For Everything Else, There’s Currency Baskets, Short range Nukes, Cheap Sunglasses
Janet Maslin has been kidnapped by aliens. In her place is a sweet tempered lady whose critical faculties approximate those of Harriet Klausner. Tell us your story, Janet. Were you in the country for a breath of fresh air when all of a sudden you saw bright lights, the heavenly host, little guys in Fox Mulder teeshirts? Or was it the F train again? Please give Janet back to us whoever you are. Many thanks.
Instead of reading Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, why not read Julia O’Faolain’s No Country for Young Men, a novel that is far superior. McCarthy’s latest novel is reviewed by James Wood in a New Yorker column as long as the novel itself. The elegant takedown bears repeated reading.
Ron Hogan of Beatrice fame is holding a pledge drive, that is he is asking his readers for money. he claims to have raised over nine hundred dollars thus far, about the same amount a bartender makes on a weekend. I passed the idea of begging along to the Forty Third Earl of Watership Down, who had this to say: “I’m certain that if one is deserving of remuneration, a judgment closely held to be sure, that, revolting as it may seem, a certain sharing of the wealth is both healthy and inevitable.” The earl has never gotten over Spartacus.
Maud Newton in the New York Times. With Janet sidelined, Maud looked past the author photo and read the book. These litbloggers are ruthless.
A Chinese general threatened the US with a nuclear strike if Taiwan pursues independence. Perhaps a little whale watching is in order for the general, maybe a Joni Mitchell CD. Or a good book. Cormac? Write the man a note, for crying out loud.