Category / Roundup

by Edward Champion

Roundup

by Edward Champion

Roundup

Way some folks figger it, when you’re just sputtering into consciousness and you’s got a blog, last thing folks need is some half-assed roundup. Then you stare at that old mug in the mirror and you says to yourself, “Well, shit, you ain’t no one’s sweetheart. And you ain’t be doing no thinkin’ anytime soon.” And if a roundup was what the Good Lord intended, then who am I to argue with His ways? But the flaws be mine. Last night’s drinkin’ o’ the devil’s jooce went a little too fine for my tastes and my head’s now a-throbbing and my body’s a-aching. And since the head’s the thing, and I’m feeling a bit woozy, I do declare that I ain’t capable of nary an extended thought, save I ‘spect for some idle speculation on aspirin.

So’s I’m hoping you’ll a-pardon my slippyshod collection of links, all kitty-cornered-like against that damn wall I keep forgettin’ to paint. Primer’s in the garage, but them bristles on the brushes ain’t getting crisp anytime soon. And I ‘spect a trip downtown in my trusty Chevy truck is in this afternoon’s cards.

  • I may not get out to Californyah much. So I cants really follow all them Hungarian poets that them Angeleno folk seem so set on. Why, hell, what kind of man spells his first name like that? But that boy’s mother — the Angeleno soul, that is — insists that this Faludy ain’t no foofaraw. So’s you alls better check him out.
  • Now this Barlow dude takes an issue or two with the ways some peoples talk. Now I ain’t much one for language. I’s just about reads and writes and even had a letter of mine printed in the paper about them damn septic tanks gettin’ so expensive these days. So I ain’t of proper mind to tells ya right or wrong. But sometimes folks talk in a particular way without no fault of their own. And them Brits ain’t in no position to speak final of our pidgin, seeing as how they’s yet to pronounce that letter zee the way the Good Lord intended it.
  • You know, I’s try to stay on good terms with me neighbors. So’s I can relate to this Mumpsimus’s casual insistence that we’s all get along. Ain’t you all heard the Good Lord’s edict? Love thy neighbor, I always say. And if you got some pissing territory for you to pass water, why I be happies if y’all came clamoring ’round to my rockshed outhouse. I donts mind — ain’t no ‘scriminatin’ here — if you’s all need to go, just so’s long as you’s all stop spilling your waste on some poor soul trying to build his own l’il shed.
  • So how we ‘duce these here motivations of a commie newspaperman. I tell’s ya, I ain’t never mets a man named Izzy round these parts. Sure this boy meant well, but the cat was conflicted, much like my’s own cat Scooter. I tells ya, Scooter don’ts know when it’s day or night, mostly cause he shy away from the sun. Yet I know he need some sturdy light every once and a while. You gots to take care of your pets if you wants them to remain happy. And that means understanding the basics of what the Good Lord set down. He says, hey there be day and there be night, and many things ‘twixt between. I do’s my best, but Scooter, he only see night and that ain’t no good way to wander ’bout our world.
  • Now’s I do sure loves me some mysteries, but I think these folks going too far. They a-takin’ Rankin’s Rebus and makin’ him younger and lighter. I ‘spect they taking out the edge, taking out that breezy aura keepin’ hairs standin’ up on your neck, putsa hair on your chest. These producers think they gettin’ an invite to the Sunday barbeque from me, they got’s another thing comin’.
  • And, wells, I gotta go. Missus comin’ round asking me ’bout the wall which I’s gotta paint and I ain’t ’bout to cross her. But you folks out there keep readin’, y’hear?
by Edward Champion

Roundup

by Edward Champion

Roundup

  • Arab Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz has died. He was 94. Laila promises to have more.
  • Levi Asher serves up five comic books you may not have heard about. Unless, of course, you have heard about them — in which case, I’m sure Levi would like you to hear about them again. The hope here is that somewhere along the line, a person who least expects it hears you hearing about them. Unless, of course, you have no ears — in which case, I’ll provide the cornball humor.
  • Jan Underwood wrote a novel in 72 hours, among many other participants in the International 3-Day Novel Contest, which makes NaNoWriMo look like a leisurely walk on the beach. Of course, if someone gets me hooked on Benzedrine, locks me in an attic and throws away the key, I guarantee that I’ll write an incoherent mess with lots of gratuitous sex scenes with a talking gopher named Orville in two days and call it a novel too.
  • Frank Kermode wants the study of English literature to be tough again. And by tough, I think you know what Kermode means. Starving grad students simply aren’t enough. Kermode has proposed throwing them into a arena with the “Gamesters of Triskelion” music playing while they cite obscure bits of poetry. If they get one line of Milton wrong, then we cut off their finger. If they get two lines of Milton wrong, then we cut off their sibling’s finger. And if they cling to “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” (such an obvious choice!), then we throw them into the incinerator. Kermode’s views may not be particularly popular with the academic crowd right now, but he insists that there is no better way to form young minds. And if a few grad students have to die, it’s the sad cost of proper education.
  • Helen Brown observes that many authors have a tendency to return to the same characters and reveals that Michel Faber is returning to Crimson Petal territory with a slim volume called The Apple. (via the Literary Saloon)
  • Dave Munger asks “Who uses the phone book anymore?” I have to agree. Everybody knows the escort services are listed in the back pages of an alt-weekly.
by Edward Champion

Roundup