Author / Edward Champion

Posts by Edward Champion

Edward Champion is the Managing Editor of Reluctant Habits.
by Edward Champion

“Clash” Producers Sue Classics Professor

Classics professor Noel Johnson, the acclaimed author of Perseus and Andromeda, was surprised to find herself on the receiving end of a lawsuit on Thursday morning. She’s being sued for copyright infringement by Clash of the Titans producer Jon Jashni, despite the fact that Ms. Johnson has taught dozens of graduate classes on Mycenaean myth since 1985.

“I don’t understand,” said the University of Virginia professor. “I thought Apollodorus was in the public domain. I know they made that lame Ray Harryhausen movie in 1981, but this is ridiculous.”

Jashni’s office would not return phone calls. But in a legal battle that will almost certainly raise new questions about copyright, several legal experts now believe that Warner Brothers owns all rights to every character from Greek mythology. And because the studio remains jittery about whether the forthcoming Clash remake will rake in cash this weekend, Warner has been filing lawsuits and issuing C&D letters to protect the characters that it now claims to be its property. In addition, all copies of Edith Hamilton’s Mythology have been removed from bookstores, replaced by a special Clash of the Titans tie-in that features glossy photographs of Sam Worthington.

by Edward Champion

Electric Literature Announces One Word Fiction Contest

Hot off the success of its Stuff My Muse Says Twitter contest, the innovative literary journal Electric Literature has announced an even briefer fiction writing contest that confines a story to one word.

“Fiction isn’t concise enough,” said Electric Literature editor Andy Hunter. “We want to prove that you can tell a story in less than 140 characters.”

To add sauce to the goose, Electric Literature has offered several prizes and arranged for the famed editor Gordon Lish to personally berate any fiction writing aspirant who dares to write a story including two or more words. But this second part of the contest, called Stuff My Lexicon Says, has proven problematic. There have been numerous reports of Lish running around New York, setting fire to unabridged dictionaries in libraries and bookstores and screaming at confused kids staring at laptops in cafes.

“We were glad to get Gordon to do it,” said editor Scott Lindenbaum, “but if we’d known how much of a closet nihilist he was, we probably would have asked somebody else.”

Asked if one word could sufficiently convey a narrative, Hunter and Lindenbaum both pointed out that you got a little story every time you looked up a word.

Added Lindenbaum: “And if you stare at a word long enough…”

by Edward Champion

Borders Sets Up Innovative Slavery Program

Shortly after securing $42.5 million to repay its loans and taking on additional credit to stay alive in a particularly troubling economy, Borders Group Inc. announced that it will be issuing a payroll freeze, enrolling 90% of its employees into an innovative Slavery Program. The program is legal, thanks to a little-known clause contained within the Borders Employment Agreement that none of the workers thought to read.

A memo from the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based company, intercepted by The New York Times, revealed that the Slavery Program would begin in mid-April. Borders stores are now being remodeled to provide slave quarters in the back. Several ringlets will be placed in convenient locations to shackle up employees at various points within the store. Clerks will be lashed if they don’t restock shelves fast enough.

“We had to cut costs somewhere,” said interim CEO Michael Edwards, “and this seemed the best way to secure a profit. After all, didn’t Aristotle say that slavery was a natural part of civilization?”

Asked if the slaves would prove unsettling for regular customers, Edwards pointed out that the employees were never noticed anyway.

Edwards pointed to several tall piles of job applications to buttress his viewpoint, observing that several desperate people had offered to work for free after a long and unsuccessful job search.

“So you can see it’s a win-win situation,” said Edwards. “And if other corporations follow, we can keep up a very good slave trade.”

Borders managers have begun a grueling fast-track Slavemaster Training Program, presently taking place in Arizona. Here, they will learn how to issue corporal punishment whenever a Borders employee gets uppity. Thankfully, employee behavior has proven infinitely adaptable. The new slaves have already started bringing glasses of lemonade for the managers without being asked.

Edwards expects to face legal resistance to his plans — in large part because nobody has thought to challenge the 13th Amendment for quite some time.

“You say ‘slavery’ like it’s a bad thing,” said Edwards. “But we’re more civilized than we were in the 19th century. At least they now get healthcare.”

by Edward Champion

Sinatra’s Corpse Disinterred for BEA Keynote

Facing considerable indifference shortly after the announcement of has-been Barbra Streisand as a headliner, Reed Exhibitions announced that they had disinterred Frank Sinatra’s corpse to replace Streisand as BookExpo America’s opening night act.

“We recruited some mob guys in Hoboken to dig up the corpse,” said BEA spokesman Lance Fensterman. “They were very helpful and worked for a reasonable price, but there were a few other agreements we reached that I can’t discuss on the record.”

Sinatra, who has been dead since 1998, will be asked to perform a series of rousing numbers to awaken the increasingly dwindling booksellers and publishers who will be attending this year’s event. It is not yet known precisely how Sinatra will perform before this crowd, given that Sinatra has spent the past twelve years being chewed on by the maggots. But an expert team of touchup artists has been recruited to make Ol’ Blue Eyes look a little less like a corpse. But efforts to clear out the stench of death on Sinatra’s corpse haven’t started yet.

“They’ve got a lot of work ahead of them,” elaborated Fensterman. “But we remain confident that Sinatra will be in fine shape before the end of May. If we can’t reconstruct his face, we’ll simply replace it with a large watermelon.”

Fensterman’s audacious publicity move has attracted hostility from the Sinatra family, who have expressed a strong desire not to undergo a second round of bereavement. Nancy Sinatra has entered negotiations with Reed, offering to perform a version of her famous song called “These Books Were Made for Reading,” in an effort to keep BEA’s opening night tasteful.

by Edward Champion

On the Cannibal Film Genre

There’s some more content coming (indeed, there will be a good deal of content published tomorrow). But in the meantime, I feel compelled to direct your attention to this morning’s Barnes & Noble Review, where my essay on the cannibal film genre has just run. What happened here is that my editor had me review a film. Then, knowing very well of my tendency (indeed, one could more accurately style it a full-blown obsessive commitment) of performing serious background research, I began watching a good deal of cannibal films. And so this rather unusual cannibal film essay emerged in its place. You can read the results here. Here are the first few sentences:

The cannibal film, much like its topical larder, may be the genre of last resort. But open-minded cineastes wishing to move beyond Hannibal Lecter’s fey gravitas may be surprised to find an edgy contextual reframing that mainstream cinema lacks the guts to approach.