Month / December 2003

by DrMabuse

On the Run

Move over, Ali (Muhammad, not Monica). MIT scientist Michael Hawley has created the largest book. And he has the Guinness credentials (the record, not the beer) to prove it. Bhutan: A Visual Odyssey Across the Kingdom is 5′ X 7′, 112 pages and costs $2,000 to produce. Hawley’s charging $10,000, with the balance going to charity.

Madonna’s interested in a Ph.D. I don’t know what’s more frightening: the idea that Madonna has intellectual pursuits or this photo. (via Bookslut) [UPDATE: Well, goddam. Maud reports it’s a hoax! That’s what I get for racing through the newswires in a hurry.]

Richard Kopley has tracked down an unexpected Hawthorne inspiration source: an anonymous novel entitled The Salem Belle.

Hilary Clinton: “‘I love independent bookstores. I tried to go to as many of them as I could on this book tour. I had promised to try to go to the top markets and I’m slowly but surely checking them off.” Funny. The Simon Says site seems to be down, but she sure seems to be hitting a lot of Barnes & Nobles.

[Insert your obligatory Moses/Rasputin/Unabomber/Nostradamus-Hussein comparison here. Ha ha.]

by DrMabuse

Heft, Hate, Outlines and Vanity

Looks like Vollman’s got competition. Muhammad Ali’s definitive life story weighs 75 pounds, runs 800 pages, costs £2,000, and includes over 3,000 photographs. The mammoth bio, however, is a team effort, with contributions by Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe. However, Greatest of All Time does suffer from an unfortunate acronym.

The Bakersfield yokels are hoping to ban Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye from classrooms. Because anything dealing with sexual abuse and racism is, you know, “provocative.”

Patrick O’Brian’s unfinished 21st book in the Aubrey-Maturin series is being talked about for possible publication. O’Brian had an outline and a few chapters. But thankfully HarperCollins doesn’t plan on hiring a ghostwriter.

Forget Zoe Trope and the Gen Y spokesperson fracas over at Moby Lives. Factor in vanity presses and there’s plenty of speakers to go around, albeit unreadable ones. Mom and twelve year old are trying the self-publishing racket.

And is this headline the case of an overtaxed copy editor ready to slit his own throat because of all the Xmas hype?

by DrMabuse

Bad Santa

Bad Santa is a beautiful movie. It’s the kind of risk-taking, no-holds-barred razor held against a sacred cow that comes but once in a generation. I think Alexander Payne’s going to be duking it out with Terry Zwigoff over who gets to fire the satirical howitzers.

Only someone foolish enough to buy in completely to the hypocrisy that is Xmas would hate it. If that’s your thing, go see Elf instead. Bad Santa has at least five kicks to the crotch. It features an antihero who has no compunction about fucking heavy-set ladies in the Plus Size fitting room, but has problems being accused of “fornicating.” It has an indelible image of Billy Bob Thornton and Tony Cox walking across a parking lot in slow-motion, Thornton with a bottle of bourbon and a cigarette. It includes John Ritter in a great role as a politically correct manager who was “against the Clinton impeachment.” It has Bernie Mac as a man who cannot stop putting terrible things into his mouth. It has a sweet, pudgy kid who remains a hapless believer in the face of misery. It has Ajay Naidu from Office Space as a lunatic looking for a fight. It has one of the best dwarf roles seen in cinema since Even Dwarves Started Small. It features a woman who cries, “Fuck me Santa. Fuck me Santa,” in the back of a car.

It is unapologetically dark. It will piss off the prissy. But, strangely enough, you’ll come away feeling damned good about the human race. Bad Santa is probably one of the funniest films I’ve seen this year. Joe Bob says check it out.

by DrMabuse

Literary Grandson to Launch Unexpected Career

mailerbaby.jpgIn response to the recent news that 25 year old John Buffalo Mailer, the youngest child of Norman Mailer, will be taken over the reins of High Times, Return of the Reluctant has learned that Ishmael Harris Bellow, the illegitimate grandson of novelist Saul Bellow (and little-known son of Adam Bellow), age 2, will become editor-in-chief of Playboy Magazine.

“We needed credibility,” said original founder Hugh Hefner. “Someone in touch with the next generation’s tastes.”

The decision to hire Bellow came hot on the heels of other noted family involvements (Drew Barrymore’s mom and Michelle Pfeiffer’s sister, to name two pictorial collaborations). Magazine insiders report that the Bellow decision, not unlike the Mailer hire, is nothing less than a desperate attempt to boost sales of a magazine that has lost its cultural relevance.

“Hugh Hefner is the worst publisher of his generation,” said Dale Peck, who then declared Playboy “homophobic” because it had refused to publish his stories.

“Goo goo ga!” replied Bellow, who then demanded to be burped and had two unpaid editorial interns close the door to his spacious Manhattan office.