cleveland rocks
A wonderful review of Requiem, Mass., the paperback, in today's Cleveland's The Plain Dealer
white birch
From the Freezer Jesus Files: The King of Pop in a tree stump in Stockton, California. (thanks to Richard in Coral Springs)
goin' fishin'
Actually, going to the Taos Writers' Conference. A couple of days in Santa Fe with Pete and Cynthia and then the high road to Taos.
anniversary cards
New flash fiction from Merle Drown in the Kenyon Review.
la parkita y el espectritio jr.
Today's short story waiting to be written. A pair of midget Mexican wrestlers have been drugged to death in a cheap motel. The men were twin bothers and are being mourned in Mexico where midget wrestling is still popular. Murder weapon: eye drops and alcohol!
time to leave los angeles 2
You were warned. Today, it's Harve Presnell who's been taken from us.
time to leave los angeles
Death continues to make his rounds in Hollywood. Academy Award winner Karl Malden has died. From A Streetcar Named Desire: "Poker should not be played in a house with women."
de botton's hoffman moment
Alain de Botton, whose work I enjoy and whose new book I've just bought, lashes out at a critic. Maybe some writers should not be allowed to Twitter.
senator al franken
The Minnesota Supreme Court has declared Al Franken the winner in the state's disputed Senatorial election.
author behaving badly
Roberta Silman wrote a so-so review of Alice Hoffman's new novel for the Boston Globe, which included the following: "But this new novel lacks the spark of the earlier work. Its vision, characters, and even the prose seem tired. Too much of it is told rather than shown . . ." Twitter critter Hoffman, who has, we might guess, a laughably inflated sense of her literary worth, then went ballistic with her infantile tweets. She called Silman a "moron" and published the reviewer's phone numer, so irate fans could express their hostility in person. You can read some of the insane tweets here at Gawker. Her Twitter page has since been erased. In her "apology," which you can read here at MobyLives, she says she didn't want to hurt anyone, but she also did not apologize to Ms Silman.
2009 bulwer-lytton prize
"Medusa stared at the two creatures approaching her from across the Piazza and, instantly recognizing them as Spanish Gorgons, attempted to stall them by greeting them in their native tongue, "Gorgons, Hola!" All the winners here!
origins of the moonwalk
(via BoingBoing)
tyromancy
"Divination by means of cheese." That's the OED's succinct definition. And it quotes Rabelais: "To have the truth . . . more fully . . .disclosed . . . by Tyromancy, whereof we make some Proof in a great Brehemont Cheese." From the Greek turos, cheese, and manteia, meaning divination. (No relation to tyro, meaning beginner, which has a Latin root, tyro, meaning squire.) I guess we're talking curd, mold, holes here. Better tasting than tea leaves. "Cheese is the biscuit of drunkards," wrote John Keats.
kitkat loves jimmy to death
Today's short story waiting to be written comes via Craigslist: Does anyone know Jimmy he drives piggybacks "Jimmy this is KitKat! I hope I find you, I need you in my life again. My phone broke 2 days after we talked and I know longer have your number. If anyone knows Jimmy he drives for either Auto or Otto Trucking. I need to find him he was my best friend. KitKat" (thanks to Joe in Cheese)
happy birthday, frank o'hara
O'Hara, who grew up in Grafton, Mass., outside Worcester, and who went to my high school, when it was still at the bottom of Grafton Hill, would have been eighty-three.
(bathtub/laptop)
Maria Barbu (or Flavia Boricea) dies Twittering at seventeen. Here's a memorial blog in her memory. Not to be disrespectful, but I think we'll see her again come Darwin Awards time.
iguana
In the mangroves out back. Watched him or her while I wrote.
all that poetry
Laura Valeri writes about fiction and poetry and where the twain shall meet.