Month: February 2006

In this month’s issue of The Believer, Nick Hornby writes:

Every now and again you are reminded forcibly that the ability to write fiction or poetry is not necessarily indicative of a particularly refined intelligence, no matter what we’d like to believe; it’s a freakish talent, like the ability to bend a ball into the top corner of the goal from a thirty-yard free kick.

Can the film Bend it Like Beckett be too far behind?

‘Offensive’ college assignments scrutinized:

The legislation, passed Wednesday by the Senate Committee on Higher Education, would let university and community college students opt out of required reading of items the youngsters consider personally offensive or pornographic.

Two things:

  1. There’s nothing that requires you, as a student, to agree with the books you read in class. In fact, in any good classroom environment, active disagreement with the material is not only acceptable but also encouraged. If not liking a book becomes the criteria for not having to read it, literature courses across the nation are doomed.
  2. Jake Flake from Snowflake? Now that sounds like something out of pornography.

Link via Bookslut.

Well this is annoying, and I have no idea how it happened. I certainly didn’t delete it, but my last Friday Random Guess 10 just went and disappeared. Luckily, I have the song titles and artists written down, but I can’t guarantee these lyrics will match what I posted on Friday. (Although that might help some of you, I don’t know.) Anyway, the earlier comments are still posted here (I think), along with the few correct guesses I’ve had so far.

So:

  1. I forgive you boy, but don’t leave town
    “Love Spreads” by the Stone Roses, guessed by Anonymous
  2. I saw a world enchanted, spirits and charms in the air
    “Under Your Spell” from Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Once More, With Feeling, guessed by Betty
  3. I’m not content to be with you in the daytime
    “All Day and All of the Night” by the Kinks, guessed by Kim
  4. Then call your buzzards down to clean the carcass
    “Ivory Tusk” by Blues Traveler, guessed by Kim
  5. Nunca pensé que doliera el amor así
    “Te Aviso, Te Anuncio” by Shakira, guessed by Eric
  6. You don’t care if it rains or shines long as you know what’s been goin’ down at the local rodeo
    “Woman to Woman” by Joe Cocker, guessed by Kim
  7. Get taps on your toes and just get gone
    “Get Rhythm” by Johnny Cash, guessed by Anonymous
  8. I believe in a changing of the guard
    “Something to Believe in” by the Offspring, guessed by Kim
  9. Lot of water under the bridge, lot of other stuff too
    “Things Have Changed” by Bob Dylan, guessed by Eric
  10. You might even shake the hands of presidents
    “Uncle Alvarez” by Liz Phair, guessed by Eric

Actually, I think those are pretty close to the lyrics I picked on Friday. I’ll be really pissed off if this disappears again

Referring to the planned re-touched, re-colored Absolute Sandman, Neil Gaiman writes:

We’re also not planning to add any digital dinosaurs in the background.

I think they’re passing up a great opportunity there. Velociraptors hangin’ out with the dream king. It could be big.

In fact, I think more books, movies, television shows, et cetera should have digital dinosaurs added after the fact. At last we could see just how closely The Flintstones was patterned after The Honeymooners — by adding the occasional stegosaurus or pterodactyl somewhere in the background!