Little Toy Robot

That’s right. [via largehearted boy]

I’m not going to accuse Chabon of selling out. The dude’s gotta make money, and the quality of the writing that he can bring to the table in a project like this is likely to be pretty high. The problem is that when you’re working on a large film project, individual contributions go through the ringer and what you usually end up with is just a plain ol’ big budget Hollywood movie. So it’s nothing I’m terribly excited about, not like the three Chabon book projects coming out in November.

Maybe this would be sweeter for Red Sox fans if they forget that they will be losing half the team to free agency during the off-season.

Ah well, life now officially returns to normal.

From an interview on Powells.com:

What section of the newspaper do you read first?
I like the sports section, particularly during baseball season. The statistical dramas are enacted in a realm somewhere between life and art, with the narrative pleasure of the latter and the homely and unpredictable texture of the former. Baseball is a realm of symbolic struggle so much more honest and absorbing than the rest of the newspaper, where politicians and pundits and critics struggle to blunt the nuances of everyday reality and the striving of human beings to express themselves and be free into a debased symbolic form (”good v. evil”; “realism v. the fantastic”) that resembles sports.

Huh? Hey Jonathan, baseball’s also fun. That’s OK! [via Tingle Alley]

I have received an Official Request from the Portuguese to shut up about baseball. So…

Rick Kleffel points out that Michael Chabon’s introduction to McSweeney’s Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories alludes to Lewis Hyde’s Trickster Makes This World. This means I will have to read Hyde’s book before Chabon’s anthology comes out (either November 9th or 16th, depending on which source you believe). I read The Gift in college and thought it was tremendous.

“So next time there’s an asteroid or a natural disaster,
I’m flattered that you thought of me,
But I’m not the one to call.”
(from “I’m Real”)

At the Breman Museum:

zap! pow! bam! the superhero:
The Golden Age of Comic Books, 1938—1950

Opening October 24, 2004

The Breman’s unique special exhibition, ZAP! POW! BAM! The Superhero: The Golden Age of Comic Books, 1938—1950, the first in-depth exhibition of its kind, will invite visitors into the world of super heroes, illuminating the creative processes and influences that drove their young creators to provide America with an escape from the despair and helplessness of the 1929 stock market crash.

The exhibition will present original comic book art, culled from major collectors, representing the most well-known Super Heroes, including Superman, Batman, Captain America, The Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman.

Also on display will be rare, never-before-seen original comic book art, objects belonging to the first comic book creators and publishers, as well as superhero memorabilia. In addition, the exhibition will feature 1940s serials produced in Hollywood, video interviews with some of the leading comic book artists and writers of the days, and a number of interactive features for children and adults to enjoy.

I’m glad the Yankees have finally found a solution to their postseason meltdown:

STEINBRENNER ACQUIRES NUCLEAR WEAPON
Trades Alex Rodriguez to Kim Jong-Il
New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner acquired a nuclear weapon today in a transaction that sent slugger Alex Rodriguez and an undisclosed sum of cash to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il….

And now for your moment of zen.

“I can’t get behind a fat ass!”
(from “I Can’t Get Behind That”)

Today begins a new feature on LTR, quotes from William Shatner’s album Has Been. This will be a daily feature until probably tomorrow.

“Let’s feed the donkeys, send out for Chinese.”
(from “Familiar Love”)

When the Dodgers lost, at home, to the Cardinals and were eliminated from the Division Series, they took the field after the game and shook the hands of the team that defeated them. Very classy move. And in the same spirit, I will admit that the Red Sox deserve this one. (I will also remind you that I predicted it, and I didn’t even think it would make it to seven games.)

If it’s true that “[t]o fans of all other baseball teams, the Yankees and their fans appear much as Americans appear to the citizens of all other nations — spoiled with obscene prosperity that they then, adding insult to injury, proceed not merely to enjoy, but to expect, at all costs,” then surely we can allow for the possibility that a Yankees fan, like an American, could be innocent of the stereotypes imposed by others. In the case of international relations, not every American is ugly, and in the case of baseball, not every Yankee fan is a bad sport.

I will, however, be rooting for which ever team the Sox end up playing in the World Series.

[Update: Check out the local press headlines!]

The idiosyncratic list of blogs I read regularly shows that a lot of people are following the baseball playoffs. With the exception of the baseball blogs I read, where there are a fair share of Yankee fans, it seems that everyone else in the universe is pulling for the Red Sox.

Steven Johnson, “a lifelong Yankees fan,” has an interesting but odious perspective.

Bookdwarf, a Bostonian, has an obvious allegiance to the Sox.

Justin wants the Sox to win, but like me, is more interested in just seeing good baseball.

Rusty, like just about everyone down in Atlanta, hates the Yanks.

Jeff is a Braves fan, and I think it’s safe to say that he is not too keen on the Yankees either.

Laura G. hates the Yankees.

Frank, too.

And this person likes to rub it in my face every time the Red Sox win.

I admit that last night’s game was an embarrassment for the boys from the Bronx.

Thank you for the birthday cheers (and beers!).

A recent diversion is Johnny America, a wisecracking Web site associated with an upstart print zine. It won over my fickle heart with posts like this:

Rodney Dangerfield: You will be missed.
Jacques Derrida: We’re not so sure about you.

And of course this review of the new album from the man I now simply call “Shat”:

Like a star in the heavens he so gallantly explored, the walking pile of mystique that is William Shatner burns bright despite great age. As someone who never watched Star Trek, save one or two episodes of the Next Generation, I lack personal context for the history of Shatner. Lacking bias, I am so supremely able to appreciate the inane beauty of his genius.

Many of you who have the dubious pleasure of knowing me in “real life” know that I can’t shut up about this album. Buy it! Lick it! Bathe with it!

The new Google Desktop thingie is really cool, although I am shocked by what shows up in my search results now that my AIM log files have been indexed.

I am fascinated by the fact that my neighborhood Borders and Whole Foods Market is located on the spot where Atlanta’s minor league baseball stadium once stood. This [bugmenot] article explains. There’s even a book about the Atlanta Crackers (seriously, that was the team name) by Tim Darnell, but the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library only has one copy of the book, and it’s a non-circulating reference copy at the Central Branch. Fuck that shit! I guess I’m going to have to continue getting my local history from the giant murals inside Whole Foods.

Lenny Bruce, foul-mouthed comedian
Sacha Baron Cohen, aka Ali G
Sammy Hagar, ex-Van Halen “singer”
Eddie Matthews, Hall of Fame third baseman for the (Milwaukee) Braves
Paul Simon, singer-songwriter
Margaret Thatcher, former PM of the UK
… and me!

Here are some fun things that have happened on this day in my lifetime:

1975 - Neil Young undergoes throat surgery.
1976 - A Bolivian Boeing 707 cargo jet crashes in Santa Cruz, Bolivia killing 100 (97, mostly children, killed on the ground).
1977 - Four Palestinians hijack a Lufthansa Airlines flight to Somalia and demand release of 11 members of the Red Army Faction.
1990 - Syria invades Lebanon, killing over 500.
1997 - Syria Invades Lebanon again.

A USA Today piece discusses Faithful, a book that Stephen King and Stewart O’Nan are writing on the horrors of being a Red Sox fan.

I am torn between the fact that I was born into a natural antipathy towards the Sox and a genuine appreciation of the team when it is any good. I have to admit that they have been fun to watch the past two years, and I’m not saying that just so I don’t end up on David Ortiz’s hit list. I’m reminded of what W.P. Kinsella wrote in “The Night Manny Mota Tied the Record”:

…baseball fans. The true word is fanciers. Fans of the game itself. Men having favourites, but not blind prejudices, here because we love the game. Not Sunday fathers dragging young sons after us, or college kids guzzling beer and cheering ourselves hoarse, but steady, long-term, win-or-lose fans.

That said, the Red Sox are going to get clobbered by the Yankees. And don’t give me any grief about the size of the Yankee payroll; look at who’s number two on the list.

Update: Just to make sure I’m understood, I’ll say it now, before the series even begins. I think the Red Sox will beat the Yankees. I don’t want them to, but I think they will. In six games. You can bet I’ll be watching the Cardinals-Astros series, because whoever ends up playing the Sox are going to be my new favorite team for the month.

Update #2: Heh!