• Columnist Art Buchwald is dead at 81.
• In Jules Verne’s 1882 novel Le Rayon Vert, Verne described the green flash of sunset as “a green which no artist could ever obtain on his palette, a green of which neither the varied tints of vegetation nor the shades of the most limpid sea could ever produce the like! If there is a green in Paradise, it cannot be but of this shade, which most surely is the true green of Hope.” Well, it appears that a photographer has captured the green flash on camera. It remains something of a mystery as to how Verne initially detected the flash, but some Verne scholars suspect that Verne began to see it during his famous (and often underreported) encounter with a gangrenous streaker.
• Radio Free PGW posts this message from the PGW ad hoc committee.
• An interesting interview with Joanna Newsom. (via This Space)
• Preposterous swag received by The Onion. My favorite: the “Just Do Me” breath mint.
• James Reasoner has authored 200 books. (via Lee Goldberg)
• Why did Neal Pollack write Alternadad? “I needed a new book contract in order to feed my family.” If only more writers could be this honest.
• Redheads won’t be having all the fun in a hundred years. In fact, there won’t be any left on this planet by 2100. I’m troubled by this. I had thought that, as a redhead (or perhaps “reddish” head, given that what remains of my hair is now more of an auburn timbre; when I was a lad, I sailed the berm with a red moptop and some unleashed sperm), I would one day produce legions of redheaded children who would then, in turn, spread their seed across the earth. I had counted upon my recessive genes to be resilient, working against insurmountable odds. But this won’t be the case at all. So have at it, lovers and casual fornicators! Get those redheads in the sack before they’re gone! (via Bookninja)
• Mr. Esposito observes that Vollmann is in the March Harper’s.
• Leah Adezio has passed on and Heidi MacDonald has links.
• Something to look for on YouTube.
• Bill Peschel revisits the Martin Amis teeth debacle.
• John Fox believes that Vollmann’s Swofford review was excessively harsh for a first novel.
• Tad Williams and Aquaman!
• Apparently, Silverblatt’s people can’t spell Bascombe.
• The American bathroom as status symbol. (via Magnificent “Ambersons” Octopus)

© 2007, Edward Champion. All rights reserved.