Jay Griffith’s A Sideways Look at Time has won the 2003 Discover Award for Non-Fiction. The award, sponsored by Barnes & Noble, grants Griffith $10,000 and heavy promotion in B&N stores. There’s just one problem. The people at B&N can’t keep track of publishing dates. Griffith’s book came out in 1999.

Michael Chabon on Philip Pullham.

The 2004 Northern California Book Award nominees have been announced:

Best Novel:

L’Affaire by Diane Johnson
Dream of the Blue Room by Michelle Richmond
And Now You Can Go by Vendela Vida
Daughter’s Keeper by Ayelet Waldman
Old School by Tobias Wolff

Short Story Collections:

Red Ant House by Ann Cummins
Denny Smith by Robert Gluck
How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by Z.Z. Packer

Poetry:

Life Watch by Willis Barnstone
The Starry Messenger by George Keithley
Notes from a Divided Country by Suji Kwock Kim
Apprehend by Elizabeth Robinson
The Room Where I Was Born by Briane Teare

Non-Fiction:

The Chinese in America: A Narrative History by Iris Chang
Her Husband: Hughes and Plath, a Marriage by Diane Middlebrook
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West by Rebecca Solnit

Children’s Literature:

The City of Ember by Jeanne DePrau
Oh No! Gotta Go! by Susan Middleton Elya
Just A Minute: a Trickster Tale and Counting Book by Yuyi Morales
The Day the Babies Crawled Away by Peggy Rathmann
Vampire High by Douglas Rees

Special Award: Translation: TBA

Lifetime Achievement: Philip Levine

The winners will be announced on March 24, 2004, and since the event is local, I may just be covering it.

And if there’s any lesson to be learned from this deal, it’s to keep your relationship with a best-selling author and take advantage of the nepotism. Nick Laird has won a six-figure deal for two books. The first one is titled Utterly Monkey. Kyle Smith is no doubt steaming after passing on a date with Z.Z. Packer. (via Maud, who I will never refer to as diminuitive)

The X-rays and dental records match up. Spalding Gray is dead. The world is lesser because of it.

Rasputin: “Trust me on this one. Rich people will be okay. I am officially giving you permission to not give a rat’s ass about them. When a person achieves a certain amount of wealth, they become permanently okay forever. In fact, the only thing that can ever unseat them from this vaunted status is their own grotesque stupidity. Now, you don’t feel bad when poor people manage to get themselves fucking killed, why should you feel bad when rich stupid people get themselves thrown in jail or rendered poor?”

Sarah Jessica Parker: “Part of me is happy that people who could not afford HBO will now have the opportunity to meet the four women whose love lives were chronicled on the show.”

Who are these people, Sarah? Okies wandering the Midwest? Crazed gypsies? Hobos? The rabble? The great unwashed? With invitations like yours, I’m sure these people that we shall not identify, probably smart enough to do other things than sit on their asses watching HBO all day, will love strutting into your vapid world of shoes and affluence.

I saw the first season of Sex and the City shortly after reading Bushnell’s book. I haven’t seen a single episode since. Beyond my DVD rental and reading mistakes, I regret nothing.

(via Beatrice)

Mark gives Rose/Birnbaum a run for their money and interviews Dan Rhodes. While there aren’t any Elton John-like confessions, the interview’s a good read. I hope other literary blogs will start taking it to the next level and start interviewing authors who come through their respective towns.

Marty Beckerman claims that he was misquoted by Rebecca Traister. This isn’t the first time Traister’s been accused of overeager journalism, though, to Beckerman’s credit, he never demands a brawl with David Talbot. (via Bookslut)

Spalding Gray’s body may have been found. An autopsy is underway to determine identification.

And a London librarian claims that nursery rhymes are naughty. Of course. We all know that the spider sitting on Little Miss Muffet’s tuffet is really a horny dude with eight dicks. The curds and whey are clearly graveside bukkake. We all know that the grandma-eating Big Bad Wolf represents a guy with an older woman fetish and a closet subscription to MILF Monthly. And we all know that Sleeping Beauty was the princess that the rabble couldn’t chat up and take back to the inn. Nursery rhymes are indecent! It is my fervent hope that the Bush Administration will prevent this filth from corrupting the minds of our children.

If you don’t believe me, one hard look at “Georgie Porgie” should obviate all innocence:

Georgie Porgie, puddin’ and pie

[Clearly, the elided G illustrates that the rhyme is not about “pudding,” but about “putting it in.” Centuries before the naughtiness of American Pie, “Georgie Porgie” establishes in its first line a distinct pastryphilia. The implication of “Poor G” after “Georgie” implies a guilt for the events about to happen. Furthermore, like Nostradamus predicting the threat of Saddam Hussein, the basis for Georgie is not George IV, but George Michael and his infamous bathroom incident.]

Kissed the girls and made them cry.

[If Georgie Porgie intended merely to kiss the girls, then his behavior would be relatively harmless. But the fact that the girls are crying suggests one of two possibilities: (1) either Georgie Porgie has halitosis (unlikely) or (2) Georgie Porgie is a closet rapist, causing untold grief. Note how easy it is to replace the line with “Screwed the girls and made them cry.”]

When the boys came out to play.

[Not content with forced debauchery, Georgie Porgie expands his horizons and illustrates to his peers that he swings both ways.]

Georgie Porgie ran away.

[Again, by anticipating the furor over same-sex marriages, the nursery rhyme proves to be well ahead of its time. Instead of coming to terms with his polymorphously perverse nature or indeed atoning for his sins as a rampant rapist, Georgie Porgie decides to run away and return to his cave. The subconscious message being fed to children is that not only is it okay to “make girls cry,” but that one’s true deviant nature must be kept from the populace, ideally in an isolationist environment, much like the Catholics.]