Old Hag

UPDATE: Our need for historical accuracy precludes us from deleting the post below, but as of December 6, 2004, we live at www.theoldhag.com, not the address listed below. If hosting troubles force us to move again, we'll take the hint and leave.

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There's something satisfying about moving when you don't have to pack 6000 books into boxes and carry them down three flights of stairs. Blogger, since I started with you before you got normal, nice templates, it has been ugly and difficult. It's time to honor css over substance. Please heretofore go to the new site at www.altehaggen.com. As Crazy Eddie would say, "That's altehaggen. Altehaggen DOT COM!" From now on, you will always, always find me there, not in this dump.* ** ***

* We would be remiss if we did not mention our deep appreciation for this summer's co-blogger, Jimmy Beck. We want him to start a blog, but he is pissing and moaning. Please get up a collection among yourselves and make it happen.

** Those trying to reach Jimmy can use the email they already have, we imagine, or contact us at altehaggen AT altehaggen DOT com.

*** We would also be remiss if we did not thank the BOOG, who did EVERYTHING, we mean EVERYTHING, on this new site. (Except design if, of course.) Without it, there would be a big long page of...nothing. Which some of you actually might prefer -- sorry to disappoint.

Robert Birnbaum sent me this comment on 1) my post below (just scroll down, don't make me link it) on who folks at Slate are voting for and 2) one of the existing comments on that post (it's all very meta, ain't it?). Anyway, I don't wanna turn this forum into a cable news-esque smackdown, but I have a hard time saying no to Birnbaum and his passion, plus I don't know how to allow for longer comments because I'm Bloggerly-challenged, if not globally stupid. And for the record, I don't really hate Kerry. I do share Weisberg's misgivings, but I also see voting for the dude as an absolute no-fucking-brainer. Got all that?

Jimmy:

"Roth, effete literati"? Bush has a Harvard MBA (he went to Yale too) thus he could run a hardware store. Great!

I see this political season brings out the worst and the idiotic by cheap shot web loggers who could not carry anyone's colostomy bag. There is, I suppose, always a nest of rodents for whom Wieseltier-like pronouncements is good sport and pleasure. So it goes.

George Bush and his faith based Huns are dangerous. Dangerous to civil society, dangerous to the world-at-large. And his prior business accomplishments (and his administration's record, though arguably his cronies' plans disregard the commonweal in pursuit of their own bottomless pockets so their policies are not incompetence) are ample evidence of Roth's assertion.

Corrupt and incompetent is how this court-appointed president will be judged by history. He will not benefit from the kind of revisionism that beatified Reagan (unless Uber-lieutenant Ashcroft incarcerates the next generation of historians via the plague known as the Patriot Act--if ever something reified the aphorism about the refuge of scoundrels).

I think Weisberg at Slate nails it on Kerry. It is something of an irony that the political climate requires the kind of duplicity and disingenuousness that we rightfully dislike Kerry for, but at least Kerry's point of view is reality-based. 101,000 dead Iraqis and American soldiers later, can we say that about George Bush?

el Rojo

Nancy Reagan

It's never too early to get your daughter into her first little black dress! This elegant approximation of former First Lady Nancy Reagan's moving moment alone with her husband's casket is as touching as it is scary. With just a flag, a casket, a simple black dress, and Grandma's old wig, any little girl can be America's Widow®!

Total cost: Between $25 and $25,000 (depending on the cost of the casket).Total time: Under an hour.

The Stranger unveils some ideas for Halloween costumes. We're going to try to talk the daughter out of Jasmine and into Shoe Bomber Richard Reid.

Okay, Tony LaRussa, we guess you'll have to be satisfied with George Will and the rest of the Old School baseball Cabal kissing your ass for the next six months, talking about how you overachieved and should never have been there in the first place and what a tribute this is to your managerial skills.

Whatevs.

The truth is, for all of your decades of baseball acumen and your 105 regular season wins, you and your team got to the Series and promptly messed your diapers in the most egregious of ways. The players deserve a lot of the grief, but we would argue that the Cardinals' failure to win a game, to even get a lead, can be laid pretty much at your feet. True, the heart of your order proved that it was sans heart. But baserunning blunders, leaving pitchers in too long, pinch hitting rookies in critical situations--that's on you, babe. It all had the familiar scent of 1990.

So why don't you and erstwhile pitching coach Dave Duncan take solace in a few veggie burgers and come back next year like you always do: pissing and moaning about balls and strikes, asking the umps to check the opponents' bats, shoving Pirates manager Lloyd McClendon, batting the pitcher 8th, grooming some pockmarked steroid-fueled white boy to be the next Mark McGwire, and talking about how so-and-so is such a classy guy. As if you'd know.

Jacob Weisberg, Editor: Kerry

I remain totally unimpressed by John Kerry. Outside of his opposition to the death penalty, I've never seen him demonstrate any real political courage. His baby steps in the direction of reform liberalism during the 1990s were all followed by hasty retreats. His Senate vote against the 1991 Gulf War demonstrates an instinctive aversion to the use of American force, even when it's clearly justified. Kerry's major policy proposals in this campaign range from implausible to ill-conceived. He has no real idea what to do differently in Iraq. His health-care plan costs too much to be practical and conflicts with his commitment to reducing the deficit. At a personal level, he strikes me as the kind of windbag that can only emerge when a naturally pompous and self-regarding person marinates for two decades inside the U.S. Senate. If elected, Kerry would probably be a mediocre, unloved president on the order of Jimmy Carter. And I won't have a second's regret about voting for him. Kerry's failings are minuscule when weighed against the massive damage to America's standing in the world, our economic future, and our civic institutions that would likely result from a second Bush term.

This pretty much sums it up for us. Now rush on over and see who all the copy editors and interns are voting for. Hey Slate, can we ask some more novelists?

Says author Suzanne Brockmann, whose latest heroine works with former Navy SEALS to find a terrorist's laptop in Flashback (Ballantine, $6.99), out in paperback today: "I love that the heroines are such fabulous role models for women. They have the soul of the warrior, which is what modern women have to have in order to do what we do.

"The heroines I write about have an unwillingness to quit. When they're in danger, they're going to fight hard."

Really? The ones we write about are willing to quit at the first sign of a hangnail or sore throat. They're total pussies. But see, that's our competitive niche.

Sadly, it is here. We reread it; there's even one funny line. Receive at Amazon, laugh out loud.

LONDON (Reuters) - Veteran British broadcaster John Peel, who died suddenly Monday, introduced eclectic music like punk rock to mainstream radio audiences and latterly became a household name with his family tales show "Home Truths."

Peel, 65, whose laconic style and distinctive accent was immediately recognizable, died of a heart attack while on holiday in Peru, the British Broadcasting Corporation said.

Jesus and Mary Chain, Loudon Wainwright III, XTC, Belle and Sebastian, J. Mascis, Captain Beefheart, PJ Harvey, Billy Bragg, Flaming Lips, Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Neil Young--Peel pimped them all and about a bajillion others.

"Grand Canyon: A Different View" was put together by Tom Vail, who in his own contribution says he was working as a rafting guide in the canyon in 1994, "telling folks that the exquisite and varied rock layers came about through completely natural processes," when a woman on one of his trips introduced him to the Bible. Within a few months, he relates, "I had made a conscious decision to believe in the Gospel." Soon, he and his passenger were married and now he and his wife, Paula Vail, operate Canyon Ministries, leading river tours with a creationist bent.

It's amazing, ain't it? Dude gets his first taste of born-again poon-tang and science gets kicked right to the curb. A grand canyon indeed.

Anyone who collects old books knows that most of what we call 'literature' is never read. Large collections of books are fetish objects rather than authentic scholarly resources. I'm like all those architecture students who feel compelled to buy a pair of expensive and uncomfortable Barcelona chairs. I have not yet given up on my professorial aspirations, and each new book is a small investment in that future, which, with any luck, could last another 40 years.

Thomas Benton discusses his book-buying bathos, seemingly the equivalent of our $45 dollar Whole Food herb purchases which wind up tossed in the trash two weeks later.

The subjects of your stories—the Hollywood leftovers, the barflies, a rock drummer who finds himself drawn to the life story of a janitor—often reflect the themes you touch on in your films. Do you have a specific reason for telling the stories you tell?
My short stories are immersions into very specific worlds. There's this idea implicit in my writing that Americans have these parallel lives—all over the place, these parallel cultures and societies exist independent of one another. People live in their own little bubbles and only occasionally do people in the media have a reason to cover them or find out what they're all about. These are people who are in the police force or who are firemen or in the world of newspaper reporting—all of these are tight little worlds. It's such a bubble that if you're completely immersed in it, you may not hear about O.J. Simpson or whatever. In my longer fiction and in my movies, I tend to immerse the reader into one of these worlds and try to express the hermetic nature of those worlds. Some of them are just funny kinds of micro-communities that may only last for a little while and then evaporate. A particular bar with a particular clientele or a sports team. There is a culture in any sports team and then the next year it's totally different. It even changes when someone gets hurt—within that culture, if they're not playing, they're not a person. Three weeks later, when they're done with their injury, they become a person again. Almost every world has that. A sort of office politics—either you're in favor or you're out of favor; either you're a player or a loser. These kinds of social dynamics are very particular to a place and time.

The COMPLETELY HOT (who new?) director John Sayles talks to Mediabistro about his new book, Dillinger in Hollywood.

Heather Saucier learned the lesson of the "nut graf" the hard way. (In journalism jargon, the "nut graf" is a paragraph near the top of a story that concisely lays out its thesis.)

Ms. Saucier was still in college, working as an intern for the now-defunct Houston Post. She filed a piece on the city's troublesome squirrel population. The story was fine, her editor said, 'But you're missing a nut graf.'

She'd already written about squirrels chewing through telephone wires and gnawing on wood, so she dashed off a short paragraph about their diet: nuts.

The CS monitor puzzles over why J-school endures. Obvious. Students must also understand that "lead" is spelled "lede."

Jeffrey Levine, editor of the excellent Tupelo Press, wants to assure us that our fears about rampant Billy-Collins domination are unwarranted:

1) The past two Dorset Prizes, offering the nothing-to-sneeze-at $3,000 awards, attracted many of the poetry famous. Fact is, our contests are judged anonymously, and both previous winners were first books.

2) Our next annual first book award will likewise offer a $10,000 prize in keeping with our mission to further the notion that poetry matters.

When giving George Bush a brain, the trick, it seems, is to wait until he comes to you.

In an odd bit of synchronicity (sorry, Sting), both CAAF at Tingle Alley and Other Voices editor Gina Frangello (in a terrific interview at TEV with blogstitute Tod Goldberg) make sheepish references to a certain 1980s pop group. Guess we'll totally see you dudes in Atlanta...

She-scribe-who-shall-remain-unnamed reports from a recent author's trade show:

Joyce Carol Oates looked pensive, possibly because she was thinking of the two novels she could have written in the time it took her to be honored by the booksellers.

This year, the National Book Foundation decided for the first time in 55 years to go outside New York (all the way to St. Paul, Minnesota) to announce the finalists. “And what do we do?” asks foundation director Harold Augenbraum. “We end up with a parochial lineup. Who would expect that all five would be women from New York?” Certainly not Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, a first-time novelist living in Fort Greene.

“I thought I was getting cranked,” says the author of a cycle of dark, dreamlike fragments called Madeleine Is Sleeping (Harcourt).

We first read that as "I thought he was on crank".

Archaeologists in Germany say they may have found a lavatory where Martin Luther launched the Reformation of the Christian church in the 16th Century.

The toilet is in a niche set inside a room measuring nine by nine metres, which was discovered during the excavation of a garden in the grounds of Luther's house.

Dr Treu said there can be little doubt the toilet was used by Luther, the radical theologian who argued for a more "earthy Christianity", which regarded the entire human body - and not just the soul - as God's creation.

Guess that explains the 95 feces he nailed to the door.

DailyCandy founder Dany Levy just made a sweet deal with Hyperion publishers, The Post has learned.

The founder of the daily e-mail service on style has contracted for two books with the Disney-owned publishing house. Senior Editor Kelly Notaras negotiated the high-six-figure deal with the William Morris Agency.

DailyCandy, founded in 2000, sends subscribers a free daily e-mail telling them about the newest, hottest designers, restaurants, beauty secrets, books and more.

We stopped reading Daily Candy about the time they advertised a grass-covered shitbox for felines. For six figures, though, we would agree to permanently go in one. [via Gawker]

Okay. Now Blogger is posting my posts, but in reverse order. I am reduced to a "bottom."

Munro is a trim, beautiful woman with relatively unlined skin and coiffed silvery gray hair; long gone are the slightly unkempt curls of her early photos. She is elegantly but unfussily put together, wearing a light enhancement of makeup, dressed in an ivory silk blouse, off-white pants and arty yet sophisticated earrings. Munro gets up to give me a warm hello, and I am immediately struck by a lack of pretense that all the same seems too considered to be entirely guileless. Perhaps it is no more than the undercurrent of quiet amusement emanating from her gray-green eyes, which suggests a watchful inner self behind the easygoing, even intimate manner. A witty, sometimes brutally observant self, held in check by the need to pass herself off as conventionally and graciously female. When I compliment her on having remained thin, she corrects me, stressing the difference between ''thin'' and ''thinnish'' as though she were a weight counselor. ''I've always been thinnish,'' Munro insists, only half-jokingly. ''I was never a thin girl.''

Will Haygood begins his review of Russell Banks A Passage to Liberia with the observation: "It is a wonder that more American novelists don't set their works on the African continent."

Given that our resting state alternates between narcissism and guilt, we can't help but wonder if our--that is to say, Jimmy's--relentless busting of the Gray Lady's balls is not somehow causally--or at least synchronistically--linked to the fact that our proprietrix's stunning review of Arthur Nersesian's new book Unlubricated cannot be found on the NYT website. At any rate, we urge you to go to Starbucks or B&N and read it for free.

Apparently, IN FACT, Blogger has been deliberately, shamefully and egregiously erasing my posts. As Uncle Grambo would have it, thanks for leaving my cheese swinging in the wind, you fucking douchebags.

And the Yankees' very identity as destiny's darlings had been shredded as well in a spectacular reversal of fortune in which baseball's eternal losers, the scruffy, hopelessly jinxed Boston Red Sox, pulled off the unimaginable: toppling the once-proud Yankees in the most shaming and mind-boggling fashion - after the Bronx Bombers had been ahead, three games to none, in the American League Championship Series and a mere three outs away from the World Series.

What's even worse is now that the suddenly ham-handed, flatfooted, flatter, flabbier, cringe-making, curdled, formulaic, smugly reductive, paint-by-numbers, weary, narrow, claustrophobic, frayed and shopworn Yankees have lost, I have to go back to my day job.

Blogger keeps erasing our posts. We had a lovely one on Wonkette's book sale, as well as a long exegisis on J-Fly's new movie game. We're sure you can hardly handle the loss—but we do apologize, cuz we, like Marvin Gaye, have no idea what's goin' on.

The Pony Express brought the new Poets & Writers mag yesterday (Nov-Dec 2004; Norman "Smoke A Fat" Dubie on the cover), which always makes for a productive trip to the bathroom. Unfortunately, none of it is online yet so all we can do is titillate and frustrate you (but then, if you're a regular reader or our spouse then you know that that's what we do best). Anyway, M.J. Rose--the doyenne of DIY publishing and right up there on our list of heroes next to Gerard Jones--has a kick-ass article on making the most of one's first novel, i.e., getting published as opposed to just getting printed. The fact that we're in danger of neither did nothing to diminish our enjoyment of the piece.

Also, there's a story on Iowa Short Fiction Award Winner Merrill Feitell (Here Beneath Low-Flying Planes) and her neuroses and feelings of inadequacy after winning the award. Ms. Feitell comes across as devoted to her craft, determined and humble--she strikes us as a real (wo)mensch. By all accounts, she's a terrific writer. Still, reading the article, we wished she could enjoy her good fortune and were reminded of the words of the late great Last of the Red Hot Mamas, Sophie Tucker: "I've been rich and I've been poor. And believe me, rich is better."

Suggested covers for Bill O'Reilly's next book. We actually think the real one is funny enough.

Ms. Essman, better known as Jeff’s wife on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, was on a roll, telling Trump: "We met once, but you don’t remember because you weren’t trying to sleep with me. That’s ’cause I’m not your type. It’s O.K.—because, you know, I’m smart, my tits are real, and I speak English." Mr. Trump looked into the audience and smiled reassuringly at Ms. Knauss.

"I think you should make the Trump condom, and you should have your face right on the tip. That way at least someone is getting fucked by you besides your business partners …. At this point, the only thing you own that’s not going down is Melania," quipped Ms. Essman before turning her tongue on Ms. Couric, who wore a glittering silver "K" pendant on her black sweater.

"Katie Couric had been dating the owner of the Boston Red Sox. The Boston Red Sox! I mean, why don’t you just fuck Saddam Hussein?" And Mr. Sharpton: "He probably has no idea who I am. Essman is a Hebrew word for Tawana." And, of course, Bill O’Reilly: "Bill O’Reilly has a new reality-TV show on NBC. Jeff Zucker just told me it’s called The O’Reilly Fucked Her. He’s also pushing a new children’s book, it’s called When Billy Gets Big."

Jesus Christ, this chick brought her "A" game to the Trump roast.

There is nothing more painful than watching a comedian turn self-righteous. Unless of course, the comedian is lashing out at smug and self-serving television-news personalities. Jon Stewart could not resist a last dig at CNN's 'Crossfire' during his monologue on Comedy Central on Monday night . 'They said I wasn't being funny,' the star of 'The Daily Show With Jon Stewart' said, rolling his eyes expressively. 'And I said to them: 'I know that. But tomorrow I will go back to being funny,' Mr. Stewart said, adding that their show would still be bad, although he used a more vulgar expression…(He also used an epithet for the male reproductive organ to describe Mr. Carlson.)

The complete accuracy of Jon Stewart's assessment's aside, with all the ass-fucking going on lately at the Times, you'd think they could get it up -- heh -- to say "suck". (Even "blow"! Totally sexist.) So if Alessandra Stanley's recap is too dick-free for you, try the unexpurgated version here.

Kinky Friedman talks to Nerve:

Not to keep bringing the conversation back to sex, but it's sort of my job. What historical or political figure do you find the most sexually compelling?
(Long silence.) Well, I … I always liked Joan of Arc.

The short haircut does it for you?
I like that boyish look. I'd like to see how Anne Frank developed.

(Horrified laughter)
What's funny about that? She's one of my heroes.

Link via Bookslut's Michael Schaub, who's doing a bang-up job, by the way.

O’Nan said that he has read “The Plot Against America,” Roth’s new book, which, arguably, has been the year’s most celebrated literary release. “I think it’s a wonderful reworking of history that he tries to then fulfill. And it works for a while, but then he realizes he’s painted himself into a corner he can’t get out of, and he throws his hands up and says, ‘Oh, help!’” He added, “It’s a good try.”

Roth ranks higher on O’Nan’s list than Tom Wolfe, however, whose novel, “I Am Charlotte Simmons,” is due out next month. “Ay-yi-yi, John Irving was right: the guy’s not a novelist,” O’Nan said. “It’s nice that he thinks he’s the new Dickens, but he’s just not. Wow! What are you gonna do?”

Stewart O'Nan, either plied with ale by Ben McGrath or sporting a major death-wish.

Giovanna Pizzorno told the paper she was just showing a group of friends the fountain, but police said she was standing in for a professional guide, and breaking a 1985 law that bans unauthorized guides in a bid to uphold the quality and livelihoods of professionals who have to sit exams to get a license.

A special undercover police unit regularly patrols Rome's top tourist sites, including the Colosseum and the Forum, to trap unlicensed tour guides. Police issue around 1,000 fines a year to those breaking the law.

Although the police should fine only people taking money for their services, the newspaper warned friendly Romans to check they are not being watched before offering visitors the benefit of their local knowledge on the city's world famous monuments.

"If a Japanese couple stop you and challenge your faltering English to tell them something about the Spanish steps, just tell them 'I don't know'," the paper advised its readers.

Well, hey, never mind tourism or hospitality, at least the trains still run on time, right?

What are you going to do with all your newfound money?

I still take the bus and subway. I don't want to own anything that I can't fold up and bring into my apartment.

Would you like to buy a house?

No. I don't want to live on more than one level.

You could buy a ranch house.

That might be more room than I need. I'm a solitary person. I try to depend on no one. It's the way I've always done it. I eat dinner with myself. I cook for myself, though I don't know if you can really call it cooking. I've been eating a lot of salads from the supermarket.

Is that a full life?

I can't say that I'm unhappy. People invite me out, but I don't want to stand around with a glass of ginger ale.

Have you ever had a great adventure?

Yes. When I rented ''Raise the Red Lantern.'' I thought that was a wonderful movie. I am not hankering to do a lot of things.

After accusing Ted Kooser of being a tobacco-chewin', heartland ignoramus, Deborah Solomon reveals heretofore unexplored interest in the subleties of real estate in this interview with The Known World author Edward P. Jones.

A lovely morning drink,'' he said, and I had to agree: I was instantly soothed, the sin of the liquor and the wholesomeness of the milk entwining, making me feel as if I had been wrapped in a blanket. The sun went to bother someone else, and Doc turned to the sad state of cocktail scholarship.

If history is written by the winner, the history of the cocktail has largely been written by the drunk. ''Somebody invents something, they drink it and they forget it,'' Doc said. ''That's the sad thing.'' The milk punch dates back to Jerry Thomas's legendary 1862 ''Bar-Tenders' Guide,'' the first book to collect what was then an oral tradition of recipes. But Thomas merely wrote it down -- no one really knows the origin of the milk punch. ''There are some drinks that we absolutely know who invented them,'' Doc explained. ''Trader Vic created the mai tai. Joe Santini invented the brandy crusta. But otherwise, we don't always know. Everyone wants to have invented the martini, the margarita.''

John Hodgman, creator of the Little Gray Books reading series, incredibly longtime, longtime alcohol enthusiast and author of the forthcoming The Areas of My Expertise, take on the dearth of cocktail prosedy.*

*We are so ashamed to admit that we have had a rare-cocktails book with a wooden cover on the floor of our car that we fully intended to send to Mr. Hodgman for ONE YEAR. We are going to get it to you before your infant daughter goes to college, John. Or, at the very least, graduates.

I have a lot of guy friends, and from listening to them I know there is just as much of a dearth of "good" women as "good" men. From my own experience and from observation, it seems like women fall into two categories: either they're successful with guys or they're not. Either guys fall for them hard and right away, or not at all. Either they always call, or they never call. And there's no way of telling who is going to fall into which category - it certainly seems to have nothing to do with looks. When Jack Berger told Miranda that the guy who didn't call her back just "wasn't that into" her, he should have added "Because you and your friends are desperate, painfully un-funny, materialistic cunts who have nothing to offer conversation-wise but lists of things you've recently purchased and no interests of your own and no curiosity and no motivation but snagging a rich husband as soon as possible."

Lindsay takes issue with the Chick Lit/Sex in the City ethos.

Q. Why do older people seem to suffer more from flatulence?
A. Many bodily changes and circumstances that affect older people are associated with the release of intestinal gases, among them diseases, prescriptions, diet changes and loss of muscle tone.

Lookit, if Dooce can hit a home run with pooping, you can't begrudge us the occasional fart post.

"The Catcher in the Rye" is now, you'll be told just about anywhere you ask, an "American classic," right up there with the book that was published the following year, Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea." They are two of the most durable and beloved books in American literature and, by any reasonable critical standard, two of the worst. Rereading "The Catcher in the Rye" after all those years was almost literally a painful experience: The combination of Salinger's execrable prose and Caulfield's jejune narcissism produced effects comparable to mainlining castor oil.

Jonathan Yardley gets medieval on Salinger. He calls Catcher in the Rye "sentimental," "squishy," damn near puke-provoking, "flagrantly manipulative," exploitative, "an exercise in button-pushing," "an adult's unwitting parody of teen-speak," "maladroit" and "mawkish."

We don't remember it as the greatest book ever written, but compared to some of the other gems on our high school reading list back in the Paleozoic (e.g., "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown," "The Rise and Fall of Lewis Lapham"), we're not entirely sure it deserves this kind of ardent assfucking.

At any rate, good citizen that we are, we immediately reported J-Yard to Snarkwatch and, as a sympathetic gesture, sent a fruit basket to "J.D., Somewhere in New Hampshire." (Can you get us a street address, Birnbaum?--we promise to keep it top secret) Of course, we would be remiss if we didn't note that Yardley's tirade is mitigated by his deployment of "jejune" in a manner so apt and beautiful it borders on the transcendent. {link via the jejune-meister himself}

Q: You’re stuck on a desert island with three people you’ve interviewed. Which people would you want to have with you?
A: I would take Richard Thompson with me and force him to perform. I would probably take John Updike with me, and he could read his work, and he could describe for me everything that was going on around us, because I feel like when he describes something or somebody, I understand it better, because he knows just the right word. I might have Martin Short with me, to keep me laughing. Oh, can I bring a fourth person? I’d bring Richard Price with me, because I love his writing, and he’s one of the best talkers in the world. He wrote Clockers and a lot of screenplays. If I was stuck on a desert island, I would just so enjoy hearing him verbally riff.

Thompson will begin by servicing me while playing a reggae version of "Hand of Kindness." John Updike will describe the act via smoke signals to be sent off to David Remnick for the upcoming "Desert Island Radio Hostess Issue" of the New Yorker. Updike and Thompson will then duel--naked of course--with Richard T. wielding his guitar and Updike a 7-iron. Martin Short will wear his Jiminy Glick costume for the duration and humiliate me with farting noises and by throwing every obnoxious question I ask back in my face. Meanwhile, Richard Price will be called to account for Kiss of Death. I will forgive him because I just so enjoy hearing him verbally riff.

I am Terry Gross and I have spoken. That is all.

PS On my island, there will be a fund drive four times a year .

For any poets -- or for anyone who will now suddenly decide to be a poet -- Tupelo Press's Dorset Prize pays $10,000 this year. Of course, since it's not a first book prize, and poetry pays nothing, people like Louise Gluck and Billy Collins are probably going to enter and, as we said in our grammar school days, "fuck up the curve."

Just FYI: THERE ARE OVER 500 COMMENTS IN A THREAD ABOUT POOPING on Dooce.

End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones—Like some M. Night Shyamalan scenario gone haywire, this movie is narrated by three dead men. The recent passing of Johnny Ramone (and before him, Joey and Dee Dee) gives 'End of the Century' (Magnolia Pictures) a funereal air, which is unfortunate: it's a classic rock 'n' roll story. A tour through the birthing pains of punk, the film documents the coming together, falling out and 'Spinal Tap'-like array of drummers of the band least likely to succeed. Tommy, if you're reading this, please see your doctor once a year.

Alex Balk was the author of the blog 'The Minor Fall, the Major Lift.'

Ahhh...is that the most poignant byline in recent memory, or what?

WASHINGTON – The Food and Drug Administration on Friday ordered that all antidepressants carry 'black box' warnings that they 'increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior' in children who take them.

Patients and their parents will be given medication guides that include the warning with each new prescription or refill.

Dr. Lester Crawford, acting FDA commissioner, said the agency based its decision on the 'latest and best science.'

"We continue to believe, however, that these drugs provide significant benefits for pediatric patients when used appropriately,' he told reporters.

It's currently in vogue to think that suicidal impulses caused by antidepressants result from a patient's becoming just-undepressed-enough from the brief lift provided by the drugs to finally contemplate how one actually ties a slip knot and get going with the deed. While this may happen, we think in the main it's one of those wonderful theories psychiatrists love that is in fact not true. On Prozac, for the first time, we entered into a walloping depression the likes of which we've never experienced -- within a week. While we are a fat old lady who has no intention of killing herself whatever terrifying and debilating feelings arise, we can't imagine the effect of this on a child, particularly one whose parents/doctors are not watching out for exactly the opposite of the predicted outcome. Which is to say, the black box is a good thing, but it's not limited to the adolescent brain.

One soldier, a woman, drove me around Ft. Drum. She was a sergeant. She had served in Irag AND Afghanistan. Her husband was at that moment gearing up for deployment in Iraq. She was six months pregnant with their first child. I asked her why she joined the military, and she told me she had always wanted to serve. She had a degree from NC State and had done all the coursework for a PHD. We had a kindly chat about literature, and also about having first children; and after she dropped me off, the young Captain who took over for her said he was with her in Northern Iraq; that she had delivered an Iraqi woman's baby there one cold morning; that an imbedded journalist was with them and saw the whole thing. That later, they passed out about two thousand pairs of shoes. And that night they opened a weapons cache, and found no weapons, and that is what the journalist reported.

If any part of the real story can get through, then that is a good thing. I do not believe that these individual stories follow any line, any political agenda other than to say what one sees, and to try to make sense out of it as a thinking person. That is every writer's responsibility, and the place where it happens is finally unimportant in the face of that responsibility.

Author Richard Bausch and Aleksandar Hemon are duking it out over Operation Homeland -- still in print, mind you, pace Stanley Crouch -- in Slate's fray.

Aleksandar Hemon responds to some posts questioning his questioning of the NEA's new writing program for soldiers, Operation Homecoming:

All of them miss the point. The point is not that the soldiers should not be
given voice. The point is that if they are given voice under the auspices of
Wolfowitz, the Defense Department, and Boeing--unless you were asleep for the
past four years, it is reasonable to question the sound of the voice produced
by the Government. For every time you heard the Government's voice, the voice
was lying.

And another point is that if the soldiers' voice is the only one, then that
voice cannot possibly tell the true story. Both sides are not always needed,
but they are needed in a situation when almost everything reported about this
war is distorted by propagandistinc pressures, and then there are so many things
we do not even know, coming from the realm of the unimaginable. The program
insists on telling the stories of the soldiers who are participating in the
so-called war on terror--it pertains to archive the testimonies, to serve as
history. When some years from now someone wants to deal with the history of the
war on terrorism, they'll go to that archive. And in the archive they'll find
the stories of soldiers suffering, with the rest of it missing. Look at the
perception of the Vietnam War, look at all the movies in which the Vietnamese are
absent. What can you know now of how it was like being Vietnamese in those
days? Where can you find those testimonies? Is there an NEA anthology that
collected them? Does anybody give a fuck? And now you have a situation in which
John Kerry--who had served and then objected to the war is treated as a traitor
by many and may lose the election because of that. Don't you find the fact that
Seymor Hersh at the age of 70 or so, the man who wrote about My Lai writes
about Abu Ghraib as well? Where are the young ones? Hersh recognized Abu Ghraib
for what it was, because he had seen My Lai. Once you leave My Lai out of the
story of the Vietnam War and the American Military, then it is much easier to
present Abu Ghraib as an exception--you know, some bad apples did it. If the
NEA anthology comes out and it includes stories of massacres in, say, Fallujah,
the stories of Abu Ghraib, then I will admit my mistake and apologize.

Another thing is the fact that the military elite is hiding behind the quaint
faces of regular, lower-class soldiers. Apparently, the Army does not include
generals--say, General Boykin, the nutcase who is under the impression he is
fighting Satan himself in Iraq (he would not settle for "Islamofascism") and
is very involved in Rumsfeld's murderous special projects. How about the
military intelligence boys who run secret detention camps into which "Islamofascist"
often disappear never to come out. I would like to hear the voices of those
boys, for I bet they have stories to tell. But they're covered up by the
poignant stories of Americans helping women giving birth, after they shot their
husbands.

Another thing is the fact that the military elite is hiding behind the quaint
faces of regular, lower-class soldiers. Apparently, the Army does not include
generals--say, General Boykin, the nutcase who is under the impression he is
fighting Satan himself in Iraq (he would not settle for "Islamofascism") and
is very involved in Rumsfeld's murderous special projects. How about the
military intelligence boys who run secret detention camps into which "Islamofascist"
often disappear never

I was giving a reading recently and in the audience, I found out later, was a
woman, whose son--a lifetime Republican and someone who always wanted to be a
soldier--was so disgusted by what he had seen in Iraq that he committed
suicide. So he was not there to talk about his experiences, and she didn't talk
either, for she couldn't. How about putting them into an NEA anthology--an
anthology of horrible silence? And I don't even want to begin to discuss the
nutcases who cannot tell the difference between Saddam and Osama--for them,
obviously, all Arabs and Muslims are the same, and worthy disposing of. Islamofascism
is a word so reminiscent of the Serbian racist rhetoric that lead to the
genocide and war crimes against Bosnian Muslims that it makes me want to vomit.

How did the people in this country become so unconscious? Even the kind
people are so in love with the myth that Americans are inherently good people, that
they are simply not capable of committing crimes--so when they do, they are
in fact victims, for something made them do those things, and if we are just
nicer to them, if we accept them back into the warm, unimpeachable moral bosom
of Americanness, they'll be okay, and we'll be okay, and everything will be
okay. They served their country, and they meant well, they had good intentions,
because this country always, always has good intentions --you know, freedom and
stuff--so the crimes are really accidents, they have nothing to do with the
structure and the orders and the generals, let alone with Rumsfeld or Dubya.
With little therapy, with throwing away the few bad apples, and, more than
anything else, with our unconditional support, our men and women in uniform will
recover and never kill again, unless they really have to. Lest
people get to question how Abu Ghraib took place and where the secret
detention camps are, and why in the world that is not the BIGGEST fucking issue of
the elections--lest they start unpatriotically wondering why it happens so
often, they are kept busy with the suffering of common soldiers, particularly those
who came back alive. The stories of soldiers' suffering and the stories of
American crimes are OBVIOUSLY not mutually exclusive--unless, and don't tell me
this is paranoid, unless the story-telling is sponsored by Wolfowitz, the
Department of Defense and a Government agency, all underwritten by Boeing.

So far the responses to my piece have mainly included insults, one fine
patriot suggesting deportation--it's the foreigners, you see, who infect the moral
fiber of America, and we need to watch them, as, by the way, we do. I would
not be surprised by someone somewhere physically attacking me. But I am an
American citizen and can say whatever the fuck I want, whenever I want. There. Nice
talking to you.

1) First of all, we're fine with the whole freedom-of-speech thing (?????????). Ditto its handy pal, disagreement.

2) We found this writer's exchange program on Vietnam and its consequences with five minutes of Googling. We're sure in an hour, we could find plenty more -- though we're equally convinced we'd miss the thousands in Vietnamese.

3) We apologize, but logic compels us to remark that Hemon is published by Random House, which is owned by Bertelsmann, a company with acknowledged past Nazi ties. Does this compromise his writing? Of course not. So unless Boeing is standing over the soldiers and whacking them with a ruler every time they write "George Bush wuz wrong," we'll reserve our judgments for the published results.

Hey, this anti-Bush liberal has no problem in principle with both sides getting skewered. But when Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, and Janeane Garofolo moronically align themselves with Kim Jong-il and start wielding automatic weapons against Team America, well … Leftist actors learned from Vietnam not to cozy up to dictators: Jane Fonda, one of the best actresses of her generation, hasn't worked in more than a decade. And it's the left at the moment using Kim Jong-il to hammer Bush about making pre-emptive strikes only against countries with oil fields—as opposed to those that actually have weapons of mass destruction and are run by people nutty enough to use them. And Michael Moore wouldn't be a suicide bomber because he thinks too highly of his indispensability. Sorry, boys: This just isn't very incisive left-bashing.

Sorry, boy, this just isn't very compelling film criticism--it's much more like kvetching about marionettes. These are the South Park dudes, for God's sake, not the NYRB.

The only books that change my life now--not necessarily for the better, and not at all in the way my old friend meant--are my own. They change my life the way moving houses changes your life, or a health regimen. But a good book, one that I love--a list I seem to add to with less frequency now than in former days--can still change, if not my life, then at least my way of seeing the world, and my place in it, for a day, or a week.

I don't have one favorite. If I did, I don't think I would be able to keep writing, because when I'm working on a novel, the main thing I'm trying to do, with all my heart, is to write my favorite book. Every novel, in prospect, is the best book ever written, just as every war is always going to be over by Christmas.

At any rate, here is a collection of books that, I thought, changed my life when I read them, or changed what I thought was my life. Some of them, additionally, devastated me. Revolutionary Road and The Age of Innocence fit into this category.

Did you know Michael Chabon had a site? We didn't. It's filled with hours of browsing we have no time to do, but here's a brief link. There's also a big head. [via Beautiful Atrocities, with whose view of the war we also don't exactly agree, but whose views on Roald Dahl and Royal Extra Stout are unimpugnable]

A lot of this writing, with its billowing waves, its dark abysses and searing flames burning the soul to tinder, is nonsense, of course, but it's sometimes splendid nonsense, and every now and then, when she's not talking about crotchless panties or how she collected her lover's used condoms, Ms. Bentley hits the grand rhapsodic note, as when she writes, "I became an archetype, a myth, a Joseph Campbell goddess spreading my legs for the benefit of all mankind for all time."

Had we known, Toni, we would've dropped by. And yes, dear reader, we are well aware that this book has been blogged about out the, uh, wazoo. To paraphrase Woody Allen, you could call us a sadistic sodomistic necrophile, but that'd be beating a dead horse. Anyway, at least now we know why Tina Brown's show is called "Topic A."

Chris, sixteen, from Lansing, Kansas, notes. “You can’t write it on a third-grade level, because the New York Times isn’t a third-grade-level paper. It’s for a more sophisticated kind of person—at least, that’s what I believe.”

Oh, Chris, you're a peach--we're truly heartened by the lack of cynicism in Lansing, Kansas. Just beware the Style section.

But here's something even more amazing from Daniel Radosh's hilarious New Yorker expose of tricksy high school kids getting their letters published in the New York Times:

It is because of this subterfuge that Thomas Feyer, who edits the Times letters page, cannot bring himself to be happy for the students’ accomplishment. “We’re not pleased with people who are dishonest with us,” he said over the telephone last week. “If somebody has a legitimate letter published, fine. And if they send in another letter two weeks later under a different name, and it’s a good letter, in effect they’re depriving someone else of a chance to get into the paper.”

Wow. Is this the socialist ethos in practice or just an elaborate ruse to keep Jane Smiley from getting in there every fucking day? On the other hand, one might argue that it takes some major-league chutzpah for the New Fucking Yorker, which summarily presumes all reader mail to be tainted with anthrax, to diss anyone for not publishing letters to the editor.

We guess this makes the whole "How old are you now?" part irrelevant, right?

Dear Internet,' blogger The Minor Fall, The Major Lift wrote last month, ' … [I]n all likelihood, this is goodbye.' A friend, the posting explained, had taken the blogger aside and 'gently informed us that we should quit blogging, since our heart seemed no longer to be in it and it was 'painful to watch.'

This coming Sunday, after years of pseudonymously mocking the major media, the writer formerly known as TMFTML makes his New York Times debut under his own name. The new byline is Alex Balk. The piece is a guest spot in the Arts & Leisure section’s 'Playlist' column, following such previous celebrity contributors as Dave Grohl, Stephin Merritt and Danger Mouse.

'I asked him to do it and he did it,' said Ariel Kaminer, the editor at Arts & Leisure responsible for Mr. Balk’s crossover.

We're sort of irritated at the Svengali-esque hold Kaminer apparently has on our favorite blogger, but since will finally enable him to leave his day job table-dancing and pouring shots at Hogs 'n' Heifers, we really can't object.

The sound bites both men brought were awful. Bush's snort about Kerry being on the 'far left bank' was dumb; Kerry's analogy of Bush to Tony Soprano was dumber.

Look at it this way: At least "Doesn't Bush kind of sound like 'tush'?" and "Kerry...not so very!" didn't make the cut.

A new blog charts the errors of major news outlets.

The lovely Elizabeth Spiers has been hired as EIC of mediabistro:

Spiers will step down from her post at New York magazine and start at mediabistro.com full-time on November 1st. She fills the vacancy created by the departure of Jesse Oxfeld last month.

'Given recent screaming headlines about forged memos, presidential debate coverage, and subpoenaed journalists, I think this is a great time to re-evaluate the way the media industry covers itself,' says Spiers. 'As we expand the breadth and depth of coverage and analysis on mediabistro.com, we’re well-positioned to be on the cutting edge of that. I’m very excited about the opportunity to build the site into something that’s truly useful, entertaining and, ultimately, indispensable.'

On the other hand, if the pay rate for pieces is going to rise anywhere near to New York's (or, for that matter, above zero), we'd be THRILLED, [cough], of course, to return to writing for them.

Writing in Slate, Aleksandar Hemon excoriates Operation Homeland, the NEA's new writing program for soldiers:

Operation Homecoming wants its participants to write the story of the war that produces almost as many casualties as lies. 'And these often harrowing tales are best told by the men and women who lived them,' writes Gioia poetically. As a matter of fact, the story would be much better told by those who died in Iraq, but they do not get to tell any stories, to participate in workshops, or to come home—except in the coffins that under a Pentagon policy prohibiting media coverage of human remains are not to be seen on television or in newspapers.

We're not sure we agree with Hemon's contention that any program that doesn't include the Iraqi experience is a "lie" (won't that experience also come out? and couldn't you apply that all-sides test to anything, after all?) but we must admit our main support of the program (also covered here and here in the Times) stems from the fact that even if the Commander in Chief can't read and write, our soldiers can.

UPDATE: Carrie at Tingle Alley gives us this soldier's perspective site to check out.

SOOOOOOO BUSY reorging target-based content that life is almost over. Apologies are in order, but look for this site to look (if not be) better in the veeeeeery near future.

We've been so drunk, we failed to notice that Slate has started a new feature, Books Blitz. One of the first entries is Vendela Vida on the lack of smell in current novels:

After reading the above passage, and several other odor-infused scenes in the novel—including a three-page description of the stench of a thousand maggot-ridden rats—I scoured my shelves for other examples of scent in literature. I turned immediately to German writer Patrick Süskind's Perfume, and I came across long and textured descriptions of sublime fragrances and rancid stenches in Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, Emile Zola, and George Orwell. But a casual survey of writings produced by American writers in the past decade suggested that collectively, like Gogol's Major Kovalev, we've lost our noses.

Oh, we don't know...And Now You Can Go definitely stunk.

Affliction set my heart a-twitter
Loved Continental Drift and Cloudsplitter
So it's all the more regrettable
The main character's not credible
Making this book destined for the shitter

Sure, sick employees keep the computer warm. But research shows that people sick with the common cold are not very productive. In fact, their lost productivity accounts for up to 60% of employer health costs -- more than if they'd taken a sick day.

So you wake up with a common cold or some other ailment that's getting you down. What should you do?

Duh. Of course, we're not very productive under any circumstances.

I'm a Democrat voting for Bush, even though on economic issues, from taxes to government regulation, I'm not happy with the Republican positions. But we're at war, and electing a president who is committed to losing it seems to be the most foolish thing we could do. Personal honesty is also important to me, and Kerry is obviously not in the running on that point, given that he can't keep track of the facts in his own autobiography.

Slate asks prominent novelists who they're voting for. We so pity the poor editorial assistant who had to track down the two actually voting for Bush.

UPDATE: I know, I know, I blogged the same thing as Jimmy. Sue me.

Slate asked a variety of prominent American novelists for a frank response to the following question: Which presidential candidate are you voting for, and why? Thirty-one novelists participated, with four for Bush, 24 for Kerry, and three in a category of their own.

Amy Tan: I'm voting for Kerry, because I have a brain and so does he. And because I use Botox and so does he.

Rick Moody: John Kerry. I actually voted for Nader in 2000 because blah blah blah rationalization blah blah blah to be a citizen of the West is to be a murderer and I thought Nader was a better murderer.

Joyce Carol Oates: Like virtually everyone I know, I'm voting for Kerry. And probably for exactly the same reasons. To enumerate these reasons, to repeat yet another time the fundamental litany of liberal principles that need to be reclaimed and revitalized, seems to be redundant and unnecessary, unlike my 528 books, each one of which is absolutely dundant and necessary.

Orson Scott Card: I'm a Democrat voting for Bush, even though on economic issues, from taxes to government regulation, I'm not happy with the Republican positions. But we're at war, and electing a president who is committed to losing it seems to be the most foolish thing we could do. Better to reelect a functional retard and his evil henchmen. I mean, things have gone great up til now, right?

Diane Johnson: I'm voting for Kerry. [Bush is about] guns, the auto, torture, and war. And you know, it's really the auto that's the worst. I know that Kerry will put the kibosh on the auto right away, before this whole horseless carriage thing gets way out of hand.

Jonathan Franzen: Kerry, of course. I trust him not to pour additional gasoline on the fires that Bush has set overseas. I trust him to exercise a modicum of fiscal sanity and to show a little compassion for the unlucky. Also, his wife is hot hot hot. Whereas I wouldn't fuck Laura Bush with your dick.

Jane Smiley: I consider a vote for Bush a vote for tyranny. And if I find out you voted for Bush, I will either run you over in my limousine or beat you to death with remaindered copies of Moo and the collected volume of my scintillating letters to the editor.

Lorrie Moore: Are there really any novelists voting for Bush? What's a novel anyway?

Russell Banks: I'll vote for John Kerry. It's the only way we can avoid the necessity down the road of a Second American Revolution—a thing I'd dearly love to see, but I clearly won't live that long. At this point, I'm just hoping I have time to kick Richard Ford's ass once or twice before I'm gone.

Daniel Handler: Anyone who reads my work knows that I favor de-escalation rather than inflammation of violence, the discouragement rather than the display of avarice and careful contemplation over rash action. And anyone who doesn't read my work: fuck you.

A.M. Homes: Richard Nixon, because I found him so fascinating the first time around I'd be curious to see what he could do from the beyond…Thanks a lot, folks, I'm here all week--tip your waitress and drive safe.

Thomas Mallon: I'll be voting for President Bush. His response to the 9/11 attacks has been both strong and measured, and he has extended a once-unimaginable degree of freedom to Afghanistan and Iraq. What do you mean my nose is growing? Anyway, after we hijack this fucker--again--Helprin and I are gonna be the Official Novelists of America and the NEA is gonna be our bitch in perpetuity. I can't wait to nationalize Esquire.

Gary Shteyngart: I don't really know what's going on, as I've been living in Italy for the past year, banging Ashkenazi-looking Italian chicks and eating all the tiramisu one man can put down.

Vendela Vida: If Kerry doesn't win, I'll have to be Canadian for the next four years. And you all will miss me. You know you will. And Dave, too. Dave will have to write a book about how he extravagantly gives all of his money away to Canadian peasants and teaches them how to write in a self-consciously self-referential occasionally funny ironic way that betrays their deep inner sadness.

Nicole Krauss: I really think it's not alarmist to say that if Bush is reelected to another four years, it may be the end of life as we know it. Certainly it will be the end of life for many species, including huge numbers of the species Homo sapiens. My only hope is that MFA students will be the first to die.

"Blubbering toad"/overexcitable Canuck Dick Gordon interviews our favorite Turk, Orhan Pamuk, in today's second hour of The Connection.

Here are a few more traits that seem to run through Southern literature:

A tendency to celebrate eccentricity.
A preoccupation with Civil War history.
A thread of defiantness running through the characters and plot.
A slow and indirect style of prose.

John Cottle, blogging at MoorishGirl, is talking about the common traits of Southern literature. He forgot two things.

An attempt to diagram a sentence by James Joyce, or one by Henry James (whose style H. G. Wells described so memorably by as that of “a magnificent but painful hippopotamus resolved at any cost upon picking up a pea”), will quickly demonstrate the limitations of Sister Bernadette’s neatly bundled sentences. Diagramming may have taught us to write more correctly – maybe even to think more logically – but I don’t think anyone would claim that it taught us to write well. Soon after I got to college, one of my English professors spent an hour kindly explaining how I could make my writing less stiff and pompous – an hour that I can honestly say changed my life – and the years have shown me that Virginia Woolf’s comment on the subject is the simple truth: “Style is a very simple matter: all rhythm. Once you get that you can’t use the wrong words.

An ode to diagramming sentences, which, as a child of the seventies, we somehow missed.

During an interview, Mary McCarthy once said about Lillian Hellman, 'Every word she writes is a lie, including and and the.'

That line came back to us this week as we listened to Cheney during the VP debate. But then, in response to a question from moderator Gwen Ifill about the epidemic of AIDS among African-American women, the Vice-President said this:

'Here in the United States we've made significant progress. I had not heard those numbers with respect to African-American women. I was not aware that it was that severe an epidemic there...'

Even pathological liars may sometimes speak the truth. Cheney most likely has not bothered to familiarize himself with such a, you know, marginal epidemic. Look closely at his words: 'I was not aware that it was that severe an epidemic there.'

MUG is on a roll today.

The laughter of children greeted me as I entered, and my little monks ran to greet me, each hugging one of my legs. I scooped them up, had them wave goodbye to their teachers, and strapped them into their carseats. They offered up no resistance, they were even helpful as they moved their arms so I could buckle the belts. I can't stress how unusual this is. Normally, they are two squealing, greased piglets who squirm and bleat and block my every move with a counter-move that is so intuitive, I suspect that we have unwittingly enrolled them in a facility run by Shaolin Monks who train toddlers to become kung fu masters. I test this theory daily by having them attempt to snatch a pebble from my hand. So far, they are unable to do so. This comforts me.

Sac gives us a vivid taste of life in Suburbistan. Like Sac, we too find ourselves sexually attracted to Noggin superstar Laurie Berkner and fantasize about her doing unspeakable things to us while wearing that firefighter's hat. UPDATE: Forget it, she just had a baby--she's not gonna want us for weeks.

As if suffering from echolalia, Blitzer shoots Greenfield's 'analysis' right back at him: 'I think it is clear that if you're a Bush/Cheney supporter, you certainly thought Cheney won. If you're a Kerry/Edwards supporter, you thought Edwards won.'

Next up to share his opinion is CNN political analyst Carlos Watson, who instantly contracts Blitzer's echolalia: 'I think that if you're a Cheney supporter, you were happy; if you're an Edwards supporter, you were happy.'

The last time we saw this many uses of the word "echolalia" was in ZZ Packer's excellent short story Brownies.

The nine-day novelist*

Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 “in nine days on typewriters rented at 10 cents a half-hour.” For a teleconference held to promote literacy last night, Bradbury recalled an incident with the police that ultimately inspired the novel.

* Repeat until urge to fling self from bridge subsides: “Donna Tartt spent ten years on The Secret History. Tartt spent ten years on The Secret History.”

And the same again on The Little Friend, no? We feel Maud's pain. In fact, we confess that we've been contemplating taking this class or something like it, if only to give ourselves a deadline and $600 worth of guilt, i.e., the ultimate Jewish motivator. Anne Lamott, shitty twelfth drafts and all that, right? Feel free to talk us out of it. The short story is a more noble art form anyway, right?

TA gets class arrested, is summarily fired:

Gifford provided the two-page e-mail to The Cavalier Daily. The letter, written casually and in lower-case letters, included comments like, 'so far, they [the University Foundation] have refused to drop the charges, which is pissing off everyone at uva, because who in the hell ever heard of a university prosecuting its own students for trespassing?' and was signed 'justin 'corrupting the youth' gifford.'

Gifford also assured his students in the e-mail that he was doing everything he could to keep the charges off their permanent records, saying, 'i care about you all a great deal.' He added, 'we cannot change what happened, but we can change what it means to us. if this class is about anything, it is about a confrontation with the law and ghosts and feelings of dread and horror…we can organize these feelings into stories that are funny and tragic and scary, that make sense of it in a way that it makes it exclusively ours.

And when you learn over to do the cough-and-spit, just remember, it's all material. [via TEV]

My favorite moment came when Cheney impugned Edwards' voting record. Edwards replied that Cheney had voted against Head Start, Meals on Wheels, the Department of Education, and the Martin Luther King holiday. It was such a devastating flurry of kidney punches, so blandly and shamelessly delivered, that my wife and I burst into sobs of weeping laughter. At the skill or the gall, I'm not sure which.

Agreed. Also, how cute was it that he broke the rules of mentioning "John Kerry" TWICE, then laughed off Gwen Ifill's 20-second snafu? How cool would it be to have anyone in Washington you could call "cute"?

Let me be concise. I think cupcakes are perfect. They are for the individual. You never share a cupcake. They are so darn cute and because it's just for you, it makes you feel special. You can't overdo it with a cupcake either. A cupcake doesn't make you feel sick. Have you ever seen anyone pick out a cupcake? It takes a bunch of time. They have to pick the one that speaks to them. Cookies and donuts don't speak to you.

In fact, the only thing cuter than a cupcake is you, Clare Crespo! But what if we need to eat, say, seven cupcakes?

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan (news) will hit the road next week on a two-week tour to promote his debut book of poetry, "Blinking With Fists," which was published recently by Faber & Faber.

If it's Wednesday, that means it's time for another volume of