a dancing star!

I wonder what goes on in the mind of a publisher when sizing up evaluating a book proposal. Wit? Market segmentation? TV appeal? Jerry Springer potential? Pitch to the pained population?
Riquette Hofstein’s Grow Hair Fast: 7 Steps to a New Head of Hair in 90 Days begins in dramatic fashion with cinematographic intent:
In the summer [...]

So many books is Gabriel Zaid’s macro-history of the book. What it lacks in fluidity, it compensates with ample anecdotal antibiotics to cure curiousity of Biblical proportions. It prompted me to dash to the care of dusty tomes, and assuage a “to be read” shelf which at time of writing includes two Eco novels, the [...]

The clinical early morning shuttle from Singapore’s Changi to Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta could never match the charm of the Berlin to Frankfurt run; Tegel with it’s unique architecture, design and history, on par with the city it deserves, with the greatest number of pickpockets per capita in the world (bar Riga) while the flughafen at Frankfurt, [...]

With such a maddening gap between posts, I had better be prepared with a legitimate reason; perhaps a catastrophe of some sort, or a bankruptcy, or the onset of the Saviour’s Season. Or a simple affliction perhaps. Thereby hangs a tale. The annual metamorphosis of digits into its sequential sibling, in an entirely predictable orderly [...]

Wednesday evening’s hours at the LA Opera’s production of Tosca was, if not supremely performed, then supremely enjoyable. Such a story of rape and murder, hypocrisy and deceit, mis-identities, and the epiphany of death cheated (with the obligatory suicide) all make for a boisterous night, set against an ever-flowing, imaginative set.
People-watching constitutes a legitimate [...]

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the passing of Gillian Rose, philosopher, scholar and teacher. She is much missed by all whom she graced.
London Consortium is holding a special conference today to discuss the legacy and impact of her life’s thought. Unfortunately, there is not much substantial material on the web that deals with her [...]

I can’t talk to people who are … disabled
Sales guy at “Miss Sixty”, 3rd Street Promenade.
How’s the lice? … [in raised voice] How’s the lice in your hair?
Barnes & Noble customer to older, hard of hearing (?) friend. Is that what friends do?
LA has been fun for now. 5 days into the vacation and I’ve [...]