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Friday, September 30, 2005

Return of the Big Giant Hand
At Dial B for Blog. With special appearance by the Big Giant Foot. See also.

Via Gravity Lens.
Occasionally Good Things Happen
Like, for instance, for that guy who made the fake Shining trailer.
Stop the Planet of the Apes, I Want to Get Off
Backwards City science minute: Wild gorillas spotted using tools for first time. (Thanks, Shankar!)
So You Want to Draw Cartoons for The New Yorker
Simply draw something from Column A talking to something from Column B at a location from Column C. And you're done.



(Image at Flickr via Kottke)
Thursday, September 29, 2005

Rock Stars Who Had to Get Real Jobs
When the music stops, when the drugs run out, when the groupies disappear, someone's still got to open the furniture store in the morning. (via Cynical-C)
Johnny Cash: The Musical
Jt burns, burns, burns.
The Cultures and History of the Americas
Amazing online exhibit of art and documents at the Jay I. Kislak Collection at the Library of Congress. Take, for instance, the Conquest of Tenochtitlán.



(via Rashomon)
Shining
Meet Jack Torrance. [Quicktime] Words don't do it justice. So good. (via MetaFilter)
Wednesday, September 28, 2005

World Domination
Our plans for BCR world domination kick into high gear Thursday, as our happy little magazine is first profiled in the N&R's Go Triad and then I read on WUAG 103.1 for their Radio Reading Series at 5 pm (streamed over the Web).

Then, on Friday, I'll have a few more things to say about BCR on this Friday's Go Triad podcast. The truth about Patrick Egan has got to be heard.
Return to Form
That episode of Lost, on the other hand, sucked. The events depicted were approximately 25% of what a good episode would have been, stretched out to fill the whole hour.

The episode exposes the narrative shortcomings of the flashback gimmick through a pointless revision to Michael's backstory, which in the end leaves everything exactly as it was before. Worse, they literally ended the Jack/Locke/Kate/Desmond/hatch plot in precisely the same spot as last week's cliffhanger. With precisely the same shot. Very poor.

I still want to know just what's the deal with the damn hatch, though.
Top 100 Science Fiction
...books
...films
...tv shows
...short stories

In the case of films, tv shows, and books you can take an online poll. As usual, short stories get no love.

(via Cynical-C)
Infinity Puerto Rico Welcomes Careful Drivers
LAJAS, Puerto Rico -- People in this sleepy hamlet are so sure they have been receiving other-worldly visitors, they want to build a UFO landing strip to welcome them. (Hat tip: Neil)
Egan v. Franzen
If you missed Patrick's earlier post on the Ben Marcus/Jonathan Franzen fracas over experimental fiction, check it out. Then pick up a copy of the new Harper's. Night y'all.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Q: Do you think of yourself primarily as a singer or a poet?
A: Oh, I think of myself more as a song and dance man, y'know.
There are definitely worse things you could do with your life than watch No Direction Home, the Scorsese documentary on Bob Dylan which just finished premiering on PBS.

I actually found Part I to be a little slow, mostly because it was quite different from what I was expecting -- though I was surprised by Dylan's visit to my hometown's mental institution, Greystone Hospital, where Woody Guthrie was hospitalized with Huntington's Chorea, my family's very own genetic sword of Damocles. I'd never heard of any of this. It was good and all, but I felt there was too much from other people and not enough Bob, and I wasn't sure if I would take time out from endless paper-grading to watch the second half.

I'm glad I did, because Part II picked up the ball and ran with it. The focus of the movie's second half is on the early 1960s, when the folk perception of Dylan and the rock interpretation of Dylan collided, much to the confusion and occasional consternation of the actual Dylan. It's really fascinating stuff, and the archival video footage alone is worth the price of admission, much less the incredible soundtrack.

Watching the young Dylan flounder about while everyone else tells him what he means is a trip, and judging from Chronicles (blogged), it's a feeling he's never really gotten over.

Here's hoping there's yet to be a No Direction Home II. The adventures of 1970s evangelical Dylan have yet to be fully told.

Netflix
Anatomy Sessions
Neat new medical illustration blog. (via Drawn!)
Paranoia: The Game
I was just telling Ezra earlier, I'd really like to play a few games of Paranoia. Looks like a lot of fun. Here's a fan Web site for game masters, including some funny game-time situations. Here's a wiki. The developers even have a blog.

(via Chris's post on MacGuffins)
God's Own Pie Chart
Major Religions of the World Ranked by Number of Adherents. (Via Cynical-C)

16%! Wow. Look out, Islam, you're next!
Operation Eden
Another Hurricane Katrina (and now Rita) photo blog. (via MeFi)
From Lipchitz to Eternity
Rashomon links to some neat collections of work by modernist sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, while Gravity Lens is linking to a Web site which helps you book your passage to the Egyptian afterlife.
up up away
Super Grover lithographs, art by Alex Ross. Too cool.

Pictures and a "review" of the toy by my most hated toysite, Millionaire Playboy.
Fahrenheit 9/27
It's Banned Book Week.
  • The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000. You know it's a hot list when The New Joy of Gay Sex only clocks in at #28.
  • The Forbidden Library Vonnegut repeats, Shakespeare and Stephen King threepeat.
  • Classic Banned Books and Frequenty Challenged Authors
  • Banned Books Online
  • (via MeFi and Bookslut)

    Where's Waldo? Seriously, Saginaw?
    Monday, September 26, 2005

    Meanwhile
    An interactive comic by Jason Shiga, author of the excellent Fleep (blogged). The overall storyline may seem a tad bit confusing, and one key link doesn't seem to work, but it's great nonetheless.

    There was a profile recently of Shiga that was pretty great.

    [MetaFilter]
    There Can Be Only One
    Continuing their "Law of Diminishing Returns" marathon tour, Angry Alien has put up a Highlander in 30 Seconds Reenacted by Bunnies. I'm still looking forward to a few of the forthcoming ones, but the gimmick is starting to wear thin.

    They also did The Big Chill recently, as well as War of the Worlds, but those aren't movies I have a soft spot for. Even the Pulp Fiction reenactment didn't do very much for me.
    Ithaca Poros
    They're saying they've found the tomb of Odysseus. Color me skeptical. (via MeFi)
    Buz-Baz City Review
    The Independent's got funny foreign phrases from all around the globe. Some highlights:
    O KA LA NOKONOKO Hawaiian
    A day spent in nervous anticipation of a coughing spell.

    NARACHASTRA PRAYOGA Sanskrit
    Men who worship their own sexual organs.

    SENZURI Japanese
    Male masturbation (literally "a hundred rubs"). "Shiko shiko manzuri" is the female version (literally "ten thousand rubs").

    BUZ-BAZ Ancient Persian
    A showman who makes a goat and monkey dance together.

    GRILAGEM Brazilian Portuguese
    The practice of putting a live cricket into a box of newly faked documents, until the insect's excrement makes the paper look convincingly old.

    LATAH Indonesian
    Uncontrollable habit of saying embarrassing things.

    YUYURUNGUL Yindiny, Australia
    The noise of a snake sliding through grass.
    (via Bookslut)
    RPS-25
    Hot on the heels of Sunday's
    Rock-Paper-Scissors-Fire-Gun-Lightning-Devil-Dragon-
    Water-Air-Sponge-Wolf-Tree-Human-Snake
    comes
    Rock-Paper-Scissors-Gun-Dynamite-Nuke-Lightning-Devil-
    Dragon-Alien-Water-Bowl-Air-Moon-Sponge-Wolf-Cockroach-
    Tree-Man-Woman-Monkey-Snake-Axe-Fire-Sun.
    Here's the chart. (via MetaFilter)
    The Super Mario Bros. Opera
    I think it's a gag, but I can't be sure.

    In any event, I bet "Your Princess Is In Another Castle (Reprise)" brings the house down.
    Gaiman v. Whedon
    The two masters talk in Time. (Also via Bookslut, which also asks: Who would win in a fight, Tolkien or C.S. Lewis?)
    Bill Watterson!
    Interviewed by fans in promotion for droolworthy The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. (via Bookslut)
    The Art of Mark Bryan


    Via Rashomon comes the portfolio of surrealist Mark Bryan. The war section is the best, but the others are pretty good too. (Warning: the women and babies sections have naked ladies, so surf wisely.) The image above is called "Homeland."
    Stop Laughing, This Is Serious
    It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico.

    And they're out for revenge.
    Zombie 4
    Kill them all. [Flash] Hold down the right button on your mouth to move, release it to aim, and click the left button to shoot. Repeat as needed.

    The lesson of this zombie game, as with the greatest zombie Flash game of all time, Deanimator, is that the zombies will eventually kill us all.
    Sunday, September 25, 2005

    MythBusters
    An encyclopedia of the highlights from the MythBusters series. (via Cynical-C)
    Make Your Own Kind of Music
    As prophesied, the season premiere of Lost was, in fact, excellent, including a beautiful two-minute montage set to Mama Cass's "Make Your Own Kind of Music" which singlehandedly redeemed the mediocrity of the first season.

    And it seems like the writers may have learned some lessons from the many mistakes they made last year (though of course it's still too early to tell). Which would be a good thing.

    The show's still not perfect, but it's the second-best science fiction on TV right now, and I suppose we have to take what we can get.

    Wikipedia has the recap, as well as your Season One Episode Guide.
    Rock-Paper-Scissors
    ...Fire-Gun-Lightning-Devil-Dragon-Water-Air-Sponge-Wolf-Tree-Human-Snake. (via Waxy)

    That Thing They Say about Pop Rocks Is Actually Somewhat True about Mentos
    Combining Mentos and soda will kill you dead*. And it won't be pretty. See also, this. And all these.

    (First link via Linkfilter)
    --
    * I don't think you would actually die. Which is to say I don't think anything unusual would actually happen.
    Another Civ4 Preview
    I'm really looking forward to this game. Unlike previous previews, this one goes into great detail about the endgame. Changes have been made. (via Slashdot)
    Saturday, September 24, 2005

    Arrested D
    Thanks to my good friend PClem I've been inducted into the fraternity of drooling Arrested Development fanboys. I know I'm a few years late to this party, and I resisted as long as I could, but the show really is something special. (And forgive me if I detect the whiff of Wes Anderson hanging over these proceedings.) Glad there'll be a third season for me to catch up on eventually.

    Check this one out.

    Obligatory Amazon link
    Netflix
    Troyis
    Touch all the white squares on each chessboard with your knight. [Flash] Note: You can step on a square more than once.
    My Evil Twin
    Gravity Lens points to Dial B for Blog's special feature on the comic book Evil Twin cliché.

    See also:

    Superman Murders Clark Kent!
    Superman Captures Hitler and Stalin
    Super Size Superheroes
    Superhero Shrinkage
    Comics in Comics
    Kafka's Metamorphosis
    and previous Backwards City favorite The Big Giant Hand
    Friday, September 23, 2005

    Jackson Your Own Pollock
    jacksonpollock.org by Miltos Manetas. Really neat.
    Dylan
    By the way, that Dylan post from earlier is just one of a ton of excellent Dylan articles from the Independent's special section today.

    The Story Behind 'Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands'
    Donovon v. Dylan
    The Twenty Essential Dylan Albums (plus a bonus exegesis of 'Like a Rolling Stone'
    Behind the Hits and Myths
    The Times They Are Still A-Changin'

    Wikipedia tells me it's not his birthday, so I guess this hooplah must be all about the new Scorsese documentary and bootleg album.
    'I May Not Write Another Book, and I'd Better Thank Everyone I've Ever Known'
    The WSJ on too-long acknowledgments. This is why I never thank anybody for anything. (via Bookslut)
    The Man Who Shouted 'Judas!' at Bob Dylan
    It is the most famous heckle in rock'n'roll history, aimed with venom at a stunned Bob Dylan one 1966 night in Manchester. Andy Kershaw reveals how he tracked down the man who (may have) yelled it.
    Spaced Penguin
    Cute little game where your goal is to get the spaced penguin back to his ship [Flash]. Via MetaFilter.
    Return to New Orleans / Escape from New Orleans Again
    Leo McGovern of Antigravity (a NOLA local alt monthly covering local music and local news) has returned to New Orleans to survey the damage. He's also posted some photos of the destruction, which you'll have to scroll down the blog a bit to see. Comics aficiandos and book lovers will not want to see what happened to his stuff. (via Boing Boing)
    This Is All Just a Game to You
    Castlemouse [Flash]
    RSVP [Flash]
    Whizzball! [Flash]
    The Flowering Nose in Slugland [Flash]

    (via the Little Fluffy Top 20)
    Thursday, September 22, 2005

    Lost
    I haven't seen it yet, but apparently last night's episode of Lost was pretty good -- which means I'm going to give the show one last chance. If you're new to the show, check out Wikipedia's astoundingly detailed Lost Episode Guide for Season One. (via MeFi's thread on a crackpost fan theory and/or guerilla marketing scheme)
    Weasel Words
    Like its fellow weasel-words—some, few, often, seems, likely, moremany serves writers who haven't found the data to support their argument. A light splash of weasel-words in a news story is acceptable if only because journalism is not an exact science and deadlines must be observed.

    Jack Shafer demolishes a slimy journalism tactic on the pages of Slate, particularly with regard to a recent New York Times article, "Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood," where many means, apparently, several. (Thanks, Steve!)
    Turning the Pages
    The British Library's incredible Turning the Pages initiative lets you look at the original handwritten manuscripts of great books online, including Alice in Wonderland, Leonardo's notebook, and the first European atlas. There's also text and audio commentary and zoom features.

    You'll need Shockwave. The applet takes a little while to load, but be patient, it's worth it. Amazing. (via BookNinja)
    Daily Dose of Donald Barthelme
    Who among us knew that Jessamyn, vaunted second banana at MetaFilter, had a personal website that includes a ton of republished-with-permission Barthelme stories and essays? I sure didn't, not until LinkFilter told me anyway.

    Since the first Barthelme story I read in Mary Grimm's fiction class at good old Case Western Reserve Purple Monkey Dishwasher University, Barthelme has been a tremendous influence on me. He's up there with Vonnegut and Calvino on the list of writers who completely changed the way I read, think, and especially write.

    I sometimes think that if he hadn't shown me the endless possibility of the short story, I'd surely be writing novels by now.

    Linkfilter recommends that you read "Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby." I agree. I'd second that suggestion with Bathelme classics like "Me and Miss Mandible," "The School," "The Balloon," "City of Churches," and absolutely, absolutely "The Glass Mountain."

    To read my other favorite Barthelme stories, however -- "Sentence," "The Temptation of St. Anthony," and "Concerning the Bodyguard" -- you'll have to buy Forty Stories.

    Then you should buy Sixty Stories.
    Wednesday, September 21, 2005

    'Cursing, They Say, Is a Human Universal'
    "Almost Before We Spoke, We Swore": The science of swearing at The New York Times. [via Boing Boing]
    Is Atheism Dead?
    BookForum tackles the big question. Here's one of the several very interesting opinions discussed:
    The best way to view Harris's intolerance is through the lenses provided by Julian Baggini's Atheism: A Very Short Introduction. Baggini's excellent little book is intended not as an attack on religion but to give a positive explanation of a word, atheism, that conjures "dark images of something sinister, evil, and threatening." His point is that atheism need be neither "happy-clappy" nor "pessimistic or depressive." It is rather a kind of growing up, a turning away from "the innocence of supernatural world views" and an acceptance "that we have to make our way in the world."
    Look for a cameo appearance by Stephen Colbert and the God Machine. [via A&L Daily]
    Ennui
    Stave off existential despair with Ball Bounce [Flash]. Your mouse controls the angle, up and down control the release point, left and right control the release speed. [MetaFilter]
    Just For Instance
    Anguish over reality TV leads to lawsuit after 'ugly sister' suicide.
    I'm Mad as Hell &c &c
    Believe it or not, I only saw Network for the first time tonight. Talk about prescient. My head is spinning.

    Amazon
    Netflix
    Famous Unsolved Codes and Ciphers
    Very cool list, spanning the Beale Ciphers to the Voynich Manuscript to the Easter Island tablets to the astounding Oak Island Monkey Pit and more. Via Cynical-C.
    Tuesday, September 20, 2005

    You Can't Take My Implausibly Large Solar System from Me
    After the Earth was used up, we found a new solar system and hundreds of new Earths were terraformed and colonized.

    Via Gravity Lens, Sci-Fi.com's Lab Notes takes a look at how plausible the giant solar system of Firefly actually is. I take a look at my watch and realize there's only ten days till Serenity premieres.
    Super Mario Like You've Never Seen Him Before
    Mario and Luigi, anime-style. (Other styles, including comics and impressionism, are available by clicking the different ?????s on the main page.)

    The fact that I can't read Japanese makes these all the more puzzling.

    (via Linkfilter)
    Heritage, USA
    Someone broke into Jim Bakker's abandoned Christianity-themed amusement park and took a boatload of pictures. Neat. (via Cynical-C)
    This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
    The banana as we know it is on a crash course toward extinction. And it's all our fault.
    Yet another Superman
    Gerry loves his Superman figures, though he's never managed to find the perfect one. While May 2006 is far off, I can't help wondering if he'd do well to wait for SilverAge Superman Robot action figure:
    Created to help Superman protect his secret identity, the classic Superman Robot is ready for any task! This action figure features multiple points of articulation and a display base. Also includes a bonus Beppo the Super-Monkey figure!
    Link to the rest of the May '06 selection. The SilverAge Luthor and Lois are pretty good too.
    It's Official, Lethem's a Genius
    He just won a MacArthur "genius" grant worth $500,000. Lucky.

    (via Boing Boing. In the last year or so I've read and reviewed for Backwards City nearly every book he's written, all but one highly recommended. It also bears mentioning that one of our artists, you know, kind of put the burn on Jonathan Lethem and Michael Chabon in Backwards City #2. We kid 'cause we love.)

    UPDATE: Gravity Lens points to Lethem's next project: a stint reviving little-known Marvel Comics superhero Omega the Unknown.
    Monday, September 19, 2005

    Virtual Plague in Crazy MMORPG
    Worlds of Warcraft, that online game that has the largest subscription base on earth, experienced a "bug" involving a plague-like epidemic. Granted, they didn't mean to have it happen, but the circumstances seem intriguing:
    Some servers have gotten so bad that you can't go into the major cities without getting the plague (and anyone less than like level 50 nearly immediately die). GM's even tried quarantining players in certain areas, but the players kept escaping the quarantine and infecting other players.
    A funny and frustrating mistake - but one that they may try to work with in the future? I know a storyline where folks were sick all the time would be pretty compelling, I think. I haven't played video games in a while, but I know that this sort of "experience" is what most people want when playing those Massive Multi-player things. Something that shows the world is alive and has rhythm...What else could make an equally compelling event?
    Lipsyte on Saunders
    Home Land author Sam Lipsyte reviews George Saunders's The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil for Bookforum.
    Unlike Animal Farm, to which this book will be compared, Saunders isn't taking a recognizable stand against a specific ideology; maybe the post–Cold War era is too fluid and unrecognizable for such conviction. Though progressive political fury informs a good deal of his writing, Saunders's prescription here is more an offshoot of the golden rule than anything grounded in an official talking point.

    This is a good thing for the very valuable art of George Saunders. The United States isn't Outer Horner or Inner Horner or Greater Keller. It's all three of them, depending on the context, and it must save itself.
    I've reviewed both these guys (Lipsyte, Saunders), and yet neither one of them has taken the time to review me. Does that seem fair to you?

    (via Rake's Progress, a cool lit blog I discovered during my continuously frustrated efforts to get Technorati working. He/she/they like all the authors I like. I've added them to the leftbar.)
    No More, No Less
    I love every story of Haruki Murakami's that I read. There's another one in The New Yorker this week: "The Kidney-Shaped Stone That Moves Every Day." It's not quite as excellent as "Where I'm Likely to Find It," but it's still, nonetheless, excellent. Here's the opener:
    Junpei was sixteen years old when his father made a surprising pronouncement. True, they were father and son; the same blood flowed through their veins. But they were not so close that they often opened their hearts to each other, and it was extremely rare for Junpei’s father to offer him views of life that might (perhaps) be called philosophical. So that day’s exchange would remain vivid in his memory long after he had forgotten what prompted it.

    “Among the women a man meets in his life, there are only three who have real meaning for him. No more, no less,” his father said—or, rather, declared. He spoke coolly but with utter certainty, as he might have in noting that the earth takes a year to revolve around the sun. Junpei listened in silence, partly because his father’s speech was so unexpected; he could think of nothing to say on the spur of the moment.

    “You will probably become involved with many women in the future,” his father continued, “but you will be wasting your time if a woman is the wrong one for you. I want you to remember that.”

    Later, several questions formed in Junpei’s young mind: Has my father already met his three women? Is my mother one of them? And, if so, what happened with the other two? But he was not able to ask his father these questions. As noted earlier, the two were not on such close terms that they could speak heart to heart...
    Back to the Moon
    NASA has announced a bold new initiative to take us...um...back to the moon...and it's going to take thirteen years. That's only four years longer than it took in the 1960s! USA! USA!

    (via MetaFilter, where cloudstastemetallic summarizes thusly: "Nothing distracts America from a war better than a good old fashioned trip to the moon")
    First Issue of Y: The Last Man at dccomics.com
    It's a few years old now, but if you're interested in the comic book that's continually described as better than all the other comic books, you can see Issue #1 of Y: The Last Man at dccomics.com [.pdf]. The basic plot: All the men in the world (but one) have just suddenly died.

    (via Cory at Boing Boing, who just picked up the fifth trade)
    In Defense of the Semicolon
    Like so many other fiction writers, my natural inclination to use the semicolon has been beaten out of me by a hostile, full-stop-normative, anti-semicolon aesthetic. Who weeps for the semicolon? [via A&L Daily]
    Not Dead Yet
    Jay MacInerney on exaggerated reports of the novel's demise.
    "If you write a novel alone you sit and you weave a little narrative," Naipaul told editor Rachel Donadio in the New York Times Book Review. "And it's okay, but it's of no account. If you're a romantic writer, you write novels about men and women falling in love, etc, give a little narrative here and there. But again, it's of no account." Hereby we dispose of Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, Great Expectations and the majority of novels in the canon. What is of account, he claims, are non-fictional explorations of "the Islamic question", the clash of belief and unbelief, of east and west. Readers of Naipaul's last couple of novels - a fairly exclusive club, I should imagine - probably won't be surprised to learn that he's grown tired of the genre; even Tolstoy came to distrust fiction at the end, but personally I trust Tolstoy the novelist rather than Tolstoy the cranky, sclerotic polemicist. The only reason we listen to Naipaul is because he wrote A House for Mr Biswas and A Bend in the River. If the novel doesn't matter any more then his opinion wouldn't seem to count for more than my doorman's opinion.
    Burn on V.S. (via BookNinja)
    As You May Have Noticed, Things Have Been Rejiggered
    1. The blog's been rejiggered a bit, and there's now a leftbar in addition to the sidebar. If you're not seeing that, or if you're seeing text and pictures all running into each other willy-nilly, or anything else like that, please let us know in the comments.

    2. The splash page of backwardscity.net has been rejiggered as well, and now loads one of five images randomly every time you load it. More random images will be added as we get around to it.

    3. Our second annual contest is now officially open, and an ad for said contest is now gracing the top of the sidebar. You can see an even bigger ad for that contest here as a .jpg, or here as a .pdf. Amazingly, our second contest receives top sidebar billing even above donating to the Red Cross, which as you know is incredibly, incredibly important.

    Interested parties should also take note of our chapbook contest, and spread the word.
    Sunday, September 18, 2005

    MetaCalvino
    MetaFilter has a great post with a myriad of Italo Calvino links, because he died twenty years ago today. Like everything even remotely Calvino-related, it's fantastic.
    Grow Cube
    The mad geniuses at EyeMaze have put out another Grow game for your amusement: Grow Cube. [Flash] When you tire of playing around, and want a walkthrough, here's the Grow Cube solution.

    (Previous Backwards City post on Grow RPG and Grow Original, including solutions for those games. Via MetaFilter.)
    It's Confession Time, Catamounts: Sam Lipsyte's Home Land
    The Believer called it the book of the year. I don't know about all that, but Sam Lipsyte's Home Land is pretty great. The Believer awards page excerpts the first page, which should give you a sense of the Letters from a Nut epistle-style the book uses. Lewis Miner, known to all of East Valley High as Teabag, writes unpublished and unpublishable updates on his daily life for his high school alumni notes. The book is funny, the book is sad, the book is very true.

    No one has done bitter alienation this well since Confederacy of Dunces, since Salinger, maybe since Kafka. My only regret is that I didn't read Lipsyte's other books (The Subject Steve and Venus Drive) first, because they use some of the same characters. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, Catamounts; if I hadn't known that Lewis, Gary, et al appear elsewhere, I'd have never guessed -- but knowing about it, I couldn't help but wonder what had come before.

    Definitely recommended, especially if that high school reunion you don't plan on attending is drawing uncomfortably near.
    K&K Mime: The Founders of Gospel Mime
    PClem was supposed to put this up, but he forgot. Get catapulted to a new dimension in worship: K&K Mime, the founders of Gospel Mime.
    Saturday, September 17, 2005

    Global Warming 'Past the Point of No Return'
    Uh-oh.
    Stick Figures Go to the Movies
    Stick Man Movie Scene Quiz - I
    SticK Man Movie Scene Quiz - II
    Lesson in Board Game Reporting
    Between coats of paint on what are looking to be a crappy set of pieces to be hung in Chapel Hill tonight, I found my way to what I consider the best playtest/session report of a board game I have ever read. It's for the game Amon-Re, a pyramid building, empire and generation spanning Egyptian sim. I wish all things were reviewed just like this.
    Friday, September 16, 2005

    Okay, I Want This
    Salon gives a rave review to Chris Ware's new book, The Acme Novelty Library Final Report to Shareholders and Rainy Day Saturday Afternoon Fun Book.
    Turn the first few pages -- past a series of ingeniously vicious parodies of old comic books' ads for Grit and Charles Atlas -- and you'll hit a spectacular two-page map of the heavens and the traditional constellations, à la Ware. View it in the dark, and it becomes an entirely different celestial map -- the constellations this time are Ware's characters, printed in glow-in-the-dark ink. That's followed by a brief history of visual art (presented as a series of tiny newspaper-style comic strips), then another grand two-page scheme described as "Our Blueprint of the Universe, as Seen through its Four Physical Types, Principles, and the Opposing Forces of Nature."

    It's staggering -- the sort of work that would singlehandedly establish another artist's career -- and Ware's only started showing off.
    Other notable recent Salon reviews:
  • Barbara Ehrenreich's Bait & Switch (another thumbs down for Babs)
  • Truth: A Guide, on the battle between Red and Blue America over "the very nature of truth"
  • The Republican War on Science
  • Day Pass required, natch.
    Hollywood Ruins/Improves Everything
    Old & Busted: Everything Is Illuminated, the book.
    New Hotness: Everything Is Illuminated, the movie.

    (via Bookslut)
    Uncontrolled Squid & Halloween is on.
    We like to play games, but we haven't been able to get together in a while to do so. If we manage to find the time, though, I'd like to try out Uncontrolled Squid, the latest free game of the month by arch-enemies Invisible City Productions. All you need is one or two decks of cards and a monster. (Theirs was a plush squid.)

    While I was poking around in the invisible city, I found a recent post which pointed out that Halloween is just around the corner and directed me to The Monster List of Halloween Projects, a how-to site covering everything from Animated Geiger-style Aliens, 13 hour clocks, and plain old corpses.


    lots and lots of vias involved in this trip, but I started at RPG news site, the Ogre Cave.
    Hooters: A Fun Place to Work
    The Smoking Gun presents the Hooters Employee Handbook:
    The Hooters Girl uniform skirt is a choice of a tank top tucked in to the Hooters Girl shorts (NO MIDRIFF IS TO SHOW) and the shirt must meet the Hooters Girl shorts. No portions of the bra is to show. A white or nude-colored bra must be worn. Shirts are not to be cut or altered, faded or have any stains or tears. A long sleeve shirt may be worn when weather conditions dictate and at manager's discretion. All shirts must be sized to fit, NO BAGGINESS.

    Only approved Orange Hooters Girl Shorts are to be worn, sized to fit, and SHOULD NOT BE SO TIGHT THAT THE BUTTOCKS SHOW.
    I can't decide if the best part is the agreement the prospective Hooters Girl is forced to sign to both "hereby affirm and acknowledge ... that Hooters forbids harassment of any kind" but also that "the Hooters concept is based on female sex appeal and the work environment is one in which joking and innuendo based on female sex appeal is commonplace" -- or if it's just that the Hooters Higher-Ups felt the need to specifically forbid their male employees from wearing makeup and pantyhouse.

    Just remember, gents, sexism kills.
    This Is The Last Time I'm Going to Mention Subscribing to the Magazine...This Week
    Issue #3. February 2006.
    Issue #4. August 2006.
    You know you are the one who is wanting it.
    Dalai Lama, Scientist
    My confidence in venturing into science lies in my basic belief that as in science so in Buddhism, understanding the nature of reality is pursued by means of critical investigation: if scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims. - The Dalai Lama
    Interesting review of the Dalai Lama's new book, The Universe in a Single Atom, which attempts to reconcile Buddhism with modern science. [via A&L Daily]
    Thursday, September 15, 2005

    Classic Literature, as Represented by That Picture of Calvin Peeing on Stuff
    Click here. And that goes double for you, Shakespeare.

    It should be noted that, for a number of reasons, this service would not be useful to actual illiterate persons.
    Hurricane Update: Here Come the Scammers
    Beware of used-car bargains cropping up in coming months that could be "flood cars," vehicles that were submerged in murky water after Hurricane Katrina.

    Buy one, and it will be the worst lemon of your life.
    Poetry: Y'alls Suck
    Poetry on its review system, in particular why it gives so many bad reviews.

    (via BookSlut, which also links to a George Saunders interview and a post on Flog! teasing Chris Ware's new New York Times Magazine comic)
    Will We Merge With Machines?
    Only Popular Science knows for sure. I was looking forward to plain old Microchip Memory, but Four-Dimensional Vision seems outstanding.
    Cindy Sheehan to be in NC.
    Cindy Sheehan will be in Raleigh, NC today. Looks like some literary and working folks in Durham(who can't make it to Raleigh) are going to try and give her a welcome on her march through the state: Meet at Brightleaf Square at noon, and march up to the 9th Street area. They've got signs and room for more writers/artists/whomever who wants to join them.

    Or you can join these boys in "Freeping" her, whatever that means (should someone call the authorities?).

    UPDATE - my favorite quote from that site: //I wonder if she has heard the President make an appeal to conserve gasoline- how much gas does a bus trip across country take..how about three buses...Oh, that's right, President Bush isn't her president so she doesn't need to conserve, be compassionate the trials of our fellow Americans... or perhaps she doesn't care for the poor "black people" of NO- I mean "the country cries while cindy rides"- she isn't showing them much compassion, is she?// Splendid logic.

    UPDATE - found the NC Peace and Justice Coalition site. Looks like they have all the information we need. Raleigh, Fayetteville, and back to Durham. Sept. 15th, 16th, and 17th, respectively. She's an important figure right now, and I think it'd be great if some folks went out and showed their support. Take your kids, let them see some bit of history in the making.
    Kurt Vonnegut Gets Around
    Daily dose of Kurt Vonnegut on The Daily Show. (Direct link to video.) Also check out his list of liberal crap he never wants to hear again. If you like Vonnegut, check out Gerry's post and the BCR.
    'Visionary Leader Dazzles Nation with Decisive Greatness!': The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil
    "I'll tell you something else about which I've been lately thinking!" he bellowed in a suddenly stentorian voice. "I've been thinking about our beautiful country! Who gave it to us? I've been thinking about how God the Almighty gave us this beautiful sprawling land as a reward for how wonderful we are. We're big, we're energetic, we're generous, which is reflected in all our myths, which are so very populated with large high-energy folks who give away all they have! If we have a National Virtue, it is that we are generous, if we have a National Defect, it is that we are too generous! Is it our fault that these little jerks have such a crappy land? I think not! God Almighty gave them that small crappy land for reasons of His own. It is not my place to start cross-examining God Almighty, asking why He gave them such a small crappy land, my place is to simply enjoy and protect the big bountiful land God Almighty gave us!"
    From somewhere between Dr. Seuss and Animal Farm comes George Saunders's new novella, The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, a biting satire of the selfishness, insularity, and outright stupidity that has so characterized the Bush Era in American life.

    Saunders fans may feel a little let down by the book, which simply isn't as finely crafted as CivilWarLand or Pastoralia. But this book is after different things. This is polemic terrority; the allegory is not so much thinly veiled as completely naked. And as a polemic, the story mostly works. Bush receives the brunt of Saunders's wrath, although the media and a too easily manipulated American populace are also brutally (but rightly) satirized.

    Like everything else Saunders writes, it's hilarious, insightful, and absolutely worth reading.

    The only real problem with Phil is the same one that plagued the end of the otherwise excellent Saunders story, "ComCom," in a recent New Yorker. Saunders's recent stories seem to rely increasingly on magical thinking for their outs. Having exposed the gluttony and sloth that lurks beneath the smooth plastic of contemporary society, Saunders seems unable to envision any way out for us, offers no hope for the world or its benighted inhabitants save for divine intervention. He may view this as a legitimate hope. But for me, the notion that only God can save us now is, if anything, more depressing than the satire itself. Because the cold fact is that no one is coming to save us, no one to rescue us, no one to dismantle our Phils for us and enlighten us suddenly into a kinder, gentler, better world.

    If the gift of grace is our only hope, we have no hope. There's no one to save us but us, and we're running out of time, and Phil is at the wheel.
    Wednesday, September 14, 2005

    'Bush Nominates First-Trimester Fetus To Supreme Court'
    At The Onion. (Thanks, Srinivas!)
    Life Imitates The Onion
    The Onion, February 18, 2004: 'Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades'
    Gillette Co., September 14, 2005: 'Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades'

    (Post, witty observation and all, shamelessly stolen from MetaFilter)
    Reviews of Books by Kurt Vonnegut from The New York Times Archive
    Awesome collection of N.Y. Times reviews of Vonnegut novels, from Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five to Galapagos and Hocus Pocus. Also includes some of KV's writing, including his review of Stranger in a Strange Land.

    Remember that time Kurt Vonnegut was in BCR #1? That was fantastic.

    Obligatory Amazon Link. (via Cynical-C)
    Whoops, Pledge is Unconstitutional Again
    Can't these people make up their minds?
    Oh My God, He's the President
    Here's the caption: U.S. President George W. Bush writes a note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York September 14, 2005. World leaders are exploring ways to revitalize the United Nations at a summit on Wednesday but their blueprint falls short of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's vision of freedom from want, persecution and war.

    Here's the text of that note: "I think I may need a bathroom break? Is this possible?"

    Three more years.

    Zoomed-out view.
    Close-up.

    (via MetaFilter)
    Don't Get Left Behind
    Subscribe/resubscribe/donate vast sums of money to Backwards City Review today. Resubscription Week comes but once a year.
    Let Stephen King Kill You
    ...in his next novel, The Cell. Current price is $19,490.86. Proceeds are being donated to The First Amendment Project. (via Neil)
    The Grid
    Click on a noodle and start a noodle chain-reaction. [Flash]
    The Box Doodle Project
    Recycling cardboard boxes intro art. Just scroll right. [via Boing Boing]
    Artistic Interpretations of Literary Figures
    Via Drawn! comes this fantastic sketch gallery of literary writers and characters, including Vonnegut, Nietzsche, Pooh, Papa, Kafka, Carver, Kerouac, Ignatius J. Reilly, a rather hard-to-see Yossarian, an dramatically slimmed-down Michael Moore, Margaret Atwood, Shel Silverstein, Flannery O'Connor, Lady MacBeth, and many others. Pictured below: Will Eisner's excellent Quixote.

    Tuesday, September 13, 2005

    This Should Be Illegal
    Video games based on books, fine. [EDIT: Here's more on this.]
    But books based on video games? That's just wrong.

    (via Bookninja)
    Le Foto di Sir Alfred Hitchcock
    All the Hitchcock photos you will ever need.



    (Via Cynical-C, whose link to this Fantastic Zoology page based on Borges's "Book of Imaginary Beings" may be old news to long-time Backwards City readers, but definitely worth another visit)
    Letters to Wendy's LIVE! at Salon
    Last night I found these MP3s from a 2002 reading of Joe Wenderoth's fantastic Letters to Wendy's at Salon. It's new to me. And deeply hilarious.

    Part 1.
    Part 2.

    September 20th. Today I had a Biggie. Usually, I just have a small and refill. Why pay more? But today I needed a Biggie inside me. Some days, I guess, are like that. Only a Biggie will do. You wake up and you know, Today I will get a Biggie and I will put it inside me and I will feel better. One time I saw a guy with three Biggies at once. One wonders, not about him, but about what it is that holds us back.
    Resubscription Week
    Just a reminder to our early boosters, beloved friends, and longtime supporters that now is a good time to resubscribe. Or to subscribe for the first time, if that's what you're into.
    From Ninevah to New Orleans
    Don’t be shocked at the sad fate of the Big Easy. Our history is littered with ‘eternal’ cities brought down by flood, pestilence or man-made disaster. In the Times. [via A&L Daily]
    New State Mottoes
    Version 1. Version 2. North Carolina gets its deep and abiding love of tobaccey mocked both times. (via GeekPress)
    Tokyo on $250 a Day
    But given today's strong euro, Tokyo can actually be less expensive than some major European cities (and even cheaper than New York) - if you know where to go and what to avoid. [via my mom]
    Monday, September 12, 2005

    'The Hiltons have amused me. I am filled with shame.'
    Ditto on both counts.
    Keyboardin'
    Li Zhuang, Feng Zhou, and Doug Tygar have an interesting new paper showing that if you have an audio recording of somebody typing on an ordinary computer keyboard for fifteen minutes or so, you can figure out everything they typed.

    Makes a lot of sense -- it's more or less just based upon basic cryptographic principles. Just identify the unique sound each key makes as it strikes, and then run a frequency analysis to determine what it is they're saying. [Via GeekPress, which also links to the gallery of alternative keyboards]
    Talking Post-9/11 Fiction Writing Blues
    Chris Cleave.
    Julia Alvarez.
    Via Bookslut.

    UPDATE: In the comments, J.T. links to another very interesting piece with a more historical perspective on terrorism and literature. There's a really good class/paper/book on this just waiting to be put together.
    Boondock Saints
    Patrick asked me to post this image from today's Boondocks strip.

    Speaking of $$$: A Bleg
    Speaking of ordering back issues of the journal, we also wanted to remind our initial subscribing base that they only have about three weeks left to resubscribe at the original $10 subscription price. After September 30, the price goes up to a soul-crushing (but still very reasonable) $12.

    The easiest way to subscribe is to use Paypal. The second easiest way is to send a check to: BCR, P.O. Box 41317, Greensboro, NC 27404. Just make sure you let us know where to send it.

    Some of you bought gift subscriptions for friends and family members last year. We would highly encourage this.

    And if you've already resubscribed, thanks. Really, thanks. It means a hell of a lot to us. If every regular reader of this blog were to throw a little bit of money our way, all the journal's money worries would be over.

    Issue #3 like a freight train in February 2006. We hope you'll be on board.
    Zen Koans
    Enlighenment guaranteed.
    BCR Contributor #1 Cory D at Salon
    The first third of Cory Doctorow's new novel is being published serially at Salon, a new chapter every Monday for the next ten weeks. Check it out. Cory's been very good to us over here in the Backwards City, and it's nice to be able to throw a little love back. [Via Cory's blog, the nefarious Boing Boing]

    You can read his story direct from BCR #1 here [PDF]. You'll need to order a back issue for $5 if you want to hold it in your very hands. We're starting to run low on supplies of the first one, so, you know, act quickly.
    Personality Disorder Test
    You are deeply flawed. Please seek professional help immediately.

    (via MeFi)
    Nightmare of the Day
    The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

    ...

    To deter the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States, the Pentagon paper says preparations must be made to use nuclear weapons and show determination to use them "if necessary to prevent or retaliate against WMD use."
    Sunday, September 11, 2005

    Vonnegut on Maher
    Must-watch video of the man himself on Real Time with Bill Mahr recently.
    BM: In your new book you make a very interesting point about how the Republican right is always trying to post the Ten Commandments in public places, which of course is from the Old Testament, but they never, ever seem to want to post the sayings of Jesus, like the Beautitudes: "Blessed are the meak, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the peacemakers." They're such Christians, but they never want to put up what Jesus said.

    KV: Well, I don't think they've ever paid any attention to him, and if he were to show up now with that kind of talk, I think he would probably be given lethal injection rather than crucifixion. No, I don't think they know anything about Jesus.
    I read A Man without a Country last weekend, and you can read what I had to say about it here. And you can see what Kurt Vonnegut had to say in Backwards City #1 by ordering it here.

    (via fellow Bokononite Cynical-C)
    Winterson
    I hated The Powerbook, and I've never gotten around to reading Written on the Body, but luckily for my Introduction to Literature class, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is excellent.
    Poetry Exclusive! Only at BackwardsCity.Net
    In what will in theory become a tradition around here, we've put some online-exclusive poems up at backwardscity.net for your consideration. Take a gander.
    Many Sports Are Different on the Moon
    For instance, tennis.
    Saturday, September 10, 2005

    When I Was Young It Seemed That Life Was So Wonderful
    Via MetaFilter, a trip down Nostalgia Lane with Clinton: The Final Days.
    Where Was the Door?
    See if you remember where the door was on all your favorite sitcoms. I'm embarassed to say how good my memory of all these different sets actually is.
    'Viruses of the Mind'
    In which evolutionist Richard Dawkins takes a, um, contrarian stance on religious faith.
    Weapons That Don't Exist, But Should
    A helpful list from the always uninformative Uncyclopedia.
    Ben Franklin's Thirteen Virtues
    Temperance. Silence. Order. Resolution. Frugality. Industry. Sincerity. Justice. Moderation. Cleanliness. Chastity. Tranquility. Humility. How'm I doing? (very much via MetaFilter)
    The Crackpot Index
    How much of a crackpot are you?
    A simple method for rating potentially revolutionary contributions to physics:

    11. 10 points for beginning the description of your theory by saying how long you have been working on it.

    13. 10 points for offering prize money to anyone who proves and/or finds any flaws in your theory.

    14. 10 points for each new term you invent and use without properly defining it.

    16. 10 points for arguing that a current well-established theory is "only a theory", as if this were somehow a point against it.

    17. 10 points for arguing that while a current well-established theory predicts phenomena correctly, it doesn't explain "why" they occur, or fails to provide a "mechanism".

    18. 10 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Einstein, or claim that special or general relativity are fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).

    21. 20 points for suggesting that you deserve a Nobel prize.

    23. 20 points for every use of science fiction works or myths as if they were fact.

    25. 20 points for naming something after yourself. (E.g., talking about the "The Evans Field Equation" when your name happens to be Evans.)

    30. 30 points for suggesting that Einstein, in his later years, was groping his way towards the ideas you now advocate.

    32. 30 points for allusions to a delay in your work while you spent time in an asylum, or references to the psychiatrist who tried to talk you out of your theory.

    36. 40 points for claiming that when your theory is finally appreciated, present-day science will be seen for the sham it truly is. (30 more points for fantasizing about show trials in which scientists who mocked your theories will be forced to recant.)
    Stop, Collaborate, and Listen
    The third entry in our frustratingly sporadic series on defaced stop signs is Jennie Thompson's favorite.



    Previous stop signs:

    Stop Bu$h
    Stop Hammertime
    Friday, September 09, 2005

    nowhammynowhammynowhammystop!
    The Press Your Luck Scandal. I thought I'd linked to something about this before, but Google couldn't find it in the archives:
    But there was something Michael Larsen hadn't told anyone.

    Back in his home state of Ohio, he didn't have just one television, he had several. Each television was hooked up to a private networking farm of VCRs in his living room. In November of 1983, he recorded every episode of Press Your Luck over the course of several weeks. He studied these videotapes, slowed them down, and froze the images to examine randomized tile sequences frame by frame. If you haven't already guessed, Michael Larsen discovered that the Big Board on Press Your Luck was not a randomized display, but an iterative, sequential pattern which gave itself away once you knew what to look for.

    Actually there were six patterns, each of which consisted of eighteen elements apiece -- and Michael Larsen had memorized them all. As long as his concentration and hand-eye coordination held out, Larsen would enjoy full control of the Big Board, and nothing would be left to chance.
    Ultimately Larsen walked away with over $100,000 -- which, like so many lottery winners before him, he promptly lost to a ponzi scheme. (via kottke, via Cynical-C)
    Deutschland, 1929
    Wonderful, beautiful pictures of Germany from just before everything went wrong, via Cynical-C -- which also links to some found photographs of afterwards.
    We Can Rebuild Him. We Have the Technology
    ...the University of Southampton team has designed a prototype [prosthetic hand] that uses six sets of motors and gears so each of the five fingers can move independently.
    ...
    The new hand - called the Southampton Remedi-Hand - can be connected to muscles in the arm via a small processing unit and is controlled by small contractions of the muscles which move the wrist.
    This is really amazing. Be sure to check out the picture. (via Gravity Lens)
    Katrinalinks
    Fantastic photoessay of New Orleans after Katrina.

    Via MetaFilter, which also links to this first-person account of the Superdome by a Tulane graduate student (Part 2, Part 3), as well as this not-very-useful-but-somewhat-interesting Flood Simulator.
    Things Japanese
    Established in 1971, Things Japanese is a gallery offering for sale an extensive selection of Japanese art and antiques.

    Things Japanese specializes in 18th to 20th century woodblock prints, antique porcelain and pottery, furniture, baskets, scrolls, masks, screens, dolls, kimonos, netsuke, folk art, textiles, books and more. Our wide price range and selection will accommodate all collectors, interior designers, dealers and gift givers.


    Now you all know where to shop for my birthday.

    (via Rashomon)
    Guide to Japanese Castles
    Wonderful site with tons of images.



    One thing I really can't wait for: the trip Jaimee and I are taking to Japan (currently scheduled for 2017).

    (via MetaFilter)
    Thursday, September 08, 2005

    Cheap Gas Finder
    I don't use a lot of sweet, sweet crude, but if you do, this site from MSN might come in handy.
    'The Aristocrats' as Tabetha Wells Thinks Bob Newhart Would Perform It
    At McSweeney's Internet Tendency.

    I think a good number of our readers will be interested in Things Hagrid the Half-Giant Would Say If He Served Jesus instead of Harry Potter, as well.
    'Evolution Schmevolution: A Daily Show Special Report'
    It's the accepted theory on the origin of life by an overwhelming majority of the world's biologists, but maybe they're all wrong.

    All next week.

    P.S. -- You're next, gravity.

    Via The Panda's Thumb.
    The Bookslut Guide to Rock Novels
    Click here. Look for a cameo by Greensboro's (and Backwards City #1's) own Michael Parker.
    THERE'S MORE TO LIFE THAN BOOKS, YOU KNOW, BUT NOT MUCH MORE: THE BEST OF THE ROCK NOVELS

    If You Want Me to Stay, Michael Parker (2005).
    Look for a full review of this wonderful new novel next month. A brilliant work of Southern fiction, the characters in If You Want Me to Stay are obsessed with soul music — Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, Archie Bell, the Stax/Volt and Muscle Shoals sounds. Funny at times and wrenchingly sad at others, this is one of the most perfectly realized novels I've read in recent years. Very highly recommended.

    (via Terry K.)
    Dictionaraoke Killed the Radio Star
    All your favorite songs, sung by dictionary pronunciation programs. Including:
  • 'Video Killed the Radio Star'
  • 'Ain't Nothing but a G Thing'
  • 'Burning Down the House'
  • and many others.
  • This is fantastic.

    (via MetaFilter)
    Happy Birthday, Dolores Haze!
    Another article celebrating the 50th anniversary of Lolita. (via BookSlut)
    Dark Side of the Moon Oz America
    (Alternative Headlines: (1) Forget That Whole Munchkin Thing (2) Well, This Is Pretty Crass (3) No, We Won't at Least Wait a Week before We Cynically Exploit the Images of the Dead for Our Own Purposes)

    Pink Floyd's "Us and Them" set to a slideshow of pictures from recent history. Clear evidence that Roger Waters has access to a time machine while recording Dark Side of the Moon (as has long been suspected).
    Good Place/No Place
    The Ten Sexiest Utopias
    The Ten Stupdiest Utopias

    (via Gravity Lens, which is also linking to an article that argues SETI has it all wrong)
    'Fine Line Revealed Between Creativity and Insanity'
    A new study confirms that their enhanced creativity may come from using more of the right side of the brain than the rest of us.

    In the spectrum between normal and insane, schizotypes generally fall somewhere in the middle. While they do not suffer many of the symptoms affecting schizophrenics, including paranoia, hallucinations and incoherent thoughts, schizotypes often exhibit their own eccentricities.

    "They may dress or carry themselves in a strange way," says Bradley Folley, a graduate student in clinical psychology at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee and the lead author of the study. "They’re not abnormal, they live normal lives but they often have idiosyncratic ways of thinking. Certain things may have special meaning for them or they may be more spiritually attuned."


    In other news, the splinter publication I'm forming after the tragic-but-inevitable Backwards City breakup just got its name: SchizoType. (via Gravity Lens)
    Wednesday, September 07, 2005

    'Neuropsychiatric Examination Disclosed Auditory Hallucinations, Ideas of Reference and Suicide, and a Rambling, Grandiose, Philosophical Manner'
    Jack Kerouac's military discharge papers. At the Smoking Gun.
    wear + give
    From my married-on-a-goat-farm friends in New York City, Claire and Dave, comes word that they've made a nifty cool design and put it up on Cafe Press. A different shirt for each region, all proceeds go to either New Orleans or the Gulf Coast via the American Red Cross Disaster Fund.

    And while you might ask, "Why give $15 bucks to get a shirt, only a portion of which will go to the Red Cross, with only a portion of THAT going to people in need." A good question.*

    But I think things like this are important too. Messages that tell folks we're looking out for them, and that make people who aren't [giving, thinking, loving] - it makes them think again. Especially important when the news coverage stops being so shocking and the whole world pretends everything is all better, rebuilt instantaneously.

    *the other answer is that you don't have to get a shirt. There's also mugs and buttons for cheap.
    George Saunders for President
    Just one of the many important ideas being promulgated by Maud Newton at the Roy Kesey/George Saunders interview currently being hosted on her blog.
    RK: Good evening, Mr. Saunders. According to my sources, you have a new book out, a novella called The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil. Word on the street, and behind the Shop-n-Save, and on the porch, and in many of Beijing’s top-drawer massage parlors, is that it’s a political fable. Any truth to that?

    GS: I’m not really sure what to call it. It started out as a kids’ book, but then suddenly became about genocide. So much for the marketing tie-ins! But I’m glad they’re talking about it in the massage parlors. It just goes to show you that phone marketing really does work.
    (via Bookslut)
    How to Make a Superhero Movie That Doesn't Suck
    At Salon, from July. Via this somewhat-skeptical MetaFilter thread on Marvel's plans to release ten new comic-book movies, including, among others, Captain America, Nick Fury, Black Panther and (at last!) Ant-Man.
    Daily Show Speaks Truth to Power
    Last night's Daily Show was incredibly important. Epic. It must be watched.

    Official channel (Both "Inarguable Failure" and "Beleagured Bush")
    Unofficial channel
    I cannot endorse this

    While you're waiting for the slow download, here are the Daily Show's Major Disasters of the Bush Administration. Turns out they're happening in alphabetical order. We're on 'K.'



    My understanding is that 'G' is still classified. It may be me myself.
    Whet Your Whistle
    Whedon on Serenity and X-Men 3 in Now Playing. Serenity opens on Sept. 30th.

    No Beast in X-3? Nonsense. He should have been in the first one. Beast rocks. Even Neil thinks so.
    Some Good News<
    The California Assembly has passed a same-sex marriage bill. The Governator still has to sign it, though.

    UPDATE: Arnold's vetoing.
    Written sometime between 1861 and 1937
    In Louisiana
    by Albert Bigelow Paine


    The long, gray moss that softly swings
    In solemn grandeur from the trees,
    Like mournful funeral draperies,--
    A brown-winged bird that never sings.

    A shallow, stagnant, inland sea,
    Where rank swamp grasses wave, and where
    A deadliness lurks in the air,--
    A sere leaf falling silently.

    The death-like calm on every hand,
    That one might deem it sin to break,
    So pure, so perfect,--these things make
    The mournful beauty of this land.
    Tuesday, September 06, 2005

    Backwards City Second-Ever Literary Contest: Announced
    We've just posted the details for our second annual short-story and poetry contest. You've got some time: the deadline isn't until March 15.

    We're also putting together a chapbook contest. No details yet, so keep checking back.

    In the meantime, we still need your work for issue #3. Submit.
    Barbara Ehrenreich Has a New Book
    And Slate isn't very impressed:
    Our sleuth makes a mistake analogous to the one that marred Nickel and Dimed. In that earlier experiment, she entered life as a low-income worker, yet without many support systems. She had no church, no family, and no reliance on friends for financial or even moral aid. It is no wonder she found life so tough and capitalism so demoralizing. She lived an ordinary "lower class" life, yet with upper-middle-class, modern, academic morals and methods.

    This time she cuts herself off from networks and personal contacts. She does recruit some friends to lie for her and back up her vita, should anyone call and ask about her past. But there is not a single voice to spread the word about her. Nor can she fall back on accumulated experience and contacts, for that would reveal her identity. So, she stalks the job world as a paper ghost. Alan, I wonder what would you—as a rational employer—make of a 60ish-year-old woman who appears out of nowhere and has no pre-existing contacts, offers, or networks? And what job is more a matter of personal contacts than public relations?
    A fair criticism on both points, but still, I'll probably check this one out. (via Bookslut)
    Hurricane Relief: Books for Children
    Every $5 donated to First Book will be matched with 1 book that will go to children in the devastated areas. (via Bookslut)
    Cryptowizardology
    Turns out what Hogwarts really needs is a course on cryptography. (WARNING: Contains read-between-the-lines spoilers for The Half-Blood Prince.) This page on problems of trust in the Harry Potter Universe is even better:
  • Time Turner: This allows a wizard to be in two places at once. In the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry and Hermione use this to frustrate the plans of the Ministry of Magic, while retaining a cast-iron alibi.

    Interestingly, Hermione's possession of the Time Turner had previously been authorized by the Ministry of Magic - presumably by a separate department. Clearly the wizarding world has failed to embrace Joined-Up-Government.

  • Quidditch:: The opportunities for cheating at Quidditch seem endless. For example, there are several instances in the book where key artefacts (brooms, bludgers) are jinxed by watching stakeholders.

    (In contrast, some of the cheating that goes on around the Triwizard Tournament seems touchingly naive.)
  • Both this one and the last one via GeekPress.
    'One Side Can Be Wrong'
    Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne in The Guardian on why "teaching the controversy" would be a disaster.
    Monday, September 05, 2005

    For Those Who Enjoy Humorous Math
    The following is directly quoted from thinkprogress.org:
    At a press conference this afternoon, President George H. W. Bush singled out the Walton Family for their generosity to Katrina relief efforts:

    I don’t think anyone would mind if I singled out the chairman and CEO of Wal-Mart, Lee Scott, who is right here. He told us that they gave the Bush-Clinton fund a total of $23 million…$15 million from the company and then $8 million more from the Walton family, the marvelous philanthropists that they are.


    Let’s put that in perspective. The Walton family’s net worth is $90 billion. So $8 million dollars represents .009 percent of their total.

    The average family’s net worth is $86,100. If an average family contributed at the same rate as the Waltons, they’d donate $7.74.

    There are thousands of families all around country that are being far more generous to Katrina victims than the Waltons. Few of them will be personally thanked by a former President.

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