I reed buks

If you film it…: 21 good books that need to be great films, like now.

Just what I need, more books to add to my reading list.

Side note: Once I got to the description for A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS, I came upon an epiphany: I'm now terrified to read memoirs. I don't think I have it in me (at this point in my life, or perhaps ever) to read the celebrated works of Eggers, Sedaris, Burroughs, etc without feeling super-uncomfortable, self-conscious, and inadequate.

Maybe if I sat down and actually read them, I'd realize that comparing myself to them is like apples and oranges. I mean, I don't feel this way when I listen to Garrison Keillor or watch Spalding Gray. I guess I'm still insecure over the literary agent's claim that THE HEFNER MONOLOGUES was too similar to other memoirs (but whose, they did not specify... damn it, which authors am I too much like?!), or being frequently compared to Sedaris (we're actually different, I know we are!).

Maybe these feelings will chance once I've joined their ranks, but for now, eh, I'm gonna stick with the three dozen or so books I have to read. Up next: Alan Weisman's THE WORLD WITHOUT US, which should give some great insight into a post-zombie-apocalypse world.

By the way, what's with people trying to adapt WORLD WAR Z as a straight narrative fiction? The only way it can be done is as mockumentary! Imagine a zombie film by Ken Burns.



I rarely read webcomics, but I have now discovered the wonder and joy that is The Perry Bible Fellowship. I like to describe it as what would happen if Red Meat and Gary Larson had a child.

get back to work, monkeys

According to CNN.com's unfortunately-worded poll "Do You Feel Sorry for the Writers?" regarding the ongoing strike, 53 % (3,921) said "No."

Soooo... um... can someone please explain this seeming overwhelming lack of sympathy for the writers? Are people just pissed because their shows are in reruns, or do they think the writers are greedy, lazy, and overpaid?

Seriously. I honestly don't understand, what's going on here?

I have not yet heard a single intelligent rebuttal to elegant pro-strike arguments from the likes of Mark Evanier and Brian K. Vaughan (a writer on LOST and of several excellent comics). Someone explain to me how they're in the wrong, here. Because it seemed to me that Hollywood's worst-kept-secret was how writers were constantly being shat upon.

For God's sake, they already gave up one of their previous demands to earn eight fucking cents per DVD sold of their own work (as opposed to the four they get now), in a desperate bid to avoid the strike. Can one argue that it's fair how they're getting nothing from New Media versions of their work, when clearly, someone else is profiting from said work?

I'm genuinely curious. I don't claim to know the ins and outs of commerce or the industry. But so far, I've seen nothing to dispute what the WGA is trying to achieve. How are they in the wrong, here?

An Open Letter

Dear Joss,

( (you don't mind if I call you, Joss, right?) )