October 31, 2011
October 29, 2011
.October 28, 2011
October 26, 2011
Know Your Product
I am quoted in this article on Spotify and other music streaming services by our own Nate Pensky.
October 18, 2011
Oh I love a good religious group
I saw this Paul Lynde Halloween Special
October 15, 2011
October 13, 2011
Time Will Show the Wiser
The Fairport Convention version
And the lit shall quake
Come see me stand awkwardly at a podium and read stuff at the Make-out Room tomorrow night, if that sounds like a good time to you. I can't speak for the relative awkwardness of the other writers, but if past experience of "readings" is any indication the awkwardness will be thick on the ground. You know you love it.
(Friday Oct. 14, 3225 22nd St. in San Francisco. 7PM.)
October 11, 2011
The Case of the Lax Librarian
An English teacher reviews King Dork:
I don’t remember laughing at all. Maybe I was disappointed by the sensual scenes, which I’m sure our librarian has not yet read – otherwise it would probably be banned.
October 10, 2011
.The War on Tape
There's less here than meets the eye, of course: they're simply removing what they see as a less important term from the "concise" edition of the OED, not attempting to erase it completely, and using the fact that they're doing it to call attention to the publication in such a manner that people like me will post outraged links to it. I'm in the publishing racket myself, a bit. If you can sell just one more copy, we publishing people tend to feel, it's worth being a little dumb from time to time.
That said, the notion that a dictionary ought to eliminate words that are "past their prime" is really quite screwy. Those are the words people tend to need to look up.
I doubt very much that anyone using the Concise OED in this edition's lifetime will be so puzzled by the term "cassette tape" that he would have to go scrambling to look it up. But then, by the perverse ethos expressed by the dictionary editor -- essentially a kind of "stick to what you know" standard -- that's an argument for keeping it in, if anything.
That's more comment than the story probably deserves. Note to self: cultivate an air of pauciloquent pococurantism when it comes to footling japes in the agora.
(via Nick Hornby.)
October 08, 2011
.October 05, 2011
October 03, 2011
Things I am Scheduled to Do
As I've mentioned, I'm doing a solo-acoustic set on Tuesday October 4th (nickel beer night) at the Beauty Bar in Las Vegas. (517 Fremont St. -- I think I'm going to be playing around midnight.)
Also I'm going to be appearing at this Litquake event featuring people who wrote books about rock and roll, on Friday Oct. 14 at the Makeout Room (3225 22nd St. in San Francisco.) It's a reading rather than a playing situation, and I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but I'm considering reading something from the still-in-progress King Dork Approximately. If I don't chicken out.
Lucky
Thought for the day, from the Bay Area guy whose house was mistakenly raided by a federal tactical team abetted by local police last month:
I think when you're going to be performing a guns unholstered, safeties off, surprise raid during peacetime, you need to get damn close to 100% certainty that you are targeting the right folks.Hard to disagree with that. I have to say though, that this guy still doesn't quite seem to grasp how incredibly lucky he and his family are to be alive.
"But if the Obama administration's legal rationales [for its own violations of civil liberties] pave the way for Congress rolling back those powers someday, well, then that would be a much better outcome, wouldn't it?"
That's apparently the best Mother Jones can come up with as a defense of Obama's civil liberties record.