Sunday Browsing (and Gold Medal's Diamond Jubilee prize winner!)

"Their journal is history as a higher, wittier, more observant form of gossip. They were neurotic. They were proto-bloggers, with temperaments nasty and generous, goatish and cerebral. Their prose is alternately rambling and aphoristic. ..." ---the blogger at Anecdotal Evidence, on the brothers de Goncourt (French publishers) who started a journal/diary together in 1851.

Proto-blogging: blogging: "rambling" or "aphoristic".

Aphoristic: short and pithy.

I am tempted to ramble-essay on the difference between blogging and, well, writing. I wish I could learn my lesson about keeping posts short and frequent.

But this is Sunday and that means Linkage and video obscure...
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Flash fiction: an extreme example, allegedly by Hemingway, is "For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn." Read more about the genre here.

"Flash fiction differs from vignettes in that the works contain the classic story elements: protagonist, conflict, obstacles or complications, and resolution. However, unlike a traditional short story, the limited word length often forces some of these elements to be unwritten, that is, hinted at or implied in the written storyline."

Here is a frequently updated website (blog? do we dare call it a blog?) that may or may not contain "flash fiction": Very Short Novels. "299 words. Anything more is waste.—"

You may have thought of Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" as I did. Re-reading it for the first time in 25 years, I'm impressed that Hemingway could portray himself as such a jerk.

In all things, if you no longer trust your own first impressions, you're in trouble, and liable to fall into the hands of a pedant or worse, a psychiatrist.

Present company excluded of course!

(There's my attempt at an aphrorism, did you notice?)
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"Here’s how chains kill books and careers..." from the novelist Holly Lisle's bloggo.

All I know is that genuine "indie" booksellers do indeed work at places like Borders and Barnes and Noble. And I know that at Borders, at least, booksellers can over-ride any command from on-high to return a title that isn't selling. We were all proud to "hand-sell" books, and often had a display of bookseller favorites at the front of the store, with little hand-written cards and the bookseller's name.


"If you liked "A Friend Of The Family", Mrs. Tharp, you're sure to enjoy Linda Howard's "Dream Man"!"

Like that, sort of.

I found this being discussed at Bookseller Chick's post "Words out that we are evil again." I left a comment there, what I remember from the first days of the Big Bookstore, back in the mid 80's. Borders took off so well because of its "indie" roots and hand-selling philosophy. Don't knock it too hard.
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Pynchon has a new novel. (That's like the equivelent of Dylan having a new album, to some!) The blogger at Chekhov's Mistress is contributing
to the Wikipedia discussion, or "Wiki".

What's more? I'm taking some pride in my sidebar links here.

The Comics Curmudgeon has published an article in the L.A. Times, "The Funnies Are Still Funny Online." They are! When you have a site like his and can share the snarky commentary. I love the Curmudgeon and become impatient for updates even as the commenters continue on their own.

"Josh" mentions this YouTube live action recreation of "Mary Worth", which demonstrates that it's possible but not profitable to speed up the story line of three weeks worth of strips into two minutes. Mildly amusing, with perhaps one LOL if you keep your eye on the mercurial actress playing Mary.
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And now for our video obscure.



The 1955 Gold Medal Flour diamond jubilee sweepstakes winner of $25,000 is finally announced on "Valiant Woman"! (Please explain to me why an apparent circus midget is part of the presentation committee.)

"Hello, Betty Crocker!" And there she is! Turns out she's real, and very charming, perhaps from the upper middle class, unlike you.

Weekday TV was given over to women completely, and sometimes I pick up on the sensation of home-isolation and mild annoyance at the soft soap sellers. The transitions into commercial time are seamless and frequent, "Oh, doctor! Doctor! Don't let her die! And now let's see what Betty Crocker is doing!"

If the film breaks or you'd like to read some history on Valiant Woman (and viewer comments) click here.

Thanks for visiting!