Little Toy Robot

In the world of imaginary doctors and scientists, the only person who can give Dr. Thackery T. Lambshead a run for his money is Dr. Doris Haggis-On-Whey. Watch the site of the author of Giraffes? Giraffes! for further information!

What would you name your imaginary doctor or scientist?

The utterly selfless and unironic people behind 826 Valencia, a free writing lab in San Francisco linked to the McSweeney’s scene, have built 826 NYC in Brooklyn. 826 Valencia has a storefront billed as “San Francisco?s only independent pirate supply store,” and the new center has the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company:

As the name says, we will be a supply store for superheroes in need of capes, masks, utility belts, grappling hooks, and whatever else their crime fighting tasks call for. Visitors will also be able to read books, magazines, and student publications on display or explore the mysterious contents of the store, before passing through the secret passage to the more serious activities within the tutoring center.

“Too late, too late,” whimpers a grown up Dylan Ebdus.

Some careless and utterly bored Web surfing has led me to discover that, somewhere in the past few months, Michael Chabon has changed the working title of his forthcoming novel from Hotzeplotz to The Yiddish Policeman’s Union. (An upgrade, IMHO.)

Check out The Amazing Website of Kavalier & Clay, if you can’t get enough of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize winner in fiction.

In other Chabon news, the first volume of Michael Chabon Presents: The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist, a comic anthology that came out in February, has just been re-released as a trade paperback. It’s a good looking book, though the price is a bit hefty. I own both the comic and book editions because I’ve realized that I have a very good collection of Chabon’s writings, derivative writings, and influences. I appear to be a Michael Chabon fanboy.

(Which is the main reason I want to see Spider-Man 2 this summer, since he has a story credit.)

The phrase, “I’m Rick James, bitch!” needs to be retired. It was funny. We enjoyed using it. Let’s move on.

Thanks,
Little Toy Robot

Could you imagine a world without bread? No German Dark Wheat. No Rye to be smothered in hot mustard. Or a world without pasta? No penne with vodka sauce.

This dystopian nightmare could come true. Read The Carbohydrate Manifesto and join us tomorrow as we fight the good fight, bucking the anti-carb trend, and hopefully enjoying some powerful high-carb madness at an Italian restaurant.

Jonathan Lethem wrote an essay called “My Marvel Years“, a reflection of his youth in the context of Marvel comic books, especially the transformation of Jack Kirby. (It also seems to respond to some of the questions about how much of The Fortress of Solitude—which I just finished reading—is autobiographical.)

Lethem himself posted a note on the Comics Journal bulletin boards saying that the essay will appear in expanded form in an upcoming anthology of writers on comics called Give Our Regards to the Atomsmashers!

The book comes out next month.

There is a new entry in “Robots I Have Known.” This one is called “The Nanny at the End of Time.” It moves slowly through the story of a very special robot as she nears her death. This recollection mashes together robots from a novel (The Hollow Lands), a comic book series (X-Men), and a television show (The Jetsons), so I hope it’s apparent that I’m not taking myself too seriously with these and am just enjoying myself.

I have only read the first Lemony Snicket book so far, but it’s obvious that John Bellairs, the author of lightweight “gothic” horror young adult novels, was an influence (though Daniel Handler is a lot more witty). Bellairs has a novel in his Johnny Dixon mystery series about a magical baseball-playing robot called The Eyes of the Killer Robot.

Lying in a heap against the wall were the pieces of the wonderful baseball-throwing robot. Its arms lay stacked on its headless body, and its legs stood against the wall. The wheeled platform was propped against a rafter, and nearby, on a little shelf, stood the robot’s head. It stared weirdly out into the room, but the stare was blank—the robot’s eyes were gone.

This is the book I would write if I wrote a young adult book. By that I mean that it’s got everything that I think makes life wonderful (robots, baseball, magic, ghosts), and it’s not very good.

Those of you who don’t subscribe to Warren Ellis‘ Bad Signal mailing list are missing out on gems like this:

In conversation with Slinka last night, I determined to write a book
on raising children. It will be called EAT THE FUCKING KOALA BEAR. I will be very rich.

It sounds like he’s taking “The dingo ate your baby!” and turning it on its head.

What appears to be the oldest written record of baseball has been found in the Berkshire Athenaeum library in Massachusetts:

Historian John Thorn was doing research on the origins of baseball when he found a reference to the bylaw in an 1869 book on Pittsfield’s history. [. . .]

A librarian found the actual document in a vault at the Berkshire Athenaeum library. Its age was authenticated by researchers at the Williamstown Art Conservation Center.

The bylaw dates from 1791 (incidentally, Julio Franco’s rookie year). Previously, the earliest record of baseball had been found by George Thompson, with whom I worked during my brief stint at NYU during the depressing season of suicides:

In 2001, a librarian at New York University came across two newspaper articles published on April 25, 1823, that show an organized form of a game called “base ball” was being played in Manhattan.

Unfortunately, the fascinating news about the 1791 bylaw has to be dampened by idiotic statements such as this:

“Pittsfield is baseball’s Garden of Eden,” Mayor James Ruberto said.

Two little tidbits about baseball and libraries.

First, Johnny Damon is shaving for charity.

The Red Sox center fielder said Monday he’ll shave the black beard he’s had since the offseason to benefit the Boston public libraries’ reading and tutoring programs for youngsters.

Damon is an over-rated center fielder, but he is one of the most under-rated personalities in a sport that just breeds eccentricity.

When he arrived in Fort Myers, Fla., Damon talked about his unusual after-dark training regime: racing cars on the Orlando street where he lives, which has a 25 mph speed limit.

“Once a car starts coming, I’ll just race it to my house,” he said. “I scare the cars to speed up a little more, seeing a caveman-looking guy with long hair running at 10 or 11 at night.”

Second, Jay Jaffe writes about his trip to the Brooklyn Public Library to look at old baseball photos.

1. The movie accomplished a rare feat by being depressing while not intending to be depressing.

2. The most thought-provoking thing about the movie was this: Do Dracula’s helpers resemble super-evil Oompa Loompas, or super-evil Jawas?

3. It was still better than League of Extraordinary Gentlemen!

I am looking forward to Seaguy, the new Grant Morrison three-part series that begins next week (May 19). There’s an interview in NEWSARAMA:

Seaguy is an un…er, underemployed superhero in a world where the bad guys have been defeated, and there’s no real battle left to fight. The world is peaceful, if not slipping into a state of lethargy and torpor. With no real ‘bad guy’ to keep heroes on their toes, no one’s really noticed how Mickey Eye is everywhere, and there’s this new food product called…Xoo everywhere.

Morrison is just too cool to sit still, and he’s always quotable:

“…I had the idea to develop Seaguy into a weapon I could use to fight back against the trendy and unconvincing ‘bad-ass’ cyncism of current comics, most of which are produced by the most un-’bad-ass’ men you can possibly imagine. In the current climate, it seemed like an act of rebellion to deliberately create ‘the new sentimentality’ and produce work that was almost embarrassingly dripping with tender and awkward feelings. There’s a strange kind of Edwardian vibe hitting the world right now - a kind of slowing down, a promenading feel as people rebel against manufactured ‘cool’. Seaguy can be seen as art at the vanguard of this new attitude.”

Robots.net, via Noah Shackman, notes that the Canadian Navy is looking for their Battlespace Preparation Autonomous (i.e., robotic) Underwater Vehicle:

The bright yellow BPAUV weighs 800 pounds, is 122 inches long, 21 inches in diameter and was last seen off the coast of Norway where it was taking part in a military exercise.

Have you seen it?

If so, please return. Thanks!

Extra points go to coverage of the search that uses the phrase “little lost robot,” referencing a story in Asimov’s I, Robot.

The latest issue of Fortean Times has a cover story on H. P. Lovecraft. That should be interesting, even if it’s bad. A good example of interesting-even-though-bad is the Necronauts graphic novel, which pits Lovecraft and his real-life non-friends Charles Fort, Harry Houdini (!), and an aged Arthur Conan Doyle against the forces of evil.

An interesting thing to note is that the Lovecraft article in Fortean Times was written by a person who goes by the name “Daniel Harms,” which sounds like an adaption of the pen name of the obscure Russian surrealist writer “Daniil Kharms” (1905-1942; real name Yuvachev). “Kharms” itself is a Russified corruption of “Holmes,” and as we saw above, Lovecraft and A. C. Doyle fought monsters together, at least in this one comic book.

Kharms wrote a story called “The Plummeting Old Women” which begins: “A certain old woman, out of excessive curiosity, fell out of a window, plummeted to the ground, and was smashed to pieces.” He also wrote a story called “Blue Notebook No. 10″ which begins: “There was a red-haired man who had no eyes or ears. Neither did he have any hair, so he was called red-haired theoretically.” Each story is about 150 words long in English. [from Serge Winitzki]

Also in the issue: “HILARY BARTA takes a comical look at the deeply submerged origins of creativity.” Barta is the artist behind Splash Brannigan in Alan Moore’s America’s Best Comics universe.