J-Fly has a cool concept she lifted from a film teacher.

Step One: Name your five favorite films off the top of your head and write brief summary.

1. O Lucky Man!: Guy hopes to make money as coffee salesman, engages in debauchery, wanders around English countryside, gets set up and booked, tries to proselytize, eventually smiles.

2. After Hours: Go nowhere word processor sees cute girl, starts talking, goes to Soho, gets involved in deranged New York universe, can’t get home, but is forced by unseen god to take charge.

3. The Wizard of Oz: Dislocated girl arrives in fantasy world, has adventures, meets friends, goes on quest, finds self, concludes “there’s no place like home.”

4. The General (1927): Go nowhere engineer can’t enlist, has his train stolen, pursues it like crazy, has adventures, proves himself hero, gets girl, finds inner self.

5. Brazil: Man stuck in drab bureaucratic job in totalitarian state dreams of girls, gets caught in plot, and finds escape in his own mind.

Step Two: “Chances are, those films will tell essentially the same story. And chances are, your films will tell that story too. Because that is your story.”

Yup. Common theme here is a passive human stuck in routine who goes through a series of incredible adventures and eventually finds self.

[UPDATE: This may have been accidentally pilfered from Cinetrix. Whatever the case, send some sugar her way.]

Lionel Shriver: “Joyce Carol Oates is an atrocious writer.”

When you’re pilfering the mines of histrionic snark over Joyce Carol Oates (“to call the novel under-edited would be to imply that it had been edited at all,” “Oates gives the impression of publishing nothing but first drafts, which helps to explain her astounding output.”), chances are that you’re either someone frustrated because he can’t keep up with the JCO oeuvre (honestly, who outside of JCO’s husband has read every book?) or you’re another cretin pissing in the snow.

A far more thoughtful take on JCO can be found over at the Mumpsimus. And I think Matthew Cheney gets at the JCO conundrum (and the larger issue of prolificity and length) quicker than anyone: “Eventually, we will be able to look back over Oates’s entire career and find the gems, but for the moment we’re stuck with sorting through all the dreck. I, for one, have given up, because I don’t want to keep wasting my time hoping Oates will write a masterpiece.”

I’ve been formulating some theories about “sifting to find a masterpiece” and the thickass novel at large — specifically over whether the reader has the right to dismiss a book because of its length. One day when I have some time, I hope to dwell on the issue at length. The chief query: why does a novelist have to be punished for writing too much? If readers cannot keep up with a writer’s output, whether it entails the breadth of a novelist like Richard Powers or the relentless pen of JCO, then have they truly earned the right to impersonate some constant kvetcher who missed the nudie show by ten minutes?

• A writer mistakes a JCO blurb for junk mail. (via Galleycat)
• Tonight in San Francisco, there’s a memorial tribute to Jack Kerouac. The Chronicle has more.
• Walter Mosley fesses the Fantastic Four as a major inspiration. Unfortunately, Mosely couldn’t be convinced to say, “It’s clobbering time!”
• Best Booker-related lede: “Alan Hollingshurst is a cheap date.”
• A one-volume edition of Lord of the Rings is being released — the version that Tolkien always wanted. His estate wants it too. After all, there’s a new swimming pool to put in.
• John le Carre has come out hopping mad against Bush.
• Neal Stephenson answers questions at Slashdot.

As my eyes fail to flop to stage one, I find myself wondering what it’s like to be a Bush voter. How does a Bush voter confine herself so willingly to the mortified state of status quo? What is it about leaving this nation in the hands of a unilateral-minded Chuck Bronson type who wouldn’t consider an alternative viewpoint if God gave him a rimjob in the middle of a brisk run that suggests confidence?

How does a staunch Republican believe that a blathering, brisk-spending cur like Bush is the best that our nation can offer? That a man incapable of distinguishing between singular and plural in general discourse is a skilled statesman?

I ask this because I’m tired of the televised suspense. I’m tired of the weak-kneed undecideds in the swing states. They resemble thirtysomething bachelors who wouldn’t know the benefits of commitment if it bit them on the ass. I’m tired of the blather from both sides and the fact that not a single poll can figure out what the hell is going on amongst the vox populi. I’m tired of perpetuating a climate of fear, because that’s what Karl Rove wants us to feel. If I hear another tale of some otherwise sensible person moving to Canada, I’ll scream. Fuck you. This is your country. You don’t give up. And if you care enough about the nation and the world at large, it’s your goddam job to convince at least five people to cast their decision for the other guy, however insalubrious he might be.

Yes, the man to replace Our Fearless Leader comes across at times like a discombubulated somnabulator. But then so was the hefty, chronically napping William Taft. Of course, back in 1908, Taft was up against the blustery Williams Jennings Bryan and Eugene Debs (the Nader of his time) running on the Socialist ticket. Taft won. But then Taft was a Freemason and a third-rate Teddy Roosevelt trustbuster. But he was the best our nation could do at the time. It was either Taft or the raving evangelist running the country. The people made the right decision. Even when it involved putting their confidence into a trusty hand-me-down.

And that’s the idealistic conundrum in a nutshell. The United States of 1908 possessed cast-iron balls to vote for the least insane candidate on the ballot. The people of today are so obsessed with getting the candidate that they want that they grasp for straws in the same harried manner that they bitch to a 7-11 manager about a sludgy Slurpee. I say live with the goddam Slurpee for four years. If he’s truly a dud, you can always vote him out in 2008. It’s the closest thing this country has to a refund policy.

I told you so. How could you have doubted? Part of the problem with the so-called Sox stigma was that people weren’t willing to believe in a comeback. Even as the Sox climbed their way out of a championship shutout, there were many baseball junkies I talked to who remained convinced that the Yanks would win, that it could not happen, and that the Sox, as adorably crimson as they might be, simply weren’t going to do it. But 10-3? That’s what I call a goddam blowout.

But taking the allegory I propounded the other day (which has launched some Grade-A comment silliness) one step further, I suspect that the Sox needed to win, just to demonstrate to the damn world that nothing is certain, and that there are marvelous surprises behind every corner — just so long as people believe in them and don’t give up hope. Case in point: If you told me two weeks ago that I’d be waxing whacked out sports-related metaphysics on these pages, I wouldn’t have believed you. But the Sox’s gradual entree into the Series proper gives the kind of true faith and freedom that the shaky boys at the top couldn’t fathom for a second. It’s a fatalistic whirlydirsh that needed to happen. Completely secular, entirely unprecedented, and downright joyous.

And on that note, holy frijole. Sarah’s nabbed an interview with Alexander McCall Smith. Joe Bob says check it out.