The Art Of Self Help

Methinks these are more inspirational that the contents of the books...

Every Book That Art Garfunkel Has Ever Read

Like most people, I've got Art Garfunkle on my mind.

Some are concerned with where he is, or what he's doing. But have you ever wanted to know "What's Art Garfunkle reading"? Well, today is your lucky day! It's quite a list, provided by the funkle of Gar himself on his website:

Since the 1960's, Art Garfunkel has been a voracious reader. We are pleased to present a listing of every book Art has read over the last 40 years. This book list has been divided into several pages to allow easy downloading. Each page indicates the author, title, date of publication and number of pages (when available).

His first entry? The Confessions, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, back in June, 1968. The last novel was Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck. Hmmm, not quite Rousseau. On his favorites list, he's got the classics - Twain, Dickens, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy; the modern icons - Roth, Updike, Bellow ; even edgier stuff for cred - Kerouac, Lethem, and Bukowski. If only he was as diligent sustaining his career, but fascinating nonetheless!

Book = Bucks

The publishing industry may be experiencing leaner times, lower sales and the steady encroachment of e-media, but the world's top authors still made out pretty well in the last year.

Thriller / fiction author James Patterson topped the list of high-paid writers, earning $70 million. The Forbes rankings were based on earnings from books, film rights, television, gaming deals and other income from June 1, 2009, through June 1, 2010. Patterson's top standing includes his latest deal to pen 17 books by the end of 2012 for an estimated $100 million, and since he writes all his novels in longhand, he better get moving. Then again, I question the quality of his stories considering that's one novel every one month and 19 days.

Mormon housewife masturbatory fantasy yarn spinner Stephanie Meyer, earned $40 million for all things related to rhe "Twilight" series. She had not release any new material during the survey. An actual, skilled author comes in in third - Stephen King, who earned $34 million, including $8 million from backlist sales. His last novel released in November sold over 600,000 copies.

Coming in fourth was romance writer Danielle Steel, who earned $32 million for her regurgitated Dynasty plotlines and erotic matrons, followed by British writer Ken Follett, whose "The Pillars of the Earth" was finally adapted into miniseries a short 21 years after publication. Follett notched $20 million.

Dean Koontz was sixth, taking in $18 million with "The Husband," which was just optioned for film, and while Janet Evanovich made $16 million for the "Stephanie Plum" romantic adventure book series. Romantic adventure? Is that where the woman has to climb a rope or swim before she has sex with a guy? Legal scribe John Grisham, romance writer Nicholas Sparks and "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling, rounded out the top 10.

Crap Farm

Glee may be rekindling the public's love affair with the cheesy "let me tell ya about it...in a song!" side of entertainment, but some ideas should just not ever leave the discussion stage. Can there be any possible good reason to mix Orwellian dystopia and showtunes?

Elton John and Lee Hall (who wrote the screenplay for Billy Elliot)are working on adapting Animal Farm into a stage musical. Hall said it took about two years to secure the rights for the project, and that he is now “deep into it, writing songs for pigs and other four-legged friends.” Look, it's great that Elton John's songs in The Lion King pushed the cartoon towards an easier Broadway transition, but sixty year old political allegory about communism and Russia? Who is the idiot who thought more people dressed in animal costumes doing soft shoe was necessary?

“Elton likes to have the lyrics done and have them in front of him so I’ll work on a batch before I give him anything to look at,” added Hall on the current status. Elton John also used to like naked men and drugs done in batches before him too. I don't think catering to his whimsy is worth indulging.

It would probably take another two years before the musical is finished, and now I'm actually hoping the Mayans were right. No producers or theatrical companies are officially attached yet, and no actors have been cast, so there is a chance that it dies like so many other awful musical theater projects. I will never stop loving the best sentence in the story (and perhaps modern literature), "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others", but goddamn it if they're not trying with this retarded project.

Pulp Fraction

Last year during the holiday season, e-book sales on Amazon.com topped their print book sold for one day. But now that figure is the average, not the anomaly.

Figures from their second quarter show the company sold 143 e-books for every 100 hardcovers versions. And the rate is accelerating - in the past month, Amazon sold 180 e-books for every 100 hardcovers, and so far has sold three times as many e-books in the first six months of this year as it did in the first half of 2009. The Kindle bookstore now offers more than 630,000 books, Amazon says, plus 1.8 million free, out-of-copyright titles.

Overall, the e-book market is still dwarfed by the printed word. Publisher’s Weekly reported that hardback sales were projected to be about $4.4 billion in 2009 (including both adult and children’s titles) and paperbacks clocking nearly $5.1 billion. Audiobooks were expected to reach $218 million - far outpacing e-books at $81 million (that's lest than 1% of the print market. Their figures did not take into account textbooks, Bibles and professional books - that boosts the overall book market at $35 billion.

Naturally, online book sales are eclipsing print versions, and companies like Amazon have seen sales of its Kindle e-book reader tripled they dropped the price from $260 to $190. The Kindle has topped Amazon’s list of bestselling products since it's release in 2008, and there are Kindle reader apps for the iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, Android phones, and both Mac and Windows platforms.

And by comparison, the average hardcover book costs $26, while Kindle books are far less, and more than half a million titles in Amazon’s e-book catalog cost $10 or less. Their sales pitch is that 11 e-books would justify the cost of a $180 Kindle compared to buying all of the hardcover alternatives at full price. And they boost their profits since e-books cost virtually nothing to distribute. It may be a long time before brick-and-mortar stores are in trouble, but e-books are now dominating online stores.

No J-Play

Playboy magazine plans to pull the plug on its Portuguese edition after it ran a photo shoot featuring Jesus Christ among topless models. That's exactly what Jesus would do!

The spread was ostensibly a tribute to Nobel Prize-winning author Jose Saramago’s The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, but the company reacted with outrage. Real outrage

The pictures show a long-haired, glowing Jesus watching two models in a lesbian clinch, standing next to a prostitute and looking over the shoulder of a woman reading a book. A final, heavily tattooed woman, appears to have died in his arms.

Theresa Hennessy, Playboy Enterprises vice president of bullshit spin public relations said, "We did not see or approve the cover and pictorial in the July issue of Playboy Portugal. It is a shocking breach of our standards and we would have not allowed it to be published if we had seen it in advance." Do they not have such a thing as editors? That's one of the worst, lying, nonsensical excuses since Apple's iPhone reception debacle. "We are in the process of terminating our agreement with the Portuguese publisher," they added, looking to absolve themselves of responsibility and blame.

Saramago’s novel is a fictional re-telling of Christ’s life, depicting him as a flawed, human character. Sounds interesting, but I'll take the Cliff Notes version. Or the pictorial. The book generated controversy among the Roman Catholic Church, who accused Saramago of depicting a "substantially anti-religious vision". However, other critics have praised it as a "deeply philosophical, provocative and compelling work". Whatever...let's see some tits!

Make your decision, and also cop a gander at an erotic take on A Clockwork Orange.

Pornucopia

Growing up, I was a Sci-Fi and Fantasy nerd, but rather than read Clarke or Tolkien, my favorite author was Piers Anthony. I read his Xanth series as well his Incarnations Of Immortality, Apprentice Adept, and Space Tyrant books, but I never knew his dirty little secret...

He also wrote a pair of adult minded erotic novels.

Pornucopia is about a guy who had a superhuman immunity to venereal diseases. The Amazon description sez:

Pornucopia is a picaresque black comedy that transgresses all bounds of everyday good taste. It begins in a near-future world where sex-vending machines and genital transplants are taken for granted.

Prior Gross, the hero and sex object of this wild adventure, thinks his fantasies have all come true when a beautiful young woman seduces him on a public beach. She turns out to be a succubus, beginning his initiation into a realm populated by demons that are not merely horned, but horny. He encounters a perverse cast of characters that includes a satyr, a vampire, and a pair of luscious sisters, one of whom tricks him out of his manhood.

Boing Boing, who brought the subject to light, found an authors note that is allegedly from the inside flap of the book:

...In 1969 Essex House was publishing some highly fantastic erotica, and I though I'd try my hand.

I started Pornucopia [as 3.97 Erect] that year--and quit a month later when the publisher shut down the line. My sexy market had been yanked out from under me just when I was getting hot! Later I recovered and completed the effort in 1970, my fourteenth novel. Now, after almost twenty years and considerable struggle, it is my seventy-fourth published book.

I try to do the best job I can do of whatever I do do. Here I was trying for something truly fascinating, outrageous, erotic and funny, as a challenge. I oppose censorship, and I feel the erotic urge should be considered healthy and fun, not obscene. I do have limits: you will find no sado-masochism. If there are any other erotic or scatologic taboos I have not gleefully parodied, I regret it; I plead a sheltered life.

However, in the interim I have developed a considerable juvenile readership, and I don't want my young readers to get in trouble. This novel is therefore being published and marketed for an exclusively adult audience, and may still shock and disgust many. Be warned: this is not Xanth. But those who want their minds wickedly stretched, read on.

I've outgrown the punny Xanth series, but it would be a laugh to see his style of writing with a porn twist. Or I could check out his other adult book, The Magic Fart (really).

Goodbye Sober Weekend

Oh, Herr Docktor...you are getting married soon, and that means bachelor party. I will never reveal the Wu-Tang secret! Sorry liver, you must be punished. Is wine okay?

And don't forget, next weekend MAGNA highlights the Rose City Rocks festival.

Best of the week: The more than two decades since he played hooky have not diminished the legend of Ferris Bueller. And thanks to modern technology, you can still follow him around as he takes his day off.

A Twitter account, @ferris_bueller_, started innocently enough, noting, “Ugh… school’s really getting me down. less than an hour to go.” Bueller apparently went home and was quiet until about 7 hours ago when he tweeted, “Really don’t feel like going to school today… Think I have a plan”. If you’ve seen the movie, you know what happens next.

The messages were ongoing — not only mentioning they’re at a baseball game, but supported by accounts from Sloane Peterson, Jeanie Bueller, and even Mr. Rooney. The Ferris account is also checking in at various places using Foursquare too - like Ferris checking into to Wrigley Field to watch the aforementioned baseball game. Apparently there’s a badge you can earn on Foursquare by visiting some locations from the movie, though the Bueller account has not gotten the badge yet.

So whether you choose to follow Cameron or even Abe Froman, it's a cool homage to the flick using today's real-time social media that hopefully grows in popularity and knowledge so more folks can follow. And yes, it even ended appropriately hours later with: “You’re still here? It’s over. Go home…. Go."

Plus: In the highly unlikely even you become an internet meme, Gawker has a few tips:

HIDE? Epic Boobs Girl's lawsuit against Loaded (your typical limey lad mag) over the use of a photo from her web profile (eventually immortalized for EPIC BOOBS) has been tossed out. She may have lost that but there's hordes of men who are still winning. And tossing.

When her Bebo profile was mined for scores of sweet pictures her rack, the last thing she thought was she'd be famous on the web. There's the usual privacy-protecting precautions, but figure if you're putting a picture up anywhere, it's probably too late. So if you can't help sharing online, then learn to keep your real world self more subdued.

PROFIT? Southern queen-in-training Chris Crocker channeled his "Leave Britney Alone!" mantra into a full-fledged (yet increasingly shrinking) career. He moved to L.A. and hustles appearances, comic books, and his YouTube channel. David After Dentist's dad franchised his kid into tee-shirts and stickers. It's not going to make money forever, but David's college is, let's say, more than covered. And even Rick Astley rickrolled new tour dates and an album or two out of his meme.

Beyond the fame, there's actual, serious money to be made. Look at (or don't because he's an unattractive chubster) the Numa Numa guy. Have you ever heard him speak? No. But you've probably seen him lip syncing in ads for majors like Geico and Vizio. Scary to think a guy who's real name virtually no one knows makes an obscene amount of money just for licensing a YouTube video. That's the perk of 35 million views I guess.

SUE LIKE HELL? A major meme has yet to be sued into submission, but that doesn't mean it's been tried. Major asshat Glenn Beck's battle against "Did Glenn Beck rape and murder a girl in 1990?" is typical of the failure that awaits those who try. To satirize Glenn Beck's notorious reliance on mistruths, internet users re-appropriated a Gilbert Gottfried joke that demonstrates how warning against a rumor can actually start a rumor. They started asking whether Glenn Beck had raped and murdered a young girl, why he had no commented on it - thus without ever accusing Glenn Beck of raping and murdering anyone, successfully lodged the accusation into his Google results. Beck tried to sue the owner of DidGlennBeckRapeandMurderaYoungGirlin1990.com but failed. But will continue to try until they win or he fades into his own obscurity,

LAUGH AND MOVE ON? It's the most dignified and rational option, though it may be easier for someone like Approval Guy than Star Wars Kid. He pondered what to make of his fame, and ultimately deciding to do nothing. "Being posted all over the internet doesn't bother me at all, in fact, I find it hilarious. I really enjoy seeing the creativity of others and think they should continue to do as they please with my image,"he said. "I have not made a profit from "Approval Guy" and nor do I plan to. On the other hand, if the opportunity arose, I wouldn't mind taking advantage of it. Becoming a meme was a positive experience and I do not mind it at all. On the other hand, if I were the Star Wars Kid or that guy who sings Numa Numa, I wouldn't show up in public...ever." Sometimes it is just dumb luck.

And: On the heels of the success of Betty White’s hosting gig on Saturday Night Live, Facebook users have continued to go apeshit about creating groups for other events that she should host. From the Emmys to the Academy Awards (which the Academy confirmed won’t be happening), this chuckleheads are trying to put her on anything that has a host. So with that said, it's hilarious to see some people take it to the next level - the Get Betty White to Host an Alien Parasite group.

Betty White is a woman that has proved capable of handling anything. From her Emmy winning television performances to her knee slapping appearance on Saturday Night Live, she morphs into each role with perfection and ease. Now we are asking her to play mother to one last character, a xenomorph that will carry on her genetic line to become an ultimate killing machine. Join this group to support the addition of Betty White to the cast of the untitled Alien prequel!

Sure you loved her in Golden Girls and The Proposal, but let an old lady rest. It was a good stunt that worked, now let's stop asking her to repeat it. Evel Knievel had the same problem not knowing when to walk away, and you know she'll eventually end up with a shattered hip like him.

Best picture of the week:

From "9 alternative jobs for Lindsay Lohan"

Best bonus links:

• BBC Children's TV Character Seems To Say Fuck Your Mother In Mandarin - At least it will quell the ethnic tension with with Middle Eastern and Muslin population...they far outnumber the Chinese in Britain. I believe they're even outnumbered by the royals.

• Saving Throw Versus Total Refreshment - Will this replace the ubiquitous 50' rope that never gets used? If there is a large proliferation, no one will ever need to go to taverns - how will quests begin?

• Lewis Black Destroys Glenn Beck - Fuck Glenn Beck. And Lewis Black does. Hard. On television.

• Homeless Buy A One-Way Ticket to Hawaii - That's not as many bottles collected as you may think. and if I was a homeless scumbag, I would absolutely head to the islands and be a literal beach bum.

• Seacrest Wannabe Caught Plagiarizing Movie Reviews - There's little original on the interweb, but you've got to do better than reading someone's stuff verbatim for a YouTube video. And now you'll understand this sweet quote: “Young girls have gotten so corruptible these days, I wanted to see how corruptible they could be. I didn’t mean any harm. Anyway, yadda yadda yadda, your daughter’s in my crawlspace.”.

• Infrasound: The Sound Too Awesome For Us To Hear - That should be the title of the next MAGNA album, but this is more scientific. Not that the recent batch of tunes isn't a miracle of the modern world.

• Muhammad Cartoonist 'Head-Butted' During Lecture - How much easier would his life had been if he was only mocking Annie...those few fans are too feeble to walk, let alone head butt.

• 'Hangover' Molecule In Brain Found - And it doesn't look like Tairy Greene (how'd ya like that twist o' reference?). Now that we found it, can we eliminate it?

• Texas Teacher Totally Whomps Some Little Kid - Charter schools will be the scholastic paradigm of the future!

• Study: Female Touch Can Influence Decisions, Behavior - This was conducted at the Spearmint Rhino, and those lapdances were the most persuasive the subjects had ever had..

• Portal Is Free! - Want an awesome puzzle game for the PC or Mac. Of course you do!

• China Scientists Find Use For Cigarette Butts - Are they eating them? Using them as birth control? Building a giant nicotine wall? What could they have come up with?

• Roman Polanski Hit By Fresh Sex Allegations - The younger, the fresher - that's what Roman always says. We Americans just don't get that European lifestyle...

• Pope Blames 'Terrifying' Sex Abuse On Catholic Church - Finally, they acknowledge they have a problem. Savor it, because that's the last you'll ever hear of it...the blame, not the continuing problem.

• Undie Running At Texas - UCLA has long had this tradition, which helps me get to know my neighbors better. But I'm not a snob...I don't mind meeting people from outside the state.

• Afghanistan Opium Poppies Hit By Mysterious Disease - It's called supply and demand. And now your black tar is going to cost more since it is becoming "scarce". Everybody, quickly switch to a different opiate!

• When I’m Too Lazy To Write, You Get Tits - The lesser known but completely valid journalistic axiom "Tits or GTFO".

Worst of the week: If you're an average Joe, don't count on being an author, but if you're famous, it's easy!

Damon Wayans has penned Red Hats, a story about bitter widow who finds new life after being taken in by a Red Hat Society group. For those of you under the age of sixty everybody, Red Hats is a worldwide social organization for women. In the book, Wayans calls them "Sex and the City for old biddies." Chortle! He's still got it! Wayans dedicated his book to his mother, Elvira, who took up with them, and likely had some real events altered for his story.

Though I can't see who wants to read a version of How Stella Got Older Groove Back, at least Wayan's genesis of the tale is interesting.

"I was stuck as an artist in terms of what I wanted to do next. When you do TV and you get into syndication, you get lazy. ... So I went to Europe. I was kind of frustrated. I ran into Lionel Richie at a restaurant and he was like, 'We all get so caught up as artists trying to do something so extraordinary that we get lost.' He took me to see Dita Von Teese and she came out and she stripped down to some pasties and a diamond G-string. The crowd was going crazy and Lionel turns to me and he goes, 'See? You just show them what they want to see. You don't show them too much. That's it'."

In fact, I guarentee that bizarre is better than any passage you'll read in that book. But there's even worse fare out there. Tyra Banks has a book coming out, and she was able to say this with a straight face.

"It’s my novel called Modelland (pronounced “Model Land”) that takes you to a fantastical place you’ve never seen, or heard about, or read about before… Where dreams come true and life can change in the blink of a smoky eye.”

No shit it's pronounced "model land"...I didn't think it sounded out "war and peace". She plans on stretching this retarded premise into a series will follow a teenager who gets into an exclusive modeling academy for “Intoxibellas”. Really? And who are they? Models with special powers, dumbass! As usual, Tyler wrote a few lines that will surpass anything her ghost writers can concoct:

It’s a land of models, and this dimwitted bitch named it “model land”. It would be like if Harry Potter went to “Magicschool”. JK Rowling would go through French gardening books and Greek mythology to find interesting names. “Dumbledore” is an old word for “bumblebee”, for example. Like the books or not, at least Rowling wanted to be creative. But fuck that. Why bother? Just type what something is. That’s just as good. If Tyra wrote Star Wars, “MainCharacter” would fight “HalfRobotMan”. Oohh, weeeee, I’m being whisked away into a world of imagination.

But really that’s a minor point. Because yes. Yes we have seen a place like this before. There are literally dozens of books exactly like it. 


“Hey kid, you’re magic.”

“Who me? Oh no sir, there must be a mistake. I’m ordinary.”

(200 pages later.)

“Hooray! Though I am small and was over matched by a vastly superior foe, my magic has saved the day!”

Thank god no one in this country can read anymore.

Plus: It's hard not to continue to root for Dubai and the rest of the garish billionaire-states of the Persian Gulf to fail.

Beneath the gold-coated ceilings of Abu Dhabi's Emirates Palace hotel, "where royalty and billionaires come for cappuccinos topped with gold flakes", they've installed and ATM that dispenses pure gold. Because sometimes ton of money just doesn't make you like like a big enough douche..

"The reason we chose Emirates Palace is because it really fits with the surroundings here," said Thomas Geissler, creator of the "Gold to Go" brand of useless, expensive shit. "All the gold is imported from Germany, and soon we will have a customized gold bar with a print of the Emirates Palace logo, which will be a nice souvenir for guests to take home."Though you're less likely to be punched in the face for your obnoxiousness if you jsut share a few photos of local sites.

The exterior of the machine is coated with a thin layer of gold (paint, I'm sure) and offers customers 320 items to choose from, ranging from gold bars that can weigh up to 10 grams, to customized gold coins. Through a computer system, the gold ATM updates the gold price every 10 minutes to match international markets. For now, it takes notes of the local dirham currency, but the option of using credit cards will soon be introduced.

The cash-for-gold machines were first tested in Germany ilast year, but they chose Abu Dhabi for the official launch because of the region's high concentration of insecure, ego driven moguls needing to compensate for small penises. "On the first night we had a lot of demand," he said. "One customer even bought one item of every product we have." Ah, a micropenis.

And: It's okay if you love your children but are not fit to raise them. You've given us an easy way to identify you - their names.

The Social Security Administration has released its list of 2009's most popular baby names, and the leading choices were Isabella and Jacob. Many media outlets are wanking that both names just happen to belong to main characters in the Twilight, and gives them an excuse to use one of those pictures and talk about vampires but it's hardly the case.

Isabella has been trending steadily upward since the 1990s, and Jacob has been in the top spot for 10 years in a row (clearly predating that 2005's craptastic series). They also point to Cullen, rhe last name of the main vampire which jumped 297 spots in one year and is now the 485th most popular first name for a baby boy. Sorry, but that hack writer just happened to use a last name that wasn't such a hard surname. But if people want to name their kid Johnston or Richardson or Moylan too, that's fine.

Girls born in the 1980's/90's were given perky, peppy monikers that ended in y or ie - Tiffany, Ashley, Katie, Brittany, but they've recently changed to a soft, feminine ending: Isabella, Emma, Kayla and Ella. Sociologists and journalists often propose theories about child names, making their unfounded speculation only good for undermining their skill and professions. CBS News once asserted that Emma became popular in 2002 because Jennifer Aniston's character named her child that on Friends. But Emma had been on the rise since the 1980s and broke into the top 20 a full three years before the show in question.

We are still idiots here, but 3,000 parents in the UK were surveyed, and 20% admitted they regret naming their kid a trendy, stupid name. Many said they wish they'd picked a less popular name, while one in 10 added they chose a quirky moniker only to have the novelty quickly wear off. The (rightful) backlash could be because 15% of parents say their baby's name has sparked amusement from friends and relatives - and one in five have felt scorn from a stranger. Serves you right for naming them Miley.

Some of the more regretted boys' names in the British survey were Oliver and Alfie and Thomas, while girls had Chloe and Ruby. Take a look at last year's most popular baby names and you'll find a crop of names you'll hate in the coming decade.

Worst picture of the week:

It’s just an “African-American” action figure, not Obama, even though they have the exact same face

Worst bonus links:

• Top CEOs Getting A Once-In-A-Lifetime Pay Bonanza - The only way this could be good news is if it was follow by a once-in-a-lifetime ass-kicking. Something so brutal that it would take painful years of rehabilitation and corrective surgery to make them even a shadow of their former selves.

• The Next Playboy Centerfold Will Be In 3D - But it won't look any better than the last decade's worth of women with huge, stupid looking fake racks.

• Tough-Guy Dappy Loves Iggle Piggle / New Pappy Dappy Unhappy - Is that even english? Actually, it's English, and thats how their tabloids handle their headers. And it is a laughably retarded as the names suggest.

• A Plan To Cover All Of Africa With Wi-Fi Access - Here's a better plan: cover all of Africa with food and shelter and no diseases. I think they'll like that more than being able to send e-mails.

• Report: Winnipeg's Return Means Avalanche In Pacific Division - It was bad enough that Phoenix finally became a threat this year, but to boot them back to their original spot makes the west a deadly mess. Sending a solid Colorado team to join San Jose, Anaheim, and Dallas will make life for the Kings much harder.

• Half Of Russians Believe Bribery Solves Problems - But, for the right amount, they could be pursuaded to change their minds.

• Michael Jackson Is Still Alive And Posing As A Burn Victim - It's just crazy enough to work...nah, are you fucking kidding? That's insane, even for Michael Jackson.

• L.A.'s Homeboy Industries Lays Off Most Employees - Adios, mang!

• Will An Errant Satellite Interrupt The Lost Finale? - I will be very pissed off if I can't watch it, that that would also be a funny as hell programming accient on par with the Super Bowl / Heidi debacle.

• 'Law & Order' Is Canceled By NBC - How sad we're only left with their new Law & Order: Los Angeles and season 12 of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

• LaBeouf Promises Better Transformers Next Time - Both of those movies were huge pieces of SFX shit. The only way to make one better is to not make one.

• Woman Startled By Demonic Face On Canned Pear, Wants Recompense From Company - C'mon, lady...what did you expect when you bought Satan's Pears Of Damnation?

• 7 Children Killed In Latest Attack At China School - I understand that the emerging superpower is trying to establish itself as a world leader, but enough already with the child murdering. You're winning a category no one else wants to play in, so move on.

• 4 Die After Quebec Home Falls In Sinkhole / Ice Hockey Mayhem In Montreal Brings 41 Arrests - Somehow, I'm developing a fear of Canada, but I'm sure everything will be fine by the time the Canadian GP rolls around, eh.

• Woman Invented Kidnap Hoax To Avoid Telling Parents She Would Not Graduate From UCLA, Police Say - How badly do you want to be the fly on the wall for that explanation of where tuition went for the past year and a half?

• Facebook’s Gone Rogue; It’s Time For An Open Alternative Epicenter - Time to send in Jack Bauer to save the nation and social networking from evil influences! Or, maybe we should do less virtual friendship and more real relationships.

• Tiger Woods' Neighbor Launches Web Site With Accusations About Golf Star - You want to out your famous neighbor as a scumbag? Fine. You want to do that as a pay site? Now who's the scumbag?

Good Luck Getting That Novel Published

"Jim C. Hines went to a lot of trouble getting all this data...the least you could do is finish that book you claim you're writing. At least there's His Words - Not Mine..."

...and that's how the post started. Except that there was a DCMA complaint and the whole post got pulled down. But the whole thing is basically here. So there you go.

Arrakis. Dune. Desert Planet.

The LA Times had this piece on one of my favorite science fiction book and movie:

Half a century ago, a middle-aged newspaperman with a few obscure books to his name sat down to pursue a pet obsession based on a story that had never sold.

The ensuing 1965 novel -- in which his agent had no confidence -- sagged at first. But within a few years, it was a pop-culture sensation, and this year, on its 45th anniversary, "Dune" is one of science fiction's best-known books and probably the field's bestselling novel.

The mystery of why some works continue to speak to us is heightened with a book like "Dune": Frank Herbert's desert-planet epic not only remains popular and well-known, but this tale has anticipated many of our contemporary concerns. Its saga of dueling great houses, the fight for a rare resource and a young aristocrat's coming of age was set 200 centuries in the future. But it grapples with numerous issues pressing in the 21st: the fragility of the environment, the shortage of fossil fuels, the threat of religious jihad, the unpredictable effects of mind-bending drugs.

"It was the SF book that everybody in the mainstream culture was reading," recalls Northern California novelist Kim Stanley Robinson. "But it wasn't like Vonnegut's 'Cat's Cradle,' which was essentially a mainstream novel. Herbert was doing hard-core SF in the anthropological and world-building sense. People went for its huge back story taking off from [the prophet] Mohammed's life."

That the novel was planned and researched during the Eisenhower and Camelot years -- before widespread Muslim fundamentalism, OPEC, mainstream narcotics use and other issues that seem to inspire the narrative -- underscores the author's prescience. The book also helped galvanize the environmental movement: Set on a world far from ours, its rich description of a water-poor planet is credited by some as the inspiration for Earth Day.

Because of its huge following, fast-moving plot and opportunities for special effects, "Dune" has repeatedly attracted other artists -- it's been the source of a video game, a board game, numerous posthumous sequels and several adaptations. And though a 1984 film was widely considered a failure and two subsequent Sci-Fi Channel miniseries were made, Paramount recently selected a director for a big-budget movie.

The inspiration
"I am a political animal," Herbert said in a 1983 promotional interview. "And I never really left journalism. I am writing about the current scene -- the metaphors are there."

The novel was sparked when, in the late 1950s, Herbert flew to Florence, Ore., in a small chartered plane to write about a U.S. Department of Agriculture effort to stabilize sand dunes with European beach grasses. The author was struck by the way dunes could move, over time, like living things -- swallowing rivers, clogging lakes, burying forests. "These waves can be every bit as devastating as a tidal wave . . . they've even caused deaths," he wrote his agent, beginning an article, "They Stopped the Moving Sands," that was never published.

Despite his agent's indifference, Herbert dug in: He was fascinated by the project and superimposed the history of another sandy place -- including Arabs and Islam's Mohammed -- into an adventure novel originally called "Spice Planet."

When he hit his stride, Herbert was writing 70 pages a week.

At the time, science fiction was at the tail end of its Golden Age, dominated by brisk tales of interstellar war and planet hopping. Several icons of midcentury were doing major work -- Robert Heinlein, for instance, published his campus sensation "Stranger in a Strange Land" in 1961 -- but the field's energy was flagging, and the magazine market had imploded. (A 1961 fanzine was titled "Who Killed Science Fiction?") Herbert and his gargantuan manuscript were turned down by dozens of publishers but eventually accepted by Chilton, a small press known for auto manuals.

Herbert's story of young aristocrat Paul Atreides, along with maps, appendixes, glossary and epigrams ran to more than 500 pages. After almost two years, the book took off in 1967. The novel was a hinge between new and old, says Annalee Newitz, editor of science fiction blog io9.

" 'Dune' functions nicely as a transition between classic SF -- focused on space opera and astro-politics of the kind Isaac Asimov and other golden age authors wrote -- and the next generation," she says. "In the '60s, we saw a shift away from science fiction focused on space travel and space politics to anthropology. You aren't rushing between planets, you've landed on one and you talk about that one" -- including its biology and sociology.

Writers had imagined life on other planets and written of environmental catastrophe. But the scale of "Dune" was unprecedented, comparable, as Arthur C. Clarke said at the time, only to "The Lord of the Rings."

"The planet was something you could really feel," says Robinson, whose latest novel is "Galileo's Dream." "Herbert spent a lot of time outdoors -- you can see it in the writing, he's seen things you can only see if you've been there. It's physical and expansive."

Still, the novel's pulp roots show.

"Parts of it are almost poetic," says Rob Latham, who teaches science fiction at UC Riverside. "But the villains are comically ridiculous. Baron Harkonnen could have been played by Sydney Greenstreet or Charles Laughton, say -- 'swishy.' And I don't know what we're supposed to think of the eugenics. There are all sorts of half-baked ideas in there."

'A real mess'
Thanks to the novel's success, plans for a "Dune" film began as early as 1971, when producers wanted David Lean, whose "Lawrence of Arabia" is in some ways a precursor, to direct. Another early version would've enlisted Orson Welles, Salvador Dalí, Gloria Swanson, Hervé Villechaize and Alain Delon in a 10-hour epic -- before financing evaporated.

Today, the 1984 movie directed by David Lynch and starring Kyle McLachlan and Sting has gained cult status. An endless shoot in Mexico City and the dunes of Chihuahua engaged 1,700 people: As the costs stretched, Lynch's film was sliced to two hours, and he was denied final cut. Roger Ebert, not known for his vitriol, called the movie "a real mess . . . incomprehensible, ugly, unstructured, pointless." Lynch all but disowned the movie and rarely discusses it in interviews.

Herbert, however, deemed Lynch's baroque film "a visual feast."

The current adaptation comes from the wreckage of a project that was to be helmed by "Friday Night Lights" creator Peter Berg and with Charlize Theron as Jessica, Paul's mother. After considering Neill Blomkamp (political-SF sleeper "District 9") and Neil Marshall (low-budget hit "The Descent"), Paramount opted for Frenchman Pierre Morel. (Chase Palmer, a relatively unknown writer, will work with an existing screenplay by Josh Zetumer.)

Morel -- director of "Taken" and "From Paris With Love" -- has discussed his aim to make the film faithful to the novel, which he says he's read 10 times.

Optimists hope that the director can do for Herbert's book -- and maybe its sequels -- what Peter Jackson did with Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings," finding a balance among action, story and ideas.

It could also, of course, be cheap. "If they want to reawaken it as a film franchise," says io9's Newitz, "it's hard to imagine that it would not just be action-packed, with a video-game tie-in."

Lasting effect
For a book that's enjoyed such critical and popular success and continued interest from Hollywood, the legacy of "Dune" is not especially clear.

It's not quite New Wave -- which developed in the late 1960s -- not an antecedent to cyberpunk, nor a precursor to the recent space-opera renaissance. "It's some kind of singularity," says Latham.

"Dune" both channeled and stoked a greater environmental consciousness in SF: Important later novels by Ursula Le Guin, John Brunner and Octavia Butler looked at planetary ecology.

The original novel's most evident influence is on the science-fiction tradition of world-building, for which it raised the bar considerably. Writers and scientists had been envisioning other planets for a century, but not this deeply: The rituals by which the Fremen, the planet's desert people, deal with water are especially well imagined.

Many consider Robinson's trilogy about the terra-forming of Mars the best-realized exercise in the form since Herbert's. Robinson calls "Dune" a big influence: The book showed him, he says, that "you could talk about the future of the wilderness. It gave me courage. I knew that people were willing to read at great length and that the world could be a character."

But Herbert's future vision of a galaxy with numerous populated worlds seems out of step with the deflated present. "The future," says Robinson, "doesn't look to be off-planet in any near-future time frame."

A less encouraging descendant of the original "Dune" novel is the large number of other Dune novels. The first sequel, the much slimmer "Dune Messiah," came out in 1969; Herbert published the sixth of the original series, "Chapterhouse: Dune," in 1985. And though Herbert died the following year, while recovering from cancer surgery, Dune's universe has been extended by his son Brian and journeyman writer Kevin J. Anderson.

Some think these posthumous prequels and sequels have confused the legacy by dumping less serious books into the marketplace. "They've gone from something profound and thought-provoking," says Newitz, "to being something like candy, like the 'Star Wars' novelizations."

Whatever the book's influence and implications, the original continues to attract readers: It's sold an estimated 10 million copies. To Latham, it remains "a weird kind of in-between thing."

"It culminates a pulp tradition, with ridiculous villains and a pseudo-medieval empire set in outer space, and some bad writing," he says. "Then it has these '70s elements -- environmental concerns, drugs and mystical experiences. And somehow it managed to coalesce all of them."

The Art Of Terror

The stylings of Laz Marquez...

While talking to a co-worker buddy of mine last week, I began discussing the excellence of the Horror Movie Genre and how it's evolved over the years. One unforgettable filmmaker in this genre is undeniably Alfred Hitchcock, who brought us many top notch films that stand the test of time. It's pretty tough to deny that moments from 'Psycho', 'Rear Window' and 'The Birds' are still anxiety inducing at best. Throughout this discussion, I spoke to the idea of doing a photography study on taking Horror Movie Posters from the 40's-80's and recreating them with a more contemporary styling. Although this is not what this upcoming project would entail, I was inspired to play with one of my favorites by Hitchcock, 'The Birds'.

I decided to go with one of my favorites in the Alfred Hitchcock filmography, "Rear Window". The film had a lot to play with visually and iconically which made it extra fun to work on. I also wanted to play a little more with the typography on this one, which I felt quite happy with in the end.

You'll notice the visual trend I'm working with on this set, one that will be carried into the last in the series.

I was initially hesitant to approach this film, as the original poster by Saul Bass is such an iconic and memorable vision. I knew that by taking this on, I'd have to put a frak-load of thought into how to bring it to life. In the end, my initial fears actually helped me most. I was so fearful of coming remotely close to the excellence of the original, that I went way too far in the opposite direction. In the end, I decided to create a modern, stark homage to the original while keeping the style and focus I had on the last couplet.

Overall, I couldn't be happier! Initially, I was only going to do 3 in a set but I've decided to add one last request into the mix.

After a lot of work, I finally present the completed set in the "Re-Envisioned" series of posters based off of the films/books by Stephen King. When I first approached the "Hitchcock" set, I never knew how far ahead this would lead me. I can happily say that it's been quite the joyride. I have been able to really utilize my abilities as a designer and challenge myself to take a different perspective on the iconic works of these amazing creators.

Stephen King is a creator that I particularly have a fond spot in my heart for, as I've followed his work in film, television, literature and comic-books for years. He's always been a source of inspiration in terms of mood and atmosphere, therefore being a natural next step in this series. I wanted to make sure to stay true to his roots and make these posters a bit more geared to the stylings of "Book-Jacket" designs, giving them a grounding that was honest to the source material. Overall, I'm extremely happy and thank everyone for helping yet again to decide which of these designs came to be. You voted, you got them and you sure as heck challenged me in the best ways imaginable! Take a closer look at the finished work, below:
Ever since I was a child, I've been a huge King fan. His books & films have had such gravitas and depth aside from the genre, that he seemed like a natural progression after Hitchcock. One thing I wanted to make sure to do with this set, and feel comes through, is some variations in style. The Hitchcock set was about strong figure work & defined color palates, but with the King set I wanted to explore more with color & shape. I also wanted to take two ideas into account. King is an excellent writer, so bringing an homage to Book Jacket Design was a must, as well as a personal choice on giving it a tinge of 1920's Poster Art Styling. I felt the 20's had a strong sense of iconic imagery that wove together, and it felt like a right match for the King Set.

This was hands down the toughest poster I've had to approach thus far. After going back and watching the Stanley Kubrick film last week, I had almost too much to work off of. The film has such a wealth of iconic scenes and imagery, but this is also a poster/film that has had so much attention in the design realm. This made it tough to choose imagery to work with that was not too cliche or typical. No matter what, I knew I'd end up with something that was easily recognizable and like where I ended up. I wanted to represent the scenario of the fim, include some iconic design cues (that gorgeous carpet pattern) and initial threat to create mood (Jack's silo peeking/looming from the door).

I was drawn to going for this one, as it was full of potential and more of an obscure Stephen King film. In the end, I'm glad that the concept I had initially worked out and am extremely happy to have it book-end the set.

This one was an interesting poster to tackle, as I had an idea of what I wanted to do right away. Usually I sit on it or go through multiple ideas before sticking with one, but not for this particular piece. I knew all of the elements I wanted, the colors, etc. The thing that became challenging was once everything was in place, I needed to really consider how the scaling and composition worked. This made the process a little longer, as I wanted to get it to the right place and have it all be cohesive.

For The Kids

Curious Pages is a blog that scans and posts strange children’s books that time forgot. Boldtype browsed through their archive and caught up with the site’s editors to hear what sparked the idea:

You bill yourselves as “Recommended Inappropriate Books for Kids” — which rules. How did the blog come about?

Lane Smith: So many of the kid book sites out there are either overly earnest, overly protective of impressionable young minds or just flat out self promotional. We wanted to create a list of cool, subversive books. We also enjoy parodying those other sites.

Bob Shea: It was Lane’s idea, which I thought was really funny. He has such a huge library of these strange titles; it’s the perfect thing to share online. Not as good as tweeting what we have for breakfast, or reposting YouTube videos of a cat playing the piano, but it seems to work for us.

You guys celebrate “the offbeat, the abstract, the unusual, the surreal, the macabre, the inappropriate, the subversive and the funky.” What were some of the books that sparked these criteria?


BS: I like any book that I can’t believe actually got published. Like Grammar Can Be Fun by Munro Leaf. It’s a great book, but it looks like he dashed it off on the train ride to see his publisher. I also like foreign books that look like they came from space. Like the Danish book Den Rode Kuffert (The Red Suitcase) by Elin Bing. Not in an “oh, it’s foreign so it’s inherently funny” kind of way, but in that the sensibility is so much different than English titles.

LS: I like Struwwelpeter by Dr. Heinrich Hoffmann. Written in 1845, it contains tales like “The Dreadful Story about Harriet and the Matches.” These tales do not end well.

What’s your favorite illustration that you’ve posted?


LS: I’m partial to the illustration of the Tin Woodman in Arnost Karasek’s version of The Wizard of Oz (1962). As we say on the site: Ever wonder what the Tin Woodman would look like if rendered by Paul Klee?


BS: I always like Lane’s posts better. He posted Puff by William Wondriska and I was really jealous. I didn’t speak to Lane for a month and I demanded (via email since we weren’t speaking) that he give me credit for posting it. I may have made most of that up, but it’s a great book.

And the strangest, coolest book that you wish more people had heard of?


BS: I Don’t Know What This Is Called.


LN: I’d have to go with A Head for Happy (1931). For some reason there are a number of children’s books that feature headless characters. This one is probably my favorite for the surreal story but also the delicate and beautiful pictures by Helen Sewell.

Here's Curious Pages’ most "Awesome and Inappropriate Books for Kids":

• Struwwelpeter by Dr. Heinrich Hoffmann2.

• The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey3

• A Head For Happy by Helen Sewell

• Fables You Shouldn’t Pay Any Attention To by Florence Parry Heide & Sylvia Worth Van Clief and Victoria Chess

• I Know an Old Lady by Rose Bonne, Alan Mills and Abner Graboff

• How to Make an Earthquake by Ruth Krauss and Crockett Johnson

• Grammar Can Be Fun by Munro Leaf

• The Dead Bird by Margaret Wise Brown and Remy Charlip

• The Bomb and the General by Dr. Umberto Eco and Eugenio Carmi

• Baby, Mix Me a Drink by Lisa Brown

The Internet Literary Society

Apparently, there's a thing called Google Books, and they're hosting all kinds of stuff for you to enjoy. Like, say, every issue of SPIN magazine since 1985. Here's who the whole thing works:

Three years ago, the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers and a handful of authors and publishers filed a class action lawsuit against Google Books. Today we're delighted to announce that we've settled that lawsuit and will be working closely with these industry partners to bring even more of the world's books online. Together we'll accomplish far more than any of us could have individually, to the enduring benefit of authors, publishers, researchers and readers alike. It will take some time for this agreement to be approved and finalized by the Court. For now, here's a peek at the changes we hope you'll soon see.,,

• Book Search today

• How Book Search will change

• Three types of books

• The Book Rights Registry

• Libraries and universities

• Looking forward

The Tangeremon

Sneaky Scartoe, giving our second book at His Words - Not Mine a title and not telling me! It was up to him, as per our rules, and the name stretches all the way back to an incident in the opening chapter:

"Hey, Fran, is that an orange tree over there? You’re just letting ‘em hit the ground. Let’s pick some oranges.”

“Be my guest. Take as many as you like.”

He didn’t seem interested in leaving his post until the dinner bell rang.

I picked one of the citrus fruits off the tree and noticed the aroma immediately. It was definitely tangerine, but these were too big to be tangerines. Was I holding a tangelo? A tangelo would be fantastic. Maybe this trip wasn’t a bust. I peeled the fruit and took a healthy bite. And then I spit it right back out across half the yard.

“Bile of Satan! What the fuck is this, dude?!”

I’d never heard Fran laugh such maniacally unbridled laughter.

“I got you good, didn’t I?”

“You sure did, asshole.”

“We call them tangeremons. I’m not sure what they are, but they taste like pure hell. That tree was there when we moved in.”

Mel opened the slider and was instantly appalled at the site of me spitting out the remnants of the juice.

“Fran, you didn’t! How could let him take a bite of that nasty fruit?”

“It was worth it. You should have seen his reaction. Priceless.”

There's a lot to say about his choice, and what I think it means regarding the story and characters -- but perhaps we'll have a discussion after you've all read it...

You Live Where?

A Strange Maps review of The Atlas of True Names:

Travellers, discoverers and cartographers have named the world around us so that we might find our way in it. The purpose of a place name, therefore, is to be as distinguishing as possible. But there is another, opposite force at work in toponymy: geographical and other similarities often lead to different places receiving similar names — even if these names are then modified by differences in language.The English city of Oxford and the Dutch city of Coevoorden (*) were named after river segments shallow enough to facilitate bovine transport.

This phenomenon becomes apparent when one digs up the ‘deep etymology’ of place names, as is done in The Atlas of True Names. The Atlas substitutes the original meanings of the world’s place names for the better-known, ossified toponyms. The authors of the Atlas, German cartographers Stephan Hormes and Silke Preust, have said their clever technique was inspired by the place names in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, some (but not all) of which are indeed quite direct. (‘Mount Doom’ is grimly descriptive, but a name like ‘Lothlorien’ means diddly squat — unless you speak Elvish, of course).

The Atlas was first published in German as Der Atlas der wahren Namen, and in that version all the original etymologies are of course rendered in German. If like most people you are at least mildly conditioned by movies, literature and other media dealing with World War II to associate the German language with fascism, this ‘germanified’ version of the world is a bit disconcerting. London, for example, transmogrifies into ‘Hügelfest’, and nearby Norfolk is still recognisable but considerably more ominous as ‘Nordvolk’. Ethiopia becomes ‘Land der Brandgesichter’ and its capital Addis Abeba ‘Neue Blume’.

The more recently published English version of the Atlas presents us with an equally disorienting and sometimes revealing array of ‘original’ place names. Across the Irish Sea (or ‘West Land Sea’) from Blackpool lies another ‘Blackpool’, more commonly referred to as Dublin. ‘Trading Folks’ is none other than the Canadian capital of Ottawa. The British port of Plymouth is literally ‘Mouth of the Plum’, Brussels is ‘Marsh Cell’, and London’s ‘Hügelfest’ translates as ‘Hillfort’. Nicaragua is ‘Here are people’ and Newfoundland… remains ‘Newfoundland’, one of remarkably few place names with an etymology recent enough for us to take the toponym literally.

But etymology is not an exact science, and some derivations are too funny or elegant to be true. Consequently, some of the etymologies used by Hormes and Preust have been disputed. One example is the word-origin of the Mexican peninsula of Yucatan, which is rendered in the Atlas as “I don’t understand you!” — supposedly uttered by the Maya when addressed by the first Spanish conquistadores (a similar folk etymology traces the origin of the word kangaroo to a miscommunication between aboriginals and British explorers). Other examples abound, but the authors themselves include a caveat lector, stating that they think their work is not scientific, approximately 80% correct and should primarily be seen as an invitation to look at the world through fresh eyes.