Musicals Coming Soon

In the "Wow, I didn't think they'd ever make a musical of that" department:

The Diary of Anne Frank: The Musical

and...

The Fight Club: The Musical.

Top Shelves

Sean Dodson at the Guardian Unlimited lists the best bookstores in the world, including Porto, Portugal's Livraria Lello (pictured above).

William Blake Poems Animated By Legos

Why We Write

I don't know if you've been following the news but the Writers Guild of America is on strike. Of course you've noticed! Instead of watching good television (which isn't on anymore due to said strike) you've resorted to watching American Gladiators. A sorry state of affairs, to be sure.

Some of the writers are writing essays, now that they're not working. It is here where you can find a number of essays by some of Hollywood's best on why they write. They've recently featured the essays of Iris Yamashita, who wrote Letters From Iwo Jima, James Duff, creator and executive producer of The Closer and Bill Lawrence, creator of Scrubs.

Enjoy them. You'll undoubtedly enjoy them better than, say, Dancing with the Stars repeats.

Read Some Movie Scripts

Fox Searchlight Pictures is letting you download for free several great movie scripts, including Waitress, The Darjeeling Limited, and Juno. Enjoy...and I'll see you at the movies!

Authors and Tattoos

AbeBooks discusses authors with tattoos, authors writing about tattoos, and other literate tattoo topics. Not mentioned in the story, however, is Tattoo.

Free Graphic Novels

How cool is this? DailyBits has compiled seventeen graphic novels that are downloadable and free.

Salon of Shame

This sounds like a hoot. If you're in the Seattle area, why not check out the Salon of Shame? What is it?

Seattleites stand before you and read their middle school diary passages, high school poetry, unsent letters, and other bits of horribly shameful, and inadvertently hilarious adolescent writing.

I wonder how I can be a reader. Some writings I can remember...

"The Pitchfork" - A short story about a pitchfork that is demonic and runs around a farm house pitchforking people.

Every poem I ever wrote to someone of the opposite sex. There's only so many words that sort of rhyme with "beautiful." Actually, I can only think of one: dutiful.

Literary Debauchery

Alternative Reel has a couple of literary-themed lists to take a look at.

a) The Top Ten Drunk American Writers (which includes Charles Bukowski pictured above).

b) The Top Ten Drug-Fueled Novels ever written (I bet you can guess what book took the top spot).

The Alaska Way Viaduct Fiasco

Washington's governor, Christine Gregoire, is going to tear down the Viaduct before 2012. Which got me to thinking about a story I wrote about the viaduct mess awhile ago...

FAMED SEATTLEITE HAS ANOTHER VIADUCT IDEA

A new design has been unveiled for the elevated Alaska Way Viaduct in case politicos reject Major Nickels’ tunnel proposal. The design was created and developed by Sunny Kobe Cook of Sleep Country USA and involves placing lots of mattresses under the Viaduct in case it collapses in an earthquake.

The Seattle City Council is still mulling over whether to ask voters if they approve of the tunnel replacement that Mayor Nickels is pushing. The council, according to meeting notes, is leery of placing a divisive issue on the ballot stating, “They’ve voted positively for Tim Eyman initiatives. The public, therefore, cannot be trusted.” The vote in November, however, would be advisory and politicians would make the final call.

Meanwhile, engineers, and Sunny Kobe Cook, the founder of Sleep Country USA and inspirational speaker, is developing an alternative to keep the overall project on schedule, the State Transportation Department said. So they’ve created a proposal that will benefit those who fear replacing the structure will cause traffic nightmares and those who are concerned with public safety should an earthquake arise.

”It’s very simple,” Kobe Cook said. “Instead of replacing it, or even stabilizing it, just put a whole bunch of mattresses beneath it so that when it collapses it’ll just land like a feather on Sleep Country USA’s high-quality mattresses and box springs.” The proposal stated hundreds of mismatched sets of mattresses would be used that would have otherwise been donated to charities assisting families in need. “What does a family need?” Kobe Cook asked. “A family sleeping on a vermin-infested floor who hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in years because of terrible living conditions and gnawing hunger? No. They don’t. We need mattresses under a road to help during an earthquake!”

Many find Kobe Cook’s designs faulty. “Putting mattresses under the Viaduct won’t make me sleep better at night,” said Dwight Romer, a civil engineer whose worked on Viaduct options. “It’s preposterous! Don’t do anything to the actual structure. Just put cushions under it. You know how many tons of concrete and steel will fall on them when the Viaduct collapses? Preposterous! Ridiculous! It’s all poppycock! We’re talking tons of concrete.”

Asked about whether Sleep Country USA mattresses could withstand the overall weight of the structure if it fell, Kobe Cook said “Of course. Wayne Cody slept on our mattresses for years.” Cody, a popular radio and television sportscaster who spent the bulk of his career in Seattle, was grossly obese. He is said to have eaten a minor league team from Salt Lake City when they played the Tacoma Rainiers at Cheney Stadium. The team’s disappearance officially remains unsolved. Before Cody’s death he denied eating them.

West Seattle resident Dale Woodruff, who commutes on the Viaduct everyday to his job at a computer store in the Fremont area is nervous about the mattress possibility. “Even if the mattresses DID work as cushions there are still cars on the roadway. People would fall from the sky onto an enormous pile of rubble. It was be grisly, to say the least.”

”I’m one step ahead,” said Kobe Cook. “I’m not only devising a Viaduct solution, I’m also creating mattress cars. Mattresses with an engine and four wheels. Crash and you’re cushioned!”

Mattress manufacturers are excited about Kobe Cook’s ideas. “She’s a visionary,” said Sealy Posturepedic spokesperson Delilah Hall. “What a wonderful idea to not only save the beloved Viaduct but create a space, below the structure, to highlight great comfortable mattresses.” Sealy, Spring Air, and other companies will have mattresses below Alaska Way.

As for the parking lost when the mattresses are placed, Kobe Cook is not concerned. “Thousands of parking spots are lost? What’s more important? A good spot near a Starbucks or your life should an earthquake hit when you’re on the Viaduct?” She anticipates no one will want to park, anyway, if they are driving mattress cars.

Good News in Bad Times

A great writer writing about a great politician. Jonathan Raban writes for The Guardian.

The subhead:

Barack Obama wooed Iowa with his language. But where did he learn it? Here, a leading writer finds the narrative and rhetoric belong to Obama's local pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

I must say, I'm getting more and more jazzed with the idea that Obama just might be our President.

The Joy of Indexing

Do you ever think about those people who compile the indexes for non-fiction books? Me either. But at More Intelligent Life, there's an interesting new essay, My Time in the Indexing Trade, where Enid Stubin recalls her "toils in Bartlebyland."

The Reading Cure

We all know that reading is good for the soul. But for the body, too? The Guardian investigates the rise of bibliotherapy.

How Do You Pronounce the Name of Your Favorite Writer?

So, you love Fight Club but you don't want to say so in the company of strangers at a party because you have no idea how to say Chuck Palahniuk correctly. Or perhaps you're talking with a butterfly collector and remembered that the author of Lolita was fascinated with butterflies as well but for the life of you, you don't know how to say Nabokov without sounding like a nob. And you haven't a clue with the name Michel Houellebecq. The Millions has got your back.

Quote of the Week

Art is a microscope which the artist fixes on the secrets of his soul and shows to people these secrets which are common to all.
- Leo Tolstoy

So You Wanna' Write a Novel

It ain't gonna' be easy, says The Independent.

Excerpts from the story:

So will fiction ever make a writer rich?
No. No. A thousand times: no.

If it works, could you give up the day job?
Almost certainly not.

Tales of slush-pile to stardom do come to light, don't they?
Indeed so, but remarkably few.

What am I to do, then, with a couple of novels I've written (Cranston's Finest, The Soundtrack of Huey Sinclair)? Oh, I will not give up in getting them published. No, I will not.

The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh

Smithsonian Magazine has a story about the correspondence between Van Gogh and a protege.

I remember when me and my wife went to the National Gallery in London to see Van Gogh's sunflower painting. It was one of the main reasons we went to the gallery, to see that one amazing piece. We scoured the map, found out where it was, and nearly ran through the immense hallways to find it. When we got to the exact spot where it was to be, there was a postcard that said something to the effect of "Sorry. On loan." Lame! Shouldn't they alert visitors of such things? Lame, I say.

My favorite piece of Van Gogh's, by the way, is this one.

Press Freedom Round-Up

Reporters without Borders reports that there were 86 journalists killed in 2007. That's up 244% in the last five years. The reason? Of course it's the ongoing war in Iraq. More than half of the 86 now-dead journalists died in Iraq. Also in the report...

- 887 journalists arrested
- 1,511 physically attacked or threatened
- 67 journalists kidnapped
- 528 media outlets censored

The report talks about other deaths as well, including ones in Somalia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Mexico.

Frightening.

Winter Books Preview

USA Today highlights the books you should be reading these coming dark cold months.

Also, not to be outdone, The Millions looks at forthcoming books in 2008, including works by Tobias Wolfe, Salman Rushdie, and Roddy Doyle.

The Legendary D.B. Cooper

For those of you who may not know, I have a fascination with all things D.B. Cooper related. I wrote a play (that has yet to be produced) called D.B. Cooper's Christmas Spectacular. My good friend's father-in-law supplied D.B. Cooper with the parachute(s) he jumped out of the hijacked plane with. Fascinating stuff that a man could do something so daring and then simply vanish without a trace. Well, the FBI doesn't want him to vanish any further. They're releasing new information in hopes someone might know something. CNN also highlights the FBI's efforts to find the guy.

Of course, he's probably dead by now (the hijacking took place in the winter of 1971). And, of course, they might have already solved the case.