- Abercrombie & Fitch will pay Jersey Shore cast to stop wearing its clothes. How have I gone this far without ever directly encountering either? (And how can I continue this pattern of unexpected grace?)
- Now you can watch The Big Lebowski with a bunch of random people on Facebook. I am intrigued by this…but not at all interested in participating. I’ve watched — and riffed on — movies with friends online, and enjoyed that experience. But Facebook’s system seems designed mostly to send money to Facebook, which is something I’m considerably less interested in doing.
- Angry Robot’s WorldBuilder, on the other hand, seems like a much more intriguing communal experience. It’s, again, not one I’m likely to participate in myself, just because I don’t tend to seek out secondary worlds like this — fan fiction, role-playing games, etc. — but there’s something potentially very cool (and profitable, obviously) about a publisher embracing and facilitating this kind of thing right out of the gate. [via]
- Aled Lewis’s mashups of historical paintings with ’80s adventure games. There’s only a few of these here, but they’re really quite amusing. [via]
- And finally, Whiny Tea Partiers feel threatened by Jane Yolen:
Why all the fuss? I believe it’s because Jane explained what was wrong in clear, straightforward language — a knack that way too many liberal pundits have lost. If exposing children to books and literacy is good, then what Ron Johnson is doing to schools and libraries is bad. If children being cared for in a public health clinic is good, then what Ron Johnson is doing to healthcare funding is bad. Johnson tacitly admits that these things are good, and that the general public sees them as good, by using them as props for his photo session. He wants the benefit of being associated with them. Then, in real life, he does his best to trash them. Simple.
What venues like Moe Lane and WTAQ News Talk are really saying is that Jane Yolen made them feel bad. She got through to them. They can’t really argue with her, so they throw sh*t in her general direction, but still: she got through to them.
publishing
Working Thursday
Today started out not particularly busy, what with my having handed over the manuscript I’ve been working on since Friday and moved it off of my desk. But then this thing that I’ve been waiting to happen, a fix of a book record in our system that would allow me build the record for a new edition of the book (and two other accompanying books), happened. And so I had to build the records for those, probably getting half of the data entry and tabs I need to select wrong, while I pulled information from the proposal and reviews, building a proposal I can share with the group, and a profit and loss estimate, and all the things that need to be done before we can actually offer a contract. Plus, there were a few other projects that needed tending to, and a brand new one to add to the mix.
I’m unlikely to finish any of it tomorrow, not least of all because the office is closing early for the long weekend. But hopefully I can make a sizable dent in it and have a contract out to the author before the middle of June.
By which point that other book record that needs to be fixed for the same reason, the one that’s been keeping me from working on it, will be fixed, and I’ll have to start working on that as well.
Making books isn’t always fun.
Thursday various
- I ate in an In n Out Burger when I was in Las Vegas a couple of years ago and I really liked it. Then again, I was maybe just really hungry. I certainly didn’t love it this much. That’s some crazy line.
- Cellphones Cause Bees to Swarm to Their Death, Says a New Study. Oh just great. [via]
- “A large proportion of iPad owners in the US have not used the device to read an e-book, a survey from media and publishing forecast firm Simba Information reveals.” That’s kind of sad.
- Well I guess I just stopped using Twitpic. [via]
- If summer movie posters told the truth. [via]
- And finally [via]:
Tuesday various
- Montana GOP Rep. Defends Drunk Driving. Yep, that’s sure what it sounds like he’s doing.
- Inexplicably famous Perez Hilton is writing a children’s book. I don’t usually like to toss around phrases like “end times,” but… [via]
- Even Billy Joel doesn’t want to read his own memoir! Okay, that’s unfair. I actually do like Joel, or at least much of his music — I think I’m obligated to as a Long Islander — but I don’t think I’d want to read his memoir even if he hadn’t canceled it.
Though I do find it weird to think that he’s been “retired” from writing new music for almost twenty years now. [via]
- This really puts things in geographical perspective: European cities overlaid on a map of the U.S. at an identical latitude (and the other way around).
- And finally, It’s not a crime to be poor. Yet. [via]
Wednesday various
- A couple of weeks ago, they unveiled the new costume for NBC’s upcoming Wonder Woman series. The internet responded with the appropriate amount of disgust and horror. “I feel like my eyes are not only bleeding,” I myself wrote, “they’ve been top-coated with a carcinogenic plastic laminate.”
Well, not to worry: NBC and producer David E. Kelley have heard our complaints and all is better now. Her boots are now red instead of blue.
- Making Light lays out a recent timeline of Dorchester Publishing, explaining why it’s probably a good idea for writers and readers alike to stay very, very far away from them.
- Military ranks of the British Invasion. [via]
- “Though the efficacy of standardized testing has been hotly debated for decades, one thing has become crystal clear: It’s big business.” [via]
- And finally, Ryan McGee on the Comedy Central Roast of Donald Trump:
All of this proceeded banally for the first half of the show, until Sorrentino [the Situation] got up and did something that, had it been done by an Andy Kaufman, Norm MacDonald, or Zach Galifianakis, might have been called performance art. What he did was manage to stretch seven minutes of stage time into what felt like 36 hours of aural waterboarding. Trump, who was already a nearly invisible presence up until that point in the overall proceedings, receded even further as each ensuing comic opened up both barrels on The Situation, sensing blood in the water. Sorrentino’s performance will probably get the roast more publicity than anything else, but that’s part of the problem: The show clearly booked him so he’d bomb, not because he would do a good job.
And maybe that’s fine with you, if you enjoy train wrecks that involve baby seals and orphans inside said flaming train.