In his recent review of James Gunn’s The Immortals, Gerald Jonas writes:

Magazine science fiction of the 1950’s placed a premium on clever premises. Only rarely were those premises worked out in plausible stories about believable people in authentic-seeming futures. Gunn’s characters in “The Immortals” were clearly created to serve the needs of the plot. The projected future — an America whose social fabric has all but disintegrated — feels thin and arbitrary; it is hard to imagine anything going on in this world outside the narrow spotlight of the narrative. Readers with fond memories of yesterday’s science fiction will enjoy the deja vu quality of “The Immortals.” Others might use as a yardstick to see how far the genre has come in wedding mind-opening premises to the time-honored virtues of literate fiction.

Just found that interesting, is all.

My search referrers are a weird mix of Elizabethan study and often misspelled porn. They range from “shakespeare and his use of supernatural” to the always popular “sex with chicks”.

Someone also came here yesterday looking for “dirty amish jokes,” so if any of you filthy butter-churners know any, do tell.

I’m not sure if I should find this offensive or just surreal:

That said, even the most repulsive photographs bear witness. They are evidence. And therefore a kind of gift to memory. We live in an amnesiac society. The Abu Ghraib photographs have passed from the headlines to the art pages in half a year. One can only imagine how much further they may retreat in six more months.

Again, registration or BugMeNot login required for the full story.

(Incidentally, I hadn’t noticed this section before. I assume it’s a parody.)

Have you ever heard a song (say in a commerical or a movie or wherever) and thought, “Gee, that sounds neat. I wish I had a copy of that.” — only to discover later that you already do have a copy of the song?