prosiness, ποιηση, posies
Wünscht man Roubles,
so hat man auch Troubles.
I like how the New York Times rewrote a sonnet of Wordsworth's
accidentally, by misplacing
the </i> tag:
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in nature that is ours.
At the time the book received poor reviews and sold poorly.
[Alas, some meddler has gone back and fixed it.]
This morning I am not sure what I am doing
trying to be a rock star, when my other career
cannot yet be called a career:
Peyton says, "I think the only way to promote a book
is to take it into your own hands:
print up big silkscreens,
drive to random bookstores in random cities,
sleep in your car,
arrange your own readings,"
(this of course being how she promoted her band)
"because no one cares about your book like you
except maybe your mom,
and she'll do a bad job."
In Poets & Writers, a magazine
which I dislike reading because of the inevitable sameness
of writers writing about writing,
some lady or gentleman describes how,
out of frustration with his or her publicist,
s/he solicited a newspaper review independently
(it was a rave)
and subsequently received an angry communication from his/her editor
for having gone around their publicity department.
Five-time Jeopardy! champion
and author of Prague, Arthur Phillips,
says 3 of 25 published books
get reviewed anywhere worth noticing.
When Elyse Cheney declines to look at my manuscript
she does not even sign her name.
She, or someone else, writes "EC."
For all I know
I was rejected by Elvis Costello
or Edward the Confessor.
Anyway, for what it's worth
(this morning I don't know)
"Byzantine Records" is on its way to becoming
a legitimate business entity:
And the record is on its way. This is the pre-release single—The Day the Music Died (mp3, 3562 kB)—and this is the cover art:
sdfds
In the mere six million years since chimps and humans shared a common ancestor, this highly complex faculty has suddenly emerged in the hominid line alone, along with all the brain circuits necessary to map an extremely rapid stream of sound into meaning, meaning into words and syntax, and intended sentence into expressed utterance.
It is easy to see in a general way that each genetic innovation, whether in understanding or in expressing language, might create such an advantage for its owners as to spread rapidly through a small population.
"No one will take any notice of the guy who says `Gu-gu-gu'; the one with the quick tongue will get the mates," Dr. Bickerton said.
I don't know why I find that so hilarious and sad. But now I want to write a book from the POV of the guy who says "Gu-gu-gu."
