I have been receiving letters sent to my address from people hoping to reach Norman Mailer and a few other authors. I am not Norman Mailer. Nor do I have any way of contacting Mr. Mailer. I am Edward Champion. I’m just some bastard with a blog who happens to interview authors. If you hope to reach an author, please direct your correspondence to the publishers. Not me. Thank you.

Vanity Fair: “We are a long way from the glory days of Mission Accomplished, when the Iraq war was over before it was over—indeed before it really began—and the president could dress up like a fighter pilot and land on an aircraft carrier, and the nation, led by a pliable media, would applaud. Now, late in this sad, terribly diminished presidency, mired in an unwinnable war of their own making, and increasingly on the defensive about events which, to their surprise, they do not control, the president and his men have turned, with some degree of desperation, to history. In their view Iraq under Saddam was like Europe dominated by Hitler, and the Democrats and critics in the media are likened to the appeasers of the 1930s. The Iraqi people, shorn of their immensely complicated history, become either the people of Europe eager to be liberated from the Germans, or a little nation that great powerful nations ought to protect. Most recently in this history rummage sale—and perhaps most surprisingly—Bush has become Harry Truman.”

There’s considerably more. And this essay is yet another reason why Halberstam will be sorely missed.

(via MeFi)

From Ansible: “God damn that Chabon, dragging it out of the grave where she and the other serious writers had buried it to save serious literature from its polluting touch, the horror of its blank, pustular face, the lifeless, meaningless glare of its decaying eyes! What did the fool think he was doing?”

And Ursula’s just getting started.

(Thanks, Andrew!)

[10/15/07 UPDATE: While I did not post the entirety of Ms. Le Guin’s piece, I realize that I may have posted too liberally and have revised this post to limit my excerpt to one mere sentence, which I feel is applicable under fair use. Cory Doctorow, on the other hand, seems to be under the mistaken impression that quoting an author’s piece in its entirety is “fair use.” I feel that Doctorow was wrong to post the entirety of the piece and that, likewise, I was wrong in presenting more than three sentences. I should note that I have not been contacted by LeGuin or the SFWA, but her thoughts on the subject can be found here.]

BBC: “An artist has offered to donate his own head to an Oxford museum – if a collection of shrunken heads has to be returned to South America….Mr Dewan says that he hopes that any posthumous display of his head would have a ‘family friendly’ appeal.”

Finishing touches are being put on two more Segundo podcasts, with Larry N. Gittis momentarily replacing Mr. Segundo. One interview features a guest correspondent and involves superheroes; the other is the first part of a candid two-part interview with a cartoonist of some note. What could be more American than superheroes and cartoons? Stay tuned.