Books
Most of my life I read all the time but somehow, when I got married and started doing job and kid, I sort of stopped reading novels nearly as much. I've been watching way too much TV lately, so Monday night I went out and got books to read. Alice Munro's latest collection and Snow by Orhan Pamuk.
But I got something even better than that in the mail. From Leslie What (hi Leslie!) I got a Chinese Great Leap Forward Army hat covered with pins and a cool wig stand, dark chocolate with chili in it (which is really quite good because you feel the chili as much as you taste it so it's like chocolate that makes your lips tingle) and the perfect reading material for Chemo Brain--The Weekly World News. The Weekly World News has in it, among other things, 25 signs you're going to hell. One of them is that you hate harp music. Another is that you have severed heads in the freezer. It's my opinion that the severed heads are a pretty good tip.
For those of you not so blessed, here is The Weekly World News online version reporting important literary news. Remember that thing about an infinite number of monkeys and typewriters?
But I got something even better than that in the mail. From Leslie What (hi Leslie!) I got a Chinese Great Leap Forward Army hat covered with pins and a cool wig stand, dark chocolate with chili in it (which is really quite good because you feel the chili as much as you taste it so it's like chocolate that makes your lips tingle) and the perfect reading material for Chemo Brain--The Weekly World News. The Weekly World News has in it, among other things, 25 signs you're going to hell. One of them is that you hate harp music. Another is that you have severed heads in the freezer. It's my opinion that the severed heads are a pretty good tip.
For those of you not so blessed, here is The Weekly World News online version reporting important literary news. Remember that thing about an infinite number of monkeys and typewriters?
posted by Maureen McHugh at 9:16 AM
6 Comments:
The WWN also has the advantage, if one can call it that, of being a source of spare cash for people such as Tom Easton and other experts who can make an appropriate ambiguous-but-related comment ("cryonics is a really interesting field of study") to shore up an article.
The other thing I noticed is that almost all of their "small" pieces (ones not dealing with killer trees, yetis, or Michael Jackson) are actual newswire copy. The "long tail" of the world has long found a haven in the "alternative press"--just not the one everyone calls such.
"The monkeys also recently typed out a Thomas Pynchon novel, but that doesn't count."
Oh, man.
Ken, that's very interesting. I was quite surprised to see that The Weekly World News has given up pretending it isn't absurd--it can't complete with The Onion as comedy. But I find the idea that it runs straight news as well as IOWA FARMER SHOOTS BIGFOOT quite subversive.
David, the Pynchon line was my favorite part of the whole piece. At that moment I knew I would like the guy who wrote the article a lot.
That's TWO-HEADED BIGFOOT, don't forget.
And yeah, I instantly took a liking to the writer, too.
"25 signs you're going to hell. One of them is that you hate harp music. Another is that you have severed heads in the freezer. It's my opinion that the severed heads are a pretty good tip."
Fell off my exercise ball laughing!
Marite
If you need more and can't find Chocolate Variado bars near you, you can buy them directly from Moonstruck Chocolate. I know the WWN is available mostly everywhere.
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