So here’s the deal. Lawrence Lessig writes a book. He issues a Creative Commons license and puts his book online. A few people get the legit idea that it’s okay to create audio versions of chapters. So, acting on some strange whim and without further ado:
Listen to Chapter 12. It runs 52:47. I’ve tried to keep the energy up by introducing pseudo-Scottish brogues, maintaining a fast-paced delivery, and conjecturing about how aggro Lessig might have been as he penned his chapter.
British libraries are failing, but there’s a plan in the works.
Congratulations, Maud.
Now you can go home again.
Nadine Gordimer has been honored by Cuba.
And here’s my nomination for the cheesiest book of 2004: The Bastard on the Couch: 27 Men Try Really Hard to Explain Their Feelings About Love, Loss, Fatherhood and Freedom. There’s even an excerpt available.
Courtney Love: “She grabs a suitcase and drags it doggedly to the center of the room. She turns to me and barks, ‘Go through my lyrics. They’re great. I’m the best writer of this generation. And if you don’t believe me, fine. But I dare you to find a bad one in there.'”
The whiff of self-delusion’s overwhelming. And there’s more. Hypodermic needles, mammary scars, the works. Hope Strauss got paid extra for writing the piece. (via Syntax)
SUGAR LAND, Tex. — This is the home of Britton Stein — oh, not this sentence, but Sugar Land itself. Stein describes George W. Bush as “a man’s man’s man’s man’s man, a manly man, manning the men manning the best man’s man,” and Al Gore (not a man’s man and not a 2004 presidential candidate) as a “ranting and raving and roving and reeming little chihuahua who needs an Elizabethan collar.”
Forty-nine years old, Stein is a man subject to interesting, yet extremely odd Post reporting. He is a husband, a father, a man, a man’s man, a man’s manly man, and a Republican. He lives in a house that was built by a man and is run by a man, and if you’re not a man or a man’s man, then you’ll get your hair cut by a woman. His three daughters aren’t embarassed by the fact that they aren’t men, even though Stein is a man. But sometimes Stein isn’t a man or a man’s man, because he blows kisses to his wife and daughter (again, members of the Stein family unit who aren’t men’s men). He loves his family, even when there aren’t enough men’s men. But if you’re a member of the Stein clan, it’s possible to be a woman who eats, drinks, talks and spits out tobacco like a man’s man, dammit. Stein’s personal hero, George W. Bush, no longer drinks or spits out tobacco. But, by golly, he runs like a man’s man and sometimes looks like a cowboy, and that’s the ultimate qualifier. Stein believes that being the President is not about your political record, but about comparing size much as Fitzgerald and Hemingway (one not-so-man’s man and one man’s man) did privately once.
Is Stein real? Only Post reporter David Finkel (a quasi man’s man) knows for sure.
I don’t know what sort of power struggle is going over at the Hag’s, but it really must be seen to be believed. First off, Beck is back. And finishing up a project seems to have thrown Lizzie over the edge, to the point where she can no longer spell “falafel.” Beyond that, it’s about as coherent as an athletic piglet leaving an unauthorized orgy, and I couldn’t describe it in any reasonable terms. Go check the frenetic duo out. Also, Rake‘s been written into the will.