Pinky's Paperhaus

Friday linkage

The Elegant Variation wants you to get stoned -- I.F. Stone'd, that is.

Galleycat's search for an archnemesis ends at Gawker's Intern Alexis -- but the fued is foiled.

Let's say you wanted to get published in a nice cultural journal in the fall of 2006 and the lead of your piece was "From 1990 to 1991, David Lynch's Twin Peaks was a hit television series." 15 years too late and dry as dust! Reject pile! Unless you're Greil Marcus, that is. (link via The Rake).

A million thanks to The Millions' excellent rundown of the literary MacArthur Geniuses 2006.

Los Angeles gets its first, long-awaited H&M; LAist scores an interview with the company's PR-bot.

It's all about the french fries

By moving from LA to Pittsburgh, I have apparently taken 1.5 years off my life, according to this interactive map of longevity by state, (courtesy NPR).

Flowers in the attic

Pittsburgh homeowners who've uncovered cool or creepy things while renovating their houses could score a spot on the HGTV show If Walls Could Talk, which is headed to the city later this fall. The show tells the stories of houses, from historic to infamous to quirky. So Pittsburghers who've discovered trinkets, letters, or even incestual albino children should e-mail Jenna Friederich jfriederich (at) highnoonentertainment.com

Could Tanenhaus be next?

Time book critic Lev Grossman notices Ed Champion has been ranting about him and takes on this "mortal enemy" in the pages of the magazine. Ed has called Lev "silly," "chickenhead," and "Chickenhead of the Decade" -- which are nothing compared to what he's said about Sam "NYTBR" Tanenhaus. So Sam, what are you waiting for?

Freedom by Right

So the good political news about living in Pennsylvania is I get to vote against America's most reprehensible Senator, Rick Santorum, in the fall.

The bad news is that it can be a perfectly beautiful day and I'll come home to find this on my front door:

Freedom by Right
We don't live in America
America lives in US

1) Protect, defend and obey the Constitution for th U.S. which is based on Biblical principles.
2) [blah blah reduce taxes blah blah]
    Restore morality - return prayer and the Ten Commandments
    Restore resposibility - Abortion is not a form of birth control
    [blah blah 2nd amendment blah blah]

Jim Barr for State Representative 20th Legislative District

I'll give it this: it's better copy edited than most wacko right wing tracts. However, properly placed commas are not enough to swing my vote to Jim Barr and his we-hate-abortion "consitution party." In fact, stacks of thousand dollar bills wouldn't be enough.

Noah Webster

My sister is driving around New England with her patient boyfriend in tow and she sent me this picture. We're not big sticklers for spelling, nor are we dictionary fiends. So why the visit to the Noah Webster house?

You probably know that Noah Webster crafted the first American dictionary which is called, logically, Webster's. Maybe you even know that his house is a museum in West Hartford, Connecticut.

What you might not know is that my great grandmother brought up my grandmother and her brothers in that house. Then after the kids were grown the family built another house on the property and gave the Noah Webster house to the state. I think that other house, the newish one, is where we visited my great grandmother when she was in her 90s; I was completely oblivious to the literary history across the lawn.

Catching JG Ballard, vicariously

With this here internet, I can get the scoop on this JG Ballard appearance, uh, somewhere (I think in the UK?).

While the man is, apparently, old, fat and deaf, he's no dummy; when asked where to find vital writing today, he says, "on the internet" (of course).

Morning, monday

The Elegant Variation has a complete report -- with pictures! -- of the West Hollywood Book Fair. Mark even captured the entire Goldberg literary sibling set Goldberg (Tod, Lee, Karen and Linda) at their panel.

The Millions gets the photo-less scoop on the Brooklyn Book Festival -- not to worry, pics are here and here. And the 60-second version is captured on video -- really, they even got Brooklyn Boro Prez Marty Markowitz. 

Laila Lalami spends quality time with 500 Tennesseeans. So close to Pittsburgh -- drop on by!

The Syntax of Things muses on James Frey's first post-debacle interview, finds the nonfiction memoirist novelist wanting.

Beware, tomorrow is International Talk Like a Pirate Day and just in time, The Mumpsimus has found a sea chanty soundtrack -- yep, an MP3 awaits.

RSS means Random Shutdown Syndrome

Sadly, this is my new favorite website.

Fishy fishy fishy fish

This is the as-packed-as-possible crowd that turned out to see literary theorist (turned Law School dude) Stanley Fish do his fantastic rhetoric dance Thursday at Pitt. Fish is there, in the short sleeved blue oxford, talking to the woman in white; if you gave him a visor he'd look like the guy who counts the take in a noir film. (My class in film noir was adjourned early so interested students, and our professor, could attend). From what I remember of my literary theory -- which, admittedly, isn't much -- Stanley Fish was the only lit theorist who made me laugh out loud.

He engaged the quiet, awed and/or confused crowd in an exercise in logic and rhetoric about argument itself that was beguiling. It begins:

1) Has my conviction that X is true been reached in the course of a particular education (mine) and career trajectory, complete with mentors, influences, substantive commitments,religious, ethnic and political attachments, etc? - YES
2) Is the history by which I arrived at my conviction its author? - NO.

And goes on for 7 more pages, which I will not retype, since I've already quoted without permission from Señor Fish* despite the warning on the handout not to do so. Anyway, during his talk, two things were clear: he's so deft with his rhetoric that to disagree with him, or even to take issue, makes one feel entirely irrational; and he could have wound up at the exact opposite of his actual conclusion and been equally convincing. Supremely gifted.

Also funny. He illustrated one of his terms, "giving accounts," by saying "During the old Hollywood studio system, Tom Cruise would have either been shut up or killed." Hee. He said Tom Cruise.

My favorite question was "In the game of argument, whose rules are you following? Artistotle's? Kant's?" because it proved that I am really in grad school. So what if I can't define what Kant and Aristotle's rules of argument might be -- someone in that room could, and took them very seriously. Not Stanley Fish so much, who's answer was something like "no rules." Which made me happy to be in grad school, too.

*Señor Fish serves topnotch fish tacos in Los Angeles.