Jarrett House NorthSecond verse, same as the first.

I have a few more years before I cross the rubicon of 40, and I don’t spend much time dwelling on that approaching milestone. And yet, there are days… Today, it wasn’t observing the greying roots in the mirror, or wishing another friend well as they turned 40. No, it was paging through the second [...]

New York Times: Google Settles Suit Over Book-Scanning. It’s good to see the book publishing industry come to its senses. Now that the parties have agreed to revenue sharing from book sales and library use, it becomes even more clear that Google Books is yet another Internet mediated disintermediation. Google Books is probably the best [...]

A few comics related links this morning. First, it will be of interests to comics historians, fantasy fans, and my sister that the full archive of Elfquest is going on line for free to mark the comic’s thirtieth anniversary; the archive will fill up over the coming year. That’s a whole lotta Pini, folks. If [...]

Browsing a Wired.com photo feature on the Internet Archive’s book scanning operation, I was struck by this image, showing a self-contained book press. PDF goes in, paperback bound book comes out. I would pay for a copy of Cabell’s Early History of the University of Virginia, for sure, and maybe even the five-volume centennial History [...]

Interesting link from Slashdot regarding one individual’s effort to solve the library problem—also known as, how do you work with 3500 books? I like how they addressed not just the physical issues but also the cataloging questions. Something to think about when I address my 550+ books…

Cracked.com is kind enough to provide a listing of the Nine Most Badass Bible Verses, an idea that sounds really silly unless you know your Old Testament. Yep: Samson and Elisha, Original Gangstas. And I have to admit that the verse about David is pretty darned good, too. I can’t help but think that some [...]

And no, not that Beowulf, though I confess the release of the movie got me off my duff to start this project. And not even the Seamus Heaney translation. No, I’m talking about the real thing—the original Old English poem, as it was meant to be experienced—read aloud, in this case, by the great Old [...]

Item: BoingBoing pointed to an R Sikoryak adaptation of Crime and Punishment a la a Dick Sprang Batman comic book. In turn, the Again with the Comics blog post that reprinted the adaption linked to the Masterpiece Comics on R Sikoryak’s site, including a tiny reproduction of my favorite comics adaptation of a literary masterpiece: [...]

Thinking about John reminded me to look up some of my other authors from the first three issues. Mohit Bhasin, whom I served badly with a poor choice of anatomical clip art next to his poem in the first issue, appears to have kept up his dual pursuit of literature and medicine. Laura MacCleery is [...]

I started, and finished, Deathly Hallows last night. Don’t worry: no spoilers from me. Just a note to mark the end of that particular journey. But one thought: how the hell are they going to make that a movie? Jo hardly managed to fit it all into just one book.

Thanks to Zalm for starting me out right this morning by pointing to Kurt Vonnegut’s obituary. So it goes, indeed.

…quite a few meme posts recently. Forgive me: after a long downtime, I still have my blog training wheels back on, and any writing is better than no writing. So I was tagged by Isis with this book meme: Find the nearest book. Name the book & the author. Turn to page 123. Go to [...]

New York Times: William Styron, Novelist, Dies at 81. While others will remember him for Sophie’s Choice, Lie Down in Darkness, or The Confessions of Nat Turner, I will of necessity remember this writer from my hometown of Newport News for Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness, which he wrote in 1990 about his struggles [...]

Bruno artist Chris Baldwin reported on Friday (sorry no permalink) that his should-be-in-every-newspaper comic strip, Little Dee, will be available through Comics.com, United Features Syndicate’s online comics portal, where it can be read alongside Peanuts, Doonesbury, and other greats. It’s not syndication but it’s a huge step. Wired picked up the news yesterday, so I [...]

It’s been one of those serendipitious days. A link on Boing Boing about a secret “cornfield” where misbehaving players inside the MMPORG Second Life get banished sent me on a search for the original story. The game makers credit the Twilight Zone, but I remembered reading a short story with the same premise as a [...]