Hangovers

• Colleen Mondor posts in typically fascinating style about Caitlin Kiernan’s Alabaster and the nature of angels. I must get a copy of this, even thoughbecause I’ve read a number of the Dancy stories already.
• Over at Critical Mass, National Book Critics Circle board of directors member Jennifer Reese of EW is interviewed. And gives hope that Julie Phillips Tiptree bio might get some EW love (last answer).
• Mr. McLaren reveals the Grossest Cheese in the World. (Possibly grossest FOOD in the world.)
• Accidental Mysteries (photographs). Can’t remember where I first saw this, but they’re extraordinary.

• Cheryl Morgan has announced that Emerald City will cease publication after the next few months.
• The new issue of Lone Star Stories is live and looks good.
• Tod Goldberg available to write for Mel Gibson. Or something like that.
• Tito has links to an interview with and four free new songs by the Two Gallants, who I’m currently liking very much. Plus, wine-tasting robots!
• SUPEREXCITINGNESS: The utterly fabulous Jenny Davidson has a piece in The Believer about "Toni Schlesinger’s spooky real-estate writing." Which I’ve been meaning to read ever since she raved about it. Yay!

• BibliOdyssey has some beautiful old planet images; new wallpaper here I come.
• Charles Simic on dada (I’m still trying to forgive him for that horrible piece on the South, but I love). (Via Jeff, with the cutest family In The World.)
• Two views on King Dork: Abigail Nussbaum and Erin at Rarely Likable.
• I completely missed the much more intelligent than the piece kerfluffle over the WSJ’s latest idiot take on YA (remember the "oh, these books are racy" crap last year?), but Colleen Mondor’s place is a good starting point to follow the responses.
• A mostly rave review (hated the ending) of Shelley Jackson’s fabulously odd sounding new book Half-Life. Strangely, the reviewer — who makes a point of talking about her past work — seems completely unaware of her story collection, The Melancholy of Anatomy.
• Brutal Women’s Kameron Hurley has a new story, "The Women of Our Occupation," up at Strange Horizons. UPDATED: This is a spectacular story; definitely go read it.
• Pinky remembers an enchanting, chance encounter with the recently departed Rupert Pole, Anais Nin’s second husband.

Mea culpa for the disappearing act this week. Busy with socialization and not getting enough sleep; the weekend’s goal is to normalize, catch up on email, see some probably bad movies, read a lot, and get writing the book back into the groove. In the meantime, some links:

• Anthony Bourdain on being trapped in Beirut to watch it burn: "It takes three days of planning and surveillance to set up a kidnapping" says Mr. Wolfe, lowering his voice suddenly when a lone gentleman in casual clothes enters our area of the balcony and sits at a nearby table. "Amateur," says Mr. Wolfe. "Look at how he’s got his face pointed straight out at sea, his ear cocked in our direction. Clumsy. Obvious."
• The second Coode Street podcast is online, featuring Tim Pratt reading his story "The Third-Quarter King."
• Scalzi interviews Ellen Kushner.
• Meanwhile, Little Willow grills Scott and Justine.
• Austin Kleon puts up a lovely comic in response to a McSweeney’s writing prompt. (Hot air balloon!)
• Jenny Davidson on a fascinating-sounding book about the history of eugenics.
• The 1903 Alice in Wonderland is on YouTube. Isn’t everything? (Via.)

• Niall Harrison on infodumps and techniques of exposition.
• Touring Edward Gorey’s place. (Via Theresa Duncan.)
• George Pelecanos interview with the City Pages, featuring mucho Wire talk. (Via Sarah.)
• The discovery of a new tomb in the Valley of the Kings. (Via Colleen.)
• Liza Palmer’s writing tip Thursday on balls of yarn in storytelling.
• Sarah Dessen has her own southern moment: cows at the post office.
• The influence of Miami Vice on fashion in the NYT.

• Lots of interesting TV news coming out of the press previews this week. The Watcher had dirt on Gilmore Girls (who knew the new showrunner was such a, uh, Project Runway fan aka Klum stalker?) and Veronica Mars (boo 13 episode order and ominous talk about the need to pull ratings) yesterday. And Medialoper has more good related links, including one to (quasi-TV related here) a preview of Joss Whedon’s new Buffy comic. I just finished catching up on his fabulous run on The Astonishing X-Men and can’t wait for this (and more X-stallments).
• Mr. Cavin relaunches. Don’t worry, sir, you’ve got plenty of style.
• Scott at SlushPile solves The Curious Incident of the Cruise-Holmes Invisible Baby. It involves Merlin.
• Cecil provides a warm, sensible response to a misguided letter criticizing the content of her excellent novel The Queen of Cool. Which you’ve all read by now, right? Thought so.
• Sarah Monette has some fascinating ruminations on race and growing up in Oak Ridge as part of blog against racism week.
• Stolen from Medialoper (link above), Dwight Shrute on what would happen when the cast of Battlestar Gallactica crash land on the Lost island: First of all, they would have lasers. Adama would quickly secure the  hatch for his crew. The survivors of the Oceanic flight 815 would be herded up like little children and inspected like cattle.
• Tidbits from a Louisville symposium on the future of the library.
• Hank Stuever on Brad Pitt: Soon Brad or Angie will begin showing up and just laying on hands. He’ll spit in the dirt and make clay and rub it on the eyes of the blind. People will clamor just to touch the frayed hem of his cargo pants. As if they already don’t.

• I’m attempting to get back on track with some real posts, but things are hot, busy, and, also, last night there was an unfortunate pratfall involving a sudden squirrel and a surging dog that has left me a bit bruised and achy. And, you know, I’m trying to write this stupid book. And I’m behind on email again. Digging. Digging.
• Theresa Duncan on an interesting German (mis)translation in PKD’s Ubik.
• Nobody likes CW green. Especially not TV critics.
• However, John Maynard likes Eureka, which premieres tonight on Sci-Fi. I’ve been sold on at least giving this one a shot since seeing it described as an SF Twin Peaks. (Not that Twin Peaks wasn’t SFnal.) Plus, we are now stuck in the barren TV wasteland of summer, with only Project Runway as sustenance.
• Over at Pirate writers Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott’s Wordplayer forums, someone pointed to a marine biologist’s review of Dead Man’s Chest (which I liked a ton):

  Charles: I thought you might be upset by the reinforcement of negative squid stereotypes.

  Danna: This might be another “take what I can get” moment.

  I was somewhat upset that the Kraken had all those teeth instead of a beak, though.

• E. Lockhart on blog against racism week, which lots of interesting people are participating in. I’m mulling what to post about.
• The NYT takes a look at new developments in AI. If that interests you, then I also recommend Robert Frenay’s fascinating new book Pulse: The Coming Age of Systems and Machines Inspired By Living Things, which I’m still working my way through. It strikes me there’s at least a dozen novels hiding in that book, maybe more.
• And, last but certainly not least, do click click click over to Jeff VanderMeer‘s absolutely gorgeous new Web site collecting all things related to his new novel Shriek: An Afterword. And you might also pop over to the Shriek: The Movie blog. Exciting, innovative stuff.

• Andy Duncan approves of one of the first two installments of TNT’s "Nightmares and Dreamscapes."
• Kassia has an excellent post on the future of the record store over at MediaLoper.
• Music critic Michaelangelo Matos’ mix for the first half of the year.
• Another reason to love Liza Palmer; her take on the new anti-chick lit anthology: But, let me be serious — I know, it’s hard with all of these Cosmopolitans and shoe boxes littering my workspace — and well, to be quite frank – the cobwebs on these items are pretty out of control — because they’re fucking ancient. It’s just all so pathetic and junior high. I would hope that these people would do as I’ve done – just write books, live your life and go about your business…pursuit of happiness and all that. One would argue that those who constantly bitch and moan about the success of others could be categorized as frustrated and feeling…well, forgotten, ignored, unread and just unloved.
• The Watcher on what the new TV season press tour experience is like.
• Laila Lalami waxes wise on surviving the coverage of "the brink of war" in the Middle East.
• The WaPo reviews Eduardo Galeano’s new one. High on my must have list.
• New LBC Read This! pick announced today. Check in this week for the dish on the other nominated titles.

• Water witching: does dowsing work? (Via Theresa Duncan.)
• Desson Howe gives his approval to A Scanner Darkly.
• BibliOdyssey on the origin of trolls.
• Julie Phillips has launched a new site promoting her much-buzzed-about new Tiptree biography, James Tiptree, Jr: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, which makes me drool with anticipation. (Via Justine.)
• Alan mix and matches two quotes on style in writing.

• Thanks for all the nice messages and comments yesterday; I’m still working through them and vow to answer each and every one. And I understand Typepad was down for quite awhile, but hey, at least I wasn’t around to be frustrated by it!
• The brand-spanking-new Twenty Epics anthology of short stories of epic scale is now out. And lots of people are blogging about it today. I’m assuming Mr. Moles is the center point from which all this online launch party fun can be followed.
• The first two Office web-isodes go live today. (Also, SPOILERLY, rumors flying that the British Office cast may visit Scranton next season!)
• Frederick Reuss, author of Mohr, is profiled in the WaPo. Quite liked this book. Via TEV.
• Carl Zimmer adds to the Nature list of top 50 science blogs.
• Scalzi interviews DeNiro.
• More dead baby doll pictures. (Thanks, Mr. Cavin!)