This one's for all the Librarians, Booksellers, Bibliophiles, Book Addicts, Publishers, Biologists, and Classification Geeks

John Evans of Diesel a Bookstore passed this along to me from the New York Times and Nicholas Felton:




Brilliant.

and finally a new poem on the blog...

a gloaming union
bloodied and phrastic
"O lively inhuman
we'll be heretics"

against our mouth
music, glass, concrete
writing is uncouth
a blushed discretion

oakland howls, demands
"smoldered throat / peeled collision"
we'll sing a smattering
tendoned fête

Interesting article on copyright law from a science fiction writer

Just read this piece by Cory Doctorow about copyright law and was surprised to learn that Frank Herbert's estate sued some Second Lifers because they paid an homage to Dune in SL. Absolutley ridiculous. In any case, Doctorow's essay is concise and makes a unique point about copyright's bias against constructive creativity. Read more here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/may/13/cory-doctorow-copyright

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*Good thing the bit below is a parody*

brief thoughts on Tuned Droves

Eric Baus’ latest book, Tuned Droves, is a perceptual transmission, a linguistic reengineering, and a phenomenal cartography of a wild borderland both innocent and amoral. Reading these poems, with lines like “The bee’s stinger is like an enclosed, dark tongue. The atonal tortoise is a kind of dictionary in reverse,” reminds me of the often overlooked linkages between the world’s contents and their connection as well to language and thus thought. Eric Baus’ poetry refreshes the world and makes it more dangerous.

[EDITED on 4.29.09]
Remember! Tomorrow is Poem in Your Pocket Day. Don't be embarrassed when someone asks you to share a poem, and you reach into your pocket pulling forth only lint.
Print, steal, tear, memorize, or write a poem and carry it in your pocket. Dare to disturb the universe!

Books stabilize culture

I read a terrific essay today by Stephen L. Carter over at The Daily Beast. Carter begins with the following:

Like a lot of writers, I am wondering when Congress and the administration will propose a bailout for the publishing industry. Carnage is everywhere. Advances slashed, editors fired, publicity at subsistence levels, entire imprints vanished into thin air. Moreover, unlike some of the industries that the government, in its wisdom, has decided to subsidize, the publishing of books is crucial to the American way of life

Ironically I read this online, but I very much agree with Carter when he asserts that the book itself is quite different from information, and that both are necessary. We so often tend to blindly adopt new media and throw out the old without taking the time to critically analyze not just the benefits and costs of each, but the deeper nature of different media types. I'll take a book any day over a kindle, and I don't trust those who wouldn't do the same.

And in tangential but ever-so related news, Ama.zon (may it be crushed by its own weight) has decided to define its LGBT titles as "Adult." WTF? Read more here: http://i.gizmodo.com/5209149/amazon-deems-lgbt-books-too-adult-for-search-best-seller-lists

Tom Gauld is funny

From Beasts Vol.2

Check out more of Gauld's work here at Cabanon Press: http://www.cabanonpress.com

Hurray for Vermont!

I don't really have too much to say, except that I am so pleased about Vermont's legalization of gay marriage, and that California needs to get its act together.

Read more here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090407/ap_on_re_us/gay_marriage_vermont

I love California, but c'mon, are we really this far behind the curve on this? Sheesh.