Hangovers

• So I’m mostly caught up on reading Les Blogs, although I skimmed a whole bunch. Esp. the Potter posts. (Is it wrong to be happy that LJ and Typepad and Etc. went down yesterday, because that meant less stuff to read?)
• Speaking of which, J.L. Bell wants to know if his predictions panned out, and there’s a fascinating huddle in the comments at Leila’s (spoiler-heavy).
• TadMack has an excellent post on making space to write, including an amazing poem I’d never read by Naomi Shihab Nye on the subject.
• Over at the Blue Rose Girls, Alvina wants to know how writers really feel about getting editorial letters.
• Trisha at the YA YA YAs is wondering about where the upper YA romances are. (My next book is probably going to be one, but it’ll undoubtedly be classed as fantasy instead of romance.)
• The fabulous Micol Ostow, my sister-in-B&Bhood at the residency, has just had her website redesigned by Little Willow. So pretty. Go see.
• What Christopher was doing in my absence.
• Literaticat wants your book suggestions for SFF appreciation month at Books Inc.
• Diana Wynne Jones on writing for children vs. writing for adults (via somewhere!).
• Maureen McHugh on The Yiddish Policeman’s Union.
• Rachel Shea reviews Acacia in Book World.
• Terri Windling on editing.

• Today is my day to be lazy and bad and sleep in, which I’ve done. It’s raining, so it feels preordained. Who doesn’t want to sleep late when the weather’s crappy? By tomorrow night/Friday morning, I’ll know who I’m working with next semester. That’s kind of nervous-making. So it goes. Now if only I can get some people to stay up late and play mafia. (No one here has played before, except Patrick.) I actually managed to write some yesterday, so really, I’m practically virtuous.
• Little Willow has interviewed Simmone Howell, author of the wonderful Notes from the Teenage Underground, which I posted about the other day. Howell also has an LJ.
• That piece on MFAs in the Atlantic that I haven’t had time to completely read yet. Here’s what he had to say on low res programs (part of it): Those were fascinating. One of the most important strengths is that they’re for the most part drawing older students. I visited Bennington and Goddard during the week that they had their residencies. The students tended to be in their 30s and 40s and they tended to have far more diverse interests in terms of what they wanted to write about.  They seemed to look at this as a wonderful opportunity to kind of—I shouldn’t say “legitimize”—but to kind of honor the writing that they otherwise do quietly after work or early in the morning or whenever it may be. These people have stories to tell. When you’re in a room with a bunch of people who have had some life experiences, it’s going to produce a different type of writing. Also interesting stuff about big-name writers vs. less known people, and what kind of writer makes a better teacher. (Via Mark.)
• Holly Black answers the age-old question of vampires v. elves.
• The last Company novel is coming out? Why didn’t I know this? Has anyone read it yet?
• Dave wants to talk about language, psychology and high fantasy.
• Blyton and Rowling compared in a wonderful piece. (Via Justine.) And speaking of Harry Potter, Gretchen Rubin has a nice little post about the things she’s learned from the books as an all-out fan with her daughter and why they make her happy.
• Helix at it again.
• Laini Taylor gives an excellent example of why teenage girls are awesome.
• Night Shade’s having another ginormous sale. Check it out.
• Nicola Griffith process porn at the Aqueduct Press blog. Yay!

• Melissa shares her thoughts on Lee Smolin’s The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next: If the freaking string theorists would loosen their stranglehold on the physics academy, firebrands like Smolin and crew could spend their time dreaming up even more audacious and beautiful explanations for the reasons the universe looks and feels and acts the way it does instead of banging their collective heads against the concrete wall of string.
• Meghan McCarron on Nicola Griffith’s Always.
• Medialoper on peak oil.
• Alan defines 21st century science fiction.
• I am tired and I must sleep now. So much e-mail. So much to do. Only so many hours in day. Le sigh. Bear with me for the next week or so.

• And this would be the I Really Should Start Packing Procrastination Edition — and I still haven’t gotten to e-mail. I suck.
• Ted went to the MIT Museum after Readercon and saw Arthur Ganson’s kinetic sculptures. He found a couple of videos: Machine with Wishbone and Child Watching Ball.
• These are my people, talking about the practical issues around resurrecting mammoths.
• Moore vs. Gupta. (I lost all respect for Sanjay after his vapid Maher appearance; this seals the deal.) (Via Effect Measure.)
• The trauma of old children’s show segments. Y’all already know that I don’t use condiments because of "Don’t Drown Your Food."

• Still behind on e-mail, but all will be answered by tomorrow night. I promise!
• Pop Matters has a good little interview with John Green: I would also argue, and no one agrees with me on this but I will argue it anyway, that not all YA novels are about teenagers. For instance, I think that Vonnegut was the greatest YA novelist of his century other than maybe Salinger, and Vonnegut never wrote about (or showed the least interest in) teenagers in any literal way. But the ideas of his books, and his stylistic choices, and his voice—all tailor-made for teen readers.
• Meanwhile the other Green brother, Hank, gets the Seven Impossible Things treatment.
• Maureen McHugh on The Road as Not Science Fiction: I found myself wondering things I don’t think I should have been wondering about. All the animal life, birds, everything, is dead. As is all plant life. Bugs? I find myself thinking. Are there no flies? If something killed off all the animals and the plants, how come people are still alive? Was it radiation? But this is Not Science Fiction, and that’s one of the things that Not Science Fiction does. It is unabashed about not building a consistent world.
• Gavin has a request for booksellers: Stock LCRW! Its world domination is imminent!
• La Gringa is running a giveaway contest for David Anthony Durham’s well-received Acacia (in honor of his new kitten). (I’m hoping to have an interview with him within the next month too.) And while you’re over there, help her out with some financial troubles and get a short short.(The universe came through — no help now needed!)
• Giant squid alert! (Via Ysa.)

• The tag-team extravaganza at Inside a Dog featuring Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier guest blogging is up and running. Go over and check it out.
• And yay of yays, Carrie has joined the crew over at About Last Night for some guest blogging of her own. (See her post about it at her usual digs too.)
• Don’t mess with the Hemingways. (Via Jeff.)
• The looting of Le Corbusier’s legacy in Chandigarh. (Via Reechard.)
• Margo Lanagan shows off the pretty cover and divulges the sweet contents of the new collaborative novel Click, to which various writers (herself included) contributed chapters. This sounds dead fab.
• Matt Cheney reviews Liz Hand’s Generation Loss for Strange Horizons — which I finally finished over the weekend and will have some thoughts on later this week. I LOVED it, basically. (SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER: I can definitely see where he’s coming from on the ending, but it worked better for me. I found myself focused less on the bad guy and his frights than on Cass finally fighting back, a thematically pleasing trajectory. But, yeah, the first two-thirds are so perfect, it’s hard to live up to that. Anyway, more soon. ENDETH SPOILER) Highly recommended.
• Wonderful William Gibson interview. (Via Moles.)
• I’m a little swamped today, so bear with me. Emails answered tomorrow, I promise. Also, it’s not every day you go to lunch at a restaurant that thoroughly infuses your clothes with the smell of bacon. I’m just saying. (Or maybe you do. I don’t. It’s freaking me out.)

• John Freeman serves up some gobbledygook; Ed and Moles call him on it. He seems to be missing the point that when people are comparing these shows to novels, they’re actually paying them a complement, you know, saying that they are elevating TV to a higher level. The inference is that novels are still our standard of excellence for storytelling. (I don’t actually buy this logic myself, but the novel is one of the most complex storytelling artforms we have, so we naturally tend to discuss it in those terms.) And I don’t think it’s true that no one reads novels anymore. So there.
• Another brilliant cartoon for writers over at Finding Wonderland: This is Your Brain on Revision. It pretty much sums up my weekend!
• Best obit ever: Count Gottfried von Bismarck. (Via Mr. McLaren.)
• Kelly kicks off a discussion on how people write — literally.
• Matt Ruff’s Bad Monkeys is a Book Sense pick for August and he’s put the first chapter online. As you’ll recall, I adored it.
• Everyone loves the Araboolies musical.
• And finally (via Leila and Betsy), this disappointing statistic (it’s that whole trying to save your loved ones/not icing them thing, I know it):

51%

• Giant extinct penguins. (Via the Swivet.)
• Incredibly small, cute homes.
• Shelley the jerk. (Via Theresa.)
• Meg Rosoff on recommending children’s books. (Via Leila.)
• Betsy at Fusenumber8 reviews Ellen Klages’ new collection Portable Childhoods. (That’s part one, this is part two.)
• Terri Windling has a delicous (sorry) post about food and myth.
• Hannah Wolf Bowen’s thoughts on writers and blogs/journals.
• MTV has apparently employed morons who can’t spell to leave viral marketing comments on posts about The Dark is Rising movie. I must say that even I have little interest in a reality show about interns on the set of what is promising to be a Very Bad Movie.

• The latest issues of Chizine and Farrago’s Wainscot are online.
• Matt Ruff discovers some jaw-dropping racial/cultural stereotypes on display in World of Warcraft.
• Maureen McLane posts at the NBCC blog about Clive James’s Cultural Amnesia: Necessary memories from history and the arts, which I’ve been dipping into lately as well. (And also using to hold down an errant corner of the living room rug.) She’s spot on.
• Maureen McHugh shares the opening of a new story (end of entry).
• Austin Kleon highlights particularly delicious bits from Saul Steinberg’s Reflections and Shadows.
• Chris Barzak meditates on endings, and asks for opinions.

• Scroll down or click here for the scrumptious Poetry Friday Round-Up.
• Jeff Ford unleashes his fury on the Sci-Fi original movie Stan Lee’s Harpies. God, this makes me happy. His final verdict? "This movie gets 1 out of 12 Baldwins." Hee.
• Will Shetterly has had a run of interesting posts lately: here’s one on the extra gas cost associated with Americans’ increasing girth; one on the class stuff re: facebook and myspace; and one on narrative choices and using second person in his new book.
• The First Annual Kidlitosphere Conference is in the works for Chicago this fall; I might just try to make that one.
• Kate S. has a very interesting post about Elaine Dundy’s work and angry young men.
• Maureen McHugh makes a salad.
• The world without human beings.