Total Oblivion

"A fast-paced, suspenseful dystopian picaresque, part Huck Finn and part bizarro-world Swiss Family Robinson..."

---Kirkus

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Skinny Dipping

Long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and finalist for the Crawford Award. Title short story listed for the 2000 O. Henry award.

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Goblin Mercantile Exchange

Futures, Options, and Swaps (the weblog of Alan DeNiro)

infantilism

The reprise of the Sears campaign from last year is up and running: Don’t Just Give a Gift, Make a Wish. My interior monologue regarding that request/demand goes as follows: Um, actually, I’d just like to give a gift, thanks, if that’s cool with you? I’m not a djinn! I think, especially in this economic [...]

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Mon, November 24 2008 » Polis » 2 Comments

logistical interruption

Sorry that I’m throwing myself at the mercy of everyone, but I’m having a bit of trouble with my RSS feed; it seems to work ok in Bloglines and Google Reader, but not in other applications (I’m trying to get the feed to work with Twitter, so that Twitter gets pinged with the URL whenever [...]

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Sun, November 23 2008 » Meta/Logistics » 2 Comments

perfect stocking stuffer…

…for the horror fans on your Christmas list!!

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Sat, November 22 2008 » ?!?!?, Fiction » No Comments

Chinese Democracy

Can’t wait for the new Tommy Stinson album. Wait, this is the sequel to “All Shook Down”, right? Uh… (But seriously, I’ll probably like it. And by “it”, I mean, a half to 2/3rds of the songs on the album, which is about as much as you can hope for these days. “Tusk” — the [...]

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Wed, November 19 2008 » Music » No Comments

an uncontrolled substance

Consciousness is decay. Neurons are sandcastles.

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Tue, November 18 2008 » ?!?!?, Polis » 1 Comment

Delany, Walker Art Center, Saturday

For Twin Cities folks, Rain Taxi is sponsoring a reading by Samuel Delany tomorrow at 2 pm at Walker Art Center. Don’t miss it–you might want to get there a little early.

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Fri, November 14 2008 » Fiction, Minnesota » 1 Comment

House Speaker Seeks Independent Bookstore Bailout Bill

WASHINGTON–House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for “emergency and limited financial assistance” for the battered U.S. independent bookstore industry today, and urged the outgoing Bush administration to join legislators in reaching a quick compromise. Five days after dismal financial reports from pretty much everyone, Pelosi backed legislation to make independent bookstores eligible for help under the [...]

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Thu, November 13 2008 » ?!?!?, Polis, Uncategorized » 2 Comments

best pro-gay marriage sign ever

Keeping in mind the Latter Day Saints were instrumental in passing Prop. 8. From a protest in NYC. Check out the one to the right in this picture. Pure awesome. “Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the [...]

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Wed, November 12 2008 » Polis » 1 Comment

Connect the Dots

In the “too little, too late” handwringing department: Lawmakers expressed concern yesterday about whether a recent change in tax policy that makes it more attractive for banks to take each other over was justified and whether taxpayer funds have been used to support the acquisition of healthy banks. And, naturally, the citizenry is hit with [...]

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Wed, November 12 2008 » Polis » No Comments

A one drink drinking game

watched MSNBC for literally 1.5 minutes until I heard one of the commentators say “values voters.” Sooooo….BBC America it is!

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Tue, November 4 2008 » Polis » No Comments

12 hours

May we all exorcise the Plumberomicon and its eldritch bloviating tomorrow.

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Mon, November 3 2008 » Polis, Uncategorized » 2 Comments

one more thought

McCain is like an acupuncturist working on the body politic, poking with his needle and trying to find the right spot to paralyze the whole body. When he can’t…when it doesn’t seem to be working… …he starts jabbing uncontrollably like a serial killer.

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Sun, November 2 2008 » Polis » No Comments

3 days

One of McCain/Palin’s gambits for winning this election is a form of assymetrical warfare on the democratic process. It goes far beyond feigned outrage, “working the refs”, and even the blatant racism and xenophobia oozing from McCain on down (though all of those are horrible enough). In fact, I think it’s the only consistent pattern [...]

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Sun, November 2 2008 » Polis » 1 Comment