It was announced today that the Dalai Lama will be a Presidential Professor at Emory University. I mention it so that I can be the first to chime in with a variation of Carl Spackler’s classic (Caddyshack) line. Which as a male of a certain age and temperament, I am genetically required to do:
So, I tell them I’m a religion major, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald… striking….. So we finish the course and he’s gonna fail me. And I say, “Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know.” And he says, “Oh, uh, there won’t be any grades, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consiousness.” So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.
In case you’ve missed it, Michael Chabon is running a serialized novel in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Put down that work that you were going to do, and check out “Gentlemen of the Road”:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Y: The Last Man is a guilty pleasure. Last year I completed the published series by reading Volumes 4-8. The books are graphic novels (comix) about the adventures of Yorick, the literal last man on earth.
I posted at length on volumes 1-4 here. I’ll only add that the series continues to be spectacular. The creators keep adding cool new twists and wrinkles. The internet movie database says it will be a movie in 2008. At this point I think all comic book series are required to become movies.
OK. I showed you mine. What are your guilty reading pleasures? The books that you’d post about only under duress? You can tell us.
Penguin Books will attempt to write a novel by wiki in a project called a Million Penguins.
Al Gore has apparently been nominated for a Nobel Peace Price.
The last Harry Potter will be published July 21. The series pulls in so much dough that the announcement was made at the London Stock Exchange.
Lefty Texan and columnist Molly Ivins has died of breast cancer. From the NYT obit:
After Patrick J. Buchanan, as a conservative candidate for president, declared at the 1992 Republican National Convention that the United States was engaged in a cultural war, she said his speech “probably sounded better in the original German.”
Ripped from today’s headlines (or last month’s):
First off, I’ve been taken to task by a BGB Board Member for not mentioning an article that ran in the San Francisco Chronicle. The article details the kick in the family jewels that independent publishers recently received when their book distributor’s parent company filed for bankruptcy – after collecting all of their holiday season sales. The entire inventory of some small publishers remains in the warehouses of the bankrupt company while negotiations with the creditors are on-going. McSweeney’s is one of the independent publishers involved. Proceeds of Dave Eggers’ What is the What, which were intended to go to a Darfur-related charity, are basically gone. Nice.
Speaking of San Francisco, this Writers with Drinks series (voted best literary drinking by SF Weekly) sounds like the kind of idea that needs to be exported to other cities. I’ll get our West Coast partner on this ASAP.
The Top Fake News Stories of 2006 have been announced.
This guy is creating a chapter-by-chapter graphic novel adaptation of 1984. He has very cool INGSOC gear for sale at his MINIPLENTY store to support the effort.
Finally, some really old news, back in November Boing Boing linked to some “great” photo sets on Flickr that “documented” hilarious “signs” with inappropriate use of quotation marks. “Hilarious.”
Comedy, News | Tim | 
February 5, 2007 1:55 pm | 
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