One more note on the looting

Badger, one of the smartest people I know, has this to add about the looting going on in NoLA:

The real looters and property criminals are going to be the banks who end up owning all the people's houses as they can't pay their mortgages. FEMA is not going to save people's middle class, property-owning status. Most of the national money to rebuild will go to an insane plan to restore the low-lying areas which have only been there since the 1910 levee plan... So the tax money will go to make things nice for the banks and very-wealthy developers who have the capital to ride it out, and who will end up owning everything. Now THAT's looting.

You go! Shades of the Dust Bowl.

Lots of events

Christine alerts readers to an art opening in LA featuring Mary Woronov, one of her heroes.

At the San Francisco Public Library Latino Room on Tuesday, Sep. 6, the monthly RADAR reading series, this month featuring Jess Arndt, Harriet Dodge, writer and erstwhile FTH cover model Stanya Kahn, and writer-performer Beth Lisick.

Singer-performer Pamela Z appears at The Lab in SF in Wunderkabinet on Sep. 8-10 and 15-17.

Hey, I'd buy that

Analyst says Apple's mysterious new iPod product is a Motorola phone with iTunes.

Satellite photos of flooding

It took me a while, but I finally found satellite before-and-after photos of New Orleans flooding -- also here. They were on the NASA site.

Meanwhile, in the purgatorial Superdome:

The situation inside the dank and sweltering Superdome was becoming desperate: The water was rising, the air conditioning was out, toilets were broken, and tempers were rising.

The dome is still surrounded by flooded streets, and getting buses to the ramps will be difficult, if not impossible. The floodwaters are threatening the generators which are providing electricity for the remaining lighting.

Where the heck are they going to put those 25,000 (or 15K or 30K -- numbers vary) refugees? Why, in the disused Astrodome 353 miles west in Houston [ map it ]. 25,000 people 353 miles using 475 buses -- and much of the first 20 miles of the route is under water. Good luck with that!

The NoLa mayor seems to be on the verge of losing it, saying there might be "thousands dead" in the city's floods.

But the best post of all is Tony Pierce on how the media looks at "looting" -- according to press reports, white people "find food" while black people "loot." For example, see this SF Chronicle page showing white people "cleaning up a convenience store".

Meanwhile, in the part of the world not underwater

Badger liveblogs the last day of the Gwen Araujo murder retrial. See history, background on Wikipedia or AP story.

It seemed like a good idea at the time

Headline:

Rising water in New Orleans to force evacuation of Superdome

... New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said hundreds, if not thousands, of people may still be stuck on roofs roofs and in attics, and so rescue boats were bypassing the dead.

"We're not even dealing with dead bodies," Nagin said. "They're just pushing them on the side."

Boxed

Drawn to the mystique and creative environment of Burning Man but hate dealing with drug-addled, pink fluff-wearing hipsters? This man has one solution: attend the event but box yourself into a plexiglass cube. Just part of the Chronicle's intense Burning Man coverage this year.

Also: Tribe.net's People who've never been to Burning Man tribe.

Why I love the internet

Courtesy Metafilter, it's Cats in Sinks. Nothing more, nothing less, but you'll find "cats in sinks" says a lot.

Readings coming

As the new blurb above states, I'll be reading again in LitCrawl in mid-October.

And my friend Katia has many readings scheduled for her novel, Crashing America, which has just been released.

Focus on the fundies: Sharpton goes off

Visiting the Castro District of the religious right, Colorado Springs, rabble-rouser Al Sharpton lashed out at conservative Christian groups, including Springs-based Focus on the Family. In his inimitable style:

I think there is a big difference between the Christian right and the right Christians.

But most interesting were these political comments :

Sharpton was asked whether he thought his message would resonate with Colorado voters. It's a state where Democrats are truly divided between liberals and moderates, a state that leans Republican.

"We are not worried about a split," he said. "The split is in the Republican side. They will have to defend the economy. They will have to defend the war. The Republicans will certainly split, and their splits will lead to Democratic victories."

Earlier: Colorado Springs says it's not really dominated by the Christian right

fundamentalists, Al Sharpton, Focus on the Family, Colorado Springs

Why I'm glad I never became a comedian, reason 28

Because my home page would have to look something like this.

Pushing up customer service

Amy's Robot does me the favor of blogging all the different Weird Customer Service stories that have popped up over the last few weeks: some people receiving a bill at a restaurant with the identifying words "Jew couple" written on it; a man receiving a credit card solicitation addressed to "Mr. Palestinian Bomber" (It began "Dear Mr. Bomber...") and so on.

This is a deeply weird country.

Old-style environmental activism and old environmental activists

I love this untold tale of early environmental activism in the desert, courtesy my friend Christine.

Come on baby, lit my fire

Today's literary links:

Here's a review of Pat Walsh's 78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published, and 14 Reasons Why It Just Might. Slushpile has links to interviews with the author.

I'm really enjoying a book by Dashka Slater, who was in my workshop group at Squaw. Her novel The Wishing Box is set mainly in Oakland in 1989 (and you know what happened then) among three generations of women. Some very nice writing there.

When an Italian author whom nobody knows anyway uses a pseudonym for her novel, does anyone care? The review says it "adds to the mystery." The bigger mystery, for 95 percent of authors, is "who the heck are they anyway and what difference does it make?" Present company excepted, there are very few books I finish reading where my reaction is, "Man, better write that author's name down -- I want to see what else they wrote."

On the other hand, it's possible to get confused. The only other writers conference I went to before Squaw was the Napa Valley Writers Conference. One of the best-known writers there was Mary Gaitskill, who was and is known for her edgy, sometimes sexually-charged work. On the last day of the conference -- the last hour -- Gaitskill and others appeared on a panel, at the end of which there was a Q and A. We were reaching the end of the last hour of the conference and the moderator said, "Okay, last question," and pointed to a woman in the audience.

The woman stood up and began a long, rambling question with a false premise: that Gaitskill had written the edgy, sexually charged memoir The Kiss. While the woman's mistaken notion that Gaistkill was the book's author was almost immediately apparent to the audience, the questioner was on a roll and didn't let anyone get a word in edgewise, until finally, after more than a minute, her question finally reached its end.

There was a short, uncomfortable pause. Then Gaitskill said the only thing she could say: "I didn't write 'The Kiss.'"

Another short, uncomfortable pause, after which the moderator said, "Well. That's the end of our conference. Thank you all for being on our panel today..." and began the conference's closing comments. Deinfitely one of those "Want to get away?" moments for the hapless questioner.

Pat Walsh, Dashka Slater, Mary Gaitskill

Adventures with the First Amendment

Courtesy BoingBoing we bring you a blog posting from a photog who, for doing nothing more than taking pictures in an Oakaland warehouse district, was detained by police and told to stop taking pictures.

Should carrying a camera result in this kind of harrasment? Should the police be able to randomly stop you and run your ID for warrants or a background check merely for being in the wrong place with a camera? There is a chill in the air in this country right now but I'm not sure that taking it out on the rights of photographers is the correct answer.

On a more serious note, you remember how, during recent discussion of the renewing of the Patriot Act, much was made of the fact that the FBI had never exercised its power under the law to request library records? Well, they just have. (Link courtesy Return of the Reluctant.) The library in question is "in the Bridgeport, Conn. area" but, of course, the details are secret.

First Amendment, police, Oakland, harrassment, Patriot Act

Focus on the fundies: Tom DeLay mends fences

That's U.S. House leader Tom DeLay back home in Sugar Land, Texas, posing with what is supposed to be an Elvis impersonator. Why? The Houston Chronicle says:

His rock-solid majority has been diluted by the addition of Democratic-leaning areas in Galveston County to his district, his overseas travel may soon be the subject of a House Ethics Committee inquiry, and he faces opposition next year from a well-funded Democrat.

That's good news any way you look at it.

Tom DeLay, congressional races

Cops shut down naked musical

In Milwaukee, police shut a gay musical titled "Naked Boys Singing!" (must include exclamation point) because theater didn't have the proper permits. Local ACLU alleges discrimination based on content, saying venue had staged previous productions without any "permits."

Focus on the fundies: fatwa diplomacy

This gets stranger by the day. After publicly criticizing Pat Robertson for his nutty fatwa on the president of Venuzuela, an evangelical leader has said he will fly to Mexico to try to meet Hugo Chavez and apologize personally. Ted Haggard, senior pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs (and the subject of a feature in Harper's earlier this summer), is the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, a loose association of fundamentalist churches.

Interestingly, there's no love lost between Robertson and Haggard. In a discussion of environmentalists gaining ground among conservative Christians, the following discussion took place between Robertson and U.S. Sen. James Inhofe (R. - OK.):

Sen. James Inhofe: You know, I was so excited that we were winning all of these things, and now we have this far-Left group coming in trying to capture the evangelical Christians. We can't let it happen, Pat.

Pat Robertson: Do you think Ted Haggard is a little naïve? Do you think he understands what he is getting into?

Inhofe: Well, I called him up. In the first article I saw, they mentioned the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) and I called up Ted Haggard, and he said quite frankly, well, I don't want to be part of a group like that. They also mentioned Chuck Colson and Jim Dobson. I called both of them up and they said, no, they are lying. We are not a part of that -- we are not for the global warming agenda -- that's the poster child of the far Left -- in fact, we know better, we preach against it.

So what we have here is a mainstream conservative, Haggard, pulling a hotdog play by trying to seem like the rational, reasonable fundamentalist, while Robertson is allowed to be a loose cannon. But what accounts for a U.S. senator kissing Robertson's ass like this, I cannot begin to explain.

Oh all right -- it's easy to explain. If you're from Oklahoma, that's where the votes are. Gee, that wasn't so hard to explain after all.

Previously:
Getting it down Pat
Robertson issues fatwa

Keeping our ass-umptions to ourselves

On the other hand, only in August might you find thongage being discussed on national TV. And as StarryShine says, if burqas replace thongs, the terrorists win.

Dept of novel ideas

There is a growing epidemic of missing persons, according to Fox News announcer Greta Van Susteren.

This is an idea so preposterous, so utterly head-up-her-ass, and so utterly unsupported in her essay (linked to from that Mediabistro link) that it makes you want to go missing yourself.

Read that Greta essay, or column, or whatever it is. It has nothing to do with an "epidemic" of missing persons, and everything to do with the epidemic of missing persons news coverage. Every time she comes around to actually supporting the idea with facts, she gets distracted and starts railing against people that are criticizing her and other TV announcers for spending too much time hunting down pretty young white women. The longest section in her piece in which she actually talks about this so-called missing-persons epidemic is:

Here is the plain truth: We have a missing persons problem -- a giant one. The problem includes adults and children. It is here in the United States and overseas.

That's it. Then she goes back to defending her coverage of it. We just have to take her word for it: there's an epidemic, there's a giant problem. Don't support the assertion with facts, just repeat yourself over and over again, and attack your critics. That is exactly the M.O. of Fox News. Man, wouldn't you hate to work there, if you have a brain in your head? Wouldn't you be embarrassed?

Oh -- what I was going to say, before I got carried away, is: if there were such a thing as an epidemic of missing persons (can you even use the word "epidemic" in that way? I don't think so) it would make a good idea for a novel. And that led me to realize, hey, there already is a novel about that -- Left Behind. However, the notion that a Hollywood producer might be raptured is pretty hard to take.

Also: funny Daily Show segment on lite news.

Greta Van Susteren, Fox News, missing persons

The battle of all mothers

Frustrated with antiwar activists led by Cindy Sheehan, the White House yesterday trotted out a counter-measure: a pro-war mother with five sons and a husband in the military whose highest priority is not the safety of her family but that "we stand firm."

Setting aside the question of where that particular woman is coming from, I think it's just pathetic that Bush has to resort to fighting mother with mother. By this logic, the anti-war camp must now counter with a family that has lost at least three sons and fathers in Iraq, ideally in friendly-fire incidents. Is this really the level of national debate in our country? Wasn't it better back in the 60s when we were just holding massive protest marches?

Speaking of free speech

A judge overturned the expulsion from school of a 14-year-old Pennsylvania boy whose violent rap lyrics had scared his principal, ruling the lad's lyrics were protected under the first amendment.

First Amendment

Getting it down Pat

Courtesy LutheranChik -- we Lutherans can't stand self-satisfied, televangelist bloviators -- here's a fuller list of Pat Robertson's Stupid Quotes.

A commenter to a previous post pointed out that Pat Robertson isn't a fundamentalist, but a charismatic. I appreciate the correction. Though the distinction is lost on most people, I guess calling people like Robertson a fundie is an insult to fundamentalists, who shoot themselves in the foot all the time just fine without his help. A "fundamentalist" Christian is someone who takes the Bible literally and believes there is no salvation without Jesus, among other beliefs. A "charismatic" may also belive those things, but in addition to the revelation given through the Bible also believes the Holy Spirit communicates directly with believers, giving them additional information, such as a prophecy about the future.

Of course, as many have pointed out, if fundamentalists were real literalists when it comes to the Bible, they wouldn't wear polyester, would constantly be sacrificing animals to YHWH, would never eat rare steak, wouldn't touch their wives for a week out of every month, and on and on. But let's stop there before we get in any deeper.

Update: The Christianity Today weblog -- they come from a conservative viewpoint, but they're not crazy -- has an excellent roundup, with comments from many conservative Christian leaders condemning Robertson's remarks.

Previously: Robertson issues fatwa

fundamentalists, televangelists, Lutheran, LutheranChik

Lit up

More literary, books, news and media stuff:

Mediabistro queen Elizabeth Spiers -- the original voice of Gawker -- has a column today on How to Be a Perfect Author from the perspective of the author's editor at the publishing house. That piece is free, but it exemplifies some of the great content on MediaBistro. (Link courtesy Rachel Kramer Bussel.)

Myfawny points to a roundup of newly released litmags on a site I'd never seen before, NewPages.com. Their home page is the worst thing about it; click on something else from there. And Salon has a "late summer reading list" of recently-released books. My own picks are in the left column of this blog --»

Elisabeth Spiers, publishing, authors, editors, MediaBistro

Focus on the fundies: Robertson issues fatwa

This being the silly season, the Pat Robertson call for the assassination of Venuzuelan president Hugo Chavez is all over the news, but here are a few of the more interesting pieces of analysis:
Time: Robertson's statements help Chavez
Conspiracy Planet: Did Robertson profit from his remarks?
Reuters: other Robertson gaffes, including a suggestion to bomb the U.S. State Department
NY Times: reaction from U.S. gov't, liberal critics

And you can view a video and a transcription of Robertson's blurting on Media Matters.

But the best thing about Robertson's unstopped mouth? It made fundies look so stupid that they lost the news cycle for about three days running and thus can't make hay out of yesterday's Calif. Supreme Court ruling that same-sex couples are virtually indistinguishable from opposite-sex couples, at least when it comes to parental rights and responsibilities. So if any dumbass tells you "the family" is in danger because of that ruling, just say "I have only two words for you, asshole: Pat Robertson."

fundamentalists, Pat Robertson, Hugo Chavez

'Strong interactions' with predators

Here's your euphemism of the month, courtesy of a BBC science story headlined Big game 'could roam US plains'. Some scientists recommend restoring "mega fauna" to North America -- that's lions, elephants, and especially the cheetah:

Once, American cheetah (Acinonyx trumani) prowled the plains hunting pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) - an antelope-like animal found throughout the deserts of the American Southwest ... Their disappearance left glaring gaps in the complex web of interactions, upon which a healthy ecosystem depends. The pronghorn, for example, has lost its natural predator and only its startling speed -- of up to about 60mph -- hints at its now forgotten foe. By introducing living counterparts to the extinct animals, the researchers say, these voids could be filled. So, by introducing free-ranging African cheetahs to the Southwest, strong interactions with pronghorns could be restored, while providing cheetahs with a new habitat.

Emphasis mine. Yes, putting predatory cats and browsing herbivores in the same ecosystem may indeed restore strong interactions. Reminds me of the old all-purpose excuse my high school teachers had for not allowing us to break the dress code*: that long hair or other deviations from Leave-It-To-Beaver norms were "distracting." They, too, feared "strong interactions."

*Yes, I am really old. But I also saw the death of the dress code, in 1972.

Crash now

Amazon says it's still on its way, but I picked up my friend Katia Noyes' new novel Crashing America at a local bookstore and then had the honor of bringing it over to her house so that it would be the first-ever copy of the book she held in her hands. She fairly tingled with excitement.

What a long process this has been for her! I remember reading a draft of the book in 2000 or so, and that was something like the 7th draft; she worked on it for three or four years after that. Even as late as this spring, the final form of the book wasn't set.

Now you can buy it at your local independent bookstore. Go in and ask for it. You read my blog? I won't steer you wrong. It's a wonderful book.

Constant harping on the same subject

Here's Last Gasp editor Bucky Sinister with some blunt words for new authors. Funny and all too true.

Your child is not brilliant and neither is your novel. Ever notice there's all these supposedly genius children but the world is full of average adults? The first thing any editor feels when he or she learns of a "brilliant" novel is "what to say about an ugly baby" anxiety. However, there's nothing wrong with writing a novel that is good but not great, enjoyable but not mind blowing, saleable but not blockbuster.

I would love to have a really good manuscript. There's not that many of them out there. I'm sitting next to a submission box that metaphorically resembles a septic tank. Old lady cat poems, Grandpa's war stories, and 9pt single spaced conspiracy texts are the norm. Your submission is lost in all this.

Actually that whole page is full of good advice from good writers, not just Bucky. Read the whole thing -- you'll learn something, and be entertained at the same time.

I guess I sort of have writing and publishing on the brain, after returning from the writers conf. 10 days ago. Sorry for the lack of variety in the posts.

Bucky Sinister, creative writing, editors

Today's book stuff

Courtesy the Publishers Marketplace email blatt, a long Michael Cunningham interview, and from Mediabistro, an interview with novelist Danyel Smith. Each comments on the particulars of being an author today.

MFA -- Mighty Fine Assignment

Pursuing our recent themes of the so-called creative writing gulag and writing workshops, the SF Chronicle Sunday Magazine published a piece actually looking at the pros and cons of taking a creative writing MFA at local schools.

Speaking of which, I posted snapshots from Squaw showing members of my fiction workshop and my housemates. And the LA Times today has a piece about a playwrights workshop.

Squaw Valley Writers, creative writing, MFA programs

Baseball, beer and homophobia

It was Gay Day at the Philadelphia Phillies game Thursday night, and some hypocrites from an organization called Repent America were there. Police kept them safe from the gay multitudes [Use bugmenot for passwords to news sites] as the foamers held up a banner reading "Homosexuality is a sin." (Link courtesy Operation Yellow Elephant.)

By the way, a baseball game took place. The Phillies lost.

Incident in Nicaragua

My close friend Sara, her 16-year-old daughter Katie, and Sara's partner Martha went to Nicaragua last month. Sara had been a war correspondent there during the mid-80s; Katie was conceived there. On the Frontline World website, Sara writes of a harrowing incident that took place during their recent trip.

It's Bad Behavior Friday™!

In Fremont, a San Francisco suburb best known as the terminus of one of the BART lines, a woman "had some issues" with the local utility company trimming trees in her back yard, so she attacked the company's tree-trimming crew, first with rocks, then with a chain saw. Three trimmers fled and a fourth climbed a tree to escape, cleverly deducing that the tree-defending woman would not take the chain saw to the tree just to kill him. (Don't forget: use bugmenot.com for passwords to news sites.

The former publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times was indicted for liberating $32 million U.S. from his company. A columnist and former minion notes that the guy was known as a tightwad whose name was often invoked when office supplies ran low. Now that's respect.

In Swaziland, the king has decided to end a five-year national ban on sex with a ceremony in which the country's young women will burn large wollen tassels. I won't explain -- read the story, you'll get to see one of those tassels, which are as big as your forearm.

By the way, searching for "tassels" on Google News gets you this story about a Scottish burlesque show; the article is headlined Raising Two Legs to Terrorism. How tassels are involved is a matter of conjecture.

All that without resorting to Obscure Store.

Glimpse of an unknown world

My attendance at the Squaw Valley writers conf last week exposed me to a world I was unaware of. Not the world of writers conferences, but the world of adjunct English Department faculty. I gave a ride up there to a guy from New York who has taught at something like five or six different schools as adjunct faculty over the last decade; in my workshop group there were several others with similar careers; and over the course of the week I talked to, or overheard, several more people who fit the same description.

It seems there's this whole cadre of M.A.s and M.F.A.s at the colleges and universities of our great nation, thousands of people who never went on to get their Ph.D for whatever reason, who make whole careers out of teaching three or four classes every semester. Jobs are plentiful, and often offer great benefits even if the pay isn't that high. Who knew!?

Now I just discovered a features on McSweeney's in which the job of adjunct professor of writing is burlesqued. Perhaps people have suddenly just started talking about this. No doubt in a few years there will be novels and movies with main characters who are adjunct professors of writing -- or, in the shorthand phrase, adjuncts. (While at Squaw, I even heard "adjunct" used as a verb.)

Seems like a good idea, from the outside. On the other hand, I never did want to go to grad school badly enough to even get a master's (though once, several years ago, I did apply in a particularly slapdash, naive and incomplete way -- I didn't want to do it badly enough to even find out what a completed application really entailed) and I certainly get paid better doing technical writing. It'd be nice to have summers off, though.

Google: define: adjunct faculty.
Boston College Adjunct Lecturers and Part Time Faculty (college chosen at random)

Life in San Francisco

The local paper obliges tourists and recent immigrants to the city by publishing its annual explanation of why it's so damn foggy in August. A friend's coming in to town tonight for a week, and I doubt he brought a sweater. I'll have to make sure he reads it.

As it happened, I was downtown this morning on an errand, and am currently thanking the Lord that I missed the small explosion a couple blocks away. Even better, I missed getting stuck in the resulting heinous traffic jam. It's just a good thing no one was watching how I drove.

It's tonight!

The Pet Noir launch party! See link above.

More writers conf news

If you liked my entries from the Squaw Valley writers conf, you'll love well-known litblogger Moorish Girl blogging from Breadloaf. The entries began today. (Thanks to Myf for the link.)

More stuff for writers

Sorry I haven't posted much lately. Just kinda busy.

Ran across these interesting pieces, though: an article on the writing life by novelist Meg Wolitzer, and a profile of her.

Several famous authors are auctioning off rights to name a character in their next books.

But if you just want to pick up girls, the Charisma Sciences Institute will teach you how to pick up girls, this weekend in San Francisco.

"I hated how unnatural it felt to use other people's routines when I'd start talking to women. I've taken four different workshops, and you guys were the only ones who helped me be myself and still be able to meet women."
- Francis, New York, eBook reader and Workshop attendee

"By the end of the weekend I had talked to more women than in the preceding five years. Excellent! Highly recommended."
- Roger, San Francisco, Workshop attendee

Maybe you're single and tired of standing around at a bar waiting for something to happen. Maybe you have a girlfriend but want to know you are with her out of choice. Maybe you're ambitious and want to date supermodels with 180 IQs. Or maybe you simply want to become better at building a connection with women. We have a six-step process you will learn to help you on your quest. Many of our clients leave our programs feeling as if they are changed forever...

Yow! Clicking around on the site shows the course includes both nighttime and daytime "field practice."

Dept of sticks and stones

Madonna fell off a horse and broke some bones as she celebrated her birthday at her country estate, but what really hurts is the photo accompanying that story. The erstwhile singer and would-be Great Lady is 47 today but, in the picture, looks 67. And presumably that was before she fell off the horse.

The husband of war protestor Cindy Sheehan, who has single-handedly saved the White House press corps from dying of boredom during the President's vacation, is filing for divorce. Also, some neighbors of the ranch are tired of the carnival, though another offered a spot closer to the Bush ranch for Sheehan and her supporters.

Is Sheehan's protest brilliant or what? Start with a perfect, unassailable symbol of dissatisfaction with the war -- a dead soldier's mother -- then add a captive audience -- the press corps -- at the slowest news time of the whole year. Presto, a publicity bonanza. I love this country.

Writer's almanac

Today Tony Pierce celebrates the birthday of Charles Bukowski. It's also the birthday of New Yorker writer and editor William Maxwell, who edited such luminaries as John Cheever and J.D. Salinger; and Madonna. And Elvis Presley -- arguably one of the most important people of the 20th century -- died on this date in 1977.

And she posts naked pix, too

Courtesy the Rachel Kramer Bussell blog, I found this interview Rachel did with author and blogger Stephanie Lessing, as well as Lessing's very funny blog, She's Got Issues. And Rachel -- it's she who keeps publishing half-naked pix of herself, not Lessing -- also has a regular gig interviewing publishing types for Mediabistro.

Mediabistro is a great website with loads of content. Originally oriented primarily toward freelance writers, it has expanded with content about the publishing industry and literary writers. It has a regular column, Galleycat, about books and publishing; that points to regular features like interviews with editors at publishing houses and magazines, and transcriptions of panels with agents, editors and others of interest. If you mouse over the "content" menu item on the Mediabistro main page, you'll see lots of other good stuff.

The other site is Publishers Marketplace, which publishes a free daily email newsblatt on the publishing industry, and offers a database of book deals and agents (allowing you to look for agents who have published authors and books you like) as well as webpages, blogs and email accounts for members.

I've found it's well worth it (and, for writers, tax-deductible) to pay the monthly membership fee for both sites.

Forward into the past

Yes, Garrison Keillor is now fairly well-known for being liberal and anti-Bush, since he issues ever-more-pointed criticisms from his bully pulpit on A Prairie Home Companion, but that is supposedly not what has offended people now. Listeners in Kentucky to his other show, The Writer's Almanac, have complained they are offended by the use of the words "breast" and "get high" in some of the poems he reads on the show. (Link courtesy Romenesko.)

Ordinarily this would be a case of "some people need to get a life," but I have no trouble believing this was actually an orchestrated attack on Keillor's credibility in retribution for his anti-Bush stands.

Previously: Keillor now confirmed anti-Bushite (4 Jul 04) and If you've lost Garrison Keillor, you've lost America (16 Jun 04).

More book marketing for amateurs and professionals

This article from Newsday discusses new techniques in book marketing and "creating buzz," with the previously-mocked The Traveler coming in for more attention. Also today, the Wall Street Journal discusses the selling of The Traveler. Just another example of the maxim "There is no such thing as bad publicity," though you couldn't pay me to read the book. I've got too many real books to read.

Previously: Author Gets Publicity By Pretending to Shun It

Jonas Mekas interview

Courtesy one of the fellow members of Group 5, Myfanwy Collins, I found an online magazine I'd never heard of, 3 AM, and this interview with filmmaker Jonas Mekas.

Mekas, the eminence grise of American experimental film, has a spot in my personal history. The first time I ever came to SF was during Xmas break during my senior year in college, where I was studying film criticism. During this vacation I took my first-ever long solo car trip, out to L.A. (where I went to a bunch of films that hadn't yet hit Austin) and up the coast to S.F. I stayed with my aunt on the Peninsula, and the morning after my arrival, found in the Chronicle a notice for an event that night at the SF Museum of Modern Art: a program of experimental films by Jonas Mekas. I'd never really heard of Mekas, but it seemed like a wonderfully artsy thing to do, so I went. I dragged along my extremely straight cousin, who was utterly mystified by the experiemental films. That experience of doing something weird and artsy my first night ever in San Francisco stuck with me. I later bought and devoured a book comprised of Mekas' columns on film from the Village Voice. This book, Movie Journal, is full of great writing. Years after I'd lost that first copy, I got another on alibris.com.

Here's one entry from Mekas' Village Voice "Movie Journal" column, just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

April 18, 1963

Flaming Creatures and the Ecstatic Beauty of the New Cinema

Walked out of the following movies: Five Miles to Midnight, The Balcony, Lazarillo, Mondo Cane, The Playboy of the Western World, The Pillar of Fire, Four Days of Naples, Fiasco in Milan, Grown Up Children.

My new wave of walk-outs is the result, mainly, of my recent trip to the Eastman Museum in Rochester, where I saw really great movies. Like Chaplin's The Kid; or Murnau's Tabu; or Buñuel's L'Age d'Or; or Von Sternberg's Docks of New York -- really great movies.

Jack Smith just finished a great movie, Flaming Creatures, which is so beautiful that I feel ashamed even to sit through the current Hollywood and European movies. I saw it privately, and there is little hope that Smith's movie will ever reach the movie theatre screens. But I tell you, it is a most luxurious outpouring of imagination, of imagery, of poetry, of movie artistry -- comparable only to the work of the greatest, like Von Sternberg.

Flaming Creatures will not be shown theatrically because our social-moral-etc. guides are sick. That's why Lenny Bruce cried at Idlewild Airport. This movie will be called pornographic, degenerate, homosexual, trite, disgusting, etc. It is all that, and it is so much more than that. I tell you, the American movie audiences today are being deprived of the best of the new cinema, and it's not doing any good to the souls of the people.

Check the date on that again: 1963. American culture was changing; the Sinatra-Kennedy-Elvis era was about to end. And the only people who knew it were the bohemians, the artists, the queer and the crazed.

If Republicans ruled the world: death for shoplifting

Courtesy Metafilter, this Houston Chronicle story of a Wal-Mart shoplifter who was tackled in the parking lot and held down by three employees until he died. The story describes the temperature at the time as 96 degrees and the parking lot pavement as "blisteringly hot."

Squaw Valley post the last

Because of dual events in San Francisco stadia on Saturday -- a rock concert at the ballpark, a preseason game at the football stadium -- it took twice as long to get back from Squaw Valley to San Francisco, six hours of driving versus three. Instead of cooking in a traffic jam at the Bay Bridge, I went a certain long way around but I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say I approached SF from the south rather than the northeast.

As I said in my last post, my first urge was to start getting short stories into publishable form, though exactly what publishable form is for a short story is not something I'm very familiar with, since the very few times I've submitted short stories to litmags they've been rebuffed. I ought to know what a publishable short story looks like, as I used to edit a magazine that published short fiction, and I accepted and rejected many a story. (Pam Rosenthal, with whom I read in February, told everyone that she received her first-ever rejection from me. "I hope my rejection letter was nice," I said contritely. "It was unbelievably nice," she replied, "but that didn't stop me from thinking you were the meanest, most pig-headed person in the universe.") And I thought the stories I sent off, to Zyzzyva and Witness, were just fine. But they didn't. I'll have to take another look at them.

When we were wrapping up our workshop on Friday, two of the twelve people in our group said they would have three days off and then go to Breadloaf, the most prestigious of writers conferences. It lasts ten days; after the whirlwind week at Squaw, just about everyone who wasn't headed to Breadloaf looked askance at this idea -- it seemed to require either superhuman endurance or foolhardyness.

In any case, I feel I've had all the discussion of story and plot and characterization and structure I can stand. It was all I could do today to go to church and then come back and lie down with a cool cloth over my eyes, though I did listen to a radio broadcast of Joyce Carol Oates being interviewed at City Arts & Lectures while I rested.

Once out of the hothouse writers workshop environment, it starts to seem rather odd that one can spend a whole week thinking of the minutiae of creating fiction, odder still that doing so is what it means to be a writer. In fact, being a writer is not going to writers conferences (much less two in one month!) but just writing and, for the sake of variation, reading. So I will try to finish those stories, and read books by friends (see right column) and classic authors.

Squaw Valley writers

For more posts about my Squaw Valley experience, scroll down.

Squaw Valley post no. 10

The local paper, the Tahoe World, ran a feature on the conference and a profile of staff member Joanne Meschery a few days ago.

Last night the conference had a finale of sorts, a talent show mainly featuring instructors and staff members, though mere participants made appearances. Pleasantly rollicking in-jokes set to music. Tin House editor Elissa Schappell read an essay early in the week about drinking absinthe and there were a number of attempts to find words that rhymed with "absinthe."

Even before the talent show, the "community of writers" started breaking up, either to go home a little early or to pursue individual desires. There was a big party last night at another chalet, but I skipped it; one of my housemates, who lives way down in the desert, left at 4:30 this morning.

This morning there'll be one last reading and a goodbye talk by California poet laureate Al Young.

I'm sure glad I came to this, though mostly what I feel like doing right now -- and I remember having this same urge after the only other lit conf I attended, several years ago -- is writing and publishing some short stories rather than the novel I started in November.

Interlude: How to make friends and influence enemies

In Texas, the fundies would usually be EXTRA friendly so they could have a chance to save your soul. That's how I operate, I'm super friendly and smiley so that I can ease on into their community and then recruit for homosexuality and Satan.

-- Badger

Squaw Valley post no. 9

Afternoon of the final full day of the conference. I'm blogging while listening to talks by author and NPR commentator Alan Cheuse, and by thriller writer John Lescroart. I love listening to craftsmen talk about their work, and a successful thriller writer is usually a lot of fun to listen to. Lescroart was a little aw-shucks about his career and success, but like just about all the presenters here at Squaw, he was open, encouraging, and the opposite of arrogant. Made me want to develop my vague ideas for thrillers. Afterward a fellow attendee told me "The Screenwriter's Bible" was a great resource for people who want to learn to plot.

Overheard a couple of people of color today expressing objections to Dorothy Allison's reading last night, in which she evoked the experience of nuns who were raped and murdered in El Salvador; I heard them say something about ripping off someone else's experience. Hey, somebody's got to tell it; the question is not, are they entitled to do so, but can they do an honorable, truthful job of it.

Squaw Valley post no. 8

Last night Dorothy Allison wowed the conference again -- her talk on the event's second day had been the best thing so far -- with a reading from a forthcoming novel. Not sure if the book has a title yet, but Allison said it was about violence and its consequences. She read a searing passage depicting violence against a group of nuns and workers in El Salvador during the war there two decades ago. It was a long, passionate, excruciatingly detailed depiction of violence, showing the inhumanity and the humanity of both the perpetrators and the victims. The audience was stunned.

It didn't exactly prepare people for any parties that night. At my house, everyone said they were wrung out, from the reading as much as from the whole week, which is now reaching its end; everyone stayed in and read or went to bed.

Over at Ghost Word, Frances Dinkelspiel runs down the agents' panel that was held here Wednesday.

Squaw Valley post no. 7

This morning we workshopped a story by the best (and best published) writer in the group, Dashka Slater. The story was about the breakup of a friendship between two yuppie mothers, one of whom had gotten pregnant with her second child, on account of the pregnant couple's plan to move to Minnesota from the Bay Area for more lebensraum. The story was technically superior and psychologically perceptive.

I think the reason I responded to it so strongly is that it somewhat echoed a situation in my own life. I used to have a good friend who left the Bay Area with her new husband and moved back to Chicago, where she had grown up. She had one child, which rather distracted her from being long-distance friends, and when she and her husband visited the Bay Area a few years later, the toddler kept interrupting the conversations I had been looking forward to having with my friend for so many years, to the point where I became rather frustrated. A year after that, I was talking with her on the phone, and she announced she had gotten pregnant with another child. I'm ashamed to say that I reacted to this news, which she thought was joyful, with great dismay, and after that essentially wrote her off as my friend. I believed we had drifted apart and had so little in common anymore that she couldn't understand that having a second child, for reasons of her own, struck me as a signal that she wanted us to have in common nothing at all. That was back when I was still being very morally superior to everyone and an asshole. Not that I've bothered to apologize. Anyway, the story by D.S. reminded me of that.

This afternoon there was a talk, or a sort of meta-talk, by Anne Lamott, who is a regular at this conference. She read a little, answered a few questions, then had a violinist play some Bach. Then she ranted a little and read a little and had the violinist play again. She spoke passionately about writing as a vocation, with such clarity of vision that I felt equally inspired and ashamed of my own practice.

Thanks to Frances Dinkelspiel, who also blogged from here, for a link. Her earlier post about a renewed presence for fiction at the L.A. Times magazine was encouraging.

Squaw Valley post no. 6

The nights are getting very pleasantly cool up here. Earlier in the week it was hot and sticky, and on Tuesday evening it stayed sticky far into the evening. But lately it's been really gorgeous. Yesterday, the "light" day, several housemates went to Lake Tahoe, and others I've met climbed the mountain behind the ski lodge. They reported there's a pool up there with a poolside bar.

The way I spent my free afternoon was to drive down to Lake Tahoe and along the shore until I got to the Nevada border, where the Cal-Neva Lodge is located. That's the casino-hotel formerly owned by Frank Sinatra and some mobsters; I set the ending of my book Make Nice there, but I had never actually been inside. So I was curious. Inside there's a small (relative to the ones in Las Vegas) casino, a beautiful and unique circular bar, and a large "Indian Room" which I guessed is used for meetings and functions. I sat there at a table and went over the pieces for today.

In the evening my housemates got pizza and beer and had a reading for each other. Maybe we all hauled out our best stuff, but I was much more impressed with the quality in that group than I have been with most of the pieces in the workshop I'm in.

Then we went to one of the parties at another writer-occupied chalet. I'm not big on parties and I didn't interact much, just sort of sat back and watched people. One thing I'm already tired of is talking with people about what they're writing. Conversation A here is "What are you working on?" or "What's the book you're trying to get published?" and Conversation B is "How's your workshop going?" and "Who have been your workshop leaders?" Both those conversations are getting pretty tired by now. Maybe we all need an artificial topic we all have to answer, like "What's your favorite sexual position?" or "Do you believe in God?"

Squaw Valley post no. 5

It's just over the halfway point in the workshop week, and they schedule no events in the afternoon and evening on Wednesday. Everyone plans parties for the evening; me and the five other people staying in the house (there are a couple dozen houses rented by the conference, each with five or six people) plan a beer-pizza-and readings evening, followed by a visit to the Vol house, which apparently is Party Central. Between now and then, I ought to sit down and go through tomorrow's workshop manuscripts. But I feel like being bad: a trip across the border to a casino or even just a movie.

The morning workshops continue to go really well. We were lucky today: both pieces were really good.

Squaw Valley post no. 4

This morning was my turn to get my piece critiqued. After having decided as a result of yesterday's one-on-one that the whole beginning of the book needed changing, I was ready for more revolution, but I also found myself hoping I'd get some appreciation too. And I got both. The people in my group give very good comments, at least in the discussion; I looked at their written comments later and didn't find them nearly as useful.

From the discussion I got all kinds of things I need to do to really make the book -- the new book I'm working on, not the one I got an agent for a few weeks ago -- a novel and not just an off-the-cuff project I'm banging away at. Simple stuff, like working on basic conceptions of the main character and her "goals," which is workshop-speak for whatever issue or problem the main character is dealing with.

Afterward I wanted to go to the pizza restaurant here -- there's a huge resort adjacent to the lodge where the workshop is being held, and in fact some of the workshop groups are meeting in bars and restaurants that are part of the ski resort -- and no one wanted to go with me. So I went by myself, which wouldn't have been so bad, but after I got there, the place filled up with groups of writers from other workshop groups. I sat there waiting for my pizza and looking at the marked-up copies of my manuscript from workshop members, so it was pretty obvious that I was part of the writers workshop but couldn't get anybody to have lunch with me. I was afraid that kind of experience would typify my experience here, but actually the social part of things hasn't been bad at all.

Squaw Valley post no. 3

After lunch I went to the one-on-one conference every writer gets. The staff member assigned to me, Carol Edgarian, began by asking me where the story of my novel in progress was going, and I immediately began blathering about Bangalore and yoga. She said, "Oh, then is this the prologue?" I looked down at the ms. she had, and realized that she had the ms. I had submitted with my Squaw application, the first several pages of the book, not the chapter from the middle of the book which is going to be workshopped by my group tomorrow. I've been so focussed on that chapter and people's possible reactions to it that I had completely forgotten I had submitted the novel's opening chapters with my application.

Once we got that straightened out, she became convinced, and in fact convinced me, that the whole San Francisco section of the book -- the 40 pages I wrote last November, which cover Stella's job at the bank in SF and how she ends up getting sent to India -- should actually be cut to a single scene, that "the story really starts in India."

Having seen so much material already this week in which the first paragraphs amounted to throat-clearing and should be cut, I readily accepted this suggestion, and wrote down her other questions about what my main character’s desires and strengths were -- valid questions all, and typical workshop questions, but not ones I had really pushed myself to consider yet.

Now I wonder if I should rewrite the beginning, according to this single-scene suggestion, before my writing group in Berkeley begins to look at the book -- or leave it the way it is, and see if they feel the same way.

Squaw Valley post no. 2

Last night had a long conversation with some of the other members of my middle-aged cadre. A woman told us the story of 19th century ancestors in Texas -- that's what her book's going to be about -- broken marriages, escaped slaves, gambling debts, a faked death: all history. Great material.

Dorothy Allison, who gave a terrific talk yesterday, will lead our workshop today; unfortunately, my bit's not getting workshopped til tommorow.

Went to the supermarket in Tahoe City early this morning for supplies. A few raindrops fell; I wouldn't be surprised if we got a thunderstorm today.

Squaw Valley post no. 1.

Got up here yesterday and immediately fell to work marking up manuscripts they handed me for the first morning workshop, which took place today. One of the pieces was a slog, one was great. I'll take those odds.

Diane Johnson gave a talk last night, and Dorothy Allison spoke this afternoon. Allison was just terrific -- she's a dramatic speaker and had the crowd of 150 people in the palm of her hand.

After that I took a break and went back to the house -- more about which in a moment -- to edit more manuscripts, the ones for tomorrow morning. 0 for 2.

Almost all the writers are staying in vacation houses here in Squaw Valley; they put between 4 and 6 writers in each house.You get a room by yourself if you pay extra; I did. The bed's uncomfortable and I didn't sleep that well last night, but I'm enjoying palavering with the other folks in the house and with people I've met here. Between the Allison talk and reading that one good manuscript, I feel things are going well.

My piece will get critiqued on Tuesday morning. It's from the new book I'm working on, "Dear Prudence," about a San Francisco girl who gets sent by her employer to India to open an offshoring office.

Headin' out

Lots of errands today, getting ready for my week at the Squaw Valley Writers workshop starting tomorrow. Dunno if I'll have internet access, but if I do, I'll try to post at least once or twice during the week. Otherwise, I'll see you at the Pet Noir party!

Evidence that yoga is bad for you ¤

I love this:

A prison in Norway has stopped holding yoga classes after it found that instead of calming inmates, they were actually making some more aggressive.

Prison warden Sigbjoern Hagen said ... the prison did not have the resources to treat emotions unleashed by the deep breathing exercises.

Hey, I know yoga made me irritable.

Speaking of heeeeeeealing, Cris went for her post-op yesterday and some less-than-a-doctor approved her progress and removed the cast on her wrist. She can now drive -- just in time for me to go out of town for a week.

Not an actual story from The Onion

'TURKEY IS NOT A FORM OF PUNISHMENT'

Turkey. It's what's for dinner — today, tomorrow and the day after that. The menu at the El Paso County (Colo.) jail inspired a brief hunger strike Saturday as inmates protested a fifth consecutive dinner made with turkey. The inmates refused to eat, arguing the meals such as turkey chili mac, turkey a la king, turkey stew and turkey sausage were unnecessarily cruel.

Colo. Springs evangelical image out of focus, officials believe

Focus on the Fundies ¤

This just in: Colo. Springs evangelical image out of focus, officials believe. Link courtesy Non-Prophet.

Oh, so it's only:
- The home of Focus on the Family, whose founder and head James Dobson on Wednesday compared those who support stem cell research to Nazis
- The home of New Life Church, one of the largest megachurches in the West
- The site of the Air Force Academy, where an investigation recently revealed that Christian proselytizing by staff, teachers and senior cadets had gotten out of hand

Aside from that, I guess those evangelicals are just a drop in the bucket.

New Life Church, Air Force Academy, Focus on the Family, Colorado Springs

Because we want to be a lit blog too ¤

Nice bit in the Onion: First-Time Novelist Constantly Asking Wife What It's Like To Be A Woman. "Becky is an indispensable tool in my writer's tool chest. I feel like, with her, I'm able to get under (my heroine's) skin."

Sara's food mojo

My fabulous friend Sara Miles -- former chef and war correspondent -- started a food pantry in an Episcopal church in SF several years ago. It was such a success that she's started something like 15 others throughout the city since then. This recent piece by Sara in their church newsletter shows how she continues to be in touch with the truly spiritual aspect of feeding people and how the Eucharist is rooted in that simple act. Even if you're not religious, you should read that piece, because it's a powerful piece of writing. (One thing you should know when reading: at their church, it's their practice to sing, not read, the scriptures.)

Meanwhile, most of America thinks "Christians" are really like this:
- Ohio preacher pumps Republicans, compares evolutionists with Hitler
- D.C. pastor alleges "epidemic of lesbianism," claims it's the greatest threat to the black family
- DeLay to join in religious right's Supreme Court lobbying

Tom DeLay, Sara Miles, religious right

Bring on the orgasmatron

Don't you want to buy the futuristic house featured in 'Sleeper'? It's half off, only $4.9 million. The current buyer, who spent two years restoring the place, "treated the project like a historic rehab":

Huggins scoured the Internet and stores nationwide to find iconic '60s and '70s furniture for the home. He found late-'60s vintage bright-orange chairs for his entertainment room at a New York store. The chairs stack into a cube to make room for a Murphy bed to drop down.

"It was like an Easter egg hunt," said Huggins, who worked on the restoration with Deaton's daughter, Charlee Deaton, an interior designer, and her husband, architect Nick Antonopoulos.

The work paid off, with the house being listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its architectural merit, even though most buildings on the register are more than 50 years old.

Same song, different verse

Republicans retained a congressional seat in a long-conservative Ohio district in a special election yesterday, but it was interesting. Democrats ran an Iraq war veteran; he got 48%. They took heart at this showing, since the Republican who resigned to take a job in the Bush administration consistently won the district with 70%.

Typical Democrats. They lose and like it.

Speaking of Republicans, former Florida Sec'ty of State Katherine Harris, who's running for Senate, is amply displaying the paranoid delusions suitable for a Republican candidate. The former official, who's known for pulling strings to ensure Bush's 2000 election "victory," claims "the newspapers colorized my photograph," leading the nation to conclude she was hideously tacky. The AP photo editor responsible for Florida at the time angrily denies the charge; a polisci prof opines it was television, not newspapers, that made her look like Cruella DeVil. (Link courtesy Wonkette.)

Katherine Harris, Paul Hackett, Ohio, Florida

Hot fun in the summertime

A local strip club rented the facilities of a suburban Chicago golf course and had strippers performing alongside the greens and giving lap dances in motorized carts. (Link courtesy Obscure Store.)

The videotape shows a variety of activities not usually associated with golf, including women performing lap dances for men in golf carts.

Not usually associated with golf? And why not?? Something's got to interest people.

Yes, some people have all the fun, and some have none: witness this story about how "Girls Nights Out" in Boston are now "all about networking" -- as in exchanging business cards and finding new clients. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but if you can't at least get drunk, what's the point?!

Stephen Elliott interview

¤  I just stumbled across this interview with author Stephen Elliott in the Nina and Rita Sex Advice column. I was over there because I noticed Rita Rich's name when perusing an old entry on my own blog. And it's funny, because when I met my pal Shannon for coffee Sunday, she said "Let's meet at this new café on Valencia, a lot of writers meet there, I saw Stephen Elliott there last week." So we did, and sure enough, there were a bunch of people working on laptops.

I didn't recognize any of them, but who recognizes writers anyway? Unless, of course, you put them on the cover of your own magazine, as I did with my partner Cris on FTH NO. 11. After that issue came out, we went to the 1994 queer March on Washington. Cris was standing by the parade route when a little cupcake broke off from a contingent, rushed up to her and gushed, "You're CRIS! Hi! I'm FAWN!!"

I'm gonna have to get a bigger image of that cover up.

Stephen Elliott, Rita Rich

Lede of the week

From the jolly back-and-forth between Continental Airlines executives and Boeing executives at the Newark airport last week, it was evident to me that a good-size sum of money was about to change hands somewhere.

From a NYT story on new super-jumbo jets.

Homer Simpson Award for Workplace Safety

Jim Caywood, a technical photographer who worked for the lab for 23 years, said the extent of the safety instruction he was given at a radioactive site was "don't pick up any of that green stuff."

...

Francine Moran, an administrative assistant* at the lab for 19 years, often escorted visitors into areas of the lab she says were contaminated with radiation. Scientists there, wearing full protective gear, declined to shut down their work because, Moran said, "they felt they could not be inconvenienced because of security protocol." Moran now suffers from a type of endocrine cancer and has had six abdominal surgeries in five years.

From a Chronicle story on the high rate of cancer among Livermore Lab workers.
*Emphasis mine.

Ghetto snack

Cris is still recovering from last week's arthroscopic surgery, hooked up as much as possible to an ice chest with a pump and cables that circulate cold water around the recovering area. (I'll bet Barry Bonds, who said yesterday he doubted he'd play this year at all, failed to keep on the ice machine long enough after his knee arthroscopy in January, the complications of which he is still recovering from.) When I got home from work I walked to the corner store to get another bag of ice for the device.

Inside, I waited behind a playa in a sideways baseball cap and sky-blue athletic jacket from some NCAA college he'd never gone to. He purchased the following:
- Twinkies
- Red Bull drink
- 2 Swisher cigars
- a pint of Hennessy brandy

The store proprietor looked at the brandy. "Want a cold one?" he asked.

"Oh yeah," said the kid happily.

So the clerk went over to the deli counter and came up with a refrigerated pint of Hennessy instead. The kid paid and went out to his ride, a Pontiac which was piloted by a fairly good-looking girl.

I told Cris this story and she said, "The brandy's for her."

Indian women organizing against sexual harrassment

It's called "Eve-teasing" in India: sexual harrassment (unwanted looks, words or touches received by women from strangers) in public places. A new blog documents a counter-campaign, The Blank Noise Project.

That was fun

July is over and the July Harpers is officially a thing of the past (though it still shows up as the "current issue" on the Harpers site). So it's time for me to take the credit, or blame, for The Secret Diary of a Prisoner in the Creative Writing Gulag, a fun little parody that Mediabistro called the "most memorable response" to the Freed Screed and "incidentally, the best blog I've read in weeks."

My favorite response to Lynn Freed's piece was a long, thoughtful essay on slushpile.net called Who Knew It Sucked So Bad to Be a Published Writer? -- complete with pix of Paul Newman on the chain gang in Cool Hand Luke.

Lynn Freed, creative writing, creative writing gulag, Freed Screed, slushpile.net

Further adventures of the First Amendment

Members of the Topeka, Kan. "Baptist Church" led by Fred Phelps will picket a Minnesota church Tuesday during the funeral of a Marine killed in Iraq.

Nothing to do with the Phelpsians' infamous anti-gay stance. They are drawing a connection between the bomb that killed the Marine with the bomb that struck their church in 1995. Their press release says: "We may be pardoned for seeing a direct correlation between the Improvised Explosive Devices killing American kids in Iraq and the IED that nearly killed a sleeping Westboro baby August 20th 1995."

Bizarre!

Fred Phelps, Marine funeral, Moorhead, Lutheran Church

Bush to Democrats: Drop Dead

Bush names Bolton to U.N. job in recess appointment