Four Jars of Preserves and Mostly Friendly Pets
Book tour? More like a safari
With publisher publicity departments backing away from traditional author tours, writers are left to their own devices (and strangers’ couches).
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Book tour (J.T. Steiny / For The Times) |
They didn’t have much choice. As the business of publishing changes, book tours increasingly look like bad risks. “In 99.9% of cases,” says Peter Miller, director of publicity at Bloomsbury USA, “you can’t justify the costs through regular book sales.”
Which is why when McSweeney’s published Cotter’s first novel, “Fever Chart,” and La Ganga’s prose poetry memoir, “Stoners and Self-Appointed Saints,” came out with Red Hen Press, neither publisher was able to provide more than moral support.
La Ganga, 41, a cake decorator, and Cotter, 45, a rare book dealer, relied on many kindnesses: Relatives bought them new tires, and friends gave them Starbucks and McDonald’s gift cards. They spent only one night in a motel, staying instead with family and friends and in the crash pads they found on couchsurfing.com. The benefits: shared meals, new connections and (mostly) friendly pets.
Pink Panther Strikes Best Buy In New Jersey
Acrobatic thieves hit N.J. Best Buy avoiding cameras, motion sensors, alarms in daring heist
By Ryan Hutchins/For The Star-Ledger
March 04, 2010, 4:42PM
SOUTH BRUNSWICK — They never touched the floor — that would have set off an alarm.
They didn’t appear on store security cameras. They cut a hole in the roof and came in at a spot where the cameras were obscured by advertising banners.
And they left with some $26,000 in laptop computers, departing the same way they came in — down a 3-inch gas pipe that runs from the roof to the ground outside the store.
Police believe that’s how some brazen bandits managed to swipe 20 Apple notebooks early this morning at a Best Buy on Route 1 in South Brunswick without detection.
“High level of sophistication,” said Detective James Ryan, a police department spokesman. “They never set off any motion sensors. They never touched the floor. They rappelled in and rappelled out.”
Gursky @ Gagosian
Andreas Gursky makes a long-distance connection
The German artist’s large-scale satellite images make up ‘Oceans’ in the newly expanded Gagosian Gallery.
Andreas Gursky, above, is “original and innovative,” gallery owner Larry Gagosian says. (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)
And if you think Larry Gagosian’s elegant Beverly Hills gallery is a showcase with relatively little floor space, you’d better look again.
The German artist is inaugurating a major enlargement of the gallery with “Oceans,” a new body of work based on satellite images. In his exhibition that opened Thursday night with an invitational preview, six photographs of deep blue water fringed by continents and dotted with islands hang in the new 3,030-square-foot space. Nine earlier works fill the original main gallery and a smaller room upstairs.
“Andreas Gursky is a new relationship for our gallery,” Gagosian says. “He’s one of the most original and innovative living artists, and the timing seemed right with the expansion of our gallery in Beverly Hills.”
Godzilla Haiku
**** Disguisable weapons wanted ****
courtesy of E-MAILS FROM AN ASSHOLE
From Me to **********@***********.org:
Hey,
I saw your ad looking for concealable/disguised weapons. I have several fine-crafted items you may be interested in. Respond if you are interested and I will send you pictures and prices.
Thanks,
Mike
From Jeff ****** to Me:
I am. lets see what you got.
From Me to Jeff ******:
Jeff,
Here you go:
Looks like a normal spoon, right?
Wrong. It is actually a deadly 2.5″ half-smooth, half-serrated knife with tactical grip. One minute you are enjoying a bowl of cereal, and the next you are fighting off attackers with this deadly and disguised weapon.
I am asking $50 for the blade. Let me know if you want to stop by and take a look at it.
Mike
From Jeff ****** to Me:
that is stupid as hell and looks like crap. unless you have anything better to offer, dont waste my time.
From Me to Jeff ******:
Jeff,
I am sorry you feel that way about the spoon blade. I do have some other weapons that I think you will feel differently about.
Mike
From Jeff ****** to Me:
fine. but if it is another knife duct taped to a spoon then you can fuck off.
From Me to Jeff ******:
Jeff,
Thank you for re-considering. Here are three quality disguised weapons that I think you will love:
At first glance, this looks like a normal party cup. However, if you look close enough, you will see that it is really a fully automatic Glock 18C. You will be able to pour your enemies a nice warm cup of lead with this fine purchase. Asking $900 for the gun/cup combo.
Still thirsty for justice? Try this badass M16A2 disguised as a 24-pack of soda. The box has two finely crafted holes on each side to allow for any kind of optics (not included) that you wish to attach. This weapon is only for sale if you have a Class III permit.
This cleverly disguised weapon may look like a tissue box, but is actually a Benelli M3 12 gauge shotgun disguised as a tissue box. The ultra-soft quilted tissues serve as a comfortable grip on the pump-action shotgun. Also, if you find yourself sneezing during the heat of combat, you will have a handy tissue box ready for action. Asking $1500 for the weapon. Additional tissue boxes are an extra $5 per box.
Let me know if you want any of these items.
Thanks,
Mike
From Jeff ****** to Me:
youre a fucking dumbass, shitbrained, asswipe, retarded dipshit. you prob walk around with that shit too you dumb mother fucker. I hope you get hit by a car. fuck off, eat shit, and die.
Waffle Sandwich With Cheese – Only In America
Banksy v. Robbo
A Game of Tag Breaks Out Between London’s Graffiti Elite
Slight Brings Robbo Out of Retirement; Cobbler Won’t Let Rival Tread on Him
LONDON—In the predawn hours of Christmas morning, a 40-year-old shoe repairman who goes by the name Robbo squeezed his 6-foot-8-inch frame into a wet suit, tossed some spray cans into a plastic bag, and crossed Regent’s Canal on a red-and-blue air mattress.
Robbo, one of the lost pioneers of London’s 1980s graffiti scene, was emerging from a long retirement. He had a mission: to settle a score with the world-famous street artist Banksy, who, Robbo believes, had attacked his legacy.
The battle centers on a wall under a bridge on the canal in London’s Camden district. In the fall of 1985—just 15 years old but already a major player in London’s graffiti scene—Robbo announced his presence on that wall with eight tall block letters: ROBBO INC.
The work, written in orange, red and black on a yellow background, had been in good shape for nearly 25 years and was considered a local icon, surviving long after Robbo himself vanished from the scene 16 years ago.
But recently, Robbo’s work was dramatically altered by an unlikely rival: Banksy, the stealthy Bristol-born artist who has made a lucrative art of graffiti. The work of Banksy—who, like Robbo, doesn’t disclose his name—sells for big money and is widely merchandised. His first film, “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January and is due out in U.K. theaters this month.
In early December, Banksy did a series of four pieces along the Regent’s Canal’s walls. Inexplicably, one of them incorporated Robbo’s piece into Banksy’s own work, painting over half the Robbo original in the process. The resulting work, in Banksy’s typical stencil technique, shows a black-and-white workman applying colorful wallpaper that is, in essence, the remnants of Robbo’s piece.
“It’s all fun and games until the 150 year old white man beats your anus in front of everyone on the bus.”
It’s called YouPorn, USA Today. YouPorn.com
Free porn on ‘tube sites’ puts dent in industry
by Jon Swartz – Mar. 2, 2010 08:45 AM
USA Today
SAN FRANCISCO — The adult-entertainment industry is in a tailspin, shattering the notion that it is one of the few recession-proof industries.
The slump is especially stinging because technology — which helped adult-entertainment enterprises reap riches through innovations such as video streaming, webcameras and online payments — is contributing to the misery.
DVDs and online pay sites, which make up the majority of porn-related sales, are in a free fall largely because of the rise of so-called tube sites.
Knockoffs of video-sharing site YouTube, the sites serve up snippets of free porn that is often pirated. (Google’s YouTube has done its best to bar explicit content.)
Ex-Governor of New Jersey Now Dancing With The Chippendales
Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!
Another Pet Bull Attack
Pet bull attacks, kills his owner in eastern Pa.
WERNERSVILLE, Pa. — Authorities say an eastern Pennsylvania man was killed when he was attacked by a bull he kept as a pet.
The Berks County coroner’s office says 52-year-old Ricky Weinhold died Saturday after being attacked by the bull on a farm where he leased barn space in Wernersville. That’s about 60 miles northwest of Philadelphia.
Chief Deputy Coroner Charles E. Sweitzer Jr. says Weinhold’s injuries appear to have been inflicted by a bull’s head and hooves.
Deputy Coroner Terri Straka says the man was injured previously by one of his bulls.
Cheeky Blakk Doing It Again
GoGo Yubari Goes Pop Princess
Kill Bill’s Schoolgirl Assassin Launches Singing Career
By Liz Ohanesian
Japanese Actress Chiaki Kuriyama, perhaps best known to the U.S. audience as killer schoolgirl Gogo Yubari in Kill Bill, is preparing to launch a new career as a pop singer. She will make her debut in Japan next week, word on upcoming releases in the States is still pending.
Kuriyama’s first single, “Ryusei No Namida” will be the theme song for the forthcoming anime Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn. As fans of the genre know, an anime theme credit can bolster an artist’s reputation both in Japan and throughout the international community. Add that to the wild popularity of the Gundam franchise and it seems like Kuriyama, who also appeared in the cult hit Battle Royale, has made a wise career move.
New York Times Applauds Depression
Depression’s Upside
Ben Weeks
By JONAH LEHRER
The Victorians had many names for depression, and Charles Darwin used them all. There were his “fits” brought on by “excitements,” “flurries” leading to an “uncomfortable palpitation of the heart” and “air fatigues” that triggered his “head symptoms.” In one particularly pitiful letter, written to a specialist in “psychological medicine,” he confessed to “extreme spasmodic daily and nightly flatulence” and “hysterical crying” whenever Emma, his devoted wife, left him alone.
For Darwin, depression was a clarifying force, focusing the mind on its most essential problems. In his autobiography, he speculated on the purpose of such misery; his evolutionary theory was shadowed by his own life story. “Pain or suffering of any kind,” he wrote, “if long continued, causes depression and lessens the power of action, yet it is well adapted to make a creature guard itself against any great or sudden evil.” And so sorrow was explained away, because pleasure was not enough. Sometimes, Darwin wrote, it is the sadness that informs as it “leads an animal to pursue that course of action which is most beneficial.” The darkness was a kind of light.
The Smartest TV Show Ever
Roast pork tenderloin with mustard vinaigrette
Roast pork tenderloin and asparagus with mustard vinaigrette. (Chicago Tribune/Bill Hogan)
Ingredients:
1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 pork tenderloin, about 1 1/4 pounds
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper
1 pound asparagus
3 shallots, cut in wedges
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 tablespoon whole-grain mustard
Frey de Plume
Frey’s names a guessing game
James Frey — the controversial author of “A Million Little Pieces” and “Bright Shiny Morning” — is using so many pseudonyms lately that any nom de plume is suspected to be his.
Frey is working on no fewer than nine projects where he came up with the idea and hired a collaborator to write it. All nine books will be published under pen names, sources told Page Six.
The literary world is now buzzing that Frey is “John Twelve Hawks,” the fake name of the author of the best-selling sci-fi series known as the Fourth Realm Trilogy. Fox just optioned the rights and commissioned a script for “The Traveler” from fantasy specialist Alex Tse, whose credits include “The Watchmen,” according to the Hollywood Reporter.
AP
The reclusive ways of Hawks, whoever he is, has helped hype the Random House line. He’s said to live “off the grid” and has never met his editor or agent.
Imitating some of his characters who battle against totalitarian surveillance, Hawks supposedly communicates with an untraceable satellite phone using a voice scrambler. He’s used stand-ins during book tours.
But James Patterson, Stephen King and even highbrow Michael Chabon have also been speculated to be Hawks. And some say Frey is an unlikely candidate because he is already “Pittacus Lore,” the pseudonymous author of “I Am Number Four,” the story of nine alien teenagers on planet Lorien, which is attacked by hostiles from another world.
Frey told Page Six, “I will neither confirm nor deny that I am John Twelve Hawks, Pittacus Lore, or anyone else . . . I will say that I have done, and I am continuing to do, projects that will come out anonymously or with invented names on them.”
“I Am Number Four,” which is due in August from HarperCollins, has been optioned by Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay.
Piss Off, G
Thousands of authors opt out of Google book settlement
Some 6,500 writers, from Thomas Pynchon to Jeffrey Archer, have opted out of Google’s controversial plan to digitise millions of books
by Alison Flood
Books at the University of Michigan Library which have been scanned on behalf of Google. Photograph: Mandi Wright/AP
Former children’s laureates Quentin Blake, Anne Fine and Jacqueline Wilson, bestselling authors Jeffrey Archer and Louis de Bernières and critical favourites Thomas Pynchon, Zadie Smith and Jeanette Winterson have all opted out of the controversial Google book settlement, court documents have revealed.
Authors who did not wish their books to be part of Google’s revised settlement needed to opt out before 28 January, in advance of last week’s ruling from Judge Denny Chin over whether to allow Google to go ahead with its divisive plans to digitise millions of books. The judge ended up delaying his ruling, after receiving more than 500 written submissions, but court documents related to the case show that more than 6,500 authors, publishers and literary agents have opted out of the settlement.
As well as the authors named above, these include the estates of Rudyard Kipling, TH White, James Herriot, Nevil Shute and Roald Dahl, Man Booker prizewinners Graham Swift and Keri Hulme, poets Pam Ayres, Christopher Middleton, Gillian Spraggs and Nick Laird, novelists Bret Easton Ellis, James Frey, Monica Ali, Michael Chabon, Philip Hensher and Patrick Gale, historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, biographer Victoria Glendinning and bestselling author of the Northern Lights trilogy Philip Pullman.
Ursula K Le Guin, who gained significant author support for her petition calling for “the principle of copyright, which is directly threatened by the settlement, [to] be honoured and upheld in the United States”, also opted out.
[ click to continue reading at The Guardian ]
Bad Day On The Motorway
A Kick-ass Vinaigrette
“Publishers want to kill your pets! Armageddon is nigh!!”
Is This The Most Exciting Time Ever For Book Lovers?
by Jason Pinter, Bestselling Thriller Writer
Amidst all the doom and gloom (Books are dying! Print is dead! The Kindle will destroy us all! Big Publishers want to kill your pets! ARMAGEDDON IS NIGH!!!), I just want to take a moment to proclaim that this is quite possibly the most exciting period to be a reader in my lifetime. Think about it: when was the last time books and publishing were as much a part of the daily conversation as they are now? So enough with the catastrophic headlines. They might draw traffic and get people riled up, but they’re empty bloviations. The bottom line is that, in my opinion, the written word is healthier than ever. The health of the book industry is never about the success of one book–it’s a rising tide that lifts all ships. And the tide of buzz about books and publishing is perhaps higher than ever.
Sure individual books and authors have garnered their share of headlines–J.K. Rowling, Dan Brown, Alice Sebold, Stephenie Meyer, etc…–but in my thirty years on this planet, I cannot remember a time when so many people were discussing books themselves, the future of books, and what it all means for everyone involved.
Art By The Freeway
Art is the message on these billboards
The works by several visual artists will appear in an area bounded by the 405 freeway and downtown L.A.
James Welling, the creator of the blue diagonal piece billboard is a professor at UCLA. His art will appear in as part of a project by 22 visual artists.
By Scarlet Cheng, February 20, 2010
A grid of blue diagonals, the profiles of two men confronting each other, a series of colorful vertical stripes with an embedded phrase — these will be some of the enigmatic images flashing through our peripheral vision while driving in L.A. over the next six weeks.
They are three of the 21 visual artists’ billboards that have been going up in some of the most trafficked corridors of Los Angeles, part of a long percolating idea of Kimberli Meyer, director of the MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House.
“How Many Billboards?” will be sited in the central part of the city, bounded on the west by the 405 freeway and on the east by downtown. (Maps are available at the Schindler House as well as posted on www.howmanybill boards.org.)
They were designed by 22 artists — one is a collaboration between the mother-son team of Martha Rosler and Josh Neufeld — most of them based in the Los Angeles area. Only a handful had done billboards before, but all were chosen by Meyer and co-curators Lisa Henry, Nizan Shaked and Gloria Sutton on their potential to realize outsized presentations.
The artists include James Welling, creator of the blue diagonal piece and a professor at UCLA; Jennifer Bornstein, subject of a MOCA Focus show in 2005; and Kori Newkirk, who was in the 2006 Whitney Biennial.
Several are known for their work in experimental film — Kenneth Anger, David Lamelas, Kerry Tribe and Yvonne Rainer, who is also a dancer-choreographer.
Shaq In The Paint (UrbanEye)
from The New York Times’ UrbanEye
Shaq in the Paint
Apparently being an NBA superstar, actor, author, Ph.D. student, platinum-selling rapper, reserve police officer and U.S. Deputy Marshal was not enough for Shaquille O’Neal. Now the 7-foot-1-inch Cleveland Cavalier is venturing into the art world as a gallery curator. His first exhibition, “Size Does Matter,” opens today at the Flag Art Foundation in Chelsea. The show, which runs through May 27, explores “the myriad ways that scale affects the perception of contemporary art” and includes works by Chuck Close, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, Kehinde Wiley, Lisa Yuskavage and others. And if that wasn’t enough to get your attention, a catalog with an essay by Cleveland native James Frey will accompany the exhibition.
Australian AG More Afraid of Gamers Than Gangs
from Agence-France Press via Google News
Gamers more scary than bikers, says Australian minister
SYDNEY — An Australian politician who opposes the lifting of a censorship ban on adults-only computer games has said he feels more threatened by gamers than outlawed motorcycle gangs.
“The outlaw motorcycle gangs haven’t been hanging around my doorstep at 2:00 am, a gamer has.”
Bundy’s Death Bug
Ted Bundy’s VW goes on display at D.C. crime museum, but should it?
By Philip Kennicott
Friday, February 19, 2010; C03
Even under a thin, black shroud, the lines of a vintage ’68 Volkswagen Beetle were unmistakable.
And when the cloth came off, at a bizarre unveiling ceremony Thursday at the National Museum of Crime & Punishment, it took work to be surprised by what was underneath it: an unprepossessing tan Beetle, with a sunroof, looking a little worse for wear with touches of rust, fading paint and a few missing pieces of metal trim.
The tires looked as if they still had a few thousand good miles in them. Inside the cab, the interior had that quintessential old Bug smell — like burning latex — as if the rubber flooring was always smoking a little from the heat underneath.
But this wasn’t any Beetle. This was Ted Bundy’s Beetle, the car into which he lured his victims and in which he killed many of them during a terrifying serial killing spree in the 1970s.
“This was kind of like a death wagon,” said Wyndell C. Watkins Sr., a retired D.C. police deputy chief, who was on hand to help introduce the latest iconic celebrity murder object joining Washington’s museum collections.
The car has been stored in a private collection owned by New York-based Arthur Nash, who owns many of the most grisly objects on display in the museum’s main exhibition. Also from the Nash collection: clown and serial killer John Wayne Gacy’s painter’s box, on display in a room dealing with the unseemly “murderabilia” trade.
Bundy’s VW replaces the 1933 Essex-Terraplane car used as a getaway vehicle by John Dillinger. With Dillinger’s car shipped off to the Southwest terminal of Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport, where it will help present the capital region’s best face to visitors, the crime museum needed a marquee object to grace its front lobby.
Of all of the notorious cars in the world — the white Ford Bronco that O.J. Simpson rode in, the D.C. snipers’ shabby Chevy Caprice retrofitted with gun placements — Bundy’s Bug may be the most notorious because it was so intimately connected to its owner’s crimes. Bundy killed in this car is the frisson you’re supposed to feel when looking at something that was not just a tool, but a container for death.
Dementia Slowly Claiming Crawdaddy Daddy, Paul Williams
from MediaBistro’s Fishbowl LA
‘Father of Rock Criticism’ Paul Williams Stricken with Early Onset Dementia
An interesting story in the San Diego CityBeat profiles legendary rock critic Paul Williams, who, after a serious bike accident in 1995, suffers from dementia. His condition has degraded in recent years, to the point where he now needs round-the-clock care.
Williams founded the legendary music magazine “Crawdaddy” in 1966, when he was only 17. CityBeat writer Sarah Nardi credits Crawdaddy as “the first publication to treat rock as a serious subject (paving the way for future mags like Rolling Stone), and Williams was the first to realize that the music was less a generational byproduct than a cultural catalyst.”
More on Williams from Nardi:
“He smoked his first joint with Brian Wilson while listening to the masters of what would become SMILE; he counseled a struggling Springsteen on musical direction (just before The Boss finally broke through with Born To Run); he and pal Timothy Leary spent a night with John and Yoko during the Toronto Bed-In-For-Peace, and Williams later rejoined the couple to sing on “Give Peace a Chance.” He bitched out Jim Morrison for leaving a book Williams lent him behind on a plane; he hitched a ride to Woodstock in a limo with The Grateful Dead; and all the while, Williams was writing–refracting the pure creative energy around him through a powerful critical lens.
Image credit, via CityBeat: “A portrait of Paul Williams painted by Drew Snyder, rendered from a photo taken by R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe.”
Porn Hacker Collared
Police nab porn hacker behind Moscow traffic mayhem
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian police said on Tuesday they had arrested a prankster who hacked into a computer system to show a pornographic movie on a giant advertising screen, causing havoc on a busy Moscow thoroughfare.
The two-minute clip, displayed on a video screen above a main road south of the Kremlin, caused midnight traffic jams and a frenzy of excitement across the Russian blogosphere.
Police said the hacker gained control of the screen by breaking into an online company’s server in the volatile southern region of Chechnya as “he didn’t think the police would go looking for him there.”
“(The hacker) is a highly-educated, temporarily unemployed and extremely advanced Internet user,” police said.
See!! A baby doll take a bath in a coffee can.
Shaq & Oprah’s Whipping Boy
Shaq, Art Curator?
The Size DOES Matter exhibit features 66 pieces picked by O’Neal
By ELIZABETH BOUGEROL
Kicking off Friday at Chelsea’s FLAG Art Foundation is Size DOES Matter, a collection of 66 works of art across different media, aimed at highlighting how scale affects perception. So who better to tap for curating the show than 7-foot-1 Cleveland Cavalier center and art collector Shaquille O’Neal, who wears a size 22 shoe?
Included in the show, according to the Post, are pieces like “Robert Therrien’s colossal sculpture of a table and six chairs” and “Ron Mueck’s ‘Untitled (Big Man),’ a nearly 7-foot-tall sculpture of a naked, bald man curled up awkwardly, elbows resting on his knees” (pictured). There are also a few works that take O’Neal himself as the subject, such as Willard Wigan’s portrait of the player that’s so tiny, it fits in the eye of a needle.
The exhibition – whose catalogue includes an essay by Cleveland native/author/Oprah whipping boy James Frey – runs February 19 through May 27, 2010.
Details
Size DOES Matter
February 17-May 22, open Wednesday to Saturday, 12-5PM
FLAG Art Foundation; 545 West 25th Street; 212-206-0220
Free
More information at flagartfoundation.org/upcoming
Mixed Media Girl
from The Cool Hunterixed Media Girl
We have a hunch we will be seeing much more of the work by the young, London-based graphic designer and illustrator, Nikki Farquharson