{"id":3629,"date":"2009-11-26T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-26T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3629"},"modified":"2009-11-26T13:02:52","modified_gmt":"2009-11-26T18:02:52","slug":"thursday-cornucopia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3629","title":{"rendered":"Thursday cornucopia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font face=\"Verdana\" size=\"2\"><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Mark Evanier on the origin of the phrase &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsfromme.com\/archives\/2009_11_20.html#018083\">top banana<\/a>.&#8221; I&#8217;m not entirely sure if this is true, but it&#8217;s a lot more convincing than some of the other origin stories I&#8217;ve seen.<\/li>\n<li>The most environmentally friendly city in the United States? Surprisingly, <a href=\"http:\/\/e360.yale.edu\/content\/feature.msp?id=2203\">it might be New York City<\/a>. [<a href=\"http:\/\/gerrycanavan.wordpress.com\/\" title=\"Gerry Canavan\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li>I wonder if that means we&#8217;ll be able to avoid post-apocalyptic scenes <a href=\"http:\/\/bldgblog.blogspot.com\/2009\/11\/city-and-its-flooded-double_13.html\" title=\"The City and its Flooded Double\">like these<\/a> [<a href=\"http:\/\/gerrycanavan.wordpress.com\/\" title=\"Gerry Canavan\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li>Maybe we can at least stop getting <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lettersofnote.com\/2009\/11\/dear-mayor-of-new-york-city.html\">letters like these<\/a>. Although I do particularly like the 1911 letter to Mayor Jay Gaynor about &#8220;the disgraceful acts that take place daily in Bryant Park.&#8221; Imagine if the letter writer had ever seen it during <a href=\"http:\/\/manhattan.about.com\/od\/eventsandattractions\/a\/fashionweeknyc.htm\">Fashion Week<\/a>!<\/li>\n<li>Speaking of letters, and more particularly, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lettersofnote.com\/\">Letters of Note<\/a>, I particularly liked <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lettersofnote.com\/2009\/11\/slaughterhouse-five.html\">Kurt Vonnegut&#8217;s letter home<\/a> after surviving being a POW and the bombing of Dresden. Makes me want to re-read <i>Slaughterhouse-Five<\/i>.<\/li>\n<li>Continuing a theme: <a href=\"http:\/\/scifiwire.com\/2009\/11\/navy-was-ordered-to-liste.php\">Navy was ordered to listen for Martians in 1924<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Sure, <a href=\"http:\/\/mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com\/2009\/11\/24\/magazine-publishers-to-build-an-online-newsstand\/\">an &#8220;iTunes for magazines&#8221;<\/a> sounds like an intriguing idea &#8212; maybe &#8212; but what does it even <i>mean<\/i>? [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bookninja.com\" title=\"Bookninja\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li>Often find yourself bemoaning the lack of originality in Hollywood and endless parade of remakes, sequels and prequels? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slashfilm.com\/2009\/11\/16\/only-two-of-the-top-30-grossing-films-of-this-decade-are-original\/\" title=\"Only Two of the Top 30 Grossing Films of This Decade Are Original\">It&#8217;s much worse than you think<\/a>. [<a href=\"http:\/\/gerrycanavan.wordpress.com\/\" title=\"Gerry Canavan\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li>Speaking, sort of, of such, should Stephen King write <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/books\/2009\/nov\/25\/stephenking\">a sequel to <i>The Shining<\/i><\/a>? Well, if it&#8217;s a <i>good<\/i> sequel, why not? [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cynical-c.com\/\" title=\"Cynical-C\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li>Meanwhile, King is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.readersread.com\/blog\/1025091\">delaying the e-book release<\/a> of his new novel, <i>Under the Dome<\/i>. (I&#8217;ve heard <a href=\"http:\/\/www.avclub.com\/articles\/stephen-king-under-the-dome,35754\/\">some good things<\/a>, but I am waiting for the e-book.) Allegedly, it&#8217;s &#8220;in hopes of helping independent bookstores and the national bookstore chains sell the hardcover edition.&#8221; Which actually, on King&#8217;s part I don&#8217;t really doubt, although I&#8217;m sure his publisher is eyeing its own bottom line more closely. The exercise will probably have no effect at all, given <a href=\"http:\/\/www.time.com\/time\/business\/article\/0,8599,1932426,00.html\">the price war<\/a> being waged between Wal-Mart, Amazon, and Target (among others), except to annoy those of us who want a copy but don&#8217;t want to cart around a 1,000+-page hardcover.\n<p><font face=\"Verdana\" size=\"2\">It makes me wonder, though, what things would be like if one could purchase e-books from <i>independent<\/i> bookstores. Maybe it&#8217;s time to start looking into <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indiebound.org\/\">IndieBound<\/a> more closely&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>For now, I guess I&#8217;ll just have to settle for reading King&#8217;s new poem <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/books\/2009\/nov\/04\/stephen-king-publishes-poem-playboy\">in the November issue of <i>Playboy<\/i><\/a>. (That link, to <i>The Guardian<\/i>, is SFW. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.playboy.com\/articles\/stephen-king-the-bone-church\/index.html\">link to the poem itself<\/a>? Not so much. Then again, it doesn&#8217;t seem to be working anymore, so if you want to read &#8220;The Bone Church,&#8221; you may have purchase the issue or wait until it&#8217;s reprinted elsewhere. [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bookslut.com\/blog\/\" title=\"Bookslut\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li>Also potentially a little NSFW: this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gearfuse.com\/graffiti-control-on-the-death-star\/\">Graffiti Control on the Death Star<\/a> cartoon. I found it amusing, though. [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfsignal.com\/\" title=\"SF Signal\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li>Of course, if I wanted to avoid the price war altogether, I could go with free books only. Like Gregory Maguire&#8217;s new novel. He and his publisher are <a href=\"http:\/\/shelf-life.ew.com\/2009\/10\/22\/gregory-maguire-free-nove\/\">giving away 2,500 copies of the book<\/a>, provided you agree to make a small donation \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to a local charity, someone who needs it, or a stranger on the street.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I don&#8217;t have any particular interest in the book itself &#8212; I liked but didn&#8217;t love <i>Wicked<\/i>, the only Maguire book I&#8217;ve ever read &#8212; but it&#8217;s an interesting idea. Although that seems like a big print run for a small publisher to just be giving away. [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfsignal.com\/\" title=\"SF Signal\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;ve heard reasonably good things about <a href=\"http:\/\/irreference.com\/pride-and-prejudice-and-zombies\/\">the book<\/a> that started this Jane Austen mashup craze, and my sister and her husband even recently bought me a copy. But now there&#8217;s a <i>third<\/i>? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.norilana.com\/norilana-curiosities.htm\">Mansfield Park and Mummies<\/a>? I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ve ever been more glad that Jane Austen only wrote six novels.\n<p><font face=\"Verdana\" size=\"2\">Though, there&#8217;s already a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1594744548\/ref=nosim\/?tag=artemismagazine\"><i>Pride and Prejudice and Zombies<\/i> sequel<\/a> planned. [<a href=\"http:\/\/sfscope.com\/\" title=\"SF Scope\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li>And finally, speaking of Jane Austen&#8230; Mitchell &#038; Webb&#8217;s &#8220;Posh Dancing&#8221; [<a href=\"http:\/\/glvalentine.livejournal.com\/\" title=\"Genevieve Valentine\">via<\/a>]\n<p><object width=\"560\" height=\"340\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/gTchxR4suto&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;color1=0xe1600f&#038;color2=0xfebd01\"><\/param><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><\/param><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/gTchxR4suto&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;color1=0xe1600f&#038;color2=0xfebd01\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" width=\"560\" height=\"340\"><\/embed><\/object><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mark Evanier on the origin of the phrase &#8220;top banana.&#8221; I&#8217;m not entirely sure if this is true, but it&#8217;s a lot more convincing than some of the other origin stories I&#8217;ve seen. The most environmentally friendly city in the United States? Surprisingly, it might be New York City. [via] I wonder if that means &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3629\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[67,16,80,20,76,54,53,9,11,10,7,87,39,24],"class_list":["post-3629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-america","tag-books","tag-comedy","tag-comics","tag-environment","tag-new-york","tag-poetry","tag-pop-culture","tag-publishing","tag-various","tag-videos","tag-vonnegut","tag-weird","tag-zombies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3629"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}