Stephen King: write less.
Neal Stephenson: write less.

You two should try working on haikus.
But don't listen to me...you're both millionaires.

I say this because Wizard and Glass and Cryptonomicon were ruined, I feel, by verbosity. Nice stuff, poor execution. I love Neal Stephenson, but I don't love the big C. It's cute...in some hard-to-define way. I didn't enjoy that.

And Stephen King can write 50-100 pages about drinking a glass of water, can't he? He makes love stories the way 3DO makes game machines.

Now reading: A Confederacy of Dunces.
I am excited to get into this for the obvious reason that the book has been acclaimed so many times, and yet I have avoided it. Also, it covers New Orleans - a town I'm fascinated with but have never visited before.

They all speak like New Yorkers there. How did that happen, exactly? I guess the Dutch background? That sounds like good BS. "It's the Dutch." I may be right.

The last four books I've read:

The Dark Tower IV, Wizard and Glass - PASS
The Fountainhead - read
Cryptonomicon - PASS
Pattern Recognition - read

I have a great deal of obscure books on my shelves, but I must get through these popular reads now and be done with them. The side stuff can come later. I'm looking forward to reading a book about the Philosophy of Holes that Mac Wellman suggested I check out.

Are you sick of this yet?
I don't care: I write alone.
You lurk in silence.

pure disenchantment
stemming from old humankind
same shit, different cells.

Yay Tigerman!
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_365440.html?menu=news.latestheadlines

There's a Tigerman
Living in San Diego
He wants a fur graft

Reputation-land
Rated and judged by your peers
Shoot me now. My thanks.

daily war headlines
posted faster than we read
how many dead now?

David Bowie's pants
Keep sliding down his ankles
He yelps, helpless, pained

raw fish slices, yes
are not fresh or recent fish
frozen post rigor

Haiku day.

Peanut popcorn man
Puts a clown nose on my nose
Peanut popcorn me.

FYI: Peter Dinklage, actor and star of The Station Agent film that was acclaimed last year, is attached to The Dwarf screenplay adaptation I wrote. One of our producers is flying him to Sweden to meet with Bengt Lagerkvist, son of the author of the original novel, Par Lagerkvist.

I await more news like an eager spectator.