Celebrities and The Spectator

Friend Toby Young (author of "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People") has an interesting piece in The Spectator. If your interest is sufficiently piqued, his site is here.

For those of you stuck at work, there's always Something Awful's Photoshop Phriday. This week's topic is "rejected software." The first few pages are a bit IT for me, but it warms up.

Some Canadian spiders lose their minds.

Talk of sodomized nuns touched a nerve with at least one reader. A. Bourguilleau writes to say:



"Yes Michael, these kind of things happen in France. some nuns get sodomised on cathedrals (and sometimes in cathedrals, but that's another story). You might be interrested to hear that a lot of obscene scuptures and painting used to decorate holy places in Western Europe during the Middle Ages, not to mention the famous "danse macabre", showing skeletons, demons and (usually) nude women dancing altogether in some very interesting postures sometimes.... Lots of these paintings were destroyed by the Renaissance clergy who found them very unholy (the poor idiots! now their churches are empty and they keep on wondering why!).



So if you want to settle in a country where the religion and the state are separated (there is no 'In God We Trust' on our banknotes nor in our constitution, we're grown persons, remember!) and where nuns have some earthly delights, feel free, but beware. You might become [viscerally opposed to the Bush Adminstration] in a few months. French people are contagious, specially if you drink with them."



To which I say: if loving jazz and eating well and a history of innovation in the field of kissing are contagious, I don't wanna be well. If I could just figure out how to say, "The slightest bit of butter, cheese, cream or any other milky substance makes me violently ill," Kate would put us on a plane vite vite.

Here in the U.S., it's Thanksgiving. For the rest of you, here's some lesbian pornography.

A Twisted Grace from Garry Goodrow

Friend Garry Goodrow sent me this poem, which I liked a lot. If you pass it along, please attribute it to him.



NOTHANKSGIVING



No thanks to Rumsfeld, Cheney, Perle,

(and Condoleeza, that oily girl,)

nor to Ashcroft and his team,

the ayatollahs of the new regime.



No thanks to William Rehnquist and his clique,

who think democracy is past its peak

and must be dumped in history’s dustbin

along with socialism, unions, sin,

and other mistakes of hoi polloi —

like fairness, honesty and joy.



No thanks to those others, what is more,

Republocrats like Lieberman and Gore,

who see elections only as a test

of which cheap slogan will serve them the best.



No thanks to our indentured press as well,

who would describe a trip to hell

in terms of the best route for drivers

if that would please their advertisers.



No thanks at last to all those folks

who can be pacified with jokes

about Saddam Hussein’s moustache

while “Christian” hustlers steal their cash.



(Come Thursday evening’s indigestion,

“Who to thank?” will be the question.)



You can email Garry, if so moved.

Ooh la la

My wife Kate is constantly lobbying for us to move to France, which would result in a speedy death-by-dairy for yours truly. However, I read something today that may make me reconsider. An article about a flap over a poster for a jazz concert ends thusly: "He recalled that a gargoyle on the nearby cathedral of Villefranche-sur-Saone represents an imp sodomising a nun."



Now every nation has that kind of stuff. But I really admire a country easy going enough to put it ON A CATHEDRAL. Who was building that thing? Abbot Al Goldstein? Hospitals have statues of doctors and nurses,, engaging in frottage; military bases sport s&m themed frescoes...Chalk up another convert to the land where underwearless dancing was born!

Oh great, now I have a Joy Division song stuck in my head

Moving on, there's a new parody of "Animal Farm" out, with a supposed anti-capitalist bent...Is book publishing "a field that the rest of our culture has begun to regard with the quaint benevolence one feels toward children and old pets"? I would say no, I like my old dog Lucy much more than that, but here's an interesting perspective on the National Book Awards...Speaking of, if you missed Michael Kinsley's breathtakingly obnoxious piece about voting as a judge for those awards without actually reading many of the books, here it is. The only good thing about Kinsley is that you can make fun of him, but the worst thing about him is that it's so easy. What a creep...Finally, sources say The New Yorker will post a profit of $1 million this year, reducing their total deficit under Newhouse to $214 million.

Agree/Disagree/Don't Know

Check out this site's list of the 100 Best Albums of the 80s, and I bet you'll waste 30 minutes like I just did.

Bad Sex

England's annual prize for Bad Sex in Literature is about to be awarded. Here's an article, along with one of the entries, which, needless to say, is awful.



My friend Dan sent me this bit of interesting clap-trap: a Weekly Standard writer pens a paean to Star Wars' Empire.

Mother Nature is one gross woman

No--I can't even comment. Read this story from The Sun at your own risk. You better not be eating anything.

Talk to yourself

A Swedish scientist is claiming that talking to yourself--in funny voices, no less--is good for you. Now I know why I only get one cold a year.



I'm doing a reading--or in my case, a mumbling--tonight; After-Words Books, 23 E. Illinois St. It will also be simulcast via satellite hookup at Wembley, Japan's Budokan, and Madison Square Garden.

Barry's Long March...

...is proving much more pleasant than Mao's. Editor Simon revealed today that my mongrel will be at #7 in the London Sunday Times list this Sunday. Yowsa!



While emceeing the National Book Awards, Steve Martin got off a good line or two. While presenting a Lifetime Achievement Award to Phillip Roth, he quipped, "If he's so great, where's his Golden Globe, his Emmy, his house's layout in In Style magazine? And if he's so great, where’s his hit sitcom, `Philip'?"



Tomorrow to uh, celebrate the 39th anniversary of JFK's assassination, NPR will air new recordings that were sent to Kennedy's cabinet that day, as they were en route to a conference in Japan. It's must listening for Oliver Stone, and myself. Did you ever hear what the CIA said when confronted with the fact that an agent named "George Bush" was in Dallas that day? "That's a lie!...Okay, it's not! But it was a different George Bush!"



If something happens to me on the way to my reading, IT WAS NO ACCIDENT.

A Reading, and a Roundup

People at Chicago's After-Words Bookstore (23 E. Illinois St) have extremely unwisely asked me to do a reading at their store this Friday, Nov. 22nd at 8pm. So anybody in the area who would like to endure two hours of mumbled punchlines and half-bemused muttering, shouldn't miss it! In more Barry news, it continues to sell like crack in Britain. In a show of solidarity Kate and I have been eating a lot of bangers and mash...



Recently opened medical records reveal that JFK was an utter wreck…Fans of the Sub-Mariner (and who isn't?) check out this site…There's a new Strong Bad email introducing his website…



And finally, this is GREAT: a piece Jon and I wrote for the Village Voice this Spring, "Why the ____s Hate the ____s," has been circulating the 'net like crazy. Here it is translated into Serbo-Croatian; then in a Albanian magazine. When we submitted it to The New Yorker, they said, "Gee, it seems a bit pat." If your biggest problem is getting your kid into the best $18,000/year preschool, yeah, I guess it is...

Got an extra 20,000 pounds?

John Lennon's dope box and pipe are being auctioned off--put your bids in now...

I've said it before...

...bulk discounts on Barry Trotter for book burnings! Anyway to celebrate (?) the release of Harry Potter and the Chamber Full of Money, the anti-HP kooks are at it again. And why not? It worked so well the first time!

HP2 has arove...

...and A.O. Scott says it's slightly better than the first, while Ebert frankly gushes. He writes: "What's developing here, it's clear, is one of the most important franchises in movie history, a series of films that consolidate all of the advances in computer-aided animation, linked to the extraordinary creative work of J.K. Rowling, who has created a mythological world as grand as "Star Wars," but filled with more wit and humanity....What a glorious movie."



Fair enough. But whenever somebody uses a phrase like "movie history," I wish there were more than one hundred years of it to judge by. Liz Taylor's "Cleopatra" made movie history, for example, but who thinks it's much good today? Pardon the segue, but this makes me think of an excellent book I ran across this past Spring, "The Monster Show" by David Skal. For anybody interested in the history of horror movies, it's must-reading. (Note I did not use the phrase "horror-history history."

Fascinating for Woody fans...

Former NY-er casual editor Dan Menaker has some very interesting things to say about a recent appearance by Woody Allen. Allen was appearing at the 92nd St. Y, and talking about psychotherapy.

Waiting for the next Harry Potter?

Here's the latest…Anglophiles (or simply Anglos) should check out TV Go Home, an excellent UK humor site…Did George Lucas swipe the design for the Jedi Archive from Trinity College's famous Long Room Library? See for yourself.…Poor Michael Jackson and his horrible, freakish appearance…A year after the Liberation of Gnomes began, it may have ended, with the discovery of a cache in Southern France. No word as to whether they will be crucified along the main roads, ala Spartacus.

The world is Cook County

Three Texas Republicans win, tallying the exact same number of votes: 18,181. At least whoever hacked into the vote-counting software remembered to shave off the .8181818. Otherwise it could've been embarrassing.



Repeat after me: We don't steal elections in this country. That's for pissant banana republics and foreign dictatorships. We have democracy!

Bestseller news

Barry will be down a slot, to #9 this Sunday, thanks to a new Terry Prachett being released and bloodying everybody's nose. (If you have never read T.P., I encourage you to do so. He's very funny.) But anyway, sales continue to go up, and the book's logged an incredible seven weeks on the list! Incredible to me, I mean. I am without cred.

there's just so much good stuff

New Strong Bad email.

I want my copy

An Irish website reports that John Cleese is writing a Superman comic. Something about a blancmange from the planet Andromeda...? (Help me out here, Simon; did I get the Python reference right?)

Slip of the finger? Transposition? RIGHT.

The Oakland Journal is apologizing after printing a headline that read "Pistons rain 3'nigs on."



By the way, I don't know if anybody watched Monday Night Football last night, but the Raiders beat the Broncos 34 to nigs.

If you love The Strand as much as I do...

...you'll be happy to know that the 75-year-old used bookstore is expanding. The best part of all: improvements to the bathroom, which the article calls "truly horrifying." The store's website (which does a surprising 15% of its business) is here.

Aww, that's sweet. But WHY?

According to this site, my co-workers call me "Sugar Plum." And by "co-workers" they must mean the cats.

Fans of News Radio, check out...

...this site. I never watched the show, but the creators of this site give it the kind of scrutiny usually reserved for Aristophanes. Even though I'm allergic to stuff with laughtracks, it makes me think I should check it out in re-runs.

CNN Update: The Barry Trotter segment is now transcribed at CNN.com. (For some reason Blogger spat out my link to it.)

Barry Trotter! CNN! Dirty!

A friend of mine in Connecticut called to say that CNN ran a segment this morning about Barry Trotter and the Unauthorized Parody. Apparently a woman bought a copy of Barry at a York, Pennsylvania book fair for her seven year old. She read five pages and was shocked, shocked, I tell you! They even brought the poor seven year old on:

"And what do YOU think of this book?" asks the reporter.

"It's bad," murmurs the kid.



The whole thing was very scare-oriented. They didn't mention that it was a parody, or even ONCE give the full title. Or mention that the back cover says, "If you're wondering whether this book is too old for you…" Or talk to me, or Simon and Schuster, or even go to Amazon and say, "Despite Mrs. X's reaction, in the year since it has appeared, most HP fans seem to like Barry Trotter." Or that the story ultimately showed a GOOD thing happening--a parent exercising control over what her child reads. Nope, none of these; it was so much easier to go for the scare: "Parents, beware--there's a nasty Harry Potter book out there."



...Next on CNN: a child doesn't swallow a nail. Even though, if you don't look closely, nails sorta look like cloves. Call me conservative--call me a hidebound traditionalist--but I think every parent should read the cover of a book before giving it to their kid.

Cat Hats

If you're balancing things on your cat's head as frequently as I am, why not get serious?

News from Britain

Mere moments after I found out that Barry had broken into the Amazon.co.uk Top 100 for the first time (at 78--and this Sunday, it will be listed at #8 on the London Times list) Jon Schwarz wrote me about an article that has all England in a tizzy. He writes, in very Weekend Update style,



"In an interview published in the Daily Mirror, Princess Di's former butler Paul Burrell said that shortly after Diana was killed in 1997, he had a three-hour meeting with the Queen in which she reportedly told him: 'There are powers at work in this country about which we have no knowledge.' Later, she added 'I know who controls the international drug trade, and it's Lyndon LaRouche!'"

Satire is impossible

We've reached the vanishing point, I think. Time to become an historian--with stuff like this, what's the difference?

Passed out, drawn-on Germans

This German site features galleries of photos of passed out people (probably German too, but perhaps of many races and cultures) who have been drawn on by their friends.

Cowbell...

K. Murphy sends in this page devoted to the magic and mystery that is the cowbell. Is there any song it can't improve? Mozart's "Requiem" needs a cowbell, I think.

Black people also love ME...

...especially when I quote old Richard Pryor routines to show I understand. But they love these two so much more.

Roundup

David Letterman's gonna be simulcasting on radio.



And from Japan, "What about things like S&M, fatties, old women or irregular types of love games? Can you do them?" Prostitutes now giving out grades, certificates. Can Kaplan be far behind?

Simone de Beauvoir on the US publishing biz

While poking around the site Moby Lives, I found this 1947 quote from Simone de Beauvoir posted by a reader in the Letters section: "Publishers and editors size up your mind in a critical and distasteful way, like an impresario asking a dancer to show her legs. They have contempt for the start for the product they're going to buy, as well as for the public on whom they'll foist the goods. Their role is to create between these two ridiculous forms of humanity -- the author and the reader -- a relationshp that is equally preposterous, but which their skill wll nonetheless convert into respectable dollars for the publisher. The very precision of their methods turns writing into a grocery store item. They say, 'I want 2,500 words. We pay so many dollars for 1,500 words.' A French editor must also count columns and lines of type, but with more flexibility. As for the contents of the articles, in France it is still accepted that certain values have meaning and that the public is capable of recognizing them. Here, it's a question of concealing from stupid readers the fundamental foolishness of the pages they're offered. This stupidity, amplified by the arrogant contempt of the businessmen who exploit it, rules the day. You are not allowed to trust the public, in the hope that they will trust you. You must give them what they want. The problem is that you must surprise them at the same time, surprise being one of the recommended forms of bait. Hence, a serious dilemma -- propose a subject for an unpublished article, and they tell you that Americans aren't interested in that; choose a question that concerns them, and they object that it's already hackneyed. The trick is to invent a provocative little novelty amid the commonplace."

Pop-Toppin', and another list...

Retro-Crush has a funny feature on the short-lived art of making clothes out of pop-tops.



And continuing our list motif, this one comes from pal Matt Fogel: "I give you something very on the hush-hush: the five movies least likely to be greenlighted this year:



1. The Kabul Follies

2. The Gay Conquistador

3. The Stench

4. Bob Hope is Butterfield 8*

5. [Insert "Howard the Duck" reference here]



*remake"



Wasn't "The Stench" that John Carpenter movie with all the pirates?

I was born to enter this contest...

Wanna buy a used book store? Start writing.

A Trailer About Nothing

For Jerry Seinfeld's "Comedian."

Ian Dallas writes in…

Yale Record pal Ian writes: "If puppies could speak, I think they would probably talk too fast for us to be able to understand them."



Also, he passed along his list of the Five Worst New Sodas:

1) RC Foam

2) Mostly It's Apple Juice

3) Pepsi Off-White

4) New York City Tap Water-Brand Unflavored Sport Drink

5) Spicy Coke



Ian's a funny man. Why not tell him so yourself?

52 Sincere Tips...

...what an irrepressible lot! Fans of Harry Potter and Leopard Walk Up to Dragon (and who among us isn't one?) will be interested in this article from the Washington Post.



Harry Potter isn't the only one being scammed, apparently; "Who Moved My Cheese?" spawned "Whose Cheese Can I Move?," "I Don't Want to Move Your Cheese!," "Learn to Make Your Own Cheese," "The Philosophy of the Survival of Cheese" and "52 Sincere Tips on the Management of Cheese."



Can Barry be far behind?

Something Awful has a nice Photoshop contest this Phriday--always a fan of the "parody breakfast cereals" trope.