Ladies and gentlemen, it’s a delectable Friday, which means, aside from tonight’s unchronicled evening efforts of certain literary types who actually attempt to read a book while swinging back the shots (a multitasking enterprise that I am both incapable of and in awe of), this week’s final morning installment of the patented morning roundup. To wit:

1. That the continued ascent of one Helen Oyeyemi, a mere twenty-one years old, continues unabated.
2. That, despite quibbles from certain rakes, it would be incontrevertible to deny that this year’s Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest winner, with its inestimable contribution of the “carburetor breast” fantasy, is amusing, albeit puerile. (The winner was a Microsoft analyst from Fargo, no less!)
3. That we kept up a moment of silence for actress Geraldine Fitzgerald, who we enjoyed most throughly in Wuthering Heights and The Pawnbroker and who lived a long life.
4. That Kem Parton, a railroad worker-turned novelist was given cavil and calamity by his boss when he published a novel about the railroad, including terrorist elements. To the railroad itself: for shame.
5. That Betsy Burton (chronicled in our Books by the Bay report has been chronicled, along with other bookseller-related books, in Newsday.
6. That The Da Vinci Code did not win a recent UK book popularity contest and that literary Britons preferred books set in exotic locales.

The literary news junkie can make of these headlines or bypass this advocate’s occasional editorializing as s/he sees fit. But let it not be said that this advocate did not fulfill his morning constitutional.

Thank you and good morning.

Ms. Tangerine Muumuu herself alerts us to this review of the new Rushdie novel by none other than William T. Vollmann himself! (Regrettably, the review is inaccessible from the Publishers Weekly site and must be perused through Amazon.)

It’s a starred review, but Vollmann quibbles over Rushdie’s depiction of Los Angeles, which “relies on references to popular culture that the place becomes a superficial parody of itself.” He notes that Rushdie’s female characters are “less plausible” than the male ones, his “sermonistic parallelism or repetition” (ironically, criticisms leveled at Vollmann’s The Royal Family) and his reliance upon slapstick. But overall, the Vollster digs Shalimar the Clown, calling it a “powerful parable.”

Dear Bloglines: Do you love this RSS feeds or not? You’re updating in spurts and, of course, I love you! Surely, you’ve received my dozen long-stemmed roses by now! So work for me with some regularity. Kiss kiss, Edward Champion.

Local photographer Thomas Hawk was harassed by security goons when taking photographs of One Bush Street:

Yesterday I was shooting some photos of One Bush St. (the building where Bush and Market Streets intersect) when their security guard came out of his little glass jewelbox lobby hut to ask me to stop taking photos of the building. He said it was illegal. I moved to the sidewalk and continued taking photos and he again asked me to stop. When I told him I was on a public street sidewalk he said that actually they owned the sidewalk and that I was going to have to stop taking photographs.

The security guard then followed Hawk as he took various photos of the building on the public sidewalk.

This saga, however, is far from over. It seems that another guy is holding a contest for a variety of One Bush Street photos. Mat Honan will give the winner a $10 iTunes certificate. Word on the street that a litany of photographers will be meeting this Saturday at high noon to take several photographs of the One Bush Street building.

I’m going to try and be there myself. Failing that, I plan to introduce a new weekly feature to Return of the Reluctant: the One Bush Street Photo of the Week. Photos will be appearing on these pages every week until this ridiculous enforcement is waived in its entirety.

Taking a photograph of a building is neither a terrorist act nor a copyright infringement. The time has come to take a stand against this irrational fear and unreasonable (if not outright illegal) prohibition. I urge anyone with a camera in San Francisco to exercise their rights to free expression and snap a photo, if you happen to be in the Financial District.

(via SFist)

For any and all North Bay readers, the Michelle Richmond, Bruce Bauman Jordan E. Rosenfeld, Susan Henderson and David Fromm. It’s happening on August 2 at 6:30 PM. More details can be found here.

We’d go ourselves, but aside from not owning a car, there are pre-planned existential events happening that evening which must be quietly attended to and feted.