Dominant Fantasy of Every American Boy Born Between 1965 and 1974 May Have Come True – Oprah Considering Show
‘Marcia Brady’ Says Television Sister ‘Jan’ Won’t Talk to Her Over ‘Lesbian Love Affair’
Maureen McCormick, who played Marcia on “The Brady Bunch,” claims Eve Plumb, who played her sister Jan, is upset because McCormick claimed they had a lesbian affair on the set of the ’70s sitcom.
McCormick, blogging this week on Fancast.com, said all six Brady “kids” were invited to re unite on the Oprah Winfrey show in September: “All of us said yes except for one person, Eve Plumb, who used to be my best friend but now apparently wants to distance herself from the show and, most troubling, from me … I have no idea why, unless she’s mad at the joke I made a few years ago that we’d had a lesbian love affair. I made the crack to be funny — and for shock value. I’m sorry if she took offense.”
McCormick “joked” about their sapphic sex last year just before her autobiography, “Here’s the Story,” was published. The “joke” made the book a best seller.
Plumb’s agent, Mark Measures, downplayed any animosity: “No one from ‘Oprah’ called. We haven’t turned down anything. There is no feud.”
First Banana Republic, Now Smith & Hawken – Why Mill Valley Companies Should Never Sell Out
from the San Francisco Chronicle
After 30 years, Smith & Hawken to close
Alejandro Martínez-Cabrera, Chronicle Staff Writer
(07-09) 15:18 PDT NOVATO — Nearly 30 years after the first Smith & Hawken store opened in Mill Valley, the gardening retail chain is being closed by parent company Scotts Miracle-Gro Co., which said it will drop the brand by the end of this year.
Smith & Hawken, founded by Dave Smith and Paul Hawken in 1979, began its final sale Thursday by slashing prices by 20 to 30 percent. Its Web site already has stopped accepting orders, hanging out a virtual chalkboard sign reading, “Thank you for 30 wonderful years in the garden.”
The move will leave 700 employees nationwide, including those at its Novato headquarters, without a job. Scotts Miracle-Gro said in a statement that it will pay about $25 million in lease terminations and severance payments.
Scotts Miracle-Gro, in Marysville, Ohio, had been losing money on Smith & Hawken since it bought the company in 2004. Its initial plan was to turn the brand into an outdoor living and gardening product line it could move through wholesale distribution channels like Home Depot and Lowe’s, said company spokesman Jim King.
“That proved to be a strategy we could not execute. It left us with a specialty retailer and that’s not who we are. We never meant to keep it as a stand-alone retail operation,” he said.
Augustus Gloop Really Happens
from the San Jose Mercury News
Man dies after falling into vat of chocolate in New Jersey
CAMDEN, N.J. — Authorities say a man died after falling into a vat of melted chocolate in a New Jersey processing plant.
A spokesman for the Camden County prosecutor’s office says the 29-year-old temporary worker at the Cocoa Services Inc. plant fell after a blade used to mix raw chocolate hit him. His name has not been released.
The accident happened Wednesday morning as the worker was loading chocolate into the vat where it’s melted and mixed before being shipped elsewhere to be made into candy.
Combat Recession By Making Your Own Salt
Roller skate gang / Stealing the show, the people watching
MARK GONZALEZ @ Half Gallery
Half Gallery Makes its Mark
Mark Gonzales opens South West on July 9th at Half Gallery, a new space in the Lower East Side’s burgeoning gallery district.
The gallery opened its doors this past April and is a partnership between James Frey, Bill Powers, and Andy Spade. All three are no strangers to artistic endeavors. A limited edition release of Frey’s lastest novel featured art by Richard Prince and Terry Richardson (Frey is also the author of the widely debated book A Million Little Pieces). Powers sits on the board of RxArt, a non-profit that facilitates the creation of well known artists in children’s hospitals, while Spade is the man behind the successful men’s accessories brand Jack Spade and new downtown NY concept shop, Partners and Spade.
Gonzales last exhibited in NY in a collaborative show with Christian Hosoi at the Journal Gallery, which ran through December, 2006.
Half Gallery co-founders: James Frey, Bill Powers and Andy Spade. Image: Derin Thorpe/PaperMag
Mark Gonzales – South West, curated by Emma Reeves
July 10 – August 2
Opening Reception: July 9, 6-8pm
Half Gallery
208 Forsyth St.NY, NY 10002
Study Proves Monkeys Pay Attention in the 7th Grade
Monkeys have a memory for grammar
- 00:01 08 July 2009 by Catherine Brahic
- For similar stories, visit the The Human Brain Topic Guide
Primates can intuitively recognise some rules of grammar, according to a study of cotton-topped tamarin monkeys (Saguinus oedipus).
The findings do not mean primates can communicate using language, but they do suggest that some of the skills required to use language may be linked to very basic memory functions.
One grammatical structure that is found across many languages is affixation: the addition of syllables, either at the beginning or at the end of a word, to modify its meaning.
For instance, in English, the suffix “–ed” is added to verbs to make the past tense. In German, the same effect is achieved by adding the prefix “ge–” to the front of verb stems.
Ansgar Endress and colleagues at Harvard University thought that, because this structure is found in so many languages, it might be linked to basic memory functions that are independent of language. If they could prove this was true, it would suggest ways that children might be learning grammatical structures.
“We were just having a little fun, Officer. Never mind.”
Men shoot each other at gas station
Police say two men shot each other after an argument at a Phoenix gas station Tuesday afternoon.
Both men refused to cooperate with the investigation after they shot each other in the leg during a fight at a gas station near Indian School Road and North 67th Avenue, said Phoenix Police Det. James Holmes.
Police don’t know what the argument was about. Holmes said both men could face weapon charges.
Don’t Copy That Floppy
Thou Shalt Not Deaccession
OCMA’s quiet sale of 18 paintings raises hackles
Laguna Art Museum
“Spring in the Canyon” by William Wendt is one of 18 sold by OCMA to a private collector.
The sale of the California Impressionist paintings to a private collector is seen as a snub to some in art circles.
The Orange County Museum of Art was tooling along, a sporty little contender in the contemporary art world, its reputation sparkling from the good reviews its exhibitions consistently have earned in Southern California and across the nation.
And then, suddenly, it got splashed with grime. At least that’s how some critics see it, although museum director Dennis Szakacs insists there was nothing blameworthy in OCMA’s sale of 18 California Impressionist paintings from the early 1900s. A private collector, whose name the museum won’t divulge, bought the pieces in March for $963,000, a price many experts think was about half what the museum should have gotten.
The transaction, approved unanimously by OCMA’s board, has put the Newport Beach museum in the cross hairs of one of the art world’s many controversies over “deaccessioning,” the term for when a museum sells art from its collection.
“Anyone who does not own Thriller, Bad or Dangerous – leave now.”
Two of The Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse
James Frey/Michael Bay Partnership Coming Ever Closer to Fruition
7/2/09 at 3:45 PM
Comment
Photo: Getty Images
There was only one pesky thing getting in the way of the proposed partnership between Michael Bay and James Frey. And no, it wasn’t a piece of legislation outlawing two of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse from working on a project together (although we hear there is growing support for just such a bill on the Hill). Rather, it was the fact that a publisher had yet to acquire the rights to the proposed series. Well, consider that hurdle, um, hurdled: The North American rights have been sold to HarperCollins Children’s Books for an undisclosed sum. [NYT]
Respect
“A rich and imaginative world filled with action-packed suspense that will captivate teen readers.”
James Frey to pen teen series with Jobie Hughes
Jul 2, 2009, 01:40 PM | by Kate Ward
HarperCollins announced today that it will publish four teen-centric books by A Million Little Pieces author James Frey and debut novelist Jobie Hughes. The first book will be titled I Am Number Four, and will focus on a group of alien teens who travel to Earth after their home planet is destroyed. “The authors have created a rich and imaginative world filled with action-packed suspense that will captivate teen readers,” HarperCollins Children’s Books President & Publisher Susan Katz said in a release from the publisher.
Chicken strudel with fresh tomato compote
Ninja Puss
HarperCollins Buys Four
HarperCollins Buys Series from James Frey
By MOTOKO RICHA week after submitting a young adult novel anonymously to editors, James Frey, the notorious author of “A Million Little Pieces,” and a writing partner, Jobie Hughes, have agreed to sell North American rights to “I Am Number Four” and three subsequent books in a planned series to HarperCollins, Mr. Frey’s most recent publisher of his adult novel, “Bright Shiny Morning.” Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Karl Malden Gone
Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com:
Actor Karl Malden Has Died at Age 97, According to His Family [3:30 p.m. ET]
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Never Has A Tennis Racket Hurt So Much
Honey, My Love, Darling, Sweetheart, Pumpkin
An elderly gent was invited to an old friends home for dinner one evening. He was impressed by the way his buddy preceded every request to his wife with endearing terms such as: Honey, My Love, Darling, Sweetheart, Pumpkin, etc. The couple had been married almost 70 years and, clearly, they were still very much in love.
While the wife was in the kitchen, the man leaned over to his host, ‘I think it’s wonderful that, after all these years, you still call your wife those loving pet names’.
The old man hung his head. ‘I have to tell you the truth,’ he said, ‘Her name slipped my mind about 10 years ago, and I’m scared to death to ask the cranky old bitch what her name is.’
Outside a Biker Bar in Florida
Number Four Plot Details
Plot Details Surface on James Frey’s I Am Number Four
It was recently announced that Michael Bay would be producing and possibly directing an adaptation of the upcoming novel, I Am Number Four, and now we have some more details on that film. Our friends over at FilmDrunk has dug up a new synopsis for the film, which you can read below.
The protagonist is 15. The rival race of aliens are from the planet Mogadore. They destroyed Lorien in order to strip the planet of its natural resources because Mogadore was dying, and still is, and they followed the Loric to Earth to finish the job. The Loric develop their “Legacies” (special powers) around their fifteenth year. This first book is a kind of love story. At its core it’s a type of father/son alone in the world, always moving to stay alive story, a lá The Road.
“No bathing suits in the lobby, please.”
“Well my wife shot it first…”
The Time Alice Hoffman’s Review Drove Richard Ford into a Gun-Wielding Rage
In a comment thread from a post earlier tonight about Alice Hoffman, commenter PromQueen mentioned that Richard Ford once shot up one of Hoffman’s books after she “wrote nasty things” when she reviewed his work for the New York Times.
Turns out the story is true. Here’s what Ford, talking about his book The Sportswriter, told the Guardian in a 2003 interview:
“People had written me off. When the book came out it just took a while to make its way. It didn’t happen overnight. It got bad reviews — that’s the book that Alice Hoffman wrote nasty things about in the New York Times.”
Ford’s run-in with Hoffman, with whom he shared a publisher, has become legendary. In retaliation for her criticism, Ford shot a hole through her latest book and posted it to her. “Well my wife shot it first,” says Ford, rather proudly. “She took the book out into the back yard, and shot it. But people make such a big deal out of it – shooting a book – it’s not like I shot her.”
Wafers & Wine & Larceny
Cops: Woman takes kneeling woman’s cash in church
WESTBURY, N.Y. (AP) — Nassau County police said a congregant at a Long Island church disregarded at least one of its commandments: Thou shalt not steal. Police said the 46-year-old woman reached over a pew and took cash from a purse while its owner knelt Sunday at Our Lady of Hope Roman Catholic Church in Westbury. Police said an usher saw the theft, and officers stopped the woman as she left the church.
Police said they determined the same woman stole cash from another worshipper’s purse while that victim took communion May 10.
MTV on Frey On Bay
Yes, Dear.
Schnabel and Reed
Reed It and Weep: Legendary Lou, Velvet Underground Singer, Greets Groupies at Book Signing with Schnabel
By Joe Pompeo
Lou Reed, legendary frontman of the Velvet Underground, and Julian Schnabel, noted artist and filmmaker, were sitting at a rustic wooden table inside the Steven Kasher Gallery in Chelsea on the evening of Thursday, June 25.
The two longtime friends were there for a book-signing and cocktail party celebrating the forthcoming release of Berlin, a new collection of photographs taken during Mr. Schnabel’s filming of a tour Mr. Reed did in 2007 to revive his classic 1973 album and rock opera of the same name.
One by one, enamored fans approached the duo with copies of the book and other memorabilia—vintage concert posters, black-and-white photographs, Velvet Underground LPs—that they wanted Mr. Reed, dressed in a saggy black sweater and black jeans, and Mr. Schnabel, wearing loose white pajamas, the top half of which were unbuttoned just enough to reveal a thick swath of chest hair, to autograph with shiny silver markers.
“The Editors” – Still Can’t Get Over It
From the Inbox: James Frey’s “I Am Number Four”
By THE EDITORSFrom John:
Hiding identity here may be the result of the fact that number four is more or less a copy of number three, except for the fact that only one has been thrown in to change the mix.
Clearly, the number three and even possibly two and one, are going to claim that substantial portions of four have been lifted from them (then embellished?) and they will press some sort of claim if four picks up a book contract and/or movie rights.
For that reason alone, given Mr. Frey’s previous issues, legal departments would most likely be on high alert if his name were to be associated with something called “I am Number Four.”
He ought to skip ahead to 10 to put a little distance between himself and those other numbers.
He needs to avoid seven, 14 and 21. I have already optioned them to a large publisher.