wednesday hangovers

Because I haven't done this in a few days.

1. Curtis Sittenfeld should really start using the picture accompanying this WaPo story, in which she gets to be all pensive and well lit.

2. Howard Kurtz quotes Lee Siegel in TNR on the upcoming Peter Jennings-hosted special on UFOs. Which means I can steal this HIlarious excerpt without having to register for TNR:

A major network is producing a two-hour special--airing this Thursday--arguing that, as Peter Jennings, the show's host, gravely repeats over and over again, 'we are not alone,' that we get 'visited' by aliens on a regular basis. Or at least since 1947, when someone obviously bored out of his mind and scared witless both by the specter of nuclear war with Russia and the infinite silence of rural America at night, looked up from his cornfield or something, saw a giant dinner plate soaring through the nocturnal sky, and called his local police department to report an imminent invasion from outer space.

You thought all we had to worry about was Al Qaeda lurking behind every iPod? Think again. If you only knew the cosmic dangers that lurk above us, the green, spindly, big-headed beings that nurture dreams somewhere in their caves, spread out over billions of galaxies, of traipsing suddenly into our living rooms and, well, saying hello. And this is the least of it, only the beginning of a nightmare. What if they are not green? What if they are beige? What if they are (unreconstructed) liberals? What if they speak French? What if--please move your children away from the screen--they are sane?

Watching ABC present convincing dramatized accounts of UFOs flying over the country, listening to Jennings calmly make the case for a government perniciously indifferent to the threat from outer space, you have to wonder whether we are all as nuts as what we watch on TV. Or are the people who make television the true crazies?

DVR's at the ready.

3. Andrea Seigel thinks about the motivations of taggers:

Then tonight I went to the movies on the other side of town, and the seat two rows in front of me was tagged on the back. When I wasn't being distracted by how high Clint Eastwood wears his pants in the movie, I was being distracted by the writing on the back of the seat, which, incidentally, was empty. "So someone really likes that seat," I thought. It's an okay seat- in the middle of the theater and a little closer to the screen than I like, but still good- and so I can sort of understand why that particular one was chosen as a favorite. The tagger liked this seat so much that he commemorated himself on the back of it, except, because he can't be in that particular movie theater all the time, the seat must frequently become much more not-his than his. It's like having a wife that you get to sleep with on Wednesdays, except the rest of the town gets her every other day of every other week. In the end, I'm just not sure what it would mean to even have the wife.

4. David Kipen in the SF Chronicle draws attention to my favorite part of the Oscars -- the races that pit writer against writer(s). (Via the storySouth-recognized Sarah Weinman.)

5. THE NYT profiles Francesca Lia Block. (Via Beatrice.)

6. If you have more money than I do, maybe buy Hunter Thompson's ice bucket.

7. You should really look at all the smart, smart things people are saying below and add to them if you have anything to say.

That's probably it for today. The first three quarters of the co-written story are up on the block tonight. Should be fun.

Update:

8. Very jealous of Mr. Barzak's trip to The Ghibli Museum -- but he did best the no picture police and get out with some very nice pictures that he's generously posted.

Also, I'm VERRRRRRY behind on email, but am hoping to catch up tomorrow. So, sit tight if I've been an offensively long time in not responding to you. I love you, anyway. I promise.