I’m currently recovering from a pleasant night of celebration on a boat in the East River that involved a Supreme Court Justice and a jet ski task force. (No, I am not making this up. I could not make this up.) All manner of strange ideas have entered my head, because I am a bad and overly imaginative person. So bear with me.
Bill Benson has asked a very interesting question: When did the New York Times begin to write snarky articles about the MLA? If you can help him out, leave a comment for the man.
So how did the New York Times find out about Blackwater? Good old-fashioned police reporting. Let this be a reminder to journalists of all persuasions. Keep tracking down leads, keep asking questions. Never give up, never surrender. The story finds itself.
So if you own an analog TV and don’t have a converter box, you’ll be left in the lurch on February 17, 2009, when all televisions go digital. I can’t even imagine how much landfill will be used for all the old television sets.
Her Pinkness has the skinny on Saunders in Pittsburgh. I do not know if Bob Hoover was involved with all the madness, but it’s my feeling that he should have been.
His Markness (or perhaps His Sarvoir Faire) has the inside scoop on what it means to be a debut novelist. Being a rather silly person in Brooklyn, I do not know if I am “actually in a position to advance [his] interests,” but if it helps the galley to come here any faster, I can offer a few lacrosse lessons or some helpful tips on stamp collecting, assuming that his “interests” plan to expand in the forthcoming months.
Whether ’tis Nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous prognostication, I would argue ’tis not until the jury’s out. But his Scottness has the hots and bothers for those occupying their time with endless speculation.
Just so you know, we’re ashamed the divine Ms. Jones is being pegged as a mere Dixie Chick! (By the way, ever notice that the early history of the Dixie Chicks, in which two older women — specifically, Laura Lynch and Robin Lynn Macy — were part of the band, but fired in favor of the younger and presumably more outspoken Natalie Marines, appears to be notably elided within certain accounts? And you thought the Dixie Chicks represented some populist version of female empowerment!)
Her Weinerness defends Her Kathaness, leading to a Noun Ness Monster within these bullets that I may have to abandon in favor of the more trenchant ammunition of one misperceived word.
Online censorship hurts us all. When you wake up with that bruise tomorrow, just remember to tell everybody you had “a fall,” even though everybody knows you’ve been censored online. Speaking of censorship, not that I care, but shall I cry J’Accuse! against Cory Doctorow for not linking to any of the informative interviews conducted with speculative fiction authors — some, his friends — that have appeared on this site? After all, I have criticized Boing Boing in the past. For that matter, why have certain comments that are critical of Boing Boing disappeared from the Boing Boing site? Hypocrite much, Cory?
A talking Dalek tie! This is great for those boardroom meetings when some overbearing suit is trying to lowball you into a deal. While you can’t say anything to this guy that might suggest that self-defenestration might be the best thing he could do for his career, the Dalek, by contrast, might be able to suggest a one-word command that fits the bill. This is a great gift for passive-aggressive types stuck in an oppressive office environment. (via Bookshelves of Doom)
It’s a tough life being a novelist. While others are condemned to work at a McDonald’s or work two soul-sucking full-time jobs to feed their families, the novelist sits on his ass and perspires! Not that Mr. Swift said any of these things. As is evident from the article, he’s paid his dues. But the headline of this article suggests that Mr. Swift is one of those types who has the effrontery to compare full-time writing with “backbreaking labor,” but have never once performed hard physical labor. (For the record, I have. A few years ago: Three days loading 100 pound boxes at the docks to pay my rent. That’s “backbreaking labor.”)
Despite my best efforts, my sleeping schedule has gone to hell again. So here goes the roundup.
Rebecca Skloot — one of only four people on the NBCC Board of Directors who actually have a sense of humor — offers this interesting take on what David Halberstam’s untimely death means for the future of student escort drivers. Do we now have the author drive at all times because of one student’s incompetence?
Lionel Shriver on Ondaatje. Shriver’s apparently quite surprised that she didn’t have a strong opinion on Divisadero, and I suspect this assessment is telling on its own terms.
Even though I don’t possess the required estrogen, I nevertheless felt a microscopic but nonetheless discernible swoon upon listening to Alan Rickman read Sonnet 130. And that’s saying something. I’m now wondering if I should listen to audio files of Alan Rickman the next time I make muffins.
Is Laura Bush the “Reader in Chief?” I think it can be easily argued that there have been plenty of people who “has done more to dramatize the importance of reading, and libraries.” Then again, nobody said Dr. James Billington wasn’t a sycophant. In all fairnes, however, the First Lady’s reading tastes includeThe Brothers Karamazov, Gilead, and My Antoina. I’m wondering if Ms. Bush might readily identify with the moment in which Dimitri says, “I’m a Karamazov! When I fall into the abyss, I go straight into it, head down and heels up, and I’m even pleased that I’m falling in such a humiliating position, and for me I find it beautiful. And so in that very shame I suddenly begin a hymn. Let me be cursed, let me be base and vile, but let me also kiss the hem of that garment in which my God is clothed; let me be following the devil at the same time, but still I am also your son, Lord, and I love you, and I feel a joy without which the world cannot stand and be.”
Are e-books being taken seriously now? Well, given that Sony’s Howard Stringer bears more than a passing resemblance here to Jimmy Swaggart in the accompanying photo, I suspect this is probably hype.
I’d just like to publicly declare that Sendhil Ramamurthy is the worst actor I’ve seen on dramatic television in a long while. In fact, he’s so bad that not even Adrian Pasdar or Hayden Panettiere can make him look good. And that’s saying somethign. Come on, Kring, kill off Mohinder already. Every time that one-note twerp appears, I want to send him to the hardest Lee Stasberg-style school in New York. (And, yes, I’m digging Heroes, particularly last season’s flashback episode written by Bryan Fuller. But the show still has serious problems.)
Now this is quite interesting. The L.A. Times may be launching a free tabloid newspaper for commuters.
Douglas Brinkley has been sued. Penguin wants him to pay back his $200,000 advance because he didn’t deliver his Kerouac bio in time for the 50th anniversary of On the Road. Brinkley, who was a bit busy writing the 736-page The Great Deluge for William Morrow, said that the delay came because he wanted to properly chronicle Kerouac’s life. I’m wondering if this is petty vengeance on Penguin’s part because Brinkley jumped to another publisher. Surely, something could have been settled or worked out and this is quite an extraordinary form of resolution. Kerouac interest has not, to my knowledge, abated. And it’s just possible that this lawsuit might attract interest in the book, which will now be published by HarperCollins after Brinkley finishes it in two years. (via Booklist Online)
I couldn’t make the Lethem-PKD event, I’m afraid, but Matt Cheney has a lengthy report. The included novels in the second PKD LOA edition will be Martian Time-Slip, Dr. Bloodmoney, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, A Scanner Darkly and Now Wait for Last Year.
I have not watched Smallville in two years (this was a sad addiction and nobody in particular can be blamed for this, except perhaps an old roommate), but if this is the kind of nonsense they’re now putting out, I think I may have chosen correctly.
The Westchester Library didn’t think twice about nailing Elizabeth Schaper with a 50-cent fine. Schaper had gone to the library to return a book that her mother had checked out. But since Schaper’s mother had died the week before, Schaper’s mother wasn’t exactly in the position to return the book on time. To the martinet man behind the desk, this was simply no excuse. He insisted on the two quarters. The library, spineless to the core, has not issued any public comment or public apology.