Jacob

People keep sharing the map of China’s high speed rail lines vs the US over the last 15 years, and as impressive as it is, my first thought is still “and how many people were forcibly displaced in the building of that?” China bring China and all.

Pizza Grain-free bread, bagels, and pizza that defy expectations. Proudly made with the best ingredients – simple, real, easy to pronounce – in our bakery in Brattleboro, Vermont.

So many good pizza options out there now! Tell her about Against the Grain: againstthegraingourmet.com/collections/...

I use “embarrassment of riches” to describe the gluten-free options available to me now vs. 15 years ago.

Those form as the parasite matures.

Oh, Death, why canst thou not sometimes be timely?

Well, this is certainly one way to learn that a favorite tv writer of mine is on Bluesky…

Steve Bannon has found a new host.

Author bio page inside The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop.: Robert Coover (1932–2024) was born in Charles City, Iowa. He attended Indiana University and, after a four-year stint in the US Navy, the University of Chicago. For more than thirty years, he taught literature and creative writing at Brown University. He was the author of many novels and story collections—among others The Origin of the Brunists (forthcoming from NYRB Classics), Pricksongs and Descants, and The Public Burning. Ben Marcus is the author of five books of fiction: Notes from the Fog, The Flame Alphabet, Leaving the Sea, Notable American Women, and The Age of Wire and String. He lives in New York City.

Cover of The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. by Robert Coover

Some very surprising and exciting news from @nybooks.com on the author bio page of The Universal Baseball Association by Robert Coover:

The Origin of the Brunists (forthcoming from NYRB Classics)

2000-page Gormenghast graphic novel adaptation when?

They won't be secretly dosed, they'll be regularly dunked, like a witch in a pond.

If you think that's bad, you should see the portrait he's got stashed in the attic.

Opening lines to MEMOIRS OF A GNOSTIC DWARF by David Madsen: “This morning His Holiness summoned me to read to him from St Augustine, while the physician applied unguents and salves to his suppurating arse; one in particular, which was apparently concocted from virgin’s piss (where did they find a virgin in Rome?) and a rare herb from the private hortus siccus of Bonet de Lattes, the pope’s Jewish physician-in-chief, stank abominably. Still, it was no worse than the nauseating stench of the festering pustules abs weeping ulcers adorning His Holiness’s cilicious posterior. (Everyone refers to these repulsive afflictions as ‘fistula,’ but I am not constrained by the self-interest of tact.) With his alb pulled up over his hips, and his underdrawers down around his ankles, the most powerful man in the world lay sprawled on his bed like a catamite waiting to be well and truly buggered.”

Also featuring one of the greatest opening paragraphs in all of literature:

Donald Trump's mother Mary, or possibly Donald in drag, who can tell.

Is that Nick Offerman playing Vernon Dursley in a 2000s-era Americanized Harry Potter parody on MadTV?

If you think that's bad, you should see the portrait he's got stashed away in the attic.

The Animatronic of Dorian Gray

Prove this place is good for culture* and post a good book cover.

*Definitions of culture may vary.

I mean, he looks like he'd be a great candidate to run against Bush in 2004. I'd've voted for him then, maybe.

“…And Ladies of the Club” by Helen Hooven Santmyer in mass market paperback

That’s it, I found my summer reading project.

Changed my mind, it's this one:

Ooh, good choice. I saw it all the time in used bookstores in the late 90s/early 2000s and was intrigued but also reluctant because it looked like a flowery romance novel and I was A Boy, but I made the leap about 15 years back and absolutely loved it. Really need to reread it as well.

Great choice! One I read nearly 20 (!) years ago and have never found the opportunity to reread. I'm mostly waiting for the Dracula Daily crowd to discover it.

Can I have a whole month off? Because that’s the only way I’ll ever get to do a leisurely reread of The Story of the Stone.

US-involved incendiary incident.

I somehow fell into the habit of rereading JS&MN every five years, in November or December, but I might start early this year.

That, or The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson, which, while also a chunky novel, is still a good fun adventure and lighter than the two above titles, and also one I haven’t reread in ages.

I already reread my usual favorites often enough that I would rather go for a doorstopper-length favorite that I can never find the time to reread, but you said weekend vacation, damn you. But I could probably get a good start on Moby-Dick or Of Human Bondage and still feel pretty good.