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Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004): "Any movie involving Jim Carrey, even if he's holding a boom mike, is in some way a movie about Jim Carrey."
Find A Grave.com is an online directory of millions of famous burial sites, of what famous people were laid to rest where. If you're into that sort of thing.
Hurry! You still have a few days to enter the Author Enablers Writing Contest where you submit the first paragraph of a story titled When the Sparrow Cries Wolf. All you have is the title. The rest is up to you.
My buddy Dave is doing a Top 50 Character Actors thing on his blog. Check it out. I asked a similar question last year which I phrased as "Who makes a movie better simply by being in it?"
On that note, Regina King (who could make a tax audit interesting simply by her presence) gets an audit on Fametracker. Justice is served!
Salon is reporting that Al Franken is thinking about running for Senator in his home state of Minnesota. He's bought an apartment in Minneapolis and is moving his Air America show staff back to the midwest.
Now I know nothing about freshman Republican Senator Norm Coleman, whom Franken would be attempting to unseat, but doesn't this sound like a giant stinkin' load of ammunition for the GOP? Will the cries of "celeb worship" and "out of touch with Joe Six-Pack" be leveled at the Dems starting, oh, now, even though Franken won't be gunning for election until 2008?
Doesn't mean he shouldn't do it. Or that it couldn't happen. Hell this is the state that elected Jesse Ventura as Governor seven short years ago. I'm just saying I can hear the scoffing already.
This is what I love about San Francisco: It regards everything with a perfect blend of playful zeal and deadly seriousness. Like if you find yourself in the libido arts and need some professional brushing up, you can now attend Whore College on May 4 as part of the San Francisco Sex Worker Festival. For 20$ each or an all day pass of $40, you can learn necessary skills like the legal and health issues of your trade as well as giving excellent oral sex and how to set up a "DIY Webcam."
I hope you get a diploma. What does it look like? (via SFist).
My old friend Judy B has got a neat writing project going on. She's set up a blog where she takes images, words, ideas from the ether and works it into a short story several times a week. It's a remarkable feat of a kind of literary endurance I don't have.
So my Del.icio.us file is stuffed to the point of bursting. If you are lacking in reading material, please take what you like. I'll be cleaning it out this weekend.
Wherein we discuss my book, a marathon Passover seder and the ultimate cup of frozen yogurt.
MP3 File
Title: Josie And Jack
Author:Kelly Braffet
Relationship:Sent by the author's publicist.
Synopsis: Hansel and Gretel set in industrial Pennsylvania. Oh and Hansel is a sociopath.
Acquired: See above
Excitement: Kelly and I chatted on the phone about web stuff and the Virtual Book Tour at the behest of her publicist. I liked her a lot. Blurbs from my friend Amanda Ward, whose taste I trust implicitly sealed the deal.
Early Verdict: Perhaps it will be my next bedside book. Although Bel Canto is in the queue now and that's a tough pass-up.
On the 20th of April...
*1775: The British Army begins their seige of the colony city of Boston after the historic "Shot heard round the world" the morning before at the intersections of Lexington and Concord. The American Revolution had begun.
*1832: Congress establishes Hot Springs Arkansas as the nation's first National Park.
*1841: Edgar Allen Poe publishes The Murders in the Rue Morgue, now considered the first detective story.
*1912 and 1916: Fenway Park opens in Boston. 4 years later, Wrigley Field follows in Chicago. Along with Yankee Stadium in New York, the two comprise the last of the old time baseball stadiums still in operation.
*1943: In honor of Hitler's birthday, Nazi SS soilders begin a campaign of total destruction against the ZOB, a Jewish defense organization that has rebelled within the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto. They hold off the Nazis for 28 days but in the end, all are either killed or sent to the death camps at Treblinka.
*1999: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold enter their high school in Littleton, Colorado and begin shooting. By afternoon, 13 people will be dead, 23 injured and Harris and Dylan will have killed themselves (archive). They supposedly chose April 20th because it was Hitler's birthday.
*2002: In an event of only personal historical significance, Midwestern transplant Kevin Smokler purchases a home in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. Each year, on April 20th, he takes a moment to reflect on how much has happened since that day. He then listens to the song "20th of April" by Oysterband, because he feels this day is a little haunted.
So there's a new pope in town. His name is Joseph Ratzinger, he's German, 78, former Dean of the College of Cardinals and has chosen the name Pope Benedict XVI. Far as I can tell, his favorite color is white.
Some hoped that whomever they elected as the 256th pope would be a more progressive pontiff as now most of the world's Catholics are poor, of color and living in developing countries. Elsewhere in the world, interest in Catholicism is declining. So what to do about this 21st century thing, ya know?
Elect a pope that CNN calls a "Guardian of Orthodoxy"? Another white-European guy? Eh wouldn't be my first choice but A) I'm not Catholic (or even Christian) and B) This new pope is 78 years old. Unless he is in superb health, he's not going to be reigning for 26 years as his predeccesor did. I have a feeling we'll be right back here in 5 years or so waiting for the revealing of Mr. 257.
A bunch of bloggers recently convened in NYC to bat this question around. My friend George Kelly was on hand and recorded the conversation.
On my mind and in the reading queue this week. The "crusty" edition.
*I'm intrigued by The One Campaign which I heard about at a U2 concert last week but it's mission seems curiously broad. I've signed but I'm adopting a wait-and-see attitude beyond that.
*Coverage of the The Lit Blog Co-op continues. Stories are now posted at the Associated Press and Inside Higher Ed.com.
*New version of All Consuming has been released which I'm eager to use to update my book lists, if I could only find the time.
*Sepulculture is a new blog from an employee at a major publishing house whose sole job is to discover and deploy new technologies for the promotion of books. More than overdue (via Buzz, Balls & Hype).
*When I was in Toronto, My buddy Rannie was kind enough to show me the famed Secret Swing.
*Several of the Toronto Bloggers (including my friends James, Brent and Neil) indicated they might be willing to come down to Ann Arbor to see me at the Ann Arbor Book Festival. That would rock way hard.
*Ten Mistakes Apple has made since the return of Steve Jobs (via Matt Haughey).
*Book is T-minus six weeks and counting.
I'm off to Toronto to give two speeches at the New Face of Publishing Workshop. Going to be hanging out with the GTA Bloggers too. I'm excited and plenty scared.
Audio reports from the road. Be home Friday.
All Consuming, the web's bestest book cataloging application is back and better than ever. Its creator, Erik Benson, explains the changes.
When I was growing up, my friends and I used to argue for hours about meaningless trivia like what was the biggest selling album of all time and whether it sucked or not. We didn't have the internet back then which would have ended the discussion in a flash. But we probably would have some equally stupid to fuss about.
Well now that we do have the internet I'm a little surprised I never bothered looking for the answer to that question. But I checked in on the Long Tail blog this morning and there it was: The 100 Best Selling Albums of All Time.
I feel better now.
Neat profile of Ruth Reichel, former food critic of the New York Times, whose name I've seen around but never knew much about.
On my mind and in the reading queue this week: The "Post-U2" Edition:
*Had by first official conversation (with my friend Amy) about my second book which will be about the marketing of the arts.
*The Bodeans are a fantastic live band. Catch them in Seattle, Aspen or Boulder over the next two weeks.
*Jason Kottke updates his readers on his fundraising attempt to do his blog full time.
*Dailysonic is a simply awesome podcast. Picture Morning Edition for our generation (via Large Hearted Boy).
*Still trying out Audio Hijack Pro. Results are spotty thus far.
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*Can hip-hop be feminist? (via blackfeminism.org).
*Prepping like mad for my speech this week in Toronto. Still feeling insecure.
Please download and listen to this interview KRCW's "The Treatment" did with Eric Idle, an original member of Monty Python. It's a mesmorizing discussion of British v. American humor and the history of 20th century comedy. Idle's genius comes across as effortless.
This American Life this week features a New York City-based group called Improv Everywhere which creates scenes of ranndomness in public places. Its not Flash Mobbing per se because everyone knows each other and the events last longer than a few minutes.
Some of these "missions" are genius. Creating a luxurious restroom in a McDonalds. Positioning dancers in the windows of a skyscraper.
What great ideas. I might have to do something like this for my book. Although listen to the story on TAL. Some of the ideas go terribly wrong.
Ah PubSub, where have you been my whole life? I think I found out you through Micropersuasion and now belong to a scret club of my own sinister and pathetic question.
Question to the gallery: Are you the kind of person who gets angry when you discover your favorite had an Op-Ed in the paper two weeks ago and you missed? Of course you aren't. You have a life to lead.
PubSub lets you create a "Subscription list" of phrases (in my case, names like Susan Orlean, Nelson George and Sarah Vowell) then sends you, via RSS, whenever their names are mentioned in a blogosphere. It's a fabulous tool for writers who leave very few trace elements online or who don't have their own websites. Which is most of them.
I'm going to be using it for my name when my book comes out.
Continuing living. Nothing but Info-Geekery here.
In case you hadn't heard, Saul Bellow, one of the giants of American literature, has died. He was 89. He leaves behind more than a dozen novels, a Nobel Prize, three National Book Awards and several generations of students.
I read Bellow's novella Seize the Day in high school and found it thick and dull. But as I spent time as a journalist in publishing, as I interviewed other Jewish writers like Michael Chabon, Ethan Canin and others, again and again they pointed to Bellow as their inspiration. They claimed Bellow and novels like Henderson the Rain King and The Adventures of Augie March gave Jewish authors the permission to be more than chroniclers of the shtetl and the Lower East Side. Augie March's first line "I am an American, Chicago born" gave two generations of Jewish authors the right to identify themselves as Americans as well as Jews. And while that assimilationist tendancy has fallen out of fashion (now, thankfully, it's hip to be Jewish and proud of it), Jewish-American authors and American Jews at large first had to feel as though they too belonged in their adopted homeland, not as guests or interlopers, but as participating artists, workers, voters and citizens. Saul Bellow and his immense literary output stood at the head of this change and pushed forward hard.
My friend Mark Sarvas, proprietor of the excellent book blog The Elegant Variation has launched (with 19 friends) a super-cool idea:. What if 20 literary bloggers picked 4 books each year that have been overlooked by the mainstream press? Behold the Lit Blog Co-op. On May 15th, they make their first Read This! selection.
Congratulations Mark and everyone. How cool is this?
Title: Assassination Vacation
Author: Sarah Vowell
Relationship: Saw it at my neighborhood bookstore and bought it immediately, as I have done with each of Sarah Vowell's books.
Synopsis: Sarah Vowell takes a cross country roadtrip visiting sites of America's most infamous political murders.
Acquired: See above.
Excitement: I've been a Vowell since 1997 when I first heard her pieces on "This American Life". I've since read all of her books as soon as I could get my hands on them. And since now she's voiced a character in The Incredibles, is repped by the Steven Barclary Agency and thanks just about every young media demnigod you can think of in her acknowledgements (Eggers, Hornby and Ira Glass to name but three), I declare her to be officially leading the world's greatest life. I sit somewhere between quiet awe, smoldering jealousy and the lingering hope that we'll be friends someday.
Early Verdict: Next to the toilet. 10 pages in already.
I've updated the Bookmark Now Tour Schedule to reflect newly confirmed stops in Los Angeles and Seattle. If you live in a city I'm coming to, please let me know if you'd be willing to ride along and help out with a little-book related summer madness. If you don't live near a city on this list, and are associated with a library, bookstore, university or community organizatio that would benefit from the wisdom of Bookmark Now (namely that literature is alive and well), please let me know.
I don't do it a whole lot but my latest book review for the San Francisco Chronicle was published last Sunday. You can find it here.
JPG Magazine, the all-photo, all-visual-goodness magazine published right here in my neighborhood is
So it appears as though the Yahoo-buys-Metroblogging-buys-SFist was an April Fools hoax. And I fell for it.
One born every minute and all that.
I haven't done a SOTW in a while but last week, Suzan and I rented 1984's The Neverending Story which I highly recommend. I'm past the age when I scoff at "family films" as sanitized treacle for the little ones. At their best, they stir our childlike desires and melt away our adult inhibitions. They give us permission to wonder, to dream and fear irresponsible for doing so.
The Neverending Story does all of that. It begins and ends with a lovely whisp of an 80s pop tunes named simply "The Neverending Story." The singer calls himself Limahl (aka Chris Hamill, former lead singer of Kajagoogoo) but that hardly matters. Focus on how the vocals match the hypnotic mist that opens the film and how the keyboard lines roll on just ahead of the beat. They ask you to look ahead, past the song, to stories that haven't been told but can be imagined. And since it ends all too soon, it asks you to imagine afterward.
And try to listen without going "ahhh-ahhh-ahhh-ahh-ahhhh-ahhhh-ahhh-ahhhh-ahhh." I dare you.
I've certainly had more dignified moments than this. But they weren't nearly as much fun.
Side notes: This picture was taken at around 5:30 AM after a long last night of partying. James McNally, on the far left, accepted my invitation for a ride back to his hotel. He informed us that he was heading up to his room to shower, grab his bags and hop on a plane back to Toronto. Sleep was not an option. There wasn't any time.
That was the kind of time we had.
On my mind and in the reading queue this week. The "headache" edition.
*The New York Times has devoted special coverage to the death of Pope John Paul II.
*Dot Com 2.0? The money continues to flow. Del.icio.us has taken an investment. Local city blog SFist has been bought by Metroblogging which has been purchased by Yahoo.
*Posterwire is a neat idea for a weblog on the art and effectiveness of movie posters (via Torrez).
*Radio Time has released an updated Mac client. It still sucks. I'm going to try Audio Hijack.
*Are colleges an endangered species?
*Determine your ecological footprint.
*I really like this trailer. And have surrendered my masculinity entirely.
*I'm speaking next week at The New Face of Publishing Workshop at Humber College in Toronto. While I'm super-excited about the gig, I'm equally juiced about seeing my friends James, Bret and Neil so soon after our time together in Austin.
Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times edited by Kevin Smokler
