Nonfiction, now it can be told

Hey, so I went to the first Nonfiction event last week. Although we were told that that everything said at the event was to considered off the record, there are some things that I learned that night that I feel that I, as a responsible inter-blag journalist, must share with my readership.

• Saturday Night magazine is dead! Who knew?!
• Apparently Conrad Black may be in some kind of legal trouble?
• There are woman reporters now. I guess this is what they mean by 'progress'
• Jesse Brown: tall, looks good in a suit
• Some publishers, and I'm not naming names here, will sometimes choose readership numbers and cost cutting over journalism.
  

The Surly Bookseller's gonna be pissed

(assuming she entered all her books by hand)

So I got me a CueCat off the eBays, and I've been slowly scanning by books in to Librarything. The collection's skewed towards comics because that's the shelf I started on. I figure if I die, and technology has sufficiently advanced, then scientists will be able to reconstruct my psyche by analyzing the books I own, and thus I SHALL LIVE FOREVER, IN ROBOT FORM!

No You!

YOU!

The List That Was TOO HOT for McSweeney's

It Is In The Nature Of Heroes To Grow Old And Disappoint

Frank Zappa - Professional record industry lobbyist, most recently argued before congress to change the "explicit lyrics" designation to "x-treme lyrics", successfully.

Hunter S. Thompson - Has a late night talk show on ET-TV! The Entertainment Tonight branded cable channel.

John Lennon - After a bitter and rancorous public divorce, now lives in relative obscurity with son Sean.

Kurt Cobain - Breeding pedigree huskies in Seattle, selling a wide variety of certified organic products over the Internet.

John Belushi - Working at a Los Angeles area t-shirt shop, reportedly still shopping unsuccessful sit-com pilot: "John's World".

Abbie Hoffman - Founder of and now senior advisor to Elephant Dreams, a viral marketing firm that recently created successful campaigns for Halo 3 and Mountain Dew Splash.

Miles Davis - Parlayed an guest appearance as Lisa Bonet's grandfather on A Different World in to a minor acting career. Most recently appeared as "Caprican Priest" in the season finale of Battlestar Galactica.

Andy Kaufman - Is an attraction on certain Carnival Cruise Lines cruises, often dressing in the uniform of and taking on the persona of the ship's captain, to the delight of passengers and crew alike.

Freddie Mercury - Running a camp in rural Wyoming to "cure" homosexuality in dogs.

Elvis Costello - Married a Canadian light jazz musician, still occasionally performing, recently chose tracks for a Starbucks' Artist's Choice album.

Me at work

Compare and contrast.

The Host: America Is The New Red Mennace

Finally saw The Host last night, holy moley, that's a good movie, and man, that's an AMAZING monster, but that's not what we're here to talk about. Maybe everyone else already knows this, but I just realized. America is the new Red Menace.

You remember who Rambo fought? Russians. Rocky IV? Russians. Top Gun? Russians. Red Heat? Russians. Why? Powerful, scary, unpredictable, unloved enemy.

Now, I think that specter is the US of A. I'm not talking about the case where a director says "I am going to make a nuanced political statement about the international policies of America". I'm talking about the case where a director says "I need the shorthand for a big scary menacing force" It seems to me that it's now the case that America is the default bad guy, it's not a discourse, or commentary, it's just taken as read, it's cliche, it's background, zietgiest.

That's a bit of a problem for the US.

o-pine

I'm talking about design in software development on blog for Explore Design, The Design Education Fair.

10 Books, the great work continues

Current Book: The Yiddish Policeman's Union
Pages to go: 3574
Percent done: 20.8

The project continues, albeit at a slower pace. Life intrudes.

Finished the Yiddish Policeman's Union today. Will perhaps write an opinion of it soon.