Square Pegs

We are going to throw out a few not-so random quotes. Tell us if you recognize the pattern: “It gets to the point that I have to tell the math teacher to take (her) books away,” the mother shrugged. “You know, because she’s reading them in class.” “Ten o’clock, you come in (to their bedrooms) and there they are with a flashlight and a book.” Many of the parents who came out last Friday to root for their children brought books with them. And more than a few younger siblings – too young yet for this competition – found quiet […]

Though we would never admit this to anyone, there is a major flaw in Firefox: things open in tabs remain available for reading all day long. Tabs don’t close themselves in disgust. Sometimes we take that step for them, but often we watch with sick fascination, wondering what we’re going to do with the article we clicked on in a moment of vague interest. Chances are, we’ll move on (this sometimes takes days, which would normally worry us, but we’re distracted at the moment). Unless the article grows on us. Like this New York Times story about authors living the

LA Observed, in what is surely its second scoop in as many weeks, reports that the evil Calendar Live experiment ends tomorrow at 5 a.m. While normally we’d spend a few moments dwelling on the precision of the timing, we simply don’t have a spare moment to spare. What does this mean for you? Well, first, all the stories we don’t link to on the Los Angeles Times site will become fair game for our thoughts. Second, if we do link to a story, you have an excellent chance of reading it without having your credit card handy. No word

As we now know, while the world was off stereotyping librarians, they were fomenting revolution. Which is exactly the same thing you’d do if you were faced with the prospect of another patron looking for a book “by that British guy. The famous one.” All of this means that if you really want to be radical in library circles (which we imagine are more fun than Disneyland), you have to be a Cuban librarian. Yes, it’s true (or as true as possible, given that we’re not planning on heading south to do any real reporting): in its effort to suppress

It was recently brought to our attention that we, unlike some, do not aspire to be Tolstoy. For a lot of reasons, we took this as a compliment. Not that we don’t adore Russian literary giants — we do. But remember, too much Tolstoy causes the gout. When our poor, put-upon bookclub encountered our first choice — The Brothers Karamazov — there were groans (possibly because there are only so many wines that go with Russian literature). They never got our excitement; possibly we shouldn’t attempt to do the Grand Inquisitor voice. They never got that Dostoevsky was funny. Really

We received a complaint about our content: apparently some of our subject matter is too obscure. Books and publishers and writing. . .all of this seems a little foreign to at least one reader. Because we take constructive criticism seriously, we are going to strive for more accessible subject matter. We are going to start discussing maps. Everyone likes maps. Randy Cohen has decided to map literary New York (didn’t someone just do this in Los Angeles as well?). Not where authors of note have lived, but the places their characters spend time. He admits he needs help (see the

Are you tagging yet? It’s all the rage, so if you aren’t now, you will be soon. The good news is that tagging can be done from the privacy of your home. Nobody needs to know what you’re doing, unless you choose to share. Tagging, basically, is a method for adding keywords to photos, links, or information. You can then share your tagged information (Flickr is a good example of this) or use tags to manage bookmarks you’re saving for research purposes (our favorite thing). For all of us who have bookmarked something only to wonder “what’s that?” the next

The hallmark of a good friend is her ability to intuit, across thousands of miles and a couple of time zones, that you’re going to wake up with a nasty sinus headache. She then takes it upon herself to post something on your blog in your stead. We thank Jill for picking up our slack this morning. She has earned her Mindreader badge. She says she has more to say this week (and while we shouldn’t encourage avoidance, we do), so will be posting a few more items. As always, she’s nice, we’re cranky.

We were intrigued enough by this statement. . . Thomas Macaulay told us copyright law is a tax on readers for the benefit of writers, a tax that shouldn’t last a day longer than necessary. What do we do? We extend the copyright term repeatedly on both sides of the Atlantic. The US goes from fourteen years to the author’s life plus seventy years. We extend protection retrospectively to dead authors, perhaps in the hope they will write from their tombs. . . .that we made one of our infrequent forays into the world of research. Let us assure you

Leave it to those wacky Canadians to start a trend. Oh wait, they technically haven’t started anything since Bob & Doug Mackenzie told us about “hosers”. Or did Canada introduce national health care after that? It’s so hard to keep all this history stuff straight. Still Canada keeps trying. Surely one trend will filter down to the United States from the north. Like tracking book sales. Just think of the possibilities. An accurate gauge of what’s being sold. It will be like Christmas to the publishers! No more of that guessing stuff. Canada rules! Sorry. Carried away. Too much sun