Associated Press: “The 9-to-5 shift overwhelmingly favors larks. When has anyone complained that employees show up too early? Owls, on the other hand, are frequently stigmatized as recalcitrant slugabeds who fritter time and resources on the company’s dime. That stigma is just another sign that shallow emblems of productivity impress American managers more than results. After all, the 9-to-5 shift has become an anachronism in the 24-hour global economy. It fails to take into account the impact of e-mail and other technologies in making traditional work hours less relevant.”

The Age: “According to literary critic John Guillory, the relationships that form between literature teachers and their students may carry an erotic charge. Anyone who has studied or taught the subject at university can readily confirm this from experience, observation, or hearsay. In his ponderously titled but surprisingly readable book Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation, Guillory argues that desire plays an important role in the transfer of knowledge from academics to their students in a university environment.”

I’ve been telling folks this for years. You don’t need whips and chains and whipped cream in the bedroom. Or maybe you do. Even so, a little bit of poetry and a professor’s cap never hurt anyone lying naked beneath an eiderdown. So work that bump and grind, baby! Get some of that hot deconstruction action! If music be the food of lust, oh yeah!

Alice Randall, who parodied Gone with the Wind, received an injunction from the Margaret Mitchell estate, and won her case on appeal, is suggesting that Pushkin was part of the Harlem Renaissance with her next novel. Alas, Carlin Romano isn’t impressed: “Unfortunately, Randall’s effort drags for many of the same reasons “The Wind Done Gone” did: overwriting and repetition, tiresome thumping of racial resentment, and a pathetic Afrocentric need to claim scalps for the cause. Windsor’s logorrhea suggests that Randall’s own self-absorption trumped any ambition to master her invented subject. The entire Russian aspect of the book reads like pretentious window dressing for a shapeless vanity tale.”

He was raked over the coals by Blogger, but you can find the trusted Rake at his new Pad.

Sad news from Bakersfield. Bandit, the world’s heaviest raccoon, has passed through the great raccoon gates in the sky. Bandit weighed nearly 75 pounds, more than enough to secure an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records. He was fond of Froot Loops and french fries. He is survived by his owner, Deborah Klitsch.