Or Spanish? I have some author's copies that I'm trying to offload before packing them up. If anybody wants one, let me know.

Read this article…

Multi-talented compadre Jeremy Hornik penned this for the Guardian contest, but missed the deadline by an hour (damn time zones!). It's a Portnoy's Complaint-era Philip Roth's version of the death of Dumbledore; he has graciously allowed me to post it below.

"Philip Roth and the death of Dumbledore

Everyone in Weequahic knew. When a Jew like Dumbledore makes it big (and growing up, he-who-must-not-be-named-dumb-Bill-Horowitz was a capital J Jew, nickels for Israel in the sleeve of his wizard robe) it doesn't stay secret even when he changes his name and starts talking like David Niven. The neighborhood was torn, some so angry that this schmuck had betrayed the neighborhood that they put up flags saying, "Muggle and proud." "Schmucks," my father would mutter, dropping his wand into his briefcase and stomping off to his train. Sandy and I didn't have to ask who.

But he was talking about me! I was muggle to the core! I strained and strained at my little wand but I couldn't get it to rise up, never mind shoot out a shower of sparks. "Try harder," my mother would yell through the locked door. "Rub it with both hands!"

"Go away," I begged.

"Sandy shot a whole stream of owls out of his wand, and he's only six," she yelled.

Dumbledore-Horowitz laughs. "Smashing anecdote," he says, in that Niven that impresses the immigrant parents of wizard children. (Who else would spend that kind of tuition money but strivers, layers of guilt trips, failures by birth who put everything on their children? Oh, Sandy went to Hogwarts.) "Weequahic, you say?"

"You self-hating phony," I mutter, pull the hidden thing out of my bag and let him have it. It's a picture of him, with earlocks and a pointy yarmulke, smiling with his silver kaddish wand. I shriek, "What do you think of that, Horowitz?" Whatever spell he'd cast on himself to obliterate his Jewishness lifted, and for one moment there was a spark of recognition. Or maybe that's how a person looks when they have a massive stroke. I?m no doctor, either."

Well done, Jeremy. All I'd add is a bit about "blonde-as-Doris-Day witches with the tiniest of warts on their pert shiska punims." And perhaps something about a spurt of ectoplasm sizzling on the bathroom lightbulb.

Read this article…

The release of the sixth Harry Potter book has people talking about Barry (according to Google Alert). Here's something from the Suburban Chicago News; and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette also says something, but you have to register. "Michael Gerber, noted pet-killer and crypto-Fascist..."

Read this article…

The cover of my comic novel is being prepared, and I need some help. The concept is a dormroom door. Here's my question: what is the funniest stuff that you have seen on a dorm door? Vandalized pictures, flyers, stuff written on white boards--what? My editor said she once saw a piece of pizza stuck on one.

Current students/recent grads, now's your time to show how thoroughly degenerate your university is. Thoughts? Katie, Jack, Mollie, Larry: you must reply or face immediate disinheritance. (My football cards are probably worth something.)

Read this article…

The Guardian newspaper is running a fun contest related to the new Harry Potter book. THEY say that Albus Dumbledore buys the farm in HP6, and are asking readers to write ol' Albus' death scene. The winners will receive a bunch of loot from Waterstone's...

By the way, I'm writing this from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. It's very weird here, both in the hotel and in the town outside. I clambered around the lip of the Grand Canyon today. More later; you can read the details of Kate's and my trip so far here. We'll be updating it soon--2200 miles in five days cuts into blogging-time.

Read this article…

So Kate and I are about to set off on, if not the Mother of all road trips, at least the Aunt. Friends and other interested parties can chart our progress from Chicago to LA by checking out this super-special blog!

Comments--tips on how to talk your way out of a speeding ticket, memories of the Donner Party--are welcome.

Read this article…

I'm packing. It's insane. Kate and I go to sleep every evening with delightful visions of bonfires dancing in our brains.

Meanwhile, friend Jules Lipoff forwarded me this article on the long-dead-yet-somehow-still-living National Lampoon. For people who admire the old magazine, it's depressing as hell. On the other hand, for people who admire the concept of commerce as "selling crap to the suckers," it's inspiring.

To save you the effort: it's the same article that gets written every time the name changes hands. The people in charge get a brief burst of notoriety, based on the old magazine's quality and reputation. They take this moment in the limelight to vomit out some nonsense about licensing and leveraging and maximizing brand identity, etc etc, which proves beyond any doubt that they have NO IDEA what made the Lampoon financially successful in the first place: collecting a group of really funny people, letting them do whatever the hell they wanted, and distributing whatever they produced.

Comedic institutions are worthwhile to the extent that they facilitate collaboration and creativity (see Second City, ImprovOlympic). When they stop doing that, and the people at the top start thinking like marketers (see SNL, MAD Magazine) comedy fans should assemble with torches and pitchforks, and tear 'em down.

I have spoken!

Read this article…