Category / Uncategorized

by Edward Champion

Again with the Basements!

Variety: “That blogger at TMZ.com, which is owned by Warners’ own AOL, doesn’t fit the common stereotype of a lonely geek in sweats hunkered in a dark basement staring into a glowing computer screen. In fact, he was a trade reporter who was competing with his ex-colleagues at Variety for scoops. His advantage: as a blogger, he could post his items faster online.”

There are several questions that must be asked:

1. Is there anything wrong with basements?

2. Why is it that bloggers are associated with basements? Which blogger set the precedent? Have any bloggers been found dead in a basement?

3. Was the first basement-observed blogger based in Terre Haute?

4. Are they any journalists in New York now working in basements?

5. Is the preferred blogger basement a daylight basement, a walk-up basement, or a look-out basement? If we are to carry out a stereotype, I think it’s important to be specific about it.

6. Are there any known cases in which a blogger working in a basement has been bitten by a rat or a spider or a creepy crawly? Asbestos?

7. Are most of the basements owned by Warner?

8. Why would one wear sweats or pajamas in a basement?

9. Is the basement really that ideal of a spot for a desktop or laptop computer?

by Edward Champion

Save the Blogs! Rally Report

terrahauteinn1.jpg

The above picture was taken from our Save the Blogs! rally, held yesterday morning at the Terre Haute Hampton Inn. Alas, nobody showed up. Not even the organizers. And this was after we offered everybody free pizza and beer and paid a few people to show up. Alas, it’s hard to find good help these days.

But WE WILL NOT REST until the litblogs are saved! Where else can you find such nonsensical nomens as “herringbone plot structure?” Where else can you find over-the-top diatribes and, above all, THIRD-HAND LITERARY NEWS about today’s contemporary literature?

You may not have attended yesterday’s rally. But the bloggers may very will be coming to your basement very soon!

We now plan to picket the Terre Haute Hampton Inn in the forthcoming months. For one thing, the Terre Haute Hampton Inn does not have a basement, therefore making it a hostile edifice for our blogging purposes. We have also learned from a litblogger, who heard from another blogger, who in turn heard from a man claiming to be Richard Ford’s accountant, that Richard Ford stayed at this very hotel!

So look out, Hampton Inn! You’ve messed with the litbloggers! And some of us forgot to shave!

(Cross-posted at From a Basement in Terra Haute. See, we bloggers deliberately misspell cities! Take that, mainstream media!)

by Edward Champion

Three Words, Freeman: Nine to Five

Publishers Weekly: “About 50 protestors showed up outside the Atlanta Journal-Constitution today for a ‘read-in’ organized by the National Book Critics Circle to protest the the dismissal of the newspaper’s book editor Theresa Weaver.”

Of course, seeing as how the read-in was inexplicably scheduled for 10:00 AM — a time when most people are stuck at work — I’m gratified that even 50 people took the time out to protest.

A word to the wise for those who fancy themselves activists: When plotting any revolution, never forget the workers.