In lieu of actual content:

• Robert Birnbaum, who is kicking some serious ass on the nonfiction interview front these days, talks with William Wright.
• I’ve been on an Anthony Burgess kick of late*, and I highly recommend Earthly Powers, an erudite, brash, gleefully satiric and wildly ambitious novel. There are fantastic dips into cultural minutiae, a complex portrait of gay life that was, at the time Burgess wrote the novel, ahead of its time but no less interesting today. There are extremely playful assaults on organized religion and the pomposity of the literary world, and a story arc that dares to cover no less than an 81 year period, with the characters frequently colliding into major historical events. (The protagonist, one Kenneth Toomey, loses his virginity the day that James Joyce begins writing Ulysses.) When I finish reading the book, I will offer my full thoughts under a 75 Books entry (long delayed, I know). In the meantime, you can read John Leonard’s review from the June 30, 1981 NYTBR, back in the days when the NYTBR actually practiced criticism instead of the ethically dubious reviews it publishes today.
• Mr. Orthofer points to this strange piece of news. The Big Read, a hysterical plan contrived not long ago by the NEA, is “getting a lot bigger.” In other words, the NEA seems to be taking the tentpole blockbuster approach. There will now be grants awarded to 100 communities who select a novel and encourage people to read it. Aside from the strange inability to qualify these results (I suppose all those “One Book, One City” programs are now overdue for payola), does this mean the LBC is due for some government-sponsored cash? I beseech Mr. Kipen for answers on this front. Who came up with this half-baked idea and can it be certifiably demonstrated by anyone that throwing cash around actually gets people to read? With current programs, there is, I feel, a conformist approach. I’m not sure if dictating what people should read, as opposed to allowing them an encouraging environment to discover books on their own, is the best way to get people reading.
• The Guardian offers a podcast between Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens debating blasphemy. (Things get particularly interesting around the 37 minute mark, when Fry and Hitchens discuss freedom of speech’s concomitant relationship to blasphemy.)
• The ULA disrupts an Allen Ginsberg reading, proving that Ginsberg is still capable of attracting lunatics. Which I actually think is a good thing. (via the Elegant Variation)
• Gideon Lewis-Kraus offers a contrarian positive review of Apex Hides the Hurt. (via Maud)
• Google Book Seach has set up a blog. (via the Millions)
• RIP Herbert Burkholz.
• Pinky’s Paperhaus observes that today is Pynchon’s 69th birthday. While I appreciate Ms. Kellogg’s cornball humor, the deviant part of me is more tempted to arrange my Pynchon books in a 69 position in honor of the man. Photograph to follow tonight.
• Michelle Richmond offers a report of last night’s Peter Orner reading and last night’s Progressive Reading Series.
• Jack Shafer attempts to determine the motivations of plagiarists. Meanwhile, the Biederbecke Affair uncovers meta-plagiarism. (First link via Word Munger)
• The Ice Cube Scholarship. (via Black Market Kidneys)
• Oh, shut up. If Al Gore really wanted to be back in the White House, then he would have presented a more rigorous legal challenge back in 2000. Now, more than ever, I sincerely hope that the 2008 Democratic candidate doesn’t have plans to open a wafflehouse at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
• Sebastian Junger gets lynch-mobbed big-time at a reading. (via Laila)
• The case against barring women from combat.
• At the Litblog Co-Op, Gina Frangello offers a lengthy post about how women’s sexuality has been toned down in literature.
• Good fucking God. Why?

* — Actually, I’ve been on an Anthony Burgess kick for a few years, although this has involved collecting his copious back catalog — no small task, I assure you, given how prolific he was and how out-of-print he is today. But I am only just getting around to reading these acquisitions.

Severe sleep deficit which permits me to see beyond time, crazed schedule. So another roundup:

• Another day, another array of crazed parents declaring that the Harry Potter books are evil and trying to ban them. I really don’t get this paralogical thinking. A book doesn’t cause someone to do anything; a person makes a decision on his own. And if the kid in question was practicing witchcraft for two years and the parent failed to notice the lodestones, the incense or the Wiccan catalogs in her daughter’s bedroom, then isn’t it the parent’s fault for failing to keep a scrupulous eye?
• Snoop Dogg has written a novel. The working title is Q&G(Quatrain & Gangsta): The Masterpiece.
• At the LBC, Ms. Tangerine Muumuu unveils my personal favorite of the five: Yannick Murphy’s Here They Come.
• Dan Green on Beckett: “Beckett insists that we accept these situations for what they are and focus our attention on the working-out of such ‘impoverishment’ in purely dramatic terms. Still, every reader/every viewer is going to experience this drama and its finally ungovernable ramifications in different ways and to different effect. Trying to restrict the reader’s experience by the fiat of authorial intent is, if nothing else, really just a hopeless task.”
• Scott McKenzie on why people hate self-published authors.
• Mark Ames, who can also be heard on The Bat Segundo Show #17, is now blogging for the Guardian. (via Richard Nash)
• Even National Inquirer reporters are writing novels.
• Anthony Lane: “There is one overriding reason to see ‘I Am a Sex Addict,’ and it has nothing to do with sex.”
• Manly reading: a small-time success?
• Blackwell, a bookstore chain, has come up with a list of 50 Books That Shaped the World. I must concur that Jonathan Livingston Seagull did indeed change the world, its film adaptation being something of a cash bonanza for Mr. Neil Diamond. Diamond was allowed to unleash further music onto the world and the world has simply never been the same since. Indeed, one might conclude that it is still recovering.
• Amazon 2.0. (via Booksquare)
• It looks like Chomsky’s cognitive theory has been confirmed in part by scientists.
• How Computers Cause Bad Writing.

Almost finished podcast last night but collapsed circa 1:30, woke up this morning later (much later) than expected, somehow slept through a scheduled phone call (rectified, thankfully), received several crazed voicemails, people freaking out, called them back and placated them, one email account cleared (more or less) with responses to all nice people, one more ridiculous backlog to go. In other words, things are more or less back to normal, but there’s still far too much on the plate. Which means….

…another roundup in lieu of actual content!

• My pal Megan Sullivan offers her thoughts on Paul Rusesabagina’s An Ordinary Man, a memoir from the guy profiled in Hotel Rwanda that looks particularly intriguing.
• FinnegansWiki. (via Chekhov’s Mistress)
• Top 50 Literary Adaptations. What? No O Lucky Man (based on Candide)? (via Sarah)
• Today, at the LBC, Gwenda Bond extols Jeffrey Ford’s Girl in the Glass. We wish to note that, aside from being a solid storyteller, Mr. Ford proved to be a very fun and enjoyable interview: a smart and no-bullshit guy. The two of us ended up talking for something like 40 minutes and I’m at a loss as to how to whack the audio down. So keep watching the skies for a podcast.
• Frances puts up her earthquake centennial report, where she confesses that she endured a corset for much of the day. There’s also an absolutely adorable photo of the Dinkelspiels dressed up in costume.
• I don’t know if I mentioned it yet, but Michael Allen has been posting excerpts from his novel over at Grumpy Old Bookman.
• RotR fave Dave King (whose fantastic book, The Ha-Ha, recently issued in paperback, you must check out) talks briefly with Valerie Nienberg.
• C. Max Magee has been finding and locating excerpts of the Pulitzer winners.
• Syriana was shorn of two minutes upon premiering at the United Arab Emirates. Unfortunately, those two elided minutes were absolutely essential in comprehending the film’s labryinthine plot. Citizens are now associating Syriana with aspirin. (via Laila)
• Pete Anderson reveals the Tournament of Tunes. Hopefully, this will be less anticlimactic than its literary cousin.
• Smoking Dope with Thomas Pynchon (via the Rake)
• Will somebody expand Colson Whitehead’s Wikipedia entry already? Sheesh.
• Alison Bechdel has a videoblog. (via Derik)
• And since it’s now been revealed by Jeff VanderMeer, it looks like VanderMeer and the Chenies on a new Best American Fantasy anthology.

• Ed Park offers a fab review of Black Swan Green. Really, folks, this is the way to write criticism. (via Jenny D)
• Also tackling Mitchell is Mr. Derek Weiler and Mitchell is sharp as a tack in this Book Standard review. Incidentally, he’s also going to be at the Booksmith next Monday.
• Over at Maud’s, Katharine Weber remembers Muriel Spark.
• There’s an unfortunate trend of product placement in comic books. So that explains the recent Wolverine White Flower Day story arc! (via Galleycat)
• Apparently, publicity budgets are so thin that desperate writers are now gambling their savings away to establish a marketing budget. And here I was thinking that the $8 I dropped Sunday night on a middling martini was a gamble.
• There’s a Stockton band called the Lobstrostities. All of their songs contain references to The Dark Tower. Apparently, the name alone has been a major draw. If that’s the case, I’ll have to start a band called Roland and the Gunslingers.
• Never underestimate Canadian sarcasm.
• An interview with DBC Pierre: “So, don’t think that I set out with an agenda to shock or to make any kind of big statement, either. They just seemed such blindingly obvious things in the world around me that I, you know, felt compelled to write about them.” Well, that would explain why Vernon God Little is so flaacid.
• Good to know that the subjects of Continuum’s excellent series are reading the books. But then this is Sonic Youth we’re talking about here. They kick ass by default.
• Mental Multivitamin channels “The Chris Farley Show.”
• Jane Fonda: milquetoast.
• South Park plans to take on James Frey.

• Some more info on the DeLillo play from Backstage. The most interesting comment is from John Heard: “It’s an actor’s dream. But at the same time, the language is his language, so you get scared if you start to paraphrase. I’m constantly going back to the script, `I saw a dead man on the subway once.’ It’s not like, `There was once a time I saw a guy on the subway.'” Is this a case where DeLillo-speak doesn’t quite translate to the stage?
• David Sedaris: I’m a sorry excuse for a rock star. I think what they meant was a literary equivalent of a rock tumbler, one who just grinds and grinds and grinds.”
• S Sharky’s Machine remake? With Markie Mark? Huh?
• An Bookworm interview with Elliott Perlman to check out later (MP3). He was seriously interviewed about his work, which is apparently an unusual situation for him.
• Rick Kleffel nails one thing s cool about Ego & Hubris: “Random House has given Pekar a very nicely printed, tight and tidy hardcover format for his latest work. It’s beautifully laid out, easy-to-read and feels right. If you’re a book freak, well, these things matter, I’m a book freak, and well, these things matter.”
• The American love for police brutality and anti-Fourth Amendment violence expands with a 24 movie. (via Six Different Ways)
• Radiers of the Lost Ark: the animated GIF.
• Greg Knauss offers a new dichotomy: referential and experiential bloggers. But what of the blogger who crosses both areas? That’s like a purple district on a political graphic of the United States.
• Stick-figure version of Dragon’s Lair. (via Waxy)
• M.A. Orthofer tracks down coverage of Martin Amis’ House of Meetings.
• The London Review of Books on Roy Fisher.
• Ali Smith wins the Tournament of Books.
• Tornado photos from Babies Are Foolproof.
• An APE report from Chris Reynolds.
• Michael Blowhard takes umbrage with public video screens.
• Dialect maps. (via OGIC)
• Chris Hitchens: Dick Armitage is Colin Powell’s bitch.

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