• More than you need to know about lightsaber combat. (via Quiddity
• Michelle Richmond observes that examining Cho’s plays is no way to predict his behavior.
• I’ve hit the 25K mark in my novel, but there’s no way in hell that I’m feeling smug about it. No, ma’am. I’m fully aware that the manuscript could sabotage me at an unexpected moment, or the unruly words could stage a revolt upon my consciousness, or the characters might decide that the thoughts and feelings they’ve been nice enough to reveal to me are now off limits. No, humility and a work ethic is the only way to keep going on this. And for all I know, the novel may suck ass.
• There’s a chapbook competition going down at Caketrain.
• *. (via Jeff)
• On Keeping an Open Mind.
• Melanie McFarland has choice words for Larry King.
• 3 AM Magazine posts an excerpt of Tao Lin’s Eeeee Eee Eeee. Having read the Melville House galley, I agree with Tod Goldberg. Tao Lin has a good deal of promise.
• sprezzatura on Eggers: “Dave Eggers the person is all right with me. Dave Eggers the writer is another story. The very distinction, you feel, would exasperate Eggers, since he has staked his creative life on an identification of decent living with good writing. The conviction that good-intentioned people necessarily make good art is what lies behind the hectic innovative blurring of fact and fiction in Eggers’s work, and in the work of the writers he publishes.”
• Steve Hall hits Book Notes.
• A decidedly grumpy portrait of Jane Austen is being auctioned in New York.
• Remember, kids, trenchcoat-clad dogs can often be found scuttling about in disreputable shops. (via Miss Snark)
• More Lethem slash fic at Galleycat.
• Leave it to Derik to find a connection between Lynch’s meditation book and comics.
• Literary Gas discovers Robert Sullivan’s Rats.
• The Guardian‘s Blake Morrison offers thoughts on the blame for violent behavior now being attributed to literary influences.
• Sacco it to me, Jessica!
• Kingsley Amis and Larry David? Huh? (via James Tata)
• Julian Montague’s book about stray shopping carts was named the oddest book by The Bookseller. But I’m kind of curious about the subject myself.
• The return of the LATBR thumbnail, with some legitimate gripes. (Yeah, Ulin, where’s the RSS feed? And what about the pony you promised us?)
• Hillary Clinton’s favorable rating has plummeted to 45% — her lowest since 1993.
• You can hide your connections all you want, Colleen! But once a Cessna pawn, always a Cessna pawn.
• I have given up on Doctor Who and Torchwood. Please advise when they become intelligent.
• Look, every so often, I play Spice Girls songs and dance like a lithe schoolgirl in the book-saturated comfort of my apartment. But even I can tell you that no Spice Girl is worth a six-book deal. (via Bookshelves of Doom)
• Hanif Kureishi’s short story was censored by the BBC. (via Bill Peschel)
• RIP Kitty Carlisle Hart. More from Terry.

© 2007, Edward Champion. All rights reserved.