In addition to finally painting the living room*, Christopher had some other good news made formal this weekend. Go congratulate him, even if you don't know what it's for yet!
*Yes, I realize this sentence doesn't quite make sense. Also, no more painting** until spring.
**Pics soon. The living room is "contemplation." Who comes up with these names?
I Helped This Time! Read More »
1. Ilona Andrews' acronyms for writers.
2. A little Twilight midnight showing live blog action, and here (first few posts). I'm waiting for the reviews and play-by-play, girls.
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But I’d be remiss not to point you to Colleen’s Table of Contents for the WBBT’s first day. I can’t wait to catch up once I’m through the deadline squall.
In the OUCH! department, Michael Dirda turns in an extremely entertaining review of Patrick French’s new biography of V.S. Naipaul, The World Is What It Is. One of the money quotes:
As Patrick French’s nuanced and generous but often dispiriting biography shows, there’s not much to like or praise about V.S. Naipaul as a human being. He starts life as a twerp, then fairly quickly becomes a jerk and ends up an old sourpuss. The best overall epithet for him is infantile — though one shouldn’t neglect the claims of such adjectives as whiney, narcissistic, insulting, needy, callous, impolite, cruel, vengeful, indecisive, miserly, exploitative, snobbish, sadistic, self-pitying and ungrateful. Of course, his is, to some extent, the modern artistic sensibility writ very, very large. But even our favorite monsters and divas — Picasso, Waugh, Callas, Brando — are never as smarmy and nasty as Naipaul. He can make a spoiled 3-year-old look mature.
Seeing as Naipaul’s still with us, and Dirda goes on to (let’s face it, aptly) characterize him as "increasingly blimpish, less a cultural scourge than a mean-spirited, intolerant crank," I’m not answering anything without a recognized caller ID for a few days if I’m the critic in question.
Dirda V. Naipaul Bio Fisticuffs Read More »
I hate it when deadlines attack all at once. I’ve got a lecture to think out and write, a Dear Aunt Gwenda column to finish, a workshop submission to generate (20 pages of new fiction… I’m thinking now is the time to tackle the big fun SF middle grade thing and we shall see), aaaaaaand something else I’m forgetting. Oh, a Crafty Monday topic to host on our program’s private, student-run message board. Plus, you know, reshelving all these books and junk once the front room is Officially Together. (Getting there.) Miscellaneous, etcetera, et al.
But I think this is the last big slew of vicious swarming deadlines for a bit. All to the good, that.
Sadly, and it does make me oh so sad, all the all meant that I didn’t have time to do interviews for the Winter Blog Blast Tour this time around. But I’ll be linking as it goes all next week anyway, because there’s some fabulous interviews lined up by my more industrious, better organized compadres. You would be remiss not to check them.
Now I smell another cup of Kava Stress Relief tea in my future.
Updated: This made me and C howl like monkeys… or puppies!
(Hat tip to Karen, who has definitely earned the new puppy!)
Wednesday Hangovers Read More »