Played bass on The Dope Show

While Jackson’s The Lottery is one of the most famous short stories in the world, with most Americans at least having a cursory knowledge of the plot, every time it comes up I think about this loose adaptation from a Marilyn Manson video. Luckily, I am an unashamed Marilyn Manson fan (who is criticized for it by almost everyone) and I enjoy watching the video quite a bit. Wait, where was I going with this? Oh yeah, there’s a reading of Jackson’s work by famous fans of the author that coincides with the 60th anniversary of the publication of The Lottery. Oh, and this fawning over her by Jonathan Lethem. Oh, and here is another Manson video.

My friend Tim sent me this link which shows the Bible barely beating out Ayn Rand’s ouevre for the most inspirational. What a kick in the ass. So essentially, an archaic text which is often cited as the inspiration for altruism is narrowly more important than a collection of haughty diatribes against altruism. And towards the bottom is Harry Potter, which by international law has to be on every book list no matter what the topic is.

The Shirley Jackson links all came from Bookslut, and this guide to characters from an epic tale comes from Ed. My favorite is the giant cat.

I know I painted both Ayn Rand and the Bible with brushes far too broad. So here’s another Manson video.

And finally, the NY Times has put up a slideshow of some of the crazy crap they get with books to make them, I guess, want to review them. I don’t know why Stephen King needs to send anything aside from an extra copy of his name to get anyone to review one of his books, but I still do like the Duma Key tennis ball. And I will hand it to Charles Bock; his idea to send cool mix tapes with Beautiful Children was a pretty brilliant move, even if most of the music is pretty blah. Except, of course, his inclusion of Disposable Teens.

Posted Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:41:49 and filed under Shane, Writers, Literature. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.