Edward Champion's Return of the Reluctant

Form Follows Function

And on the seventh day, the Lords of the Blogosphere performed the two-step with literary enthusiasts and created the Valve -- an exciting new collective from the folks who gave you Crooked Timber.

Seven Pillars of Bookstore Customers

The Book Geek: S/he can be counted upon to buy something obscure or with literary underground streetcred (like say Steve Erickson or Kathy Acker) and will spend at least 20 minutes displaying her knowledge in front of a clerk or whoever else will listen. Unfortunately, it's the clerks who are often the victims, as they have to stand for 8+ hours listening to this. (Variation: The Laconic Book Geek, who is a terrible eavesdropper, often nervous, and will sometimes bail a New Literate/Book Geek out at the last minute. Bookstore clerks who hope to avoid needless conversation with Book Geeks are advised to have a Laconic Book Geek on staff.)

The Former Bookstore Clerk: Unable to find a new job or perhaps wafting in the nostalgia of younger and more idealistic days of starvation, the Former Bookstore Clerk is more concerned with a bookstore's decor and staff, than the books in question. Former Bookstore Clerks often end up owning their own used bookstores, for lack of a better purpose in life, sometimes harassing other customers just because they can.

The Macker: A thirtysomething (or older) who spends evenings and weekends ogling over the opposite (or same) sex. Not necessarily bad-looking, but definitely missed out on a lot of good fucking during their twenties, perhaps because they spent too much time intellectualizing sex and relationships. Trying to make up for lost time. Has perfected art of pretend reading, which affords opportunities to check out interesting anatomy by peering over hardcover spines. Often equipped with basic knowledge of liberal arts to spawn conversation.

The New Literate: A bookstore customer who has rediscovered books the same way that born again Christians rediscover God. New Literates can be just as passionate in their conversation as Book Geeks, but since their knowledge of contemporary literature is close to nil, they can at least be persuaded to talk about something else. On the whole, New Literates are friendly and susceptible to remembering good book choices.

The Reader: This person will never buy a book and spends time in bookstores reading the latest hardcovers, hoping to remain in the loop on current titles. Often unemployed, sometimes deranged, the Reader is generally benign provided that they have several books and tables to themsleves. The Reader has strange dietary habits, which are timed with the opening and closing of the store.

The Solipsist: The Solipsist differs from the Reader in that (a) he does not read and (b) he doesn't particularly care about books. The Solipsist often views the bookstore as a temporary Witness Protection Program, a refuge from the rain or the hard realities of existence. He is perhaps fleeing a lover, requires to be lost within his own thoughts, or is looking for an exotic locale to mask his momentary contempt for the human race. The Solipsist doesn't spend as much time in a bookstore as The Reader, but he can be just as snarly.

Spoilsport Acquaintance: The acquaintance who doesn't really like you, but who feels compelled to "run into you," snubbing your reading choice by saying, "I read that YEARS ago" or "That book was OKAY" just as you are about to slide your credit card. Too cowardly and dishonest to acknowledge the truth, Spoilsport Acquintances pose no threat to the bookstore employee, but are considerably vexing for manic depressives. (And it is worth noting that Spoilsport Acquaintaces are often manic depressives themselves!)

RIP Mitch Hedberg

Goddam, Mitch Hedberg has passed on. He was only 37. Here are some Hedbergisms in his honor:

"The thing about tennis is: no matter how much I play, I'll never be as good as a wall. I played a wall once. They're fucking relentless."

"If carrots got you drunk, rabbits would be fucked up."

"An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You would never see an 'Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order' sign, just 'Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience.'"

"This product that was on TV was available for four easy payments of $19.95. I would like a product that was available for three easy payments and one complicated payment. We can't tell you which payment it is, but one of these payments is going to hard. "

"I saw a human pyramid once. It was totally unnecessary."

"I don't own a cell phone or a pager. I just hang around everyone I know, all the time. If someone needs to get ahold of me they just say, 'Mitch,' and I say, 'What?' and turn my head slightly..."

"I had a velco wallet in a casino. That sound annoyed the hell out of me. Whenever I lost money, and I opened the wallet, it was like the sound of my addiction."

"I got my hair highlighted, because I felt some strands were more important than others."

"Mr. Pibb is a poor imitation of Dr. Pepper. Dude didn't even get his degree."

Sin City: New Meaning of "Faithful Translation to Screen"

Yahoo has a fantastic slideshow comparing the Sin City panels to the film angles:

The Publishing Industry is All About Time Management

It seems that Windstream Publishing, who berated Stephanie Perry for giving Richard Bothelho's Leah's Way a bad review, can't refrain from sending rude emails to anyone who dares to suggest that book reviewing is entirely separate from being a "liberal" or even being "religious." Now poor Ron Hogan, one of the litbloggers who ran with the story, has been stung with further nonsense. Of course, if the book is as bad as Perry says it is, then the fact that multiple Windstream employees spend all of their spare time sending inflammatory emails to random people rather than devoting their time to quality control on their titles might suggest why.

Ruminator -- It's Here and Much Better than the Tuminator (Pictured Below)

Like the Rake, until we got the email, we had no idea the Ruminator existed. But there's some good stuff, including an interview with Volker Schlondorff, a piece from Jhumpa Lahiri, and more. We'll definitely be checking this vibrant Minnesota bimonthly out in the future.

Upton Sinclair, Soon to Appear in a Spring Break Video

The San Francisco Bay Guardian takes a long look at Professor Lauren Coodley's almost single-handed Upton Sinclair boosterism. She's prepared a new anthology, The Land of Orange Grove and Jails, of Sinclair's writings for Heyday Books. What's interesting is that Coodley discovered Sinclair almost completely by accident, while substituting for a political science class. And apparently, the Huntington Museum turned down a collection of Sinclair's papers.

If It Isn't Art, It's Memorex

Ian McEwan has said that "life imitates art." In the last year alone, McEwan reports that he witnessed a balloon accident and was stalked by a mentally ill man, published a tawdry photo in a newspaper, lived with the consequences of playing a prank as a child, and began sleeping with his siblings when both of his parents died. McEwan hopes that he can fix things so that "art can imitate life," because this might make his novels more interesting, in light of the mixed reviews for Saturday.

[RELATED: How Critics Got Saturday Wrong]

Just Be Grateful They Didn't Refer To Them As "Ingenuous Cripples"

New York Times Corrections: "Because of editing errors, an article and a review in The Arts on Saturday about the film "Murderball," which looks at rugby players who use wheelchairs, referred to them incorrectly. They are quadriplegics, whose injuries or illnesses affect all four limbs and the trunk. (Paraplegics are affected in their legs and trunks.)"

Equal Opportunity Mocking

We won't comment on the blogger wars. We already defended the right to mock literary figures a few weeks ago and have nothing further to say. We plan to earn our black sheep stripes the right way (at least for today, largely because we're feeling exceptionally immature), by moving onto mocking non-literary figures in the most tasteless manner possible, beginning with the Governator himself (as pictured below):

Cookie Monster Saddened By Recent "Sesame" Sellout

WASHINGTON D.C. (AP): This morning, in front of reporters, Cookie Monster revealed shocking allegations that his love for cookies was being curtailed against his will by the producers of Sesame Street.

"Me so sorry!" said Cookie Monster in front of a mob of reporters. "Me still like cookies all the time. But Cookie Monster needs money to buy more cookies."

Three journalists, trying hard to remain objective, broke down almost immediately upon learning that a pivotal character from the long-running PBS children's program had sold out. Kleenex was offered.

The 36th season of Sesame Street will respond to the growing crisis of obesity. Characters will now sing the praises of vegetables and nutrition. But as TV critic Tom Shales recently noted, "If the Cookie Monster can't have cookies all the time, it's clear that Sesame Street has jumped the shark."

Sesame Street producers were asked whether such a dramatic change in Cookie Monster's diet would have adverse effect on Cookie Monster's metabolism, which scientists believe involves an exclusive diet of cookies. Calls were not returned.

The slimmer Cookie Monster showed a noted loss of vigor at the press conference, the result of a sharp reduction in his cookie diet. He said that he was sadder than usual and that the sudden introduction of carrots into his meals had made him sick. Even the news that his sudden weight loss had earned him People's "Sexiest Monster Alive" offered no solace.

"Me can only eat cookies," said Mr. Monster. "Why they no understand that me like cookies and cookies are for me?

Linklater's Omnipotent Narrative

As Dan Green notes, Long Pauses has a very good post up about Richard Linklater's films. Darren points out that all of Linklater's characters are represented in an egalitarian light, but if one is to judge these characters, it is the behavior that is the culprit, not the social status or the circumstances behind it. Life's the thing, whether it's the cruel hazing by Parker Posey in Dazed and Confused or even Giovanni Ribisi's slacker, reduced to living in a pup tent and unable to come to grips with a singular decision, in the underrated SubUrbia (a film that also has the interesting distinction of merging Eric Bogosian's savage wit with Richard Linklater's cheery joie de vivre).

I'd like to take Darren's idea one step further. First off, it's worth noting that Linklater generally tends to favor long takes, whether it's Richard Linklater himself rambling on in a cab about the four different roads at the beginning of Slacker or the fantastic shot without dialogue in Before Sunrise, where Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy are secretly looking at each other in the record store. Endless comparisons have been made between Linklater and Eric Rohmer because of this deliberate stylistic approach. And certainly letting the camera roll affords Linklater the opportunity to show life unfolding at its own pace -- a cinematic idea remarkably subversive in today's environment of quick cuts and easily digestible tales.

But where Rohmer allows his characters to get lost within the fine art of conversation (also a laudable goal), unlike Rohmer, there's a casual concern for narrative in Linklater's films, almost as if narrative's the very veneer between audience and characters, existing to offer meaning not even remotely graspable in five lifetimes. If Linklater's goal is to portray a nonjudgmental view of American life, then there's the added problem of finding a narrative to tie into, whether it be the titular twist of Waking Life or the dangling question of whether Hawke and Delpy will stay together in the Before films. With Before Sunset, Linklater found a fantastic way out by insinuating fate with a final fadeout.

But I would suggest that what makes Linklater's films additionally interesting is the way in which his narratives function as omnipotent barriers to unraveling the mysteries of life. It's taken Linklater a few films to develop this, but his films can now be viewed as bright beacons for multiple subjective reactions instead of a unilateral, preprogrammed response. One can emerge from Before Sunset and start questioning a gesture, a specific pause, or a single line of dialogue and use these to form a working theory about what happens to the characters. The behavior presented is not so much nonjudgmental, but, if we ruminate upon the characters (as most people seem to do), it says more about our judgments of other people.

Insomnia-Charged Roundup

• Radio host Paul Kennedy is trying to win Leonard Cohen a Nobel Prize. "He's different from a celebrity; he's almost God," says Kennedy. You can make the same claim about mescaline, but you'd never nominate a drug for a distinguished honor.
• It certainly isn't news that laughter is good for you, but I didn't realize that Anthony Trollope died laughing. Apparently, it was F. Anstey's Vice Versa which was the culprit and has Orwell's admiration.
• Ayelet Waldman describes her day.
• If Tom Wolfe's slithering wasn't enough, Natalie Krinsky's new book, Chloe Does Yale, hopes to steam up the Ivy League. A telltale excerpt ("Every time I move, the bikini bottoms wedge themselves a little higher, and I am stuck trying to extract them from their chosen crevice.") suggests that this novel has a lock on this year's Bad Sex Award.
• It's the 200th anniversary of Victor Hugo's birth. The Suntory Museum Tempozoan in Osaka has an exposition lined up.
• My heart bleeds for the wealthy Irish artists soon to lose their tax-free status. Particularly when they include such dubious figures as Def Leppard. "Women to the left, women to the right, there to entertain and take you thru the night." Yup, today's answer to "No Second Troy" right there.

A Book A Day, That's All We Ask

Rick Gekoski's idea of bliss involves reading a book a day. He's a Man Booker judge for 2005. And with 130 titles to read in five or six months, the real question here is how much is too much. And is Gekoski the intelligensia's answer to Harriet Klausner? (via Bookninja)

We Get the Same Way After A Bit of Whiskey

Ulrich Baer has written to the Rake with a lengthy essay about the creation of his book, The Wisdom of Rilke: "My process of translation involves a lot of reading out loud, mumbling, and general behavior unfit for a public space. I read the German or French sentence a few times, try to allow its meaning, speed, and rhythm resonate within me, and then try it out in English. All the while I am more or less speaking to myself, listening for an approximation of the particular movement of Rilke's thought and phrasing in English."

Bush Tries to Galvanize Dog with Social Security Harangue; Dog Demands to Use Public Facilities

The Harriet Klausner Mythos

Booksquare suggests that Amazon reviewer Harriet Klausner (profiled in today's Wall Street Journal by Joanne Kaufman) isn't exactly a discovery of such stunning new finds as Tess Gerritsen, pointing out that Gerritsen's career kick-started several years before.

However, I'm curious why the Wall Street Journal didn't make an effort to verify Klausner's extraordinary claims. Kaufman only describes Klausner's voice as "more than a few dips of helium," but makes no reference to the geography of her home or Ms. Klausner's appearance. I'm wondering if Kaufman even spoke with Ms. Klausner in person. After all, if Klausner has read over 8,000 books and reviewed them in a mere five years, wouldn't it be worth a trip to Atlanta to observe just how she does it?

AM Roundup

• Carrie Fisher will write a book revealing several secrets behind the Star Wars trilogy. Among some of the telling details: Mark Hamill was a midget who received two leg implants to increase his height, costume designer John Mollo modeled Chewbacca after a shag carpet he had the misfortune to walk on during a bad acid trip, and crew members were ordered to rub George Lucas' feet and call him "Joseph Campbell II" before setting up each shot.
• John Lescroart has donated $50,000 to the UC Davis graduate writing program. Lescroart remarked this was better than wasting it on a hair transplant.
• An academic conference (and, as a reader has noted, not the first of its kind) for the Harry Potter books has been established. Events include "Getting Stoned at Hogwarts -- The Gorgon Threat in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," "Whodunnit? The case against Remus Lupin," and "How statistics and computer-based visualisations contribute to our understanding of Harry Potter." Too bad that nobody came up with a seminar called "Beyond Harry Potter: What do we read do when J.W. Rowling stops writing?" (And if Potter isn't bad enough, consider the Smiths.)
• It's not much of a shocker, but it never hurts to be reminded how much Amazon knows about you.
• The Age chronicles the elastic nature of Kris Hemensley's career.
• Mein Kampf has been selling like hotcakes in Turkey.
• A new book, Shakespeare Goes to Paris, suggests that the Bard might be getting a cold reception in France.
• The inevitable litmus test has been applied to JSF's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Even Laura Miller has been left cold.

Obligatory Book Thing Pimp

This site doesn't have a New Yorker cartoonist, but so as not to leave the Old Hag flailing in the dust, we should point out that if you have a few extra kopecks and you're capable of siphoning off your beer money for one evening, you can do no worse than support the Book Thing in Baltimore.

An Introduction

If you're coming here from the New York Times article, welcome. This website is a dedication to the life of Edward Champion (1974-1998), who was unexpectedly beheaded by a samurai while giving a motivation speech in Chico, California. Champion was one of the most brilliant writers this nation ever had. His grocery lists were wittier than Oscar Wilde. He once wrote a note telling his friends to meet him at the pub that was exhaustively picked over by grad students. John Updike has said of the man, "Edward Champion: too many thoghts, not enough time, nipples as ripe as water chestnuts."

And yet Champion's work is often overlooked by the likes of J.T. Leroy, who is, strangely enough, still living.

So I set up this blog to pay tribute to Champion's legacy. To me, Champion represents both the summit and the nadir of American letters. Some of the posts here are exhumed from Champion's notebooks. Others are reinventions of ideas he had.

We hope that you'll stick around for our continuing tribute.

Choose Your Own Adventure from a Freelance Writer's Perspective

1. It's close to seven o'clock. You've spent most of the day doing everything in your power to put off deadlines. Now the phone won't stop ringing as you pound away on the computer trying to finish some bland copy for a nonprofit foundation. Nevertheless, you're curious. Who could be calling at this hour? If you pick up the phone, go to 22. If you keep writing, go to 5.

2. John Grisham's dull prose has you pondering why you never became a multi-millionaire. Tanenhaus repeatedly calls. Due to unexpected pressure from Times brass (they can't justify paying an excessive word rate for a freelancer hanging on by the skin of his teeth and demand answers), Tanenhaus asks you to cut your 30-word profile down to 25 words. If you accommodate Tanenhaus, go to 4. If you stick to your artistic guns and stick with the 30 words you promised, go to 8.

3. The midnight oil has burned brightly like Kipling's tiger. Savor this moment. The hapless drones who must march off to a nine-to-five job can't possibly compete with this wonderful luxury of walking around the flat in jammies. Just as you revel in your superiority, your spouse, who has spent the day working for a state-funded planning department for scant pay and thankless distinction, arrives through the door. The spouse, suffering from a minor depression, wants sex. If you go through with this, go to 12. If you don't, go to 14.

4. You can't give the copy editors an answer. The ten cent words you've crammed into the slightly tightened blurb, the idea being that they would make you appear genteel and smart, don't cut the mustard. You try negotiating with Tanenhaus for an additional sentence or two. But with the NYTBR going to press, there's no time. Tanenhaus hires an intern to perform your work at one quarter the price. Meanwhile, with the kill fee long forgotten, you've had to suffer through another Grisham novel. You burn your entire library and decide that a screenwriting career might be in the cards.

5. Damn the Fleet Street hacks. Damn the amateurs. You've spent years working yourself up to this magnificent level of professionalism and poverty. Why stop now? You compose some 600 words on how John O'Hara, Richard Yates, or another dead white male hankering for a 21st century comeback has been unfairly neglected by the cognoscenti, little realizing that Alex, that smug trust fund kid you keep running into at cocktail parties, has already pitched Lewis Lapham on the same subject. But the piece is done. And you're not exactly one to shun a dead horse. If you write a query letter for the piece you've just written, go to 3. If you decide to sleep off your energy, go to 18.

6. Sara Nelson is so impressed by your full-fledged attack piece that she appoints you an associate editor, which involves correcting atrocious copy when you're not surfing the Internet. But it does mean free ARCs, even if the novel you had hoped to write before the age of 35 falls by the wayside. You eat well when you can afford it. And now that you have an actual job title, the spouse has some tangible vocational position that she can announce to her parents without fear of shame. You contemplate purchasing Connecticut real estate.

7. You bone up on M.F.K. Fisher. But it's not enough. Tanenhaus watches the way you salivate over your shrimp salad. When the main course arrives, a waiter offers pepper. If you accept the pepper, go to 11. If not, go to 27.

8. Tanenhaus is satisfied and never calls you again. You don't exactly have Rachel Donadio's legs. But he does invite you to dinner, assuming of course that you'll cover him. If you go to dinner with Tanenhaus, go to 7. If you prefer a home-cooked meal with the spouse, go to 13.

9. Sam Tanenhaus bemoans the lack of confrontational writing within your 25-word blurb. Where's the Wieseltier or the Clive James feel? You have no answer. You meet with Tanenhaus at an upscale restaurant on the west side and he slaps you on the wrist with his portable ruler, which was specially constructed for him as a tchotchke from the good folks at McGraw Hill, who had hoped to ingratiate him. He dons a yarmulke, shouts to you that "He hef no son" and has two men throw you out of the building. You spend years in a padded cell, clutching onto a toy manatee named Simon given to you by Jungians to free you mind. It takes 27 years for you to fully recover. But that's okay. By the time you're sane, the flying cars have arrived.

10. You decide that if Top Ramen and Stove Top are the fruits of hard labor, then this freelance gambit really isn't worth it. You open a co-op in Seattle and specialize in organic vegetables. Two of your friends regularly give you hugs.

11. The pepper makes you sneeze. And you let loose a booger that makes Tanenhaus slightly uncomfortable. If you tell Tanenhaus that the booger was the result of a childhood trauma that you're too embarassed to go into the details over, go to 21. If you offer Tanenhaus a napkin, go to 23.

12. You're intimately familiar with your spouse's contours and genitalia What a dependable port in a storm! Unfortunately, you should have listened to your high school gym coach. Don't let it all loose before the game. There's the 2,000 words you have to bang out tomorrow for Elizabeth Spiers. But sore from the previous evening's gymnastics, you sleep in untll 2 PM and find yourself distracted by daytime soaps. Your editors don't forgive you and you go back to grad school to get a master's in zoology. Your freelance career is over.

13. The spouse points to the copious collection of Top Ramen in the cupboard. The spouse points out that the check from the Iowa Herald Press, the "shitstorm piece" you spent several days celebrating over, has yet to clear. If you dine on Top Ramen, go to 10. If you decide that Allah is on your side and you take the spouse to a nice restaurant, go to 19.

14. Sure, let the spouse suffer. You're an artist, dammit, and the last thing you want to feel is relaxed. It's that dependable edginess that's kept the checks coming in. But your spouse has tired of these excuses. The spouse forces you to sleep on the couch. You wake up the next day and shuffle around the refrigerator for a bite to eat. But your spouse decided to move back to the parents and take all of the food. Your credit cards are maxed. There isn't a single sou in your wallet. And collecting unemployment would be a detriment to your pride. But since there's none of Cheever's bread and buttermilk, you die of starvation inside of two weeks. But at least there's the work to stand the test of time.

15. Despite three years of Spanish in high school, they don't want to talk. You meet Jorge, the guy who runs the place. You don't entirely hit it off and find yourself sleeping with the fishes. So much for journalistic credibility.

16. The new Sunday book review format has made this a lot easier than you initially thought. Hell, you might even get a MacArthur Genius Grant out of this. Just when you're about to submit your blurb to Tanenahus, however, you get a call from Sara Nelson. Nelson has observed your bouncing around. Hell, she's an expert at it. She offers the magic carrot of writing a Grisham review for Publisher's Weekly. 800 words. Time to tear that onerous attorney-turned-author a new one. If you accept Nelson's offer, go to 6. If you stick with Tanenhaus, go to 9.

17. You promise Reichl that you'll find an angle. Mad with glee, you shake on it over the phone. $500 for 2,000 words. A so-so sum, but a veritable miracle. But you don't know anyone other than the Puerto Ricans who run the donut shop down the street. And Reichl and her fact checkers demand sources. If you talk with the donut shop owners, go to 15. If you make up your sources, go to 20.

18. You fall upon the dumpy futon. You haven't eaten since noon. And with no spouse around to second-guess your appetite and your need for sleep, you find yourself pinned to the futon for several days. The spouse, viewing you as a responsible adult, doesn't count on the last-minute rescue call from Sam Tanenhaus, who expects you to write a 30-word review of the latest Grisham as a dare. You accept. If you write the 30 words without reading the novel, go to 16. If you're an ethical type who must read the novel before writing the review, go to 2.

19. You enjoy a prix fixe menu at an upscale bistro. You declare bankruptcy, but thanks to recent lax legislation, your debtors are able to incarcerate you. Your spouse divorces you and gets booked on a daytime talk show with the theme, "My Spouse Thought He Was a Freelance Writer and Didn't Know When to Quit." Years later, you win first prize in a public access version of American Idol, but you're not nearly as successful as Jonah Moananu. You found a leper colony in Carmel, California, but have difficulty finding bona-fide lepers.

20. When the blogosphere reveals what a liar you are, you declare yourself Jayson Blair's illegitimate cousin. You appear on Larry King, sobbing like Jerry Falwell. Hayden Christensen plays you in the biopic.

21. Tanenhaus replies, "If pain's your game, write a memoir, kid." You send a proposal to Random House and, to your surprise, they agree to publish 5,000 Boogers of the Soul, your childhood memoir. You win the National Book Critics Circle Award and get tenured at a prominent Eastern university.

22. You're not really one for discipline, are you? Your spouse has taken on two full-time jobs to support your artistic temperament and this is the thanks she gets?

Well, never mind. You bang out about 500 words, most of it rubbish. You look to the empty bottle of whiskey, the telltale flask you put on your desk in honor of Faulkner but never bothered to replace. Nothing to drink, but the phone's still ringing.

Bored out of your gourd, you decided to pick up.

It's Ruth Reichl. She was amused by one of your essays that appeared in the Voice and now she's interested in having you write something about donuts. You hate donuts. You're a bagel person. In fact, you don't see what's so gastronomic about those sugary monstrosities that have long been the dinner of choice for the fuzz. And you've already got five things to finish by Saturday. But the liquor cabinet is empty and you could use a pick-me-up. And this is Ruth Reichl. If you accept the assignment, go to 17. If you say no, go to 25.

23. Tanenhaus accepts the napkin and replies that you have guts. He's willing to give you the cover essay if you can get published in the New Yorker before the winter. If you accept his offer, go to 24. If not, go to 26.

24. You throw yourself on the knees of David Remnick at a philanthropic function. You offer to draw cartoons. Remnick hires you as a human model. You spend an evening in a frozen and recumbent position, observing various millionaires eating canapés off your naked back. Remnick, however, to his credit agrees to put an essay you've written in the "Talk of the Town" section. Tanenhaus gives you the cover essay. Real health insurance isn't far behind.

25. Ruth Reichl tells you that you're making a foolish mistake and vows to smear your name at the next cocktail function. She hangs up, shortly before declaring you a rank amateur. The Voice stops taking your work. You have difficulty and, with the spouse pissed off with you about royally screwing up an opportunity, you consider a safe career as a taxidermist. Your friends remark that there's more life in the dead birds than there ever was in your writing. You abandon your writing career and purchase a two-bedroom home in Ohio.

26. You decide to rail against the machine, becoming the editor of a new blog, Flaubert Liked Tennis. The blog gets quoted in the New York Times. You get all sorts of free books but the lacrosse lessons aren't successful.

27. "Son, that's the ballsiest move I've ever seen a freelancer make in a four-star restaurant," says Tanenhaus. You've ingratiated yourself into the machine. You take Deborah Solomon's interviewing job and prove yourself even more vicious with your questions than she did, earning the enmity of all bloggers.

The Book Review Reviewers

Holy frijole! Return of the Reluctant got a whole paragraph from the Gray Lady and was named with several other fantastic and swell folks. That conventional media has responded so quickly to the book review reviewers demonstrates that we are having an more of an influence than we thought. At the very least, they're paying attention. I certainly hope that other litblogs (and blogs in general) pick up the slack and give their local newspaper coverage a hard look. Together, we might be able to remind today's newspapers that book coverage is a seminal part of the Sunday newspaper experience.

Rest assured, this won't affect our hard tests here in the slightest. And I should again point out that I would be beyond delighted to send Mr. Tanenhaus a tasty brownie. It's really up to him.

Win, Blog or Draw

The Liner: Where one guy is determined to draw the entire graduating class of Hamline University, 1925. He's been at this since November.

Hugo Nominations

Gwenda beat me to it (for obvious reasons), but the Hugo Nominations are up. A certain Christopher Rowe was nominated. If there's a lesson to be learned here, put the word "iron" in your title if you hope to get nominated for an award.

BEST NOVEL:

The Algebraist, Iain M. Banks (Orbit)
Iron Council, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan UK)
Iron Sunrise, Charles Stross (Ace)
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury)
River of Gods, Ian McDonald (Simon & Schuster UK)

BEST NOVELLA:

"The Concrete Jungle", Charles Stross (The Atrocity Archives, Golden Gryphon Press)
"Elector", Charles Stross (Asimov's Sep 2004)
"Sergeant Chip", Bradley Denton (F&SF Sep 2004)
"Time Ablaze", Michael A. Burstein (Analog Jun 2004)
"Winterfair Gifts", Lois McMaster Bujold (Irresistible Forces, NAL)

BEST NOVELLETE:

Biographical Notes to ‘A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Air-Planes’ by Benjamin Rosenbaum", Benjamin Rosenbaum (All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories, Wheatland Press)
"The Clapping Hands of God", Michael F. Flynn (Analog Jul/Aug 2004)
"The Faery Handbag", Kelly Link (The Faery Reel, Viking)
"The People of Sand and Slag", Paolo Bacigalupi (F&SF Feb 2004)
"The Voluntary State", Christopher Rowe (Sci Fiction 5 May 2004)

BEST SHORT STORY:

"The Best Christmas Ever", James Patrick Kelly (Sci Fiction 26 May 2004)
"Decisions", Michael A. Burstein (Analog Jan/Feb 2004)
"A Princess of Earth", Mike Resnick (Asimov's Dec 2004)
"Shed Skin", Robert J. Sawyer (Analog Jan/Feb 2004)
"Travels with My Cats", Mike Resnick (Asimov's Feb 2004)

JOHN W. CAMPBELL AWARD:

Elizabeth Bear (second year of eligibility)
K. J. Bishop (second year of eligibility)
David Moles (second year of eligibility)
Chris Roberson (second year of eligibility)
Steph Swainston (first year of eligibility)

Tanenhaus Watch: March 27, 2005

WEEKLY QUESTION: Will this week's NYTBR reflect today's literary and publishing climate? Or will editor Sam Tanenhaus demonstrate yet again that the NYTBR is irrelevant to today's needs? If the former, a tasty brownie will be sent to Mr. Tanenhaus' office. If the latter, the brownie will be denied.

THE COLUMN-INCH TEST:

Fiction Reviews: 1 - 1 1/2 page review, 1 one-page review, 1 one-page roundup (Fiction in Translation), 1 half-page crime roundup, 1 half-page review. (Total books: 13. Total space: 4.5 pages.)

Non-Fiction Reviews: 1 2 page review, 1 - 1 1/2 page review, 3 one-page reviews, one half-page review. (Total books: 6. Total space: 6.5 pages.)

This week's fiction coverage, most of it asphyixiated in roundups, is such a joke that not even Tanenhaus could be compelled to list the crime roundup novels in the table of contents. In fact, I'm surprised that Sarah hasn't weighed in on this. It's bad enough that Marilyn Stasio devotes a mere paragraph to the reissue of Joe Gores' A Time of Predators, only to dwell upon how the Edgar Award-winning novel "shows its age" while declaring it a "good choice." But Rupert Holmes' innovative mystery novel-plus-CD, Swing, is pretty much dismissed through a comparison to one of "those interactive mystery game-books that were popular back in the mid-1980s." Consider, by contrast, an honest assessment of Holmes' caper, along the lines of what John Orr did last week in the San Jose Mercury News.

You have to love the disingenuouness of the roundup format, where you can offer general platitudes for the blurb whores ("thought-provoking fiction" and "strirring, impassioned glimpses of lost souls amid the rubble of history," says Anderson Tepper), while avoiding any penetrating insight because you don't have the space.

Conversely, if the fiction-to-nonfiction ratio isn't bad enough (a mere 41% this week), adding insult to injury is Clive James' self-serving takedown of Paglia and poetry (of which more anon) and the deliberate padding within Pete Hamill's review of Boss Tweed. Hamill not only spends an execrable amount of space summarizing Tweed's life, but he wastes half a paragraph informing readers about Thomas Nast. Wouldn't someone interested in Boss Tweed, let alone any NYTBR reader, already know about Nast? Hamill also takes his opening Gore vs. Tweed gimmick a paragraph too far, beating a horse that didn't deserve to die. (What next, Petey? Telling us you'd rather play sqaush or cross-stitch a quilt with the man? Ha ha! You amuse me. Sushi on me!)

Beyond proving once again how out-of-step he is with today's fiction (even the Rocky Mountain News covered A Changed Mind two weeks ago), it's clear that Tanenhaus has abdicated any effort to find the happy medium: the format allowing the reviewer to focus his energies within a taut word count, while preventing unfortunate asides. The 800-900 word review has served several newspapers quite well for so many years. Tanenhaus again demonstrates a truly unfortunate allocation of column-inches.

Brownie Point: DENIED!

THE HARD-ON TEST:

This test concerns the ratio of male to female writers writing for the NYTBR.

A total of four women have contributed to eleven reviews. As usual, three of these are fiction chicks, while the only female-penned nonfiction review goes to (go figure) Fat Girl.

This is infinitely worse than last week, particularly when one considers that the big reviews were handed off to those with Y chromosomes.

While it's true that Rachel Donadio has penned an essay on Harvard, the essay spends most of its time chronicling Larry Summers' exploits than the two books it cites (and is thus excluded from the fiction-to-nonfiction ratio).

Brownie Point: DENIED!

THE QUIRKY PAIR-UP TEST:

Pete Hamill, Clive James, Rachel Donadio, Liesl Schillinger, Barry Gewen. Yawn yawn and yawn. We haven't seen such a predictable crop of names since the Fortune 500. What's the matter, Sam? Is March Madness keeping you from approaching the interesting people?

Brownie Point: DENIED!

CONTENT CONCERNS:

The Sgt. Pepper-style numbered image collage of poets matches Clive James' essay to a tee. It is as suitably insipid as James' arrogance in print, little more than a paint-by-numbers palette for bored children who believe in image first and the love of language last.

James bemoans "the airless space of literary theory and cultural studies." He claims that John Ashbery is "the combined status of totem pole and wind tunnel." Most alarmingly, he declares that his "own prescription for making poetry popular would be to ban it -- with possession treated as a serious misdemanor, and dealing as a felony."

That such passive ignorance and anti-intellectualism would be promulgated in a book review section of a major newspaper is truly disheartening.

With such obvious enmity against the liberal arts expressed in the first five paragraphs, one wonders why any level-headed editor assign a book about poetry to an overrated, perhaps permanently impotent essayist. It's clear enough that James would rather spend hours working himself up into an erection over Daffy Duck, Anne Heche and Charlton Heston. The answer: An editor looking for a train wreck, because the very notion of thinking about an interesting problem like the decline in poetry is too difficult and certainly not good enough for the money men.

If badmouthing poetry isn't enough, James is ready to decimate Paglia over details that have little to do with the book in question. James has taken the opportunity to pull a Wieseltier here, spending a good chunk of his two pages spouting off ad hominen attacks rather than offering specific examples about why and where one should search Camille Paglia for the Number of the Beast. How dare this woman possess "wide knowledge" and "expressive gifts," while daring to be a clear thinker "on top of a pair of Jimmy Choos!" To suggest (as the cover does) that James "fancies Camille Paglia" is as great a lie as claiming that a Democrat desires to give George Bush a hug.

What's interesting is that James has very little to find fault with in the book. He declares that Break, Blow, Burn has "few sweeping statements." He commends her comparison of Wallace Stevens' "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock" with a Satie piano piece. Still unable to separate Paglia the thinker from Paglia the feminist, he points to Paglia's defense of Ted Hughes as "a quixotic move."

So why complain that Paglia's "young students might listen too well?" What the hell does appearing in Inside Deep Throat have to do with the book in question? Why quibble over Ava Gardner being manufactured in a Hollywood studio when Paglia didn't champion Gardner, but was merely inspired by her at a mere four years old?

Such smears are the telltale signs of a man looking for a fight, combing minutiae and finding nothing to support his argument. This is what's known in the trade as ignoratio elenchi, or an irrelevant conclusion.

As such, we award Tanenhaus an F for fake, seriously considering the future of our Sunday New York Times subscription.

CONCLUSIONS:

Brownie Points Denied: 3

[UPDATE: Bud Parr has an altogether different response to Clive James' review.]

How to Read When the Power Goes Off

Last night, at Chateau Mabuse, the power went off. We were sorry to see our pages on the computer lost into the ether. But this did, nevertheless, lead us to the romantic notion of reading by candlelight for several hours.

It proved more problematic than we expected. But since we had a few unexpected hours on our hands, we took the time to experiment and iron out the kinks. Here's a checklist to help others plan for successful reading during a blackout:

• Have at least ten candles in reserve, but you will likely need twenty. Depending upon the health of your eyes, you're going to need enough light to focus on the text without straining too much. Votives and tapers can put out a lot of light, particularly if the wax hasn't burned into the telltale concave circle of use, eating into the wick's vertical alignment. Get about six votives placed on an ample surface space in the center of the room (say, a desk or an end table moved to the center of the room) to ensure that you have enough fill light thrown upwards for general ambience. Your sitting or recumbent position should dictate the candle positioning and should allow for fluctuation in body movement (e.g., if you read the lefthand page while laying on your left side, make sure that there's some candles on your right). Be sure to place at least four bright candles behind your general reading position to throw enough light onto the page.
• Even if you do manage to perfect a well-lighted room, you're still going to be contending with less light than a light bulb. (When the power goes back on, the photographers or filmmakers in the peanut gallery can whip out their light meters and see that there's a notable gap in foot candles between the two illuminated states.) So the books that you read shouldn't be too unwieldy in weight, nor contain particularly tight typesetting or small font size. We found that a 300 page trade paperback we were reading proved to be more ideal by candlelight than Ian McEwan's Saturday, a bulky edition of MFK Fisher's The Art of Eating and even a Nero Wolfe mass market paperback we dug up for trial and error. The ideal book by candlelight should be something that doesn't easily fold into itself (the mass market paperback being the most egregious offender), but that is small enough to hold without difficulty.
• Prepare yourself for the unexpected shock of the power going back on. Once we had attained an ideal reading position, the sudden whirs of appliances and various lights scared the shit out of us. Turn all your lights off and be aware of what will go on. Because if you get lost in a passage, it's likely that the sudden climate change will make you believe that this nation is at war with yet another enemy and will take about three minutes to recover from.
• The added advantage of candles is that they smell very nice. If it is possible, try to coordinate your candle selection with scents that you find desirable. Be aware that this scent will linger, even when the power returns. Be sure that you don't have a vanilla scent competing with a strawberry scent. None of the scents should be particularly overpowering. Likewise, none of the scents should distract you too much from the reading experience.

There's a Problem When Harriet Klausner is "Infinitely More Qualified"

Stephanie Perry reviewed Richard Bothelho's Leah's Way. She didn't like it. Little did she realize that the publisher (specifically Windstream's Sue Eccleston) would write back, declaring her absolutely wrong and a "politically correct hate anything Christian liberal" and "a typical Gen-X whiner." Last time we checked, hostility wasn't a very good way of establishing rapport. Needless to say, we probably won't be reviewing anything from Windstream anytime this lifetime. We're committed to nothing less than honest reviews and we're glad Ms. Perry is too. (via Collected Miscellany)

If You Foolish New Yorkers Read Books on the Subway, The Terrorists Have Already Won

The New York Times: "'One time I witnessed a robbery on a train,' Mr. Ortega said, explaining that the victim 'was wearing earphones.' Being vigilant is more important, Mr. Ortega suggested, than being entertained: 'You never know, you know?' One never knows indeed."

Here in San Francisco, MUNI Metro is just as susceptible to subway delays as New York. It's never bothered me much, largely because I probably get an hour and a half of reading in just from commuting alone. And any subway delay is gravy. Because while other folks are miserable, I'm getting in some extra pages.

But this article represents another case of the Gray Lady beginning with an interesting story angle and getting strangely alarmist. Has Campbell Robertson never heard of a concept called "acceptable risk?"

Bret Harte Gone

I've just learned that, Bret Harte, a friend of mine in the local theatrical community, was killed in a car crash. A little more than a year ago, Bret directed me in a community theatre production of The Man Who Came to Dinner. He was an extremely affable guy, remarkably mature for his years, and he knew how to get a versimilitudinous performance even from my flamboyant ass. What mortifies me is that he was so young. Younger than me. Probably nicer than me.

In fact, Bret was one of the people who inspired me to write and direct Wrestling an Alligator.

Bret's death reminds me again just how goddam cruel the universe is. He didn't have to go like this. Didn't deserve to go like this. So if you'll excuse me if I refrain from posting for at least half a day, while I get over this, I hope you can understand.

The El Segundo Primer: Foreign Corporations Good, Foreign Authors Bad

El Segundo has once again demonstrated that it is one of the most ridiculous places on the planet. As David Kipen reports on KCRW's Overbooked, the El Segundo City Council has rejected a request from the library to name two meeting rooms after Agatha Christie and Jack London. The reasons? Christie isn't American and London, by way of being a socialist, isn't American enough.

Councilman John Gaines was the man who made the first objection. Mayor Kelly McDowell was the whiz kid who considered Jack London too politically charged. "I don't want to make a political statement by naming a room, period," said Gaines. "I don't want to use one whose politics, in my view, weren't in line with American ideals."

Well, if foreigners are unacceptable, why is one area of the library named the Matsui International, Inc. Meeting Room? Matsui International, Inc. was founded in 1911, a subsidiary of Matsui Shikiso Chemical Co., Ltd., which is located at Address 64, Kamikazan, Sakuradani-cho, Yamashina-ku, Kyoto 607, Japan.

(via Moby Lives)

Norman Spinrad: The Ego Has, At Last, Landed with a Thud

Norman Spinrad has demonstrated a remarkable senility with his latest column in Asimov's, claiming that the only reason that a "socialist novel" like The Iron Council was published in the States was because it was Book Three in a trilogy. (Never mind the American coverage from Michael Dirda in the Washington Post or Gerald Jonas in the New York Times that might have had a hand in the novel's awareness.) Fortunately, The Mumpsimus is there to call him on his whiny, self-serving horseshit.

Galactica Ain't Entirely the Bee's Knees

All right. We admit it. Against our better judgment, we've been taken in by Battlestar Galactica. We dig the gritty feel. But, most importantly, we welcome a speculative fiction environment that has authoritative female presidents (played by Mary McDonnell, no less!), female fighter pilots who play by their own rules without coming across as token aggro-chicks and, from our inveterate male perspective, two very hot Cylon chicks. How often do we see developed women in these shows that aren't horrible Katharine Hepburn clones? Not much, we'd say. We also like the executive officer -- a raging alcoholic that's an interesting cross between James Carville and Dick Cheney. The people on board this ship drink, smoke, have sex, and even jerk off (and are even caught with their pants down). In other words, unlike the bland folks in the Star Trek universe spouting off technobabble, they're actually human. They even make bad command decisions. Plus, there's interesting little design elements such as the paper with its edges cropped off, a general set motif of cramped physicality favored over glitzy computers, special effects shots that have a jerky documentary feel (a first, I think, on television), and some pretty cool Cylon Centurions (complete with a menacing mechanized gait reminiscent of Phil Tippett's animation).

Even so, we're mystified by the following gaping holes:

• If the Cylons have a finite number of models, many of them reproducing themselves repeatedly over the 5,000 or so humans that are left, why is a Cylon detector even needed? Would it not make better sense to take a head count and track the duplicates?
• Despite the "real" people portrayed, I've yet to see a fat person on board or someone with bad hygiene. Why does everyone on board Galactica seem so eminently fuckable, with their flawless teeth and perfectly coiffed hair? Further, would not the lack of sunshine or the outdoors make one antsy when confined aboard a cramped spacecraft? Wouldn't the notion of the human race almost completely exterminated lead to widespread trauma, depression, and mental illness (so far unseen)?
• In a recent episode, Starbuck was stranded on a planet for something like 30 hours. While her oxygen was depleting, hunger apparently was not an issue and her strength remained unwavering, allowing her to escape.
• I haven't kept count, but if there are only about ten to fifteen fighters on board Galactica, if two or three get destroyed every week, then some fanboy needs to do the math.

The Waldman Contretemps

We'll weigh in, dammit, for the following reasons:

1) We were mortified by wrestling in high school, largely because the idea of clutching another scrawny teenager in a full-Nelson struck us as vaguely Roman (near the decline of the empire) and homoerotic at the time, and it also meant having to shower with said opponent. You do the math, whiz kid. Twelve years later, free from the shackles of a needlessly Puritanical upbringing and readily indulging in fellatio jokes before breakfast (even in our thirties), we have very little problems with male anatomy and sexuality in general. The important thing is that we are no longer afraid of penises, whether it be our own or another. Although we infinitely prefer lightly wrestling certain lady friends in intimate situations, moments that we would never dare share on this blog, because we recognize the TMI principle. Thus, we've earned the right to "weigh in." To hell with the philological consequences.

2) Our one and only encounter with Ms. Waldman occurred last year, when we offered our hand and said, "Hey. How's it going?" in lieu of the genteel fawning at the 2004 Northern California Book Awards. We suggested then that it might have been a mistake to introduce ourselves to Berkeley literary royalty this way. However, in light of recent events, we take our original assessment back, recalling the ashen expression on Ms. Waldman's face, and her unnerving sense that she was encountering some literary huckster there only to talk with other authors and drink free merlot (partly true) and that this, as written in her frown and her dilated eyes, was in some sense a damning crime against the human race. Frankly, we've committed greater misdemeanors, many of which you'll never hear about and many of which are ably recorded in private. We learned a thing or two about exhibitionism after about five years of blogging, hell even in the first few months of blogging. And back then, we were in our mid-twenties.

Which leads us to this and, more specifically, this, which in turn lead to this and this. Scout's honor.

Still with me?

Okay.

1. It seems to me that Waldman's lead sentence is the mark of a clear sensationalist. And if she does indeed suffer from a milder form of bipolar disorder (Self-diagnosed! We should again point out that the diagnosis comes solely from Waldman and not a clinical psychologist. Waldman herself, last I checked, was not a shrink.), then I put forth to the peanut gallery that this is a very good way to get attention, that indeed we may very well have been conned into being titilated by another author's neuroses (a Salon specialty, or had you all forgotten about last year's Jane Austen Doe stunt?), perhaps another post-modern game to be played between husband and wife. (Note also that we have two clear links to the dynamic duo's respective sites in the first two sentences. Whether this was a decision from Waldman or the Salon editors, self-promotion, even in the form of such apologia, has never seen such flagrant horn-tooting, even with that damn near unreadable He Who Shall Remain Unnamed novel-in-progress from last year.)

2. I've been in relationships, but I've never been married. But it would seem to me from a matrimonial standpoint that one would discuss suicidal feelings and bad juju with one's spouse before exposing it all online, let alone to one's kids. Or perhaps the key is to write it all down in a private journal. In fact, it strikes me as an altogether shitty thing to not even bother to call one's loved one, one's circle of friends or pretty much anyone who gives a damn about you after penning such confessional hijinks, particularly if you are a published author regularly writing and understanding that your words do indeed have power.

3. All this is not to make light of Ms. Waldman's mental state, which is apparently quite imperious. We should point out that at least Waldman did the right thing in discovering her own personal limits about what to reveal. Even so, commenting upon this publicly in a major online outlet suggests not only a continuation of the very problem (which has earned considerable wrath from readers) but what Dana Stevens has recently referred to as "mental-health porn," taking a cue from Elizabeth Wurtzel. What is most troubling is that Waldman is doing this to herself, and that this is not some nutty Norwegian director who may or may not be in on the joke.

4. Concerning the question of whether Waldman's kids are harmed, this too is a disingenuous defense. The very idea that her kids will be "furious with [Waldman] for having stolen their lives and humiliated at the extent to which I have laid open my own" again resorts to a certain solipsism (also referenced by "occasionaly failing," as if the idea of falling flat on one's face was anathema to existence). It all suggests that Ms. Waldman can't say no. Beyond this, if the kids did find out, surely such a revelation could be talked out, rather than worrying about the what-if wrath of a reverse Laurence Olivier moment with the offspring shrieking "I hef no mom!"

5. We should not forget that it is Salon's editors who are exploiting Ayelet Waldman. Damn Waldman if you must, but never forget that they are the ones encouraging this. And, no, Ms. Smiley, it's not a question of Waldman's honesty, but what the reading public has clearly seen between the lines. It may not be easy to see when you're blinded by bucolic glens and horses, but mental illness is a veritable powder keg. 54 million Americans suffer from it, but only 8 million seek treatment. I'm glad to see that Salon's readers, at least, aren't dismissing it as some pedantic overreaction.

SF Sightings -- Seth Greenland

Tonight, a modest group of people gathered at the Booksmith to catch Seth Greenland, on a book tour for his scathing Hollywood novel, The Bones. The Bones depicts a comedian at the end of his rope contending with the hollow banalities of the television industry. Greenland wrote the novel, his literary debut, because he hated the duplicities of show business. Remarkably, the book has done well in Los Angeles. Greenland suggets that this might be because Hollywood likes to see "its poor self-image confirmed by an external source."

Greenland, 49, is a tall man, clad in a black shirt slightly tightened around his lanky frame. A thatch of thinning black hair adorns the top of his uncannily ellipitical head. His face is a vertical edifice offset by a bulbous, somewhat aquiline nose, lined with sunken black eyes that have clearly observed the Hollywood abattoir too many times. As he reads in a raspy voice, somewhat reminiscent of Howard Hawks' trademark machine gun delivery, he annotates the L.A. references for San Franciscans. Little Dolphins Montessori School, for example, is seen as Tiny Tuna in the novel. And as Greenland is quick to note, fifteen people have seen themselves in the same character. Despite the warm reception (the book has been out a few weeks), Greenland openly wonders if he'll be as vilified as Truman Capote was for Answered Prayers.

While Greenland is a somewhat intense man, one observes his token smirk of amusement, the telltale impish sign of a comedy writer. When the crowd laughs, his wispy eyebrows arch up, followed by a slight lift of his cheeks and the grin of a man who has, in his own words, used this novel as a surrogate for therapy.

"I don't have the patience for psychotherapy," he says.

Before he emerged a novelist, Greenland had authored five plays. When the theatrical atmosphere proved as notes-happy as Hollywood, he figured he could leave New York and get the same relentless criticism, but with a pecuniary shot in the arm to support his family. He turned out the Dr. Dre film Who's the Man? and wrote for an unspecified HBO series.

Little did he realize that the kinds of movies he wanted to see (which included a script about a suburban dad trying to kill a neo-Nazi in the neighborhood as a nobel act, what he described as a cross between Crime and Punishment and Dilbert) would be sent into the no man's land of turnaround.

"Most comedy writers don't want to be writers," he says. "They want to be in show business." Angry and frustrated by Hollywood, he turned to writing The Bones. The novel came out of him in one mad rush over six months, with only the final 60 pages undergoing significant revision. He felt changed as a person.

Greenland took some time to lambaste the writer's assistant on Friends who recently sued for sexual harassment, noting that getting killed and shot down in the most hostile manner imaginable is all part of the business. He says that, as much as it breaks his heart, theatre has moved into the realm of poetry: a necessary but ignored art.

Then there's the unexpected bonus of The Bones being turned into a movie. He sent the book out to several people, including David Mamet. Mamet really liked the book, but didn't get back to him until months later. Suddenly, Greenland received a call, "Hi Seth! It's Dave Mamet. Did you get my email?" Mamet, on the phone with Sony honcho John Calley, wanted to turn the book into a movie and asked if Greenland could fly out the next morning.

"When you don't care," says Greenland, "good things happen."

Bemoaning another ill-fated run-in with Hollywood, Greenland brazenly declared (to David Mamet, no less) that he would only do the movie if he would write the screenplay. To Greenland's astonishment, Mamet and Calley said okay. Now Greenland's writing the script and working on his second novel ("much shorter than the first").

Channeling Pacino, Greenland concludes, "Just when I thought I got out, they pulled me back in."

So There Are SOME Awards Marilynne Robinson Won't Be Winning

Ha Jin has nabbed the PEN/Faulkner. This is his second win. And this also makes Ha Jin the second author to win the award twice -- aside from Philip Roth.

More Used Bookstore Horror Stories

If my own tale wasn't enough for you, the erstwhile Mr. Esposito and Golden Rule Jones have offered theirs. Hopefully, other folks will chime in with their own accounts, preferably in dialogue form. Clearly, if there is an overarching theme here, it's used bookstore employees going out of their way to drive away book enthusiasts.

Are You Gonna Starve My Way?

Lenny Kravitz has donated his guitar to help fight hunger in Brazil. We applaud Mr. Kravitz's generosity. As anybody knows, a guitar can be cut up and thrown into a stew to serve 12.

Everything Really is Illuminated!

Emma Garman has plodded through JSF's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Nicole Krauss' The History of Love. Krauss is JSF's wife. The results? Both novels are remarkably similar.

Around the Sphere

• Maud has a report from a JSF reading. There are lots of mumbles and ashen expressions described.
• Dan Green is refreshingly unapologetic about his long posts, while remaining concerned that his content is being tagged "read later."
• Ms. Tangerine Muumuu has some alternative titles for reluctant memoirs.
• Steve Almond offers eight reasons why he writes short stories. Apparently, he can't accept the flawed framework of a novel and doesn't care much for plot, two sensibilities which might account for why we've been unable to muster up more than cursory enthusiasm for his work.
• Robert Birnbaum, a man who has apparently frightened so many authors that not even Zoe Heller can utter his name, talks with Nick Flynn.
• Terry Teachout is a machine, I tell ya!
• Apparently, romance novels are all about the nookie. All this time I thought they functioned as an excuse to get models who resemble Fabio off the dole. Who knew? (via Sarah)

The Difficult Life of Dan Brown

As the New York Times reported yesterday, Dan Brown is only one blockbuster novel away from designing an aircraft and using assorted taxpayer money to bankroll his obsessions. Should the aircraft prove successful, Brown reportedly has his eye on Vegas.

Since the success of The Da Vinci Code (which Brown refers to as the Book 4 Hercules), Brown hasn't left the house. He speaks of rampant bacteria that might infect him and has a number of aides leaving milk bottles just outside his door. When Brown does leave his compound, he's been known to babble about being able to buy any individual on the planet. He's also taken to hitchhiking with the vain hope that he'll be picked up by some guy named Melvin.

Brown has been toying around with the plot structure for Ice Station Zebra, having watched the film 75 times in the past month alone. While his publishers are encouraging Mr. Brown to abscond with its plot the same way that he did with Umberto Eco for his breakthrough success, Brown is too busy trying to determine if Jeb Bush needs a loan.

However, should Brown face writer's block and remain incapable of writing further novels, Martin Scorsese is said to be interested in making a Dan Brown biopic.

On Good Men as Protagonists

Carrie recently weighed in on the good man as protagonist. And by "good man," we may wish to clarify this wholesome term more wholesomely: maybe Ward Cleaver or Father Knows Best fits the bill. The irresistable person who can do no wrong. The person who has few problems other than how they're going to refinance the house or, worse yet, the type who spends most of a novel lounging about a silk dressing gown.

While I generally tend to favor protagonists who have significant problems (not necessarily outright bastards), whether obvious ones or, even more interestingly, flaws hidden beneath tightly sewn seams of life experience leading inexorably to a dilemma we are about to experience, there's something to be said for Carrie's plea. Certainly the human perspective isn't limited to madmen or druggies or pedearasts. Nearly every community has a do-gooder. Not a nagger who gets in the way of other people's affairs or a sanctimonious Dimmesdale type copping a feel in a garret. We're talking a genuinely outstanding member of society with nary a blemish on his record.

And I don't want to cop to the easy defense that these types of characters don't make for conflict. However, I think good men must be thrown into conflict in order for us to recognize their virtues. We must understand how they arrived at their goodness over the years, what efforts at self-purging and ascetism that allowed them to become the people who they are. Transposed against a narrative template that involves people from the past coming into this good man's life, I can see this working as a way to compare and contrast the good man of today versus the developing good man of the past.

I haven't yet read Gilead. In fact, it's a stone's throw away on my own bookpile. But I'll be quite curious to see if this hypothetical development is one of the linchpins of the book. To understand and ruminate upon virtue is perhaps a trickier thing to know than vice.

The News From Denver

The Rake continues his mighty depictions of bookstore readings with a run-in with Lily Tuck.

No Barking in the Fitness Room

This video is wrong on multiple levels. (via B)

Jonathan Lethem: Pop Culture Truthteller or Gimmicky Stylist?

For some curious reason, Jessa seems more eager to link to Amazon titles rather than John Leonard's "Welcome to New Dork" in the NYRoB, which has been online for a week. She suggests that she can't get into Lethem's fiction because "his metaphors kept getting in the way."

I think that Ms. Crispin is being too unequivocal with Lethem's work and should give the man another chance. While Lethem's novels can be gimmicky, I consider him to be one of the most interesting fiction stylists working today, a conclusion that, admittedly, took me several books to figure out. Consider the many genres Lethem has worked in. Consider his use of language and his own determination never to write the same kind of novel twice. I haven't read The Disappointment Artist yet, but I did read Lethem's "The Beards" (an excerpt from the upcoming nonfiction book) in The New Yorker several weeks ago (unfortunately, not available online), a fascinating glimpse at how Lethem used pop culture to disguise his growing disconnectedness with the world when personal tragedies bogged down his life. And if we look at the McDonald's in the middle of a dystopian future in Amnesia Moon, the White Castle burgers clutched onto as comfort food in the early moments of Motherless Brooklyn, or the comics and music in The Fortress of Solitude, we see a writer who willing to present pop culture as an elixir that can often be debilitating to existence.

This interesting dilemma in current novels, what indeed separates Lethem from a J-Franz gushing over Peanuts, is what Leonard singles out in his essay among current writers. But I think Leonard may be too hard on Lethem. Where other contemporary writers have used nostalgia as a way to throw in a cheap gag or to pad out a novel, I would suggest that Lethem is the only literary figure brave enough to recognize its potential as an imprisoner. Not even Paul Auster could do that when he summarized the plot of Out of the Past in Ghosts.

Stop That Reviewer

For those who aren't satisfied with three-word reviews, my lengthier take on Stop That Girl is now up at January.

Tanenhaus Watch: March 20, 2005

WEEKLY QUESTION: Will this week's NYTBR reflect today's literary and publishing climate? Or will editor Sam Tanenhaus demonstrate yet again that the NYTBR is irrelevant to today's needs? If the former, a tasty brownie will be sent to Mr. Tanenhaus' office. If the latter, the brownie will be denied.

THE COLUMN-INCH TEST:

Fiction Reviews: 1 - 2 1/2 page review, 1 one-page science fiction roundup, 2 one-page reviews, 1 half-page reviews. (Total books: 9. Total space: 6 pages.)

Non-Fiction Reviews: 1 1 1/2 page review, 5 one-page reviews, 2 half-page reviews. (Total books: 9. Total space: 7.5 pages.)

While Tanenhaus' Hollywood theme offers an interesting thematic approach to non-fiction coverage, Tanenhaus again demonstrates that, despite a lengthy review of Ian McEwan's Saturday, he has no interest in serious coverage of today's fiction, reducing science fiction to a round-up and including a throwaway review for Linda Ferri's Enchantments, perhaps to point out to his detractors that he's covering foreign titles.

Tanenhaus can delude himself all he wants with the 1:1 fiction-to-nonfiction title ratio on his table of contents page. But the column inches tell the real story. This week, he weighs in again at his trusty 44.44% ratio, still well below the 48% minimum requirement for fiction coverage.

We consider Ian McEwan to be one of the greatest living writers and we like to see him covered as much as anybody (particularly by someone like Zoe Heller). But last we heard, McEwan wasn't the only guy pumping out novels these days.

Brownie Point: DENIED!

THE HARD-ON TEST:

This test concerns the ratio of male to female writers writing for the NYTBR.

Three of the five fiction reviews are written by women. Meanwhile, only one of the eight nonfiction reviews is penned by a female.

One.

We're extremely bothered by Tanenhaus's continuing inability to pair women up with nonfiction books. By contrast, a quick look over at this Sunday's Washington Post Book World section sees women covering two memoirs and a family history (along with several fiction titles). While the troubling problem of women reviewers relegated to fiction and memoirs cuts across the board (for fuck's sake, why can't a woman tackle that unwieldy Galbrieth biography?), we're still scratching our heads over why Sam Tanenhaus, despite being the editor of one of the most promiment weekly book review sectiosn in the United States, can't ferret out the females.

This isn't exactly rocket science. It doesn't even take much in the way of rumination. Here's a few ideas that come immediately to mind: Jane Juska reviewing a nonfiction book about aging or sexuality, the genteel Katha Pollitt trying to figure out the state of comics, Molly Ivins covering Michael Savage's Liberalism is a Mental Disorder from a medical perspective, Dorothy Allison seeing if Jeannette Angell's Callgirl has streetcred, or just about any brave voice daring to cover Laurel Leff's forthcoming Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and America's Most Important Newspaper (which is in fact highly critical of the Gray Lady). Wouldn't that be a book review section worth reading? And wouldn't this be a great way to balance off the out-of-control male-to-female ratio while presenting stirring nonfiction coverage to a national audience?

It's too bad that Tanenhaus can't kill a few birds (or, in this case, far too many priapic dryads) with one stone.

Brownie Point: DENIED!

THE QUIRKY PAIR-UP TEST:

We're pleased to see Zoe Heller covering Saturday, even if the review is meekly critical and the interview with Cynthia Ozick she quotes comes from Robert Birnbaum and she (or perhaps Tanenhaus) doesn't even acknowledge the source. (Besides, it's not like Tanenhaus would ever reveal that there's this thoughtful literary guy on the Net named Robert Birnbaum who is providing better interviews than most newspapers.)

Does the world really need another essay from blowhard Joe Queenan? Queenan demonstrates yet again that he is neither particularly witty nor terribly original. Having Queenan complain about ghostwritten books is a bit like watching cheap paint dry on a wall. One yearns to see the paint do something unpredictable, such as fly through the air or disappear from one's visual plane. But alas, the paint will do nothing but dry and the senses will deaden. If Tanenhaus believes that Queenan is the quintessential hatchet man, with his self-important asides ("Either way, I think the American people need to know.") and rampant generalizations ("...ghostwriters are by nature timid, diplomatic, gun-shy."), then I urge Mr. Tanenhaus to reread the collected works of H.L. Mencken and discover what real shitstorming is all about. Hell, even some old school Jimmy Breslin. The Gray Lady's continued employment of Joe Queenan is an embarassment to all of the muckrakers and wiseasses who have ever composed for newspapers. It is about as far removed from a quirky pair-up as one can get.

(And for that matter, a far more focused and succinct essay on ghostwriting can be found on the back page by Sarah Lyall. Lyall, unlike Queenan, lets her subject speak for herself and actually allows the reader to form his own judgments. Go figure. Even so, what are two essays about ghostwriting doing in the same review section?)

We have nothing else to say, but...

Brownie Point: DENIED!

CONTENT CONCERNS:

Despite our overall disappointment with this week's flat coverage, we did enjoy Neil Genzlinger's comparative review on Hollywood, particularly the interesting suggestion of the movie consumer being irrelevant. And John Leonard doesn't quite hit the nail on the head with his Disneywar review, but comes close.

We're extremely confused by the Teutonic capitalization (or lack thereof) of Rip "van" Winkle. Before being appropriated by Washington Irving (and earning the "Rip Van Winkle" name), we understand that it came from a Norse folktale called "The Goatherd." Sure, we've seen some editions lower-case the V. But most people understand that there's a difference between "Van" and "von."

Jack Shafer raises a few interesting points on New New Journalism, criticizing Robert S. Boynton quite rightly for trying to lump today's journalists in a wide net. But he fails to factor in the influence of the Internet or, for that matter, how the endless publication of memoirs and the popularity of reality TV may have affected current journalism.

CONCLUSIONS:

Brownie Points Denied: 3 (a new record!)

Harlan Ellison Will Fuck Your Shit Up

SHERMAN OAKS -- Much like Mark Twain, he's damning the human race again, but that's just Harlan. Ellison is the kind of crank that makes for a good feature on a slow news day.

"FEED MY EGO, SUZE! I AM THE GREATEST LIVING WRITER THIS PLANET HAS GOT! LOOK AT MY COPIOUS NOTES. WHY, EVERY SENTENCE IS PURE GENIUS! YOU CAN FIND MY NOTES IN THE FILE CABINET, IN THE FILE MARKED 'IDEAS THAT PIGEONHEADS CAN'T COMPREHEND.' THESE IGNORANT FOOLS DON'T UNDERSTAND MY GENIUS!"

Another day, another dollar, another cash-strapped editor conned out of his money. $500,000 for a 24-word Ellison piece of flash fiction, and it's only Tuesday. Another wing to add to the sprawling Ellison estate. Ellison has chewed out another editorial intern over the phone for mispronouncing Solzhenitsyn's last name. The intern is sobbing and apologizing, and telling Ellison that she's on Xanax and that she's been with a therapist since the age of 12. But Ellison doesn't budge and wants to hear her whimper some more before hanging up. This is clearly a fight worth winning.

Harlan Ellison's hubris fed a lot of hungry intellectual minds in their twenties looking for a bombastic figurehead. Unfortunately, most of them grew up, which wasn't good for Ellison's midlist standing. But that hasn't fazed Ellison. These days, he spends his autumn years calling random people at odd hours, getting angry over the important details that most people take for granted. "Damn you!" he cries out to a delivery boy earning minimum wage. "I told you I wanted the California roll, not the Nevada roll! Don't you understand the difference between Las Vegas and La Jolla? What the hell is a Nevada roll anyway?" High blood pressure hasn't stopped Harlan Ellison from getting angry or correcting people of these unfortunate mistakes, which he blames on "cultural amnesia" -- in this case, the unpardonable errors of a Sherman Oaks sushi bar. A self-made man of privilege should get what he wants. Screw the working class and the moronic masses. It's justice, Ellison-style.

Harlan Ellison, 70, has been denied his meds again. He's sitting in an atrium of his own design, pointing out how superior it is to Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel. There are many, many, many, many, many strange things here: the Rolodex of credible, perceived and imagined enemies out to get Ellison, the various black helicopters that Ellison insists were manufactured and put into service by the Department of Defense, and an old-fashioned card catalog detailing the people he claims to know or might have known, and the hyperbole he's built his careeer upon.

On a bathroom wall there's a Will Eisner drawing of The Spirit, drawn by Eisner in about ten minutes, signed: "To Harlan: Thank you for ripping out my left testicle. I needed to feel unnecessary pain, and I needed a second opinion when the blood clotted. All best, Will." It's art, goddammit. Never mind that it was one of about 90 drawings that Eisner made one autumn day in 1982.

All of this is part of how Harlan Ellison gets what he wants. He recently broke the nose of one journalist who liked "his touching little fantasy tales." But he didn't just break the journalist's nose. He lectured the journalist for three hours on genre ghettoization. This was a matter of pride.

While some might contend that Ellison has become a parody of himself, there are still others who will happily kiss his 70 year old ass, despite its many wrinkles. Ellison regularly wards off these fanboys, commissioning hit men to knock them off.

"Their lives are worthless," he says. "It's the individual's responsibility to stop heckling writers. For fuck's sake, they might start literary blogs."

I Knew George Plimpton, And You're No George Plimpton?

Incidentally, a guy named Philip Gourevitch will be taking over Brigid Hughes' editorial duties at The Paris Review. While Mr. Gourevitch's name won't roll off the tongue quite as easily as Hughes' did, Galleycat has the links on who this man is. Meanwhle, Scott has a few reservations.

Blogger Review Alert

Maud can be found in today's Newsday, reviewing A.L. Kennedy's latest, Paradise.

Sometimes Deborah Solomon's Snark Is More Than Just Deborah Solomon's Snark

Who was the editorial mastermind who assigned Deborah Solomon to interview Rich Gannon?

I was just another guy in the press room. Did I try to curry favor with him? Sure. When he got married, I left a wedding card for him in the press office. People are saying this proves there is some link. But as Einstein said, "Sometimes a wedding card is just a wedding card.''

You mean like "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar''? That wasn't Einstein. That was Freud.

Oh, Freud. O.K. I got my old Jewish men confused.

You should learn the difference between them if you want to work in journalism.

And While You're At It, Tom, Feel Free to Show Us How You Can Keep A Week-Old Dead Cabbage Fresh for God.

It's official. Tom DeLay is insane.

Inside a Used Bookstore

There is a used bookstore, which I shall not name, in San Francisco. It may very well be the most nightmarish book dealer in California, worse even than the boxy blockbuster outlets where clerks are sadly illiterate and where shelf space is devoted to the dreaded popular offerings of our time.

It is neither the used bookstore's collection of books nor the crammed stacks that I have a problem with. Nor do I quibble over the store's remarkably inflated prices for its stock, which rivals Green Apple in fleecing the customer by pricing a dogeared hardcover with fecal matter and other questionable deposits left by previous readers at a mere four dollars off the original price: $17 for a $21 hardcover now readily available in trade paperback, to give you one egregious example.

Rather, it is the eccentric and hopelessly depressed husband-wife team, lanky and listeless ex-hippies who appear to have never recovered from Altamont, who run the place. Upon entering, the purveyor is immediately assaulted by a paranoid "NO PHOTOS!" sign emblazoned in angry Shaprie on a viciously ripped piece of cardboard, presumably to ward off the legions of G-men and black helicopters that have stormed the place with expensive Nikons. And if you do not surrender your backpack to the proprietors within thirty seconds, they will unleash motley cries of horror and assorted accusations ("Thief! Thief!"), as if you have just molested an infant. You are given half a playing card to hold onto and if you have any questions about whether the store has a particular title in stock, you are told to fend for yourself. Clearly, despite being in retail for years, this miserable couple has failed to grasp the basic idea that showing a customer where an object of desire resides might result in a sale.

I generally avoid this place because I find it disheartening to see something as inspiring as a large collection of books sullied by the variegated vagaries of glum vendors as yet uncategorized in the DSM-IV. The last time I had browsed the bookstore, I was reprimanded for not buying anything. And it was suggested then that I was somehow contributing to the store's financial shortfall.

My friends know me as an easy forgiver. And since my last encounter with these jaded overlords had been a year ago, since I was in a cheery mood, since I happened to be in the neighborhood, and since I had recently bemoaned how difficult it was to find Anthony Burgess titles that very afternoon with friends (outside of A Clockwork Orange), I thought I'd give my revived Burgess hunt a go.

Burgess, I should point out, is an author I adore. A brave, playful and remarkably prolific writer writing across several genres (science fiction, historical fiction, pointed British satire) who is no longer alive and whose books remain in print only through the most precarious of midlist conditions. If ever there was a time to buy Burgess, the time was now. Before he became relegated to the dust heap of forgotten novelists, until the inevitable "rediscovery" essay in the April 2039 issue of the Atlantic Monthly.

Burgess, I'm delighted to report, was found: specifically, The Long Day Wanes, a collection of Burgess' Malayan trilogy that I had not read. I approached the counter, ready to welcome Burgess back into my life. The wife was there, a moribund look hidden beneath hanks of stringy gray hair.

"This book's been sitting there since 1998," she said. "No one has touched it."

"Well, I'm glad I rescued it from extinction. It's a pity that Burgess has been on the decline the past ten years."

The second sentence was the wrong thing to say.

"Oh boy. Have you heard my rant?"

Before I could say no thank you, the woman let loose a hysterical rambling about how most people can't read, how 50% of America can't even read street signs, and how barely anybody in the City reads books.

"Did you know that?" she sneered, tapping her fingers on a counter pocked with numerous dents and scratches, waiting for the inevitable moment to deliver part two.

"Wait a minute," I replied. "We're the top national city for bookstores. Number ten on the most literate city list."

She didn't hear me. She carried on with how money was being siphoned off for computers instead of books in the libraries. Homeless people waiting for three hours to check their email in lines. Bill Gates and his financial stranglehold on schools. And then she revealed the ultimate demon itself! The Internet. All a bunch of rabid lies.

"Actually, the Internet's been pretty good to me. There's an ongoing debate over literary issues. And without the Internet, I don't think I'd have nearly as many John P. Marquand books as I do. Of course, I hit every used bookstore I could find first."

"Where did you order?"

"What?"

"Where did you order?"

"Alibris."

"Let me tell you something about Alibiris. It's one giant warehouse."

"Really? That's strange. I've had packages come in from used bookstores in Utah and Illinois."

"It's all a front. You need to order from Abe Books." (As it turns out, the lady was right on this point. Alibris sends consigned books with inflated prices for titles that used sellers provide through its warehouse with the bookstore's name and logo on the packages.)

Admonished for making a mistake I wasn't aware of, I didn't receive a thank you. And given the moribund harangue and the rampant accusations, I certainly won't be buying from the place again.

But it does make me ponder how anyone can remain in the used bookstore business with any shred of sanity intact. Any retail business is ripe with problems, subject to the cash flow of any given month and whatever remains in savings to stay afloat. But that's still no excuse to bombard your customers with vitriol. After all, they're the devoted dreamers keeping the bookstores alive.

Literary Royale: Marilynne Robinson To Duke It Out With Andrea Levy on Small Island

The National Book Critics Circle Award winners have been announced:

NOVEL: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
BIOGRAPHY: De Kooning: An American Life by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan
CRITICISM: Where You're At: Notes From the Frontlnie of a Hip-Hop Planet by Patrick Neate
GENERAL NONFICTION: The Reformation: A History by Diarmaid MacCulloch
POETRY: The School Among the Ruins by Adrienne Rich

The Chickenhead Sqawks

[EDITOR'S NOTE: This article is the first in a series of brash generalizations and self-serving paraphrasing known as Mabusianism. Proponents of this philosophy must agree absolutely with each and every point, no matter how poorly framed or unfairly stretched the argument. Mabusianism will eventually serve as the philosophical backbone for Zeus Sodomized, Edward Champion's gripping 5,000 page novel debut, which has yet to find a publisher.]

Lev Grossman, who was designated Chickenhead of the Month back in December 2004, has responded to criticisms leveled at his article, "Pop Goes the Literature":

I loved that McSweeney's collection! It's astonishing to me that you could distort my point of view like that -- I called the book "trashy but in the best possible way," "remarkably pleasing," "gorgeously creepy," etc.

Grossman's response is disingenuous. Since Grossman is content to place his review out of context (much like a silly movie ad), let's recall the original paragraph:

"McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories skews a little trashier but in the best possible way. It has the promiscuous atmosphere of one of those speakeasies where socialites slum with gangsters in an effort to mutually increase everybody's street cred."

In other words, the McSweeney's collection is an enjoyable lowbrow offering with no redeeming artistic qualities other than being a fun read. Yet another one of those nutty speculative fiction endeavors that's meant for wild-eyed geeks, cranks and insomniacs, rather than devoted and passionate readers who don't discriminate between genres. Further, Chabon's collection is all about literary types obtaining street cred rather than demonstrating the breadth of their craft.

"Remarkably pleasing" is the kind of phrase (much like "Could use improvement") that I recall seeing on report cards in elementary school, and it still suggests that horror, fantasy, or science fiction are somehow beneath the panoply of quality lit. "Gorgeously creepy" is downright redundant. Why Time's editors are encouraging Grossman with these dreadful modifier combos is a mystery I'll never know.

But here's the rub: If Grossman truly enjoyed the collection, then why did he go out of his way to be snarky about it? Why was he so interested in showing how much he hated literature by accusing Michael Chabon of being "flowery" and called Jonathan Lethem's stories "literary in their bones, maybe too much so" (and in Lethem's case, dismissing some of his endings as "maddeningly pointless").

Return of the Reluctant stands by its original assessment and awards Lev Grossman a second Chickenhead of the Month Award for March 2005. Clearly, his squawking has no two-drink minimum.

No More Witch World

Andre Norton has passed on.

Yes, But We Also Have Rocky IV and Rocky V

Of all people to weigh in on the Robert Blake question, Joyce Brothers says, "They will not only accept him back but accept him back in spades. We are a nation that loves comebacks. We have `Rocky' and `Rocky 2' and `Rocky 3.'"

We've Come to Believe That Most Threatening is Unneeded, But Who Knew?

Craig's List: "Aqua Matrix is seeking 27-35 year old Caucasian and Asian females for submission for a Day Player role on the CBS soap opera Guiding Light. Must be beautiful and threatening when she needs to be."

No Snow for Hemingway

Kilimanjaro's peak is without snow for the first time in 11,000 years.

"This is a wake-up call and an unequivocal message that a low-carbon global economy is necessary, achievable and affordable."

See also "The Rocks of Kilimanjaro."

Three Word Reviews #1

Stop That Girl by Elizabeth McKenzie

REVIEW: Stop those similes.

Ward Churchill Sticks With "I Had Ten Bum Fingers; How Could I Write?" Defense in Response to Plagiarism Charges

Clearly, the Republican Stronghold Is In San Francisco

PHONE: "Is Mr. Champion there?"

ME: "Who may I ask is calling?"

PHONE: "I'm from the Republican National Committee. Do you have a few moments of time?"

ME: "How did you get my name?"

PHONE: "Are you a Republican?"

ME: "I asked you a question first. How did you get my name?"

PHONE: "Are you a Republican?"

ME: "Wow, you're a one-trick pony. Look, I'd like you to take my name off your list and never call me again."

PHONE: "Sure. Obviously, you're a Repubican."

ME: "What makes you say that?"

PHONE: "Obviously, you're a Republican."

ME: "If you say so..." (hangs up)

In Defense of White Male Bloggers

Like 99.99% of the blogosphere, I'm white and I'm male. Sometimes, I get an erection. In fact, it's safe to say that writing long libertarian screeds on copyright and the horrors of government regulation (get off my lawn, G-men!) gets me hotter and friskier than the Jenna Jameson videos I rent from the video store (also white, also male, also libertarian, but perhaps a scad dirtier).

Why, if it weren't for the power of the blogosphere (which is more truthful than those Communists writing for the New York Times), it's safe to say that I'd be giving speeches at my local Rotary International chapter about the Important Issues of Our Time and inviting other white men for cocktails at the Elks Lodge to discuss the merits of how to wiggle out of paying too much capital gains tax. (Damn government!) Some of you fools in the peanut gallery haven't lived until you've spent six hours of your life figuring out legitimate ways to trademark the crack of your ass. And, by golly, you'll find my asscrack on file in the U.S. Patents and Trademarks Office. Why? Because that's what America is all about!

We practice actual journalism out here in the blogosphere. We've sent our people out to the conventions to sit around and do nothing. What more do you want of us?

If these pesky minorities or those cute little intellectual chicks actually wanted to blog, then by the Good Grace of God, they'd be doing it! If the impoverished masses actually cared enough about their opinions, then they'd quit one of their two jobs at Starbuck's and climb into the saddle, riding out the magic with other good Americans.

And if they cared enough about popularity, then they'd be ingratiating themselves with the likes of Jeff Jarvis and Glenn Reynolds, aping every opinion with the gusto of a Trekkie fawning over Leonard Nimoy. If they knew what was good for them, they'd spend all of their spare time tying the Number of the Beast to Dan Rather.

I may not read blogs that disagree with me, largely because my guidance counselor has suggested it might spike my blood presure. The last thing anyone needs in this golden age is differing opinions. But out here in the electronic frontier, we're creating a democratic elite. The kind of sensible realm ruled by white males who all agree with each other. So why won't you put away your silly Noam Chomsky books and join us?

Responding to the SXSW Speech

I wish to apologize for my speech this morning at SXSW. Had I known that my revelations would send shockwaves through the weblogging commnity, I would have, of course, been honest and forthright about the night I spent with Nicolette Sheridan playing touch football and the resultant FCC investigations.

But no matter. Now that you all know that Dr. Mabuse is an online persona that I adopted out of manic depression and that Edward Champion does not in fact exist, now that you know that Champion was modeled after an autistic cabana boy who spent twelve years of his life trying to read William Gaddis' The Recognitions, only to die at the age of thirty-one while cleaning an Olympic-sized swimming pool with a small toilet brush, I realize that I will have to return my Bloggie Award for Lifetime Achievement While Staring at a Laptop.

I can accept this. I am a prevaricator and a married woman. I have deceived you. And I say again, without a jot of guilt, that I am, in fact, Ayelet Waldman and have been engaged in morose thoughts since 1995.

All this time, I thought I could make a solid living writing Mommy-Track Mysteries and have a quiet life of privilege contemplating the benefits of muesli. But when I started this blog and the other one, I got a little carried away. I couldn't stop describing how good the sex was with Michael every time he came home from writing a comic book movie. You would too if you saw how nice his ass was. I think we can all agree that Pulitzer Prize winners, particularly ones that you're married to, can make anyone feel all tingly.

Hopefully, this does not mean the end of Return of the Reluctant. My therapist has suggested that turning this weblog over to the Unitarian Universalists is a start. Dennis, a suicidal young man who first saw God in a pastrami sandwich, has agreed to step in as we all come to terms with the disturbing truth. I hope you can all invite Dennis into your lives as readily as you accepted "Dr. Mabuse."

Mexed Mitaphors

In an article on Tom DeLay's ethics, the Washington Post has quoted an anonymous Repubican political consultant: "If death comes from a thousand cuts, Tom DeLay is into a couple hundred, and it's getting up there."

What follows are the abandoned remarks that went through the political consultant's brain shortly before he decided on the above:

1. "If Washington is a tuna fish sandiwch, Tom DeLay is the can of Starfish waiting to be cracked open."

2. "That is the sound of a thousand bad things coming Tom's way."

3. "Expect DeLays in traffic. The interstate just got ugly. Labor Day ugly."

4. "Fate is a poor man's barbeque and Tom DeLay doesn't have ID for the check cashing corner. Washington likes itself some ribs."

5. "Tom DeLay's a pair of stiletto heels draped over a PAC man's libido. At best, he'll blow his career in fifteen minutes."

Shorthand Revealed

Pete points out that the litblogs have retained inveterate acronyms for literary folks. I couldn't agree more with his concerns, particularly when these acronyms often refer to multiple people. In an effort to address this growing concern, here's a short but by no means comprehensive list:

AL: An author who wins too many awards.

DFW: Any author who has read too much Nabokov. Alternatively loved or hated by the litblog community, depending upon how personally they take footnotes.

E-----: He who shall not be named.

Hitch: Any Fleet Street blowhard who drinks and smokes too much.

Hot Lips: Sam Lipsyte, the somewhat sctaological though entertaining author of Home Land. Earned nickname after repeated brown-nosing by the Believer and Gawker people. Often kisses and tells.

J-Franz: An obscure French author who sometimes finds his way onto book covers. A master of disguise, appearing as either ultimate dork or A-1 hunk. Therapy financed by David Remnick.

JSF: Not specifically pertaining to Jonathan Safran Foer, but any overeager author who sends hundreds of emails to a journalist.

Mary-Rob: A writer who can't stop writing in epistolary form.

Mitch: Not David Mitchell, but any deity worshipped by literary fanboys.

Roth, David Lee: Any older writer held in critical esteem who can't stop writing about penises.

Woodman: A filmmaker in decline who enjoys women one sixth his age.

Brownie Watch Deferred

Let it not be said that the Tanenhaus Brownie Watch falls in line with the sleazy incest de rigueur within the New York publishing world. This week, we find ourselves caught in a minor ethical quandary. The upshot is this: While said conflict of interest is picayune, it nevertheless prevents us from fulflling our duties and assessing this week's NYTBR with fairness, integrity and due diligence. We're ashamed to come across as such sanctimonious Boy Scouts. But we're men of our word. And therein lies the rub.

It's a pity, because this leaves the wonderful Jonathan Ames (who, as previously stated, we shall promote with every visceral fiber) flailing in the dust. And Tanenhaus himself would have likely passed at least two of the three tests.

Again, we wish to assure our readers that we would like nothing more than to send Mr. Tanenhaus a brownie or tear the NYTBR a new one, depending upon Tanenhaus' efforts and the severity of our Sunday morning hangovers. But while not as foppishly off base as Barth's Ebenezer Cooke, we are, believe it or not, devoted to certain things.

The fact that it is a preternaturally sunny day in this City of Fog or that the drum circle in Golden Gate Park is alive and thrumming does not grant us succor.

Until next week...

DOES SAM GET HIS BROWNIE?: Inconclusive

Special Guest Blogger

when you have nothing to say
and you're a star on the skids and can't use punctuation
let alone rhyme
and you've read too much don marquis
why not start a blog

i'm rosie and nobody loves me
they don't understand that most stars are illiterate
they say that there are some things you're not supposed
to talk about
so insert a fuck and malaise and rebuild your fan base

that girl who bagged my groceries was hot

i forgive them. i only mean to entertain
and here you are sitting through endless screens of my drivel
hurray
for
me

Now If Only Jimmy Beck Will Watch Michiko, We'll Have Pretty Much the Whole Gray Lady Covered

For those looking for related reading to the Tanenhaus Brownie Watch, Ron has revived Maslin Watch.

Tori Amos Pulls a Tori Spelling

Well, it looks like Tori Amos screwed over the good folks at the Booksmith, one of my favorite independent bookstores in San Francisco and a local neighborhood haven for hardcovers.

This isn't really much of a surprise, as the superstahs always seem to have "sudden and unforeseeable changes" in their schedule that prevent them from attending signings, at least as originally lined up. The difference here, however, is that Amos gave only four days' notice without even bothering to set up a new date, let alone offering to sign additional copies of her book.

While the Booksmith is honoring returns and refunds for those who preordered signed copies of Amos' book, I really hope Amos' discourtesy isn't too much of a financial burden on the Booksmith. Perhaps Ms. Amos is so out of touch with others that she can't understand that the Booksmith is a small store that sometimes depends upon gargantuan egos like Amos' to stay afloat.

Condi Introduces Robot Replacement After Disposing of Original Ukraine Foreign Minister

You Shall Know Our Anonymity

In the interests of preserving literary decency and maintaining auctorial sanity, we have joined the Rake's campaign to remain silent about authors who sound like something you can buy a dozen of at the supermarket. We figure this will add a few years to our lives and focus our fury towards more deserving targets.

Next on Jerry Springer: My Mommy Wrote Dirty Novels!

Hey, Meg Wolitzer! Please shut up about your Puritanical hang-ups, check yourself into therapy, and get over yourself. The notion that novelists should refrain from writing about sex because, heaven forbid, their children might grow up and be permanently mortified is one of the kookiest, New Agey, and self-affirmative dollops of bullshit I've heard of since the Quirkyalone movement.

The true "horror" here is seeing someone obsess so much about the naughty bits that her parents wrote. Most of us in the real world have no problem coming to terms with the idea that other family members not only have sex, but, if they happen to be novelists, happen to write about this very seminal aspect (no pun intended) of the human condition, among many other things. If Meg Wolitzer is indeed "a novelist," then she should understand that the subconscious is very different from the conscious, that a parent should probably be judged on their maternal and paternal gestures rather than their novels, and that characters do not necessarily reflect the total beings of their authors.

Or to put it another way: if Wolitzer's looking for fey titiliation, then maybe she might want to incorporate Jude Law, a vat of chocolate fudge, three hermaphrodite midgets, leather chaps, and plenty of rope instead of Mommy's Dirty Novel.

Tufteing It Out with DFW

For those who weren't annoyed by DFW's recent article (who knew that visual representations of footnotes could divide the litblog community?), Jeff has the scoop on Ziegler's attempts to interview DFW. (Short answer: DFW is too shy and dislikes interviews.) Ziegler apparently plan to go over the article over several shows. Whether Ziegler plans an aural equivalent to footnotes is anyone's guess.

Absurd Flyer of the Week

SEEN: "An Evening with Supervisor Ross Mirakimi"

Beyond the false intimacy implied by a throng listening to a city supervisor drone on in a lecture hall, there's the nagging insinuation that good old Ross is going to honor his audience with a cabaret act. In which case, he'd have our full-fledged support, but only if singing in the style of Burt Bacharach became part of the quorum.

Excerpt from Martha Stewart's Upcoming Prison Memoir

TownOnline: "Literary agents say there is a $5 million advance waiting if she decides to publish her prison memoirs."

CHAPTER TWELVE

My cellmate Alice finally took my advice about the jumpsuit. If there's one thing I've learned in life, aside from avoiding the pitfalls of insider trading and never underestimating the value of appearing naked beneath bedsheets, it's that you can always make your interior space your own -- even when you're confronted with limitations. Alice was able to get an orange scrunchee to match the jumpsuit from Leona, the black marketeer of the penitentiary. Leona demanded four packs of cigarettes for this. I thought this was a high price. But as she explained, "I don't deal with no friends of gard'nin' hos!" The scrunchee, which was later confiscated by a guard, helped to bring out the color in Alice's eyes.

In fact, I think the scrunchee was one of the reasons that Alice stopped beating me up on a nightly basis. Not that I minded. It didn't cut into my routine too much. Even in the joint, I still slept about four hours a night. And I was just about getting through to Alice. Before the scrunchee incident, she was beginning to try out my bed-making technique.

I talked with the warden about planting some azaleas and daisies in the exercise yard. The warden, who never really liked my television show, told me in an endearing voice, "Get back in line, Prisoner 9927431!" When I pointed out that wearnig a boutonniere might make his uniform less drab and his day more cheerful, he threw me into the hole.

In solitary confinement, I was able to plan out my comeback scheme. The HGTV people were sending me offer letters. And I had already planned out the potential profits in designer anklet bracelets.

I recommend prison to everyone. Everyone should at least try it once. You learn how to be disciplined. You make new friends. And you have a lot of time to think about things.

No Chance of an International Library Mandate Then?

The United States isn't the only nation facing school library budget shortfalls. Our friends to the north seem to be having severe problems too. Aside from contending with obsolete books, despite the rise in books checked out by students, there aren't enough librarians to go around.

The Madness of King George

George Lucas has announced that the new Star Wars movie is not for kids. Of course not. The new movie is for fortysomething fanboys who still live with their parents.

If It's Not Scottish, It's Crap

The Scottish, still reeling from the failed "Edinburgh is the Center of the Literary Universe" campaign, are now planning a Scottish dictionary. Since no one here seems to have the vision of James A.H. Murray and there's no VC to speak of, "secret scribblings" are being auctioned off instead: a poem by JK Rowling and a draft version of what may or may not be the last Rebus novel. Chris Robinson, the leader of this project, claims that she used "sheer brass neck" to get these drafts. And this might be the problem. Anyone even remotely familiar with the Sunday morning hangover knows about sheer brass necks and how this physical condition often leaves one clamoring out of the bed around noon. Brass balls, on the other hand, go well beyond Alec Baldwin and are generally good when paired up with ambition and a focused plan. Had Robinson offered say a date with Irvine Welsh rather than turgid tetrameter quatrains from Ms. Rowling, we'd be more in her corner.

Always Bet on Black

Alice Thomas Ellis has passed on. Any novelist who dresses exclusively in black is, as far as we're concerned, worth lowering your hat over.

We're Looking Out for Michael Bay's Leninist Leanings Ourselves

The Hollywood Reporter needs to understand that "Disney" and "rebels" do not belong in the same headline, unless Roy Disney leads a beer hall putsch. In which case, we should be very concerned with this sort of thing.

Pnin the Tail on the Influence

Here's a David Lodge essay I missed from last year on Nabokov's Pnin (and this is an excerpt from the introduction that appeared in the Everyman's Library version). The novel, as we all know was an insurance policy in the event that Lolita couldn't find a publisher. But Lodge offers some valuable info on Pnin's inspiration, which was, in all likelihood, historian Marc Szeftel. Lodge is quite right in acknowledging Pnin as a prototype of the campus novel, but I wish he had conducted a more thorough inventory of Pnin's influence, which is broader than even Lodge gives credit for. Updike's Bech books, for one, is clearly inspired by Pnin.

Joe Queenan = Neal Pollack in Twenty Years?

Alex Beam tears Joe Queenan a new one, pointing out Queenan's hypocrisy in complaining about "the jackass at The Boston Globe who always gives my books bad reviews" and Queenan's measly sales. Queenan Country only sold 6,124 copies. (via Bookdwarf)

Just Dooce Me Already and Put Me Out of My Damn Misery

My bed was too comfortable today. I didn't want to leave. I had found one of the five good spots on my futon. There was interesting stuff on the radio. And now I am contending with overpaid boors who throw temper tantrums over picayune crap.

Like Jimmy Beck (though sans hangover), the Cruel Overlords of Life are preventing me from posting witty ramblings, or even going into nice reminiscences about grandmothers. Factor in chronic insomnia and you get the sluggish portrait in full. It's going to be light today and tomorrow because of assholes. We apologize, but we're chipper. The bastards haven't gotten us down and we're pro-active.

Finally, an Award that Andrea Levy Hasn't Been Nominated For

PEN/Faulkner nominees: Jerome Charyn's The Green Lantern, Edwidge Dandicat's The Dew Breaker, Ha Jin's War Trash, Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, and Steve Yarbrough's Prisoners of War.

Laura Bush Prepares Girls for Conformity and Victorian Lifestyle as Equal Gender Rights Become More Remote Possibility

Literary Taste-Makers Resist Mona Lisa Smiles for "Da Vinci Code" Success

Despite last month's successful efforts to remove all copies of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code from bookstores, the book continues to sell. Da Vinci Code readers have been exiting bookstores with one or two copies in their bags, even when their credit card receipts show that they've purchased three or four copies. Industry experts are at a loss to explain the book's sustained popularity, but Saks Fifth Avenue has reported that "Dan Brown books are a handy accessory" and are "thicker and more convincing than a coffee-table book."

Umberto Eco is still awaiting his cut from the book's obscene profits.

Don't Judge a Jihad by Its Cover

The new covers for the next Harry Potter book were revealed yesterday. The British cover features Harry and Dumbledore with fire sticks in their hands, surrounded by flames. The U.S. cover has Harry and Dumbledore standing over a basin giving off a green light. And the cover Al Qaeda version has Harry and Dumbledore burning an American flag, with Evil Bert laughing in the distance.

Corrections in the Key of C Sharpton

NYT Corrections: "A report in the New York pages yesterday in the new feature headed "Ink," about the Rev. Al Sharpton's weight-loss plan, misstated the frequency of his workouts in some copies. He exercises three times weekly, not three times a day."

Damn. I really wanted to see Sharpton become either a triathlete or the next Subway Diet posterboy. Thank you for spoiling my fantasy, Gray Lady!

Egg on His Face

The Rake weighs in on the no-love-for-Foer issue, ties it in with Dave Eggers, and points to this Salon interview. Since the Rake has weighed in quite eloquently on Foer, I'll contend solely with Eggers:

What he said. I was coaxed into another anti-Eggers rant, which was originally here, and is now in absentia, but that section can be found in this post if you look hard enough.

The Time of Our Snapping

Tayari Jones has an amusing take on publicity photos. Even more amazing is that Jones' story involves Richard Powers taking the final image. (via Beatrice)

Who's Your Mommy?

That dependable beacon of contemporary literature, MOTEV, has weighed in on more titles. In fact, as much as I love Ian McEwan (I consider him to be one of our greatest living writers and there is, in fact, something of a McEwan shrine on one of my bookshelves), I have to agree with her slightly about Enduring Love. I genuinely believe it to be the weakest of McEwan's novels because, as MOTEV suggests, the artifice calls attention to itself.

But I suspect the faults have more to do with McEwan's inability to follow through on Enduring Love's fantastic opening set piece, which is among one of the greatest things he's ever written. One of McEwan's literary specialties is in showing how one act affects other lives. In Atonement, we see how a childhood act of cruelty leads to guilt and deceit, even in chronicling the details of the act. The Cement Garden shows with devastating clarity how the loss of parents alters the lives of children. But Enduring Love's great fallacy is in intellectualizing the trauma rather than filtering emotion through McEwan's cut-to-the-bone clinical prose.

The other night, I found myself defending Something Wild's spotty third act with someone. I still consider Something Wild to be my favorite of Jonathan Demme's films, largely because the first hour is such a breathless array of madness, with the tone alternating between demented screwball comedy, melodrama, sexual charge, and the poignant revisitation of family. Is it a flawed film? Absolutely. But as far as I'm concerned, I don't believe Demme will ever top that first hour in his career.

So what of it, readers? Are there any books like Enduring Love or films like Something Wild that you find yourself falling over, yet looking the other way when the last act gets derailed by clunky narrative or, worse yet, a deus ex machina?

The New Doctor Who

THE GOOD:

• It's better than the awful Paul McGann 1996 TV movie. It's better than "Time and the Rani."
• Christopher Eccleston is a very good choice as the Doctor. We've never quite seen a version of the Doctor this spastic, let alone one with such an unusual gait. I'll be interested to see where this incarnation, who is far more interesting than McGann, develops.
• Thank goodness they acknowledged the awkward romance angle that was introduced in the TV movie. There's a funny scene where Rose's mom is trying to seduce the Doctor and he isn't interested at all. This is the kind of juxtaposition I see working in the series' favor.
• It completely makes sense that there would be people on the Web keeping track of this strange guy, the Doctor, popping up at various moments in human history. Also, Doctor Who premiered the day after Kennedy was assassinated. The Doctor's tie-in with JFK is a nice inside joke.
• Rose, the new companion, isn't bad. She's not a screamer. She fits in as the constant questioner. She'll certainly appeal to kids. I'm not crazy about her character, but it's still early.
• Finally, people who suffer total disorientation on the whole "bigger on the inside than it is on the outside" question.
• The Doctor's concern for humanity's potential is as strong as ever.
• The old sound effects are preserved!

THE BAD:

• The Doctor wearing a leather jacket, jersey pullover, and black pants? That's the kind of thing I'd expect out of a CSI investigator, not Doctor Who. Where's the eccentric attire? The question mark collars?
• The intellectual aspects of the Doctor have almost completely vanished. Part of the charm of the previous incarnations was that the Doctor would toss a reference to meeting Sir Francis Bacon or Picasso out of the blue. Writer-producer Russell T. Davies has gone for a more goofy direction, but his goofiness isn't offset by a passion for knowledge and personal development.
• In fact, the Doctor's solutions are more physical than creative. We first see him running away from an Auton. Would the Doctor really put an Auton into a headlock? Come on.
• It's good to see the sonic screwdriver back, but what happened to "reversing the polarity of the neutron flow?"
• The new Doctor Who logo sucks.
• There seems an almost complete lack of mystery to this first episode. Where's the sense of wonder? The weird details that come together to reveal an alien conspiracy?
• The new TARDIS console room is going to take some getting used to. The blue rotor looks nice, but the pillars surrounding it look like cheap foam core. The design is busier than it needs to be.
• The TARDIS is no longer temperamental with its navigation? That's no fun.
• I miss the cliffhangers.

Even so, this isn't that bad of a start.

I'm the Book That I Want

Publisher's Lunch reports that Margaret Cho has sold world rights to her YA novel I Hate Boys to Harper Children's. Despite the seemingly endless spate of celebrities donning their pens to children's books (there are now, in fact, more actors-turned-authors than actors-turned-directors), this one might be worthwhile.

Quick Bites

• Disney has paid Clive Woodall $1 million to film One for Sorrow. Unfortunately, Disney has revealed a company policy whereby that are only allowed to pay seven figures to a supermarket manager once every thirty years. (This is for tax purposes.) So aspiring writers working at supermarkets will have to consider other studios.
• You have to admire the ethical devotion of the Limestone County School Board. After all, those Alabamans, who are clearly morally superior to the rest of us, have gone out of their way to keep a novel depicting "realistic life" off of school library shelves. The book is Chris Crutcher's Whale Talk. An excerpt reads: "The facts. I'm black. And Japanese. And white. Politically correct would be African-American, Japanese-American and what? Northern European-American? God, by the time I wrote all that down on a job application the position would be filled. Besides, I've never been to Africa, never been to Japan and don't even know which countries make up Northern Europe. Plus, I know next to nothing about the individuals who contributed all that exotic DNA, so it's hard to carve out a cultural identity in my mind. So: Mixed. Blended. Pureed. Potpourri." Could it be that the Key Lime Pie Imperial Wizards have a problem with "realistic" diversity?
• I might be alone in my excitement here, but He-Man has come to DVD.
• "The most unnatural thing for a novelist is to talk about their [sic] work, really. And certainly about themselves." What planet is Emma Richler living on?
• A cookbook catering to book clubs is out. The cookbook will include the proper dishes to serve when book club members are on the verge of strangling each other and an appetizer that will help settle the stomach when only one arty dude shows up among a coterie of thirtysomething women.
• Sam Weller has written a new Ray Bradbury biography entitled The Bradbury Chornicles. No word yet on whether Bradbury will go as apeshit over Weller's title as he did over Fahrenheit 9/11. Odds: 10 to 1 that Weller will be physically assaulted by an 82 year old writer before the summer.
• And believe it or not, Rushdie was able to speak for one hour without threatening a journalist. Too bad that his idea of deep thought is "In order to defeat the enemy that needs to be defeated, we must not stop being what we are."

Movie Quote Followup

OGIC has undertaken a massive summary of the movie quote game. The most cited film was Casablanca. Tied for second were Dr. Strangelove and The Big Lebowski (further proof that Lebowski is now indelibly quilted into the cultural fabric).

However, I'm really curious about the films that were only quoted once: the fun little gems and cult movies that remained in everyone's subconscious.

(For what it's worth, Quote #6 would have probably been "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kickass, and I'm all out of bubblegum" from They Live, "Let's order sushi and not pay" from Repo Man, "Oh Mr. Travis! Try not to die like a dog!" from O Lucky Man!, "You say to yourself 'How hot can it get?' And then in Acupulco, you find out." from Out of the Past, or "They're coming to get you, Barbara!" from Night of the Living Dead.)

The Return of Jimmy Beck

Hell yes! He's back with the Hag. Which means that Top Jimmy as a feature here is, presumably, no more. My diabolical plans actually worked this time.

In Defense of Mocking Literary Figures

Mark has weighed in on the spate of Foer bashing. Of course, anyone who bashes Foer at this point, whether with blunt objects or swizzle sticks, is beating a dead horse. I succombed to it only because the idea of someone as incompetent as Deborah Solomon talking with Foer reminded me of a weekend I once spent at a Days Inn with a venemous journalist who insisted on calling me "Johnny from SF." She insisted on abbreviating my hometown and didn't offer an explanation. Needless to say, the weekend fling didn't pan out, Solomon's article hit close to home, and, after penning the post, I was reduced to chronic weeping for the next three days. These are some of the unfortunate things that happen behind the scenes here at Return of the Reluctant. I wish I could tell you more about the blood, sweat and tears. But that might be as unfortunately earnest as Foer's emails were to Solomon.

However, I'm troubled by Mark's suggestion that making fun of literary figures involves bitterness or his further insinuation that certain people are off limits. Particularly in an age when television that people pay for is being seriously considered as "indecent" and people are being placed on no-fly lists simply because they venture an opinion. I should remind Mark that taking the piss out of someone doesn't necessarily mean that you despise them. Any good humorist knows this. Beyond this, appreciation or condemnation of another person's contributions to letters is hardly a black-and-white issue. (To offer a personal example, while I'm not exactly a fan of Dave Eggers' writing or the way he exploits his volunteers, I nevertheless commend what he's done with 826 Valencia and have been nothing less than nuts about the comics issue of McSweeney's, along with the two Chabon-edited anthologies.)

Like any redblooded American, I too read and enjoyed Everything is Illuminated. Even saw the guy when he came out to A Clean, Well-Lighted Place for Books years ago. Seemed nice enough. He was mobbed by youngsters who couldn't scrape up the dough for the hardcover. And when Foer replied on these pages that he had given his PEN money to people who needed it, I was quick to commend him. As was Poets & Writers.

But there's a fundamental difference between a writer's life and the work he puts out. At issue here was Foer's behavior, which seemed out of step with the privileged life he led that many of us writing in the skids dream about. Not his books.

If Philip Roth had decided to do something as manic and desperate, then, as much as I love Roth's books and as crazy as I am about The Plot Against America, I would have mocked him to the high heavens. Not because I have anything personal against Roth, but because it helps to communicate to the world that writers are hardly the flawless beacons that the press and the literary community (including the litblogs) make them out to be. Truth be told, the publishing industry is nuts. That can't be stated enough. In Foer's case, they have given a young man ridiculous sums of money in the hope that he'll become an instant literary superstar and, like J.T. Leroy, speak to the next generation of readers and hopefully sell boatloads of books.

I don't envy Foer's position or the pressure he has with this new book at all. If anything good came out of all this, it was a greater understanding that Foer's just as fucked up as the rest of us. Raw talent often is.

But Foer's also a smart guy. And anyone even remotely familiar with the Sunday New York Times, who has even leafed through the magazine at some point, is aware of Solomon's tactics. He did something foolish and let himself get set up. And 150 e-mails to a reporter (many of them thousands of words) is, even from a twentysomething, a tad obsessive.

Further, there's a fundamental difference between mocking and outright loathing. I don't think that any of the people out there actually hate Foer or that he is being "punished," as Mark puts it. Foer is not Raskolnikov. People are reacting the same way that they responded to Gerald Ford when he said that there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. For Christ's sake, we did the same thing to Franzen.

But for what it's worth, I'm rooting for him too.

We Ames to Please

Jonathan Ames writes that he will be performing at the Fez under Time Cafe, which will be closing down soon. The Fez is where many of Ames shows went down. On March 11, with the doors opening at 8PM and a cover charge somewhere between $14.99 and $15.01, Ames will rock the house with others at 380 Lafayette Street (@ Great Jones), New York, NY 10003. You can call 212.533.7000 for reservations.

No word yet on whether Ames will lather himself up for this performance.

Ames' tale, "The Story of the Hairy Call," has been turned into a movie.

And Ames has edited a new book called Sexual Metamorphosis: An Anthology of Transexual Memoirs, to be published April 12 by Vintage.

Because we like Jonathan Ames, we will continue to report any and all Jonathan Ames-related news (true or false) that comes our way. So if you have any Jonathan Ames information, please feel free to send them the usual route and we will post all half-truths, deviant lies, and Ames anecdotes you heard from a friend of a friend of a friend on these pages. We feel it's our civic duty to unfurl rampant misinformation, as this is the only proper way to call attention to one of those most candid writers of our time.

Nabokov: Not a D.H. Lawrence Fan

The Paris Review DNA Archive has been a bit slow in getting their 1970s interviews up (James M. Cain! Anthony Burgess! William Gass! Kurt Vonnegut! Eudora Welty! And more! Hurry up! It's past March 1, dammit!). But this interview with Nabokov is a hoot. Some choice excerpts:

INTERVIEWER: And the function of the editor? Has one ever had literary advice to offer?

NABOKOV: By "editor" I suppose you mean proofreader. Among those I have known limpid creatures of limitless tact and tenderness who would discuss with me a semicolon as if it were a point of honor -- which, indeed, a point of art often is. But I have come across a few pompous avuncular brutes who would attempt to "make suggestions" which I countered with a thunderous "stet!"

...

INTERVIEWER: Are there contemporary writers you follow with great pleasure?

NABOKOV: There are several such writers, but I shall not name them. Anonymous pleasure hurts nobody.

INTERVIEWER: Do you follow some with great pain?

NABOKOV: No. Many accepted authors simply do not exist for me. Their names are engraved on empty graves, their books are for dummies, they are complete nonentities insofar as my taste in reading is concerned. Brecht, Faulkner, Camus, many others, mean absolutely nothing to me, and I must fight a suspicion of conspiracy against my brain when I see blandly accepted as "great literature" by critics and fellow authors Lady Chatterly's copulations or the pretentious nonsense of Mr. Pound, that total fake. I note he has replaced Dr. Schweitzer in some homes.

Tanenhaus Watch: March 6, 2005

WEEKLY QUESTION: Will this week's NYTBR reflect today's literary and publishing climate? Or will editor Sam Tanenhaus demonstrate yet again that the NYTBR is irrelevant to today's needs? If the former, a tasty brownie will be sent to Mr. Tanenhaus' office. If the latter, the brownie will be denied.

THE COLUMN-INCH TEST:

Fiction & Poetry Reviews: 2 one-pages (Despite its sneaky layout on the cover and two pages, let's face the facts: Chip McGrath's John Ashbery profile, with its liberal quoting and padding, can just about squeeze onto one page), 1 one-page roundup, 2 half-page reviews. (Total books: 8. Total space: 4 pages.)

Non-Fiction Reviews: 3 half-page, 3 full-page. (Total books including Ashbery Selected Prose: 9. Total space: 4.5 pages.)

We suspect that Sam Tanenhaus deliberately tried to make our job difficult this week by listing Chip McGrath's John Ashbery profile twice in the table of contents: under fiction and nonfiction. Unfortunately, Tanenhaus's editorial shenanigans haven't stopped us from applying our column-inch test. To resolve this dilemma (and to give Sam some additional leverage; we do want to send him a brownie one day), we've categorized the profile as a "fiction review" while tallying the Collected Prose book under our non-fiction book total.

This week, Tanenhaus has done better. But of the 9.5 pages devoted to reviews this week, only 44.4% are devoted to fiction and poetry. This is close to the 48% required. Admittedly, the John Ashbery profile does complicate matters. But when you factor in the sizable real estate given to blowhard Franklin Foer (which belongs in the Week in Review section, not the NYTBR), the ambiguity over the Ashbery profile dissipates and Tanenhaus' continued disrespect for solid literature coverage becomes clear.

Too bad, Sam. You could have earned your brownie point had even one of those pages gone to fiction.

Brownie Point: DENIED!

THE HARD-ON TEST:

This test concerns the ratio of male to female writers writing for the NYTBR.

Unlike last week's chicks reviewing fiction/dudes reviewing nonfiction problem, we're delighted to report that Tanenhaus has allocated things quite nicely this week. Disregarding the Ashbery profile, men and women cover fiction down the middle. And discounting the Ashbery profile, A.O. Scott is the only dude covering nonfiction this week. The rest are women writers. Too bad that Tanenhaus can't relinquish more features to the ladies. But we're still extremely pleased to see women given a shot (including the divine Miss Packer!).

Brownie Point: EARNED!

THE QUIRKY PAIR-UP TEST:

While we're pleased to see ZZ Packer in print just about anywhere, we have to wonder if she was picked to review Charles Johnson's latest book because she's African-American. Since Ms. Packer has proven to be a solid thinker on several topics and since her valuable input on all things literary is a veritable boon for the Times, why not have her weigh in on, say, Ian McEwan's Saturday? Conversely, why not have Suzy Hansen review Johnson? This is the kind of pair-up that makes us wonder if Sam's been revisiting Jack Hill's oeuvre on DVD. This sort of white liberal guilt went out with the pet rock. Just hire a writer because she can write.

Beyond this, there's really not a whole lot to say, except..

Brownie Point: DENIED!

CONTENT CONCERNS:

Bullshit sentence of the week (from Pamela Paul's The Sociopath Next Door review): "But just as most of us aren't having backyard barbecues with the trust-fund set, neither are we living down the street from dangerously ill people whose ruthless behavior constitutes a covert public menace." Clearly, Ms. Paul has never heard of the Megan's Law database. Instead of encouraging these broad generalizations, a smart editor would have had Paul take the piss out of the book while recognizing that Americans can live with sociopaths in their neighborhood, perhaps tying this in with The Wisdom of Crowds or Jane Jacobs' theories on urban watchers, without resorting to alarmist thinking.

If you're a senior editor of the New Republic, isn't it a bit self-serving to quote your employer in the second paragraph?

Even if it's misplaced and tertiary to books (all we have really is a Recommended Reading sidebar), I do applaud the roundtable discussion, not because of its discussions of liberalism, but because it presents a more thoughtful take on current politics than Foer's essay.

Nary a followup on the "Marilyn as Metaphor" to be found in A.O. Scott's review, save the silly notion that it takes a book to remind us that "Monroe was a complicated human being." Wow. Thanks for that glaring insight, Scott.

And Benjamin Markovits' hypothesis on how British novelists are terrified of American novelists falls apart. He fails to mention that David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. Besides transforming into last year's literary sensation, Cloud Atlas was a finalist for this year's National Book Critics Award. I'd say that's progress for Brit lit.

CONCLUSIONS:

Brownie Points Earned: 1
Brownie Points Denied: 2

How Barbara Bel Geddes Revealed the Sad State of Online Cultural Posterity

There are really only three reasons to see 1947's The Long Night: Henry Fonda, Vincent Price and Barbara Bel Geddes. Bel Geddes is, strictly speaking, what made me stick around for what is undeniably one of the most ludicrous films noir ever made.

Lengthy aside: Fonda, holed up as a lodger, refuses to come out of his room. So what do the local police do? Call up the entire police force and shoot the hell out out of the place. Hundreds of bullets tear through the walls. And it is at this moment that the police decide that tear gas might be an option. To understate the obvious, it's pretty clear that writer John Wexley -- writer of Angels with Dirty Faces! -- and director Anatole Litvak (the Nick Castle of his day; not exactly the brightest bulb helming in the 1940s; see also Sorry, Wrong Number, which turns the sumptuous Stanwyck into a one-dimensional puppet, as prima facie -- riding on the coattails of Frank Capra as a directorial clone after co-directing Why We Fight) have no understanding of police procedure. Fonda, of course, stays alive, with enough vigor to spend the entire movie flashbacking to what got him into this ignoble spot.

But let's go back to Bel Geddes. The woman is stunningly beautiful. Her acting is nuanced. On the basis of one movie alone, I am what you might call a fan, in the same way that I'm a fan of Liz Scott and Paulette Godard. Which is to say in a slightly unhealthy and decidedly masculine way.

One would hope that this (ahem) passion might be rewarded through the informational conduits of the Internet. If Google is a purported deity, we should be able to find all sorts of information about her, right? Nope. Because Bel Geddes is barely a blip on the cultural radar, here's where the Internet's powers are sorely lacking.

The Internet Movie Database, for example, suggests that Bel Geddes' "career was damaged during the 1950s by McCarthyism" (as does Wikipedia). Okay, she's had some sort of interesting political existence. But is there anything to corroborate this claim? Nope. Not even my dogeared copy of Victor Navasky's Naming Names references her.

An interview with Larry Hagman reveals that Bel Geddes was one of the reasons he appeared on Dallas -- largely because Bel Geddes was the first lady to say "pregnant" on the American stage. Is there anything to back this up? Not at all.

Hagman also reveals that Bel Geddes has become extremely reclusive and is hard to get a hold of. Further interest! But is there anything to back this up? No, not really.

So all any random person has to go on is unconfirmed rumors. There are no books. No newspaper citations. No abstracts. Almost nothing for someone who may have been a key figure in the political froth and who revolutionized theatre.

And the reason you can't find anything on Barbara Bel Geddes is the same reason you can't find much on John P. Marquand or even Sally Cruikshank's wonderful animated shorts. If a person is not of the moment, then they are doomed to fall through the cracks of posterity.

I would suggest that bloggers and online enthusiasts have a duty to reference the people they love and back up their findings with links and citations. Because if we don't keep these people alive, then who will?

[UPDATE: A reader writes in to remind me that Bel Geddes played the unfortunate Midge in Vertigo. I suppose I overlooked this because I've always been troubled by this misogynistic aspect (one of many) of Hitchcock's overrated classic and the Midge character in particular.]

A Few Words on Fear

It's come to my attention that an impending "crackdown" on bloggers is in the works. Bloggers will be arrested without due process, left to rot in a small 3 X 5 room, forced to hum ELO tunes at gunpoint, and asked if they'd prefer a stale menthol before being executed.

Of course, all this sounds very exciting and ominous. Someone in the shadowy hallways of the Pentagon is no doubt laughing his ass about all this. Presumably, they won't be contributing to the edrants micropatron fund. Their loss. The empty Stoli botle is A-1.

But, for the record, you won't find this place catering to the alleged rules and regulations -- mostly, because we're too lazy to keep track of the type of linking that might construe terrorism. We'll link any damn way we want to and we encourage you to do the same.

Free Gifts for Micropatrons

Ever since I decided to become a lazy bastard and ask my readers for money, I've had lots of laughs spending my days in bed naked, smearing myself with Vaseline, watching Jose Mojica Marins movies on DVD, heating and eating donated cans of Progresso Soup (might I recommend the Manhattan Clam Chowder?), growing a poorly trimmed beard and, when really bored out of my gourd, posting content here that you can get elsewhere for free.

Sifting through monster.com ads and slaving away at some dull office job like most foolish Americans was never a consideration. And I had no desire to film myself having a nervous breakdown. There are enough 900 MB Quicktime movies floating around. (Just type in "Edward Champion drunk phone breakdown BitTorrent" into Google and see the insalubrious results for yourself.)

But I genuinely had no idea that you'd want to give me so much money to post long screeds about ME! ME! ME! I have difficulty enough jogging three times a week. And the last woman who slept with me thought my penis was too small.

However, fair is fair. Since some of you actually care enough to send me your hard-earned dollars, I figure that you deserve more incentive than reading about some 30 year old Caucasian whining about books during office hours. With this in mind, I've prepared some contribution gifts for the true suckers...ahem...patrons:

MY NINE INCH NAILS T-SHIRT: I've had this thing for at least twelve years. Frankly, it's too embarassing for me to wear and I can't even use it as "doing laundry" attire. But if you've ever wondered what it might be like to come close to all of the sweat I accumulated in my twenties, now's your chance. Donate away and relive my glory years!

THE EMPTY BOTTLE OF STOLI FROM LAST WEEK: Hero worship doesn't stop with sartorial artifacts. If there are any genetic scientists in the house who desire to clone me, you can do no worse than extracting some of the dried saliva around the bottle cap. Why, together we'll create a whole army of self-absorbed bloggers asking for money! What lucky payee will be the first to start this revolution? The first one who sends in $400 gets this puppy.

SLOPPY SECONDS: The aforementioned woman who thought my penis was too small? Well, guess what, kids! She's offered to throw herself at anyone willing to pay me money, largely because she figures that my readers are far more interesting and sexier than I am.

Act now and one of these (or perhaps all!) of these gifts can be yours!

Remember, kids! Blogging is all about the money!

Martin Denny RIP: Rocking in the Great Bachelor Pad of the Sky

What Next? Doc Manhattan Played by Ashton Kutcher?

Hey, producers, hack screenwriters and directors, and other cretinous bastards walking through the slimy alleys of Hollywood: Stop fucking around with Alan Moore's work! (Or rather, Alan Moore, stop allowing these guys to fuck with your work. Do you really need more Victorian erotica to add to your copious collection in the east wing of the estate? Shit, Alan. It ain't worth it!)

From Hell was a tepid affair. The League of Extraordinary Gentleman was abominable. And if, as this guy reports, you're going to tamper with the careful politics of V for Vendetta and dilute this fantastic masterpiece of all its punch -- if you motherfuckers can't even "adapt" a fucking comic book, then you have no business being in show business.

And on a related note, why does The Bourne Supremacy make Paul Greengrass the ideal man to direct The Watchmen? Wasn't Terry Gilliam attached to this at once point? (via Bookslut)

Behind the Book Sense List

The latest Book Sense picks have been announced. What follows is an attempt to provide additional information on the selected titles. After all, testimonials are one thing, but comprehensive coverage is another. I have deliberately skipped over the heavy hitters (McEwan, Foer and Levy), because, as good as their work may be, they have all the hype and press agents they need.

Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson [Author's Website]
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro [Overview] [January interview]
The King's English: Adventures of an Independent Bookseller by Betsy Burton [King's English Bookstore] [Letter from Burton to Orrin Hatch]
Saturday by Ian McEwan
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman [Book Reporter profile] [Ploughshares profile]
Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America by Fergus M. Bordewich [Official Website]
Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story by Kurt Eichenwald [Website] [Random House profile]
Dear Zoe by Philip Beard [Official site]
Me & Emma by Elizabeth Flock [Excerpt]
Too Late to Die Young by Harriet McBryde Johnson ["Unspeakable Conversations"]
Misfortune by Wesley Stace [Official site]
Small Island by Andrea Levy
Cut and Run by Ridley Pearson [Official site]
Lost in the Forest by Sue Miller [interview]
You Can't Get There From Here: A Year on the Fringes of a Shrinking World by Gayle Forman ["Women in War"]
Bleedout by Joan Brady [Website]
A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian by Marina Lewycka [London Times review]
Towelhead by Alicia Erian ["When Animals Attack"]
A Changed Man by Francine Prose ["Living Legends"]

But It Still Doesn't Explain the Silly Conspiracy Theory in Kurt and Courtney

Nick Broomfield fans (namely, certain monkeys) may be interested to know that a collection of interviews revealing the documentarian's working methods, Jason Wood's Nick Broomfield: Documenting Icons has arrived. Daniel Graham has the scoop: "At the heart of Broomfield's work is a genuine desire to understand the world we live in and to offer his findings to a wider public. He's certainly right in asserting that evening news bulletins barely scratch the surface when it comes to the more complex issues that trouble the world today, and are often filtered through an inane and commercially-driven editorial process. Is this really preferable to Broomfield's subjective yet greatly detailed and researched version? Even the documentarist of the day – Michael Moore – comes across like a blunt instrument when viewed next to Broomfield's work." (via Greencine Daily)

SF Sightings -- Roger Ebert

They stood in aisles bordered by bookshelves. They squeezed into pint-sized crannies. They craned their necks and looked at their watches, wondering when The Big E would arrive. At least 250 devotees packed the second floor of Stacey's to catch a glimpse of America's most famous critic. He was there to hawk his new book, The Great Movies II.

The big boys in charge had billed this as an "event." The man was clearly mobbed. A quiet awe settled over the throng upon Ebert's quiet ascension to the podium. Stacey's management gave the obligatory intro, and Ebert, with his trademark cherubic grin settled upon his face, took in the demographic of mostly thirtysomethings sacrificing their lunch hour. Ebert, having awoken from a recent nap, began speaking in a grandfatherly voice. My general impression was that, despite his recent stroke, he was very articulate, although every time he tried to reference a movie, he kept coming back to The Grapes of Wrath. He was also a great racountuer and did a very good Lee Marvin impression.

He started off by noting that we all looked like splendid readers. He remarked that while he could live without movies, he could not live without books (although he wouldn't particularly enjoy life without movies).

Ebert's idea of a "great movie" came from the Guardian critic Derek Malcolm. He noted that he had considerable problems with including Birth of a Nation in the first volume. But he was determined to follow through. His initial review was the only double-length piece he had written for the Sun-Times, with the first half apologizing for the second half. Finally, he rewrote the piece from scratch and got it out of his system, pointing out that Birth was the only film that he could not revisit, contrary to Malcolm's definition.

Ebert remarked that Birth was "vile" and "evil," but pointed out that it was still a great movie and set the film language of our time. He pointed out that Woodrow Wilson had praised the movie, despite being the President of the United States, a Democrat, a liberal, and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Clearly, Ebert suggested, despite the climate of the past five years, America had made greater progress in the past century.

Ebert described what it was like trying to write backstage at the Oscars. The level of security is extraordinary. (And Ebert pointed out that the backstage area was perhaps the worst target for terrorists to attack, since it was far from the main action.) To obtain even the headphones to plug into the broadcast, he had to show his driver's license. Picture a reporter with a laptop, spending the entire night filing one paragraph after another to the editors in Chicago (who are rearranging the piece in backwards order of importance, with the least important paragraphs being composed before the major ones). In one ear, the reporter has the earphone. In another ear, foreign journalists are screaming into telephones, causing a polyglot racket. And then there are the winners, who are shuttled out in front of them.

Among these journalists, Ebert described another contingent. A bunch of folks who none of the veterans could name, but who didn't take notes and who didn't have laptops. These were the folks who got to ask the questions. Which explained all the dumb ones.

Ebert mentioned that Cate Blanchett's reply to one of these dumb questions was the funniest thing he had heard since covering the Oscars in 1968. Blanchett, who Ebert suggested was one of the most elegant actresses around (and who couldn't refrain from mentioning about how nice the dresses were this year), had been asked by one of these boneheads if her Oscar would have any impact on her career. She replied, "Absolutely, asshole."

Ebert mentioned that he wished Martin Scorsese had won for Best Director. He revealed that he preferred Keaton to Chaplin, because Chaplin wanted to be liked and Keaton didn't care. He also revealed the ridiculous waivers that journalists had to sign to get interviews. For example, if you want to talk with Tom Cruise, you can't mention politics, the girl he's dating, and you can't write anything bad about them. Plus (here's the kicker), if you violate the terms of the agreement, you open yourself up to being sued by Cruise's people. The answer, Ebert remarked, was simple: No Tom Cruise interview.

Ebert had a great Lee Marvin story from the old days. He profiled Marvin for Esquire and headed to his home in Malibu. He was told not to arrive before noon. Marvin opened the door, still in a bathrobe, with four days' growth of stubble on his face, holding a Heineken. He proceeded to spend the next three hours trashing everyone he had ever worked with and every film he had ever appeared in. "Josh Logan? Not a very good director. He makes a movie with singing boys and has me and Clint Eastwood sing."

Marvin's girlfriend returns. Marvin demands more beer. The green stuff. She refuses. He orders it himself over the phone.

Then his dog shows up with something in its mouth. Marvin notices that it's a pair of panties. His girlfriend remarks that they're not hers. Marvin replies, "Bad dog."

Morning Roundup

• Apparently, Stephen King isn't the only one offing himself in his novels. Kinky Friedman has committed literary suicide in his new book Ten Little New Yorkers. And that's just the prologue. Personally, I'm waiting to see if these authors start murdering other novelists within their novels. After all, suicide seems a cowardly way to go. Even in fiction.
• The Godfather is being turned into a video game by Electronic Arts. What's even more frightening is that new dialogue was recorded by the actors because the sound quality of the original film was "too dated to meet today's technology standards." Even Brando spent four hours in a booth shortly before dying, perhaps the most regrettable final role for a great actor since Orson Welles' appearance in The Transformers: The Movie. Of course, when the inevitable "Sonny Lives (with Cher)!" MOD comes out, perhaps it might be worth a few hours of gameplay.
• No love for Brion Gysin? One of Burroughs' seminal influences is getting a theatrical revival in a musical homage entitled The Dream Machine. In a related story, the story of Scooby and Shaggy's literary influences will be developed into a play called The Mystery Machine, whereby Captain Underpants will receive its long-owed dues. Sadly, Scrappy Doo proved too small and intricate to reproduce for the stage.
• USA Today offers a roundup of debut novels.
• Bad enough that Taylor "Sentimental Hack" Hackford absconded with the legend of Ray Charles. Now he's meddling with Charles Bukowski, with the humorless Sean Penn in tow. Can we all agree that if you have An Officer and a Gentleman and Against All Odds on your resume that you're forbidden from weighing in on literary icons? The thing that kills me about today's literary documentaries is that they seem to avoid the real interesting people. Where, for example, is director Barbet Schroeder, who once threatened to cut off his fingers if he couldn't make Barfly?
• And this month's literary criminal is Ronald Jordan, who apparently stole some 50,000 books and resold them at street stalls.

Turning the Clock

The amazing Quiddity turns five. YPTR turns one. Congratulations!

Five Quotes

OGIC continues a new meme: name five movie quotes that pop immediately into your head.

1. "I was born when she kissed me, I died when she left me, I lived a few weeks while she loved me." (In a Lonely Place)

2. "Careful man! There's a beverage here!" (The Big Lebowski)

3. "Mistakes? We don't make mistakes." (Brazil, said just before a circular wall section falls through the floor)

4. "You'll catch your death of cold!" / "Yes, I probably will. But that's all part of life's rich paegant, you know." (A Shot in the Dark)

5. "Sex with you is a Kafakesque experience." (Annie Hall)

Inspired by Mao's Swim Across the Yangtse, Bush Puts Final Touches to "Jackie Robinson Never Existed" Plan

International Odds

First Omar Hariri. Now Tung Cheehwa. The way things are stacking up, we won't have many international political figures left to write angry letters about.

Fortunately, there's one constant in international politics: upheaval is good for a little pocket money.

With shameless financial incentive in mind, I called my Vegas contact, Chuck Bamboono, to get some hot tips. Here's what he had to say.

BASHAR AL-ASSAD:
Odds of Resigning: 4 to 1
Tell: "The withdrawal should be very soon, might be during few months and not after that. I cannot give you a technical answer." Well, that's putting it lightly. Uncertainty is a harsh mistress. It's either resignation or untimely assassination, my friend. Get out while you still can.

ARIEL SHARON:
Odds of Resigning: 200 to 1
Tell: Even with Arafat, you can't stop the animosity. And do you think Sharon wants to stop now that the alleged "dream" is just beyond reach?

GEORGE BUSH:
Odds of Resigning: 5,000 to 1
Tell: Stubborn is as stubborn does.

Ten Things I've Done That I Probably Shouldn't Have Done

Well, since everyone seems to be following Terry's lead, here are ten things I probably shouldn't have done. This is by no means the list.

1. Talked my way out of being mugged while at gupoint on a bus in the Mission. Even managed to keep my wallet.

2. Wrote a feature length script in 24 hours, declared the script "experimental" to avoid heavy criticism, turned this piece of offal in for academic credit and was told by adviser that it was "one of the best scripts I've ever read from a student."

3. Confused the dates of a major exam, went into the test cold without having read any of the material, relying upon hazy memories of reading the books in my teenage years, and was able to pass with flying colors, even recalling specific passages to back up arguments.

4. While in kindergarten, I was given a mathematical workbook. The book was intended to enrich me. It was suggested that I do the exercises, but I somehow construed this to involve the completion of entire workbook over weekend. Shocked parents, friends of parents, teachers.

5. Had sex in a museum while it was open.

6. On a dare, I once snorted about ten packets of Sweet & Low in a row at a 24 hour diner, to demonstrate that sugar substitute was a convicing cinematic substitute for cocaine.

7. As a teenager, to see how fast my mother's shitty Ford Tempo could get, I slammed the gas down, cranking the speedometer hard to the right, and drove past a sitting fuzzmobile at 3 AM. Paranoid that I would be caught, that my license plate had been jottted down and that my underage drinking (one beer) would be discovered, I parked in an alley for an hour.

8. To see how long I could last without sleep, I once stayed awake for four days straight. Believe it or not, this was done without drugs.

9. Carried on an affair with a married woman. She was about twenty years older than me.

10. Was once escorted out of a building, according to "office procedure." There was no explanation for my termination, nor any opportunity to explain my side of the story.

Sleepless Roundup

• A.L. Kennedy weighs in on how we should adjust our attitudes to lost keys.
• Apparently, quelling indecency over the airwaves wasn't enough. Now the bastards are going after pay TV. If there's any positive spin on this, perhaps this will stop Anna Nicole Smith.
• A principal has banned a lesbian student from appearing in a yearbook. Her crime? Wearing a tux. No word yet on whether neckties are the next to go.
• Forget the fact that Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep is a coming-of-age tale. Eileen McNamara walked away from the novel convinced that that it contributes to the deviant sexualization of minors. Yup. We all know how Lolita led to an unprecedented spate of professors sleeping with twelve year old girls in 1958. America is still reeling from that dark chapter in the history books. Stop these novels from being published before it's too late! Dammit!
• D.H. Lawrence's legacy is being re-evaluated. Lawrence was not, in fact, a water skier, but a writer of several stories and novels.
• Zora Neale Hurston's lost plays have been located and published.
• Pulp fiction isn't enough for Stephen King. An anthology series based on Nightmares & Dreamscapes is in the works.
• Tim Dolin lists the top 10 books on George Eliot.

Shaggy Dog Stories + Literary Magazines = Profit?

There's some fascinating food-for-thought from the ever-dependable Gwenda. She quotes F&SF editor Gordon Van Gelder on the state of current story-centric magazines:

As I've been reading through this thread, the comments of one veteran editor keep ringing in my head---he said to me, "Of course Analog is selling better than any other magazine: it's the least risky."

I bring up that comment, I guess, to defend against the charge of a conservative attitude in F&SF. I don't particularly like that word, "conservative," but I'll be the first to say that I've got to balance the artistic side of things with the commercial side. For every reader who appreciates the challenge that a story like John McDaid's "Keyboard Variations" offers, there are two or three readers who favor less challenging work like Ron Goulart's lighter fare.

Which is one reason why I'm happy to second Sean's sentiment when he says "I'm all for it!" to the writers blazing their own trails. I think the zine explosion of the last couple of years is very good for the field and I do my best to keep up with all the various magazines and anthologies, but I feel like someone needs to inject a note of commerciality into the discussion. Considering there are two threads running on the board now about declining circulation in the digests, it might be worth remembering that experimental fiction ("experimental" is another word like "conservative" that I don't particularly like, but I can't think of a better term right now; "riskier"? "less traditional"?) isn't necessarily commercial.

There's much more, of course, at Gwenda's stomping grounds. But, at the risk of sounding like that assclown Wenclas, it begs the question: When "experimental" is a four-letter word and magazines are inveterately associated with sturdy sales, is it any wonder why today's fiction remains sadly safe and predictable?

The AFI 100: How Many Have You Seen?

It's been too long. The time has come for another bold 'em if you experienced 'em experiment. This time, we're taking on the Top 100 AFI films. I'm almost ashamed to reveal that I've seen 96 of 'em.

1. CITIZEN KANE (1941)
2. CASABLANCA (1942)
3. THE GODFATHER (1972)
4. GONE WITH THE WIND (1939)
5. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962)
6. THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)
7. THE GRADUATE (1967)
8. ON THE WATERFRONT (1954)
9. SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993)
10. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952)
11. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946)
12. SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950)
13. THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (1957)
14. SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959)
15. STAR WARS (1977)
16. ALL ABOUT EVE (1950)
17. THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951)
18. PSYCHO (1960)
19. CHINATOWN (1974)
20. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975)
21. THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940)
22. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)
23. THE MALTESE FALCON (1941)
24. RAGING BULL (1980)
25. E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982)
26. DR. STRANGELOVE (1964)
27. BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967)
28. APOCALYPSE NOW (1979)
29. MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939)
30. THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948)
31. ANNIE HALL (1977)
32. THE GODFATHER PART II (1974)
33. HIGH NOON (1952)
34. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962)
35. IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934)
36. MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969)
37. THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1946)
38. DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944)
39. DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (1965)
40. NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959)
41. WEST SIDE STORY (1961)
42. REAR WINDOW (1954)
43. KING KONG (1933)
44. THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915)
45. A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951)
46. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971)
47. TAXI DRIVER (1976)
48. JAWS (1975)
49. SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1937)
50. BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969)
51. THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940)
52. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (1953)
53. AMADEUS (1984)
54. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (1930)
55. THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965)
56. M*A*S*H (1970)
57. THE THIRD MAN (1949)
58. FANTASIA (1940)
59. REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955)
60. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981)
61. VERTIGO (1958)
62. TOOTSIE (1982)
63. STAGECOACH (1939)
64. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977)
65. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991)
66. NETWORK (1976)
67. THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962)
68. AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951)
69. SHANE (1953)
70. THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971)
71. FORREST GUMP (1994)
72. BEN-HUR (1959)
73. WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939)
74. THE GOLD RUSH (1925)
75. DANCES WITH WOLVES (1990)
76. CITY LIGHTS (1931)
77. AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973)
78. ROCKY (1976)
79. THE DEER HUNTER (1978)
80. THE WILD BUNCH (1969)
81. MODERN TIMES (1936)
82. GIANT (1956)
83. PLATOON (1986)
84. FARGO (1996)
85. DUCK SOUP (1933)
86. MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1935)
87. FRANKENSTEIN (1931)
88. EASY RIDER (1969)
89. PATTON (1970)
90. THE JAZZ SINGER (1927)
91. MY FAIR LADY (1964)
92. A PLACE IN THE SUN (1951)
93. THE APARTMENT (1960)
94. GOODFELLAS (1990)
95. PULP FICTION (1994)
96. THE SEARCHERS (1956)
97. BRINGING UP BABY (1938)
98. UNFORGIVEN (1992)
99. GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER (1967)
100. YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (1942)

DFW Alert!

Calling all squad cars! Calling all squad cars! New DFW, with weirdass color-specific footnotes no less! Frabjous joy! (via Scott)

Autolink This!

Perturbed by the Google Autolink nonsense? Zeldman points to a solution.

And en passant, there really doesn't seem to be any difference between the unquestioning Google freaks and the unquestioning Apple freaks, is there? If the technological mantra of the 90s was "You've got mail," I propose that this decade's answer is "You've been branded!"

Million Writers Award

A coefficient was dropped sometime during the calculation process, but the Million Writers Award has finally settled upon the Top Ten Stories of 2004. The winners are:

• Terry Bisson "Super 8" (Scifiction.com)
• Jai Clare "Bone on Bone" (Agni)
• Xujun Eberlein "Second Encounter" (Paumanok Review)
• Alicia Gifford "Toggling the Switch" (Narrative Magazine)
• Richard Grayson "Branch Libraries of Southeastern Brooklyn" (Fiction Warehouse)
• Trebor Healey "The Mercy Seat" (Blithe House Quarterly)
• Dave Housley "Ryan Seacrest Is Famous" (Barrelhouse)
• Joan Shaddox Isom "Remade Tobacco" (Eclectica Magazine)
• Corey Mesler "Madame Sabat's Grave" (Pindeldyboz)
• Chika Unigwe "Dreams" (Eclectica Magazine)

Too Many Roberts Spoil an Interview

Robert Birnbaum, the hardest working online interviewer in the literary world, talks with another Robert by the name of McCrum. Unfortunately, the two Roberts waste too much time trying to determine which one of them is the better Robert. This unexpected hubris is a remarkable letdown from the normally astute Birnbaum.

More Weekly Takes

If you're interested in other weekly reports on literary coverage, the litblog community has transformed, seemingly overnight, into online ombudsmen:

Mark continues his assaults upon the Los Angeles Times.

Scott has taken on the San Francisco Chronicle.

Sam Jones has taken on the Chicago Tribune.

And Bookdwarf promises to take on the Boston Globe.

This is one of the most exciting developments I've seen from the litblogs. There are no doubts in my mind that at least one editor is developing an ulcer.

Cable Soothes the Savage Beast

I don't watch much television. In fact, I don't even have cable teevee (haven't since 1997), which apparently is an unAmerican thing to do. (In fact, two G-men were here last night grilling me about who won this year's American Idol. I was unable to answer. But the charges of conspiracy were dropped when I showed them that I had Secret Agent in my DVD collection.)

But when talking to some folks yesterday, I was surprised to learn that basic cable today costs $55 a month. Basic cable. Not your snazzy HBO or Skinemax. Not even the Playboy Channel. Apparently, if you want to become an HGTV junkie in our great land, contemplating the landscaping options for the palatial home you'll never own, it's going to cost you. As much as a really solid evening out for two.

Fifty-five George Washingtons! That's more than my DSL bill. That's more than my phone bill. That's more than my electric bill. That's six movies at a theatre. That's two hardbacks. And if you were to save that over the course of the year, that would be $660.

What kills me is that Ray Bradbury couldn't have been more on the money with his short story, "The Pedestrian," where a man was arrested simply for taking a stroll while the other obedient citizens were loving their television. Today, television-addicted Americans are arrested for having the temerity to take photos of a bridge or a subway -- in other words, they are being reprimanded for documenting the world that they live in.

It is reported that, on average, Americans watch more than 4 hours a day. So let's say that Joe Sixpack goes to work an eight hour day, and that he gets eight hours of sleep. Of the remaining eight hours he has to devote to leisure, let's say that one hour is devoted to commuting, another hour is perhaps devoted to eating and preparing his meals, and a good half of that time involves getting hooked into the new fire. Because they'll need something to talk about around the office water cooler. Which leaves two hours for showering, preparing for work, catching up with friends, getting drunk, and fucking like minks to make the time go by faster. Never mind that at four hours a day, a 65 year old will have spent nine years of her life in front of the tube.

Granted, we can all agree that everyone is entitled to slack time, to escapism, and to catching a second wind. But we should be extremely concerned with these statistics. Because if Joe Sixpack devoted that time to reading a book, then he might become self-taught in the machinations of the world. Or he might discover the many ways in which he's being screwed over. Or he could volunteer somewhere and help someone in need.

In his book, The Working Poor: Invisible in America, Robert Shipler suggests, "Cable is no longer considered a luxury by low-income families that pinch and sacrifice to have it. So much of modern American culture now comes through television that the poor would be further marginalized without the broad access that cable provides. Besides, it's relatively cheap entertainment."

Right. Because we all know that Jane Sixpack is going out of her way to watch a hard-hitting documentary on the disparity between the rich and the poor. We all know that Jane Sixpack is pining for the art house film instead of Meet the Fockers. We all know that Jane is getting the bejesus scared out of her watching FOX News.

Television is worse than comfort food. It is the uncontrolled wilderbeast that encourages the passive. It reinforces the troubling notion that life should be easy and effortless. It suggests to the common people that if they are not living in glamorous excess (rather than the glamour that comes from within one's own integrity) that they are failures.

Shipler should be ashamed of himself for letting televison off too easily in his otherwise fine book. It is interesting that despite his faithful reporting and his determination to explore the issue from all sides, one won't find either "books" or "libraries" in his index.

Pinter to Quit. Do You Think Pinter Will Quit? Yeah, Pinter Will Quit.

Harold Pinter is cashing in his chips? Say it ain't so! (via the Literary Saloon)