Laila reports that the Zoo Prize Short Fiction contest has been canceled. But here’s the rub: all the writers who submitted their work (some 350) won’t get their $25 entry fees refunded. Even with Michael Curtis’s involvement, this strikes me as a potential scam, particularly since the money ended up going towards a full-page ad in the Atlantic Monthly — hardly the literary celebration that the writers expected. To cover its ass, the Zoo Press page reports that “Zoo Press reserves the right to withhold the Award in any given year.”

But if we do the math, 350 X $25 = $8,750. It’s too late in my time zone to call the Atlantic’s advertising department to try and confirm placement of the ad. But I will call them tomorrow morning. A full-page ad, according to this resource, costs $40,480.

The man behind this operation is Neil Azevedo. Some casual Googling reveals that Mr. Azevedo has been published in The Paris Review and The New Criterion. However, it may be worthwhile for the 350 writers to make their presence known to these and other publications. If Mr. Azevedo has a history of taking the money of writers and using it to promote (or in this case, partially subsidize) his own interests, then he needs to be called on it.

The cover painting for William Boyd’s Any Human Heart is based in part on a 1927 photo of Anthony Powell. Powell, whose A Dance to the Music of Time series, chronicled characters over several generations is one of the best known post-Proustian novelists — right there with Jules Romain and (on my list, anyway) Eric Kraft.

Alas — it’s not a vanity painting. Painter Duncan Hannah’s simply an Anglophile.

One more reason to avoid Smirnoff Ice (besides, of course, its faux alcoholic stature and similarities to Zima): one bottle has more calories than a Krispy Kreme donut. Not only are you better off drinking a 12 oz. can of regular beer, but you’re better off eating a Twinkie. By contrast, 1 jigger of vodka is 94 calories, 1 jigger of 86 proof whiskey is 105 calories, and 1 jigger of 90 proof gin is 110 calories.

(And if we do the math for those who can’t slam vodka straight, a screwdriver ends up having the same count as a beer. 75 calories in OJ plus 94 calories of a jigger. Plus, a greater likelihood of getting buzzed.)

I was at a social gathering a few months ago. An athletic thirtysomething lady insisted upon drinking nothing but Smirnoff Ice, but wouldn’t touch beer. I figured there wasn’t all that much of a difference. Turns out that my suspicions were correct.

Of course, true calorie counters will probably be better off drinking something like no-calorie water. But then who orders H20 from a bar other than the destitute and the suffering?

(One suspects that the thin Englishman opts for hard liquor and water to maintain his wiry physique, along with the afternoon tea. Not that I’m wallowing in stereotypes or anything.)

Some early reviews of The Confusion, the next round in Neal Stephenson’s interminable prize fight, have started hitting the wires. The boys over at The Complete Review are generous, giving Stephenson props for erudition. The Guardian‘s Josh Lacey is less forgiving, noting that “pages read as if they have been copied directly from history books.” Both reviews confirm that, aside from a few action sequences, The Confusion looks to continue Quicksilver‘s tedium. It’s too bad. Thomas Pynchon, John Barth and David Mitchell all mined detailed historical territory, but at least they had the good sense to make it rewarding. This could very well make the Baroque Cycle the Matrix trilogy of literature.