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Indie Thursday


Apparently (at least, according to someone I don’t know on twitter), it’s Indie Thursday, when we’re all supposed to go shopping at local, independently owned bookstores. I don’t actually have time today, but here are some recommendations of where to go in various locales:

Montgomery, Alabama

Tampa Bay

Los Angeles

Washington, DC & Northern, Virginia

Jackson, Mississippi

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Midweek Staff Meeting – Being Sorrowful


I have many of these.

I am less sanguine about the power of this technology to save.

Can’t buy coolness, my friend.

What would you do?

Fighting back against the hipster onslaught.

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Gore Vidal


I confess that I never read much Gore Vidal, but when he signed my copy of his Judgement of Paris (a novel about a handsome young man/cipher) at the West Hollywood Book Festival and he was exceedingly polite and friendly.

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Thursday Morning Staff Meeting – Scalia Haunts My Future


Antonin Scalia: A Play in Three Acts

The dulling of T.S. Eliot.

What really happened with the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

A cult poet of the San Francisco Renaissance finally get his book (probably posthumously, though no one’s certain).

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Monday Morning Staff Meeting – I’m Afraid I Can’t Let You Do That, Emily


‘Neats’ and ‘scruffies’ in AI research.

Emily Dickinson is not an AI… yet.

Rise of the Tweet!

LA isn’t that bad for dating, but yes, DC is better.

Saved by twitter.

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Thursday Morning Staff Meeting – Gothic Panopticons


Ron Silliman muses about the various California poetry ‘scenes.’

The link between historic preservation and deranged, gothic panopticons.

Terry Eagleton interviewed.

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Monday Morning Staff Meeting – Why Even Bother?


San Francisco as literature and typography.

Why even bother to read?

What is ‘e-ink’ anyway?

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Thursday Morning Staff Meeting – You Could Learn A Lot From A Funeral


Has the Higgs Boson been found after all? And not due to faulty wiring this time?

What Mitt Romney doesn’t get about the economy – if it’s only about money, our souls get lost.

Poetry captures the rhythm of Los Angeles.

We could learn from Pericles.

American children could stand to be taught poetry at young age, too.

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Midweek Staff Meeting – You’ve Just Been Fired; Here’s Your New Job


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Monday Morning Staff Meeting – Doggone It


What are the most well-read cities in America? Come visit me and I’ll show them to you.

We also buy a lot of freaking books.

A variation on the question of the value of MFA programs.

Downtown LA has gone to the dogs.