Can’t believe it’s on youtube! The cartoon itself starts in the middle. When I was five, I watched it in Epcot Center after having to stop a ride that took me into the human body. This, well, calmed me down.

Aaaaanyway, back to the madness that is Sunday homework catchup. Then off to Boston!

Do NOT ever think that strawberry mint gum will taste good.

It won’t.

I am thankful for … this interactive feature with portraits of world leaders. Platon took them earlier this year when they came to New York for the U.N.

Take a look at the intro page. At the risk of being cliché, the first thing I noticed was the preponderance of male faces. Obviously, it’s no secret that most of the world’s leaders are men, yadda yadda, but this visual presentation drove the point home more for me—more than any statistics.

And: I haven’t read this yet, but this week’s fiction is by Ian McEwan. That makes the rain feel a less dreary.

It’s Josh! Apparently, he has a HuffPo column (who doesn’t?) and an impressive mustache.

In Nicholson Baker’s review of Ken Auletta’s new book on Google, technology imitates text.

Well, sort of. Better yet, elucidates text. Arbitrarily.

Read text on left, see right

In the Times article, Baker notes why, according to Auletta, media execs resent Google: their advertising programs, AdWords and AdSense, rake in an unwieldy proportion of consumer revenue. “Last year almost all of Google’s revenue came from the one truly annoying thing that the company is responsible for: tiny, cheesy, three-line text advertisements,” Baker writes. Meanwhile, to the right of his text, is a little bulletin titled, “Ads by Google.”

I love it when things like that happen. I’m not sure if the placement of the ad undermines or enforces Baker’s point. Either way, it is illustrated in a unique multitextural manner, a way that Baker had probably not anticipated while he was writing the piece.

Makes you think a lot about changing notions of textuality. Let’s think of author intent for a second. Baker was writing a straight book review, and, in this paragraph, elucidated Auletta’s point on Google’s ads. What he didn’t know was that those very ads would be on display after he published them. So in Baker’s head, all the reader intakes is the content of the article. That’s well and good. But, as the reader, I can’t be relied on to only focus on the text that Baker intends for me to read. In this case, I’m momentarily distracted by the Google ads on the right. He can’t know that I’ll be evaluating the annoyingness or lack thereof of the ads as I read his words on them. If he did, what would he have written?

I don’t see a real historical analogue for this type of content consumption. One might suggest that manuscript glossings are similar. To which I’d say, fine, from the authorial intent perspective, sure. You can’t know what someone will scribble in your margins. However, the internet is different in that the placement is more arbitrary, more coincidental. (In this case, Google connects ads to text with keywords). This causes the reader to evaluate the juxtaposition differently. Perhaps to give it more weight? Who knows. Obviously, many have thought about this before me. But this struck me, right now.

There was no turkey on turkey day this year.

Instead, we reserved a large table at Chosen, a Chinese restaurant, to accommodate a lively group of cousins and grandparents. (Okay, so there was turkey, but I didn’t eat it. Why eat turkey at a Chinese place? Why?)

Though we are not fans of raw fish, the activity at the sushi bar was very apparent. My grandfather saw this, turned, and said, “Are the people who make sushi supposed to be dressed like fish or something?”

I love my grandpa.

And: happy thanksgiving! To anyone out there, reading this blog: thank you for slogging through! And to all my friends, thanks for being amazing and putting up with me. Lots of love.

On Saturday night I went to see my friend Lan’s incredible performance at Postcrypt. I gave a copy of this book to a friend to hold while I took a picture of Lan.

It’s unclear what happened next. All I know is that about an hour later, I was sitting in a car when I realized it was gone. I worried. Because, dense as it may be, Chaucerian Theatricality has a similar theoretical basis to my planned project. So it’s pretty important.

Maybe one minute after I spoke to my friend (she didn’t know where it was), I got the following text from an amazing person: “Are you perchance missing your copy of chaucerian theatricality? i swear i’m not a stalker. i read your blog and there’s a copy on the steps…”

And now I have it back! The book didn’t even have my name in it. I’m reading it right now. Thank you thank you thank you.

And heeeeere’s Lan:

Oh, and even though I have approximately 99999 other things to do, I started McEwan’s Between the Sheets. A short story collection is good for me at the moment—as a break from novels, and as I try to understand the form and craft. So far I’ve read the first two stories. They’re sort of Cement Gardenish. Otherwise they’re different from the McEwan novels I’ve read. (They’re also much better: less over-plotting).

Anyway, back to reading. Ganim.

A guy to my right must be about 45. He’s reading Eclipse in earnest.

But that’s not what matters. Behind me, on the stools, two friends run into each other.

I don’t know, this could be spurred by the book I have with me—Chaucerian Theatricality by John M. Ganim—but I suddenly hear one guy say to the other, “You know, I’m reading the Canterbury Tales now. And it’s just tale after tale after tale after tale.”

Lucky for them, they leave right after that comment. And before I can react.

A great piece for an aspiring journalist, via Gawker:

An artist dolls up defunct news boxes with flashing disco scenes. Thank you Jason Eppink.

… No more words for this.

Check out the date!

Posted the day after he lost.

I mean, who doesn’t want to work for a candidate who already lost? I suppose it lowers expectations significantly.