Hangovers

• In the Library scent home perfume spray (and actually, tons of interesting looking perfumes and stuff there). (Via The Wit of the Staircase.)
• Dana laments the death of one of her personal landmarks, Pimp My Ride.
• "The Cult of the Mean Girl" in the Toronto Star. (Via Bad Feminist.)
• A quilt made of squares written on by various writers who’ve written work for kids. It was a Girl Scout project! (I’m a little bitter about the Girl Scouts because some grifters came through our tiny town when I was of that certain age and they took our money and held a mixer and then were never seen again. So I never got to Girl Scouts. I feel my life would have turned out completely different, had I but had a den mother.)
• Jim Hanas launches The Lit List. Check it out.
• Miss Snark makes many writers happy with this one (including me): The last thing I want is to have authors cranking things out like this was a widget factory. At most I’d like one novel a year. You start producing more than that, you’ll saturate the market AND most likely your writing will suffer. There’s more where that came from.
• Clare Dudman with a great account of a talk she attended on the mind and creativity.
• Rarely LIkable amuses with the observation that the first chapter of Kevin Brockmeier’s The Brief History of the Dead (which originally appeared in The New Yorker) should be titled "Settingporn For Invisible Cities Fans." (I also have The Thin Place out from the library, but haven’t started it yet because I’m deep in the depths of required reading.)
• Mr. "Not One Year Older, One Year BETTER" McLaren has the goods on the audio of an interview with Margo Lanagan.

• I seem to have a cold (8-year-olds = bioterrorists). I resent this. My resentment is almost as great as my sadness at missing this year’s … Oscar Party. Almost. More whining about that to come, I’m sure. Even though I’ll be taking part in Ed’s live blogging extravaganza.
• Speaking of Ed, he conjures an updated "Ramona the Alternative" to go along with the beltless version of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
• Birnbaum’s On Notice profiles a new book collecting 200 Eugene Meatyard photos. Must. Have.
• Heretical Unbeliefs at the Staircase Witty Joint. Also, via, Settala’s Wunderkammer. (Lovely pictures.)
• That crazy Big-Headed Canadian Whisky Man has a Guinness ice cream recipe.
• Interview with Salvador Plascencia. (Via YPTR.)
• I know I’ve mentioned this already, but Midnighters #3 is OUT. (Have you bought your copy yet?) Diana Peterfreund has a good post about the series and Scott’s opened a spoiler thread for discussion of the ending. Scott kindly gave me a copy when we were all over in Scotland and I devoured it on the plane ride home; I heart all the Midnighters books and this one is very, very excellent. And full of the good kind of math!

• I keep forgetting to link this post from the Antigeist, on becoming "The Lady." Don’t miss.
• Some info here on Tamora Pierce’s dead interesting exclusive deal with Marvel. (Thanks, Mr. McLaren!)
• The world is abuzz with the arrival of the Bantam trade paperback edition of Jeff VanderMeer’s City of Saints of Madmen. Cover pretty. Contents excellent. You must buy. (Seriously, look at that cover. PRETTY.)
• Distillery to revive 184-proof whisky. (Via Maud.)
• Merry Pancake Tuesday, everybody. Get yourself some sugar.

• The new uncurse curses. (Via Bookninja.)
• Janni Simner’s "Practical Villainy," originally published in Say…, is up at Escape Pod. Listen.
• Glen Hirshberg on teaching.
• Lauren has a gastronomic adventure in Basque country.
• The Geek Heirarchy (on your marks, get set, commence arguing: now!). (Via Matilda.)
• More Office-y goodness from The Watcher.
• The Midnighters trilogy is offically published and complete. Get them while they’re hot!

• Sorry there’s so much good stuff today — I’ll leave you hangoverless the rest of the week. Promise. Maybe.
• No TV Goodness this week, or next. On a happier note, the nasty rumors flying that there wouldn’t be a new ep of Veronica Mars aired until APRIL are untrue. The WB says it will return March 15 and be new through the finale. Still: le sigh for now.
• Betty Friedan Honored With Second Class Postage Stamp. (Via Bookninja.)
• The wonderful Colleen Mondor sings the praises of the Lulu Dark books, and, damn her, adds yet more titles to my TBRI (To Be Read Immediately) List.
• Sarah Weinman on the fascinating life of Stephanie von Hohenlohe.
• Chris McLaren kicks off his quest to make you love Bertrand Russell as much as he does with a stellar post.
• Monsterpiece Theater. (Via Ed the ranter.)
• Maud Newton has lots of great language and dialect links.
• Lauren Cerand uncovers the goods on journalist Edith Evans Asbury.
• La Gringa on the role of joy in sports, by way of ice skating.
• Over at Powells, Alexis posts about wishing the literature section and the YA section weren’t so far apart. It’s an interesting post, but with so many outstanding YAs being written, I think many teens must be happily reading from both places  (and more — I know I did). (Via The Millions.)
• For the record, I am no idolspizer.
• Claire Light has a new blog. (I haven’t met Claire, except over email, but we’re in the same — hopefully, anyway — reading group at Wiscon this year and I’m really looking forward to it.) Roll her.
• Dave Schwartz‘s "Screen" is up at Pindeldyboz. Go read it.

• Miss Computer 1973.
• Swink Online has new guidelines (submit, fools!). (Via Babies are Fireproof.)
• I could be an Olympian in this. I’m pretty fucking sure.
• The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft. (Via MeFi.)
• The Millions has moved. Adjust links accordingly.
• Another excellent post from Agent Kristin: A NO is simply a NO—nothing more.
  Quit whining about it. Quit being attached to your story about why you haven’t published yet. You’re expending too much energy in that arena. Move on. If one novel didn’t sell, get on to that next one. You already know you are courageous. What more do you need?
• Maureen on empanadas (and more — I so want the collected Maureen McHugh on Food).
• Two addictively excellent wine blogs: Basic Juice and Turn the Screw.
• And it’s Garner week at the LBC; this time I really do plan to post.

The I’m Sleepy edition…

• Become an early fan of The Smug Superiority Show with Dana and Bill.
• Supastars Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier are interviewed at the wonderful Cynsations in advance of their supatrip to Bologna. (In honor of Justine saying they are only competitive over silly things, please email me your vote on which interview is better.) (KIDDING.)
• Bad News Hughes indulges in some RenFaire mockery with photos. Easy? Yes. Funny? At times, very; the last pic is my favorite. (Via Maud.) UPDATED: The Happy Booker takes a field trip to a reenactment and writes about it in the WaPo.
• The Antigeist summarizes the whole post-game interview.
• Jenny D loved Love Walked In (as did Ms. SuperSecret), which makes me very happy. My take is here.
• Biblically Correct Museum Tours: "My contention is evolution kills people," Jack said in an interview.
• And Hank Stuever on the excellent Johnny Weir.

• William Blake watercolors may be split at auction.
• Book of the Day rereads Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret and finds it holds up well and, shockingly, that they have updated the belted contraption to adhesive pads. Somehow the horror just isn’t the same.
• This book looks fantastic, and it’s got an intro by KJF.
• Maccers on the commonality of lying.
• Lots of writers posting at Moistworks this week, including Lethem. (Via Jeff.)
• Have you been checking out Rupert Thomson week at the LBC? I didn’t RSVP, but I plan to crash at some point.
• Surrealism and the uncanny, two quotes lifted by Derik. (Via Lauren.)
• I love gchat and KoL most this week. That is all.

• Fun with Wikipedia. (Via Feoshia.)
• Damn that Gilly/Butner/DeNiro continuum for getting us hooked on The Kingdom of Loathing (I’m Mrs Parker, Disco Bandit; why do you ask?) Alan, we want to InfernoKrush!
• Rebecca Skloot on the Robert Hooke manuscript discovered in an old cupboard. Why don’t we ever have this kind of luck? Pls, dead scientists, send scratch.
• La Gringa has the codes you can use to get cheap Ts at the Secret Threadless T-shirt Sale.
• Scariest photo ever. (Via Mr. McLaren, fancy web man.)
• An excellent Hollywood post by Josh Friedman.
• Stopping robots, especially since Philip K. Dick’s is on the loose.
• Over at Pub Rants, Agent Kristin posts some thoughts by one of her authors on publicists. Worth a look.
• Matt Cheney’s latest Strange Horizons column is also worth a look (read: truly excellent). And so is some discussion spurred by it at Hannah’s place. (And a dashed off two cents to that one: For me as a reader, the best thing any reviewer can do is firmly and clearly establish their taste, their POV, where they are rapping from — because if I know that, I can generally make a judgment as to how much a given book is going to appeal to me based on their reaction (maybe even if it’s poorly articulated).) Anyway. There’s also Elizabeth Bear’s latest amazing post, which seems a response to this and larger things too.

• I’ve been meaning to mention this since FOREVER, and The Times-Picayune finally reminds me with a rave review of the anthology Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?. It has contributions by her and her; what more convincing do you need?
• Gavin read Lydia Millet’s Oh Pure and Radiant Heart. (Feb 12 entry.)
• And via, a little interview with Kelly in the Charlotte Observer, wherein the interviewer seems to think she’s written "creepy" novels. Or perhaps is just choosing to refer to short stories as novels. (But it’s a good piece, despite that.)
• Rock star bad-ass author Rupert Thomson is in the house at the LBC today, but he wants questions. From you. (It’s Divided Kingdom week over there, btw. I loved it and think lots of y’all SF types would/will too.)
• What an assortment of romance publishers pay.
• Admittedly, I’ve only heard one track off the new Jenny Lewis album and it would be "The Big Guns." But am I the only person who’s disturbed that she sounds like she’s impersonating Neko Case on it? (And btw, the one track I’ve heard from Case’s new album is fantastic. And it has the best cover ever — over there to the right.)
• I know it’s early, but I deem this the post of the week: Jeff Ford on appearing before the Garden State Horror Writers. Or not.