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!

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)

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

What is the most disgusting smell in the world? A steaming sack of McDonald’s in a Subway train.

I don’t need to explain it, but I will: Everybody in New York takes the subway. We ride it together every day. It’s a cooperative activity. We all have to wait on a freezing cold or boiling hot platform, we all have to dash for the train sometimes, we all get embarassed when we have to tug our sleeve or bag out of the vise-grip of the doors. It’s something we, as citizens, endure, because taking the train is the only option for pretty much everyone who isn’t lucky enough to be able to walk to work or school.

And then in comes the guy with his lunch. For some reason, those who dine á la MTA pack only the gnarliest, most pungent meals. It’s always pastrami or something. Let’s be straight: fast food is delicious, we all eat it every once in a while, but DAMN if it does not smell AWFUL, especially in an enclosed space (that usually stinks to begin with). Being surrounded by a whole bunch of people just getting off of work just maagnifies the discomfort. Having to suffer a bag of Wendy’s for eight local stops is enough to make me lose it.

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So some guys in a boat caught a COLOSSAL SQUID (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) off Antarctica, while it was eating a Patagonian toothfish (which also exists, I guess). Apparently the Colossal Squid is a lot like the Giant Squid, but (according to Wikipedia, always known for accuracy), besides being colassaler,

[u]nlike the giant squid, whose tentacles are equipped with suckers lined with small teeth, the suckers at the tips of the Colossal Squid’s tentacles have sharp swiveling hooks. Its body is wider and stouter, and therefore heavier, than that of the giant squid. Colossal Squids are believed to have a longer mantle than giant squids, although their tentacles are shorter.

Holy CRAP. SHARP SWIVELLING HOOKS? This just replaced the vinegaroon in my nightmares.

Via National Geographic, BBC

Here’s a picture of a Patagonian Toothfish. Delicious.

Some sweet Lord of the Rings art.

I never understood why is it that people hate mice. I always liked mice, even if they were biting through the bottom of my box of Honey Smacks. The whole standing-on-a-chair-screaming thing is odd to me; why not for a roach, who’s so much more inhuman and alien, and disgusting? Comparing a mouse running across the floor with the slow crawly throb of a millipede on a white wall there’s no contest. And mice can’t help squirming around all the time. Bugs stand way too still. When I turn on the lights and what I think is a smear of old tomato sauce on the wall right above the lip of the stove, a second later, starts moving, that’s unnerving. At first the roach thinks it can just wait me out, that I’m not going to notice him hanging out there, and then it’s like Fuck it, and makes a break for it, and I’m like Yow. Mice don’t do that. Being warm blooded prevents the creepy stasis that afflicts lizards and bugs. Also mice have fur, and fur isn’t scary.

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This one’s for you, Chris.