I Need a Vacation

I Need a Vacation

Okay, I fully confess (the dropoff in stats and Blogllines subscribers doesn’t lie!) that I’ve been biting the big one lately and that my posts…

Read Article →
RIP Shelby Foote

RIP Shelby Foote

As noted elsewhere, Shelby Foote has passed on. Technorati Tags: Shelby Foote

Read Article →
Author Commencement Speeches

Author Commencement Speeches

Bill Clinton: 1998 Hilary Rodham Clinton: 1969 (as Hilary Rodham) 1992 Richard Fenyman: 1974 Doris Kearns Goodwin: 1998 John Grisham: 1992 Lyndon B. Johnson: 1965…

Read Article →
Yeah, That Thing They're Taking Back to Mom is Called a Guilt Complex and Endless Therapy For the Next 20 Years

Yeah, That Thing They’re Taking Back to Mom is Called a Guilt Complex and Endless Therapy For the Next 20 Years

The New York Times on fat camps: “‘Maybe they’re not losing the weight specifically, but instead they’re learning something that they can use 20 years…

Read Article →
Leading Alt-Weekly Exploits Workers

Leading Alt-Weekly Exploits Workers

All is not well in the New York alt-weekly world. Gawker reports that the Village Voice has proposed a contract for its writers that not…

Read Article →
Hot Chicks + Ten-Sided Die = Laughs

Hot Chicks + Ten-Sided Die = Laughs

Geek Fantasies: an absolutely absurd take on fetishistic sites. Take Preview #2, where we see a camera crane up a blonde’s bikini-clad body. The end…

Read Article →
Proposed Titles for Terry McMillan's Next Book

Proposed Titles for Terry McMillan’s Next Book

The Litigation of Everything A Few Years Late and a Sexual Orientation Short Disappearing Cash How Stella Got Her Groove Jacked Waiting for Ex in…

Read Article →
Speedy Gonzales Roundup

Speedy Gonzales Roundup

Salon revisits John Cheever’s first novel, The Wapshot Chronicle. (Also at Salon: the first of a four-part expose on the Church of Scientology.) Norman Mailer…

Read Article →
My Head Hurts!  Therefore, Comic Books Are Bad!

My Head Hurts! Therefore, Comic Books Are Bad!

Proving once again how culturally irrelevant they are, the Book Babes have declared graphic novels as the harbinger of evil. So suggesth one Ellen Hetzel:…

Read Article →
BEA: The Last Post

BEA: The Last Post

Several weekends outside of the City prevented me from getting to the remainder of the BEA material I collected. But this weekend, I went through…

Read Article →
Creature Features and More

Creature Features and More

If you lived in Northern California and remember the UHF programming of the 1960s through the 1980s, this site has done an admirable job chronicling…

Read Article →
Round Robin

Round Robin

In light of the assaults on eminent domain and flag burning (and with the frightening prospect of Justice Rehnquist resigning looming in the air), there’s…

Read Article →
Watered Down Knowledge, The Slim-Fast Book Diet: What a Concept!

Watered Down Knowledge, The Slim-Fast Book Diet: What a Concept!

For the last 12 years, the wax has accumulated in my ears, preventing me from comprehending any book more than 200 pages. Brain cells have…

Read Article →

Condi’s Teeth Continue Steady Transmutation to Pure Evil; Well On Their Way to Palpantine Proportions

Read Article →
Morning Linkage

Morning Linkage

I’m trying my best to post lengthy entries (and reply to the email backlog), but other obligations have kept me firmly bogged. In the meantime,…

Read Article →
Primer

Primer

I have just seen the film Primer, and my head fucking hurts. But in a very good way. Do I know what went on? Somewhat….

Read Article →

Former House Speaker Farts in Committee “For Old Time’s Sake”

Read Article →
Roundup

Roundup

Because one can never cover too many awards, I note that Orhan Pamuk has won the 2005 Book Trade Peace Prize. The prize is the…

Read Article →
What to Do at a Reading

What to Do at a Reading

M.J. Rose has put up a list of ten things not to do when publicizing your book. Beyond Rose’s troubling Miss Manners-style tone, as a…

Read Article →
Another Ego Who Makes Generalizations About the Locals, Another Ungrateful and Overhyped Author

Another Ego Who Makes Generalizations About the Locals, Another Ungrateful and Overhyped Author

Like the Rake, I’m mystified why no one in Denver has put this smug bastard in his place. Perhaps the concept of “When in Denver,…

Read Article →
Call in Chabon & Lethem

Call in Chabon & Lethem

Patricia Storms strikes again. This time, it’s the publishing industry. Even the LBC “controversy” gets sent up. (via Bookdwarf)

Read Article →
Roundup

Roundup

Cory Doctorow’s Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, a very nutty-looking novel about Alan, the son of a mountain and a washing machine, is,…

Read Article →
Three Strikes and a Long Way from "Fever Pitch"

Three Strikes and a Long Way from “Fever Pitch”

Three strikes against Nick Hornby: Stephen Metcalf, TMFTML and Laura Demanski. We gave up on the man after How to Be Good and suggest you…

Read Article →
At This Rate, We'll Have Regular Three Day Weekends By 2050

At This Rate, We’ll Have Regular Three Day Weekends By 2050

The two-day weekend, as we know it, is a mere sixty-five years old. More at Ask Yahoo.

Read Article →
The Black Helicopters Hover Just Next to the Plunger

The Black Helicopters Hover Just Next to the Plunger

Ayelet Waldman: “Every popped light bulb is a catastrophe, every leaky faucet spells if not the end of the world then surely the beginning of…

Read Article →
Persona Non Grata

Persona Non Grata

Maud pointed out the Neal Pollack/Dave Eggers fracas this morning and made a case for honest criticism. I don’t have any self-serving magazine manifesto or…

Read Article →
Partial List of the Class of '05

Partial List of the Class of ’05

William S. Morricone-Goldsmith; Joaquin Stick; Enrique Insalada Suavo; “Little” Nell Carter-Mondale; Henrietta Hi-Fi Tapa; Georgia Savannah Cargostygian; Gilbert Fishernie Scale; Christian Muslim Disciple; Patricia Pedunda…

Read Article →

James Howard Kuntsler Goes to Raging Waters

While on my book tour for The Long Emergency, I attended a place known as Raging Waters, a “waterslide theme park” that’s a first-class cesspool…

Read Article →
Fuck Two Buck Chuck

Fuck Two Buck Chuck

Everywhere I go these days, from swank parties to low-key affairs, I see people — charming and intelligent people who should know better — gripping…

Read Article →
Questionable Axiom of the Week

Questionable Axiom of the Week

“No woman is worth dating, much less talking to, if she can’t name the three major oceans. And if she names the fourth (established a…

Read Article →