Month / June 2006

by Edward Champion

Alan Greenspan Not Into Solo Kayaking

In a shocking development, Alan Greenspan has revealed that he is incapable of writing his memoir on his own! Where other writers (even Bill Clinton!) might honor their end of a multimillion dollar publishing deal, it seems that Greenspan has hit a rough patch after Chapter 18 and requires the services of one Peter Petre (whose ghostly pallor has granted succor to the likes of Norman Schwarzkopf and Thomas Watson, Jr.) to help him commit his lurid life on paper. One hopes that Petre’s “collaborations” will involve applying a Chinese fan to Greenspan’s parched form as he hunkers over a typewriter in the New York summer heat, but it’s a fair bet that foot massages and sweet bedtime stories (to say nothing of the salver of milk and cookies) will likely be upstaged by the inevitable act of covering, if not outright kissing, Greenspan’s ass.

by Edward Champion

Roundup

  • Over at Litkicks, Levi Asher begins his Overrated Writers Series. So far, Philip Roth and Joan Didion have been taken to task, the latter in particular for The Year of Magical Thinking. But I must disagree with Mr. Asher, largely because of my own personal stake on the subject. After all, I’ve written bravely about my own neuroses before and, while I haven’t had my literary status catapaulted into a higher orbit (although I did win a $15 Macy’s gift card for “After Blog Life,” which I cashed in for a Jerry Garcia necktie, which then caused me to write a 4,000 word essay about how I was frightened and tortured by the necktie and had to see a therapist after concluding that the necktie was diminishing my erotic dreams with various starlets and intellectuals — all this to be published in next week’s Penny Saver in abridged form), there is nothing more necessary than hardworking professionals (and that includes prolific litbloggers) being misidentified as literary geniuses.
  • Derik Badman confesses that the Fantagraphics collections have shifted his view on Peanuts, which makes me ponder whether it’s all in the presentation. Would comics garner greater respect among the literati if they were published with the same respect one finds in Modern Library volumes?
  • Alexander McCall Smith is interviewed by The Hindu. Apparently, one of the reasons he’s so prolific is because he writes 1,000 words a day and not bothering to edit what he writes. Which suggests to me that an unexpected turn to Christianity and a kooky novel about Jesus’s early days may just be in his future.
  • The Scotsman peers inside British small presses and concludes that the Internet has been one of the primary reasons why small presses have been able to catch up with the big boys. Well, that and the fact that small presses have more interesting names. I mean, Houghton Mifflin doesn’t exactly roll off the tip of the tongue, does it? Even as an adult, I still have great difficulties, often mispronouncing it as “MILFin.” But this may have something to do with the porn stash on my hard drive. Soft Skull, on the other hand…
  • I didn’t get a chance to get Charles D’Ambrosio on tape while at BEA, but thankfully the folks at Powell’s have D’Ambrosio talking about his “first time.” I haven’t heard the clip yet. And I’m not certain what this means exactly, but I do know that D’Ambrosio doesn’t bullshit around. So perhaps there’s something salacious in there.
  • Another article telling us how Oh So Scary digital publishing is. I don’t get this. Really, digital publishing is a bit like riding a bicycle. The first time, you’re a quavering child wondering just how a bipedal life form can balance upon such a seemingly baroque contraption. By the fourth or fifth time, you realize how rote it is and you’ve completely forgotten about the fears and anxieties that caused you to take the plunge in the first place. Unless you’re like me and you’re still frightened by the fact that you once rode a BMX bike at an age when your peers got around by car.
by Edward Champion

6.6.6

Here in California, we get to vote on the Devil’s Day, which is only fitting given the number of Democratic dunderheads running for various offices. For example, for the Attorney General’s race, do you want Jerry Brown, the Democratic answer to Alberto Gonzales, or the inexperienced Rocky Delgadillo, who tells us on his website, “My parents named me Rocky for a reason” and doesn’t even offer us a platform, much less a concrete plan of action? Can you really stomach voting for Dianne Feinstein again, the Waffling Queen, as the incumbent Democratic senatorial candidate? Well, there’s always New Age nutcase Colleen Fernald, who lists “organic victory gardens as one of her key U.S. “governmental issue.” (I don’t know what’s more frightening. The batty notion of an “organic victory garden” or the amalgam of the name Orwell gave to Oceania’s cigarettes with “organic.”)

In the end, I’ve decided to vote half-freaks and half-hopelessly corrupt incumbents. It’s the only way I can corral pragmatism with quirkiness. I don’t feel good about it either way. And I’m going to need a cold shower when this is all over. Really, Democrats, is this the best that you can do?

Oh well, at least I can get behind Phil Angelides.