Hall of heroes personified

As we all know, American culture is built on a millenial world view, which sees the end of days coming at any time. And I'm not saying the zombie apocalypse is nigh, but I am saying: what could be more American than a good apocalypse?

Max Brooks, chronicler of the apocalypse, did an interview with Shelf Life. He says:

I knew I had turned a corner when I did my first zombie-protection lecture, which was at Colorado College, I believe. Two hundred people showed up and I was so panicked, flop-sweating like Albert Brooks in Broadcast News. I did my lecture for 45 sweaty minutes and I opened the floor up to questions, thinking, okay, they’ve suffered through my lecture. I thought they’d ask me questions like, “Is Will Ferrell really that funny?” or “Is Tina Fey nice?” but the questions were all, “If I cut off my arm, can I stop an infection?” “What rifle do you recommend at what range?” “Should I wear body armor?” They were all actual zombie questions, and I thought maybe I was on to something.

Oh man, be my friend, Max Brooks.

The truth speaks to me through comics

If only there was some justification for constant blog reading...except replace "novel" with "procrastination" in my case.

Thanks to Michael for sending the link along (and for being nice about my blog-slacking!).

Holy crap Herman Melville

You just got a giant carnivorous prehistoric whale named after you. Click through for the awesome artist rendering.

Living in the past, sure, I do that

Because I have the essential Lost reading list. This show will never die! I'm up to four of these...

If we just cover this one word here...

We get these great moments in price tag placement, book edition. Hurray!

This dead air is brought to you by...

Work being out of control! Will post intermittently as things are hilarious.

Besos to you all.

Oh magical publishing eight-ball, show me your ways

Susan Orlean's story of bouncing from editor to editor and house to house is disheartening, yes, but is pretty normal. Hurray for an industry that pays little enough that the slight pay bumps you get from constantly moving are enough to make you repeatedly scuttle your entire life at a single place!

What do you mean, "a plot"?

I know we've all been there, seen that, but this article on the lack-of-plot associated with "good writing" hits the nail right on the head:

What Gaiman alludes to and Chabon tackles directly is the genre which we now know as "literary": the fictional worlds inhabited by people who think a lot and say a lot and feel a lot, but don't actually do very much over the course of the narrative - they might be caught up in the swell of an emotional riptide, perhaps, until Chabon's "moment-of-truth" revelation brings the story, such as it is, to a close.

The ongoing, endless war between "literary" fiction and "genre" fiction has well-defined lines in the sand. Genre's foot soldiers think that literary fiction is a collection of meaningless but prettily drawn pictures of the human condition. The literary guard consider genre fiction to be crass, commercial, whizz-bang potboilers. Or so it goes.

Call me a troglodyte, but I do enjoy when things actually, you know, happen...

Secret love lives that kind of ick me out

Today was apparently the day of love stories that make me go, "...oh..."

First, we've got the Anne Frank novelization, plus boning. That's just awkward. I understand that she was a teenager, but, I don't know. It's just weird.

Also weird is the Emily Dickinson potential love story. And, hey, I'm not saying she shouldn't have had a man-friend of some sort. I'm saying that the way they describe it is creepers:

Over the next few months, Emily turned to [Otis Phillips Lord, her father's friend] the handsome widower – not as a father but as a suitor of sorts. Later, a granddaughter of Dickinson’s confidante Elizabeth Holland suggested that Lord’s tenderness had “long been latent in his feeling for her.”

I'm sorry, the words "father figure" and "lover" should really not go in the same sentence. That is creepos.

Best food books

Everyone in the world should love the following things: napping and eating. And, to further love of the latter, the Chicago Tribune asked chefs to list their favorite non-cookbook food books. Hello, added to my reading list.

Where does Stieg Larsson stand on the ladies?

I haven't read any of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, but I'm a bit confused on his feminist message. And it turns out, I'm not alone (warning, hey, there are spoilers at the link and heading forward, which are now spoiled for me, I need to stop reading so damn much):

This macho make-believe doesn’t negate Larsson’s professed feminism. But it does cast a shadow over how I read the many, many scenes of horrific violence inflicted upon female characters. One victim is choked to death with a sanitary napkin down her throat. Another is tortured, then decapitated with a saw. Lisbeth is raped. The crimes are unspeakable — which you could argue is the point for an activist like Larsson: Bring it into the open, try to prevent it from happening again. Still, Larsson seems to want it both ways: to condemn such savagery while simultaneously exploiting it in graphic detail for titillating storytelling purposes. And that makes me uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, as Missy Schwartz says at the link, Larsson is a little too dead to help untangle the tangles...

I now live at Hogwarts

Because Harry Potter land is open!

Hundreds queued up for butterbeer, while others crowded into the Owl Post. By mid-afternoon, a line of 200 hopefuls stood outside Ollivanders wand shop. And another location to buy souvenir wands was added outside the Owl Post, which has been a bottleneck for shoppers.

At lunchtime, the line for Three Broomsticks restaurant extended out to the entrance of the Wizarding World, and more than 150 customers stood in the heat to buy butterbeer.

The lines are the real attraction, it seems.

Time for a Rolling Rock and a round up

Too early for the Rolling Rock? I guess you can just take the roundup, then...

Fast Food Nation, why do you get so much press?

Confession: I never much cared for the book Fast Food Nation. It framed everything as such a shock, and I wasn't that shocked. The Jungle it wasn't. Hell, it wasn't even The Omnivore's Dilemma, which I thought was more insightful.

Anyway. Apparently we're revisiting in. Boo, just lay down and die already, FFN.

Cops bust woman, 74, for pouring mayo in book drop

You heard me. Oh, you want more?

BOISE, Idaho -- Police in Idaho think they might have solved a yearlong condiment crime spree. Authorities said a 74-year-old Boise woman arrested after pouring mayonnaise in the Ada County library's book drop box is a person of interest in at least 10 other condiment-related crimes.

Check it out!