Barry Trotter (Book 1)
The Hogwash School for Wizards was the most famous school in the wizarding world, and Barry Trotter was its most famous student. His mere presence made sure that every year twenty candidates applied for every open spot, no matter how rapacious Hogwash's tuition became. As a result, Barry and the school had come to an unspoken agreement: regardless of his grades, Barry could remain at Hogwash for as long as he wished. He had just begun his eleventh year...Freshman
Sleepy with boredom and gassy from lunch, Hart Fox sat in the hard plastic chair outside his dean's office. A kid walked in the door, pink detention slip in hand, bobbing his head a little so that the purple spikes of his mohawk didn't get bent on the transom. He slumped down next to Hart. Hart nodded--he remembered tis joker from sophomore American History, constantly arguing in favor of anarcho-syndicalism. Was his name Henry?...Sophomore
Arcing lazily through the air, the Frisbee smacked against the window. “Ooo-oo!” a chiseled and shirtless boy teased as it wobbleplummeted to the ground. “Sarah's in troub-le!”The beauty-boy was righter than he knew: Of all the windows on campus to hit, this one was the worst. It belonged to Stutts’ Professor of Clandestine Affairs, Glenbard North, who had destroyed more students than there were blades of grass on the freshly resodded Old Quad below...Coming Soon!
All you really gotta know is, I'm writing new things constantly and the more I write, the better my books get. So if you've read my earlier work--and millions of you have--we should keep in touch. This fall, at least one and maybe two new books will be available: a Dickens parody AND a comic mystery loosely based on The Beatles. Drop me an email at mikesnewbooks[at]gmail[dot]com, and I'll be sure to let you know release dates, special deals, etc.Friday, April 30, 2004
A couple of tidbits from the NY Observer...
Ron Rosenbaum writes an interesting column about newspapers and management-consulting bullshit. And Robert Sam Anson gives John Kerry some excellent advice.
Thursday, April 29, 2004
Bush has got to go, folks...
I just watched a fascinating documentary on PBS, "The Jesus Factor." (The show's website is here.) It deals with the role that evangelical Christianity has played in the President's life.
As we all know, W. credits Jesus Christ with ending his drinking. And I'm sure we're all happy for W.--alcoholism is a terrible thing. But since September 11th, having a born-again, Biblical literalist in the White House has been a catastrophe. Bush's sense of himself as a Christian crusader has directly informed every bad decision that the Administration has made: the going it alone; the consistently inflammatory rhetoric that alienates moderate Muslilms; the refusal to change course when it's clear what we're doing is not working. He's the Don Quixote of the PTL set, and we're all his unwilling Sancho Panza.
W. should take his deep, personal faith and go lead a faith-based group. it's totally inappropriate (and frankly dangerous) for a President to represent only one group of Americans, at the expense of everybody else. The choice couldn't be clearer, folks. Sanity versus insanity, responsibility versus irresponsibility. He's got to go, and we've got to do it.
As we all know, W. credits Jesus Christ with ending his drinking. And I'm sure we're all happy for W.--alcoholism is a terrible thing. But since September 11th, having a born-again, Biblical literalist in the White House has been a catastrophe. Bush's sense of himself as a Christian crusader has directly informed every bad decision that the Administration has made: the going it alone; the consistently inflammatory rhetoric that alienates moderate Muslilms; the refusal to change course when it's clear what we're doing is not working. He's the Don Quixote of the PTL set, and we're all his unwilling Sancho Panza.
W. should take his deep, personal faith and go lead a faith-based group. it's totally inappropriate (and frankly dangerous) for a President to represent only one group of Americans, at the expense of everybody else. The choice couldn't be clearer, folks. Sanity versus insanity, responsibility versus irresponsibility. He's got to go, and we've got to do it.
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Tom Robbins, Life of Brian
I've never read any Tom Robbins, but this interview certainly makes me want to pick some up. Can anybody suggest a book?
Also, after a truly splendid article on PG Wodehouse, The New Yorker's Anthony Lane follows it up with an incredibly blockheaded (and, frankly, insulting) review of Monty Python's rereleased "Life of Brian." The review is so blatantly, fundamentally misguided that I really wondered if he'd watched the movie since he first saw it as a teenager. Aren't there any editors over there anymore?
Lane starts his review by asking, "What has the movie done, you may ask, to earn the privilege of a Second Coming?" Lane's answer is to paint the Pythons as opportunists looking to cash in on the success of Mel Gibson's movie. Nobody would begrudge the Oxbridge Six (now Five) from making a little money, but here's a less cynical answer: that religious fundamentalism--the satirical target of the movie--has only grown since 1979. In fact, it's become the single biggest threat to humanity's continued existence on the planet. How's that for a friggin' reason, Mr. Lane? HOW OBTUSE CAN YOU GET?
Later in the review, Lane admits that as a teenage fan, he always found the Python TV shows "too fragmented and splintered for their own good." There's no accounting for taste, but given the number of comedy people who consider that series a breakthrough, I think we can conclude that Mr. Lane is a badminton champ trying to play raquetball. The Pythons move too quickly for him. That's not the Pythons' fault.
What pissed me off (i.e., made me mad enough to blog) was the sentence, "The best cure for that fragmentation was to bind it with the kind of narrative glue—one can hardly call it rigor—that holds together “Life of Brian.” Emphasis mine, obviously. Mr. Lane, the Pythons were the most intellectual, ambitious, and rigorous sketch comedians to walk the face of the Earth. All that silliness requires a solid framework of logic underneath to support it. As a teenaged fan, you couldn't be ridiculed for not seeing it, but as the freakin' movie critic for the freakin' New Yorker, that ignorance is absurd.
It's okay not to like a movie, obviously, but it's not okay to deny it because you can't be bothered to respect it. "Life of Brian" is probably the best, funniest, and certainly most rigorous piece of cinematic satire since Dr. Strangelove. And like Strangelove, the target of its satire is a clear and present danger. Unlike the quotidian kerfuffles of Bertie Wooster!
Also, after a truly splendid article on PG Wodehouse, The New Yorker's Anthony Lane follows it up with an incredibly blockheaded (and, frankly, insulting) review of Monty Python's rereleased "Life of Brian." The review is so blatantly, fundamentally misguided that I really wondered if he'd watched the movie since he first saw it as a teenager. Aren't there any editors over there anymore?
Lane starts his review by asking, "What has the movie done, you may ask, to earn the privilege of a Second Coming?" Lane's answer is to paint the Pythons as opportunists looking to cash in on the success of Mel Gibson's movie. Nobody would begrudge the Oxbridge Six (now Five) from making a little money, but here's a less cynical answer: that religious fundamentalism--the satirical target of the movie--has only grown since 1979. In fact, it's become the single biggest threat to humanity's continued existence on the planet. How's that for a friggin' reason, Mr. Lane? HOW OBTUSE CAN YOU GET?
Later in the review, Lane admits that as a teenage fan, he always found the Python TV shows "too fragmented and splintered for their own good." There's no accounting for taste, but given the number of comedy people who consider that series a breakthrough, I think we can conclude that Mr. Lane is a badminton champ trying to play raquetball. The Pythons move too quickly for him. That's not the Pythons' fault.
What pissed me off (i.e., made me mad enough to blog) was the sentence, "The best cure for that fragmentation was to bind it with the kind of narrative glue—one can hardly call it rigor—that holds together “Life of Brian.” Emphasis mine, obviously. Mr. Lane, the Pythons were the most intellectual, ambitious, and rigorous sketch comedians to walk the face of the Earth. All that silliness requires a solid framework of logic underneath to support it. As a teenaged fan, you couldn't be ridiculed for not seeing it, but as the freakin' movie critic for the freakin' New Yorker, that ignorance is absurd.
It's okay not to like a movie, obviously, but it's not okay to deny it because you can't be bothered to respect it. "Life of Brian" is probably the best, funniest, and certainly most rigorous piece of cinematic satire since Dr. Strangelove. And like Strangelove, the target of its satire is a clear and present danger. Unlike the quotidian kerfuffles of Bertie Wooster!
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Journalism seems to be the theme today...
If you haven't read the Anthony Lane piece on PG Wodehouse in The New Yorker, you ought to. It's one of the most perceptive comedy-related pieces I've read in a long time.
Here's a mildly interesting interview with a very interesting man, Gay Talese.
The Medium, a humor newspaper at Rutgers, has gotten in trouble for a cartoon dealing with the Holocaust. I haven't seen it, the cartoon isn't on the web, but an article described it as "showing a carnival contestant trying to knock a terrified Jewish man into a burning oven" with the caption "Knock a Jew in the oven! Three throws for one dollar!?The paper's editor (who is Jewish and had relatives killed in the Holocaust) told the New York Times, 'Humor is a way of honoring [Holocaust victims] and trying to get over it and to laugh."
Well, I personally don't think genocide is something to 'get over,' but nobody can blame the kid for spinning as fast as he can. Now, idiotically, former NYC mayor Ed Koch has weighed in, blasting the paper and the decision of Rutgers' President, who said that the cartoon, as deplorable as it was, is protected by the First Amendment. I hope the President stands firm; I don't want Ed Koch or anybody else monitoring what I can and can't read. There is a difference between juvenile bad taste and authentic hate-speech, and the only way a person can decide which is which is by seeing it for themselves.
I've blogged recently about the stickiness of being a student humorist (and worse, a student humor editor). The currency of comedy today is outrageousness, so student humorists have learned to, in Del Close's words, "follow the fear." But campuses are probably more claustrophobic than adult life is, as regards speech. They are forces destined to clash.
There is plenty of authentic anti-Semitism out there, and every moment that Koch spent on this kerfuffle is time he's not confronting the authentically hateful people in the world. The paper's editor is a Jew, for God's sake--and if the Medium is like every other college humor magazine I know, I'd expect that there are a few other Jewish people on the paper, too. I seriously doubt their intent was anti-Semitic. And intent should count for something; I'd say a lot, wouldn't you?
As the paper's editor has said, places like The Medium are a training ground, and as with any training ground, there will be mistakes. Crying "anti-Semitism" when what's probably at issue is a stupidly conceived and poorly executed gag, helps nobody. By devaluing the term, it simply encourages the oscillation between extreme opinions. It's no coincidence that political correctness and the rabid right emerged at the same time. And that's an improvement?
Meanwhile, at NYU, a kid is living in the library.
Here's a mildly interesting interview with a very interesting man, Gay Talese.
The Medium, a humor newspaper at Rutgers, has gotten in trouble for a cartoon dealing with the Holocaust. I haven't seen it, the cartoon isn't on the web, but an article described it as "showing a carnival contestant trying to knock a terrified Jewish man into a burning oven" with the caption "Knock a Jew in the oven! Three throws for one dollar!?The paper's editor (who is Jewish and had relatives killed in the Holocaust) told the New York Times, 'Humor is a way of honoring [Holocaust victims] and trying to get over it and to laugh."
Well, I personally don't think genocide is something to 'get over,' but nobody can blame the kid for spinning as fast as he can. Now, idiotically, former NYC mayor Ed Koch has weighed in, blasting the paper and the decision of Rutgers' President, who said that the cartoon, as deplorable as it was, is protected by the First Amendment. I hope the President stands firm; I don't want Ed Koch or anybody else monitoring what I can and can't read. There is a difference between juvenile bad taste and authentic hate-speech, and the only way a person can decide which is which is by seeing it for themselves.
I've blogged recently about the stickiness of being a student humorist (and worse, a student humor editor). The currency of comedy today is outrageousness, so student humorists have learned to, in Del Close's words, "follow the fear." But campuses are probably more claustrophobic than adult life is, as regards speech. They are forces destined to clash.
There is plenty of authentic anti-Semitism out there, and every moment that Koch spent on this kerfuffle is time he's not confronting the authentically hateful people in the world. The paper's editor is a Jew, for God's sake--and if the Medium is like every other college humor magazine I know, I'd expect that there are a few other Jewish people on the paper, too. I seriously doubt their intent was anti-Semitic. And intent should count for something; I'd say a lot, wouldn't you?
As the paper's editor has said, places like The Medium are a training ground, and as with any training ground, there will be mistakes. Crying "anti-Semitism" when what's probably at issue is a stupidly conceived and poorly executed gag, helps nobody. By devaluing the term, it simply encourages the oscillation between extreme opinions. It's no coincidence that political correctness and the rabid right emerged at the same time. And that's an improvement?
Meanwhile, at NYU, a kid is living in the library.
Monday, April 26, 2004
The Onion Unbound!
After over a decade pumping out parody news, The Onion is finally going for the gusto and offering a premium subscription option. For $30/year ($7/mo.) subscribers will get access to archives, and new features like games, webpages, and such.
This is very exciting for two reasons:
1) The Onion has done what it's done extremely well, but it's been fanatically unambitious. The opportunity to expand beyond the fake news story is an opportunity for them to really show what they can do. I can't wait--some really great brains there, probably the best staff since the early days of The National Lampoon.
2) Paid circulation is the "adult table," and here's where we find out whether The Onion is a flash-in-the-pan (albeit a very bright one), or the humor institution The National Lampoon should've become. The Onion's business model has always been rather suspect as a base for anything more than an overgrown college paper. The free-paper-plus-internet model can sell books and ancillary stuff, but it hasn't launched a single national institution that I can think of (is the Village Voice on YOUR local newsstand?). As I'm always reminding the students at Yale, readers are nice, but somebody has to fork over the dough. Historically, the humor magazines that have thrived have done so by single-copy newsstand sales; but the internet does change the game, and this new model smells right to me.
My fingers are crossed--and even more importantly, I'll open my wallet, too.
Also: I can't find it online, but The Daily Telegraph had a big article on the rise of parody in the UK--with pics of Barry and quotes from me. I'll post it when I find it.
This is very exciting for two reasons:
1) The Onion has done what it's done extremely well, but it's been fanatically unambitious. The opportunity to expand beyond the fake news story is an opportunity for them to really show what they can do. I can't wait--some really great brains there, probably the best staff since the early days of The National Lampoon.
2) Paid circulation is the "adult table," and here's where we find out whether The Onion is a flash-in-the-pan (albeit a very bright one), or the humor institution The National Lampoon should've become. The Onion's business model has always been rather suspect as a base for anything more than an overgrown college paper. The free-paper-plus-internet model can sell books and ancillary stuff, but it hasn't launched a single national institution that I can think of (is the Village Voice on YOUR local newsstand?). As I'm always reminding the students at Yale, readers are nice, but somebody has to fork over the dough. Historically, the humor magazines that have thrived have done so by single-copy newsstand sales; but the internet does change the game, and this new model smells right to me.
My fingers are crossed--and even more importantly, I'll open my wallet, too.
Also: I can't find it online, but The Daily Telegraph had a big article on the rise of parody in the UK--with pics of Barry and quotes from me. I'll post it when I find it.
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Mike, friend to skunks
I like skunks (and assume the feeling is mutual). After a bit of digging, I found this group, Skunk Haven, which rescues pet skunks and takes care of them--ideally until somebody adopts them. (There's also a lot of skunk info on the site.)
I have three cats, so there's no way I can take a skunk on board, but I did sponsor an excellent young skunk. His name is Ty. You can read more about Ty--and see a picture of him--here. Ty's my screen background now.
Ty's got some medical problems that make him require a lot of vet care, and I've been told that I'm the first person to sponsor him. So if you have a spare dollar or two, consider PayPalling it to Skunk Haven for Ty. His caretaker told me yesterday that he's a very special boy.
Watch for updates on Ty the Skunk!
I have three cats, so there's no way I can take a skunk on board, but I did sponsor an excellent young skunk. His name is Ty. You can read more about Ty--and see a picture of him--here. Ty's my screen background now.
Ty's got some medical problems that make him require a lot of vet care, and I've been told that I'm the first person to sponsor him. So if you have a spare dollar or two, consider PayPalling it to Skunk Haven for Ty. His caretaker told me yesterday that he's a very special boy.
Watch for updates on Ty the Skunk!
Monday, April 19, 2004
I love the UK!
I do, I really do. Regular readers of this blog know of my used book addiction; apparently, all of the United Kingdom also shares this problem.
My feelings about the US, however, remain mixed. Those of you interested in tracking political news, especially the situation in Iraq, are heartily encouraged to investigate A Tiny Revolution, a new blog launched by my writing partner Jonathan Schwarz.
Not only are we exporting horrible stuff, we're also producing it for consumption here at home. I'm talking, of course, about the autobiography of Paris Hilton; here's some dirt on it from the editor overseeing it at Simon and Schuster, via a blog. The skinny: Paris is stupid.
It's days like this that make me want to adopt a Great White Shark. Unfortunately, it probably wouldn't eat the people I'd try to feed it. They hate junk food.
My feelings about the US, however, remain mixed. Those of you interested in tracking political news, especially the situation in Iraq, are heartily encouraged to investigate A Tiny Revolution, a new blog launched by my writing partner Jonathan Schwarz.
Not only are we exporting horrible stuff, we're also producing it for consumption here at home. I'm talking, of course, about the autobiography of Paris Hilton; here's some dirt on it from the editor overseeing it at Simon and Schuster, via a blog. The skinny: Paris is stupid.
It's days like this that make me want to adopt a Great White Shark. Unfortunately, it probably wouldn't eat the people I'd try to feed it. They hate junk food.
Saturday, April 17, 2004
Introverts Unite!
Wait a sec...that wouldn't work at all...
Anyway, while I'm pondering the paradox of loners banding together for social action, check out this article on introverts from The Atlantic Monthly. Need I say which side of the divide all my favorite people are on?
Anyway, while I'm pondering the paradox of loners banding together for social action, check out this article on introverts from The Atlantic Monthly. Need I say which side of the divide all my favorite people are on?
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Pig Manure, Hope of Tomorrow
A researcher at the University of Illinois has discovered a way to make crude oil from pig manure. Go, you!
The New Yorker has a series of articles about humor on its website. Check it out. Read the article about jokes, which talks about G. Legman, whose Rationale of the Dirty Joke has rested on my bookshelf for many years. Gonna read the article on the Farrelly brothers, who I love...
The New Yorker has a series of articles about humor on its website. Check it out. Read the article about jokes, which talks about G. Legman, whose Rationale of the Dirty Joke has rested on my bookshelf for many years. Gonna read the article on the Farrelly brothers, who I love...
Sunday, April 11, 2004
Mah jongg documentary
My friend Charlie Schroeder did a short radio documentary on mah jongg for the NPR program "It's Only a Game." I've always wanted to learn to play.
It's eight minutes long, and about 38 minutes into the program.
It's eight minutes long, and about 38 minutes into the program.
Friday, April 9, 2004
April Fool's issues on campus
This article talks about this year's roundup of college newspapers who've gotten into hot water over April Fool's Day parody issues.
People: leave parodying to the professionals! I'm just kidding, but I can attest to how low our National Sense of Humor Reserves are at the moment. Whenever I read about another "offensive" student joke, common sense begs the question: who died? Yes, I'm familar with all the arguments about "creating a hostile environment," and occasionally even make them myself. But given the texture of our national media, I find it very hard to believe that any college newspaper could write something that hasn't been aired professionally without comment. (And within the last 24 hours, if you're watching the right cable channel.)
One might think that college campuses are bastions of free speech. They are not. They are places where a lot of people talk about free speech. But if you ask college students, most of them--like, sadly, most of the rest of us--consider free speech somewhat like free love: a nice idea, but too troublesome in the practice.
The tendency of institutions, benign or hostile, is to control their environment--that includes speech. And that's why student humor magazines--and yes, April Fool's issues of newspapers--are more important than you might think. How you react to an offensive cartoon at age 19, what you think is an appropriate level of speech-control, is a good indicator of how tolerant you'll be at age 40.
Important or not, pity the poor student humorist. Campuses are particularly difficult for the following reasons:
1) You get it from both sides. Politics on campus is controlled by hotheads looking to become famous by leading a crusade. Prepare to have people satisfy their self-images as a pundit-in-waiting by calling you a "Fascist" or "America-hater," whichever they prefer. And just because William F. Buckley Jr. Jr. graduates, you're not off the hook: they make more every year.
2) You're an easy target, an "authority" with no power. It's much easier (and less frightening) to shut down a student-run newspaper for printing a boneheaded cartoon than, say, pressure the University to increase salaries and benefits for the Jamaican-born guy who cleans up the activist's vomity bathroom. The former's fake political action; the latter's authentic change, and THAT might get a student politico expelled.
3) In America at least, being an intellectual means you can't have a sense of humor. If you can laugh at yourself--or even acknowledge that reality is an unruly place--you are less smart. "I take myself seriously, so you should, too" is the motto of campus big-wheels everywhere
4) Your intent doesn't count. Misjudging your audience--or simply not being very funny--is the same as intending to injure. Some opinions count more than others, and where you stand on the Invisible Scoreboard of Grievance does matter. Sorry.
What is particularly disturbing about these kerfuffles is that the offended students and the school administrators always get along like peas and carrots. Burning with indignation and yearning for justice, the offended students always go to the University--as if that institution didn't have its own dog in the fight. It's freaking immature, the 19-year-old equivalent of tattling on your brother or sister. But unlike your parents, a university doesn't love you; it has no inherent committment to justice; it simply wants you to pay your bills and graduate so it can start asking you for money.
Student newspapers--student publications of any kind--are an irritant. They complicate the easy flow from matriculation to graduation, and if a university can use one group of students to reign in another group of students, it will. There's usually no active value-judgment in this; I'm sure the vast majority of administrators believe in freedom of the press. But their job isn't to uphold the Constitution, it's to aid and protect the University--and that's what they do. These articles all end with the student editors all being trooped off to sensitivity training; yet there's never any requirement for the offended people to attend "free speech training." They, apparently, are perfect.
You may think I'm just ranting, but college students vote; and these attitudes have percolated up into post-collegiate life as well. College students are much too cozy with whoever's in control; It's time for them--and all of us--to drop our illusions about the nature of institutions. And it's never too early to develop a sense of priorities. In the meantime, give to the Student Press Law Center, because a printing press is a terrible thing to waste.
People: leave parodying to the professionals! I'm just kidding, but I can attest to how low our National Sense of Humor Reserves are at the moment. Whenever I read about another "offensive" student joke, common sense begs the question: who died? Yes, I'm familar with all the arguments about "creating a hostile environment," and occasionally even make them myself. But given the texture of our national media, I find it very hard to believe that any college newspaper could write something that hasn't been aired professionally without comment. (And within the last 24 hours, if you're watching the right cable channel.)
One might think that college campuses are bastions of free speech. They are not. They are places where a lot of people talk about free speech. But if you ask college students, most of them--like, sadly, most of the rest of us--consider free speech somewhat like free love: a nice idea, but too troublesome in the practice.
The tendency of institutions, benign or hostile, is to control their environment--that includes speech. And that's why student humor magazines--and yes, April Fool's issues of newspapers--are more important than you might think. How you react to an offensive cartoon at age 19, what you think is an appropriate level of speech-control, is a good indicator of how tolerant you'll be at age 40.
Important or not, pity the poor student humorist. Campuses are particularly difficult for the following reasons:
1) You get it from both sides. Politics on campus is controlled by hotheads looking to become famous by leading a crusade. Prepare to have people satisfy their self-images as a pundit-in-waiting by calling you a "Fascist" or "America-hater," whichever they prefer. And just because William F. Buckley Jr. Jr. graduates, you're not off the hook: they make more every year.
2) You're an easy target, an "authority" with no power. It's much easier (and less frightening) to shut down a student-run newspaper for printing a boneheaded cartoon than, say, pressure the University to increase salaries and benefits for the Jamaican-born guy who cleans up the activist's vomity bathroom. The former's fake political action; the latter's authentic change, and THAT might get a student politico expelled.
3) In America at least, being an intellectual means you can't have a sense of humor. If you can laugh at yourself--or even acknowledge that reality is an unruly place--you are less smart. "I take myself seriously, so you should, too" is the motto of campus big-wheels everywhere
4) Your intent doesn't count. Misjudging your audience--or simply not being very funny--is the same as intending to injure. Some opinions count more than others, and where you stand on the Invisible Scoreboard of Grievance does matter. Sorry.
What is particularly disturbing about these kerfuffles is that the offended students and the school administrators always get along like peas and carrots. Burning with indignation and yearning for justice, the offended students always go to the University--as if that institution didn't have its own dog in the fight. It's freaking immature, the 19-year-old equivalent of tattling on your brother or sister. But unlike your parents, a university doesn't love you; it has no inherent committment to justice; it simply wants you to pay your bills and graduate so it can start asking you for money.
Student newspapers--student publications of any kind--are an irritant. They complicate the easy flow from matriculation to graduation, and if a university can use one group of students to reign in another group of students, it will. There's usually no active value-judgment in this; I'm sure the vast majority of administrators believe in freedom of the press. But their job isn't to uphold the Constitution, it's to aid and protect the University--and that's what they do. These articles all end with the student editors all being trooped off to sensitivity training; yet there's never any requirement for the offended people to attend "free speech training." They, apparently, are perfect.
You may think I'm just ranting, but college students vote; and these attitudes have percolated up into post-collegiate life as well. College students are much too cozy with whoever's in control; It's time for them--and all of us--to drop our illusions about the nature of institutions. And it's never too early to develop a sense of priorities. In the meantime, give to the Student Press Law Center, because a printing press is a terrible thing to waste.
Wednesday, April 7, 2004
Monday, April 5, 2004
Friday, April 2, 2004
Book lovers are an angry lot...
...these days. Luckily for the Princes of Power, our rage pours out in nothing more threatening than letters to the editor and screeds like this one wherein the author gives a laundry list of everything conspiring to thwart literacy and literature. Writing and selling books has never been motivated by the same things as other forms of capitalism; there is more than a whiff of addiction to it all. And anything created for reasons other than pure profit will have a hard time in our present world.
Still, I can't help feeling blue when yet another shop of the crammed and warren-like type I love shuts its doors. I guess I oughta pull a Larry McMurtry and start one myself. There will be cats, couches, and a great humor section...
Just finished Barry Trotter and the Dead Horse. It's slated for the Fall--watch this space for details...
Still, I can't help feeling blue when yet another shop of the crammed and warren-like type I love shuts its doors. I guess I oughta pull a Larry McMurtry and start one myself. There will be cats, couches, and a great humor section...
Just finished Barry Trotter and the Dead Horse. It's slated for the Fall--watch this space for details...
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