The Chronicle: “Onuma Chumsri, a 24-year-old Thai woman awaiting sentence for drug trafficking, was the winner Thursday night of the annual Miss Spring contest at Santa Monica Women’s Prison in Lima’s Chorrillos district. ‘Sex appeal is important but it is not as if we are seeking just the physical aspect but rather the value as a woman, the value of the person is the essence of all of this,’ said Maria Jaen, director of the prison. Prison officials said preparations for the contest started two months ago. Entrants were required to have good conduct, attend psychological therapy sessions, and participate in some of the prison’s permanent workshops, such as cosmetology, drawing, and fabric painting.” (Thanks, Minh & Lina!)
Month / September 2005
Auctorial Doppelgangers, Part Two
Auctorial Doppelgangers, Part One
PICTURED LEFT: Jerzy Kosinski, author of The Painted Bird.
PICTURED RIGHT: Richard Kline, “Larry” from Three’s Company.
(Inspired by Languor Management.)
Roundup
- Voodoo Lounge author Christian Bauman has apparently promised to reveal some of his personal foibles or, minimally, to blog naked during his guest appearance today at the Elegant Variation. We understand that the man is hot. Smoking hot. So hot that he’ll be serving as a surrogate pair of mittens in December or devoting said thermal energy to more fantastic offerings. In any event, Joe Bob says check him out.
- Frances Dinkelspiel offers a report on the film version of The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio. Don’t let the Ohio reference fool you. This does involve a San Francisco local.
- Recently, various personages gathered to pay tribute to Saul Bellow. Jeffrey Eugenides introduced himself as “the guy who never knew Saul Bellow.” The caterer then stepped forward and introduced himself as “the guy who didn’t even know who Saul Bellow was.” He then proceeded to inform Mr. Eugenides that the tapas and canapés were “to die for” and was swiftly removed from the premises shortly after another wave of sobbing emerged from the assembled crowd.
- Edna O’Brien is returning to Bay Area theatre with Family Butchers. It’s a Magic Theatre production. A script excerpt and other goodies can be found here.
- Chris Elliott, novelist?
- A new study suggests that classical English literature is essential to the teaching of English. In other groundbreaking news, it is believed that the theory of relativity might just help you sort out electromagnetic waves. And maybe, just maybe, 3.141592675 might have something to do with circles.
- Some scientists claim to have found Homer’s Ithaca.
- The Sydney Morning Herald talks with Curtis Sittenfeld. Unfortunately, despite being of an age where she should have developed some speaking chops (Sittenfeld is 30), Sittenfeld, like, uses the word “like” in just about every answer to the intrepid Australian journalist. Like wow!
- Does a bear shit in the words? Not always. But in Canada, polar bears go batshit crazy.
- And if you’re aroused by birds, there’s a reason.
I Do Believe We Have Us Another Potential Watergate
First, DeLay gets indicted. And now Cheney’s Chief of Staff, Lewis Libby, has been outed by Judith Miller. Corruption leading all the way up to Bush and Cheney? Why, say, it ain’t so! Not in America!
(And I should point out that given the dollops that anyone with progressive stripes has had to digest in the past four years, the lives lost, displaced and otherwise disrupted under the hands of the GOP goons, you are hereby granted permission by me to engage in as much schadenfreude as you need without guilt. Why, if this pace keeps up, I might very well renounce my atheism and believe in a higher deity after all!)