The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger: Optioned by Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston for New Line.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-Time by Mark Haddon: Optioned by Brad Pitt.
Dreamland by Kevin Baker: Optioned by Brad Pitt.
Mark L. Smith script: “Brad Pitt is reading one of his scripts.”
And there’s probably more. The moral of the story: If your book rides the careful crest between literary and pop, Brad Pitt will option it.
To his supreme credit, Alexander McCall Smith claims that his remarks about Irvine Welsh have been “misinterpreted.” Welsh’s status has been downgraded to “a partially indecent hooligan whom I’ll never buy a drink for.”
A new Michigan law requires publications that depict “explicit content” to be covered up. Booksellers and reading groups are furious. And they’ve filed a lawsuit. In the meantime, they may want to consider covering up Ann Coulter’s books. Pretty explicit stuff, given that she’s advocated blowing up the New York Times building, as well as suggesting, “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” (via Sarah)
Catherine Kennan has a very juicy piece on highbrow personals. It doesn’t get any closer to understanding the phenomenon (who can?), but it does feature a very amusing exchange between Kennan and one of the guys behind a personal ad. And it’s impossible to resist this ad: “Find the 10th coefficient in the expansion of the binomial (1+x) to the 20th power. Then love me some more. Mathematical Ms, Cambridge.” (via Chica)
The latest culprit behind declining book sales? USA Today suggests it’s the DVD.
Sarah Waters has turned down a Who’s Who entry because she’s not sure how relevant the directory is to today’s world.
Columbia Journalism Review has a piece on former New Republic editor Gregg Easterbrook. It’s another guy fired because of blog story, but the cause here is far more nefarious (and strangely immediate).
And more on Norr from the Daily Planet. Efforts to track down settlement terms are nice from an outside source, but there are few conditional questions revealed.
Demonstrating to the world that nihilism begins in India, a mob has destroyed 30,000 ancient manuscripts because Oxford University Press spilled the beans about a Hindu king’s parents. Strangely, a similar book in the United States, Bill O’Reilly’s Who’s Lapping Up for You Now?: My Early Days as a Salamander, has not spawned any mobs or burnings. But there have been a few interview walkouts. (via Bookslut)
Martha Freeman’s The Trouble with Babies is a children’s book with a brief passage referencing two gay fathers. Predictably, the yokels are now damning it, citing the book’s “homosexual agenda.” The book’s been removed from library shelves and sales have dropped off because of this misperception. And the proposed Queer Eye for the Straight Dad spinoff series has been cancelled.
Well, since folks are either making confessionals or unabashedly whoring, I’m more than happy to join the collective hue and cry. In fact, Chip, send me a book and I’ll wash your windows in a garter strap! Not a pretty sight, I know. But if that fails to quell the current cries of sexism, then I’ll legally change my name to “Pia Zadora.”
[1/23/06 UPDATE: Two years and countless criticisms of Sam Tanenhaus later, I haven’t been called by the NYTBR. Not so much as a thank you note for the brownies I sent Sam Tanenhaus. My pitches to my own hometown newspaper have fallen on deaf ears. (Never mind that they have taken out-of-town litbloggers for their pages.) The newspapers don’t want me, either because I come across as too volatile or I simply can’t write. As a man who has been on staff for a magazine, I’d like to think it’s the former. I don’t mean for this update to sound as if I’m throwing a pity party or to imply that I’m bitter or anything. I still plan to go on writing, even if it means most of my words being deposited here. But this is a telltale warning to all you whipper-snappers out there. The fresher, the more distinct and the more original you are, the less likely the mainstream media will want you. At least that seems to be my experience.]
They gathered on the shifting sands, away from the bright lights and the big stars. Kith and kin caught on the question of kaput, the winds cutting across their chiseled jaws, freezing limber pecs and refrigerating halter tops housing surgical implants. It was an ineluctable assault on the California senses. Fifty degrees was just too damn cold. They were concerned. Perplexed. Unable to offer answers. Ensnared by the greatest enigma to face humanity since Poe whipped up his “Gold Bug” code or those planes disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. But who really cared about these trivialities? There were more pressing concerns than the mysteries and achivements of the human race.
Their friend was behaving strangely.
No longer the virginal vixen they had worshipped. No longer the adorable fuck-me starlet coveted by Bob Dole. No longer the gal who might have slept with Justin Timberlake. Or not. But possibly a John Wayne Gacy in the making. A troubled soul.
Their friend had been spotted slamming shots. More than a few times. Oh, she was of drinking age. Of that, there could be no doubt. But because she was accustomed to staggering demands, because she was rich beyond the dreams of that amateurish carapace she had thrown off long ago when she crossed those Ts on a contract signed in blood, her employees were afraid to tell her that she had a sizable problem. But was it the steady lucrative paychecks or genuine commiseration? Was their friend naive enough to believe that she could buy the sympathies of an entourage or was it a classic case of amoritizing pathos to ensure popularity? Had she been told that all along?
Whatever the case, they kept the hard line. No problems. Nothing to report. Shot while trying to escape. But then their friend had been whisked out of the Palm Casino, vaguely cognizant, succored by white man’s burden. But, no, their friend had not imbibed beyond the pale.
Thoreau would have marveled over this denial of excess. If anything, the deceitful impressions slung by well-paid publicists would have sent him into a sudden apoplexy. Their friend could no longer be characterized as modest, as virtuous, as inherently good. Now she was a victim of her own restless problems. Of course, unlike most of the public, there was an image to perpetuate and a deep-seeded unhappiness to conceal. And if she had behaved like that without the platinum records, the limos and the Braques on the wall she never looked at, she would have been 86ed from any self-respecting dive, declared a high maintenance case among an inconsequential neighborhood, possibly left alone to inflict herself with a harder narcotic she couldn’t afford. A daily habit in the hundreds.
So when their friend sauntered down a Vegas “30 Minutes or Less” nave with all the sanctity of a microwaved Swanson TV dinner, tying the knot with a childhood friend, acknowledging the true ceremonial import with a garter over blue jeans, and when their friend cancelled the deal 55 hours later, it reflected something else that the newspapers hadn’t considered. She could marry on a whim and then throw it away. She could drink to excess and emerge with a momentarily crippling hangover. She could do almost anything and then forget it ever happened. Except one thing. A pivotal facet not long ago.
A recording contract. A Faustian deal she had to fulfill. The only commitment she had. Don’t point to the men who had perfected the art of harvesting profit over litigious decades. The star, as always, was the culpable one. Even a star young, dumb, and full of come who didn’t know any better.
And they concluded that if their friend fell asunder, or was trampled by her own coping mechanisms (harmful behavior which they encouraged), there would be another friend to grope and laud, to salivate for a time until this friend too became forgotten or the paychecks dried up. Fame was an airtight science, a neverending cycle. And the public would never stop making rash conclusions based on the few things they could espy through the tiny observational sliver.
[1/23/06 UPDATE: The original link above does not look, but it linked to a frivolous FOX News article with the headline, “Loved Ones Worry About Britney.” The article is no longer available. It is as if FOX News’s coveted resources were devoted to other things in January 2004.]