<= 2001.06.15

2001.06.17 =>

serpentine pad

Hey, a review. Is it shameless to link this? It's just that I've never been compared to Raymond Chandler or a pregnant cat before and, well, I wanted to share.

And as long as I'm being shameless, we went out for drinks with George Saunders last night. That's more exciting than it sounds: all that really happened is George Saunders gave a Prairie Lights reading and someone convinced him to come to the Atlas Grill. He sat on a bar stool, sipping a glass of water, and nearly thirty Workshop people circled him. I talked to him only briefly.

GEORGE: Everyone here is so young! How old are you?
ME: Twenty-two.
GEORGE: Christ, that's young.

Then he told me a story about how he's living in Tobias Wolff's old house at Syracuse and people will walk down the street and look at the house and say "Do you remember when Toby lived here? He was such a dear man! If only he were still living here," so George Saunders feels slighted by contrast. Then I left because everyone else wanted to talk to him, including an old man who came out of nowhere with (apparently) a bunch of secret information about Leonard Peltier.

Danish ornithologists report: Copenhagen starlings have incorporated the ring tone of Nokia cell phones into their calls. Andrew Smith of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds asks us to consider the ramifications: if the sound becomes sufficiently popular with urban birds, it "could bring a place like San Francisco to a standstill."

The Church of Satan says "Think different"; Apple demands they retire the slogan.

 

<= 2001.06.15

2001.06.17 =>

up (2001.06)