BORN UNDER A BAD SIGN

In David Foster Wallace's novel Infinite Jest, he created a group called the "Militant Grammarians of Massachusetts" who corrected bad grammar on signs surreptitiously.

Turns out fiction is now fact. Meet TEAL—the Typo Eradication Advancement League.

(via Maud Newton)

A VERY SHORT HIATUS (ITS TOM WAITS' FAULT)

Tom Waits' "press conference" announcing his summer Glitter and Doom tour below brought Winona and I a bit of disappointment, though it is a real hoot.



We were hoping to catch him here on the west coast somewhere, and not in Birmingham, Alabama in July.

Though I do feel those poor Waits fans in Birmingham (and Tulsa and Knoxville) probably deserve to see him more than my lady or I.

Lucky them.

M.I.A.

It looks like this blog is on hiatus.

Real life beckons, I'm doing a lot of reviewing for the North Coast Journal, and I just started a blog for the indie bookstore where I'm employed. I also spend a lot less time online than I used to (though Winona would probably beg to differ).

I might be back in the summer. See you then.

MY FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2007

Just in case you missed it, here it is.

Someday I'll do another blog post that's not just a link to a piece in the Journal.

Maybe.

KILL ALL YOUR DARLINGS

My review of Luc Sante's new book is now up at the Journal.

Sante recently translated and wrote an introduction to Novels in Three Lines, a collection of mordant and violent newspaper work from 19th century Paris that prefigures Surrealism and resembles the pithy and dark annotations of Harry Smith in the original American Folk Anthology.

He also has an evocative semi-anonymous photoblog called Pinakothek.

JUST ANOTHER POST OF LINKS I'M AFRAID

Scorsese does Hitchcock (rather well it turns out).

Brian Wilson raps (horrible, but hilarious)

And for all you filthy graphic designers out there, the Phallic Logo Awards.

RANDOM DETRITUS AND TIME WASTING GEEGAWS

Andy Kaufman on The Dating Game.



Jack Kirby's version of The Prisoner.

Jim Harrison on Bukowski. (illustration below by R. Crumb)