True Origins of Iron Man

There is a great story over on Boston.com, titled We Are Iron Man, which attempts to trace the literary and comic book influences on the classic Black Sabbath song "Iron Man".

So what might a song whose themes were in all probability cobbled together from Iron Man's origin story and Ted Hughes's heady children's book mean?

During the Vietnam War era, and again today, those of us who aren't off fighting in a senseless war -- and who know that it's a senseless war -- gain cold comfort from the shrill middlebrow arguments we find in liberal magazines and on op-ed pages. But Black Sabbath’s vaguely antiwar dirge, whose lyrics aren't high-, middle-, or lowbrow, but hilobrow, and whose music is savage, relentless, and overwhelming, is cathartic. It forces listeners to experience man's inhumanity to man, to experience for a moment what it's like to be crippled and deformed by, say, explosive ordnance. Or by the everyday indignities, injustices, and absurdities of contemporary life. ...

Anyone who desires nothing so much as to prevent humankind from tearing itself to pieces, but who feels paralyzed, helpless, tongue-tied -- and therefore full of inarticulate rage, perhaps even a desire for revenge of some kind -- is an iron man.

We're all iron men.

I love how memes travel, and also how they sometimes spontaneously pop up in different areas and media. Joshua Glenn offers several theories as to what the possible connections are between the Marvel Comics superhero, the Ted Hughes children's book The Iron Giant, and the heavy metal anthem. Some of theories are pretty compelling, but he neglects the one I think is most likely, which is that certain archetypical figures just reappear in pop-culture from time to time. Perhaps all these creative individuals were operating under similar influences...

Anyway, I'm stoked about the new Iron Man movie coming out soon. The previews look awesome, Downey seems a perfect choice for jaded, worldly Tony Stark, and the use of the Black Sabbath song in the soundtrack and previews is a no-brainer, but it still makes me very happy!

Golden Compass Goodies

In our house, we are pretty excited about the upcoming Golden Compass movie. Jes has read all the books, and while I haven't, I've heard good things from her, and from the Steampunk community at large.

One of the premises of the series is that everyone has a familiar, or sort of external animal soul-friend. The movie's website has an area where you can determine what shape your personal Daemon will take, thusly:



Daemon? Well, I guess it's no wonder the Christian Right is already up in arms about the movie. If these folks had any imagination or knowledge of classical languages they might not be so quick to leap to judgement. Of course we are talking about the same intellectual giants who threw "Judge not, lest ye be judged likewise," out the window, and protested Harry Potter, and the Chronicles of Narnia. Both of which are basically imaginative indoctrinations into the better aspects of Christian faith... but whatever...

While the Dragon doesn't wish to offend anyone's religious beliefs, he is of the conviction that imagination, like sexuality, is one of the Divine's greatest gifts to us, and one of the best means of reaching an understanding of the Divine... but you know, what ever kicks your starter, I suppose...

Mr. Moore's Heartfelt Tribute to Mr. Wilson

Probably the best salute to RAW since he passed from this shoddy plane.

Thanks to Technoccult

Harry Potter in the Hood

More scooter news soon, until then H. Piddy raps. Lyrics here (scroll down.)

via Neatorama

Meditations of a Bibliophilic Nomad

Warning: Extremely Stream-of-Consciousness Post Ahead!

Still preoccupied with the various tasks associated with moving, and therefore neglecting the blog.
Moving gives life a syntax, a grammar. It allows us to gaze Janus-like at the path behind us and the road ahead.
The Dragon is of course a lazy nomad. I seem to camp out somewhere for a period of years, before moving on, and have yet to find a place I would truly call home. Olympia has been great, but it's time for a new place.
When I reflect back on my time in the Puget Sound, the predominate theme seems to be books. We just finished packing up the majority of our library, and have about two dozen average size boxes. Of course there are still a few shelves worth of titles which for one reason or another we want readily accessible until the last possible moment.
I heard somewhere once that wizards and sages draw power and wisdom just from the presence of a strong library. I think some glassy eyed Wiccan told me that, though it may have come from a fantasy paperback, or even a dream. Regardless, there is a sentiment in that statement which I strongly second.
I feel naked if I can not easily put my hand on certain tomes. Ralph Mayer's Artist's Handbook, and David Gottesgern's similar guide to the materials and techniques of painting, for example. Then there are the books I've been meaning to get around to, and am not yet willing to admit the cause is lost, even in the face of moving. A current example is Letters from the Earth by Samuel Clemens. Twain is on my mind a lot lately, as mid-west boy who's traveled extensively through the west, and looks to be settling down back-east. In fact, he settled a scant few miles from where Jes and I will be renting a quaint little carriage house. While we were visiting for Barbara and Dave's 50th, we were able to hit up the Mark Twain Library's book sale. So that's another 5 or 6 boxes of books which are already waiting for us in CT. Not to mention probably another two-dozen or so boxes which I have stashed in Arkansas and Kansas.
If you couldn't already tell, I waver between feeling guilty and greedy about books, to feeling self-righteous and snobbish about them. Though I am a voracious reader, I have immense volumes of references on subjects which I am tangentially interested in, which I have never cracked, but will fight tooth and nail to keep. Because someday, it will come up.
My good friend Bart, back in Little Rock introduced me to a programmer's corollary to the adage about wizards and sages not long before I moved to Oly. For programming it's not necessary to know every command and algorithm, so much as to know basic syntax and structure, and know where to go to find everything else.
So yeah, when I find a definitive work on a topic or in a field, especially if it is area I think I may to deal with in the future, I pick it up.

Which leads me to this genius question on Metafilter: What single book is the best introduction to your field (or specialization within your field) for laypeople?

There are more jewels in that thread than I can catalog here. It's certainly a heck of a starting point for a reference library. (I don't have a Metafilter account, but if I did, I would add James Elkins's What Painting Is, for those who desire a layman's introduction to the discipline of painting.) Were you to seriously read a chunk of these books, I daresay you'd end up with at least as strong an education as most folks get from a liberal arts bachelors degree.

Anyway, I originally moved to Olympia to go to back to college, but after graduation, I stayed for the books. I've heard it said that college is important for geeky folks (who tend to be perpetually self-educating) because it introduces you to important books you might not have come across otherwise. This was certainly true in my case, with the added Evergreen bonus of seminars in which group discussion of the reading material significantly deepened the understanding provided by lectures and individual reading. But academia is only a small part of why I will always associate Oly with the printed word.

Around Labor Day 2003, the crew at Last Words Books asked me to join as a partner. I'd been working a summer job at the school's digital imaging studio, and spending most of my free time hanging with the bookstore boys, and the fit seemed right. In a fit of irrational enthusiasm I joined up. And books became my life... for a few years at least.

This essay began as an attempt to grasp how that experience has impacted me, but even with such a long lead-in, the task seems Herculean.

The modifier "meta" keeps coming to mind, and not just because Metafilter seeded these ruminations. Running a bookstore develops your meta-knowledge. Your knowledge about knowledge. You may not have all the answers, but you have a pretty good idea of where to begin looking for them. After a while, you become like a walking Whole Earth Catalog.

And it changes how you look at people. Your understanding of people both deepens and becomes more superficial. You become the kind of social monstrosity who inspects a host's bookshelves somewhere between the introductions and the second glass of wine. If like me, you ride the Myers/Briggs border between E and I, you begin to develop relationships with folks whose names you don't know, but you know just what author and title they need to read next. You give yourself extra-points if they a) have never heard of said author/title and b) end up loving it.

Recently, I've been thinking about how I've become a book-snob. It's hard for me to accept, but it's true. During my formative reading years, I cut my teeth on mass-market science fiction, pulp as it were. Or what Jes, in bartender's parlance, calls "Pabst."
Now sometimes you don't want to slowly sip on an 18-year old single malt Sartre or Camus, so much as you just want to slam back a nice unimposing Stephen King PBR. I get it, I really do. Of the two dozen boxes clustered around our wood stove, at least four of them are solely comics and graphic novels, for Buddha's sake.



Jes likes really pulpy fiction. What I think of as Pop-fiction. She'll buy a Stephen King book she hasn't read, and she'll keep one she has. Now, I'm not so much a snob that I won't read Stephen King. I've enjoyed several of his stories, and there are some I haven't read which I'm looking forward to getting around to. But I just can't see myself buying them, and I cringe at the thought of them taking up permanent shelf space, space which could instead be inhabited by Ken MacCleod, or Richard Brautigan.

I guess I think of my personal library as a home for books that are special to me. Stephen King doesn't belong, because well if I get the itch for that I know it will be easy to find, and the itch will generally not be so overwhelming that I need it "right now!" On the other hand, if I get the itch to Etidorpha, it might take me some time or expense to find a copy.

So, without much further ado, a list of what is on the Dragon's bookshelf until/during the move:

Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punishment, The Order of Things
John Berger, Ways of Seeing a classic, for when I might need some "comfort food" reading.
Jon Longhi, Everyone at the Funeral Was Slamdancing, The Rise and Fall of Third Leg (both signed, no less!) Longhi is the shiznet! We Gen-X mofos have waited too long for our own Bukowski, our own Kerouac, our own Pekar. Longhi is it. You know that grandpa hipster in your scene, who's a genius, but focuses all his talents on getting high and scoring babes, well Longhi is that guy if he actually finished his novel. And then wrote another one. I loved Wake Up and Smell the Beer, and can't wait to sink my eye-teeth into these. For any doubters out there, Longhi has gotten R. Crumb to do covers for both of his novels.
Richard Brilliant, Portraiture
Harold Norse, Memoirs of a Bastard Angel
James Morrow, Towing Jehovah I'm most of the way through this, but think it might make a good book for Jes and I to read to each other during the drive.
Terry Prachett, Going Postal Jes is in the middle of this, and it looks like a fun read.
John Kennedy Toole, Confederacy of Dunces Because it's been far too long, and I'm hoping to get Jes acquainted with Ignatius J. Reilly.
Vincent Van Gogh, Dear Theo A collection of Vinnie's letters. Again, comfort reading.
Charles Bouleau, The Painter's Secret Geometry One of the few books I scored at the Twain Library Sale which merited being shuttled cross-country twice. I've started it, but it's dense and meaty, so I plan to take my time digesting it.
Haynes, Vespa P Series Manual 'Nough said.
David Hough, Proficient Motorcycling A two-wheeler's bible. I won't feel comfortable packing it until the Vespas are loaded on the truck.
Berke Breathed, The Night of the Mary Kay Commandos Light bathroom reading.
Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near Heavy bathroom reading.
Various Authors, Various Html, web design, and photoshop manuals For a project I hope to unveil soon...
Kevin Siembieda, The Palladium Role-Playing Game Revised Edition For reasons which will be illuminated in a later blog-post.

There you go, not exactly a Desert Island island, just a what I need to get through the next month list. Granted, I'll probably be adding a graphic novel or two to that list in the next couple of weeks.

If you seek further understanding of both why I had to join the Bookstore, and why I had to leave, I direct you to the BBC comedy series, Black Books, which sadly, is funny 'cause it's true.

In closing I give you the Last Word Books Late-Night Computer Elf Mantra:

"Books! Books! Books!"

United States v. George W. Bush

I don't do this often, but here's a little public service announcement for the boys over at the bookstore:

Last Word Books will be hosting Elizabeth de la Vega, a former federal prosecutor and author of the book United States v. George W. Bush (Seven Stories Press), on Tuesday June 26th. De la Vega will be discussing her book, as well as a number of other issues with implications of serious illegality on the part of the Bush Administration, including the firing of federal prosecutors, admitted violations of the FISA Act, and and and...the list of iniquities only grows.

If you're in Olympia you should check this out.

On a related note, the Dragon would like to wish Last Word Books a happy Fifth Anniversary.
So, you guys getting paid yet?

Bookshelf Wallpaper?

bOINGbOING has a post up about these handprinted bookshelf wallpapers...
I'm really torn on this idea... it has a certain surrealist vibe that I can appreciate... but I have feeling this wallpaper doesn't come cheap... and well wouldn't you be better off just -- you know--- covering your walls with actual books?
OK, so I'm a little biased, I have friends like this, him, these folks, this pack of rabble rousers, this miscreant, these madmen, and these fine buccaneers of the literary seas. Which basically means in the Dragon's meatspace reality books get exchanged like handshakes at a Masonic Lodge. Yes, many of those links are different masks of the same bibliophile ninjas, which actually goes to prove my point all the more, rather than discredit it.
A full bookshelf of handpicked titles is a thing of joy, wonder, and dedication, as well as the most rewarding home insulation available.
My mother, who like many matriarchs is so lacking in vice as to be saintly, is so addicted to the printed word that bookstores provoke from her the same rationalizations and mental gymnastics as a lapsed friend of Bill W. at a wine-tasting. "Oh well, this one is so high quality... it can't hurt." "but I've been looking for this one forever." and "but i've heard such praise about this one... I'll just save it for a rainy day."

Ah, Books!

OK, I'll shut up now.

Next on my List of Books to Acquire

Oh man does this sound awesome!

Big trouble at night in the city. A gang of Vespa-riding vampires are killing San Franciscans so indiscriminately they threaten to not only drain the city dry—but risk the discovery of vampires everywhere. Gay vampire cop Valentino is called upon to stop the group calling themselves The Very Bloody Marys before the situation gets worse. Unfortunately, it already has. You see, Valentino is still only a trainee who is in way over his head now that Pogue, his mentor, is missing. And this brutal gang is tough, smart, and very, very bloodthirsty. To do his job, Valentino must move quickly—and carefully—otherwise he may just get himself killed. What's a creature of the night to do? The only thing he can: track the gang through the haunts of some very odd characters, unravel the mystery, and try to stay out of the sun.
The Very Bloody Marys is a comic horror novel about vampires, ghouls, faeries, and the undead that move around after dark. Part chase, part gallows humor, part shivery excitement, this new story from the wildly imaginative M. Christian is funny, frightening, and very entertaining.

Vampire Vespa Gang? Gay Vampire Cop in SF?

Dude, you had me at hello.

The Very Bloody Marys at Amazon.com

via Stories, Sex, and Silliness

2StrokeBuzz Version 1.0

I just finished listening to the latest installment of the SCTRCST, in which Dave interviews Illnoise from 2StrokeBuzz. There are some technical difficulties with the sound during the interview, but it is worth a listen, nonetheless.
An interesting tip from this latest podcast is that the old print zine editions of 2StrokeBuzz are available online. I think I remember hearing something about the Buzz starting as a print publication, but I didn't know those issues were really available in any format...
(hmmm... I wonder if one could scare up some originals in the Olympia Zine Library...)

Anyway these are really cool. The design and production values are fantastic, the first issue looks like an old school vespa manual!

So if you're curious about a slice of scootering history, check out the title link, or click here.

Lost Robert Anton Wilson Book Online

Klintron has posted this info on Technoccult, and not much else... but it's worth noting.
As a PDF.
As a text file.

Allen Ginsberg Interviews MP3

I swear I'm not having a special Beat day or anything... just by a strange synchronicity, I also happened to stumble across this radio interview today.

It caught my interest because I happened to be lucky enough to be in Hot Springs for the poetry reading mentioned on the page.

There's over a half hour audio here, I'm just getting into these.

Anyway, enjoy

On November 5, 1994 I interviewed legendary beat poet Allen Ginsberg in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Ginsberg was appearing as part of the annual Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, which was showing the very compelling documentary "The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg." He also gave an enthusiastic and well received live performance, which he allowed me to tape and broadcast, along with the interview on Little Rock community radio station KABF. But because of potential copyright conflicts, I'm only including sound from the interview here.
At the time, in addition to an alternative rock show, I was hosting a weekly spoken word program on KABF. Joining me for the interview was Sam Caplan, who was host of "The Poetry Show" on KABF. He too had been interested in talking with Ginsberg and I thought it would be good to do the interview together because we both had different subjects we wanted to talk about and together would be able to hit on a broad range of topics. I also felt that since Sam knew more about formal poetry than I that he would be good to have with me. We recorded the interview in his room at the Arlington Hotel. He had just finished a poetry workshop that afternoon and talked with us before doing his performance that evening.

A Vision of Jack Kerouac as The Shadow

I just happened upon this. A mini-comic that delves into the lingering influence Sal Paradise has had on a certain type of working-class intellectual in America up to this day. This comic really nailed some of the things that lead to my obsession with Jack in my late teens and early twenties. Many kids who are infatuated with the Beats seem overly drawn to the "wine, women, and song," aspects of the subculture, coupled with rebelliousness and anti-authoritarianism. And, hey yeah, that's cool and all, but what kept me coming to Jack, and still does to this day, was (and is) the heart-breaking search for empathy and meaning in a spiritually bankrupt America. Most of his critics, and all too many of his fans, never grasp the full impact of this. Jack was like Jacob, wrestling with an angel, wrestling with God. Seeking a blessing for his ragtag entourage, stumbling through the desert, trying to find their home.

This six page comic about two guys in Indiana talking about Kerouac was called "nice sympathetic work on Kerouac" by Allen Ginsberg soon after it was written in 1989. Previously only available in a hand-photocopied version of less than one hundred copies, this entire story is now available to read on this site. Click on the cover and proceed through the six pages. Enjoy.

My New Favorite Cookbook

So the other day amongst other errands, I had to go by the Borders Bookstore. Jes had a couple of gift cards to this establishment, that were, I suspected, so old that they would no longer be valid. Gift cards and certificates are a great profit generator for many businesses, if they are allowed to expire, well then the store has made pure profit. If they are used as intended, then the store has gotten some extra foot traffic, and often the customer will spend more than is on the card, generating more income.
Happily, these cards which might have been as much as four years old, were still valid. My mission: use them up. Jes had some requests, which I filled, and found a couple other titles I thought we might both enjoy. Knowing there was still some credit left, I decided to check out the cookbooks. I was hoping to find a copy of Alton Brown's first book, which my Grandma had given my Mom a couple of years back.
Now, unlike my mother, I don't have much use for cookbooks. For a long time, I have been satisfied with the Joy of Cooking and an internet connection. When I'm trying something new out in the kitchen, I usually Google it. After looking over three or four divergent versions of the same recipe, and comparing them against my experience, goals, and preconceptions, I usually have good concept of the basic patterns behind the dish. A good enough idea to experiment from. And if the first attempt is not a total success, rubbing it up against the general concepts of cooking I've gleaned from the past, and Jes's refined palette, gives me a good idea of how to improve it the next time.
Which is why I was looking for Alton's I'm just here for the food. I appreciate how he goes into the science of how certain techniques work, and how they apply to peculiarities of particular ingredients. To use a musical analogy: it is less like a collection of scores, than a jazz instruction guide, giving you some basic riffs to build on, to improvise with.
Now with all that being said, Borders didn't have Alton's first book, though they had his second and third, which would make great presents for my foodie mother, but which I really wouldn't be able to put to much use at this point in time. But there is another cook out there, who having been introduced to on Food Network, I am quite fond of.
By way of explaining my personal aesthic to other creative friends, I use to say that I wanted to be the love child of Captain Kangaroo and William S. Burroughs. I want to synthesize a certain sense of whimsy, with a darker, edgier side. In the culinary arts, Alton Brown represents the geeky, playful side of that equation. The edgier, more punk side is best represented by Anthony Bourdain. And fortunately for me, Borders had his Les Halles Cookbook in stock.
Now, I've never really had any aspirations to master French cuisine. I always viewed it as hoity-toity and pretentious. My predilictions have always been towards simple, basic peasant fare, with perhaps a little something extra added, but built on a solid working class foundation. Of course, the more I have managed the kitchen in our household, the more this working class frugality has led me to do things like save every bone that comes off a plate. I'm using more and more stock in my cooking, and it seems ridiculous to pay the exorbitant prices grocery stores ask for what tastes like sea water with a hint of meat flavor.
And the more I learn about basic French cuisine, the more it seems that not only is it the basis of much of Western cooking, but also that it too is firmly rooted in this peasant aesthetic of wringing every last bit of nutrition and flavor out of the things that find there way into the kitchen. And having seen and totally enjoyed a handful of episodes of A Cook's Tour, and read a couple of online interviews with Bourdain, I respected his opinion. Plus, just flipping through the book at random, I landed on the recipe for steak tartare, which Jes, who prefers just about everything raw, has expressed quite a bit of interest in.
So I added the book to the stack of historical fiction for Jes.
I can not express how happy I was to dig into this book, and soak in Bourdain's caustic no-bullshit wit. Nor how happy I was to read this paragraph in his long, ranting introduction:

The kind of French cooking we're talking about here, the most beloved, old-school, typical, and representative cooking, the wellspring of all that came after, did not originate from cooks with a lot of money to throw around. Most of these preparations and recipes evolved from shrewd, enterprising, hard-pressed, dirt-poor people who, like all great cooks, in all great national cuisines, were simply making the best of what they had. Which, in many cases, was sweet fuck-all.
We have always looked to France as the greatest of chef-driven (as opposed to ingredient driven) cuisines because France had no other choice but to cook well. For much of its history, French cooks had to be good. Or they'd starve, or go broke. For the most part, good cooks were hungry, they were downtrodden, they had - until the revolution- to continue to please cruel, oppressive, and capricious masters. Every scrap, every root, every snail,, every crust of bread was potential money or sustenance.

As you can tell from this excerpt, this book is not for the faint of heart. Anthony is crass and cultured, speaking with a voice both vulgar and educated. I have spent a little time as a dishwasher and prep-cook, and can tell you this is the dictatorial voice of a head chef, a tempermental artist who is also a general who will accept nothing but speedy obedience from his minions. And when he gets it, the results can be genius.
So this isn't a book for everyone. At the same time, I have to say, I haven't laughed as hard as I laughed reading the initial chapters of this book, in I don't know how long. In the chapter extolling the virutes of having and maintaining a quality knife, after recommending mastering proper knife sharpening technique, he offers this alternative:

For the timorous and feebleminded among you - and for any for any howler monkeys in the tertiary stages of syphilis who might be reading this - some manufacturers now sell a clever little device that clips to the back of the blade and rolls your knife at exactly the right angle on the sharpening stone - thus obviating the skill almost entirely.

A yep. Not a cookbook for everybody. I, however have been ROTFLMAO.
Also, not a book for vegetarians. This is old school French Bistro, or Brasserie cooking, which means MEAT. But since I have a metabolism which causes me to start to consume myself from the inside out if not constantly stoked with heavy protein rich fatty foods, and my beloved is allergic to beans, eggs, and soy, this is perfect for our household. And since these are basically recipes with roots going back at least a few centuries, with these final forms going back to the cafe/bistro culture of the era of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, it is also recomended reading for those happy few, who like myself, are interested in creating a Steampunk culinary culture.

Hurrah!

Rudy Rucker's Transrealist Manifesto

(Warning: the above link is to a PDF document, not an HTML page)

I think I may have mentioned before that "Rudeboy" Rucker is my favorite underrated author. This manifesto of his is old news by many folks reckoning, but I just came across it, and it illuminates for me, much of what I love about his writing, and some of my own opinions about crafting a creative work which has versimmilitude and does not feel contrived.

The Transrealist artist cannot predict the finished form of his or her work. The Transrealist novel grows organically, like life itself. The author can only choose characters and setting, introduce this or that particular fantastic element, and aim for certain key scenes. Ideally, a Transrealist novel is written in oscurity, and without an outline. If the author knows precisely how his or her book will develop, then the reader will divine this. A predictable book is of no interest. Nevertheless, the book must be coherent. Granted, life does not often make sense. But people will not read a book which has no plot.

Michael Chabon New Work Serialized in NYT

Michael Chabon New Work Serialized in NYT

Michael Chabon sometimes seems to be everywhere. Most recently, his latest story is being serialized in the New York Times Funny Pages (it's prose, just to set that straight.) The serialization began last Sunday and this week's installment is already available online.
I'm going to confess that I haven't read any of his prose yet, though this piece on my list for this weekend. But the Dragon is a huge fan of The Escapist comics, one of the coolest and freshest (as well as post-modern) approaches to Super-Hero comics ... as the fanboys say... Evah.
This latest work is titled Gentlemen of the Road. It's apparently set around 1000 AD, and had a working title of "Jews with Swords." I'm intrigued.
I consulted Mr. Chabon's Wikipedia page for this post, mostly because his name has been attached to so many things I have enjoyed, or look forward to in the future. Besides the projects listed above, he has written for McSweeney's, wrote the book which the movie Wonderboys was based on, and won a Pulitzer for his novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. (Still waiting to come across a copy of that one.) I'm fascinated with how he seems to jump between literary works and writing comics, and there is a great section on Wikipedia pertaining to this:

In 2005, Chabon argued against the idea that genre fiction, and entertaining fiction, shouldn't appeal to "the real writer," saying that the common perception is that "Entertainment....means junk. [But] maybe the reason for the junkiness of so much of what pretends to entertain us is that we have accepted--indeed, we have helped to articulate--such a narrow, debased concept of entertainment....I'd like to believe that, because I read for entertainment, and I write to entertain. Period."[18]
Among the more positive responses to Chabon's brand of "trickster literature" appeared in Time magazine, whose Lev Grossman wrote that "This is literature in mid-transformation....[t]he highbrow and the lowbrow, once kept chastely separate, are now hooking up, [and] you can almost see the future of literature coming."[19]

(Wikipedia's footnotes maintained to please commentors, who have been clamoring for citations.)

Wacki Inspiration Tool

Premise: Convervative cowboy uncover a shocking conspiracy across infinite dimensions of time and space.
Genre: Romance/Noir/Martial Arts

I forget how I found this link, but it auto-generates bizarre story ideas like the one above, which would be a perfect story for the Honky-Tonk Dragon comic if I ever got it off the ground.
This might seem silly to most folks, but I think I could really use this puppy to get the creative juices flowing.
I was gonna say it's too bad it's geared towards writing, but illustrating some of these premises might be just the thing to get the juices flowing for visual artists as well.

Or just a fun way to kill a few minutes at work... not that any of you lovely readers would engage in such behavior...

Depressing Literary Statistics

Depressing Literary Statisitics

1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57 percent of new books are not read to completion.
70 percent of books published do not earn back their advance.
70 percent of the books published do not make a profit.

Ok, these stats are a little gloomier than I expected, but I was well aware that Americans like their media moving, preferably with some big explosions. Heck, I'm fond of the occasional special-effects saturated Hollywood blockbuster myself. And regretably, these days the majority of my reading is done online... but still...

I guess this is just another facet of my freakishness that'll have to adapt to though, these stats not only paint me as something of an anomoly in our culture, they splash that nerdy taint onto pretty much all of my friends and family. One of the great joys of graduating college for me, was knowing that I'd be able to read more for pleasure and personal enrichment. My mother is constantly vowing to quit buying new books until she has read more of her back log (not that she doesn't read, just that she, like most folks in the circles I run in, acquires books much faster than she can assimilate.)

For me the real mind-numbing cognitive dissonance is generated by the frission of this fact:
80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
rubbing against a statistic stated at the beginning of the article that 80 percent of Americans want to write a book.

Er... um... yeah...

Of course, one can try to find hope in the fact that there are "lies, damned lies, and statistics," but even if these figures are grossly exagerated, they still indicate that your humble Dragon and his homies are well outside the mainstream. Some of the unsavory characters I associate with buy books, literally (pardon the pun) by the truck load. Sure, these are for resale, but I gotta tell you most of these guys make me think of Al Pacino in Scarface. They are hooked on what they peddle, with their personal libraries being the metaphoric equivilent of Pacino's desk piled high with coke. They definitely have some significant stashes of the quality stuff for personal use.

OK, I have to stop now, 'cause my brain hurts...

Last of Loompanics' Books

Last of Loompanics' Books

Gotta make sure you get your Harry Potter fix ASAP, so you pre-ordered using the link below? But now, you're feeling a little guilty because that purchase took money away from an independant bookseller who is just barely scraping by?

Well bruthas and sistas, Rev. Dragon has the route for the absolution of your literary sins!

The Dragon's good buddies over at the Hungry Hollow Book Farm, have managed by hook and crook to get their hands on what remains of the now defunct Loompanics Press's stock.

I know for sure they still have copies of the Loompanics' edition of the Principia Discordia, and here's just a small taste of some of the titles in their stash:

Cao Dai Kung-Fu: Lost Fighting Arts of Vietnam $14.25

Check Fraud Investigation $22.50

Close Shaves: The Complete Book of Razor Fighting $75.00

Combat Knife Throwing $25.00

Community Technology $10.00

Comparative Data: State and Provincial Licensing Systems $49.95

Complete guide to science ficiton conventions $14.50

That's right kiddoes, instructions on building a new identity, building siege engines, hacking computers, all kinds of forbidden information is available from Pirate Papa and his book pirate cronies. Proceeds go to feed and shelter these lovely ladies, so don't hesitate to go purchase some titles that will make your mother and George Bush cringe.

And if you tell 'em that the Dragon sent ya, they just might send a little love my way...

(Yes, many of these titles are for informational purposes only, as well as not intended for minors, all other disclaimers apply. Your mileage may vary.)

Last Harry Potter Book Pre-Order

Amazon has opened pre-ordering for the the final chapter in the Harry Potter saga, and is offering up a pretty good deal, $18.89 for the hardcover which will list at $34.99, and $39.00 for the Deluxe edition which will list at $65.00. What's the difference? Well previous Deluxe Editions have had slipcases, special art on the endpapers, and a poster. Amazon doesn't give any detail as to what it'll entail for this volume, so the Dragon is guessing these details haven't been nailed down yet.
But at $19, well that's about the price of what the trade paper will be, so the Dragon will placing an order for that one for his lovely lady-friend.

(In the spirit of full disclosure, yes, the Dragon is an Amazon affiliate, and the miniscule cut he receives from any sales offa these links will go towards improving and upkeeping this site.)

Heh, Heh...

I am: Samuel R. "Chip" Delany Few have had such broad commercial success with aggressively experimental prose techniques.

Which science fiction writer are you?

Cory Doctrow is Heinlein and Warren Ellis is Asimov... and the most modest and humble Dragon is cooler than either, 'cause I'm Delany...

I'll be the study, basking in the joy of being a legend in my own mind...