via Facemakers

Estrogenmonger Oprah Winfrey has announced (New York Times) that her next book club selection will be legendarily reclusive man-author Cormac McCarthy’s 2006
post-apocalyptic dirge The Road. McCarthy, widely admired for writing books such as Blood
Meridian, in which an exuberant group of maniac scalphunters
murders and screws their way across the gloomy landscape of the Great
American West, has garnered some fame with his less-demented fare, notably
All the Pretty Horses, which chronicles a young Texans’ travels
in Mexico. Filmmaking brothers Joel and Ethan Coen, known for
light-hearted, inspirational fare, are also releasing No Country
for Old Men next year, adapted from McCarthy’s blood-soaked
suitcase-full-of-money tale of the same name.

It’s heavy stuff, and The Road isn’t exactly Book Club fare,
either - it follows a man and his son in their doomed journey through
a devastated post-nuclear war America. Stylistically, it’s less
baroque and Faulknerian than, say, Suttree, but Oprahs’ readers
might be somewhat shocked by the various miseries inflicted upon
The Road’s unhappy protagonists: cities turned to ash,
cannibalistic “Blood Cults,” baby-eating freaks, the existential
horror of really understanding why one should have voted for Kerry.
It’s stark, miserable (though gripping) stuff, and Oprah gets many,
many props for choosing such a provocative book. He’s one of my
favorite authors, although in every book of his there are scenes I
wish I could un-read. Really, who needs to know about the existence of
the Vinegaroon?

McCarthy will also give his first ever on-screen interview on
Oprah. This may come as some surprise to anyone familiar with
McCarthy; like fellow-hermits Salinger and Pynchon, he almost never
emerges from his lair to speak with the press. And on Oprah, of
all shows? That’s like Leonard Cohen showing up on Dr. Phil to
talk about his romantic problems. McCarthy’s publisher is,
understandably, thrilled - they’re printing a gazillion paperback
copies of his book in preparation for the swarming hordes of
Oprahmaniacs soon to descend upon Barnes & Nobleses everywhere,
clamoring for a copy, and no doubt trying unsuccessfully to convince
ol’ Cormy to appear on, say, Montel. Either way, it will be
nice to see such a good author get the attention he deserves, and
really interesting to see how Oprah handles such disquieting material.
Set your TiVOs!

From Barlowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials. I loved this book when I was a kid. It was publised in 1979 - I was a fetus - it’s some talented nerds’ depiction of martians from various sci fi books. I like the HP Lovecraft guy from The Mountains of Madness (see above) the most because it’s exactly how I pictured the monsters when I first read the story. The scenes when the explorers are wandering through the ancient city are really amazing, and it’s too bad thy never made any sort of good movie from it, since it’s all so cinematic. In reality, though, the movie would be a bunch of guys in parkas wandering around saying "Wow" in a really expensive set with very little happening.

Furthering the "nerdy science fiction books I liked as a kid" topic is Expedition, also by Barlowe, being a bunch of really nice paintings of martian landscapes. I really loved the bizarro expansiveness of this book. I remember buying it at the weird toy store across the street from the Natural History Museum as a kid, and some of the images really reminded me of the dioramas in the museum:

This one is pretty much cribbed straight from the African wing, but we’ll let that go. Also strange that my favorite images are essentially depictions of space-livestock in their natural habitat, not the more outlandish ones of the crazy flying green elephants carrying stalagtites, or oceans made of Jell-o, etc. The boring ones jst seemed more plausable, I guess.

I think everyone gets a little nerdy for stuff like this. Let’s hear it for really lush weird sci fi paintings!

Barlowe’s website

Gallery of GtE images

A good Barlowe gallery

From Hamsters are Fun by Kraig J. Rice:

8. Some of Your Hammies Habits

Don’t pick up your hamster after he first wakes up because (many times) he may be cranky. He usually needs to visit his potty corner right immediately after he gets awake. If you pick him up and put him in your shirt pocket immediately, then he may go potty in your shirt pocket. Don’t be mad at him. He can’t help it.

Thanks, Kraig! Good luck with your Bible ministry.

By the way, THE HOST is one of the awesomest monster movies ever. I’m watching it for the third time now (I got a copy in Chinatown for ten bucks, and a legal copy too - it’s been out in Korea for a while) and it’s still pretty great. We’re about to come to the part where the monster barfs up human remains, so I may not be eating any more cookies tonight, but seriously, giant man-eating fish-monsters get the thumbs-up. Plot schmot I say. Eat more military guys in yellow suits.

Also the Apple movie trailer plot description is pretty stellar:

Gang-du (SONG Kang-ho) works at a food-stand on the banks of the Han River. Dozing on the job, he is awakened by his daughter, Hyun-seo ( KO A-sung), who is angry with him for missing a teacher-parent meeting at school. As Gang-du walks out to the riverbank with a delivery, he notices that a large crowd of people have gathered, taking pictures and talking about something hanging from the Han River Bridge. The otherwise idyllic landscape turns suddenly to bedlam, when a terrifying creature climbs up onto the riverbank and begins to crush and eat people.

That just about sums it up!

GWOEMUL/THE HOST (IMDB)

See here.

Don’t worry! This here hamster’s helmet protects its tiny pink pea-brain from hammers, meteors, getting dropped on the floor, etc. It also appears to be wrapped in a blanket for warmth.

Sincerely,

http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n114/corsiphoto/

From our file “People Who Want to Kill Baby Polar Bears” comes this heartwarming tale of a baby polar bear named Knut:

Who, rejected by its mother bear, is being raised by zoo staff in Berlin.

Some activist guy says that because the bear will not ever be sociable with other bears (due to a lot of human contact), it should be euthanized. Probably not going to happen (cuteness, international celebrity, etc.), but a charming prospect nonetheless. This is apparently all very controversial in Europe, where bear-protection laws are serious business. MSNBC ran a short article about it (see below), with some Tsk-Tsking at the wannabe baby-bear-strangler.

My favorite part of the article, however, is this tidy bit of intra-Teuton poo-slinging:

[…]Petra Pau of the opposition Left Party invoked the widely-reported case of an Italian bear dubbed “Bruno” that wandered last year into southern Germany, only to be killed by hunters at the behest of local authorities worried about residents and livestock.

“Berlin is not Bavaria, therefore it will be better for Knut than Bruno,” Pau said.

OH SNAP! Chew on THAT, Bavaria!

Via MSNBC

Thanks, Alexis!