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by Edward Champion

There’s Also an Raging Middle-Aged Borderline Alcoholic Who Can’t Accept the Fact That He’s No Longer Thirty and Seems to Believe That He’s God’s Gift to Women

Publisher’s Lunch: “David Hasselhoff’s autobiography, MAKING WAKES. written with Peter Thompson, showing “there’s more to The Hoff than great hair and legs that look good while running down a beach,” to Erin Brown at Thomas Dunne Books, for publication in spring 2007, by Kate Hibbert of Hodder & Stoughton UK (NA).”

by Edward Champion

Watch Out! They’re All Out To Get Amy DeZellar!

In a Spokesman-Review article profiling bloggers who transmuted their twitchy typing into book deals, Amy DeZellar notes, “The bloggers who are giving the rest of us a bad name are those who weren’t really writers in the first place and just sort of became writers by virtue of getting published. A popular blog can get you a book, but not necessarily the talent to write one.”

I’m not certain which bloggers are giving DeZellar and company “a bad name.” And it’s difficult for me to qualify the merits of Dating Amy, seeing as how the book’s only apparent review coverage consists of gushing testimonies from Dating Amy fans on Amazon. But this is the sort of statement one expects not from an emerging author, but from a quarterback fearful of his younger and more robust counterparts — the guys fresh out of college who will inevitably replace him.

by Edward Champion

Roundup — The Truth Version

  • Harry Crews gets the Gray Lady treatment, motherfuckahs! The man is back in action after an eight year absence with An American Family. I am now convinced that the only way to save the NYTBR is to put Crews in a room with Sammy Boy with the latter skittering away like a soused titmouse. (via Maud)
  • GOB checks out Edinburgh. So does that Rory fellow. All the excitement gets me in a theatrical tizzy, determined at some future point to provide another strange homegrown Fringe entertainment.
  • Foer in Brazil. Hardly the meat and greet you expected.
  • From a Susan Sontag commencement speech: “Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.”
  • And speaking of which, let’s get all this Bill Hicks revival bidness out of the way right now. Without a doubt, the man was great. But he’s been dead now for twelve years and I haven’t seen a single standup comic dare to speak the truth to the people. This whole sanctimonious business of “What would Bill Hicks do?” has reached a point where I want to throttle the sycophantic joke slingers who play it safe, who underestimate their audience’s intelligence, and who risk this fear of offending. If these comics do put upon an offensive stance, like Lisa Lampanelli or Bobby Slayton, it’s on the personal insult level, as opposed to comedy that reflects the cruel absurdities and the pernicious sociological factors around us. And don’t give me Margaret Cho or Chris Rock, both “brash” comic talents who, nevertheless, play it safe and who, as a result, stand forever in the long shadow of Bruce, early Carlin, Pryor and Hicks. Have we really reached the point where standup comedy can no longer present us with fresh insight? Have we really reached a point where we must look more than a decade backwards to find some fucking shred of truth hurled into the crowd?
  • RIP Madman Moskowitz.
  • The Epoch Times talks with Gao Zhisheng days before his arrest. More on Gao’s efforts to fight oppression here.
  • Elizabeth Gaskell’s Manchester home is crumbling away and efforts are being made to save it.
  • There’s an interesting marketing campaign for Orwell’s 1984 referred to as “literary littering.”