(Day Five of boot camp: you know how in movies like Mad Max and Conan the Barbarian there’s always an elaborate forced-labor scene involving lots of extras chained to some kind of giant carousel of torment that they have to propel all by themselves by pushing and/or pulling and all the while they’re grunting and shuffling along looking sort of passive-aggressive, but really you know they’re supposed to be exhausted? You know? I forgot what my point was. Anyway. Ow.)
I keep meaning to mention that I’m going to be reading at the Hideout on the 26th in yet another people-reading-funny-stuff extravaganza hosted by Zulkey and John Green. I might pick a short selection from the book, but I’ll be reading other things, too. You should come. The films are funny.
Speaking of readings, did you see how Margaret Atwood went and invented this thing that signs books from a remote location? No, really: Margaret Atwood totally invented a robot arm that signs books. That’s just surreal. Wouldn’t it be great if writers just did that stuff all the time? Like if David Foster Wallace just came up with some crazy precision laser beam that can render legible footnotes in microscopic -15pt type, or Tom Wolfe devised an electromagnetic wand to detect irony in sex scenes? Personally I would improve on the book-signing invention by solving the women-writers-can’t-get-male-groupies problem at the same time. That’s right–I would build a Book-Touring Femmebot, with Realdoll parts and NPR personality. Among its many features it would adminster a stun-gun-like shock to anyone who says something like, “So your book, it’s really just chick lit, right?” or “Why aren’t you on Oprah?”
