J. Mark Bertrand gives this bit of advice early in his article on post-apocalyptic literature: “He who stockpiles the ammunition can help himself to the rest of the stockpiles.” He says he isn’t worried about a zombie uprising, which of course is ludicrous. They are coming. Everyone knows it. And here Mr. Bertrand is reading a book called Far North
Here’s a heart-warming documentary from March 1968 with J.R.R. Tolkien and some Oxford students talking about his epic fantasy. Our friend Bill at Thinklings is rejoicing in part due to his recent to Oxford.
Megan Basham reviews an upcoming documentary Waiting for “Superman,” which she calls “a scathing look at the U.S. public-school system and those who stand in the way of reforming it.”
This reminds me a bit of the LifeHacks guy (if that’s the right label for him) who was offered a book contract and spend the whole time designing the cover.
As a tie-in post to Lars’ review of Heat Wave and as a benefit to some of our readers, without whom we could not do, here is a photo of Nathan Fillion. (link defunct)
And here is a photo of Rainn Wilson beating Mr. Fillion up at Comic-Con this year. (link defunct)
Loren Eaton links to some misconceptions often repeated to would-be writers or about writing, like the money people will throw at you, the public respect you will receive, and the ships that will come in for you. Let me have a fit of transparency here and tell you that I get most discouraged by advice that I need to read piles of work in a certain genre in order to write well or have the credentials to be considered for publication, but I’ll never be able to read as much as I’d like to.
Never mind. I’m just complaining, and I have better things to do.
MORTAL my mate, bearing my rock-a-heart
Warm beat with cold beat company, shall I
Earlier or you fail at our force, and lie
The ruins of, rifled, once a world of art?
The telling time our task is; time’s some part,
Not all, but we were framed to fail and die—
One spell and well that one. There, ah thereby
Is comfort’s carol of all or woe’s worst smart.
Field-flown, the departed day no morning brings
Saying ‘This was yours’ with her, but new one, worse,
And then that last and shortest…
And now, the Oxford Book of Parodies, “beginning with Anglo-Saxon doggerel and concluding with J.K. Rowling.” A parody of Beowulf gives us these lines: “Wonderlich were they enwraged / And wordwar waged.” Quote that on the subway.
One reason why Frédéric Chopin “is the overwhelming favorite composer for the piano”: he loved the short works of J.S. Bach more than anyone else of his time.
