Sing Me a Song of Comic-Con

Comic-Con 2009, the huge comic book convention, begins today in San Diego, so the near-simultaneous influx of carnivorous flying giant squid is starting to seem more and more like a publicity stunt. And that's OK--as a book flack, I salute it!

In any case, over on Classics Rock! we're celebrating Comic-Con all week with songs based on comic books. We offered a preview last Friday with Deborah Harry's "Comic Books," kicked things off on Monday with the Spin Doctors' "Jimmy Olsen's Blues," featured Paul McCartney's "Magneto & Titanium Man" on Tuesday, and Suicide's "Ghost Rider" yesterday. Today's selection is Camberwell Now's "Green Lantern." Sorry, the "Batdance" won't be featured, but I hope you'll visit anyway. Pow! Bam! Kra-a-a-a-k!!

Things I'd Like to See This Weekend on C-SPAN's "Book TV"

Saturday
10:00 am Ernest Hemingway Blofeld
The authors of Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America talk about their contention that Ernest Hemingway served as a KGB agent during the 1940s. Recently discovered files show that Soviet recruiters were, in fact, in touch with Hemingway, who first caught their attention with his fondness for shooting things and punching people out. The KGB trained him and sent him into the field armed with various gadgets, including a special typewriter that could produce enough muscular prose to overpower an enemy agent. Hemingway once nearly killed future spy novelist Ian Fleming--not because Fleming was with a rival spy service (British Naval Intelligence) but because he was "an effete tea-sipping Limey fop." (Fleming is thought to have based James Bond's archenemy, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, on Hemingway, which would explain all the cats running around the Hemingway House in Key West.) Ultimately Hemingway's career as a spy came to an end when he ran afoul of the American intelligence community, an experience he relates in his book The Old Man and the CIA.

2:00 pm Reading with Sonia Sotomayor
The Supreme Court nominee discusses the literary characters that influenced her. In her youth, she devoured the Nancy Drew mysteries and dreamed of becoming a detective. She credits Perry Mason with inspiring her to pursue a career in law. Once she ascended to the bench, however, she focused her attention on reading material that would clarify and elucidate the role of the judiciary and the courts. In particular she cites Mike Hammer in Mickey Spillane's I, the Jury as "a guy who knows how to mete out justice in the court of no appeal," and the stories of Judge Dredd, who she describes as "a kickass jurist," especially as embodied by "that hottie" Sylvester Stallone.

Sunday
11:00 am Lost in Translation
Michael Luongo, author of Gay Travels in the Muslim World--the first gay book to be translated into Arabic--discusses the controversy that resulted when Arabic translators substituted the word "Pervert" for the word "Gay" in the book's title. Subsequent developments reveal that there is some precedent for this: A quick canvass of several bookstores in the Middle East turned up copies of Enola Pervert by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan Witts; Our Hearts Were Young and Degenerate by Cornelia Otis Skinner; and several books by Deviate Talese. [Related programming note: Later tonight C-SPAN will air the Arabic version of the Fred Astaire classic, The Debauched Divorcée.]

4:00 pm Obscure Dickens
A series profiling lesser-known Dickens characters. This week: Hieronymous Quillplucker, naïve publisher in Bleak House who believes that no book with the word 'bleak' in the title will sell.

New York Post

Yesterday I was featured in the the New York Post. I know what you're thinking: "Page Six" caught me clubbing with Leonardo DiCaprio and two stunning mystery females, or getting tattooed with Zooey Deschanel. It's true, I often engage in such activities--that Leo, what a character!--but that's not what this is about. You have to flip several pages past "Page Six" (actually located on page 10, so you have a head start) until you get to the @Work section, where I am quoted in an article about "unemployment blogging." Written by Sheila McClear, formerly of Gawker, the piece features a number of people who responded to a layoff by starting a blog.

I'm not sure I fit comfortably into the narrative of the piece, to be honest, since I resisted starting a blog and only did it to supplement my primary strategy of publicizing myself. However, I like Sheila's turn of phrase when she says I decided that my "personal recession-victim story needed a publicity campaign--and his best p.r. agent was himself." That is certainly true. I was also by far my cheapest p.r. agent.

Since the piece ran, a number of people have congratulated me for landing a new job. I'd like to clarify that: The article says, "He credits the blog with helping him to land the new job he started last month, working on book publicity for a p.r. firm." This is true, but as stated previously, it is a freelance position, not full time.

The other blogs featured in the piece range from the personal to the useful to the hilarious--you might want to check them out. In particular, take a look at Odd Todd's cartoon section, and the Jeff's Notes section of ASSME, which offers capsule summaries of classic books you've never read so you can sound smarter.

Finally, a word about the photo. Looks like I'm hard at work in my home office, right? Or maybe a coffee shop? This was actually shot in the News Corp building, in a common area on the third floor. There was an employee coffee station there, and a couple of big tables filled with people who appeared to be having a meeting while the photo shoot was in progress. The laptop was borrowed (I don't even own one) and was not actually plugged in. As far as I know, it may not even have been functional. Most of the books on the shelf to my left were published by HarperCollins, my former employer and, like the Post, a News Corp property. At the last minute the photographer, Zandy Mangold, dressed the set with a copy of that day's Wall Street Journal, another News Corp property. He also added the coffee cup--yeah, that's News Corp property too. It was borrowed from the coffee station and was filled with actual hot coffee. Which, by the way, was maybe the best coffee I ever had. I was drinking it black and I never do that.

Things I'd Like to See This Weekend on C-SPAN's "Book TV"

Saturday
11:00 am Sarah Palin
Discussing her decision to resign as governor of Alaska and how it will affect her forthcoming memoir, Palin again demonstrates why she is the most oddly compelling figure to appear on the political landscape since Mayor McCheese. Palin says her book will argue that deciding to terminate instead of going to full term is not a choice that pregnant women should have, but is a perfectly viable option for a state governor. She also reveals that she is working on a children's book called Quacking Up, about a lame duck named Maverick who resigns as head of her flock for vague and murky reasons, teaching young readers that quitting isn't quitting if you call it something else. A discussion of Palin's political future rounds out the final four seconds of the program.

2:00 pm Pen-Palling Around With Terrorists
Writer Jack Cashill defends his theory that former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers, author of the memoir Fugitive Days, actually wrote Barack Obama's bestselling book Dreams from My Father. Cashill's theory is based on several pieces of textual evidence: Both men write about power ("Ayers, in fact, evokes the word 'power' and its derivatives 75 times in Fugitive Days, Obama 83 times in Dreams"); both are obsessed with eyebrows ("There are six references to 'eyebrows' in Fugitive Days -- bushy ones, flaring ones, arched ones, black ones and, stunningly, seven references in Dreams -- heavy ones, bushy ones, wispy ones"); and both misquote Carl Sandburg's poem Chicago. Cashill concedes that since the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet used the word 'power' more than 150 times in his biographical writings about Lincoln, and had distinctly prominent eyebrows as well, it is at least possible that Carl Sandburg wrote both Fugitive Days and Dreams from My Father. Also discussed: Passing references to Shakespeare in both books lead to speculation that the Immortal Bard is the author. Cashill scoffs at this notion, suggesting that it is more likely the books were written by either Francis Bacon or Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford.

Sunday
10:00 am Nicholas D. Kristof
The New York Times columnist discusses his recent list of The Best Kids' Books Ever, which emphasizes well-seasoned personal favorites from decades gone by such as the Hardy Boys series, the Freddie the Pig series, On to Oregon, and Little Lord Fauntleroy. Mr. Kristof hints that he may produce a second list, this one consisting of books that might actually appeal to real live children, or at least children who aren't Benjamin Button.

4:00 pm Obscure Dickens
A series profiling lesser-known Dickens characters. This week: Dick Dicklewicker, Oliver Twist's best friend at the orphanage, who disappears under mysterious circumstances when the book is adapted for the musical Oliver!

Ghosting

Jack Cashill has a theory that Bill Ayers, the former Weather Underground member, is the actual author of Barack Obama's book Dreams from My Father. The theory is based on supposed similarities between Obama's book and various writings by Ayers. These include overusing the word "power," misquoting Carl Sandburg, and referring to various kinds of eyebrows. You can judge his evidence for yourself, but you have to wonder why he thinks Ayers is the ghostwriter without considering the other possibility. Why couldn't Obama be the secret author of Bill Ayers' books? I'm just saying.