“As they were actual animals, rather than anthropomorphized personality traits intended to teach moral lessons, the Dog’s words were just a bunch of barking. The Goat bolted across the road, ending up on the ridge behind the Baker place. The Goat’s owner then called Animal Control, even though the Dog’s owner knew about the pot plants in the former’s greenhouse, which he had always been cool about, though that may change real soon.” Aesop’s lesser fables.
The Tortoise and the Tae-Bo Routine
Curiosities
io9 offers up “The Twenty Science Fiction Novels that Will Change Your Life,” from Frankenstein to Pattern Recognition. (via)Cathleen Schine on the charms of Peter CareyThe “Thomas Bernhard cult” claims a new initiate.F.O.T.M. (Friend of The Millions) Lydia Millet talks about “endangered species, the idea of motherhood, and her stint at Hustler.””Why do scribblers make drinking their second art? For one thing, it primes them for their task.” Writers and booze.Some American Studies undergrads at The University of Virginia have put together an online exhibit titled “The New Yorker Magazine in the 1930s.”NPR’s “In Character” segment considers Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne.
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Just in time for Halloween…
Martin Scorsese presents his picks for the eleven (?) scariest movies of all time. Apparently he stopped watching horror films around the time he directed Mean Streets…
A rare thing, the antiquarian
The New York Times recently ran an in depth look at the process of learning to deal in rare books. Which made me think of The Monkey’s Paw, a rare book store so good that twice now I’ve personally heard rare book dealers (at both Sellers and Newel and Paper Books) describe, with admiration and a dash of collegial envy, as everyone’s favorite book store.
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