Last Month In Porn

Sorry I missed this when it ran - three women discussing two books on porn over at Slate. Both the books were authored by women, and at least one of the books has a decidedly feminine slant, so I guess it's understandable that the people discussing it should be women. But it might've been interesting to throw a guy into the mix.

Worst. Halloween. Ever.

Maybe five houses with carved pumpkins. Only a few more with ersatz ceramic jobs. Maybe a dozen other trick-or-treaters. "It's because of the day of the week," suggested one candy-giver. Day of the week? It's Halloween! Are kids so sugar-sated that the chance to score free candy off of strangers isn't enough to make them finish their homework early and skip Must See Monday television? And because of the shortage of trick-or-treaters, the poor candy-givers were doling it out by the handful. We knocked off well before completing our usual circuit, and still netted nearly twice our standard haul for the four children. We filled both of the biggest bowls in the house. More goods with less spirit. Sounds sadly familiar.

Being Gay Means Being Post-Modern Means Everything Is Whatever

I refer to the moment in which Sam says, "She has Steven's nose and my lips." It's either pure brain-addled sentimentality or else reality-fabricating will-to-truth (the homosexual as super-man! I wonder what Nietzsche would have said). I mean, Sam doesn't really think that he and Steven both fertilized that egg...that 32 chromosomes plus 32 chromosomes plus 32 chromosomes really could equal 64 chromosomes...does he? If Sam isn't embarrased by such nonsense, is there not at least one liberal out there (e.g., a scientific liberal, of which there must surely be many) who is? Or does he really think, somewhere deep down, that because he wants it to be so, it is?

But then, why am I surprised? I once had a debate with a co-worker in the presence of our quietly gay supervisor about the relation of will to truth, which ended with me checkmating my opponent (no great feat here) by asking, "Which determines what is true--your choice, or reality?" He grudgingly admitted, "Reality...whatever that is." But I actually heard my gay supervisor, who had been working facing the other way and feigning not-listening, mutter under his breath: "My choice."

I wonder if homosexuals ever need therapy.

Deadline: Tomorrow

Or tomorrow, and tomorrow - my editor says he'll accept delivery on All Souls' Day.

Here's a sentence I just read as I tried to edit myself:

"And now, having opened that enormous can of theoretical worms, I’m gonna screw the lid right back on and stick to the storytelling."

Yes, yes, I know you can't really screw a lid onto a can - that would be a jar, silly. But let the copyeditor worry about that. I mention the line because it makes me wish I could fill the book with doodled illustrations - just imagine what an opened can of theoretical worms would look like....

T-Muffle v. MoDo...

...this is a classic return to form.

Next up: David Brooks as a G-man?

Jesus was a Liberal...

...is what it says on the button my friend sent me.

I get what he was getting at, but I couldn't help but think of him yesterday at Mass, when Jesus said that the Scribes and Pharisees had taken the seat of Moses, and that people should do everything they said.

Homilies often focus on what comes after - on not being hypocrites who say one thing and do another. I think it's interesting that Jesus, even as he was unmasking the Scribes and Pharisees for the hypocrites they were, still affirmed their authority to teach, their right to tell people what to do.

Dworkin

I thought this was interesting.

The Challenge

Over at the First Things blog, Father Neuhaus has noted the following:

Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in six words, which he did. (I’ll get to what he wrote.) Black Book magazine issued the same challenge to a slew of well-known contemporary authors. Norman Mailer wrote this: “Satan – Jehovah – fifteen rounds. A draw.” John Updike: “Forgive me!’ ‘What for?’ ‘Never mind.’” None of them come close to what Hemingway wrote: “For sale: baby shoes, never used.”

Joseph Bottum has added that his best effort at the one-sentence story is this:

“Something about him put her back up, and she swore that this time she wouldn’t take his advances lying down.”

Now, Nutmeg has gone and challenged me to reel in my powers of prolixity and take up Mr. Hemingway's six-fingered gauntlet. Short story, six words. First attempt:

"Now, it's too heavy to drop."

I know, I know. I'll keep thinking. How 'bout y'all?

This Just In...

...most priests are gay.

Or at least, that's what Madonna says. No mention of how she conducted her research.

According to the article, she also says that people "are going to go to hell, if they don't turn from their wicked behavior."

Today in Porn

From this week's installment of Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird - with a word of warning to the gynecologically sensitive:

"Los Angeles has become the U.S. epicenter for surgery for women seeking to 'firm up' their genitals, with Dr. David Matlock the chief practitioner of 'vaginal rejuvenation,' according to a dispatch in Toronto's Globe and Mail in August." (August? Hey, they're just like us - yesterday's news today!) "Much of the impetus comes from patients' (or their husbands' or boyfriends') desire for vulvas as trim and youthful as those of actresses in porno movies."

Just another case of life imitating art?

Horror

I'm not sure what I can add to this, except maybe that it aroused in me no feeling of shock or surprise. From Duncan Shepherd's review of the recently released film Three Extremes:

***

Chan's offering, titled "Dumplings," is apparently a condensation of a feature-length film of the same name, an extremely twisted twist on the fountain-of-youth theme. The fountain in this instance would be the pricey homemade dumplings of the tenement-dwelling Bai Ling, whose flawless face and hinted-at advanced age are their best advertisement: "My dumplings are worth it. You get what you pay for." An over-the-hill TV actress, Miriam Yeung, with a wandering husband to reel in, is willing to pay the price, even when the secret ingredient is revealed to be aborted human fetuses, chopped up very fine.

I am not giving away much there. This is nowhere near the story's punchline, although the witnessed abortion achieves an early and unchallenged pinnacle in gore. Because this revelation isn't the punchline, the viewer is obliged to sit for a while with the idea of self-indulgence, the idea of narcissism, at its most -- shall we say again? -- extreme. Shall we even say its logical extreme? The actual punchline, after what has preceded it, feels like the merest tap.

***

As I said - horrifying, yes; shocking, no.

Finished it.

Tons of editing, retweaking, reweaving, re-everything still to do. But I have typed the book's final sentence. Now back to the day job. Five days 'til deadline.

The Thing Is...

...if you're a brilliant writer, you get forgiven a lot of things: antisocial behavior, excessive drinking, fits of depression, offensive comments, general melancholy, moral lapses...I'll stop now.

BUT, if you're a middling writer, then you're just a boor.

(So shall we add self-pity to the list?)

Conversation with the Wife

"I've figured out a job I could do if we ever moved back east."
"Pouring Slurpees?"
"Thanks. I'm blogging that."
"You're the one who said you could get a job at 7-11."
"I said AM/PM. And I said I'd make Assistant Manager in five years."
"'Would you like that in Cherry or Coke?' Oh, wait - you pour your own Slurpees now. Your pouring skills are no longer required."
"I love you, honey."

End in Sight

I've hit my word count - 65K - on Book Two. And I'm almost close to being almost finished. Then the combover. Then submit and see what the Powers that Be make of the thing.

Poetry Corner III

First Son decided he wanted to write a poem "like a professional poem writer." Here's what he came up with:

In days long ago in yonder past
I overlooked the meadow, far and vast
With blooming trees and brushes white
I overlooked the meadow every night
I looked upon it, so vast and broad
I looked upon it with the eyes of God.

Just Sayin'

Great cover. Oddly familiar.

Kidding. Mostly. More on this anon. It is, after all, "the first really significant book about American Catholicism of the decade." (Scroll down to Sharlet's review.)

Capote II

If you have a festering notion that all art, or at least all writing, is born of some damage, or some anger, or some unbalanced obsesssion, Capote will not do anything to help you get over your festers.

Advantage: California

One thing that makes it difficult, and at times inconceivable, to contemplate leaving California...
...a spicy Ranchero Burrito with beans after a night of bourbony indulgence.
I met Kodiak last night. The man has energy, drive, intensity...what's the word I'm looking for...ah, yes: youth. (Oh, who am I kidding - I was never like that, even at 22.) It wasn't until this morning. that I remembered that I am an old man. It was my liver that reminded me.
Good times, though, and no real damage done. Especially after that burrito and its sweet, sweet heat.

Housenaming

Some friends moved into a sweet little Craftsman here in La Mesa today. Neighbors told them that the house - they're renting - is known as "The jewel of La Mesa." Hey presto - The Jewel. Great name for a house. I'm not sure why it is that some houses can getaway with sporting names, or perhaps it should be why some people can get away with naming their houses without acquiring the title of Pretentious Twit (or a slight variation thereof).

I haven't had much luck. Our first apartment should have been the Pink Palace, first because of its oh-so-pale pink walls and second because of its proximity to the heart of the gay district here in San Diego. But we didn't stay there long enough, or something. Our Spanish guest house was, according to legend, once part of a brothel - The Brothel would have been a great name, but the wife probably wouldn't have been pleased. And First Son doesn't need to go telling folks he was born in The Brothel.

First house was great, but didn't inspire. Second house had a name foreordained from all eternity - Grindlehaus. The previous owner, a Mr. Grindle, had done all sorts of interesting things to the place, to the point where I imagined a Breugel-style painting in which his spirit dwelt below the home and caused various exciting events with a monstrous auger. Washing machine drainpipe backs up and floods family room, resulting in tearing up of front sidewalk so that buried drainpipe can be cut out and replaced? Grindlehaus. But the wife wouldn't live in Grindlehaus. She couldn't stand it.

Now we're in Widow's Haven - so named for the abundance of black widow spiders on the property. I think it's a great name, and the house deserves it. But no one calls it that. Maybe it's because I'm a Pretentious Twit. The Jewel, however - I think that'll stick.

Tagged

I got blogtagged by Rachel at Testosterhome - does that mean she actually reads this thing?

The rules are as follows:
1.Go into your archives.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Post the fifth sentence (or closest to it).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. Tag five other people to do the same thing.

Here's my sentence, from back in April:

Just like Scrooge McDuck!

Oh, that's a dandy. That's Godsbody all over.

I tag Amy, Plato, Clayton, Kodiak, and just for kicks, that poet- type guy who manages a trailer park.

Apologies to any who are receiving this for the fourth or fifth time. I don't get around much anymore.

Capote I

How does Truman get in with the straighlaced lawmen of Kansas? Their wives read fiction.

It's Not Easy Being Green...

...but I'm not jealous. Really. I haven't even read this yet. But I did see it in the Minneapolis airport. When you've made it into airport bookstores, you've made it. Small - so your book has a better chance of being noticed. Well-placed - your customer knows he or she is going to be stuck in one place for the next several hours, and is more likely to actually buy something.

A note on the title: He took "Bad." I'm using "Lousy." At least until Loyola tells me otherwise.

Character is Destiny...

...sounds like something I read somewhere...

I never read Rick "Judy Don't Be" Moody's novel The Ice Storm (Chris Berman comes to lit-land!), but I did see the movie. And what I liked in the movie, or one of the things I liked, is that when Joan Allen tries a little revenge adultery at a key party following her discovery of her husband's infidelity, it goes not at all well. She's a fundamentally decent person, and her rage at her betrayal cannot change that. She can do a wicked thing to get back at her husband, but she can't enjoy it the way he can. She's good, you see.

Stalling on the home stretch with the book. Urg.

Go Martin Holmes!

Now I'm not about to suggest that Katie Holmes, er, Kate Cruise, has been brainwashed or anything, and so, ostensibly, her co-operation in this whole venture is equally open to censure, but bravo to Dad for mustering a little gumption in the face of celebrity. Hey Tom Cruise - you impregnated my daughter without putting a ring on her finger? "You're no good."

Support Starving (Catholic) Artists

Generation Next Catholic artist Daniel Mitsui has some new work up. And it's for sale! (I already put dibs on John the Baptist, and with any luck, it'll show up in Book Two.) He's thinking of going into churchmaking, and could use a little patronage.

When I visited Rome for the first (and only) time, I remember my tour guide's sadness as he showed us a mosaic rendition of the Assumption. The image was gorgeous; he was sad because the Vatican school of mosaic had just closed - for lack of students.

"If you want to get really serious about religion..."

...said the old guy in the used bookstore, "then Roman Catholicism is the only true religion. But I'm not a Catholic. I just haven't gotten really serious about religion. But I have studied it quite extensively."

What I should have said: "If you've studied Catholicism quite extensively, you know that it makes serious claims about life. It's not just a fascinating intellectual/political/cultural phenomenon. If you have some sense that it is 'the only true religion,' then why on earth aren't you considering its claims?"

What I said: Nothing. I did a lot of listening, though.

Jim Holman...

...besides all the things mentioned here, also teaches Latin to a bunch of kids - including First Son.

Movie Chat

"See, Mr. Gitts, most people never have to face the fact that, at the right time and the right place, they're capable of... anything!"
- Noah Cross in Chinatown

Continued apologies. Two weeks til deadline. Mark's got a project of his own, plus his family is moving to a farm in upstate New York this week. (He's following after...)

Anybody else want to take the reins for a week?

I Am So So Excited...

...to see Capote. Especially after Duncan's review. Just a pleasure to read.

Narnia is only one of the countries...

...in the land behind the wardrobe. Barbara Nicolosi, whom I can't decide whether or not to envy in her status as the Catholic emissary to Hollywood, saw the rough cut of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and found it good. But if this one's a hit - and I think it will be - then there's going to be a powerful temptation to remake the rest of the Chronicles, and that's where things are going to get sticky, particularly when it comes to The Horse and His Boy and The Last Battle. Those books both feature the Calormenes as villains, wise and cruel, bereft of poetry and full of proverbs. And it seems pretty clear that the Calormenes are based on Arab Muslims. The Hollywood folks are going to have a lot to think about as they set to rejiggering...

Conservative Dis-Values?

Or at least an example of that "conservative insensitivity to the less-financially-significant" that I referred to a while back? It's arguable.

Dude, That's Smurfed Up...

...Smokee Wilson sent along a link to this almost-unbelievable story. It's full of astonishing quotes, but I'll just pick one:

"We wanted something that was real war - Smurfs losing arms, or a Smurf losing a head -but they said no."

Here's the problem. I suspect there are more than a few people out there who, by the end of the Smurfalicious Era, grinned with wicked glee at the thought of Smurfs losing arms.

Back to the sickbed...

Bleah.

Sick today. The drive to finish the first draft is beginning to take its toll. Apologies for blog silence.

Hey, wait a minute...

...am I losing my big-family countercultural cred? First it was the Steve Martin remake of Cheaper by the Dozen. Then Yours, Mine, and Ours - 18 kids under one roof. Now we're gonna get Cheapter by the Dozen 2. Gotta get on my friend the 16th of 17 to write his memoir...

Tarted Up...

...the new Wallace and Gromit, for some reason. A vicar caught reading Nun Wrestling magazine. An amorous rabbit goosing the tail of bunny he's chasing. A lady gardener positioning herself in front of two round melons and saying that her previous boyfriend never took an interest in her...produce, then rhapsodizing over a prize carrot's smooth flesh while poor Wallace moans with anticipatory pleasure. That's just off the top of my memory. I wish I could have been in the meeting where they said, "You know what these lumpy claymation characters need? Sex appeal." I wonder how they ever made it through three brilliant shorts (two of which won Oscars, if memory serves) without ass grabbery. Sigh.

Vows

This left me unsatisfied. Too many questions left hanging at the end.

The Incredible Robert Parr?

I must admit I don't care for that apologetic speech Mr. Incredible makes to his family while they're all schackled by Syndrome. There's something weird about Bob flagellating himself for "missing out" on his family while he was working for Mirage, when during that time he was more "engaged" with family (to use the missus' term) than ever before. And this because he was happy. Here is a good example of art imitating life: If a man's doing the work that's in him to do (or as we might read in Centesimus Annus, following his vocation), he's being the man that he's meant to be, and this can only be good for husbandry and fatherhood.

So what function is this speech serving here? It's directed to us, the audience--giving us the "lesson" we might take away from this super-hero fantasy: "You"--meaning family, not super-heroing (which we mortals can't do anyway)--"you are my greatest adventure." Like a brief tip of the hat to the real life we mortals have waiting for us outside the theater, just before we're rocketed into our super-sonic action-packed climax. Actually, Mr. I.'s speech might be meant for all us poor losers who not only can't be super-heroes but can't even be fulfilled in our work (as Mr. I. clearly was after leaving his moronic job for super-work--which was what again? Taking down one "renegade" version of Syndrome's hero-killing robot after another?). It reminds me of the last line of Spy Kids, a line delivered to the camera by the family of super-spies themselves: "Keeping family together...now that's 'Mission Impossible'." (Or something like that.) Even Mystery Men had a "final message" like this: "You can be super, too--why, your power might be the ability to remember jingles from old commercials!"

This is less to inaugurate a debate about men, work and family (although that might be interesting) than it is to observe how keenly aware (i.e., how meta) filmmakers of my generation are about the effects of their particular form of media on the psyche--in this case, the pain caused by "re-entry" from the dream-world of the cinema into the "real world." (I don't know why I put "real world" in quotes just now--what, do I think I'm still in The Matrix? See what I mean about the difficulty of re-entry?) So how to avoid the let-down of dis-illusionment that almost invariably follows from leaving behind the arena of illusion that is the movie theater? Hm, let's try working a little "reality" into the fantasy...hey, how about this: Even super-heroes have to appreciate the "incredible" in the mundane (e.g., being a dutiful dad). Of course, the medium (or should I say the genre) works against itself here: After all, there's nothing ordinary about being the "head" of The Incredibles.

What was that I was saying about short posts?

Oh, Thank God...

...it looks like they didn't totally ruin Wallace & Gromit...though I rather suspect my brother, who preferred the narrative purity of A Grand Day Out to anything that followed, however astonishing to behold, will have a criticism or two to offer.

The Perils of Adoration

I'm seeing stuff here and there about the dangers of a devotion to Eucharistic Adoration, i.e., spending time before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, fully present in Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. It seems some people are afraid this will detract from devotion to the celebration of the Eucharist during the Mass (the one involving actual Communion), and further, that it may distract from Christ as He is present in the faithful (and in every person). That is, Adorers may end up spending so much time and energy praying before the Sacrament that they neglect to serve others in love.

Not buying. Not without hard evidence that this is really a problem. I'm in the both/and/but school, and I suspect others are as well. I can recognize and love Jesus in BOTH the Eucharist AND my neighbor, BUT I can still make a distinction about the ways in which He is present in each.

A cloistered contemplative hermit could faithfully serve the Mystical Body even if he never saw another person in his life besides the One he adored in the Eucharist. I'm not a cloistered contemplative hermit - I live in the world, and have an obligation in charity to my neighbors, starting with my family. But if I take time out of my life to get to Adoration, that's not necessarily a subtraction from my service to the Church. Quite the opposite.

At least, that's how I see it. Anybody else?

See Jon.

See Jon make fun of magazines.
See magazines take Jon way too seriously.

If I Had A LitBlog...

...you know, the kind with actual pull, the kind which allowed me to ring up Amanda Urban and say, "You know that reclusive novelist you've got in your stable, the one who wrote that supermegabestseller The Secret History? And after that, The Little Friend? The Southern one? Yeah, Donna Tartt, that's her name. Well, I couldn't help but notice that she wrote the foreword to a recent edition of Bonaventure's The Life of Saint Francis, and that reminded me of that Vanity Fair profile way back when, the one that helped generate all that pre-publication buzz, the one that mentioned that she's a convert to Catholicism. A Southern novelist convert to Catholicism. I'm kind of interested in people like that. So, I was thinking maybe it might be interesting to talk to her about that..."

Well, if I had a LitBlog like that, then that's what I'd do.

Local Boy Gets Reviewed

Well, the book got a write-up in the October issue of New Oxford Review, and for that, I am deeply grateful. Reviewer Judy Elsner was spot-on, I think, when she wrote that "'Good' Catholics can come frighteningly close to going badly wrong," and it's a point worth noting (and something I tried to make clear in Swimming with Scapulars). It was hard to read the line, "Perhaps, too, there's too much preaching," since I tried to avoid precisely that, but there it is. I was most struck, however, by the line "Lickona's candor became unsettling for me..." Oh, Ms. Elsner, you aint' seen nothing yet...

Other jammies, other blogs...

When did this happen, and why didn't anybody tell me? Somehow or other, Godsbody has gone and made Terry Teachout's Sites to See (scroll down to "Other Blogs.") Of course, in typical Godsbody fashion, the elation in tinged with pessimism. "Oh, grand. I finally get a foot in the door, and I'm barely blogging at all, thanks to this book deadline. Hello and welcome! Nothing to see here... How long before Teachout reconsiders, repents, yanks me from the ranks of the blessed?" Did I mention the sky was falling? Thank heaven Mark is around to throw content into the Interweb's endlessly devouring maw...

Speaking of deadlines, Amy's gone and put a word counter up for her latest book project. She's at 10K out of a projected 27K, or 37%. She's also exceedingly brave. I shudder to think (shouldn't there be a band called Shudder to Think?) what the good people at Loyola would do if they saw something like that for me. "See, it's all notes. It all comes together rather quickly right here at the end. Really."

Well, I suppose I should do something to mark the occasion. Saw Enchanted April again with the wife last night, so here's a Controlled Cinematic Haiku before I get back to the book...

Providence shapes ends
And a sly Italian breeze
Quickens English tombs

Cool.

Just finished an interview with Relevant Radio about the book. The host, Sheila Liaugminas, made one or two references to my being a "cool" Catholic. Now, I know that it's never cool to be called cool, but I'm not about to complain. My only regreat is that I didn't get a chance to comment on the idea. Happily, I have a blog.

On the one hand, a wholehearted embrace of the faith (indeed, the wholehearted embrace of anything) is desperately uncool. It's earnest, and where's the irony in that? On the other hand, the Catholic faith provides an excellent lens through which to critique the culture at large, and what's cooler than sharp criticism?

Plus, it most likely involves a considered decision to step out of the mainstream on certain matters, and stepping out of the mainstream is kinda cool.

Plus, the Church has style. Viz JPII's funeral.

Okay, enough. I'll stop now. Blathering on about what's cool is not cool.

Getting Meta

Short posts look better. They're more compact, more unified, more pleasing visually. You can take it all in, style and substance, at a glance.

This is a relief. No more working up brilliant disquisitions. Just pithy profundity from here on in.

Just For Laughs

Find out if you really are one.

Hollywood Shout-Out

Roll call for all creative types. If you're watching this space and aren't shy about being religious and "inside the walls," let us know you exist. It'll make us all feel better.

Religion and Hollywood, Part II

All right, I'll give Mr. A.O. Scott this much--there is something about the last moment of Just Like Heaven that gives pause (actually, I think I myself paused over his account of it). But it's not really the last word spoken ("Righteous") that's striking--for it's not the first time this word is used in the film--but rather the last image that's so remarkable, i.e., gratuitously religious in quality--namely, an image of "God smiling down" on new love, on a happy ending in which all has come to fulfillment.

Righteous? Totally, dude.

Breathe (2AM)

Mmmm....pop lyrics.

A friend sent me a link to Anna Nalick's Breathe (2AM). Very catchy cadences- reminds you of why Jewel's "You Were Meant for Me" was such a huge hit. And she's got that breathy, scratchy, slightly wounded voice thing going on, and plenty of emotional vulnerability to boot. But the lyrics keep sticking in my craw. Here's the first verse and chorus:

2 AM and she calls me 'cause I'm still awake,
"Can you help me unravel my latest mistake?,
I don't love him. Winter just wasn't my season"
Yeah we walk through the doors, so accusing their eyes
Like they have any right at all to criticize,
Hypocrites. You're all here for the very same reason

'Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button, girl.
So cradle your head in your hands
And breathe... just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe

I'm thinking that first verse is a girl calling her and asking her to go to an abortion clinic to "unravel her latest mistake." I get that from "I don't love him," and the fact that everyone else there is there for the same reason, and they're all feeling lousy about what they're doing there and what everybody else is doing there (hence their accusing eyes in spite of their common reason for being there.)

Now, it's not as if abortion should be off limits as a song topic - even supporters will grant the emotional wrench, and that makes it fair game (yes, I liked "Brick" by the Ben Folds Five.) But here's my trouble with its use here - abortion here seems to be an attempt to do exactly what the chorus says you can't do - hit the rewind button, erase the consequence of your actions, go back to the time before you had this thing in your body. I know the objection - well, she's getting an abortion, and even if that's an attempt to erase consequences, it carries consequences of its own. And I grant the objection. But my emotional reaction every time is that she's undermining her own song.

Dept. of Clarification and Amplification

In the comments to the previous post, I noted that when I called Steve Martin a genius, it was not because of his recent work. Rather, it was because he had managed to convince "the literary and cinematic worlds, which often bear each other a thinly veiled hostility, that he really belonged in both."

As if on cue, we get Stephen Metcalf's review of Rock Moody's new novel (about the business of show), The Diviners. His final comment on this "this sprawling disaster of a novel" - "it will make a fine movie."

Ouch.

Steve Martin, Genius.

Whatever the merits or flaws of Shopgirl, Martin can still bask in the sweet, sweet envy of every actor who's ever wanted to write his own screenplay (AND the book upon which it was based - hello, literary cred!). And he produced! After driving his career as King of the Remake (Father of the Bride, Father of the Bride 2, Cheaper by the Dozen, Cheaper by the Dozen 2) so far into the ground that it finally became invisible (or hasn't The Pink Panther come out yet?), it has to feel good to have that kind of control.
(Look for Mark to jump in on the comments and chide me for not having seen Bowfinger yet.)

(Of course, that's nothing compared to Whit Stillman's achievement - I'm thinking he has to be the only guy ever to publish a novelization of his own movie, in hardback, with a hifalutin' house like FSG: The Last Days of Disco, with Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards.