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"Well, he's definitely all boy." It's a statement that sounds reasonable enough until you think about it. What does "all boy" mean? Masculine? Straight? Something else? Are there partial boys? And is this relative aware of my son's fondness for Hello Kitty and tea sets? . . .
Mod
On 15 November, 2009 the left-wing German newspaper Die Tageszeitung ("taz" for short) unveiled a provocative artwork by sculptor Peter Lenk on the exterior wall of its Kreuzberg headquarters featuring a naked man with a five-story, fifty-two foot porcelain male member that narrows into a cobra head at the tip. And the man depicted in the installation is not just any man, but Kai Diekmann, chief editor of the right-wing Bildzeitung, whose highrise headquarters is within spitting distance - with an unobstructed view of the artwork. . . .
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‘But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honour – by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.’ Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder. . .
Mod
Hot on the heels of the story in Publisher's Weekly that "publishers could be losing out on as much $3 billion to online book piracy" comes a sudden realization of a much larger threat to the viability of the book industry. Apparently, over 2 billion books were "loaned" last year by a cabal of organizations found in nearly every American city and town. Using the same advanced projective mathematics used in the study cited by Publishers Weekly, Go To Hellman has computed that publishers could be losing sales opportunities totaling over $100 Billion per year, losses which extend back to at least the year 2000. These lost sales dwarf the online piracy reported yesterday, and indeed, even the global book publishing business itself.
From what we've been able to piece together, the book "lending" takes place in "libraries". . . .
Mod
Novels published that year, including by Murdoch, David Lodge, Muriel Spark and Nina Bawden, missed out on winning because of a change in the award's rules. . . .
Mod
For busy, harried or distractible readers who have the time and energy only to skim the opening paragraph of a review, I’ll say this as quickly and clearly as possible: “The Death of the Adversary” and “Comedy in a Minor Key” are masterpieces, and Hans Keilson is a genius.
Mod
Over at the Guardian site, they're holding a contest for who can write the most ludicrous blurb for a Dan Brown novel, with predictably hilarious results. The inspiration for this antic is a pre-publication blurb written by Nicole Krauss, author of "The History of Love," for the new novel by David Grossman, "To the End of the Land."
The content found via msgs 9 & 12 were both hilarious, thank you!
Amid the smoldering wreckage of the popular culture, the author blames Reality TV, which has not only ruined network values, destroyed the classic documentary, and debased the art of bad acting, but also fomented class warfare, antisocial behavior, and murder. . . .