Sylvia van Bell has published her first book. She has demanded a professional masseuse and personal trainer, hair and makeup throughout the book tour, and 215 bottles of Evian in every hotel room.

She’s nine years old.

Tupac Shakur has officially replaced Shakespeare in Worchester, MA. Frances Arena made the swap because it’s “popular with the kids.” While this concerns us, we don’t think this is the sign of the apocalypse. That will happen when learning how to construct a cherry bomb replaces a week of chemistry.

Scott Bakker finished The Warrior Prophet, the second book in the Prince of Nothing trilogy, in a year. But not without defending the outline for his PhD dissertation, teaching pop culture and composition, and planning a wedding. He took one day off, but that was to see The Lord of the Rings.

Clearly, we need to finish up our three volume, 6,000 page biography on little-known Ashcan artist George Spackle, defending Mr. Spackle’s legacy and with a sizable portion pointing out the influence of He Came Home Depressed With A Sliced Banana in the Corner of His Mouth on contemporary comics, by the end of the year.

Nelson DeMille has lost a prenup battle with his ex-wife. What does this mean? No doubt more unreadable hack novels into the Costco piles to compensate for Nelson’s financial shortfall. Thank you, Mrs. DeMille.

After all the hoopla, Return of the Reluctant has managed to nab an exclusive excerpt from Nicholson Baker’s Checkpoint:

Ben: You can’t be serious.

Jay: Oh yes, I am. I’m going to beat the shit out of the president. I’m going to bite off his earlobes and then pull his teeth out as slowly as possible. But only after I spend hours tickling him, just after I use his sternum as a footstool.

Ben: Isn’t that a bit much?

Jay: No. Not at all. He is President Bush and he is wrong.

Ben: Shouldn’t you spend your time dwelling upon the details of a stapler or contemplating how newspapers are disappearing in libraries? Or why not some nice memoir about John Updike?

Jay: No. You mistake me for a character in another book. The unseen god, whom we will not dare to mention here, for postmodernism is dead, along with irony. Besides, the god wrote those stories in simpler times. Today, in 2004, months before an election, I am Jay, the star of Checkpoint, and I wish to make a loud and resounding point.

Ben: But your god doesn’t even look like Lenny Bruce.

Jay: If Lenny Bruce would have lived longer, he would have lost his hair as quickly as our daddy.

Ben: We’re living in a work of fiction?

Jay: Yes.

Ben: No real threats?

Jay: No, but I dream of hitting the president’s knees with a golf club.

Ben: He’s a bad man, but I think someone could use a hug.

Jay: You just don’t understand. Follow the footnote that leads to the 4,000 word history of the chocolate chip cookie, and you will see all.