Friday, January 07, 2005



I don't want to own anything that won't fit in my coffin.
-Fred Allen
I understand that Charles W. Henderson of the Silent Warrior fame also subcribes to this idea of realistic expectations! Death bed is like publishing, a tough industry, and it can be a heartbreaking enterprise ... But rarely do you get a rejection. So far, the death bed issued me with only one serious rejection letter. It is so ironic that the one rejection all of us really do want is coming sooner or later whether we like it or not.

I detest life-insurance agents; they always argue that I shall some day die, which is not so.
- Stephen Leacock

Literary Gems: Movers, Shakers and Sex Symbols
Storytelling is like sex, every day, every hour or every minute - I don't think people ever get tired of it ... Feeling dehydrated after a sleepless night? Ha ha ha, the literary doctors recommend to drink more water from the cold river (Suzish smile)
BookAngst; BookBlog; Flogging the Quill; I Love a Good Mystery; Magnificent Octopus; Mental Multivitamin; Mom & Pop Culture; NextBook; storytelling; The Sheila Variations

Literature & Art Across Frontiers: And on the Seventh Day ... Keep The Sunny Side Up
Carrie and co have inspired a book which pushes women towards the wrong kind of man

Haven't the writers of Sex and the City made men suffer enough? First we had to feign interest in their show while the women in our lives were addicted to it. But that apparently wasn't harmful enough to our relationships, so now the new book by S&TC writers Greg Berendt and Liz Tuccillo is convincing women to take anything less than constant male affirmation as proof that He's Just Not That Into You.


Our Virtual Literary Rose These authors read educating blogs hoping to find confirmation that they're on the right path to success. But when those blogs tell the truth, they get angry. It's like pregnant woman dissing mothers of toddlers for complaining about the terrible twos. Perhaps those who haven't yet given birth shouldn't hang out at the playground if they don't want to know what the future might hold.
Dork-boys cop it in new battle of the sexes [The best steel always goes through fire and water. Until people are touched by life in a very tough way they tend to lack humanity. W h a t a d i f f e r e n c e one link to Silent Warrior of sniper fame makes Czech out how Real Sniper Boys’ Stories made Headlines in the world; Real boys do cry no matter what Wran says]
• · Off the Record: Lee Siegel's picked up another critic job - he's signed on as books critic for The Nation. But he's also holding on to his TV critic's job at The New Republic. And he's going to be twice-a-month art critic for Slate. He’s doing something very brave, New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier said, on the phone while traveling in Chicago. He’s trying to earn a living as a freelance intellectual. Brave New Critic At Large ; He carried two concealed weapons, a wry, deadpan sense of irony and a lightning wit, both of which held no respect for pomposity or rank. An Artist & A Fighter in the Theatre of the Absurd
• · · An infuriating know-all. A squat moon-faced hunchback. An overrated 24/7 professional expat. A squinting git. Ol' no eyes. Clive James: icon or con? [Parliamentary life has become part of the literary fabric of the Digital Ocean I have lived in a world of whispered conversations and secrets. I have lived in a world of murder, corruption, bribery, crime and fear]
• · · · Run For Cover or Dust Jacket John Unsworth Fires Literary Canons ; [What, after all, have silence and exile ever done for Author but get her scorned as midlist, damned as a writer's writer, omitted between 'Oates' and 'Paley' on Barnes & Noble's shelves? Exile ; via Next Book ]
• · · · · Best Literary/Book Blog
• · · · · · Envy and hostility ran high, until, on Friday, October 13 1307 - the original unlucky Friday the 13th - hundreds of Templars were arrested in France. One of the problems with secret societies - especially the kind whose members exert a shadowy influence on the course of world events is that they can be a bit difficult to track down [Now that the judgement has been handed down I can frankly comment about the case. It's often the case ... Man Fined for Hiding his Salami ]