dog bark in the background, but there is a good deal of arguments over the pedantic.
• The beginnings of caffeine!
• I sincerely hope that this isn’t the end of Grumpy Old Bookman.

• I’ve just returned from a research run. And there are more Kindle emails I have to sort through. But in the meantime, here’s a roundup.
• Cam’s Commentary has initiated the first of a three-part blogging roundtable.
• Dive to Mark observes some Bezos hypocrisy. (via Three Percent)
• Henry Kisor observes some of the perils of being a midlister.
• Josh Glenn on poem-based movies.
• Maxine returns again to the Philly Inquirer.
• Some people have interesting Wikipedia requests.
• Chevy Chase is trying again for a comeback.

• Why stop at one pre-rigged roundup? Here’s another one for Monday. I know what you’re thinking. Did he fire two posts or only three? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is WordPress 2.3, the most powerful web app in the world, and would blow a newspaper clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself a question. Do I feel lucky? Well, yes and no. In large part because I’m the punk and you’re not.
• Except in this case, I’ve timed this second roundup to go up at sunrise in New York. Which makes you wonder when these roundups were written, or whether the first roundup is appreciably better than the second. One of many strange mysteries here at Reluctant.
• Atwood revisits Brave New World (via Maud)
• No, not the actress or the books editor. Is Elizabeth Taylor one of the most distinguished practitioners of the art of the short story from 1972? In other words, could this be a John P. Marquand figure that has been needlessly forgotten here?
• “And always wet your hands before you handle a trout!”
• Lindsey Gardner has been seeing her children’s books censored by publishers in some pretty odd ways. Sharp objects were removed in one book and another book banned youngsters from walking alone. If this keeps up, pretty soon any illustrated depiction of a human will be airbrushed out. Because really, you never know if their thoughts could be misinterpreted by a young reader! A little subconscious ambiguity here and a misperceived line there and eventually you’ll have yourself a corrupted young mind! Then again, to paraphrase Jack Burton, son of a bitch must pay!
• From the lively link collector Michael Orthofer, who I presume isn’t prerigging his roundups, comes this profile of New York Review of Books curator Edwin Frank — another of the Literary Eds You Can Trust in New York. If Mr. Park is “The Other Ed,” then I suppose Mr. Frank will be referred to as either “The Third Ed” or “The Curating Ed” or possibly “The Win, Place or Show Ed.”
• I’m with Gwenda on this. Why should fairy tales be confined to a specific century? Sounds to be like a temporal form of Jim Crow or apartheid, if you ask me.

• Well, hello there, readers! I’m posting this on Monday, except I’m not really writing this on Monday. I am actually cobbling a few things together on Sunday just to throw you off! You see, while I normally maintain the practice of posting things in real time, Monday is occupied. I’ll spare you the details, but it involves more marsupial-style assaults on the keyboard and all manner of crazed pedantic info. So I’m going to try this temporally displaced post in lieu of real-time content and see if there’s any controversy. It is, after all, somehow dishonest. And you’ll even be reading this when the sun’s up, when, in fact, it’s “currently” dark outside. All this is a way of demonstrating just how incorrigible litbloggers are.
• Now what in the sam hill is going on here? It seems to involve haircuts, a trip to Jamaica, the recent acquisition of a digital camera, and the sticking out of tongues. I approve of at least two elements of this divine equation. Indeed, all this is a helpful reminder that I really need to get in more trouble. What I do know is that my current digital camera is on the fritz. So I can’t shock you with frightening photos of what I tend to look like after I’ve had a recent haircut (self-inflicted, I must confess; this is what happens when you bald). But I plan to frighten in other ways. And none of it involves Jonathan Franzen.
• I haven’t yet confessed how vital the hero is to Brooklyn food culture. Let me assure you that it is vital, although this means nothing to you because you are reading this many hours from the composition of this post. Which is to say that, yes, you should be worried about temporal blogging experiments.
• I regret to inform Ms. Klein (and Mr. Steinberg) that the shock is not wearing off. The problem is that “shock doctrine” is designed more as a buzz word rather than a bona-fide doctrine. I have no more use for buzz words than I do buzz cuts that do not come from my hand. It is just possible that Naomi Klein is a suitable barber, but I doubt it.
• Pete Anderson is trying out Oxford American and blogging about it. We really need more of these magazine consumer reports. So I put forth the question to readers: what are your magazine subscriptions and are you really getting your money’s worth?
• Chip McGrath is busy devoting at least two grafs to Martin’s appearance. I wonder sometimes if McGrath is wasting his times these days or if I’ve seriously overestimated him. This is a damn superficial interview. (And why the hell do you call this guy “Chip?” You may as well call him Sparky while you’re at it.)
• Kurt Vonnegut is the most popular novelist of 2007 and Slaughterhouse-Five has sold 280,000 copies since 2006.
• The Kansas City Star has named its top 100 books of the year. But since How Starbucks Saved My Life and the vastly overrated Amy Bloom novel Away is on it, well, you know what you’re in for.
• I would like to tell you that a novel by an author is better than you might be thinking, but these opinions shall have to be restrained.
• I also wish to confess of the noisy pipes here in Brooklyn. Good goddam, the sounds wake me up! How were such vociferous pipes constructed? Why weren’t they replaced? And why do we put up with this noise? Guess I’m now a New Yorker of sorts.
• I have, incidentally, grown another beard. Rex Reed calls it “the best beard Ed Champion tried to grow since the last one.” Roger Ebert says, “Thousands of follicles come together and we are left wondering why.” Kenneth Turan writes, “Why does he grow these beards in the first place? It is this rhetorical question that best represents the Ed Champion problem in a nutshell.” Okay, the reviews are mixed. But, for now, I’m keeping it.

• I’ve learned from a few people that there are falsehoods now circulating about things that I purportedly did at the National Book Awards. Look, folks, if you think I did something, email me and I’ll be happy to clarify and tell you the truth. (For example, since I learned that Joan Didion did not want to be interviewed, I left her alone. And I was sure to ask everyone I taped if they had a few minutes before talking with them.) Frankly, I was too busy working my ass off to do much of anything else besides journalism.
• Lee Goldberg observes that the AMPTP has been smearing the WGA with attack ads in newspapers, and notes WGA President Patric Verrone’s response.
• There’s a new Bookforum up, with lots of good stuff, including John Banville on the pulp age, pointing out that the worlds portrayed in The Big Book of Pulps — alas, its hefty thud has not yet landed in my mailbox — “where men were men and women loved them for it, where crooks were crooks and easily identified by the scars on their faces and the gats in their mitts, where policemen were dull but honest and never used four-letter words, where a good man was feared by the lawless and respected by the law-abiding.”
• I realize that I’m slacking on the podcasts, but there’s work to be done and deadlines to meet, and I’m dancing as fast as I can. For those of you awaiting the Andrea Barrett interview, Curled Up has also talked with Barrett. (via Chasing Ray)
• James Marcus has his National Book Awards report up, and he is right to observe that Didion’s voice “was like hearing somebody play a piano with only two keys–C and C-sharp.” And here’s Levi’s report. Jason has begun posting several videos, where he’s asked many writers what their first job was. He even got Hitch on tape, who I understand told Jason that he hadn’t been asked that question in a very long time.
• I’ve been asking the same question: Where is the new Gawker blog involving Annalee Newitz?
• Granta 20 author Adam Thirlwell has, at long last, followed up Politics with a new volume, Miss Herbert. But another Granta 20 Phillip Hensher doesn’t care for it, calling it “a rambling and highly egocentric work of criticism, about a bunch of unconnected writers whom Thirlwell happens to have read, and with whom he wants to associate himself.” Actually, he’s made me more curious about the book. Is it possible that Thirlwell has styled a Nicholson Baker’s U and I for this decade? We’ll see.
• USA Today now has a voluntary buyout offer for 45 staffers. Presumably, this means later firings. I hope that Bob Minzesheimer, the amicable staffer who sat with us at the bloggers’ table on Wednesday, isn’t one of the casualties when the blade comes down.
• There are currently some excited rumblings for Robert Williams, a Manchester bookseller who recently enticed Faber for a partially completed first novel for teenagers.
• Poetry at the movies. (via Bookslut)
• No kvetching from you, Wheeler. This blog’s reading level is elementary school, likely due to the rudimentary crudity of recent live-blogging reports. Or perhaps the truth has finally come out that I’m actually a nine years old prodigy who has been grounded to his bedroom for the past four years and is regularly beaten on the schoolyard for his recurrent use of “jejune” in everyday conversation.

• Will Self walks from LAX to Watts Towers: “It’s not the money, it’s the principle.”
• Mark Sarvas offers a thoughtful post on where we’re now at in this whole print and online business and he has now added a sidebar containing his reviews, presumably named in relationship to one of John Leonard’s early volumes of criticism. (As for my own reviews, I plan to fix the sidebar for pieces that have now disappeared online soon.)
• A video highlighting organized labor and screenwriters. (via The Publishing Spot)
• The Rake on writer taxonomies and Mr. Tata’s recent thoughts.
• Vidiot offers a jumping point for anyone interested in the legalities behind showing your ID to police. Much more here.
• The Furious Passions of Norman Mailer.
• Jeff Parker reads Ovenman (via Erin)
• New York is Book Country, which hasn’t done anything in the past three years, is now slated to run the same day as the Brooklyn Book Fest. The NYIBC people haven’t even had the decency to respond to Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz’s letter. Well, if one has to choose between Tore Erickson’s ego and Johnny Temple’s efforts to get books out to the people, I’d say that this is a pretty slam-dunk decision.

• Now listen up, folks. The Oxford Word of the Year is “locavore.” I haven’t used this word at all this year — not in writing or conversation — and now I’m feeling some pressure to insert this in my everyday vernacular in ways that that the Oxford people, much less the progenitors of the word, haven’t possibly imagined.
• When I think of literacy, Jenna Bush is one of the last names that come to mind. But all this makes me wonder how Dan Quayle is faring these days. (By the way, did you know that Quayle is the only was one of the few vice presidents in American history never to be nominated for the presidency by his own party?)
• While the rest of you folks are getting all excited about the National Book Awards, the New York Daily News has been talking with Joseph O’Connor.
• A rare first edition of Wuthering Heights will go on sale in London. One of the top bidders is rumored to be six-year-old Dalia Stafford, daughter of a tobacco tycoon. Stafford hopes that Daddy will bid on the book because she’s grown tired of commonplace coloring books and hopes for something a little more exotic to use her Crayolas on.
• Marvel has kick-started an online archive of 2,500 back issues.
• Writers warped on the big screen! It goes without saying that a writer’s life is far less glamorous than you think. (via Tayari)
• Dan Green: not a fan of late Ian McEwan. Nor Steven Augustine.
• Red beans and rice on Amtrak? What next? Tofurkey burgers? I’m not going to rest, folks, until I can order a tofurkey burger with a side of nacho cheese. I have no intention of eating this, mind you, but I want to teach Amtrak a lesson. (via Henry Kisor)
• McSweeney’s 2? WTF? (via Tao)
• I didn’t know this until today, but Dave Lull has a blog.
• The ghosts of Conan Doyle.
• Apparently, reading aloud helps the heart, the soul, and the mind. But the jury is out on whether it will help you get laid. Nevertheless, in light of a soliloquy I wrote for a play involving the benefits of counting, which had the character spouting off a lot of bullshit science, it’s funny to see that this character wasn’t too far off.
• A report from Chad Post on a translation panel.
• The Top Five Online Art Videos of 2007.
• Kevin Holtsberry wants to know what makes a good blog. Do drop by and offer your thoughts.
• Finally, the Other Ed is in great distress! He is trapped, Collyer brothers-style, in his apartment, and needs someone to excavate all the galleys and ARCs that have immersed him there. I have been spending the morning getting quotes from mercenaries. The best quote I have is from Oswald Grizzaldi, who can throw a few grenades into Mr. Park’s apartment for about $275. Which I think is a pretty reasonable price. Unfortunately, Mr. Grizzaldi cannot guarantee that Mr. Park will escape unmaimed. And Mr. Grizzaldi refuses to offer insurance for his operation, telling me that I need to keep him on retainer for at least six operations in order to ensure that nobody will get hurt. My thinking here is that a few other souls face the same plight that Mr. Park does. So if you need Mr. Grizzaldi to throw some grenades into your apartment, let me know and we’ll see if we can’t extract a few literary people out of their respective piles. In fact, maybe what’s needed here is a special forces unit dropping a few machetes in by chopper, along with an instruction manual titled HOW TO HACK YOUR WAY OUT OF A JUNGLE OF GALLEYS. The unexpected bonus? An unstoppable force of professionally trained machete-hackers who might find their skills called upon when the next revolution goes down. If you have any better ideas, please let me know. This is a matter of delicacy and urgency.

• Having recently examined Hermione Lee’s Wharton biography, I sure do wish I could make this tonight. Alas, other engagements await me. But if you’re interested in Wharton’s New York, you might want to check this out at The Tenement Museum.
• Eric Reynolds has strong words in response to this Scott Mitchell Rosenberg profile — in large part because Rosenberg manipulated the Entertainment Weekly comic bestseller list. And I have to agree. Ehrenreich’s reportage suffers from pulled punches. What could be a more perfect stomping ground for Ben Ehrenreich the Journalist than Rosenberg’s market manipulations, built and maintained by the Platinum empire? I’m surprised that nobody at EW was contacted for this piece to comment upon what safeguards have been put up to prevent this unethical business practice from occurring again.
• Lost showrunner Damon Lindelof on the writers strike. (via Laila)
• 21 good albums that could have been great EPs.
• Have I mentioned how fun Girl Talk‘s mash-ups are? Check out the defiant appropriations of Elton John and Neutral Milk Hotel.
• Mitt Romney, Cylon.
• The top ten political sex scandals.
• The strange case of Jean-Claude Van Damme. (via Quiet Bubble)
• Also from Quiet Bubble, Bill Watterson’s college work.
• Carolyn quite rightly takes David Denby to task for his failures in understanding the silent era.
• Are libraries becoming more like bookstores? (via Bookstore Tourism)
• If you missed Roy Kesey reading “Interview” on the road, Dzanc Books has a video up.
• The 12 Devices of Peanuts. (via Derik)
• The Twenty (Intentionally) Funniest Web Videos of 2007.
• Stephen Fry on the iPhone.
• Are we losing the fight for porn?
• Susannah Breslin’s “Hardyman.”
• One other thing about Girl Talk: it takes effrontery to mash up Wings’ “Silly Love Songs” with 2 Live Crew’s “We Want Some Pussy,” as he does on “Peak Out” And Wikipedia is sometimes good for something. Here’s a complete list of samples used, although I find it more enjoyable to guess.

• Need your recent literary adaptations info spoon-fed into infographs? USA Today is there for you!
• So if you’re like me, you’re probably contemplating which book recommendation came from the “distinguished” shrink. I certainly have a few ideas. Here’s a hint: When you’re down and out, you need a really funny read. Miguel Ruiz? Not exactly a laugh riot. Since I am an undistinguished litblogger, I have to say that, if you’re looking to titter, you can’t go wrong — off the top of my head — with Vonnegut, Wilde, Wodehouse, Dorothy Parker, Mark Twain, Jonathan Ames, Hunter S. Thompson, Martin Amis’s Money, David Lodge, Russo’s Straight Man, Terry Pratchett, and a good chunk of Christopher Moore. But what’s your funniest book or writer?
• Daniel Green replies to Jane Ciabattari’s hubris. And he’s right. If you’re using the words “business savvy” and “digested by the websites of larger newspapers” in relation to the litblogosphere, chances are you have as much joy and purpose as lima beans on a dinner plate.
• Orthofer finds wealthy writers in China.
• A showdown between the world’s largest and the smaller dogs. By my calculations, that big dog is about 3.5 feet tall. Let us hope, for the sake of Boo Boo the Toy Chihauhua’s happy existence, that Gibson the Great Dane does not adopt a cannibalistic appetite. (via Jenny D)
• Must all women who marry later be pigeonholed into “the Carrie Bradshaw lifestyle” for these silly articles?
• The Champions is being turned into a film.
• Now here’s a strategy that should get Levi’s attention: Picador is planning to release new fiction in both hardcover and paperback form. This decision comes after hardcover sales have floundered. Is it possible that we’re at the end? Perhaps better book design and better paper might be an idea to consider.
• You know, for all their purported pro-capitalism, these neocon authors really don’t know how to mind the store. Kassia has more thoughts.
• Another reason why advertising and phone numbers in books are a bad idea. Although on the bright side, if this keeps up, this may allow some kids to confirm the veracity of Dumbledore’s sexual orientation. (via Bookshelves of Doom)
• It appears that the new Batman movie is causing problems in Hong Kong.

• I am now reading more books than you would believe one man could read. And I have only myself to blame. While things have not yet escalated to the point where exercising the espresso option on my coffeemaker becomes mandatory, they are certainly getting there. And if I start to cackle wildly in the forthcoming weeks or you see some balding man attempting to scale the side of the Grand Army Plaza arch in desperation, don’t say I didn’t warn you. In the meantime…
• Sacha Arnold considers The Three Paradoxes.
• Of all the astute pens for hire, why the hell did Tanenhaus opt for Rex Reed? But it is good to see Good Man Park make the cut.
• 318 different covers of War of the Worlds. (via Paul Collins)
• Edith Wharton in Esperanto.
• Here’s the problem with current literary journalism: “I’ve since read the book–and liked it a lot, it’s one of my favorite books of the year–and I must say I’m completely flummoxed by the apparently controversy that’s surrounded the book.” What is the point of talking with an author if one has not read the book in question? An extended conversation along these lines is useless for both author and audience if the interlocutor has not bothered to read the book in full. That Nissley remains “completely flummoxed” because he has not bothered to use his deficient noodle is not much of a surprise. Nor is it particularly earth-shattering to discover that his questions are more generic than Akiva Goldman’s best attempts at narrative. Is this cheap blanket advocacy an effort by Tom Nissley to cope for his clear shortcomings? Or could it be that the Amazon blog is about as journalistic as a golden globular quid pro quo afforded to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association? Here on the Internet, we have a great medium to deflect this sort of thing. And Nissley’s blown it because he prefers being a toothless tool.
• Sarvas on Shalom. McLemee on Mailer.
• If all goes according to plan, I hope to make my thoughts known about Judith Freeman’s The Long Embrace in a rather unusual manner. But for the moment, check out Richard Rayner’s review in the LATBR.
• Bob Hoover believes that “[s]uccess as a novelist is found between the pages, not the sheets.” But cannot success in the latter lead to success in the former? Or are stopperage-specific muses inherently worthless?
• Anita Thompson ain’t a fan of the Jann Wenner HST oral history. Apparently, Wenner took her out of the book because “she has an exaggerated sense of who she was in terms of Hunter. She had another kind of role.” Which leads one to wonder what Wenner perceives that role to be. Handmaiden perhaps? (via Likely Stories)

• Since Tao is chronicling all, here are the windows currently open on my screen: Windows Explorer (open to a directory of audio files), OpenOffice Calc (containing a spreadsheet that lists what I have to do this month), Windows Explorer (Search — I was trying to find a graphic that I created years ago and did not think to Alt-F4 this window), Audacity (a file that I’ve been intermittently mixing for the past thirty hours, working on it five minutes at a time), Thunderbird, Firefox (Bloglines), and Firefox (the window in which I am now typing this post). This represents a pretty typical setup, although I generally work with about ten windows open. In typing this post, I’ve decided to Alt-F4 the Search window, because there was no reason for me to keep it open. I suppose this was laziness on my part, and I guess I should apologize or something, perhaps to the computer. I haven’t downloaded any audio files like Tao, but I suppose I should probably do this soon. I finished reading one of the books I have to review about an hour ago. I have not eaten or drank anything in about six hours, although I succumbed to a few handfuls of peanuts. Before that, about twelve hours ago, I had kingfish (sauteed with a bunch of produce)*, broccoli, and rice — which I cooked myself and was quite tasty. (And there’s some leftover fish in the fridge I may cook up later this week.) I do read Ron Silliman’s blog, and in fact found a semi-interesting link to it, which I included in this roundup. I’m going to be interviewing an author today. I’ve only slept about four hours and I may go back to bed. But I’m strangely excited and ready to tap dance or something. Alas, there are very few places to tap dance at six in the morning. And I don’t want my neighbor downstairs to wake up when she hears my thumping from her ceiling. Never mind that she and her boyfriend sometimes fuck at 3:30 AM and are quite noisy and sometimes actually turn me on a tad and make me smile because of the beautiful sounds they make. But I keep odd hours. So I don’t mind. Right now, it is relatively silent. There is no fucking going on, but there’s a minor din of traffic I can hear just off Flatbush. I often hear the roll of trucks and even the pleasant horn of a semi even at this hour. There is no Death-O-Meter, however. In large part because I don’t think many people have been killed near this section of Flatbush. But I am only offering speculation and not facts, and you should probably not believe me. For all I know, people have been killed — perhaps many of them — and I’m just allowing my optimism to get in the way of ferreting out the facts.
• Josh Getlin asks whether Hollywood is playing it safe in acquiring books to adapt into films. Particularly those pertaining to Iraq.
• Memo to Chip McGrath: What the hell does Edmund Wilson’s sex life have to do with his criticism? If you care so much about who Wilson was boffing in his seventies (two paragraphs!), maybe you’re the one who’s the “literary hobbyist.” (Found via this article, via Wet Asphalt)
• Speaking of which, here’s what Updike has to say on the subject: “When an author has devoted his life to expressing himself, and, if a poet or a writer of fiction, has used the sensations and critical events of his life as his basic material, what of significance can a biographer add to the record?”
• So are any of these characters gay? Or will we learn about their sexual orientation years after this book is released and sales have dropped?
• This year’s Guardian First Fiction shortlist. (via Three Percent)
• Are you kidding? Romance is perfectly appropriate for Halloween! (he said days later)
• Does Guy de Maupassant’s “Le Horla” rank alongside Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw?
• If you think Depp’s assaults on books is bad in the atrocious Roman Polanski film The Ninth Gate, consider Polanski’s assaults on Arturo Perez-Reverte’s great novel, The Club Dumas, arguably worse in dumbing the book down.
• Physicists on ghosts, vampires, and zombies.
• Sorry, kids, the Led Zeppelin reunion has been postponed. Both Robert Plant and Jimmy Page are suffering from a case of fractured hubris, and hope to perform once their collective egos have been amped up to 11.
• Harper Lee has been awarded the highest civilian honor from the President: 24/7 access to the Lincoln Bedroom. And this only hours after the President finally had one of his advisers finish reading To Kill a Mockingbird. But it’s the thought that counts.
• The Winter Blog Blast Tour.
• How exactly do you read Ed Baker? (via Ron Silliman)
• Another of your favorite children’s shows, The Electric Company, is being recycled. (via The Shifted Librarian)
• When a dinner costs more than a half & half from a high-priced callgirl, “actually quite a deal” is the most telling sign that you’re cut off from democracy and common sense. Particularly when you’re the Best Young Sommelier in America.

* — Speaking of kingfish, I have to say that I like this photo quite a lot. Not just because the woman in the photo is fairly attractive in a Naomi Watts sort of way and probably having a good time (although these are admittedly factors), but because that is a very big kingfish and its horizontal juxtaposition is absolutely incongruous with the attempted cheesecake pose.

• Recovering from many martinis.
• An effort now, a day after the lovely holiday, to atone for the lack of literary news. Of late, this place has been an unapologetic dumping ground for YouTube videos and decidedly non-literary subjects. The most recent Segundo podcasts have tilted towards more nonfiction authors. I leave loyal readers to speculate as to whether this represents a certain fatigue towards fiction on the part of the proprietor or merely an effort to stretch out. If the former conclusion stands, permit me to register my dutiful plaudits for Jess Walter’s excellent novel, Citizen Vince, which was accidentally purchased a year ago instead of The Zero, thanks to a certain devious bookish person who led me astray in the right way. Vince has lived up to its accidental promise. (Let this be a lesson for all of us. Too often we are mired in the latest contemporary titles and the collective foci views “contemporary” as “the last six months.” But there are plenty of great titles extending well before!)
• With Halloween in mind, I had intended to offer an audio reading of H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Rats in the Walls.” Alas, time and deadlines got the better of me, and I was unable to finish this in time for October 31. Nevertheless, in considering the many horror writers who have thrilled and tingled, you can do no better than this archive of H.P. Lovecraft’s work a day later and a fun-size Snickers bar short.
• Scott is correct to point out that the latest issue of the NYRB has only one fiction title under review (unless you count Eugene O’Neill) and that it is — yawn, he yawned — Alice Sebold’s latest title. That one of our most seemingly august publications would abdicate its fiction coverage for wonky wankage, obvious choices, and, to douse the bleeding mess with copious salt, hire the perspicacious Larry McMurty to squander his acumen on an eccentric Hollywood actress’s photography is indeed a sign that the NYRB is, at least with this issue, neither seeming nor august. If this is the NYRB‘s new way, then it would seem that Bob Silvers may be an even greater fiction-reviewing offender than Sam Tanenhaus in running a publication with both “New York” and “Books” in the title. Further, one must ask where all the women are? Eighteen pieces here and only two women. It seems that Tanenhaus isn’t the only one interested in stag clubs. Okay, Silvers, you’re now on watch.
• As the good Orthofer notes, there ain’t no fiction coverage in the New Republic these days. (And that sentence could be worse. I stop at double negatives. Others go further.)
• Jim Thompson’s lost Hollywood years. Let us not forget that it was Jim Thompson’s ear for dialogue that helped Kubrick immensely in his early days. Thompson was the co-writer of the great films, The Killing and Paths of Glory. The latter film isn’t often associated with Thompson, but I have a feeling that it wouldn’t be hailed as a classic without Thompson’s input. Aside from the story structure devised by Thompson, consider the line: “See that cockroach? Tomorrow morning, we’ll be dead and it’ll be alive. It’ll have more contact with my wife and child than I will. I’ll be nothing, and it’ll be alive.” Can you imagine anyone but Thompson writing that? (via Sarah)
• A hot new issue of Hot Metal Bridge. At auspicious times like this, I wish I were a sexy woman with a white Marilyn-like flowing skirt strutting my sinuous legs dangerously across a metal bridge to draw greater attention to the offerings inside. Alas, I’m merely a balding thirtysomething in Brooklyn with an odd voice. Of course, if someone can offer a sufficient argument that me wearing a white Marilyn-like flowing skirt will draw greater attention to Hot Metal Bridge, I might be persuaded go forward. Halloween may be over, but that won’t stop me from dressing up. Although I’d need an hour to get the lipstick right.
• Speaking of one the parties involved with the last item, Carolyn points to this inside dirt involving the Quills. Yes, indeed, Ann Curry cares too much. I can feel her solicitude strangling me from beyond the screen. Then again, when you’re a homophobic anchor, perhaps “caring too much” involves not really caring much at all.
• Joshua Glenn has a toothpick conspiracy involving Henry James and thankfully he isn’t snobbish about the toothpick.
• And your pal the Rake wonders whether Denis Johnson talks real talk. I’ll have to agree with the Rake that the quoted exchange sounds like a bunch of macho types planning to contemplate a foot massage. I likewise don’t mind stylized dialogue along these lines. But I will say that Johnson’s dialogue is more real than the breathless dialogue (thank you, Aaron Fucking Sorkin, for spawning this regrettable trend!) that one encounters on television with troubling frequency these days, which leads me wondering if the real-life antecedents for these characters are cokeheads, chowderheads, or people terrified of revealing their mistakes or insecurities. You know, the way real people do. But I have every faith that the beats will go on. One of these days.

• There are more Beatles books now than at any other point in human history. And this considerable sum shall likewise continue to accrue so long as pop music is heralded worthy of discussion. Two months from now, there will be even more Beatles books than there are now. Two years from now, who knows how many people will probe inside George Harrison’s solitude or give John Lennon’s assassination yet another dissection? USA Today‘s Anthony DeBarros says that the secret ingredient is context. But how much context do we need? What hasn’t been investigated elsewhere? I say this not as someone who dismisses the Beatles, but as someone who is drastically concerned about easily spending a good year trying to read the three hundred Beatles books that have come out in the past two years. The Beatles’s many niceties are now almost as difficult to keep track as a major war. One must, as a matter of course, become a pop music historian. So much has been written about them and so many volumes have been produced that I’m almost hoping for a book about Beatles books, or perhaps something that breaks everything down. Because I don’t have enough time in my life to read yet another Beatles book. Unless you grant me a sinecure somewhere.
• The ebullient Jason Boog has singled me out again, and I shall address his question shortly after my head explodes.
• They aren’t all elitist assholes who don’t believe that New York is the center of the universe in Manhattan. Having had some experience in the jungle, I can assure you that Manhattan wildlife does not always sneer at the good people of Cleveland. Besides, we all know how the bugs chomped at the Yankees.
• More controversial words from Doris Lessing.
• I’m about as skillful at balancing as I am at ballet dancing, although I’ve been told that I possess a certain savoir faire when wearing women’s clothing. (Don’t ask, but I am not wrong about this sort of thing.) One of these days, I will master my equilibrium. Indeed, I have so much faith in my innate physical ineptitude that I will master it the same day that I win the Nobel Prize. For now, there are these words to consider. (via Gwenda)
• Saddlebums interviews Ed Gorman.
• Callie Miller has been quite busy. In addition to interviewing Mark Danielewski for the LAist, she’s offered another of her award-winning reading reports — this time, of Junot Diaz.
• A reconsideration of the late G.K. Chesterton — an underrated writer who more people should be aware of. (via Hot Stuff Esposito)
• Jay McInerney: proving once again that he writes unconvincingly about human anatomy. (via Bestill My Swooning Heart Sarvas)
• Attention all Vegas pimps: a new advertising market opened up! Pop open the champagne! Newspapers are getting as desperate as your johns! Regrettably, the Vegas edition of the PennySaver remains closed to licentious solicitations. A proud salute then for the PennySaver‘s stalwart holdouts, who would rather inundate you with ads for $25 television sets and lonely personal ads from the incarcerated than the smut that the lonely are too willing to pay for.
• Finally, I regret that I have not set foot in Chowchilla, California. Not only does Kim reveal this town’s apparent dark past, but let us consider pragmatics. Why not walk around right now and say “Chowchilla, California” over and over again. I just walked around the apartment saying “Chowchilla, California” twenty-six times and, already, I feel energized! I’m ready to file a small claims suit on flimsy pretext! Or to speak loving words to an abandoned dog on Flatbush Avenue! And it’s all because of these two magnificent words! You think I’m prevaricating here, but I assure you that it is highly doubtful I will encounter two words more pleasant than “Chowchilla, California” before the sun sets over the landscape and the abandoned dog in question is revealed to be a rabid runt prepared to tear out your throat because nobody’s bothered to feed him and the last thing he saw on his doggie dish was a gizzard.

• Crazy day. Thus, brief summations.
• Inflate your numbers much, publishers?
• Apparently, DHS digs Death Cab for Cutie.
• This 75-year-old woman hammered the point home. Good on her. (via the Other Reluctant)
• Chris Pine will play Kirk in the forthcoming Star Trek movie. Who?
• Mailer’s in poor health.
• No surprise. Tanenhaus and company have demonstrated themselves as incompetent editors, failing to confirm a pivotal plot point against the book. (I can tell you that other publications I’ve written for are far more arduous about this basic journalistic practice, even when I’m in the personal habit of making the fact checker/editor’s life a little easier by providing page numbers for all quotes.)
• The Existence Machine quibbles with Pinker.
• Why aren’t there more women in the music scene? (via Kevin Smokler)
• Can you believe a book review?
• Another controversial Jerry Fodor article — this time on natural selection.
• It seems that all the big boys are coming out to review the Michaelis book: next at bat is John Updike. (via The Millions)

• USA Today‘s Mike Snider has it wrong. Conan the Barbarian was not “brought to life more than 25 years ago” by Arnold Schwarzenegger. You see, there was this guy named Robert E. Howard who wrote stories for Weird Tales. Back in 1932, he created a character called Conan the Cimmerian and brought him to life through words. Howard, of course, is mentioned in the piece. But I wonder: Does USA Today really believe that Conan was dead before Arnold and John Milius got their hands on it? Or are they somehow conflating Howard’s suicide with the presumed lifelessness of pulp fiction?
• Over at Litkicks, Marydell has been offering some fascinating figures and revelations about the publishing industry. There are even some spreadsheets outlining the basic financial elements. Do check it out if you’re interested in the financial niceties of publishing.
• Poor Richard Johnson! After the New York Post blowhard realized yet again how small his cock was, he proceeded to show his true misogynistic colors by suggesting: “The male half might take her someplace private and disprove her theory, but we don’t like a woman with a mustache.” Maybe he just can’t handle the truth.
• Apparently, Howard Davies used the Booker platform to attack book reviewers for failing to use more “critical skepticism…together with greater readiness to notice new names.” Hmmm, maybe this is what litblogs are for. (via Orthofer, who has more links on the subject)
• In defense of Los Angeles. (via This Recording, a multifarious blog recently discovered, which was added to Bloglines upon discovery of the sentence, “It’s a sad thing when you lose all respect for someone who used to be a genius.”)
• A crime drama with zombies carrying on a post-coital discussion? Good lord, why didn’t CBS sign on for such inventive madness immediately? This is exactly the kind of craziness that television needs! (via Inter Alia Ed)
• There are more cartoonists getting published in Parade, but does this fit into the fucktard consensus?
• Jeff VanderMeer has some thoughts on a writer friend giving up. No, you should not give up at all. No matter how hard it gets. No matter how many setbacks there are.
• And I’ll have an update on the pledge drive right around the point we hit the 24 hour mark. Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far.

• To paraphrase Sam Tanenhaus, who profits if Bill Watterson doesn’t write it? Clearly, not the NYTBR. The WSJ has coaxed the reclusive Bill Watterson out of retirement for a review of the new David Michaelis’s Charles Schulz biography. Meanwhile, the Schulz family has cried foul. Although now that I’m almost finished with the book, I can tell you that Michaelis’s portrait of Schulz, while certainly interesting, is hardly the devastating portrait one finds in a Robert Caro biography.
• Michael Hirschorn, momentarily surfacing above the Atlantic paywall, asks if we are suffering from too much quirk. Which makes me wonder if “quirk” is the new postmodernism and whether the current spate of articles hostile towards those writers (John Barth was responsible for the abandonment of sentiment in literature? Really?) who dare to walk to an idiosyncratic beat represents the latest trend by critics to take all the fun out of literature. (via Wet Asphalt)
• Speaking of Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor has been thoroughly messing with Darby Dixon’s head. Darby is right to point out that Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle would have been infinitely improved had Stephenson taken himself less seriously. In fact, the next time an author comes out with a big fat Historical Novel of Significance, I think the Sot-Weed Comparison Test might be the apposite yardstick.
• Jason Boog talks with author Allen Rucker about becoming paralyzed at fifty-one. (Which is not to say that Boog himself is paralyzed or fifty-one, unless he has been pulling a fast one on us or looks very good for his age. But he does get some interesting answers from Rucker on the subject.)
• Were the between-the-wars Bright Young People nothing more than helpless hedonists?
• What’s better than a takedown of a fatuous band riding too long on its past achievements? Well, a smackdown of the biographer who takes the band too seriously. (via Slushpile)
• I was thinking the same thing. I do hope the WaPo book editors aren’t having relationship troubles these days.
• Ron Silliman believes that this year’s National Book Award poetry nominations are a scandal.
• It’s good to know that dildos have received the appropriate Library of Congress categorization. I was getting a bit worried. What’s even more fantastic is that there is apparently a geographical taxonomy, leaving one to ponder the advantages of an East Coast dildo over its West Coast counterpart.
• Mr. Wheeler, for the good of humanity and letters, I must insist that he sure as hell ain’t any generation’s premiere rock critic.

• As I write these words, I’m up early waiting for the Nobel literature announcement. I’m fully expecting the choice to be somewhat anticlimactic and not an American. But I could be wrong. We’ll find out soon enough.
• Tom Christensen offers a list of books most valuable in relation to publishing and writing. Notably absent from the list is the Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude. You think I’m joking, but writing’s a pretty damn lonely business sometimes. (via Messr. Junker)
• More New Yorker tidbits from Emily Gordon.
• Norman Mailer is interviewed about God, which is to say that he suffers delusions of Mailer. (via The Valve)
• John Freeman has a surprisingly decent report on the Frankfurt Book Fair.
• “This is just a lifelike, likable book populated by three-dimensional characters who make themselves very much at home on the page.” Oh dear. This is the kind of sentence one expects from a Madison Avenue slogan writer, not a literary critic or even a book reviewer. The time has come to make some choices. I’ve had enough of Janet Maslin. I cannot continue to read her nonsense in good faith. I do this because there are too many good things in life to enjoy and, frankly, Maslin’s deterioration as a critic (she was a perfectly fine film critic) is too much for me to bear. Do yourself a favor and give up Maslin too. Your blood pressure will lower in minutes.
• Some excerpts from Kurt Cobain interviews. Who knew that Cobain was such a fan of Queen’s News of the World?
• Richard Grayson is running for Congress in Arizona.
• Linda Richards uncovers a lost silent version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

• Darby Dixon outlines his thoughts on reading The Sot-Weed Factor.
• Tao Lin has a few ideas about telling writers that they’re good. Alas, the world is often a casually inconsiderate place, particularly here in New York, where I am still negotiating the way in which people — even supposed acquaintances — snub each other when more “important” people are present. (What they don’t know is that I carry a long memory.) This confuses me because my own social m.o., inherited from California, is to say hello to as many people as possible. But Tao is right to point to being kind and supportive to other writers — although I’d add that a degree of honesty doesn’t hurt either.
• Quiet Bubble on 8-bit side-scrollers.
• Tom Stoppard on rock ‘n’ roll.
• Joshua Henkin’s “Handball.”
• I’d like to think that some writing games extended beyond quick-witted Canadians. Then again, the Canadian dollar is better right now. So perhaps our nice northern neighbors have every right to favor themselves.
• “The Pleasures of Apocalypse.” (via Pete Anderson)
• Just in time for a forthcoming book containing all of his lyrics, Sting has been voted the worst lyricist of all time.
• Why bloggers should get outside their apartment from time to time.
• Kakutani hates on Sebold.
• Yes, all hail Cleveland. Someone needed to show up Yankee hubris.
• Stephen Dixon name-checked in Esquire. (via Black Garterbelt)

• A treasure trove of Quiet, Please.
• Jennifer Weiner on the most recent Oprah book pick.
• George Saunders on Colbert.
• Now see here! Ian McEwan insists that On Chesil Beach is a novel, because the text has been cleverly spread out across the course of 200 pages. LEAVE IAN ALONE! He can’t help the way in which his “novel” (Novel, ha! Boy, it took me about a few hours to read that!) has been marketed by his publishers. Instead of bitching and moaning, why not write your own “novel” of 40,000 words and then see how you feel? In fact, I plan to ensure that another novel I’m working on, On Brighton Beach, which is only a mere 2,000 words, will be nominated for a fiction prize somewhere. Novel, schmovel — when you get right down to it, everything’s flexible in the end.
• Gilbert Hernandez is the John Lennon of comics? So does this mean that R. Crumb is the Phil Spector of comics? And stretch, and stretch, and bang that profile out in time. And pad, and pad, the deadline’s hard. So do it! (via The Beat
• There’s a strict new Chicago law that has banned the door-to-door distribution of flyers and circulars, but it may have a harmful effect on free newspapers. Sure, this will mean less free menus for dodgy Chinese restaurants jammed underneath your door. (Personally, I use these for origami.) But be careful what you wish for. There’s a downside to everything.
• When the revolution comes, I hope they remember that smug reactionary assholes like John Aravosis were against non-discrimination before they were for it. Listen, Aravosis, are you aware of Brandon Teena (conspicuously unmentioned in your piece)? Nobody questions why the T was attached to LGBT because we’re talking about a collective group that has been marginalized, ridiculed, assaulted, and stereotyped for many decades and anybody who is even remotely humanist understands that this is all about making a united front to put an end to discrimination. Thus, having as many people of differing sexual persuasions uniting together is a way to finally address the disparity between straight heterosexual relationships and the LGBT community. That you would want to tear this community apart by asking such an imbecile question or that you would propose that some within the LGBT community are more entitled to non-discrimination than others is a sure sign that you aren’t part of the solution. The LGBT community behind ENDA has displayed more courage and gravitas than most of the weak-kneed Democrats who insist upon compromising here or “alienating” there or remaining fearful that the “religious right” will kill something. Well, fuck the religious right. And fuck you, Mr. Aravosis. Please resurface when your big fat head isn’t so thoroughly lodged up your own asshole and you aren’t such a coward about human progress.

• I’m currently recovering from a pleasant night of celebration on a boat in the East River that involved a Supreme Court Justice and a jet ski task force. (No, I am not making this up. I could not make this up.) All manner of strange ideas have entered my head, because I am a bad and overly imaginative person. So bear with me.
• Bill Benson has asked a very interesting question: When did the New York Times begin to write snarky articles about the MLA? If you can help him out, leave a comment for the man.
• Behold: The Blog of Disquiet.
• Now here is an interesting thesis: the dwindling taste buds of boomers has spawned a niche market of hot, hot, hot sauce.
• If you’re a Wes Anderson hater, blame these folks.
• Brian Wilson will be performing with the English National Ballet.
• So how did the New York Times find out about Blackwater? Good old-fashioned police reporting. Let this be a reminder to journalists of all persuasions. Keep tracking down leads, keep asking questions. Never give up, never surrender. The story finds itself.
• James Wood on Zuckerman, if you’re not burned out by Exit Ghost coverage.
• The Mumpsimus hosts an interview with Thomas Ligotti.
• One of Jeff Parker’s “former high school shadows” writes about him.
• The Telegraph has been serializing Ted Hughes’s letters.
• Canadian hockey you haven’t seen before.
• The 9 Manliest Names in the World.
• Giuliani sees 9/11 everywhere.
• The WaPo is the latest books section to enter into blogging. But I’m wondering why newspaper book blogs are taken with two word designations.

• Behold: Mr. Cornell hath a bookshop!
• This week in literary dick wars: Eagleton vs. Amis. (via This Space)
• Jon Krakauer has sued Houghton Mifflin and Donnelley for turning Into Thin Air into 1.2 million textbooks. (via Slushpile)
• So if you own an analog TV and don’t have a converter box, you’ll be left in the lurch on February 17, 2009, when all televisions go digital. I can’t even imagine how much landfill will be used for all the old television sets.
• Jon Stewart vs. Chris Matthews.
• Nick Hornby on writing for teenagers. Draw your own conclusions, folks.
• George Takei is now a heavenly body.

• Her Pinkness has the skinny on Saunders in Pittsburgh. I do not know if Bob Hoover was involved with all the madness, but it’s my feeling that he should have been.
• His Markness (or perhaps His Sarvoir Faire) has the inside scoop on what it means to be a debut novelist. Being a rather silly person in Brooklyn, I do not know if I am “actually in a position to advance [his] interests,” but if it helps the galley to come here any faster, I can offer a few lacrosse lessons or some helpful tips on stamp collecting, assuming that his “interests” plan to expand in the forthcoming months.
• Whether ’tis Nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous prognostication, I would argue ’tis not until the jury’s out. But his Scottness has the hots and bothers for those occupying their time with endless speculation.
• Que sera Sarah! Happy fourth!
• Friends! Romanos! Countrymen! Lend me your review space!
• His Hitchness gets busy with Wilson squared. To which I beseech: O Library of America, how can I get on your list?
• Just so you know, we’re ashamed the divine Ms. Jones is being pegged as a mere Dixie Chick! (By the way, ever notice that the early history of the Dixie Chicks, in which two older women — specifically, Laura Lynch and Robin Lynn Macy — were part of the band, but fired in favor of the younger and presumably more outspoken Natalie Marines, appears to be notably elided within certain accounts? And you thought the Dixie Chicks represented some populist version of female empowerment!)
• Her Weinerness defends Her Kathaness, leading to a Noun Ness Monster within these bullets that I may have to abandon in favor of the more trenchant ammunition of one misperceived word.
• Online censorship hurts us all. When you wake up with that bruise tomorrow, just remember to tell everybody you had “a fall,” even though everybody knows you’ve been censored online. Speaking of censorship, not that I care, but shall I cry J’Accuse! against Cory Doctorow for not linking to any of the informative interviews conducted with speculative fiction authors — some, his friends — that have appeared on this site? After all, I have criticized Boing Boing in the past. For that matter, why have certain comments that are critical of Boing Boing disappeared from the Boing Boing site? Hypocrite much, Cory?
• A talking Dalek tie! This is great for those boardroom meetings when some overbearing suit is trying to lowball you into a deal. While you can’t say anything to this guy that might suggest that self-defenestration might be the best thing he could do for his career, the Dalek, by contrast, might be able to suggest a one-word command that fits the bill. This is a great gift for passive-aggressive types stuck in an oppressive office environment. (via Bookshelves of Doom)
• It’s a tough life being a novelist. While others are condemned to work at a McDonald’s or work two soul-sucking full-time jobs to feed their families, the novelist sits on his ass and perspires! Not that Mr. Swift said any of these things. As is evident from the article, he’s paid his dues. But the headline of this article suggests that Mr. Swift is one of those types who has the effrontery to compare full-time writing with “backbreaking labor,” but have never once performed hard physical labor. (For the record, I have. A few years ago: Three days loading 100 pound boxes at the docks to pay my rent. That’s “backbreaking labor.”)

• Despite my best efforts, my sleeping schedule has gone to hell again. So here goes the roundup.
• Rebecca Skloot — one of only four people on the NBCC Board of Directors who actually have a sense of humor — offers this interesting take on what David Halberstam’s untimely death means for the future of student escort drivers. Do we now have the author drive at all times because of one student’s incompetence?
• Lionel Shriver on Ondaatje. Shriver’s apparently quite surprised that she didn’t have a strong opinion on Divisadero, and I suspect this assessment is telling on its own terms.
• Even though I don’t possess the required estrogen, I nevertheless felt a microscopic but nonetheless discernible swoon upon listening to Alan Rickman read Sonnet 130. And that’s saying something. I’m now wondering if I should listen to audio files of Alan Rickman the next time I make muffins.
• So how does the New Yorker fare with YouTube? (via OUP)
• Sorry, folks, but Stephen King is right about the short story.
• Is Laura Bush the “Reader in Chief?” I think it can be easily argued that there have been plenty of people who “has done more to dramatize the importance of reading, and libraries.” Then again, nobody said Dr. James Billington wasn’t a sycophant. In all fairnes, however, the First Lady’s reading tastes include The Brothers Karamazov, Gilead, and My Antoina. I’m wondering if Ms. Bush might readily identify with the moment in which Dimitri says, “I’m a Karamazov! When I fall into the abyss, I go straight into it, head down and heels up, and I’m even pleased that I’m falling in such a humiliating position, and for me I find it beautiful. And so in that very shame I suddenly begin a hymn. Let me be cursed, let me be base and vile, but let me also kiss the hem of that garment in which my God is clothed; let me be following the devil at the same time, but still I am also your son, Lord, and I love you, and I feel a joy without which the world cannot stand and be.”
• Are e-books being taken seriously now? Well, given that Sony’s Howard Stringer bears more than a passing resemblance here to Jimmy Swaggart in the accompanying photo, I suspect this is probably hype.
• I’d just like to publicly declare that Sendhil Ramamurthy is the worst actor I’ve seen on dramatic television in a long while. In fact, he’s so bad that not even Adrian Pasdar or Hayden Panettiere can make him look good. And that’s saying somethign. Come on, Kring, kill off Mohinder already. Every time that one-note twerp appears, I want to send him to the hardest Lee Stasberg-style school in New York. (And, yes, I’m digging Heroes, particularly last season’s flashback episode written by Bryan Fuller. But the show still has serious problems.)
• Now this is quite interesting. The L.A. Times may be launching a free tabloid newspaper for commuters.
• Douglas Brinkley has been sued. Penguin wants him to pay back his $200,000 advance because he didn’t deliver his Kerouac bio in time for the 50th anniversary of On the Road. Brinkley, who was a bit busy writing the 736-page The Great Deluge for William Morrow, said that the delay came because he wanted to properly chronicle Kerouac’s life. I’m wondering if this is petty vengeance on Penguin’s part because Brinkley jumped to another publisher. Surely, something could have been settled or worked out and this is quite an extraordinary form of resolution. Kerouac interest has not, to my knowledge, abated. And it’s just possible that this lawsuit might attract interest in the book, which will now be published by HarperCollins after Brinkley finishes it in two years. (via Booklist Online)
• Fangoria Comics is no more.
• Is this necessary? Frankly, I can’t see Simon Le Bon and company topping this.
• And congratulations to Terry Teachout and Hilary Dyson!

• Jeff VanderMeer and M. John Harrison: how can you go wrong with that conversation?
• I couldn’t make the Lethem-PKD event, I’m afraid, but Matt Cheney has a lengthy report. The included novels in the second PKD LOA edition will be Martian Time-Slip, Dr. Bloodmoney, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, A Scanner Darkly and Now Wait for Last Year.
• I have not watched Smallville in two years (this was a sad addiction and nobody in particular can be blamed for this, except perhaps an old roommate), but if this is the kind of nonsense they’re now putting out, I think I may have chosen correctly.
• Things ain’t exactly cozy at the Poetry Society of America.
• A new “unheard” series of interviews with Graham Greene have been released.
• For a writer, the importance of cafes can never be underestimated.
• Exhibit #562 in the Case Against Franzen Being Any Fun. (Come to think of it, Franzen’s starting to look like a beardless Tanenhaus these days.)
• Carlin Romano on Exit Ghost.
• The Westchester Library didn’t think twice about nailing Elizabeth Schaper with a 50-cent fine. Schaper had gone to the library to return a book that her mother had checked out. But since Schaper’s mother had died the week before, Schaper’s mother wasn’t exactly in the position to return the book on time. To the martinet man behind the desk, this was simply no excuse. He insisted on the two quarters. The library, spineless to the core, has not issued any public comment or public apology.
• The AP is cutting its book review package.
• Want your kids to read? Start them early. (I learned, no joke, to read when I was two. So perhaps there is some truth in this.)
• Scorsese is making a film about George Harrison.

• The sleeping schedule has gone to hell. So here goes.
• Scott McLemee and Peniel E. Joseph discussed Harold Cruse’s The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, which in turn spawned a debate here. Jump in if you feel obliged. (via A Different Stripe)
• Liv Ullmann is taking a leading role for the first time in 38 years.
• So if you’re a newspaper and you’re contemplating this whole “How do I make money in the digital age?” question, a new consortium with Yahoo might yield surprising results — assuming that the good folks at Editor & Publisher aren’t drinking the Kool-Aid here. A Deutsche Bank analyst suggests that this deal could generate positive revenue for newspapers. If this is true, are newspapers dead? Or are the times (and, of course, the format) a-changing?
• When I’m not so busy, remind me to dredge up some experiential data sometime to support the fact that Garth Hallberg is not a nice man and has been known to chow down on leftover human kidneys from time to time.
• Joe Sacco on journalism. (via FLOG)
• To the four people who sent me the article, hoping that I’d get riled up: Nope, ain’t going to link to it. Bigger fish to fry.
• Richard Russo’s reading recommendations create films!
• Audible has launched its first crime serial. The series, entitled The Purloined Podcast, involves the murder of a Web 2.0 company executive by an angry listener who gets a bill for audio files he expected to download for free.
• I haven’t yet seen Ken Burns’s The War, in part because I was extremely bothered by the jingoistic tone of this alleged “regular folks” narrative. It turns out academics had issues with the film too about the inclusive nature of Burns’s story.
• Heaven forfend! Books are too depressing. Middle-school reading lists need to have happier books. Because 14-year-olds simply can’t handle verisimilitude. According to Mary Collins, who is actually an assistant professor of creative writing, Shirley Jackson was “lazy” for writing “The Lottery.” Never mind that this short story is a pitch-perfect example of the use of irony in fiction. Never mind that if you keep pushing the standards about what is offensive further, that it’s a zero sum game. (via The Valve, which has a more measured response to this nonsense than me)

• I’m not dead. / ‘Ere, he says he’s not dead. / Yes, he is. / I’m not. (via Jeff, who also finds this news quite startling)
• Brief speculation on why Paul Muldoon’s appointment as New Yorker editor received barely a trickle outside of poets. (via Ron Silliman)
• The excellent Western blog Saddlebums reports that the next “big Western release is upon us.” Alas, it’s receiving a limited release.
• It seems a no brainer, but girlie covers are putting some boys off books. Personally, I’d like to see a few “girly” books with macho covers thrown into the marketplace as an experiment. Imagine a Jennifer Weiner book with Vin Diesel and an exploding tower on the cover. Maybe this is what it might take to change some perceptions.
• More court fighting over Winnie the Pooh, with Disney prevailing. (via Persona Non Data)
• How Jane Jacobs became famous for the wrong reasons.
• I’m sorry, New York Magazine, but this is truly an infograph for wussy Park Slopers frightened of dipping more than one toe into the Atlantic. Grow a pair, why don’t you?
• How to fellate Michael Krasny.
• Some interesting thoughts on what blogging now means.
• A few real-life plot twists of famous authors.
• Why not to steal images.
• Length Errol Morris post about two different versions of a Roger Fenton photo. (via Jenny D)
• Lose weight now!
• Josh Getlin reports on what the NYT trade paperbacks list means.
• Roger Ebert has been named the nation’s most influential pundit.
• 14 Down: Propose by newspaper crossword?
• How far would you go for the right book title?
• Last night, I attended a very important meeting and will write about it very soon.

• This year’s MacArthur fellowships include Stuart Dybek.
• Oh, Norman Mailer, just go away.
• The Internet is set to overtake television as the largest medium by 2010. Which makes me wonder why the NBCC doesn’t form a strategic alliance, Survivor-style, with the television medium to take out all these online upstarts who are apparently responsible for the crisis in book reviewing. A few strategically thrown grenades and Ciabattari and Freeman can take out Newton, Esposito, Asher, and that obnoxious Ed Champion guy in a few hours. Terrorism, you say? Not at all. This is the only way to resolve a crisis.
• Now here’s a fragrance that will really make you want to go down on something. (via Smart Bitches)
• Was Robert Altman’s Popeye unfairly maligned? (And for what it’s worth, I like Popeye. Not the least or the greatest film, but enjoyable on its own merits. If you want to talk nadir of Altman’s career, try Ready to Wear.)
• John Rickards has a few choice words about Second Life author appearances. And I have to agree. Unless you’ve written Flying Dolphin Cock and Other Virtual Fiction, you have no business making an author appearance in Second Life.
• The 1950s issues of Playboy will be released as a DVD archive on November 2. Persona Non Data talks with Bondi Digital Publishing about how this happened. Bondi is also responsible for the New Yorker DVD-ROMs. Hopefully, they have improved the clunky interface.
• Edmund White on James, James & Proust. (via CAAF)
• Guess what? Exercise ain’t gonna keep off the weight. Not entirely anyway. Perhaps John Barrymore and Peter O’Toole had the right idea.
• Stage lights flashing / The feeling’s smashing / My heart and soul belong to you / And I’m here now, singing / All bells are ringing / My dream has finally come true
• Alexander Cockburn on Naomi Klein. (via The Existence Machine)
• I wasn’t able to make it to last night’s panel, for I had a far more important conversation to participate in. But Levi has a report on the seventieth discussion this month on the crisis in book reviewing. For what it’s worth, I don’t believe you’ll be finding a lot of serious criticism in the NYTBR so long as a humorless and condescending tool like Sam Tanenhaus is editor.
• Yo, NPR, how about a little fucking headline clarity? Exit Ghost ain’t the last Roth novel, but the last Zuckerman novel. Unless this was a skillful ploy to get us to click over.
• PFD and ivory. Work together in perfect disharmony.
• Apparently, there isn’t much happening at book signings these days, but don’t let that stop you from writing an 800 word article about it.
• Hadley Freeman’s a funny motherfucker, ain’t he?
• You’re a dead ringer / Dream maker, drug taker / Don’t you mess around with me!
• Terrence Rafferty on The 400 Blows (via James Tata)

• I can assure you. The J is pronounced like Alaska’s capital.
• Foolish thinking debunked by Weeks.
• First Committee Purges: “James Flint and Hari Kunzru are expelled as they have become complicit with a publishing industry whereby the ‘writer’ becomes merely the executor of a brief dictated by corporate market research, reasserting the certainties of middle-brow aesthetics (‘issues’ of ‘contemporary culture’, ‘post-colonial identity’ etc.) under the guise of genuine creative speculation.” It appears that Tom McCarthy is running a very important organization.
• The National Post, which ain’t exactly the bastion of liberal thought, devoted a series of columns devoted to attacking Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine. But here’s the funny thing. They also paid for excerpts of Klein’s book, essentially paying Klein dinero to slam her to the ground. So who’s influencing whom? (via Bookninja)
• Facebookers are all narcissists! And other ways of overthinking social networks.
• Eli Roth is on board for the Heroes spinoff.
• Are today’s journalism undergrads creating their own alternative media?
• Colin McGinn on Steven Pinker.
• In fact, when I type in a sentence like “X on Y,” I cannot help but think of randy intellectuals twitching lustily between sheets. But there appears to be no better shortcut in the English language to describe one person writing about another. I have similar problems with the phrase “in conversation with” (two prepositions!), which suggests a needlessly formal way of simply saying “talking with.” Apparently, “talking” is not good enough. One must be “in conversation with” in order to say anything intelligent, uplifting, or otherwise seminal to the human species. But very often, the people I find “in conversation with” another tend to be full of hot air. (In fact, when a person is telling you at a party, “I’m having a conversation with so-and-so,” a not so veiled way of telling you that you don’t matter and that you should go away very soon because you’re not all that interesting, it’s quite a rude thing, isn’t it?) Perhaps these various organizations avoid direct verbs because what’s being celebrated here is not so much two people talking with each other, but two people being “in conversation with” each other. Meaning that, due to legal reasons or other factors, an institution cannot promise something as vivacious as “talking.” Meaning that an event billing itself with the “in conversation with” moniker may very well be boring. Meaning that the audience members are not part an important part of the experience, because one of the participants is essentially saying to them, “I’m having a conversation with so-and-so.” Please shut up and listen. Pontifications are the order of the day.
• And while I’m quibbling over this subject, I should point out that I try never to say that I am “talking to” someone, but that I’m “talking with” someone. “Talking to” implies that you are speaking down to them. “Talking with” implies a shared conversational experience, which is more human, when you get right down to it. Then again, I’m usually the guy at the party who is introducing people to others. (Aha! Another trap! Should I not be introducing people with others? Well, in this case, I can’t, because it sounds wrong.)

• To paraphrase Groucho Marx, we’re going to speed things up here. If a blog readership orders a one-hour roundup, I’ll give it to them in twenty minutes. If they order a twenty minute roundup, I’ll give it them in ten minutes. If they order a ten minute roundup, I’ll give them my RSS feeds and let it work out for themselves. Time is limited. So here goes.
• Dan Green on the “marketplace of ideas” nomen. Since I have moved to New York, I have been contending more and more with people who view books as nothing more than a commodity and are not well-read and more taken with scarfing down canapes and free drinks at junkets than engaging with authors and books on even a remotely intellectual level. Even accounting for the reality that publishing is an industry, Dan’s words are well worth considering.
• Bill Benzon offers a provocative open letter to Steven Pinker about shared knowledge and stories.
• The Last Starfighter: The Musical. (via Jason Boog)
• On pumping out twenty books in six years. (via Slushpile)
• UC Santa Cruz plans to put its Heinlein archive online. I’d like to see more universities do this.
• Uncovered: A disturbing juxtaposition of Black Canary.
• You down with OED? Yeah, you know me. Crosswords, mothafuckahs!
• Tonight, 6:30 PM at the Bowery Poetry Club: Levi Asher and some other guy.
• Someone has stolen Erin O’Brien’s hat!
• Shame is the New Fame and related article.
• It appears that YA authors are using high school newspapers to market their books. I have a slight ethical problem with this, but there is currently no time to offer a lengthy argument. Perhaps later. (via Bookshelves of Doom)
• Timbaland on One Life to Live.
• I don’t see anything particularly wrong with the Harvard Classics approach to education, but is five minutes a day really enough time to take in a classic?
• And, finally, call me a prurient cad, but I’m extremely curious about the future of this man’s potency.