Bummers and Bad Reviews Beat Being Dead Knight

My Greek's as lousy as my Inuit, but I think this
image is from a Maltese travel site.

I was still a little groggy yesterday from the holidays, so I didn't post- sorry. I'm up and at 'em today, and ready to denude the shedding branches of ornaments and cart this evergreen kindling out of here.

So, in blurbage:

1) Bummer first, but I still care about it in 2006. Dr. Roy Spencer's TCS article details how the perception of future hypothetical risk vis-a-vis global warming persuades people not to address the tangible, lethal risks of today's poverty (you guessed it- especially in Africa). How I hope the worm is turning.

2) The popular blogger Wonkette, one of the many who turned online hit counts into book deals, has published her first novel. It isn't rocking the NYT's Janet Maslin's core. Maslin typically reviews "popular" fiction, where my quotemarks denote the Manhattan's eye-view that popular equals crappy. When Sex in the City's fictional author Carrie Bradshaw had her book of sexcapades fictionally reviewed by fine fiction reviewer Michiko Kakutani, I smelled decaying fillets in Copenhagen. Kakutani would shred most commercial fiction as unreadable, but the teleplay would still rather fake that the higher brow liked it than use the appropriate reviewer's name, Janet Maslin, whose duties correlate with the biggest sellers. Michiko adored it! And it's selling millions! That's how you know it's just a TV show.

Back to Wonkette, I'm not sure Cox's true love is writing fiction anyway. I write this blog as a quasi-journal of my outrages or the things that tickle me, but as I've said before, it's a totally different animal from my fiction. In fact, it provides a relief from my fiction. My Voice here (using the capital letter and subtly implying air quotes to denote brainy literary concept) isn't remotely the same as my storytelling, and I don't believe they use the same talent. At least, it doesn't feel to me like I'm working the same muscles. Some journalists and advertising people make wonderful novelists, but I don't assume it. Ever.

3) How cool is it that tonight's Mystery Writers of America meeting boasts keynote speakers, Dr. Michael Baden and his wife and co-author, attorney Linda Kenney? I'm really looking forward to an entertaining evening. Not sure who Baden is? One word: Autopsy.

4) Since the trend for the last few decades has been to bestow the Orders of the British Empire on musicians and actors who would previously have been performing beggars, perhaps jesters if extremely fortunate, today, the noble codpiece of the knight guards dessicated cojones incapable of valiant defense save for a rousing game of charades. But finally, there is one whose vital juices haven't turned to dust. One with broad enough shoulders to wear the armor and carry our fates. One with the holy strength to raise his mighty blade against the dragons should they come back for more of what we gave 'em last time: Sir Tom Jones.