David Thayer

Special to the Druidical & Literary. A horrified quality control team has released a report about the content on this blog. “The readers have been duped into reading Voltaire’s Miasma. These seemingly random blog entries are actually a blook.” The entries form a kind of autobiographical sketch of the earl, no doubt skewed to avoid certain glaring truths. “This is the sort of scandal the publishing world can ill afford,” noted Team Leader Scooter Libby. “The good people of Wellington Leg, Goth, and Henley Hornbrook have been suborned, reduced to bit parts in a dreadful potboiler that posits the notion that California has been invaded by the Roman Army.”

Copies of the report were leaked to the press by Prudentia Chalfont-Smythe chair of the Executive Committee. “We wish to apologize to literary agents editors and readers especially those residents of Los Angeles who may have altered plans for outdoor activities based on specious reports from the earl and his cronies.”
Spokespeople for the European Union are distraught. Germany is not about cede Bavaria to the daft claims of a princess-bookie and an unregistered unpublished earl. The people of France are outraged that Voltaire is being abused even in death.
Chalfont-Smythe goes on to say “Even twenty seven days in a chimney, a legitimate world’s record, failed to ignite his literary career.”
“My own blook Her Lyrical Poetry will be ready for publication far in advance of the earl’s mad collection of Volvo moments as he calls them; I’m far from certain what a “Volvo moment” is although I suspect being dragged across the floor of a train station by a fleeing literary agent may qualify. I doubt whether the Volvo automobile people or indeed the citizens of Sweden appreciate being the butt of such jokes.” Chalfont-Smythe will be appearing at Eddie’s Book Nook in Redding California. Redding is of course the capital city of “free California.” Roman skirmishers were seen at the outlet mall in March, but chief of mall security Dick Cheney sez “the shopping lamp is lit.”

Lee Goldberg has a link to an article in the Contra Costa Times about blogs written by fictional characters, including one Lee writes as a character from the TV show Monk. This is an alarming trend points out D&L publisher Oliver Castinstone: “This has an Alice in Wonderland quality that I for one doubt will ever catch on.” Oliver claims to be in Texas where Tom Delay’s pockets are being emptied in search of tickets to the Oval Office and discount parking permits. Rumors persist that DeLay will become an Amazon. Reviewer.

“Fictional characters blogging?” The Dowager Princess is in Ventura County to press her claims to the throne of Bavaria. “I adore Lee Goldberg, but for heaven sake, I’m in the middle of a legal battle and don’t want to be fooled with…” The Princess reports that life in beseiged Los Angeles seems remarkably normal. “The Romans briefly seized control of the Beverley Hills Hotel,” she reports. “But not the bungalows.”

The Earl could not be reached for comment. His embittered dogsbody Urquhart Depew seemed bemused by all the fuss. “Existence is a fragile thing,” he said. “That’s why I lean on my rake.”

While the earl ices down his elbow and exchanges notes on how to pitch the Duchess the rest of the staff is corraling the latest literary news. Spring means more than the crack of the bat or ping of the bat for those who favor aluminum; the Duchess does and she hit the Budweiser sign above Hadrian’s Ampitheater swinging that timber. Or that extruded bauxite. When she’s not winning home run derbies she is busy covering the book beat for our crosstown rival the Wellington Leg Intelligencer.  Rather than write our own article we swiped hers utilizing the Rick Moody Biccycle Messenger ploy from The Diviners.

Special to the PI:  Denise Mina is among the faculty this year at the Book Passage Mystery Conference July 13-16. The author of Field of Blood, Deception, and the Garnethill Trilogy will join Martin Cruz Smith, John Lescroart, Rhys Bowen, and Robert Crais at the conference in Corte Madera. Cornelia Read will be there as well after the release of A Field of Darkness. Jacqueline Winspear and Sheldon Siegel co-chair the conference. Cara Black, Kirk Russell, Tony Broadbent, Hallie Ephron, and Camille Minichino round out the staff.

We have to lure the Duchess away from the PI. Stealing her stories is cheaper, but what about journalistic integrity? With the earl a resin bag away from greatness what does this portend for the Druidical & Literary? Fade to organ music…