BOOKS: Tobogganing Down the Slippery Slope

Here's the thing about many book banners: they're not really after people like you and me -- hedonistic, secular, pornography-lovin' humanists though we may be.

Sure, there are probably a few intrepid, right-minded souls who'd like to pluck that Stephen King novel out of your hands and pitch it onto a bonfire so that it can be enveloped in the unholy flames whence it came. But, for the most part, your average censorship zealot has given up on your immortal soul and mine. They're out to save the children. And this is exactly where and why censorship becomes such a dodgy issue. Because everyone wants to save the children, right?

Here's another thing about this breed of book banner: they're so easy to mock.

How can you not make fun of someone -- even if only in your head -- who misspells "obscene" in their scrawled Post-It note critique of a well-known children's classic? It's hard not to laugh when you envision someone angrily counting the number of times the word "fart" appears in an international bestseller. And let's face it, it's just plain funny to use the word "scrotum" in a debate.

The trick is knowing when to laugh and when to get pissed off. For me, the line in the sand (well, one of many lines in the sand) is drawn when people take it upon themselves to ban books that promote values of tolerance and acceptance.

Take, for example, the groundbreaking children's book Heather Has Two Mommies, which has been getting under conservatives' skin for almost two decades. (You can read the backstory here.) Now, this isn't a book we have in our house... yet. We'll get a copy some day. It's a good story. It isn't just about the fact that Heather's mothers are gay: it's about the fact that there are all kinds of families -- single-parent families, blended families, interracial families -- and all are equal. I simply do not get why this is a message people are against. Do they think that, by banning the book, these families will disappear? Do they think that reading about gay people will, horror of horrors, make their own kids gay? (To this charge, Heather's author, Leslea Newman, retorts, "After all, I grew up reading books that all had straight characters.")

Here's why we have to fight against book banning: because if we don't take seriously the free speech attacks against innocuous books of nursery rhymes and books about flatulent canines and books that incidentally name body parts, we give censorship advocates every reason to believe they have the right to ban books about capital-I important issues such as homosexuality and tolerance. And while the right to tell silly stories about farting dogs may not feel like a right we need to go to battle over, the right to tell stories that help people understand that it's OKAY to be different -- that, in fact, MOST OF US are different in some way -- well, that's a right that definitely needs to be protected.

Here's the real, honest, no-messing-around reason why we have to be pitbulls on the pantsleg of censorship: because you never know when and how this issue will affect you personally. And trust me, if this ever does affect you, you're going to be mighty irked with yourself for not speaking up earlier.

Here's how this issue affects me: I'm not gay (though I play a gay woman on TV! Ba-dum-bum!) but Sam's legal guardian is. And let's take a moment to follow the logic of someone who wants to ban books about gay parents:

1. Books about gay parents are bad.
2. Because gay people are bad.
3. Gay parents are DEFINITELY bad.
4. Gay people shouldn't have kids.
5. Not even adopted kids.

Given this chain of reasoning, you see how allowing a book to be banned pushes you just over the teetering edge of that slippery slope.

So, yeah, this issue hits home for me. It's not like I really think (touch wood!) that Rusty and I are planning a visit to St. Pete any time soon. Given the fact that we rarely leave the house, we'd both have to fall in the tub simultaneously, which... well, it could happen, but we got one of those sticky tub mat thingies, so we feel pretty good about things. But say we DO suffer a fatal simultaneous tubbing accident, we want to know our wishes about Sam's guardianship will be respected. The fact that there are people out there who might, even in theory, like to overthrow my wishes makes this censorship issue more than academic for me. P.S. It also really, really, REALLY pisses me off. That sound you hear? That's my blood boiling.

It's so easy for the free speech debate to become overly academic and abstruse. I think it's important to break things down and consider -- really consider -- how this issue affects us in our day-to-day lives. So I've told my story (one of them, anyway). What's yours?

LIST: I Love the Smell of Burned Books in the Morning

It's Freedom to Read Week! Are you as excited as I am?

To kick things off, I think a list is in order. And so I've compiled a list of banned/challenged books that I've read in the past thirty-odd years, despite the fact that very few of them contain the word "scrotum." By some strange coincidence, most of these books are quite good and eminently recommendable. I read a great number of them as a young whippersnapper, and I should also mention (cover your children's ears) that I got most of these from various public and school libraries.

Andrews, V.C. - Flowers in the Attic
Anonymous - Go Ask Alice
Atwood, Margaret - The Handmaid's Tale
Auel, Jean M. - Clan of the Cave Bear
Blume, Judy - Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
Blume, Judy - Blubber
Blume, Judy - Tiger Eyes
Blume, Judy - Then Again, Maybe I Won't
Blume, Judy - Deenie
Brothers Grimm - The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales
Burgess, Anthony - A Clockwork Orange
Carroll, Lewis - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Carroll, Lewis - Through the Looking-Glass
Chaucer, Geoffrey - Canterbury Tales
Conrad, Joseph - Heart of Darkness
Dahl, Roald - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Dahl, Roald - James and the Giant Peach
Defoe, Daniel - Moll Flanders
Eliot, George - Silas Marner
Findley, Timothy - The Wars
Fitzgerald, F. Scott - The Great Gatsby
Flaubert, Gustave - Madame Bovary
Frank, Anne - Diary of Anne Frank
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of Cholera
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude
Golding, William - Lord of the Flies
Haddon, Mark - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Handford, Martin - Where's Waldo?
Hawthorne, Nathaniel - The Scarlet Letter
Hemingway, Ernest - The Sun Also Rises
Hinton, S.E. - The Outsiders
Hinston, S.E. - That Was Then, This Is Now
Huxley, Aldous - Brave New World
Irving, John - A Prayer for Owen Meany
Kesey, Ken - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Keyes, Daniel - Flowers for Algernon
King, Stephen - It
King, Stephen - Different Seasons
King, Stephen - The Shining
King, Stephen - Pet Sematary
King, Stephen - The Talisman
King, Stephen - Carrie
King, Stephen - Cujo
King, Stephen - Dead Zone
Lawrence, Margaret - Diviners
Lawrence, Margaret - Stone Angel
Lee, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird
L'Engle, Madeleine - A Wrinkle in Time
Lewis, C. S. - Chronicles of Narnia
London, Jack - The Call of the Wild
Lowry, Lois - The Giver
Lowry, Lois - Anastasia Krupnik
Mitchell, W.O. - Who Has Seen The Wind
Morrison, Toni - The Bluest Eye
Morrison, Toni - Song of Solomon
Munro, Alice - Lives of Girls and Women
Nabokov, Vladimir - Lolita
Oates, Joyce Carol - Foxfire
Orwell, George - 1984
Orwell, George - Animal Farm
Paterson, Katherine - The Great Gilly Hopkins
Preston, Richard - The Hot Zone
Proulx, Annie - Brokeback Mountain
Rockwell, Thomas - How to Eat Fried Worms
Rowling, J.K. - Harry Potter (the series)
Salinger, J.D. - Catcher in the Rye
Sebold, Alice - The Lovely Bones
Sewell, Anna - Black Beauty
Shakespeare, William - Romeo and Juliet
Shakespeare, William - Hamlet
Shelley, Mary - Frankenstein
Snicket, Lemony - A Series of Unfortunate Events
Steinbeck, John - Of Mice and Men
Steinbeck, John - East of Eden
Stine, R.L. - Goosebumps (the series)
Tolstoy, Leo - Anna Karenina
Various authors - The Bible
Voltaire - Candide
Vonnegut, Kurt - Cat's Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt - Slaughterhouse-Five
Wilder, Laura Ingalls - On the Banks of Plum Creek

I know. You're wondering the same thing as me: only ONE book by that unprincipled slut Laura Ingalls Wilder? What ever happened to decency and community standards?

Reading all these titles sure takes me back to my impressionable youth. I'd spend my summer holidays eating fried worms, which would turn me into a malevolent clown who conducted experiments on super-intelligent mice, which I'd whisk up north via my giant flying peach in order to force them to pull sleds in Alaska. And if the team got a little ornery and Curly ended up shredded to bits by the other mice, no matter. I'd just bury him in a secret Indian burial ground (you were allowed to say Indian back then) and he'd come back to life. Sure, he'd be a bit more, well, evil than he was before, but that's okay. He made an excellent pet -- er, I mean companion animal -- for the monster I created in my lab out of the corpses of dead criminals.

And then there was that time I fell through a rabbit hole and became a 17th-century whore, but that's a story for another day.*

Man, remember summer vacations? You always managed to get so much stuff done in a day.

If you want to see how much you've inadevertantly poisoned your mind over the years, check here and here (both are PDF files) and here for some solid lists of banned books, the first two of which are provided by the awesome folks at the Pelham Public Library. And while you're at it, check out the library's excellent anti-censorship blog, aptly titled Fahrenheit 451. And while you're THERE, why not sign up for their Banned Book Challenge? You create your own challenge by setting a goal for yourself to read as many banned or challenged books as you wish between February 26 and June 30, 2007. As soon as I wrap things up here, I'm heading over there to sign up.

*Note that I refrained from making any kind of crack about being locked up in the attic and having sex with my brother. Because that's INAPPROPRIATE.

ETC: Oh, Free Speech... Sometimes You Go Too Far

Maryland Del. LeRoy E. Myers Jr. to truckers: If you've got 'em, you don't need to flaunt 'em.

As the General Assembly debates global warming and the death penalty, Myers (R-Washington) has something else on his mind: the outsized plastic testicles that truckers dangle from the trailer hitches of their pickups.

To learn more about the ensuing free speech kerflap, or if you just want read a bunch of policymakers being quoted for their views on fake testicles, check out the full article here. Though, really, what more do you need to know?

Actually, you do need to know one more thing. When I searched the web for an image of said plastic testicles to accompany this post, I found YourNutz.com, your one-stop source for all things testicular and vehicular. One of the featured items on their site is a pair of Support The Troops Desert Camo Campaign Nutz: "We've Respectfully placed the Yellow Ribbon designating Support the Troops on our Exclusive 8” Customized Desert Scheme Camo Nutz."

I can sense you out there, not believing me. That's why I've collected evidence:

And this is why reality will always be funnier than an Onion article.

[via BoingBoing]

BOOKS: Memo from the Department of Doh!

I can't believe I almost forgot to mention that The Morning News' annual Tournament of Books is underway, and this Sunday is the deadline for getting in your votes for the first round.

Before you head over, here's the list of contenders to mull over while stroking your chin thusly:

Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
One Good Turn, Kate Atkinson
Arthur and George, Julian Barnes
Brookland, Emily Barton
English, August, Upamanyu Chatterjee
The Lay of the Land, Richard Ford
Pride of Baghdad, Niko Henrichon, Brian K. Vaughan
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
The Emperor’s Children, Claire Messud
The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, Peter Orner
The Echo Maker, Richard Powers
Against the Day, Thomas Pynchon
Firmin, Sam Savage
Absurdistan, Gary Shteyngart
Alentejo Blue, Monica Ali
Apex Hides the Hurt, Colson Whitehead

WORDS: Loss of Innocence

"So, people are actually upset at the word "scrotum" being used in a book?"
"Yes."
"It's a kids' book?"
"Uh-huh."
"Is it a picture book?"
"No, it's aimed at 9-to-12 year olds."
"Man, those parents shouldn't let their kids watch E.T. then."
"What?"
"One of the kids calls another one Penis Breath."
"Ah."
"This haunted me for weeks when I was a kid."
"How so?"
"Well, I knew what a penis was, obviously, but I couldn't figure out what could happen to make your breath smell like one. And whatever it was, could it happen to me?"

ETC: Do You Hate the Word "Blog" as Much as I Do?

So I'm going to be attending this blog conference today and tomorrow. Blog conferences have always seemed like a funny idea to me. I mean, I don't know about you, but I started my site precisely so that I wouldn't have to go out and talk to strangers in person. But Rusty's going, because he does this blog thing for a living, so I figured I'd check it out, too. If you're planning to be there, please look for me and say hi! I'll be the person who looks like she doesn't know what the hell she's doing at a blog conference.

In related news, the blogiverse is a little smaller -- and a little sadder -- after Glark recently announced his retirement. Is he really gone forever? I don't know. Rocky kept announcing his retirement, and we all know how that went.

I don't feel I've used the word "blog" enough in this post. One more should do it:

BLOG!

Oh, and in other news, I'm going to be on Definitely Not the Opera, some time between 1pm and 2pm tomorrow (Saturday). I'll be talking about books and censorship, and I'll be saying "fart" way, way, way too much. Don't pinch me! I'm living the dream!

BOOKS: Truthiness in Literature

Those who can, do. Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach, blog.*

And I'm comfortable with this. Trust me, self-esteem is high over here at 50 Books HQ. But every so often I find myself in a blur of activity, where I'm out there doing, and from time to time -- heaven help us all -- even teaching. Such was this past week. I've missed you, internet! Have you missed me?

I wish I could say the frenzy is over (soon, though! Soon!), but until things settle down and I can once again curl up in the web's cozy lap, I thought I'd point you toward this very interesting article, which Rusty just sent me:

The original picture from which [the cover of Reading Lolita in Tehran] is excised is lifted off a news report during the parliamentary election of February 2000 in Iran. In the original picture, the two young women are in fact reading the leading reformist newspaper Mosharekat. Azar Nafisi and her publisher may have thought that the world is not looking, and that they can distort the history of a people any way they wish. But the original picture from which this cover steals its idea speaks to the fact of this falsehood.

The cover of Reading Lolita in Tehran is an iconic burglary from the press, distorted and staged in a frame for an entirely different purpose than when it was taken. In its distorted form and framing, the picture is cropped so we no longer see the newspaper that the two young female students are holding in their hands, thus creating the illusion that they are "Reading Lolita"--with the scarves of the two teenagers doing the task of "in Tehran." In the original picture the two young students are obviously on a college campus, reading a newspaper that is reporting the latest results of a major parliamentary election in their country. Cropping the newspaper, their classmates behind them, and a perfectly visible photograph of President Khatami--the iconic representation of the reformist movement--out of the picture and suggesting that the two young women are reading "Lolita" strips them of their moral intelligence and their participation in the democratic aspirations of their homeland, ushering them into a colonial harem. [emphasis mine]

[images via]

It's an interesting issue. On one hand, I can see a publisher's graphic design department blithely saying, "We need a picture of Iranian women reading. Aha, here we go. Croppity-crop here... a little more croppity-crop over there. Perfecto!" From a purely aesthetic perspective, the photograph works.

However. Just like words, images have meaning. Unless the people in this picture have been commissioned by a photographer with the understanding that the image could be used in pretty much the same way any stock photography is used, it is very arguable that some kind of ethical violation has occurred.

In light of what Reading Lolita purports to be about -- people, particularly women, and their freedom to choose what they consume, what they write, and what they do -- this charge of "iconic burglary" is, to me, is extremely serious. What do you think?

*Note: I apply this maxim only to myself.

BOOKS: Book Banning Redux

I've just spent the weekend putting the finishing touches on a radio segment I'm doing for Definitely Not the Opera. It's about censorship, children's literature, and farting -- three topics near and dear to my heart -- so you can imagine how much fun I've been having.

But man, if I thought the word "fart" could get a bunch of people's panties in a wad, just try to imagine how much trouble the word "scrotum" is causing.

(Ups to Susi for the link!)

ETC: Let Me Tell You Where to Go

I'm slammed with work today, but just a couple of items of note:

First, today is the last day to get in your nominations for Best Book/Literary Blog at the Best of Blogs. (NOTE: I am not, I repeat NOT, gunning for a nomination myself. I'm one of the judges, and I'm counting on you guys to make sure the competition is, as our favourite reality show celebrity would say, fierce.) Hop to it!

Second, I'm also participating in a pretty cool event next week that presages Freedom to Read Week (the Canadian equivalent of Banned Books Week). The full details are here but, in short, let me just say that if you're free and in Vancouver on the evening of February 20th, this could be one of the awesomest gigs you could ever expect to attend on a Tuesday. Also, it's at the Shebeen, behind the Irish Heather, which, if you don't know it, is one of the sweetest spaces in the city. (P.S. There'll be booze!)

Third, there is no third. Have a great weekend, and remember: don't leave your homework till Sunday night.

WORDS: The New Thing

Is it sad that I find this video way funnier than I should?*


Tell the truth: you laughed, too.

*Or is it sadder that I'm the last person on the internet to see it?

BOOKS: Love

Ahhh... books. Friends, brothers, secret lovers. What shoes can't you fill?

(See the original photo here.)

BOOKS: I Heart Librarians

I don't know if I've ever mentioned this, but there was a time when I entertained the idea of getting a MLS with an eye toward becoming a children's librarian, even going so far as getting all the literature from various programs and talking with some department heads on the phone.

But then I realized that (a) another masters program would probably kill us financially, and (b) I've grown accustomed to earning more than $20K a year. And so filthy lucre grinds the face of yet another noble plan into the dirt.

When I originally hatched this plan, my visions of a librarian career were misty and sentimental. I pictured myself conducting story times with babies and new mothers. I imagined myself introducing wide-eyed innocents to beautiful classics and seeing their little faces light up with wonder. I saw myself guiding cynical, book-phobic pre-teens unerringly toward the one perfect book that would open up the world of reading to them.

All you librarians out there can stop snickering at me. I can hear you!

From time to time, I have to confess to feeling a small, selfish surge of relief over not following this path, such as when I read articles about the supposedly decreasing interest in reading and idiotic high-school administrators who shut down library book displays and attempted book bannings. I'm just a bit too fragile (read: cranky) to deal with this kind of stuff on a regular basis. And then when God or nature or random fate or whatever force you subscribe to decides to take out a bunch of libraries? Well, that's just adding grievous insult to injury.

So tell me, librarians and other folks who act as literary stewards and facilitators between books and the public... are libraries as beleaguered as they seem? In the battle between good and stupid, is the library at the front lines of literacy? Should we give you guns, or at least some knuckle-rappingly hard rulers? What about your job makes you most nutty? What makes it all worthwhile? It can't just be the fact that you're lusted after by a certain type of gentleman (and some ladies) with a penchant for cardigans and cool specs, can it?

LIST: Books a Man Has Given Me That Made Me Swear NEVER to Go on Another Date with Him EVER Again

Last week may have been a bit of a, uh, flaccid posting week, but let me tell you, friends, I have been in a nerd frenzy all weekend, first updating my Flickr and YouTube accounts, and then getting caught up with adding all your suggestions to The Big List of Lists. And now I'm so fired up I wish I could quit my day job and just write lists all day. Wouldn't that be the world's most awesome job? But when I called my employer to make this suggestion, they said that wasn't an option unless I filed a bunch of papers to transfer to a different union, and since I hate paperwork, we're going to have to be content with the occasional list. It's nice to dream, though. And it sure beats my regular dreams, which are boring as hell and usually involve me going shopping for shoes. Brown shoes.

It wasn't easy, but I decided to start with one of BabelBabe's excellent suggestions. I'm not exactly sure why I picked this list, since to the best of my recollection Rusty is the only man I've ever dated who's given me books, and he generally does an okay job of it, mostly because I'm really good about keeping my wishlist up to date. What I like about this list idea is that it made me wonder: what books WOULD turn me off a guy if he were to give them to me? What tomes would make me think, on a date, that there is no way I'd be letting this guy get his clumsy mitts anywhere near my delicate flower?

Aha. You see where things get interesting.

• Anything by Charles Bukowski - I like Bukowski just fine, if I'm in the right mood, but the kind of guy who doesn't realize that every young lady has to come by Buk in her own way and on her own time... well, we don't need pushy young gentlemen like this in our lives.
• Anything by Henry Miller - Ditto the above, sort of. The kind of guy who'd give Miller to his female companion on a first date is the same guy who'd try to talk her into a threesome with him and her best friend on the fourth date... you know, because it would expand her horizons and open her mind and all.
• Anything by Anais Nin - Dude is trying way too hard with this one. We ladies can find our own arty porn, thanks.
• Any book that he clearly wants to borrow back as soon as you're finished with it - See also all of the above.
• Ishmael - This book offends every last rational sensibility in my small but sturdy frame, yet it weirdly appeals to some guys. Which is fine, whatever floats your boat, etcetera, but please don't feel you need to pass it along.
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Just... no.
• Chick lit - It's not that I'm denigrating chick lit. I liked Bridget Jones's Diary as much as anybody. But chick lit is iffy territory unless you know it well, and I'm making a wildly sexist guess that most guys don't. Give a female book-lover the wrong piece of chick lit over dinner, and you may as well just say goodbye after you split the cheque.
• Anything with the sticky goop from the bargain-bin sticker still mucking up the cover, or worse, anything with the bargain-bin sticker STILL ON IT - Nobody wants to hook up with a spendthrift for the rest of her life -- and goodness knows I love a book bargain as much as the next person -- but the early phase of a relationship is not the time to demonstrate your awesome frugality.

Notice how I didn't mention Kerouac? I bet you thought I was going to, huh? I think the right sort of guy could give me some books by Kerouac, such as Dharma Bums or Big Sur, so long as he prefaced the gift in just the right way. It's dicey territory, though.

If you're wondering what book would buy you a one-way ticket into my pants (if you're not wondering, I'll understand if you need to erase that image from your brain RIGHT NOW), it would be a recently unearthed, never-before-published novel by Jane Austen. Autographed. To me. If you have one, email me and I'll tell you where I live. But shhh... keep it between you and me. I'm married.

Okay, I've gone first. Now it's your turn to ante up. What books would be -- or have been -- a surefire turn-off for you? (If you're playing along on your own site, be sure to give us the link to your post!)

ETC: From Jane's Pen to Your Computer

Well, this week -- which feels like it never quite got properly started -- has fizzled out vaingloriously. I believe Jane Austen said it best when she wrote the following:

That's courtesy of the Jane Austen font widget over at Dafont. And it's a testament to my lameness that I've forgotten where I got this link, so I can't even give a proper shout-out. (If it was you, tell me!)

Ah, well. Next week will be better. In fact, I think I can say, without hyperbole, that next week will be THE BEST WEEK OF OUR LIVES. So rest up. Take your vitamins. And for god's sake make sure you do your laundry so you have clean pants.

ETC: News of the Mundane

Item 1. We recently got a new toaster. Our upgrade from a two-slice to a four-slice model came after we realized that the short bald guy with the funny walk who's moved in with us doesn't show any sign of leaving soon, and it seems that his toast needs are increasing exponentially. We had our previous toaster for ten years, and this new one has made me realize how much I dislike change. I was USED to the old toaster, goddammit, and I don't like being forced to learn new technologies, especially before I've had coffee.

Item 2. I don't know if I've mentioned this here before, but our cat Puck, my faithful comrade for more than fifteen years and counting, recently won his battle with cancer. Our vet speculates that, based on the location of the tumour (between his shoulder blades), and its type (insert medical jargon I can't remember), it could have been a reaction to having been over-vaccinated.

So a note to all you cat people out there: While I'm not advocating that you refrain from having your pets vaccinated, especially if they're the outdoorsy type, I would recommend that you ask your vet about a titer test, which measures the amount of immunity remaining in your pet's system, and then discuss a scaled-back vaccination schedule with your vet. Also, if you notice any funny sores on your pet that don't seem to be healing, no matter how big or small, get them checked out. Puck survived this scare because Rusty is a hypochondriac. I feel terribly guilty when I imagine what might have happened if this matter had been left solely in my lackadaisical hands.

Item 3: Weirdly apropos of the above, Sam just got his last set of vaccine boosters (until he's around five, that is). After the third and final shot, he got a little sticker that says "I was brave for my shots!" and let me tell you, that sticker is a baldfaced lie. Not only did he scream and cry during and between each shot, he entered some kind of rage fugue for about twenty minutes after they were over. I'm told that this state of transcendental fury is more commonly known as a "tantrum" but that seems like a mighty small word for such a big state of mind. He's been fine ever since, but MAN.

Also, I'm not looking for a vaccination debate (so please keep it to yourself or direct it over here if you're looking for a fight), but I'm not the only parent who's ever spent the first night post-vaccine worrying that their kid is going to have a bad reaction and die in their sleep, right? Normal, this is?

Item 4: In the good news department, Rusty recently bought a handful of raffle tickets supporting a local charity, and we just got the call that we won not once but TWICE. Strangely, both the prizes were gift certificates to two different but equally excellent bakeries in our 'hood. Drunk on this wave of good luck, we tore the house apart looking for all our old unchecked lottery tickets, but when we looked up the numbers, no luck.

And so ends... NEWS... of the MUNDANE!

ETC: Insert Your Own Porn Title Here

Harry, Harry, Harry.

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe has defended his decision to appear naked on the London stage.

The 17-year-old actor is making his West End debut and has a nude scene in Equus. He says the iconic play would be rubbish if he didn't bare all.

The key to serious acting, he says, is losing your inhibitions. He has been working hard at the gym ahead of first night.

What would Dumbledore say?

(Ups to Doppelsis -- whom I may as well just get to guest blog for me this week -- for the link.)

ETC: Pencil This In

Man. And I thought pens were cool. Check out these pencils:


A note to the prudish: Cover your eyes. This next one is naughty.

Yowza! These pics were sent to me by Doppelsis, and I know the second question you're thinking: Where can I see more? Check out the full gallery here. (I also know the first question you're thinking: Why is Doppelganger's sister sending her such dirty pictures?)

The artist, Jennifer Maestre, sells all kinds of pencil-related art on her Etsy site. Here are a couple of my favourites, starting with this sculpture made out of pencil shavings and wire (click on the image for an amazing close-up):


I don't normally wear pins, but I'd make an exception for this one:


So I got to poking around for more pencil art and -- I know you're going to find this hard to swallow -- the internet turned up some nifty things. First, there are these intricate Japanese pencil carvings:



This is more like something you'd do in the break room at work on a boring day, but still worthy of some props:

All this artifying may seem too much. This is just the common pencil, after all. Or is it? Not if you read the geneological autobiography I, Pencil:

I am a lead pencil—the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write.

Writing is both my vocation and my avocation; that's all I do.

You may wonder why I should write a genealogy. Well, to begin with, my story is interesting. And, next, I am a mystery—more so than a tree or a sunset or even a flash of lightning. But, sadly, I am taken for granted by those who use me, as if I were a mere incident and without background. This supercilious attitude relegates me to the level of the commonplace. This is a species of the grievous error in which mankind cannot too long persist without peril. For, the wise G. K. Chesterton observed, "We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders."

WEB: Best of Blogs Awards Are Back in '07

Oh, sure, THIS YEAR the Best of Blogs awards show is happening in Vegas. LAST YEAR, when I won, the ceremony was entirely virtual. Such is the story of my life. But no hard feelings, even if my past win renders me ineligible to run again. (Rusty suggested that I change the title of my site to 51books.com, but I have a feeling the judges might see through this clever ruse.)

Last year, I enjoyed participating so much that I volunteered to serve on the jury for the Best Book/Literary Blog award this year, and I'm looking forward to checking out some new sites. So get your butt over to their site to nominate your favourite book-related blogs (other than this one, of course). You've got till February 16th.

MOVIES: Thank You for Sucking

After yesterday's hipster screed, I'm taking a breather before I tackle Oprah, but to keep myself warmed up, let me just share a few thoughts I have about a movie I recently watched that has me irrationally seething.

So, Rusty and I finally got around to watching Thank You for Smoking the other night, after months of being told we absolutely HAD to see it, and frankly I don't get what all the fuss was about. I got absolutely nothing out of this movie other than the realization that, when it comes to irony, North America has seriously lost its way... if it ever had a way to speak of.

If you haven't seen it, the movie centres around the character of Nick Naylor (played by Aaron Eckhart), a media spokesperson for Big Tobacco, who's known as "the Sultan of Spin." While the tobacco industry is tangentially criticized in this movie, the real object is to skewer the entire concept of spin and how the media caters to it. My question is this: do we seriously need a movie to tell us this? At one point in the movie, when Naylor is in front of some sort of congressional panel arguing against warning labels on cigarette packages, he states that the big reason he doesn't see them as necessary is because EVERYONE KNOWS CIGARETTES ARE BAD FOR YOU. Well, this sentiment could be extended to this entire movie.

The only way I could see this movie being (arguably) useful is if it could reach some new audience, an audience that -- mysteriously, magically -- has never gotten the memo that you shouldn't trust those smarmy besuited white guys who appear on Larry King Live. But honestly, is anyone kidding themselves that such an audience is even going to hear about this movie, much less watch it? It has the feel of one of those movies (I'm looking at you, Bob Roberts and Wag the Dog) that a certain brand of smartypants liberal (not to be confused with MY brand of smartypants liberal) watches and congratulates themselves over, which reinforces everything they believe they know, but which makes not an atom of difference in changing any sort of public opinion. Which, you know, is something I always thought satire was supposed to do.

But putting all that aside, isn't it another objective of satire to be, you know, FUNNY? Because this movie felt like a primer in Satire 101, where someone painstakingly broke down and re-constructed all the superficial elements of satire, but forgot to include the funny bits. Admittedly, I may not be giving the movie a totally fair shake, because I frequently found myself so bored that I'd black out, levitate to another room of my house, and regain consciousness only to find myself sorting my sock drawer. Even assuming that the message of the movie is obvious and preaching-to-the-choir-ish, there are movies -- such as How to Get Ahead in Advertising or even Brain Candy, for god's sake -- that do this in a way that's absurd, over-the-top, and MAKES ME LAUGH.

I'm not exactly sure why I'm using my book site to rant about movies -- possibly only to demonstrate that I'm way meaner when I talk about movies than I am when I talk about books. (Why is that, do you think? Are you the same way?) I'm just sick of obvious, pseudo-critical content masquerading as intelligent, thought-provoking fare. The only thought this movie provoked was relief that at least I didn't spend fifteen bucks to see it in the theatre.

ETC: Hip Check

Oh my god. I am so fucking sick of the "hipster parenting" debate.* And yet I can't avoid it. It plagues me in my internet travels. (And, possibly, I'm deliberately poking that nerve a bit, too. Despite my saner instincts, I tend this way sometimes.)

I'm waiting for my copy of Alternadad to arrive, but when it does I anticipate enjoying it in the same way I enjoy Neal Pollack's blog. He talks about parenting in a way that speaks to me. It's funny. It's littered with poo stories, which, as you know, always go down well with me. But he also strikes poignant notes that never cloy, and he's not afraid to talk about messy taboo subjects like circumcision. And while you get the sense he considers himself a good parent -- an attitude some critics, strangely, take exception to, labelling it "smug" -- hey, good on him. These days, if the media is to be believed, the only acceptable way to be a parent is to be a dithering, second-guessing mess. And he seems to be somewhat honest about discussing his flaws, inasmuch as I can tell.

It's hard to imagine why anyone would take exception to any of these characteristics, but for some reason, Pollack seems to drive some people nuts. Of late, he's become the media whipping boy for an entire group of parents, the aforementioned "hipster parents." And, you know, whatever. People like to have other people to disparage. Also, it's great fun to write off an entire group of people as shallow if you don't ever question the irony of the fact that labelling and dismissing an entire group of people is a pretty shallow thing to do. I know. I've done it myself.

So the media judges parents. What else is new? And the general public judges parents. That's been going on for a while, too. No, what gets my goat -- and it gets my goat good; let me tell you, that goat is NOT happy -- is when parents judge other groups of parents. I mean, I can see the value in ganging up on folks who beat their children, or who sell their children into white slavery rings, or who, say, eat their children. All these things certainly should be frowned upon in any civilized culture, and I my very own self am prepared to give such a parent the scowling of a lifetime should one cross my path. But come on. Hipster parenting? For serious? I don't even know what the fuck that term means, and I've always sort of assumed that Pollack is being semi-ironic when he uses it. What exactly is a hipster? Please, someone educate me. Am I a hipster parent? I do have a fondness for cool shoes, after all. And eclectic music. And funny t-shirts. Should I be cultivating a more apologetic expression when I go out in public, should I encounter one of those hipster-parent haters? And for the love of all that's holy, don't we have more pressing issues to worry ourselves with?

To the best of my knowledge, the bulk of the "hipster" moniker -- and the seat of people's loathing -- seems to be predicated on the fact that Pollack doesn't hide the fact that he's a music snob and would prefer to cultivate his son's taste in directions that he, Pollack, likes. "Oh my god," people respond. "How dare he? He thinks he's so cool! What a douchebag!" (I am, of course, paraphrasing.) I'm glad reading isn't considered cool. If it were, I'd probably be sporting a big red "H" on my chest, too.

Here's part of a comment I wrote here, in response to this whole conflated issue:

The only thing that's remotely new in this artificially constructed parents-versus-parents kerfuffle is that, for a change, it's not pitting mothers against mothers, which the media [I'm looking at you, Salon] has been aggressively doing for decades in a transparent ploy to boost readership. Now fathers are in the mix. Hip-hip-fucking-hooray. How progressive. Did I say "progressive"? Whoops. I meant "boring."

Let me tell you something: if I hear/read the word "hipster" used in this smug, derogatory way one more time, I'm going to totally lose my cool. Jesus christ, people. Imagine if your kids could hear you. And yet you probably plan to preach tolerance at them some day. Nice work. Get a good head start on that.

Wear the clothes you want. Listen to the music you want. Read the books and magazines and websites you want. Be a little self-satisfied. IT'S OKAY. Be a hipster. Be a nerd. Be a badass. Don't take it all so friggin seriously. We can still get along. Did Breakfast Club teach us nothing? Somewhere, John Hughes is weeping silent tears because his entire ouevre was for naught.

(If nothing else, this issue has made me realize how much I really like standing on a soapbox. You can see for miles! On a sunny day, I can see my house!)

Perhaps I could understand this hipster-parent-hatin' better if I could understand what exactly the endgame is. Is it that people think that, somehow, being parented the hipster way will irretrievably screw up kids? Is it bad for the environment? The economy? What? If we stop the hipster parents from doing... well, whatever it is they do... will the world will be a better place? After we wrap that important job up, can we go back to worrying about child poverty and crack-addicted babies and the fact that our climate and the environment are going down the shitter? Or, more likely, will we find another part of our collective navel to explore?

Here's what it boils down to, for me. When someone writes a book, you critique the writing. If you don't, you do literature a disservice. When someone writes a memoir, that opens things up to where you can critique the person. You're in dodgier territory there, and your mileage will vary depending on how much you like to flay open real people who have real thoughts and feelings and motivations. But when someone writes a parenting memoir, then you're on iffy ground. Because calling someone a bad parent -- which is the perilous territory this whole hipster fracas is stumbling at the outskirts of -- well, where I'm from, them's fighting words.

Let me put it another way. If people were talking this shit about MY parenting? I'd be calling them out to the alley, and I'd be kicking their smart balls right up to the roof of their smart mouth.

*A debate that, I should point out, seems to be happening AMONG SO-CALLED HIPSTERS. Since when did Onion articles start dictating real life? Kee-rist on a clamshell.