Curiously, in the original script he says Thomas Pynchon's novels are pretentious crap, which is a much less defensible position.

I suppose Bret Easton Ellis doesn't pre-date the movie? Damn. Because he would be perfect.

bwahahaha... Ellis graduated from Bennington just a few years before I got there, and the place was all abuzz about him. So I picked up American Psycho.

Boy was that a waste of my time. Maybe it's just as well I didn't get into any writing courses there...

Crash Davis is exactly the kind of man to keep a tattered copy of "Gravity's Rainbow" in his locker.

Great call, Deb. Love Rock and Roll Circus. Marianne looks like a pretty petal there (hard knowing she's on the verge of a heroin addiction that's about to eat fifteen years of her life).

Of course, The Who totally steal that show. At the height of their powers, fucking around and absolutely certain that they're the best rock and roll band on earth. And they're right.

t looks at backlog of natter messages

t looks at Bull Durham DVD

t looks at dishes in the sink

t realizes that one of these things will not happen today

Crash Davis is exactly the kind of man to keep a tattered copy of "Gravity's Rainbow" in his locker.

After I read this conversation, I read a new Spider-Man comic I picked up yesterday. In it, Peter Parker (Spider-Man, for those who might not know) was going through a box of things that belonged to his dead father, who was a big science genius. Among the papers and journals was a copy of "Gravity's Rainbow." I did a big double-take.

heh. How cool is that?

Question, though: I can't do the timing on that in my head. If Spiderman premiered in 1962, and "GR" came out sometime in the early seventies (I remember there was a huge fuss because it won the Pulitzer and the wankers on the committee overturned the judge's decision because they couldn't understand a word of it, and there was no Pulitzer for literature that year) - well, wait. Timing? When did his father die?

Well, the Spider-Man I'm reading is a title called "Ultimate Spider-Man," which is basically a re-working of the entire story -- starting with Peter getting bitten by the spider -- but updated and in a modern setting. It's a genetically altered spider instead of a radioactive one, etc.

Of course, that problem is that the comic paints Peter's aunt and uncle who take him in as old hippies, but they don't really count the flashback chronology well enough, because that would put the height of hippie-dom at about 1993?

There's a little hand-waving going on w/r/t the timeline, methinks.

There's a little hand-waving going on w/r/t the timeline, methinks.

In comics? I'm shocked!

Hey, guys. Need some help.

Y'all know I'm a ficcer. My family doesn't know that I'm a ficcer, but they do know I'm deeply involved in my "online writing group", and after three years of this I'm rather disinclined to out myself to them. It's all too complicated and my sister (who already is a little hurt I won't share my writing with her) just doesn't understand the whole obsession focus on television shows.

At any rate, so yeah, they know I write but not what. The problem I've run into is my sister has an old college friend who is a novelist (2 written, I gather) but who can't manage to sell anything. My sister mentioned to this friend (we'll call her J) that I am involved with online writing groups and get a lot of support and editing help from the communities I'm involved in.

So J wants in. She wants to know where I'm doing all this and shit like that.

So, 2 problems: (a) I'm not going to out myself as a ficcer to J if I'm not going to tell my sister. (b) I don't know where the mainstream original-fiction-writing online communities are.

Anyone got any advice? What do I tell this woman?

Consuela, give her my email and point her at my website. Tell her you get online editing support from me - hell, if your conscience bothers you, send me something and I'll support it and that clears conscience.

I actually DO edit online for people, and I do have a meatspace writing group (six regulars, here in the City).

And it may get her off your back, and since I've got mainstream cred or whatever, you won't have to tell them diddly if you don't want to.

psssst, for David:

Of course, The Who totally steal that show. At the height of their powers, fucking around and absolutely certain that they're the best rock and roll band on earth. And they're right.

remind me to tell you about the Who, the not very bright POTUS, and the near-firefight with the federales in the basement of the Sheraton Palace Hotel in San Francisco in the mid-seventies....