Chris Weitz, who in 2004 committed the grand contumelies of kicking Tom Stoppard off the project and nixing all references to God, is now back on the His Dark Materials film project. I fear the worst. (via Ghost in the Machine)
Month / May 2006
If You Decide to Cash in on Nostalgia, Go to Page 42
The Choose Your Own Adventure books are being reissued.
I’d Be Safe and Warm If I Was Readin’ in L.A.
Dana Gioia: “Los Angeles, the city of Raymond Chandler, Ray Bradbury and Octavia Butler, is now the biggest book market in North America. And, as a recent survey by the National Endowment for the Arts demonstrates (with a statistical certainty of 99.5%), Californians read more than New Yorkers. Los Angeles is one of the great literary centers of the English-speaking world — not to mention a growing center of the Spanish-speaking mundo.”
Never Underestimate the Power of Wyoming’s Ed’s Stupidity
At Wyoming Valley West High School, students are petitioning the district to have a banned poem reinstated. What was the poem’s topic? Unbridled teenage sexuality? Gang warfare? Some sestina penned in homage to Kathy Acker? Nothing of the sort. The poem merely involved a teacher catching a kid without a hall pass.
[UPDATE: The school is based in Pennsylvania, not Wyoming. Sorry, folks. Between this and the Warhol screwup, I’m definitely slipping — for reasons I won’t go into here.]
And By “So-Called Laugh Show,” They Really Mean “Tape Watched by Humorless G-Men”
The FBI on Laugh-In: “All in all, this skit pertaining to the FBI was rather typical of the poor fare that is served on this so-called laugh show, a show that has gained some considerable notoriety by its risqué jokes and irreverent satirical attacks. Tasteless, sometimes downright vicious jokes and a great deal of forced humor add up to a more telling commentary on this low-grade show itself than on the FBI.”