If you’re looking for Manly Wade Wellman to read, and you should be if you like American mythology and folklore, Night Shade Books is running a 50% off sale until midnight tomorrow. The collected stories are beautiful volumes, well-bound and nicely typeset. I recommend them highly.
Book Meme: + bold the ones you’ve read{{ double-space-with-newline }} + italicize those you started but never finished{{ double-space-with-newline }} + add three at the end My own comment: calm down all ye Terry Pratchett fans. Yeesh.
Ray Bradbury has pretty strong opinions about Michael Moore (original). “Michael Moore is a screwed a—hole, that is what I think about that case,” Bradbury said according to an English translation of the story. “He stole my title and changed the numbers without ever asking me for permission.” Continued the author: “[Moore] is a horrible human being – horrible human!” When asked if he agrees with Moore’s political positions, Bradbury replied, “That has nothing to do with it. He copied my title; that is what happened. That has nothing to do with my political opinions.” ...
Public service announcement: City of God comes out on DVD tomorrow. It is so very good. Big-time recommended.
Looking back on the Dean campaign, I was dead wrong about how effective the campaign was at turning online energy into real world results. Despite the number of people willing to go out and do things in the real world, Dean didn’t win. He did raise a whole lot of money, and blogs continue to prove effective as money-raising avenues. However, they do that by getting lots of Internet-savvy people to contribute. Even in fund-raising, nobody bridges the gap between the Internet and normal retail politics. ...
“Today we have elves, stormtroopers and now superheroes,” Koster said. “We need to break out of the geek ghetto. No offense … I am one.” Wired is running the old mainstream acceptance article (original), except it’s about MMORPGs instead of comic books. And yeah, we all know how unpopular stories about elves, stormtroopers, and superheroes are. #2 movie of all time: Star Wars. #4 movie of all time: The Phantom Menace. #5 movie of all time: Spider-Man. #6 movie of all time: Return of the King. #9 movie of all time: The Two Towers. ...
I wonder. Is it a bad sign that I’d sort of prefer a superhero parody movie night to a straight superhero movie night? I mean, hey — The Specials, Mystery Men, and The Incredibles vs. what? Superman, Spider-Man, and X-Men 2? I think the goofy superhero movies are winning. Not by a lot, but they’re ahead. Possibly The Incredibles will suck, but I would not bet against Pixar.
The Scala Choir cover of “I Touch Myself” is kinda making me sentimental just at the moment. It’s really beautiful. There’s a bit more about the Choir here (original), with a video. There’s a classical piece, Nocturne, opus 40 by Dvorak, on the official site. I just added the Fluxblog feed to LiveJournal as flux_blog (original), by the by. There’s also a syndicated journal called fluxblog, but it’s using the RSS feed which is not so current.
[Written on Friday.] I’m glad I came into Austin early; for one thing, I’m far better rested this morning than I would be if I’d gotten in last night, and for another thing, it was nice to see Austin. We stayed at the Austin Motel, on South Congress Street, which is pretty clearly the hip area of Austin. Funky stores, good clubs, ice cream, and good Mexican food — what’s not to like? ...
I now believe that Hollywood is in imminent danger of being destroyed by an angry God. It’s an unavoidable side-effect of reading the fall 2004 TV pilot roundup. It’s nice to know that Seth MacFarlane (“Family Guy”) is working on another animated show. I did not particularly want to know that Rob Lowe is in a pilot in which he plays the in-house doctor at a Vegas casino. Nor do I have much hope for the premise “Animated show about Siegfried & Roy’s Vegas act, told through the eyes of the animals.” Or “Suburban mom uses psychic powers to solve crime.” ...