- Last night’s overwhelming support for the Herring Wonder exceeded even my expectations. I felt bad for Craig “The Crippler” Davidson, who maintained gravitas near the end amidst a decidedly pro-Ames audience. I was very impressed with Miss Saturn — and, no, not the way you’re thinking. Swinging forty hula hoops in varying degrees of elliptical rotation is no small feat. David Leslie orchestrated the elements. Gleason’s Gym owner Bruce Silverglade destroyed the Burgess Meredith stereotype. Patrick “The Mangina” Bucklew and Valmonte Sprout were fantastic, but need to work on their timing. They entered the ring on the second round and caused considerable confusion. I was sitting next to Silverglade and he looked as if he was prepared to draw blood when this happened. Others dwelt unduly upon who Ames was dating. Referee Dominic Manatho and I quietly performed our duties. And the call for blood was something to see.
- Gary Kamiya comes to praise the editor, not to bury him, leaving the Rake to meet Kamiya halfway.
- Warren Ellis interviews William Gibson. (via TEV)
- Antoine Wilson locates the vicious circle that many of us out here on the Internets are caught in.
- Oh yes, Brockman, the entendres are fully intentional.
- New York examines the Mediabistro sale and concludes: “In fact, Touby’s success underscores the difference between the current (seeming) bubble and that of the late nineties: The way to cash out now is to get bought out, not to go public. And until the right buyer shows up, all that most of us can do is stand back and guesstimate what’s worth what.” If I didn’t know any better, this seems a disingenuous way of evoking Chris Anderson’s hypothesis without actually typing in the dreadful words “long tail.”
- RIP George Tabori.
- Kassia on why literary embargoes don’t matter.
Month / July 2007
The Big Fight
Remember: the fight is tonight at Gleason’s Gym, 77 Front Street, at 8:00 PM.
The fighters: Craig Davidson (boxing record 0-1) and Jonathan Ames (boxing record 1-4)!
The opening act: Miss Saturn and her hula hoops!
The card girls: Patrick “The Mangina” Bucklew and Valmonte Sprout!
There is also a rumor that a woman will paint her body and play accordion.
I am now prepared for my duties as ring announcer. And there is considerable excitement from all parties.
The after party is at Rebar on 147 Front Street, where I understand there are affordable beverages.
Don’t miss it!
BSS #120: Berkeley Breathed, Part Two
[This podcast continues our two-part interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Berkeley Breathed. The first part is available here.]
Condition of Mr. Segundo: Searching for penguin brides.
Author: Berkeley Breathed
Subjects Discussed: The rising sales of graphic novels, the future of newspaper comics, reservations about Opus being available in digital form, mass market phenomenons, digital audiences vs. print audiences, the “death” of music, the Beatles vs. Gnarls Barkley, shared audience response, on replacing the cartoonist old guard, YouTube, the Doonesbury motif of characters looking into mirrors, cultural appropriation, Breathed’s rocky relationship with Garry Trudeau, why the first year of Bloom County is uncollected, great cartooning as a synthesis of decent writing and decent illustration, Christopher Hitchens, surreal humanism, the cartoon as populist entertainment, the poor reception to Outland, why the kids from Bloom County have not appeared in Opus, the inadequacies of reader reaction via email, the origins of Oliver Wendell Jones and African-American characters in comics, the Banana 6000 and Apple’s advertising, and being ripped off by Microsoft.
EXCERPT FROM SHOW:
Breathed: We had readerships of 50 to 100 million people in the ’80’s and ’70’s for a given piece of entertainment — a single strip. Same person in Kentucky is going to be reading it. It’s the same person in L.A., New York City. You’re not going to have that. Instead of having seventy-five comic strips with readerships of 20 to 100 million, you’re going to have thousands of comic strips with readerships of several hundred to a thousand. That’s a sea change in its effect on society. And the pop culture, I think, has an effect. The unifying aspect of pop culture, I think, is overlooked. And we’re losing that. We’re not all listening to the same music. We’re not all reading the same cartoons. We’re not laughing at the same joke across the country. It’s a unifying aspect of our nation that’s passing.
Listen: Play in new window | Download
The Virtues of Binary Thinking
What are economists good for anyway?
I look at Tyler Cowen and I ask for one main piece of information: Does this man have a sense of humor? Yes or no. This is a binary decision.
Once I have the answer to this question, if I happen to be entering my apartment building from its southern angle, I abdicate my own sense of humor to the doorman. The truly successful man — and I learned this from reading Dale Carnegie, Tony Robbins, and Tyler Cowen — is one who simply says yes or no. Just as when you are presented with a pair of breasts in front of your face. You either nibble the nipple or you walk away and make money. One choice or the other.
There can be no room for vacillating over a decision. No room for irony. No room for emotion. Long tail. Long tail. Tipping point.
We live in a world in which gray areas are no longer possible. It is the critic’s job to write like Harriet Klausner. Forget those who dare to plunge further. Google has made them irrelevant. I bore easily. Like Tyler Cowen. I am more concerned with my dividends.
Imagine that. An asshole who believes in nothing but antipodean qualifiers. Is it any wonder why so many people think Tyler Cowen is a very silly man?
To me, the most valuable economists are those who write silly sentences contained within short paragraphs. Because there is the illusion of pithiness.
Sometimes I think it is enough to replace my brain with Ubuntu and have some hacker control my every critical thought. The unexamined life is well worth programming.
Roundup
- A quick reminder that Jonathan Ames and Craig Davidson will be fighting tonight at Gleason’s Gym at 8:00 PM.
- Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra’s excellent comic, Y: The Last Man, is being adapted into a film by the folks behind Disturbia. I am unsure how many Hollywood dollars will be committed to training monkeys, with the animal trainers spending hours attempting to reproduce Guerra’s juxtapositions of Ampersand on Yorick’s shoulders. But I’m convinced that monkey accuracy will be the key indicator as to whether this is a successful adaptation or not. Hell, this particular film could very well set a precedent for persuasive monkey behavior. If Clint Eastwood, who I understand has some experience in these matters, is somehow involved, then this film adaptation will go forth without a hitch.
- Guitarist Brian May is completing his Ph.D more than twenty-five years after he abandoned it for a music career. Presumably, having to endure Ben Elton’s dumbing down of Queen’s legacy was enough to push May over the edge.
- Tod Goldberg offers tips on how to write an essay for Parade.
- A.L. Kennedy has a new story in this week’s New Yorker. (via Maud)
- Dan Green responds to the opponents of the Harry Potter opponents.
- I stopped getting excited about new Noam Chomsky volumes when I turned 22. A glowing orb on my hand went off, signaling that there were better ways to be political than celebrating the art of writing lifeless sentences.
- Tim Rutten insists that the embargo hoopla is all about the green.
- The Weekly World News, one of the most important newspapers of our time, is shutting down. The News‘s fabrications were the best of all the tabloids. And I can’t think of another publication that will be able to offer the same kind of amusement as I wait to purchase broccoli. (via Pete Anderson)
- Speaking of which, here’s Magazine Death Pool — sort of a Fucked Company for periodicals.
- The American Scholar‘s Charles Trueheart revisits Lawrence Durrell fifty years later.
- This is bizarre: Carcassonne has been transformed into an Xbox game. But truthfully, can those delightful tiles actually be replaced by a television screen?
- Harriet Baskas examines the connection between used bookstores and airports.
- An interesting comparison beween Enid Blyton and J.K. Rowling. Blyton, incidentally, wrote 10,000 words a day. (via Book World)
- The Washington Post examines DC Fringe offerings, which are considerably literary.