blushing hangovers*

Sorry about the silence. You wouldn't believe me if I told you. This week it's mostly not getting my stuff done that's the cause.

1. Matt Cheney called attention to Jim Kelly's On the Net column from Asimov's, the "Breathing the Blogosphere" edition. I am undeniably, furiously, blushingly honored that Shaken & Stirred is included in Jim's list of "forty excellent blogs that explore our little corner of literature"--which includes many, many of my favorites (as you can see to the right).

2. Speaking of Asimov's, a little birdie with a fondness for comic book panel cut-outs on the front of his envelopes sent us Paul Di Filippo's small press column from the March 05 issue (which we purchased tonight and has a lovely cover). He happens to review Say... why aren't we crying? in brief:

Once upon a time, and a very good time it was, there was a zine named Say... which sought to reinvent itself with every issue by adding an interrogative clause to its name. The fourth time it did this trick, it called itself Say... why aren't we crying?, and the results were splendid. Jude-Marie Green traffics in the future of interior decorating, ribofunk-style, in "Til the Wildness Cried Aloud." David Schwartz gives a deadpan yet affecting account of a poor fellow with a lacunae-ridden memory in "The Lethe Man." And E.L. Chen's comic strip "Why Aren't We Crying?" encapsulates this issue's theme in a witty, metafictional manner. That's just for starters, of course. And take my word for it: you'll be shedding tears of regret if you don't subscribe to Say..., the zine of a thousand faces.

3. Ayelet Waldman meets Stephen King when he pays a surprise visit to an 826 class on dark fantasy and horror writing for teens. Awwww.

4. Susan discovers extreme fact-checking laziness while doing research for her disseration. (Maybe the net will ultimately make this kind of thing harder to get away with?)

Today, working in the library, I picked up a book on prominent women philosophers, trying to get a better handle on what Calkins was known for as a philosopher. (I know what she was known for as a psychologist--she developed the paired associates research technique, she smacked down anyone who tried to demonstrate that women's brains were inherently inferior, and she developed a system of psychology centered around a concept of "self" that was later a big influence for Gordon Allport (pioneer of mid-twentieth-century personality psychology. The philosophy's still a mystery to me, though.) In this book, I discovered that Mary Whiton Calkins was one of only three people to ever hold both presidencies--the other two being, apparently, William James and Hugo Munsterberg.

So right there I've got four names (James, Munsterberg, Dewey, and Calkins) and three slots. You know what, though? Both organizations have online listings of their past presidents.

By my count, at least seven people were president of both organizations. George Trumbull Ladd, John Dewey, William James, Walter Pillsbury, Hugo Munsterberg, Carl Seashore, and Mary Whiton Calkins. For all I know, there are more--these are just the ones I picked up on a cursory scan.

5. Good night. More tomorrow. The Seas is wonderful. But not as wonderful as going to Barnes and Noble to pick up Science Fiction: Best of 2004, edited by Karen Haber and Jonathan Strahan and containing a bunch of fabulous stories including Christopher's "The Voluntary State." Go forth and purchase.

*and my name's not even next to Bruce Sterling's.